House of Commons
(13 years, 4 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Prayers
(13 years, 4 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Oral Answers to Questions
(13 years, 4 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Chris Evans (Islwyn) (Lab/Co-op)
1. What factors he has identified as underlying the fall in gross domestic product in the fourth quarter of 2010.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr George Osborne)
The Office for National Statistics attributes the actual fall in GDP to the bad weather in December, but we have been clear that even without that effect, the numbers were disappointing. In the past week, there have been more encouraging survey data showing services, construction, retail and especially manufacturing all growing more strongly—something the Opposition have been mysteriously silent about.
Chris Evans
Could the Chancellor please tell the traders on Blackwood High street whom I met this Saturday whether the rise in VAT will help or hinder them this quarter?
Mr Osborne
The VAT increase, like the other measures we are taking, helps to deal with the record Budget deficit that we inherited from the Labour party. By dealing with that, we have provided financial stability for the British economy. That has also been made clear by the previous Chancellor, the right hon. Member for Edinburgh South West (Mr Darling), who would also have gone ahead with a VAT increase.
Mr John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)
Given that the last quarter of last year saw a big real increase in public spending and a further big increase in debt, does that not show that there is no necessary connection between those things and growth and that it would be quite wrong to think that spending and borrowing more would solve the problem?
Mr Osborne
My right hon. Friend is absolutely correct. Of course, in December, the Government were spending, in real terms, a record amount. I make the point again that we inherited a record Budget deficit. I believe that Labour’s plan, set out in its March Budget, was to start cuts in April this year. We have set out a credible plan and we are awaiting one from Labour.
Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)
The figures underline that the economy is not out of the danger zone. Does the Chancellor know of the concern expressed by the Recruitment and Employment Confederation about a new lost generation of unemployed young people of the kind we saw in the ’80s and ’90s? What assessment has he made of measures the Government can take to avoid that problem?
Mr Osborne
The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that unemployment went up by 1 million under the previous Government. We know that even in the good years, the problem of youth unemployment increased and that we as a country were not able to do much about it. This Government are determined to tackle that head-on with reform of the welfare system so that it always pays to work and, at the same time, with the new Work programme, which will give young people the skills and opportunities they need to get off those unemployment rolls.
Mr Andrew Tyrie (Chichester) (Con)
In giving evidence before the Treasury Committee, Lord Turnbull made it clear that spending as a proportion of GDP should be nearer 40% than the current level of nearly 50%. The OECD has said that the deficit will retard growth. Will the Chancellor make more of the case that action is needed to tackle the deficit not just on financial grounds but to help release the wealth-creating sectors of the economy?
Mr Osborne
My hon. Friend is clearly correct that it is unsustainable for the Government to be consuming almost 50% of national income. Lord Turnbull observes that under Labour and Conservative Governments in the past, the number was closer to 40%. Of course, the deficit reduction plan that we have set out brings that about.
Ed Balls (Morley and Outwood) (Lab/Co-op)
It is an honour and a great responsibility to shadow the Chancellor of the Exchequer at this critical time for our economy and our country. I pay tribute to my predecessor and thank him for everything he did despite the fact that I seem to have inherited an excessively large number of breakfast meetings from him. It is a good job that I did not have one today, or I would have missed this morning’s rather hurried mini-Budget.
It snowed so badly in December in Britain that airports closed, our economy shuddered to a halt, consumer confidence slumped and unemployment rose. In America, it also snowed so badly that airports closed, but the pace of US economic growth increased, consumer confidence was high and unemployment fell to a two-year low. Could the Chancellor tell the House whether there is something different about snow in Britain—or is there a better explanation as to why the American economy grew and Britain’s did not?
Mr Osborne
First, I welcome the right hon. Gentleman to his post and congratulate him on his appointment. Now he and the Leader of the Opposition know what it is like to be second choice. The new shadow Chancellor knows, because he was at the Treasury and he is a man with a past, that Britain had the largest housing boom, the biggest banking crash and the largest budget deficit, and as a result, recovering from the deepest recession was always going to be challenging and choppy, but we have set out a credible plan, including an increase in the bank levy, to deal with the budget deficit, which he refuses to deal with because he is a deficit denier.
Ed Balls
No answer to the question on America. Perhaps the Chancellor should have spent less time on the ski slopes of Switzerland and more time in the conference halls of Davos, listening to the American Treasury Secretary. Let me tell the right hon. Gentleman what he said:
“You’ve got to make sure you don’t hurt the recovery . . . There are some people who like to move . . . very quickly to do very deep cuts in spending but it is not the responsible way to do it.”
In June, unemployment was falling and growth was forecast to be 2.3% this year. Now unemployment is rising and growth is stalled. With consumer confidence falling, inflation rising, no bank lending agreement, no plan for jobs, no plan for growth, no plan B, does the Chancellor really expect us to believe that he can meet his forecast for economic growth this year, or will he have to stand at the Dispatch Box at the Budget in six weeks and downgrade his very first growth forecast?
Mr Osborne
The right hon. Gentleman clearly had a lot of time to prepare that, but I am not sure it all came out as he expected. We have had to deal with his economic legacy and he is running away from his past. He was the City Minister who knighted Fred Goodwin. He is the economic adviser whose fiscal policy has led to fiscal disaster. He is the leadership candidate who, for reasons of political positioning, denies the deficit. The truth is this: we have a plan to clear up his mess. He has no plan at all.
Karl MᶜCartney (Lincoln) (Con)
2. What progress he has made in reforming the tripartite system of financial regulation.
Jane Ellison (Battersea) (Con)
3. What progress he has made in reforming the tripartite system of financial regulation.
David Tredinnick (Bosworth) (Con)
10. What progress he has made in reforming the tripartite system of financial regulation.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr George Osborne)
The tripartite system of financial regulation put in place by the new Chancellor and his advisers in 1997 failed spectacularly and cost the British people billions of pounds. That is why we are replacing the tripartite system with a much tougher and more coherent regime led by the Bank of England. We aim to have that system in place by the end of 2012. I repeat what I just said: we have today increased the rate of the Government’s permanent bank levy for this year in order to raise £2.5 billion net. This will mean that the banks pay more in tax in each and every year of this Government than they did in the last year of the previous Government. Through this new bank tax being made permanent and with the revenue announcement today, the banks will be making a fairer contribution to our economic recovery.
Karl MᶜCartney
Does my right hon. Friend regret the fact that the system of financial regulation, which was drawn up by the right hon. Member for Morley and Outwood (Ed Balls), failed to prevent the greatest financial crisis in our country in living memory?
Mr Osborne
Of course I regret it, because we are all having to deal with the consequences. We still do not know—the legislation will come before the House of Commons—whether the Opposition support changing the system of regulation that was established by the right hon. Member for Morley and Outwood (Ed Balls) in 1997. I guess we will find out. The Government are clear—we must fix the system of regulation that went so badly wrong, and we believe that giving the Bank of England the lead responsibility on that will help.
Jane Ellison
As the Chancellor knows, the Leader of the Opposition has admitted that the previous Government got regulation wrong. One area that was wrong was inadequate customer protection in the consumer credit market. Given considerable recent interest in the subject in the House, can he update us on the creation of the consumer protection agency?
Mr Osborne
My hon. Friend is right. It was an interesting admission from the Leader of the Opposition that things started to go badly wrong when he was an adviser at the Treasury. Maybe the man he did the photocopying for will make a similar admission. The creation of a consumer protection and markets agency will provide a stronger consumer voice and a consumer champion. It will be a world-class regulator. We are assembling the right team to run that agency, including many talented people who were at the Financial Services Authority. I am delighted that Martin Wheatley has been appointed as the chief executive designate. He has an outstanding record as a regulator around the world and his arrival bodes well for the future of the new agency.
David Tredinnick
Was the three-way split in financial regulation the worst financial decision taken by the previous Government, or has something else caught my right hon. Friend’s eye?
Mr George Osborne
There is the selling off of the gold at a record low and the pensions tax that destroyed our pensions system, but I have to say that, in terms of sheer cost to the British taxpayer, the system of regulation designed by the shadow Chancellor was pretty catastrophic.
Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)
Why did the Chancellor endorse the report published by the right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr Redwood) just a few weeks before the collapse of Northern Rock, which called for the deregulation of the mortgage market? Does he still support its conclusions?
Mr Osborne
The new Parliamentary Private Secretary is barracking; what a shame he has moved four Benches down, because he is probably going to get louder. I can tell the hon. Lady that I explicitly disagreed with that recommendation in the report at the time.
Stewart Hosie (Dundee East) (SNP)
It is understood that the new Prudential Regulation Authority intends to do less than the Financial Services Authority did to reduce the probability of bank failure. Given that the failure of any bank, even with a proper resolution regime, could contribute to a systemic crisis in confidence, can I have the Chancellor’s assurance that he will put all the pressure he can on the PRA to ensure that it continues with active supervision to minimise the probability of bank failure at any level?
Mr Osborne
The hon. Gentleman can rest assured that I will certainly do that. I do not think that he has given a fair representation of the role that we expect the prudential regulator to fulfil. What I will say about the prudential regulator and the fact that it will come under the aegis of the Bank of England is this: I hope that it will exercise discretion and judgment as well as simply making sure that boxes are ticked. The decision to allow Royal Bank of Scotland to buy ABN AMRO in 2007 might have ticked the various boxes in the regulations at the time, but it was clearly the wrong judgment. I expect and hope that in future our new regulator would be able to step in at that point.
Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)
Instead of making politically convenient and economically ludicrous pronouncements that it was the UK’s tripartite system of banking regulation that somehow caused the global credit crunch, can the Chancellor explain to the House why his own flagship banking reforms are now running late and why his cosy private talks with the banks on bonuses have failed to materialise? Was not today’s panic announcement just further proof that with this Chancellor, as CBI chief Richard Lambert has said, it is all politics and no economics?
Mr Osborne
The hon. Lady asks why the legislation is “running late”. The previous shadow Chancellor wrote to me and asked for pre-legislative scrutiny, and I agreed to the request. Obviously, that has not been communicated to those on the Opposition Front Bench.
Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)
4. What assessment he has made of the prospects for growth of the manufacturing sector.
The Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury (Mr David Gauke)
The independent Office for Budget Responsibility is responsible for the official economic and fiscal forecast. Returning the UK to sustainable economic growth is the Government’s overriding priority. This includes a strongly performing manufacturing sector. The Chartered Institute for Purchasing and Supply’s purchasing managers’ index for January showed the manufacturing index at a record high. This was accompanied by a rapid increase in manufacturing outputs and the fastest growth in new orders in the survey’s history.
Fiona Bruce
The closure has been announced of the bathroom manufacturer Ideal Standard, which is based in Middlewich in my constituency. Middlewich is a feisty town, as are its people, who want to rise to the challenge that this news presents. What support and resources can the Government provide to enable the people of Middlewich to help themselves to create jobs, develop new industries and go for growth?
Mr Gauke
My hon. Friend has a great deal of expertise in the business world. In the longer term, it is vital that we get the fundamentals right and have sustainable public finances, and the Government are pursuing policies that will favour growth. In the short term, obviously her constituents have our sympathy. Jobcentre Plus is able to provide a rapid response service in those areas, and I am sure that it will be acting closely with her constituents.
Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)
A firm in my constituency manufactures parts for motorbikes, and it plans to move into the full production of motorbikes, so why have the Government decided to cut investment allowance, which will hit firms that are trying to make such moves? How can there be growth with policies that undermine manufacturing?
Claire Perry (Devizes) (Con)
I want to ask the ministerial team which piece of recent data they find most interesting: the record level of manufacturing activity, the rebound in consumer confidence or the endorsement by the Institute for Fiscal Studies of this Government’s economic policy in paying off the previous Government’s debt?
Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
We share the Government’s desire for a strong manufacturing sector, hence our disappointment at Pfizer moving overseas and the Government’s failure to support Sheffield Forgemasters. According to today’s Financial Times, the Deputy Prime Minister, despite his dismal track record on Forgemasters, is leading the drive for more bank lending to small and medium-sized enterprises to secure regional economic growth. Who is now in charge of growth policy? Is it the Chancellor or the Deputy Prime Minister?
Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)
5. What assessment he has made of recent trends in the size of the structural deficit.
John Howell (Henley) (Con)
11. What assessment he has made of recent trends in the size of the structural deficit.
The Chief Secretary to the Treasury (Danny Alexander)
The structural deficit was 8.8% of GDP in 2009-10. The Office for Budget Responsibility forecast is for it to be 7.6% in 2010-11, falling to 0.3% by 2015-16. More information is in the OBR’s forecast.
Rehman Chishti
OECD figures in November show that Britain entered the financial crisis with the largest structural budget deficit in the G7. Does the Chief Secretary believe that this country entered the crisis led by the biggest deficit deniers in the G7?
Danny Alexander
That is a very good question. The previous Government were running a structural deficit from 2001-02, with a structural deficit of 2.6% in 2007-08, the largest, as the hon. Gentleman says, in the G7 in 2007. They were deficit deniers then, they are deficit deniers now, and that is why they have no answers to the problems of our country today.
John Howell
My right hon. Friend will be aware that Tony Blair has said that
“from 2005 onwards Labour was insufficiently vigorous in limiting or eliminating the potential structural deficit”.
How would my right hon. Friend assess the effect of that failure on the current trend in the structural deficit?
Danny Alexander
Clearly, we as a Government are having to clear up the enormous mess that the previous Government left. That is why we have had to embark on some very difficult decisions on public spending and, indeed, taxation, but it is just worth listening to the OECD, which states that
“the UK was unique in its need for fiscal consolidation, because the deficit had gone completely out of control.
John Cryer (Leyton and Wanstead) (Lab)
On the basis of what the Chief Secretary has just said, why did the current Chancellor promise in 2008 to match Labour’s spending plans?
Danny Alexander
Our country’s key problem—the hon. Gentleman should accept it, not deny it like his Front Benchers—is that we have an enormous budget deficit, which was caused by the previous Government’s failures. We have to clean up that mess if our country is going to get back to prosperity, and, until the Opposition accept that very simple fact, they will have no answers at all.
Mr Speaker
Order. Two things: first, I want to hear both questions and answers; secondly, can I—[Interruption.] Order. Can I just ask Members on both sides of the House to give some thought to how our proceedings are regarded by the people whose support we were busily seeking less than a year ago?
Mr David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)
Will the Chief Secretary first confirm that public sector debt was 42.5% in 1997 and 36.5% in 2008, the second-lowest debt of any G7 country? Will he secondly accept that investment during the last two years of the Labour Government was designed to keep people in their jobs and homes, expenditure that he supported at the time? Given the disastrous economic figures and the CBI’s comments before Christmas, will he just admit that what he is missing is a growth strategy, not the cuts that he opposed during the election?
Danny Alexander
What was missing from that was any reference to the subject of the question, which was the deficit. Labour Members seem keen to talk about everything except the deficit, which they left for this Government to clean up. I do not apologise at all for the tough decisions we have had to take to sort out that deficit, to introduce tax rises and to deal with public spending to ensure that this country gets back on track. They maxed out the credit card; we have to pay it off.
Greg Mulholland (Leeds North West) (LD)
6. If he will take steps to allow charities providing services transferred to them by the NHS to recover value added tax.
The Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury (Mr David Gauke)
Charities, voluntary sector organisations and social enterprises make a valuable contribution to our communities. That is why the Government provide about £3 billion in tax relief for charities. There are no plans to change the rules which govern the recovery of VAT by charities.
Greg Mulholland
I thank my hon. Friend for that answer. The current thrust of Government thinking is that more hospices and end-of-life care services will be delivered by organisations such as Sue Ryder Care, which runs the excellent Wheatfields hospice in my constituency. When it is run by the NHS, as it is currently, it can recover 48% of VAT on non-business supplies, yet when it is transferred to organisations in the charitable sector such as Sue Ryder, it cannot. That is an anomaly that will damage the thrust of Government thinking. Will my hon. Friend meet me and representatives of Sue Ryder to discuss this matter?
Mr Gauke
I will happily meet my hon. Friend to discuss it. The VAT that is paid and the VAT that is recovered is taken into account in the funding of the NHS. There are difficulties in trying to resolve this issue without imposing an impractical and complex solution. That is why the focus tends to be on providing tax relief on charitable giving rather than on expenditure incurred by charities.
Vernon Coaker (Gedling) (Lab)
7. What objectives he has set for the outcome of his discussions to limit the bonuses paid to bankers.
Rosie Cooper (West Lancashire) (Lab)
13. What objectives he has set for the outcome of his discussions to limit the bonuses paid to bankers.
Mr Ronnie Campbell (Blyth Valley) (Lab)
15. What objectives he has set for the outcome of his discussions to limit the bonuses paid to bankers.
The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr Mark Hoban)
Our objective in these discussions is to create a banking industry that lends to the British economy, contributes to the Exchequer, and supports economic growth and employment. The Government are in discussions with the banks to see if a new settlement can be reached so that bonuses and remuneration policies are more transparent and levels of bonuses paid are smaller than they would otherwise have been. Alongside this, we are looking at options to ensure that banks make an appropriate contribution to local economies and communities and provide the credit required to support the economic recovery, facilitate growth and create jobs.
Vernon Coaker
Can the Minister tell the House why the Chancellor refuses to adopt Labour’s plan to repeat last year’s £3.5 billion bank bonus tax, as well as the bank levy, and use that money to help create the jobs and growth that so many of our communities badly need?
Mr Hoban
The hon. Gentleman should remember the words of the former Chancellor of the Exchequer, who said that the bank payroll tax did not work. Labour Members went into the last election ruling out a bank levy; they would not take the action that we have taken to ensure that banks pay a fair contribution to the costs they pose to the economy.
Rosie Cooper
My constituents are appalled that the general attitude of the Government seems to be to withstand all criticism and not to deal with the real problem by making bankers accountable for what they are doing and pay their fair share. We are not all in it together.
Mr Hoban
I find that quite rich coming from Labour—the party that gave Fred Goodwin his knighthood. The reality is that under our bank levy the banking sector will pay more every year than it paid in one year under the bank payroll tax. That is the action that this Government have taken to ensure that banks pay their fair contribution towards the Exchequer.
Mr Campbell
The Chancellor must think he is good when he has put hundreds of thousands of public servants on the dole, cut pensions, especially those of the police and armed forces, and cut local government finance. It has been reported in the newspapers that a banker is to receive a £9 million bonus. Why does not the Chancellor get off his backside, get into the banks, and get it sorted?
Mr Hoban
I will take no lessons from the Labour party on bank bonuses. The shadow Chancellor presided at the Treasury when big bonuses were being paid out in cash, with no clawback and no lock-up. He backed that light-touch regime in government. We have taken the tough decisions on tackling bonuses. The Opposition should be apologising, not criticising.
Sir Peter Tapsell (Louth and Horncastle) (Con)
Do Treasury Ministers agree that the real problem with bankers’ bonuses is that they are paid not out of profits, but out of revenues? Taxing banks after the bonuses have been paid merely depresses dividends, particularly for pension funds. Why are bankers’ bonuses not paid out of profits, as they always were by my very efficient stockbroking firm?
Mr Hoban
My hon. Friend makes an important point. Of course, under the old regime, there was no clawback when bonuses were paid out in cash, and no lock-up. The new code on remuneration introduced by the Financial Services Authority, which is ahead of international practice, has clear rules on deferral, requires that bonuses be clawed back for poor performance, and requires that bonuses for significantly highly paid members of staff—those who take risks—be paid out principally in shares, not in cash. That will ensure that the interests of bankers are aligned with those of shareholders.
Matthew Hancock (West Suffolk) (Con)
How much has the Minister been constrained in his dealings with the majority state-owned banks by the contracts on payments that were signed by the Labour party before the election?
Mr Hoban
My hon. Friend puts his finger on the problem. When the previous Government entered into arrangements to bail out RBS and Lloyds, they limited the period of their involvement in the bonus regime. That is why we had to take action this year and why we have engaged with banks through project Merlin to achieve restraint on bank bonuses. We will make an announcement in the next week.
Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)
I congratulate the Chancellor on extracting a further £800 million from the banks this morning. Will he take this opportunity to rule out any reduction in his permanent bank levy, should it turn out to raise more money than expected?
Mr Hoban
My hon. Friend makes an important point, and I thank him on behalf of the Chancellor for his congratulations on the levy. As he recognised, the levy is a permanent feature, not a one-off tax like the previous Government’s bank payroll tax. It will raise more than the bank payroll tax did in its year in operation, on a net basis. We are committed to raising the levy from the banks over the life of this Parliament.
Chris Leslie (Nottingham East) (Lab/Co-op)
It is clear that the partial U-turn on the banking levy happened today purely by coincidence and had nothing to do with Treasury questions. Has the Minister anything else to tell the House? For example, what is he going to do about excessive bonuses? Perhaps we can coax him into another U-turn on the £1 billion corporation tax cut that he is giving the banks. If he wants to announce that at the next Treasury questions, that is fine.
Mr Hoban
I do not think that the hon. Gentleman is entirely on top of his brief on this matter. He knows that banks will pay more tax as a consequence of the levy. The tax cuts for the financial sector are far lower than the amount we will raise from the bank levy. This is a permanent measure. The previous Government failed to take action on bank levies and ruled out introducing them on a unilateral basis. This Government have gone ahead and done the right thing for the economy and for the taxpayer.
Angie Bray (Ealing Central and Acton) (Con)
8. What recent estimate he has made of the level of Government debt.
The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Justine Greening)
Public sector net debt doubled in the decade from 2000-01. By the end of last year, it stood at £900 billion. Servicing it costs the taxpayer £120 million every day.
Angie Bray
I thank my hon. Friend for that answer. As I am sure she is aware, a debt of some £37,000 hangs over the head of every voter in my constituency of Ealing Central and Acton, thanks to the Labour party. Can she reassure us that there will be no deviation from the path, regardless of siren calls, of getting rid of the deficit as soon as possible, so that this country can move forward to prosperity once again?
Justine Greening
Yes, I can, and of course my hon. Friend is not the only person to hold that view. The secretary-general of the OECD said only last week that Britain needed to “stay the course”. He realises, as did the Bank of England Governor Mervyn King when he talked about our deficit as being “clearly unsustainable”, that if we had not set out a credible plan and got a grip on our public finances to tackle the deficit, we would have run the risk of an even sharper fiscal tightening later down the road, a loss of confidence and higher interest rates in future.
Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)
It costs £150 to give a person debt advice, and it costs £50,000 to rehouse a family. Will the Economic Secretary explain why Treasury Ministers are cutting the funds to citizens advice bureaux to provide such advice, and why that is a good way to cut the debt?
Justine Greening
We are looking at ways in which we can ensure that people still get the debt advice that they need, and of course a lot of the grants are provided by local authorities. There is no point in Opposition Members talking about debt, because it was their party that created the problem in the first place.
George Freeman (Mid Norfolk) (Con)
9. What assessment he has made of prospects for growth in the high-technology manufacturing sector.
The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Justine Greening)
The Office for Budget Responsibility sets out the official economic and fiscal forecasts. However, high-tech manufacturing is a key part of our growth plan and we need to ensure that Britain is not just open for business but making things again.
George Freeman
Is my hon. Friend aware of the latest data on manufacturing business confidence? January’s purchasing managers indicators show a sharp jump, suggesting annualised growth this year of 2.6%. Intuit, the software survey business, reports that 66% of small and medium-sized enterprise owners say that the VAT rise has no impact on their business, and Investec reports that two thirds of owner-managers plan to hire more staff in 2011. Does that not show that the Government’s policy is working and that the right hon. Member for Morley and Outwood (Ed Balls) is out of touch?
Justine Greening
What it shows is that we have the right plan to get our economy back on track. My hon. Friend mentions the purchasing managers index for January, which was at a record high since the series began in 1992. We recognise that our road to recovery will still be choppy, which is one reason why we will bring forward the first phase of the growth review in the Budget that is coming up. That will examine how we can ensure that we create the conditions for our companies to be successful.
Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)
Does the Economic Secretary agree with the Institute for Fiscal Studies that the new patent box tax, reducing the patent tax from 28% to 10%, does nothing for new jobs or research and development, and that in fact the Pfizer case, with the loss of 2,300 jobs in Sandwich, is a case in point? It shows that she is doing nothing for modern manufacturing and that choking growth and increasing inflation through VAT is increasing the deficit, not decreasing it.
Justine Greening
It is hard not to point out to the hon. Gentleman that his party supported the patent box when it was in government. It is not just that policy that will support high-tech manufacturing. Our policies of reducing corporation tax year on year rather than having it go up, and of reducing national insurance and getting rid of the worst impacts of the jobs tax that was making it harder for companies to keep people employed, will support growth in the economy. His party simply has no idea how to start making that happen.
Jesse Norman (Hereford and South Herefordshire) (Con)
12. What his policy is on transparency in private finance initiative contracts.
The Chief Secretary to the Treasury (Danny Alexander)
The Government are committed to transparency across all areas of public spending, including PFI contracts. All new central Government PFI contracts will be published, and the Treasury website holds PFI statistics that will be updated at the Budget.
Jesse Norman
I thank the Chief Secretary for that answer. Last week, the Ministry of Defence announced that it had chosen three PFI projects as pilots for a wider renegotiation strategy in order to generate a rebate for taxpayers. I and many other Members have warmly welcomed that news. Is my right hon. Friend planning to encourage other Departments to reopen their own PFI contracts to generate future savings?
Danny Alexander
I am grateful for the question, and I certainly support the work that the MOD is doing. We are actively encouraging Departments and local authorities to scrutinise their PFI contracts for savings. As my hon. Friend knows, the Treasury has published draft guidance to help contract managers identify PFI savings, and a pilot will test the savings measures in the contracts, which will help to scope out possible savings and ensure that other Departments can make the same progress as the MOD.
Mr Speaker
Order. I would be grateful if the Chief Secretary could look at the House as he addresses us.
Mr Andrew Love (Edmonton) (Lab/Co-op)
What will the right hon. Gentleman do about the scandal of bunching private finance initiative contracts together and selling them on in the private sector, with no benefit to the public sector? Is he going to take action, and if so, when?
Danny Alexander
As the hon. Gentleman implies, a vast number of PFI contracts were negotiated under the previous Government. If he, in common with any other hon. Members, has examples of low value for money PFI contracts or other concerns, I would be happy to look at them, as I said at the previous Treasury questions. Since then, no hon. Member except my hon. Friend the Member for Hereford and South Herefordshire (Jesse Norman) has come forward with such examples. I therefore look forward to hearing from the hon. Gentleman.
Steve Rotheram (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)
14. What recent assessment he has made of the progress of the work of the Independent Commission on Banking.
The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr Mark Hoban)
The Government set up the Independent Commission on Banking to consider reforms to the banking sector. We welcome the progress that the commission has made, and look forward to receiving its report in September 2011.
Steve Rotheram
If the banking commission recommends breaking up the big banks, will the Government judge the Vickers report on its own merits, or will they put the value of their shareholding in the nationalised banks first?
Mr Iain Wright (Hartlepool) (Lab)
16. What assessment he has made of the effects on consumer confidence of the recent increase in the basic rate of value added tax.
The Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury (Mr David Gauke)
Sustainable public finances will increase consumer confidence in the medium term. The decisive action taken by the Government in the spending review and June Budget, including the increase in VAT, will put the public finances and spending on a sustainable footing.
Mr Gauke
Unless we get the public finances right, there will be no long-term consumer confidence. Can we imagine what the impact would be if the Government abandoned their approach and just started spending money, like the previous Government did, and failed to tackle the deficit? I am afraid that consumer confidence would go through the floor.
Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
Is it not right to say that to compensate for the increase in VAT, the Government have increased the personal allowance for taxpayers, so that consumers have more money to spend?
Mr Gauke
My hon. Friend is right to say that we have increased the personal allowance, taking 880,000 people out of income tax, resulting in an income tax cut for millions of people. It is none the less the fact that we must tackle the deficit. To the extent that the Labour party wants to do anything about the deficit, it advocates reducing the deficit by increasing taxes by more. Think what that would do.
Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)
17. What assessment he has made of the effectiveness of support and advice on financial planning and financial literacy for young people and vulnerable groups.
The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr Mark Hoban)
The Consumer Financial Education Body, which is soon to be renamed the Money Advice Service, has statutory objectives to improve understanding of financial matters among the general public, and to enhance the ability of members of the public, including young people and vulnerable groups, to manage their financial affairs. CFEB is the independent body that is responsible for measuring the effectiveness of its work.
Steve McCabe
Given people’s reliance on citizens advice bureaux, is the Minister at all worried about the cuts to them, including the closure of all five in Birmingham? How will that help vulnerable people who are seeking reliable financial advice?
Mr Hoban
The Government take the issue of financial advice very seriously. That is why we have supported the establishment of CFEB, which will be funded through a levy raised on the financial services sector, which is very important. It is also important that CFEB takes forward its work and considers how to reach out to some of the most vulnerable people in society.
Mark Menzies (Fylde) (Con)
18. What recent steps he has taken to implement the Basel III framework; and if he will make a statement.
The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr Mark Hoban)
The Government are taking forward work on the implementation of Basel III. The agreement will be implemented on an EU-wide basis through revisions to the capital requirements directive. Legislative proposals known as CRD 4 are expected from the European Commission before the summer. The Commission is working towards the implementation of CRD 4 in member states including the UK on 1 January 2013, with the majority of measures to be phased in by 1 January 2018.
Mark Menzies
Does my hon. Friend agree that the Government’s willingness to consider capital control and liquidity reform vastly contrasts with what took place under previous Governments?
Mr Hoban
My hon. Friend makes an important point. Of course, part of the problem was that the light-touch regime introduced by the previous Government for the regulation of the financial services sector meant that, when losses rose, banks did not have sufficient capital to absorb them. The Basel III reforms will tackle that challenge, and I hope that we will see a stronger and more sustainable financial sector.
Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)
T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr George Osborne)
The core purposes of the Treasury are to ensure the stability of the economy, promote growth and employment, reform banking, manage the public finances and generally clear up the mess left by the Labour party.
Andrew Selous
Will the Chancellor update the House on the progress made in making us one nation in pensions, so that people in the private sector do not have to pay for public sector pensions that they can only dream of receiving themselves?
Mr Osborne
We are seeking a more equitable balance. Lord Hutton is due to produce his final report just before the Budget, and we await that. However, we have already made it clear that we need to see savings for the taxpayer. Those were set out in the spending review, and, as I said, we are committed to them. However, in conversations with trade unions, I have been prepared to enter into discussions with them on an extended time frame—to June—about exactly how those savings can be found across schemes and different pay scales.
Stephen Pound (Ealing North) (Lab)
T2. The Chancellor of the Exchequer will be aware of the statement made by the Northern Ireland Justice Minister yesterday. Will he explain the reason for the continued failure to make a decision?
Mr Osborne
I assume that the hon. Gentleman is referring to the request for additional support for the security situation in Northern Ireland. It is a request that I have taken very seriously, and we are interrogating the request properly—[Laughter.] I know that it comes as a complete surprise to Labour Members that the Treasury should actually interrogate spending requests from Departments, but we have decided that there is new management in charge at the Treasury, and that we should start doing that. We will treat the request with due diligence, but I am clear that security comes first. That will be my priority.
Mr Tobias Ellwood (Bournemouth East) (Con)
T3. Is my hon. Friend aware of recently passed US legislation—the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act—that obliges oil, gas and mineral extraction companies listed on US stock exchanges to declare how much they pay directly to a Government for the rights to mine those resources? This has a huge impact in Africa in tackling corruption, increasing transparency and stopping the backhanders that end up being given to Heads of State. Would he agree to meet me to see whether we can introduce such legislation here in the UK?
The Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury (Mr David Gauke)
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for asking that question. Indeed, last week I had a meeting with representatives of leading non-governmental organisations on this matter, and the Government are actively engaged at a European Union level to see how we can progress it. He raises a fair point.
Mr George Mudie (Leeds East) (Lab)
T7. The Chancellor referred to the need for the regulator to have good judgment. Do Ministers think that the same regulator is using good judgment in all aspects of the retail and mortgage reviews?
The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr Mark Hoban)
The hon. Gentleman raises an important question about the continued work load of the Financial Services Authority and its work on financial services. He and I would agree that we want better consumer outcomes from retail financial services, and that means that these areas should be reviewed very carefully. However, I am also certain that the outcome of the mortgage market review should take into account the stability of the housing market.
James Wharton (Stockton South) (Con)
T4. The 2010 North East Research and Information Partnership annual jobs report shows a net increase in employment in the region of about 1,300 jobs over the past year. What are the Government doing to ensure that the private sector recovery in the regions continues?
The Chief Secretary to the Treasury (Danny Alexander)
The Chancellor announced measures in the Budget on corporation tax and national insurance breaks, particularly for companies in the regions. We have set up local enterprise partnerships, which enable local authorities and businesses to work together to promote their own economic interests, and in due course we will announce the first round of decisions on the regional growth fund, which will help to support exactly the sort of initiatives the hon. Gentleman is concerned about.
Mr William Bain (Glasgow North East) (Lab)
Does the Chancellor agree that any credible strategy for growth must include proposals for a fully capitalised, properly independent green investment bank? Will he assure the House that the Treasury has ceased to act as a roadblock to the creation of such a bank?
Mr Osborne
We are absolutely committed to creating the green investment bank. Indeed, we set aside money in the spending review to achieve that, and we will have an announcement in due course.
Andrew Bingham (High Peak) (Con)
T5. As the rising cost of motoring and fuel has such a significant effect on rural constituencies such as mine, can my right hon. Friend update the House on any consideration he is giving to mitigate such problems as part of next month’s Budget?
Mr Osborne
I completely understand the pressure that motorists in my hon. Friend’s constituency and others are facing, partly due to the increase in the oil price. We have a proposal, in the Budget introduced by the last Labour Government, for an increase on 1 April. As I have said, we are looking at that. We are also considering the case for a fuel duty stabiliser, and we will have announcements on this, potentially at the Budget.
Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)
Does the Chancellor understand the anger that thousands of people in Nottingham feel when they are losing their jobs as a result of his policies, whereas the bankers who caused the credit crisis will be getting huge pay-outs and he has done nothing to stop them?
Mr Osborne
The reason difficult decisions are being taken is because of the policies of the Labour party. Until the Opposition—and in particular the man who had greater influence over Labour’s economic policy than any other—face up to that, they will not be a credible alternative. We are clear that we need to put in place steps to deal with the budget deficit and to ensure that the banks lend more, including in Nottingham, and pay less in bonuses than they did when Labour was in government. We expect to have announcements on that in the next week, but we need also to reform the way we help people who are unemployed, and that is what the Work programme will do.
Mr Adam Holloway (Gravesham) (Con)
T6. Given the astronomical levels of debt left to families in my constituency, can the Chancellor confirm that the planned cuts for this April that he inherited from Labour were just £2 billion less than those of the Government?
Mr Osborne
I can indeed confirm that, and this is one of the great paradoxes at the moment. The plan, which the previous Government all appeared to have signed up to, including the shadow Chancellor—that is, the plan put in place by the last Chancellor of the Exchequer—starts in eight weeks’ time and involves billions of pounds of cuts, amounting to just £2 billion less than what we are planning this year. We have not had any proposals from the Opposition; they have eight weeks to come up with a plan.
Rachel Reeves (Leeds West) (Lab)
In Leeds we will lose 11 citizens advice bureaux debt advisers next month because of the cancellation of the financial inclusion fund. Where would the Minister suggest that my constituents who are struggling with debt and excessive and escalating charges from doorstep lenders go for advice?
Mr Hoban
The hon. Lady will be aware that the financial inclusion fund, which was set up by the previous Government, was coming to a close at the end of March. Other sources of debt advice are available. For example, the Consumer Credit Counselling Service is an effective provider of advice, while the Money Advice Trust provides advice over the phone. There are sources of advice out there, but as I said in response to a question from the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe), the Consumer Finance Education Body, which was set up by the previous Government and which we proposed, will reach out to the most vulnerable people in society to ensure that they get access to high-quality advice.
Gavin Williamson (South Staffordshire) (Con)
T8. Will my right hon. Friend join me in welcoming the decision by Moog Aircraft, which is based in my constituency, to invest millions of pounds in a new site to replace its old factory, securing 400 jobs in South Staffordshire? After 13 years of Labour’s decline in manufacturing, is this not a further sign that we are now seeing a manufacturing recovery?
Mr Osborne
My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. I join him in congratulating the company on its announcement. Under the last Labour Government the share of the economy taken by manufacturing halved; under this Government we are seeing a manufacturing revival.
Naomi Long (Belfast East) (Alliance)
Further to his answer to the hon. Member for Ealing North (Stephen Pound), will the Chancellor please confirm for the House that what the Minister for Justice in Northern Ireland has actually requested is not additional funding, but simply that the Treasury stands by the negotiated financial agreement that led to the devolution of policing and justice in the first place?
Mr Osborne
As I said to the hon. Member for Ealing North, we are carefully considering the request. I am clear that security comes first. Of course the Treasury has to apply due diligence to any request from a Department or devolved authority, but she should take it from me that we put security first.
Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)
Our mountain rescue teams are staffed by outstanding volunteers doing professional work, but outrageously they have to pay VAT and vehicle excise duty on life-saving equipment. Is it not time that this Government put an end to this and refunded that VAT?
Danny Alexander
My hon. Friend is quite right to celebrate the work of the mountain rescue teams. Of course they face additional equipment costs, and that is why we allocated funds in the spending review to help to support mountain rescue teams with those costs. The Department concerned, the Department for Transport, will make an announcement on this in due course.
Mr Chuka Umunna (Streatham) (Lab)
It is extremely important that the Government are seen to act on the recommendations of the Independent Banking Commission, when they come out, in the national interest rather than in the interest of any particular sector. Does the Chancellor think that it is wise for the Minister, the noble Lord Green, an immediate former chair of the British Bankers Association, to sit on the Cabinet Committee that makes decisions on such matters? He joined that Committee last month, just two months after leaving the chairmanship of HSBC, a bank for which he worked for more than 25 years and which will be profoundly affected by the decisions that the Committee makes.
Mr Osborne
First, I am glad that the hon. Gentleman welcomes the creation of the Independent Banking Commission. I hope that all hon. Members have an open mind about the recommendations that it will make, and that they agree that we should not close off any options until we have heard from John Vickers. He is doing an excellent job, and we await his final report later this year. The hon. Gentleman is ungenerous in his remarks about Lord Green, who brings enormous experience to the job of Trade Minister. I would just point out that he has replaced Lord Davies, who was appointed by the Labour Government at a time when he was chief executive of Standard Chartered, so it is not as though bringing top bank chiefs into the Government is an innovation.
Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) (Con)
In the light of the recent appalling press about Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs’ problems with PAYE and, now, with national insurance contributions matching, is the Minister as concerned as I am about the imminent introduction of online filing for companies, many of which have said that they simply lack the preparedness to deal with it?
Mr Gauke
I appreciate my hon. Friend’s concerns about online filing. It is the case that one of the providers has been unable to meet the timetable that HMRC set out, although a number of other software providers have been able to do so. We are seeking to ensure that we implement this in a way that is sympathetic to businesses, but we want to stick to the original timetable. Those businesses that have delivered should not be punished because of the failures of another.
Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)
Manufacturing has undoubtedly been helped a lot by the depreciation of sterling, which took place under the last Labour Government. That was only possible because Labour wisely kept us out of the euro. There is now a possibility that interest rates might rise. Will the Chancellor be putting pressure on the Monetary Policy Committee not to raise interest rates?
Mr Osborne
The Monetary Policy Committee is independent of this Chancellor—and, indeed, of previous and future Chancellors—and that is how we intend to keep it. On the hon. Gentleman’s point about the devaluation of the currency, I would just observe that it is incredibly important that the manufacturing industry makes itself even more competitive, and it could use the devaluation as an opportunity to do that. Some Government policies—on taxation and on employment law, for example—will also help in that regard, but the thrust of his question is right: we should not rely solely on the devaluation to make our manufacturing industry globally competitive.
Mr Douglas Carswell (Clacton) (Con)
The Chancellor is entirely right to emphasise the need to be careful with public money. Will he therefore please explain his role in approving the deal to make the UK taxpayer liable for billions of pounds to bail out the euro under the European stabilisation mechanism? Will he respond to my freedom of information request, and publish the advice that he was given on the agreement on assuming office?
Mr Osborne
First, I will look at my hon. Friend’s FOI request, because I have not seen it. The broader point that I would make is that my predecessor as Chancellor, in the weekend between the general election and the creation of the new Government, agreed to the creation of the European stability facility. That involves a UK commitment which takes place on the basis of qualified majority voting; we do not have a veto. I made it clear to the previous Chancellor at the time that I did not support what he had done. However, it has happened and we have to live with the consequences.
Ian Austin (Dudley North) (Lab)
In a speech to the City in 2008, several months after the collapse of Northern Rock, the then Leader of the Opposition—now the Prime Minister—complained that the City had been subjected to too much regulation and to “excessive bureaucratic interventionism”. He also said that
“government needs to do less taxing and regulating”.
Can the Chancellor tell us what he meant?
Mr Osborne
I am reminded of the speech in the City made by the right hon. Member for Morley and Outwood (Ed Balls), when he said in 2006:
“In my first speech as City Minister at Bloomberg in London, I argued that London’s success has been based on…light-touch…regulation”.
He also said that he hoped the City would take comfort from the way the Labour Government had responded to new risks and to events. That is the Bloomberg speech that he likes to forget.
Mr David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con)
There is a lot of public disquiet about alleged enormous sweetheart deals done with major public companies—Vodafone and others—in the last five years. Three or four months ago, I tabled a question asking how many of these deals had been done, costing more than £100 million at a time. The answer I received was that the information requested was “not readily available” and could be provided “only at disproportionate cost”. I received a similar blocking answer this morning. When is the Minister going to tell the House what HMRC has been up to?
Mr Gauke
The National Audit Office has investigated and examined that as a matter of course. There is no question of sweetheart deals. The reality is that HMRC is seeking to recover as much tax as is due. That is what it has done in a number of cases. I am not going to comment on individual cases. That is a matter of confidentiality; I do not get to see the details. None the less, I think wild allegations have been made against HMRC, for which there is little or no evidence.
Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)
I was just checking and realised that the Government’s own business planning projections show that the proportion of young people on the dole by the end of this Parliament will be reduced by less than 1%. Will the Chancellor explain what his plan is to increase the number of jobs made available to those young people?
Mr Osborne
This country has a problem with youth unemployment that has been apparent for a decade. Even in the boom years during the middle part of the last decade, youth unemployment was increasing and a whole generation was being left behind. I hope that we can achieve some kind of cross-party consensus on trying to reform our welfare system so that people do not get trapped in poverty and work always pays. We are reforming the new deal and replacing it with the Work programme so that we are more effective at giving young people the training they need and the opportunities that have been lacking for the last decade.
Stephen Williams (Bristol West) (LD)
Following on from the question from the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis), many of us will have seen—and some of us, myself included, will approve of—the demonstrations organised by UK Uncut outside certain high street well-known names. What are the Government doing to tackle corporate tax avoidance schemes by some large corporates; and what is the Chancellor going to do to make sure that the actions of some well-known and popular figures, such as premiership football stars and grand prix drivers, are also tackled?
Mr Gauke
The fact is that over the spending review period, £900 million is devoted specifically to HMRC for improving the capability of tackling tax avoidance and tax evasion. We take the issue very seriously and we announced proposals in December to reduce the tax gap further.
Petition
(13 years, 4 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Mr Speaker
Order. Before the hon. Member for Mansfield (Mr Meale) presents his petition, may I issue my ritual exhortation to hon. Members, right hon. Members, and even Ministers who are planning to leave the Chamber to do so quickly and quietly, extending the same courtesy to the hon. Member for Mansfield that they would wish in such circumstances to be extended to them?
Mr Meale
Thank you very much, Mr Speaker—although I must say that I do not mind if the Secretary of State for Education remains in the Chamber to hear the petition. He is fully aware that the abolition of education maintenance allowance is causing mayhem throughout our education system. Indeed, in North Nottinghamshire, part of which I represent, 74% of students who apply for EMA receive it in one form or another, and in my constituency of Mansfield 64% receive the maximum amount.
The petition, addressed to the honourable the Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in Parliament assembled, states:
The Humble Petition of Stephen Yemm, citizen of Mansfield, Nottinghamshire, and others, including 420 other students of West Nottinghamshire College and Queen Elizabeth School, both based in Mansfield, Nottinghamshire,
Sheweth, that they are opposed to the axing of the Education Maintenance Allowance which currently helps thousands of young people reach their full potential.
Wherefore your Petitioners pray that your Honourable House calls upon the Government not to axe the EMA, but instead to continue with it supporting adult learners through this adult learning grant.
And your Petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray, &c.
[P000885]
Russia (Exclusion of Journalist)
(13 years, 4 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
(Urgent Question): To ask the Minister to make a statement on the expulsion from Russia this weekend of the journalist for The Guardian, the Moscow correspondent Mr Luke Harding.
The Minister for Europe (Mr David Lidington)
On Saturday 5 February Luke Harding, a British journalist and correspondent on Russia for The Guardian, was refused entry to Russia at Moscow airport and sent back to the United Kingdom. Mr Harding is a journalist who knows Russia well and has, over the last four years, given readers of The Guardian genuine insight into that country.
A free media and freedom of expression are a vital element of any free and democratic society—and the Government deplore any restriction on those freedoms. Mr Harding was not given any explanation for his exclusion and it is unclear to us at this stage whether he has the right of appeal against this decision.
My right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary spoke to the editor of The Guardian over the weekend and subsequently to the Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, by telephone yesterday. My right hon. Friend asked Foreign Minister Lavrov to explain the reasons behind the decision to decline entry to Mr Harding. Mr Lavrov said that he was not aware of the specific reason, but promised to find out and let us know. We are yet to receive a response, but we understand that the Russians are actively looking into the issue. We have since passed this information to the editor of The Guardian.
We understand that Mr Harding had previously been warned by the Russian authorities about several alleged violations of his status as a journalist, including visits without permission to border zones and classified areas. Indeed, last November The Guardian approached us asking for support to secure Mr Harding’s reaccreditation as a journalist when his accreditation had been withdrawn. We then made representations to Moscow at a senior level, and in the event Mr Harding was granted an extension of his accreditation as a journalist.
We have raised our concerns about media freedom in Russia, most recently during our bilateral human rights dialogue with the Russian Government on 18 January. As the House will know, Foreign Minister Lavrov is due to visit this country next week. My right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary will raise various issues—including, most certainly, human rights and media freedom—during his discussions with Mr Lavrov. Knowing my right hon. Friend, I am confident that he will have this case very much in mind when he does so.
Chris Bryant
I am grateful to the Minister for his reply. As he has said, Luke Harding is a thorough, meticulous and courageous journalist—qualities that are essential for anyone working as an independent journalist in today’s Russia. His British wife and young children are now stuck in Moscow without him. As the Minister said, when he tried to enter Russia this week he was detained before being put on a plane back to London. I am told that as his passport was handed back to him the Russian police officer told him, “For you, Russia is closed.”
Is this not a pretty chilling state of affairs? Does it not accord with the harassment of the last British ambassador to Moscow, the rigged trial of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the persecution of journalist Fatima Tlisova, and the murder of her colleague Anna Politkovskaya, with which no one has yet been charged and of which no one has yet been found guilty? Does it not also accord with the revelation that the Russian security service press office which deals with journalists’ inquiries has now been given authority to issue licences for the routine bugging and surveillance of all journalists operating in Russia?
The United Kingdom has vast financial interests in Russia. Will not British businesses be nervous, fearing that this shows a return to the worst practices of the communist era? Will people not think that those who have suggested that Russia is a mafia state or a kleptocracy are not far off the mark?
What actions has the Foreign Office taken on behalf of Mr Harding and his family? I gather that the Russian Foreign Minister—who, as the Minister said, is expected to visit London next week—maintains that he knows nothing of the circumstances. What further representations will our Government make? Will they make it clear that Mr Lavrov is not welcome in this country while British journalists are excluded from Russia? Will they emphasise that, as a member of the Council of Europe, Russia must ensure the freedom of the press within its borders? May I urge all Government Members who are Council of Europe delegates and sit in the same grouping as Russian members of Mr Putin’s party to make absolutely clear to them that these actions are completely unacceptable?
Mr Lidington
We will certainly offer whatever consular support we are able to give to Mr Harding’s family. The hon. Gentleman will appreciate that events have been moving very rapidly over the past few days. As I said in my original answer, my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary will raise both the broader human rights concerns and, as appropriate, the case of Mr Harding—and, indeed, other individual cases—during his discussions with Mr Lavrov when they meet next week.
I think it important for the United Kingdom to continue to talk to Russia. Russia is a significant power in the world in both an economic and political and a military context. There will be issues, relating to counter-terrorism and nuclear proliferation, on which we want to find a certain amount of common cause with Russia, but it is also important—and the hon. Gentleman was right to stress this—that we are unafraid to raise very clearly in our discussions with Russian Ministers and officials issues on which we disagree, and disagree strongly.
While the British Government will continue to support British business in its work around the world, we also make it clear to Russia and, indeed, other countries that if they seek to attract international investment in their economies, it is in their interests to be able to demonstrate that they are governed by the rule of law which respects fundamental human rights, including the freedom of the media.
Mr John Whittingdale (Maldon) (Con)
I endorse the concerns expressed by the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant). Does my right hon. Friend the Minister agree that we in this House have always recognised that, although freedom of the press is sometimes uncomfortable, it is absolutely vital to a free society? Does he also agree that the treatment of Luke Harding is a matter of some concern, but that it is of even greater concern that half a dozen or more journalists have been killed or have disappeared in Russia in the past few years? Will he make absolutely sure that those coming to this country from Russia are left in no doubt as to how seriously we regard that?
Mr Lidington
My hon. Friend makes good and sensible points. We consistently raise both individual cases and the broader issues to which he rightly ascribes importance with Russian visitors to the United Kingdom, but they are also raised by British Ministers and officials when visiting Russia, and we will continue that practice.
Mr Wayne David (Caerphilly) (Lab)
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) for tabling this urgent question. I am sure that Members on both sides of the House will be extremely concerned about the detention and then the expulsion from Russia of Luke Harding. Freedom of the press should be one of the cornerstones of a modern democratic country. Therefore, this incident can only reflect badly on the Russian Government, especially as it is, unfortunately, not an isolated instance of the negation of press freedom. It is, indeed, of great concern that such a respected and highly regarded journalist as Mr Harding should be treated in such a way.
I am glad that the Government share the Opposition’s concern about what is happening in Russia, and I urge the Government to continue to make urgent and vigorous representations to the Russian Government. I also urge the Government to ask for specific reassurances regarding British journalists. Moreover, can the Minister urge the Prime Minister to raise the case of Mr Harding when he visits Russia later this year?
Mr Lidington
I can certainly assure the hon. Gentleman that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister will raise human rights issues when he talks to Russian leaders, whether during his visit to Moscow that we hope will take place later this year, or at the margins of other international gatherings where he might meet members of the Russian leadership. It is very much in the interests of the Russian Government that they start to demonstrate that they respect international norms on human rights and media freedoms, not least because Russia itself has signed up to the various European and international conventions that embody those principles.
Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin) (Con)
Notwithstanding the damage this incident does to Russia’s international image, does my right hon. Friend agree that, at a time when the Russian Government are seeking support for their membership of the World Trade Organisation, their not abiding by international norms does not advance their case?
Mr Lidington
One of the strongest arguments for wishing to see Russia accede to the WTO is that it would bring Russia into a rules-based organisation governing world trade. I think—I hope—that the Russian authorities will reflect on the impact decisions such as that over Mr Harding and those over many other individual cases will have on how they are seen by countries around the world and international organisations with which they wish to develop stronger relationships.
Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)
It is certainly true that Russia has become more oppressive and that it does not respect the agreements that it has signed. Would it not be a great shame if the Council of Europe and the European Court of Human Rights, which are the main protectors of freedom in Russia and many other countries in Europe, were undermined this week by attacks in this House? Should the right hon. Gentleman not urge his hon. Friends to make sure that the valuable work of the ECHR continues?
Mr Lidington
I will not be drawn into what the House might be debating later this week, but the hon. Gentleman makes a fair point when he says that, alongside those decisions of the ECHR with which we might strongly disagree, we must weigh in the scales its decisions, as in the case of Russia, to uphold firmly basic human rights and personal and media freedoms, and its severe criticism of the Russian authorities for their failure to do so.
Jo Swinson (East Dunbartonshire) (LD)
Luke Harding’s expulsion is an extremely concerning development amid the complete lack of media freedom in Russia. It comes on the heels of the murder of Anna Politkovskaya and the violent attack on Oleg Kashin in November, and shows the real danger in which both foreign and local journalists operate in Russia, which makes a mockery of Russia’s membership of the Council of Europe. Even if the Russians refuse to see why, morally or liberally, this is totally unacceptable, can they at least be persuaded that it is hugely damaging to their own interests because of its impact on foreign trade, investment and their place in the world?
Mr Lidington
I agree completely with that last point. We will certainly continue to raise with the Russians the individual cases and general issues that the hon. Lady cited, as we did during the human rights dialogue that took place last month in London. We will also continue to give support to a number of both Russian and international non-governmental organisations that seek to monitor alleged human rights abuses and uphold basic freedoms, especially in the north Caucasus.
Mr David Winnick (Walsall North) (Lab)
In November 1992, I heard the then Russian President, Boris Yeltsin, tell the assembled Commons and Lords that there would be no return to the old ways in his country. Is it not unfortunate that, increasingly, Russia is returning to autocratic ways? It would be a great blow not only to the Russian people but to the international community if the worst aspects of tsarism and communism were to return to that country.
Mr Lidington
When I look at Russian history what strikes me is how much the Russian people have suffered over the past century. I would dearly love to see Russia playing its full part as a member of the community of nations, including by showing respect for human rights and freedoms. The Government have always welcomed the statements, particularly from President Medvedev, arguing that Russia is moving towards greater acceptance of the rule of law and he is seeking to demonstrate greater respect for liberties in his country. It is important that the Russian authorities realise that we cannot make a judgment on the basis of words alone and that we look at their actions in judging whether those welcome expressions of intent are translated into practical action.
Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)
Given the horrific events that the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) has just described, does the Minister agree that Russia is rapidly becoming a rogue state? What can our Government do proactively to help reformers and democrats in Russia properly?
Mr Lidington
We can help by speaking out about our concerns, both in public and candidly in private to Russian leaders and officials. We can do so both bilaterally and through multilateral organisations, especially the European Union, and we welcome the statement that Baroness Ashton published last November on this matter. We can also continue to help by supporting NGOs that focus on the situation in Russia, be they Russian or international. However, I ask my hon. Friend to accept that on a number of important issues at the United Nations Security Council it has been possible to achieve a measure of constructive agreement with Russia. We would welcome things such as its agreement to tougher sanctions against Iran—that was agreed last year. We very much welcomed the successor to the START—strategic arms reduction treaty—agreement that was negotiated between the Governments of Russia and the United States. We want to see more of that kind of development in the world.
Points of Order
(13 years, 4 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Mr Brian H. Donohoe (Central Ayrshire) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker.
Angus Robertson
This morning, the Government issued a written statement on the ditching of the privatisation of search and rescue contracts. That written statement provided no answers about the multi-million pound cost to the taxpayer of pursuing that madcap privatisation scheme in the first place. No details were provided about what that will mean for military aircrew who should be remaining on search and rescue flights. No confirmation was given on what should happen to military facilities that operate those search and rescue flights, such as RAF Lossiemouth in Moray or HMS Gannet in Ayrshire. How would it be possible to get a full statement in the House, so that hon. Members who have a constituency or other interest can question Ministers on what is, after all, a lifeline public service?
Mr Speaker
I will take the point of order from the hon. Gentleman and then reply to both hon. Members.
Mr Donohoe
My concern is similar to that of the hon. Member for Moray (Angus Robertson). That statement should have been made in this place and not on the airwaves, which is what happened. Despite having a constituency interest in the subject, I was given no notice of the statement in the House of Commons Library. Nobody informed me that it had been put there, and I had to seek it out myself, which I find outrageous. It is time that the Government got themselves into check in order that this place remains sovereign—rather than the airwaves of this country.
Mr Speaker
I am grateful to the hon. Members for Moray (Angus Robertson) and for Central Ayrshire (Mr Donohoe) for their points of order. The timing, form and content of ministerial statements are, as both hon. Members will appreciate, a matter for the Government and not for the Chair. I note what both of them have said about what they regard as the inadequacy of the handling of the matter. Their opinion has been placed firmly on the record.
I say two things in conclusion to them. First, the Leader of the House is present. He will have heard what they have said—he is entitled to respond, but he is under no obligation to do so this afternoon. [Interruption.] The right hon. Gentleman is well able to fend for himself. Secondly, both hon. Members are at liberty and might be wise to approach the Table Office to decide what options are available to them to pursue this very legitimate concern on behalf of their constituents.
If there are no further points of order, we come to the ten-minute rule motion. The hon. Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon) has been waiting patiently. Just before he graces the House with his eloquence, I appeal to hon. Members who are leaving the Chamber—I am sure that there will not be very many—to do so quickly and quietly so that we may hear him.
BBC Licence Fee Payers (Voting Rights)
(13 years, 4 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)
I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to require the BBC to enable licence fee payers to vote on its strategic direction and aspects of senior salaries and programming, including referenda on particular issues; to provide for election of the BBC Trust and the non-executive members of the BBC Executive Board by licence fee payers; to make other provision relating to the governance of the BBC; and for connected purposes.
I welcome the chance to present this ten-minute rule Bill today on democratising the licence fee. I believe that this measure will enhance the BBC rather than weaken it. Like many of our countrymen, I believe that the BBC is a great British institution. It has an umbilical cord to the British people. If it did not exist, we might even have to invent it.
On the question of impartiality, I have issues, which I will raise later in my remarks. Nevertheless, when respected journalists such as Peter Sissons suggest that the BBC has an institutional left-wing bias, ironically in some ways it is good for people like me and other Conservatives. It means that we cannot brook complacency, and that we have to be that much better than the centre-left in presenting our case. When it comes to BBC impartiality, I am reminded of the old maxim of Shimon Peres, who described the BBC World Service as
“making dictatorship untenable, and democracy unbearable”.
It is nevertheless worth having.
I listen regularly to BBC radio, including the World Service, which is central to spreading liberal democracy around the world. However, despite the BBC’s positive attributes, of which there are many, it has fundamental flaws. That is why I am raising this matter today. I have been campaigning for the democratisation of the licence fee for a long time, raising it with the Culture Secretary and tabling several early-day motions. I sometimes feel like the man on the Clapham bus.
Let me outline the problems as I perceive them. First, the BBC is monopolistic, with about a third of TV viewing and half of radio. Monopolies tend to concentrate power in the hands of a few executives and to take power away from ordinary people and customers, which is something we should worry about. Secondly, the BBC is often branded as anti-competitive because it does not have to make a commercial return on its products. One example of that was BBC jam, an online education service that in 2007 was crowding out other education businesses such as Pearson UK in my constituency. In the end, it was rightly withdrawn from service.
Thirdly, the licence fee is a mediaeval anachronism. It is similar to our voting system in the UK before the Reform Acts of the 19th and 20th centuries in that it is taxation without representation and means disfranchisement. We are right not to tolerate that in our politics and we should not tolerate it in our public media either. This point is crucial. If one wants to watch television, which is a basic hope these days, one must buy a licence. The licence fee does not pay for universal infrastructure but is all spent on the BBC. Like all taxes, the licence fee is a coercive system that is backed by the threat of fines and prison, but what if we do not like decisions taken by the BBC Trust and its director-general? Some might feel that the licence fee is a regressive tax which penalises those on low incomes. Others will be upset by the salaries of senior BBC executives and celebrities. Many were angered at the BBC’s assault on the late Norris McWhirter, a war hero and founder of the Freedom Association.
The reality is that licence fee payers want choice. Some might want a beefed-up World Service, paid for by reducing expense elsewhere—perhaps by cutting the £50,000 a day that the BBC spends on taxis, or by abandoning the hugely expensive and unwanted move to Salford. Some might want more spent on Radio 3 or Radio 1. Although licence fee payers will welcome the freeze in the fee that the Government have negotiated, much more needs to be done. If we had choice, we might choose a BBC with twice as many news journalists as broadcasters, paid for by reducing celebrity salaries, but at the moment we are powerless, because the BBC is run like a feudal monarchy. As licence fee payers, we are compelled to pay our dues, and if we do not like that, our only choice is to abandon TV altogether. What recourse do we have? Where is the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority or level playing field on freedom of information for the BBC?
There is a statutory requirement for the BBC to consult its licence fee payers, but everyone knows that many of the current so-called consultations are a sham, with most decisions having been made well in advance. When he was running for the leadership of the Labour party, the right hon. Member for South Shields (David Miliband) called, in a variant of my idea, for the BBC to become some sort of co-operative. I have no objection to that in principle, but the best way to ensure real democratic control of the BBC is to allow licence fee payers, at individual level, to make key decisions. We must give them the chance to sack grandees if they have grown out of touch with public opinion. Under such a system, licence fee payers would be free to elect the board and chairman of the BBC, agree the annual report and have some say over programme making and the payment of celebrity salaries. It would be similar to shareholders having the ability to hire and fire their board, but with one main difference—every licence fee payer would hold just one share and one vote. Licence fee payers would vote via the internet with a special PIN, keeping administration costs low. The BBC could even call a special referendum for controversial issues, such as whether to allow extremists such as the British National party to appear on “Question Time”. Senior BBC members and outside candidates could compete in primaries against each other. We could spark a genuine debate—a battle of ideas—about the kind of BBC that we want, and how it should spend our money.
To those who say that democracy results only in the lowest common denominator, I say that is untrue. Look at Classic FM and Sky News. There is a real demand out there for quality, and I have a great faith in the British people. The BBC cannot continue—dare I say it—to be a kleptocracy, indifferent to the public who pay for it. Auntie pays out huge salaries to executives and celebrities alike. Her bureaucracy grows exponentially. Her undemocratic licence fee has become an anachronism in the days of multi-channel satellite television. If the BBC really does depend on the licence fee for its survival, then there must be some genuine checks and balances. What better way than democratising the licence fee?
Question put and agreed to.
Ordered,
That Robert Halfon, Nick de Bois, Craig Whittaker, Pauline Latham, David Tredinnick, Priti Patel, Mr James Clappison, Mr Lee Scott, Mr David Nuttall, Laura Sandys, Simon Hart and Nadhim Zahawi present the Bill.
Robert Halfon accordingly presented the Bill.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 25 November and to be printed (Bill 142).
Education Bill
(13 years, 4 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
21:58 - The House having divided: - Ayes: 324 / Noes: 244 - Question accordingly agreed to.
The Secretary of State for Education (Michael Gove)
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
What a pleasure it is to appear before you, Mr Speaker, for the third time within 24 hours.
The Bill is a response to three specific challenges that our country faces in this the second decade of the 21st century—the challenge of how to respond to an economic crisis, the challenge of how to respond to the scandal of declining social mobility, and the challenge of how to respond to our educational decline, relative to competitor nations.
We on the Government Benches, both the Conservative and the Liberal Democrat parties, believe that it is only by radically and fundamentally reforming our education system and learning the lessons of the highest performing nations that we can generate the long-term economic growth on which prosperity depends and that we can produce the level of social justice that is appropriate for a modern liberal democracy. I hope that across the House tonight we can develop consensus on the need for fundamental reform.
It was striking that just five years ago across the Dispatch Boxes in the House there was consensus between those on the two Front Benches on the fundamental need for education reform. My right hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Mr Cameron) and the then right hon. Member for Sedgefield both recognised the fundamental need for reform. I hope that we can see the same consensus across the Front Benches tonight. If not, that will tell us something about the state of the Labour party in the second decade of the 21st century.
What about the state of the economy that the Labour party bequeathed the coalition Government—the state of the mess that we have to clear up? It is against that backdrop that we need to appreciate the fundamental need for educational reform. It is only by having a well-educated, capable and highly skilled work force that we can deal with the economic crisis generated by the right hon. and hon. Gentlemen on the Opposition Front Bench. We had a structural deficit for seven years before the banking crisis began. When we entered that period of unprecedented global turbulence, our economy had been undermined by the actions of the previous Government. [Interruption.] I know that Opposition Members find that difficult and that it is painful to be reminded of the desperate position in which they left the country, but the need for urgent reform is underlined by the terrible mess they made—[Interruption.] No matter how much they chunter, object or interject from a sedentary position, these are truths that they and the country have to face. They cannot run away from that fact.
When the OECD graded this country in 2000, we had the best fiscal position in the G7, but in 2007 we had the worst fiscal position, and that was before the banking crisis. By 2010, we had the largest deficit of any G20 country, and today we are paying £120 million a day in debt interest. Manufacturing output fell by 9% as a share of the economy in Labour’s years and we lost 1.7 million manufacturing jobs. According to the World Economic Forum’s ranking of global competitiveness, we moved from fourth to 86th. No country can succeed economically or respond to an economic crisis unless it ensures that its education system is fit for purpose, and under the previous Government it was not.
Mr Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
Can we get back to education? The previous Labour Government tried in their last Bill to bring in compulsory sex education. The Bill before us is an excellent Education Bill, which I fully support, because it is all about devolving power to schools. Will my right hon. Friend assure me that he will resist any amendments on Report that would bring in compulsory sex education for primary schools?
Michael Gove
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for, as ever, leaping straight on to sex—I know that it is a subject of great interest to him and to many in this House. I always feel that one should discuss money before discussing sex, because the one and the other are so intimately connected in the minds of so many Members. That is why I was so anxious to ascertain whether Opposition Members were proud of the economic record they bequeathed. I am happy to reassure my hon. Friend that I will not accept amendments in Committee that seek to make the curriculum any more prescriptive or intrusive. The Bill will enhance professional freedom and autonomy, because we recognise that it is only by doing that we can ensure that our economy and education system are fit for the 21st century. It is not only the economy that was undermined by what happened on Labour’s watch; social mobility also worsened.
Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)
Will the Secretary of State give way?
Michael Gove
In due course.
Inequality worsened under Labour and the education system exacerbated it. If we look at the gap between children eligible for free school meals and their more fortunate and privileged counterparts, we can see that as those children moved through the education system and progressed under Labour the gap between rich and poor widened.
Michael Gove
In due course.
At age seven, the gap in reading scores between those children who were eligible for free school meals and those who were not was 16 points. At age 11, the gap was 21 points in English and maths. At age 16, the gap was 28 points at GCSE, and only 30% of children eligible for free school meals got five good GCSEs including English and maths. In 2009, only 4% of children eligible for free school meals even sat a chemistry or physics GCSE, and in 2008 40% of those children did not get even a single C in any GCSE.
At A-level the situation is worse still, with the gap between private schools and state schools doubling under Labour: in 1997 only 12% more privately educated students got three As at A-level than their state school counterparts, but by 2010 that figure was 24%. In 2008, no child in Hackney, Newham, Sandwell, Knowsley or Lambeth got three As at A-level including maths and further maths. Only 53 children eligible for free school meals, from an entire cohort of 75,000, even sat further maths A-level.
The number of children eligible for free school meals who made it into Oxbridge under Labour fell. In the last but one year for which we have figures, the number was 45; in the last year for which we have figures, it was 40. No wonder the Sutton Trust found that children’s levels of achievement are more closely linked to their parents’ background in England than in any other developed nation. The truth is that, under 13 years of Labour rule, this country became the sick man of Europe in terms of social mobility. Opportunity was capped, aspiration was depressed and, as a result, the life chances of the most vulnerable were failed by the former Ministers who now sit on the Opposition Benches.
Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)
I want to bring the Secretary of State back to his comments on the economy. Up until 2008, the Conservatives were committed to sticking to Labour’s spending plans. In 2007, the current Chancellor wrote an article in The Times entitled, “Tories cutting services? That’s a pack of lies”, in which he made it clear that they were committed to Labour’s spending totals at the time. Why is the Education Secretary pushing through these cuts now? Why the change of heart? Did he not agree with those comments at the time?
Michael Gove
I know that there is a worry throughout the country about libraries, but I see that the hon. Gentleman clearly spent quite a lot of time in the cuttings library of the House given the faithful way in which he read out that handout. It was on the watch of the Government whom he supported that we moved from having the best fiscal position in the G7 to the worst. My right hon. Friend was not in charge of the economy then; the right hon. Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham) was Chief Secretary to the Treasury and borrowing money hand over fist. If the hon. Gentleman shares my anger and rage at how his constituents were let down by a debt and deficit mountain that is holding the next generation back and if he is angry about that intergenerational theft, he knows where to point the finger: at the robbers on the Opposition Front Bench.
Andy Burnham
I am not entirely sure that that was parliamentary language, again, Mr Speaker. I wonder whether you might consider that while I make this intervention.
We know the right hon. Gentleman likes history, but is he not guilty of rewriting it? On the plans that I made as Chief Secretary, his leader called them “tough” at the time, but let me put this point to him, because he has not given us the true picture on social mobility. Is it not the case that, between 2005 and 2007, the number of children on free school meals who went to university increased by 18%, against a 9% increase among the rest of the population?
Michael Gove
The total increase as a proportion of the cohort was actually less than 1%, because it was a remarkably low base. The right hon. Gentleman cites a selective statistic, because he chooses only two years from Labour’s record. It is interesting that he chooses only those two years, because, when we look at the broad spectrum of statistics, we see that he cannot gainsay any of them.
If the right hon. Gentleman wants more statistics, why does he not look at the OECD programme for international student assessment—PISA—statistics? He quoted them yesterday, and they tell us what happened on Labour’s watch to every child’s education. We know that the poorest were worst off, but the other set of statistics that he invoked yesterday demonstrates that, actually, all our children were failed by Labour. We moved from fourth to 14th in the world rankings for science, seventh to 17th in literacy and eighth to 24th in mathematics by 2007.
Mr David Blunkett (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)
Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Michael Gove
Not yet. I shall be delighted to give way in just a second.
By 2010, we had moved from fourth to 16th, from seventh to 25th and from eighth to 28th in those subjects. In mathematics, 15-year-olds in Shanghai are more than two years ahead of 15-year-olds here. The OECD found that, in this country, the number of 15-year-olds who can generalise and creatively use information based on their own investigations and the modelling of complex problem situations is just 1.8%; in Shanghai, it is 25%—more than 10 times better.
Michael Gove
In a second.
The only way in which we will generate sustainable economic growth is by reforming our education system so that we can keep pace with our competitors. How can a country that is now 28th in the world for mathematics expect to be the home of the Microsofts, the Googles and the Facebooks of the future? The only way in which we can hope to compete effectively is not just by educating a minority to a high level, but by utilising the innate talent of every child, and that is what the measures in this Education Bill will do.
Mr Blunkett
Of course it is true that many countries throughout the world are investing in and driving forward their educational standards in a commendable way. However, the PISA study to which the Secretary of State referred and the changes in tables that he described are affected substantially—are they not?—by the fact that the number of countries taking part doubled, so he was not comparing like with like.
Michael Gove
I absolutely was comparing like with like, because the whole point about these tables is that they show us how we are doing relative to our competitors. Much as I admire the right hon. Gentleman, and much as I am grateful to him for embarking on a course of reform which, sadly, was thwarted subsequently, I have to acknowledge, as does he, that the statistics produced by the OECD are ungainsayable. I would love to be able to celebrate a greater level of achievement, but I am afraid that this is the dreadful inheritance that our children face as a result of the Government whom he latterly supported from the Back Benches.
Mr Redwood
The Secretary of State is making a powerful case. If a free school gets a grant to buy land and buildings from a council or other public sector body, will that be classed as a windfall receipt for that council or will there be some adjustment to its capital regime so that it is not a winner from it and we control public spending? That is a live issue, and I would like to know what the position is.
Michael Gove
I appreciate that it is a live issue. One of the striking things about how the free schools programme is proceeding is that we are discovering that in some cases local authorities are happy to buy the sites themselves, as was the case in Wandsworth, and in other cases they are happy to lease them for a peppercorn rent. In specific situations where a site is purchased from a local authority, of course we will seek to ensure that the best deal possible is secured for the taxpayer and for the school and the pupils who will be attending it.
Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)
As the Secretary of State always has the figures at his fingertips, can he say how much the Department for Education is giving to West London free school to purchase the Palingswick House site in Hammersmith? The school was going to get a capital receipt of £8 million to develop the site for residential accommodation after it had evicted local charities from it. How much is the DFE going to pay for the site via West London free school?
Michael Gove
The full details will be disclosed when the funding agreement is signed, but I can reassure the hon. Gentleman that the amount that the DFE is investing in this four-form entry school will be significantly less than the £35 million that had to be invested under the previous Government to secure a school of a similar size. I hope that he will join me in welcoming the fact that there will be at least three free schools in his constituency helping to provide superb education for the children whom he has represented so passionately over the years.
We must all recognise that the reforms that we are talking about, including the creation of new free schools, are the sorts of reforms that we are seeing across the developed world. Ministers such as Arne Duncan and John Key in New Zealand and Julia Gillard in Australia, and countries such as Sweden, Singapore, Finland, Hong Kong, Alberta and South Korea all recognise the need to reform their education systems, and we cannot afford to be left behind. That is why this Bill includes measures to allow us to invest in the early years, improve discipline, remove bureaucracy, and raise standards for all children, with new powers to intervene directly to tackle failure. Above all, it generates more good school places for all children, especially the very poorest.
There is a key test for Labour Members tonight: will they vote against these measures? Will they vote against improvements in discipline? Will they vote against reductions in bureaucracy? Will they vote against powers to intervene early when schools are failing? Will they vote against additional cash for disadvantaged two-year-olds? Will they prove themselves to be old Labour populists or new Labour modernisers?
Helen Jones
I would be grateful if the Secretary of State could tell the House why he believes that having unqualified teachers can raise educational standards. Why does he think that teaching is different from any other profession in that people who are totally untrained and unqualified should be allowed into it? He would not do it for a doctor or an engineer—why is teaching different?
Michael Gove
As I am sure that the hon. Lady knows, one does not need any training or qualification to be a Member of Parliament—or, indeed, a Labour Government Minister. Mind you, looking at the record of those who have occupied that position, I am prompted to ask a variety of questions. I should point out, of course, that many of the highest performing schools in this country—in fact, some of the highest performing schools in the world—are the fee-paying independent schools, which have earned this country so much foreign currency and have ensured that we continue to have beacons of educational excellence in the fee-paying and state sectors alike. Such schools draw in and welcome a wide variety of highly trained individuals, some of whom do not have qualified teacher status. It is important that we continue to innovate and to learn from the fee-paying independent sector. We must also continue, as we are doing, to invest in high-quality training for all teachers. That is why we are reforming initial teacher training, investing in Teach First, and setting up a new generation of training schools for teachers to develop the best practice from higher education institutions and elsewhere.
Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)
I had to come in after the last interesting intervention. Is it not the case that more young people than ever are now taught by unqualified staff, precisely because of the changes rightly brought about by the previous Government, including giving higher-level teaching assistants far more ability in the classroom and bringing instructors into schools to fill gaps caused by staffing problems? The issue of unqualified staff coming into our schools is not new.
Michael Gove
My hon. Friend, as a former teacher, always adds to our debates with his experience and authority. He is right that some of the work force changes made by the previous Government mean that a number of children are taught by cover supervisors or teaching assistants. We all want to ensure that everyone who is teaching and who is in the classroom is trained to the highest possible level.
Kate Hoey (Vauxhall) (Lab)
Does the Secretary of State agree that one problem, if we are honest, is that for too long many of us have accepted bad teachers? To get rid of a teacher has been almost unthinkable. The question is not really about unqualified teachers, but about teachers who are not doing the job of raising standards properly.
Michael Gove
As so often, the hon. Lady is absolutely right. One problem in the education system is that we need to make it easier for good heads to tackle underperformance by encouraging staff to do the professional development that they need to improve. If they do not improve, they should move on. No one benefits when poor teachers are in the classroom. It not only places an additional burden on hard-working and talented staff, but denies children the chance that they need.
Mr Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)
Will the Secretary of State give way?
Mr Stuart
The Secretary of State plans to keep a register of teachers who are barred from teaching. Will he confirm that schools will be able to refer someone who is sacked for gross misconduct to the Secretary of State to be put on the register, but not someone who is fired for incompetence? If that is the case, will he explain the reasoning behind it?
Michael Gove
I am delighted to confirm that. We want to ensure that people who are barred for gross misconduct are kept on a central list, which is updated continually. As my hon. Friend and I know, the General Teaching Council, which was responsible for dismissing and barring incompetent teachers, succeeded in barring only 14 teachers over the 10 years that it was in existence. We need to ensure that at school level, head teachers have the power to dismiss those whom they consider to be inappropriate. We must ensure that head teachers who are doing a fantastic job and are generating improved results have freedom and flexibility over the staff that are required to carry on doing that great work.
Mr Stuart
I agree with the Secretary of State that the previous system was not working effectively. However, that is no reason to believe that we should not have a system that ensures that an incompetent teacher who is removed and sacked—we know how difficult that is, as the hon. Member for Vauxhall (Kate Hoey) just said—does not reappear in another school. That will happen if the Secretary of State does not put that person’s name on a register. I ask him to reconsider this issue.
Michael Gove
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for making that point, and we will have an opportunity to consider it in Committee. The phenomenon that he refers to is known in the United States as “the dance of the lemons”, whereby teachers who are not up to the job are removed from it and reappear in another educational setting. We have explored with a variety of professional bodies the best way of ensuring that that cannot happen. There is no consensus that a central list of the kind he mentions is the answer. I am happy to discuss with him, in Committee and elsewhere, how we can ensure that teachers who are not effective do not continue in the classroom.
I mentioned that there are six principal areas in the Bill. The first is investment in the early years. It is critical that Opposition Members appreciate that if they vote against the Bill tonight, they will be voting against additional funding to guarantee 15 hours of learning for all disadvantaged two-year-olds. Under Labour, 20,000 of the poorest two-year-olds would have received 15 hours of free learning. Now, under the coalition Government’s proposals, 120,000 two-year-olds will be able to have the best possible free learning. Because of that investment, we will be able to ensure that those children are school-ready when they arrive at primary school. We can ensure that when we have in place the literacy check at the end of year 1 that we intend to impose, those children will have a grasp of the basic skills required to make the most of their time at primary school.
Bill Esterson
The Secretary of State makes a very important point about children being school-ready. That need has been expressed to me by children’s centre staff and the parents who use those centres, and he will know of the concern that I have previously expressed about the review of children’s centres in Sefton. Will he comment on the good practice that already exists in Sure Start children’s centres and in early-years provision generally, and on the importance of protecting good practice there and elsewhere rather than throwing out the baby with the bathwater?
Michael Gove
I think throwing out the baby with the bathwater would be very poor practice in any Sure Start children’s centre or any other early years setting.
I agree with the hon. Gentleman that Sure Start children’s centres can do a fantastic job, which is one reason why we are providing additional support, why the Department of Health is investing in additional health visitors and why the early intervention grant will ensure that there is sufficient money for local authorities to continue to discharge their statutory responsibility.
Michael Gove
I will be happy to give way in due course, but I want to make a little progress. It is important that I move on to one of the central parts of the Bill, on which I am genuinely worried that the Labour party may be about to put itself on the wrong side of the argument.
If Labour Members vote against the Bill tonight, they will also be voting against the measures that teachers and teaching unions want in order to ensure that teachers are safe in the classroom. We know that the biggest reason why professionals leave teaching, and the biggest barrier to talented graduates entering teaching, is the quality of behaviour and discipline in our classrooms. We know that every day, there are 1,000 exclusions for abuse and assault and that last year, 44 staff were assaulted so severely that they had to be taken to hospital as a result of violence in our schools. We know that two thirds of teachers surveyed say that poor behaviour is driving people out of the classroom.
I believe that the time is now right for the House to send an unambiguous signal to the professionals who work so hard on our behalf in the nation’s classrooms that we back them, and that we will give them the tools they need to keep order. We will ensure that they have the power to search students for items that may cause violence or disorder in the classroom. We believe that it should be easier for teachers to detain pupils who are guilty of disruptive behaviour, and that the authority of head teachers should not be undermined by exclusion decisions being overturned, allowing excluded pupils, many of whom might have been guilty of violent offences, to march back into the classroom. We also believe that teachers deserve the right to enjoy anonymity up until the moment when they are charged with any offence that occurs in school. We believe that those four basic protections are no less than our professionals deserve.
Michael Gove
I would be very interested to know whether the hon. Gentleman agrees, or whether he intends to vote against those protections.
Kevin Brennan
I believe that the Secretary of State will find that there is a good deal of consensus about behaviour issues in Committee. I understand why he wants to portray a vote against the Bill on Second Reading as a vote against every part of it—that is a politically convenient thing to do. If that is his position, however, surely a vote in favour of the Bill is a vote in favour of every part of it. Is he therefore saying to his Liberal Democrat colleagues that if they vote in favour of the Bill on Second Reading, even if they voted against the changes to tuition fees in the autumn, they now support the tuition fee changes and the interest rate increase contained in the Bill?
Michael Gove
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his point and for his personal support on discipline. I know that when he was a Minister in the Department for Children, Schools and Families, he did good work in that area. However, I have to let him know that if he votes against the Bill on Second Reading, he will be voting against the measures that I have described. If he believes that those measures are worth while but has problems with other aspects of the Bill, he is perfectly at liberty to seek to amend parts of it in Committee. We are very fortunate that we will have in Committee, in the person of the Minister of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Mr Gibb), one of the most reasonable Members of the House. As I said earlier, we will be happy to work in a consensual fashion when the hon. Gentleman or other hon. Members make cases to improve the Bill. I am sure that the Bill can be improved, but it should not be opposed or thwarted for narrow political reasons by politicians who are not prepared to stand with our professionals and say, “You’re doing a fantastic job and you should be defended. Discipline and behaviour are the foundation stones of good learning, and we will ensure that you are backed with one voice by a committed House.”
Glenda Jackson
Has the fact that the Secretary of State stood at the Opposition Dispatch Box and argued that we need unqualified teachers in our classrooms passed from his memory? That did not seem to be a message of endorsement for our teachers.
Not only in my constituency, which is served by two boroughs, but throughout the country, Sure Start and children’s centres will close, and there is no protection for them. They are important because they prepare children for primary school, but the situation is further exacerbated by the fact that nothing in the Bill will create more of the desperately needed primary school places in both boroughs in my constituency.
Michael Gove
The hon. Lady is passionate, and I do not doubt her commitment—
Michael Gove
The hon. Lady has won an Oscar for being successfully patronising to others. It is a pleasure to be patronised by the Virgin Queen—I feel rather like the French ambassador. I hope this requires no translation: the Bill includes provision for improved primary education and for extra investment in the early years, which is why I hope she will put aside the histrionics and give us her support.
Simon Hughes (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (LD)
As the Secretary of State knows from the conversations that he has had with colleagues and with me, we do not believe, as I assume he does not believe, that the Bill is perfect. However, we are absolutely ready to work collaboratively to get the best Bill on the statute book. That is how I understand we do legislation. I hope he confirms that that is how he intends to do this piece of legislation too.
Michael Gove
The right hon. Gentleman is typically astute. The Bill is the best that I can make it. I am sure that it is not perfect—we have a Committee stage so that the right hon. Gentleman and others can propose amendments, which I hope happens in a suitably constructive spirit. However, we cannot move to that stage and ensure that we have proper legislation, and we cannot protect teachers from indiscipline and poor behaviour or invest in the early years, unless the Bill receives the support of the House tonight. That is the challenge for Opposition Members.
Michael Gove
I shall try to make a little progress.
There is a related challenge. Do hon. Members want to remove bureaucracy? Do we want to lift the burden of duties that our teachers and head teachers currently have to shoulder? Do we want to ensure that a number of non-departmental public bodies—quangos, in plain phrases—are allowed to continue to exist and to drain resources from the front line, or do we want to see every penny that the taxpayer gives to the Exchequer for their children’s education sent into the classroom? Do we want to keep the Training and Development Agency for Schools, the General Teaching Council, the School Support Staff Negotiating Body, the Qualifications and Curriculum Development Agency, Becta and the Children’s Workforce Development Council in their current forms, or do we want the money that is spent on them spent on our teachers?
Let us take the QCDA—just one of those organisations —which has 393 employees. Can any Member of the House tell me how many of those work in the QCDA communications department? [Interruption.] There are a variety of guesses, but not even the former Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Mr Blunkett), can tell me. The answer is 76 of the 393. How can it possibly be an effective use of public money to have 76 people involved in communications at a curriculum quango, when that quango has been responsible for a secondary curriculum that mentions not a single figure in world history apart from William Wilberforce and Olaudah Equiano? How can it be right that we have spent money—so much money—on that curriculum authority, when its geography curriculum mentions not a single country other than the UK, and not a single river, ocean, mountain or city, but finds time to mention the European Union? How can it be right that we can find money to employ 76 people in communications—76 spin doctors—when our music curriculum does not mention a single composer, a single musician, a single conductor or a single piece of music? How can any hon. Member justify this unreformed status quo? The Bill gives every Member the chance to vote not just for money going into the classroom but for a reformed, 21st-century curriculum.
We will also remove bureaucracy by tackling Ofsted. I am delighted to inform the House that Ofsted has a new chair, Baroness Morgan of Huyton—formerly Sally Morgan and political secretary to Tony Blair when he was Prime Minister. I am delighted that someone who has direct experience as a teacher and in government at the highest level is helping Her Majesty’s Government in their work of improving educational standards. She joins Ofsted at a crucial moment—at a time when we are refocusing its inspection on what really counts. We are getting rid of the tick-box mentality, which has meant that far too much time has been taken up by pointless bureaucracy and political correctness. Instead, we are telling Ofsted to concentrate on four areas: the quality of behaviour and discipline in our schools; the quality of leadership, because nothing matters more than having great leaders; the quality of teaching, because every moment in the classroom is precious; and the quality of attainment and achievement, including the progression of the poorest pupils. This relentless focus on what counts and this stripping away of bureaucracy are at the heart of the Bill, and I hope that these measures will commend themselves to every Member.
Lisa Nandy (Wigan) (Lab)
I was glad to hear the Secretary of State mention pupils. We have heard a great deal about teachers, which is welcome, but we have heard very little so far about children. I would like to ask him about one particular group of children who will be devastated by the behaviour proposals that he is seeking to introduce, and that is young carers, who often do not tell anybody that they have caring responsibilities because they are ashamed of it and wish to be seen as normal. I worked with many young carers for several years, and I have consistently asked for safeguards in the legislation to ensure that those children will not suffer undue prejudice because of the no-notice detentions that have been brought in, but I have been unable to get any answers from his team. Will he assure me that he will find a way to protect this group of children, and will he tell us today what it is?
Michael Gove
Absolutely. The hon. Lady has championed children with caring responsibilities in her role working for the Children’s Society and now in the House, and I take her point on board. However, the power that we are giving to teachers is a discretionary one—we trust professionals. There is a distinction between the position of some Labour Members and Government Members. We do not believe that teachers are whimsical, capricious or wilful in the exercise of their powers. We believe that teachers should be supported and backed at every point, but we also believe that it is necessary, when we recognise that there are children exercising caring responsibilities, to make appropriate provision for them. That is what we will ensure and properly fund every school to do.
Mr Edward Timpson (Crewe and Nantwich) (Con)
May I take the Secretary of State back to his remarks about the refocusing of Ofsted? I welcome the fact that it will be more about what is happening in the classrooms than in the filing cabinet in a school, but may I ask him specifically how looked-after children will be monitored through the inspection process to ensure that their progression through school is being closely watched to ensure that their outcomes are as good as possible?
Michael Gove
My hon. Friend makes a very good point. We all know that in his work as a children’s lawyer before he entered the House he was a very effective advocate for the interests of looked-after children. We will ensure that the system of virtual heads is built on and that looked-after children, whatever their circumstances, are in receipt of the pupil premium. We are consulting on which performance measures we should use to ensure that looked-after children, children eligible for free school meals and other children whose prior attainment was poor are captured, so that every school has an incentive to ensure that those children are educated at least as well as other children, and that the attainment gap between those children and others, which grew under the previous Government, is at last closed.
There will be a relentless focus on standards, not just to help children with caring responsibilities or looked-after children, who might perhaps have received less than their due in the past, but to ensure that our education system can stand comparison with the best in the world. That is why the Bill contains explicit provisions to ensure that schools will take part in international studies, such as the programme for international student assessment, the progress in international reading literacy study and the trends in international mathematics and science study. It will also ensure that Ofqual, the exams watchdog, is explicitly tasked with ensuring that our qualifications and examinations can compare with the world’s best.
It is long overdue that we should do that, because it is a sad fact that our curriculum is not keeping pace with changes that are occurring in other, educationally high-performing nations. In the primary curriculum for mathematics in Hong Kong, students are expected to be able to master calculations with fractions and the solution of equations, and to know about the properties of cones, pyramids and spheres, but not in England. In Singapore, students studying science at primary school are expected to have a basic understanding of cells as the basic unit of life. They are also expected to know about the importance of the water cycle and the earth’s position relative to the sun as a factor in its ability to support life. However, those core curriculum details are not in the curriculum in this country.
Let us look at other nations. The principle of adding and subtracting fractions is in the core curriculum in Armenia, Colombia, El Salvador and Yemen, but not England. Comparing and matching different representations of the same data is in the curriculum in Lithuania, Ukraine and Tunisia, but not England, while finding a rule for the relationship between pairs of numbers is in the curriculum of Hungary and Slovenia, but not here. We cannot possibly expect our children to compete in the 21st century unless our curriculum equips them with the knowledge and skills that our competitors are giving their children.
Jesse Norman (Hereford and South Herefordshire) (Con)
I welcome many aspects of the Bill and would like to draw my right hon. Friend’s attention to the situation of sixth-form colleges, which offer an excellent and inexpensive education. In particular, Hereford sixth-form college, which he may know from personal acquaintance, fulfils many of the requirements that he would want in any curriculum, yet it is currently caught by a combination of a cut in the Young People’s Learning Agency, the abolition of the education maintenance allowance, which especially affects rural areas, and the rise in VAT. Will he perhaps take a second glance at that unfortunate combination?
Michael Gove
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for mentioning Hereford sixth-form college, which I have had the opportunity to visit; indeed, I enjoyed dining there with him and others. We are committed to ensuring that we increase funding for 16 to 19-year-olds who are studying in sixth-form colleges such as Hereford sixth-form college. We will also specifically increase the proportion of funding going to the most disadvantaged, who I know are a particular care for my hon. Friend.
Andrew Percy
Let me take the Secretary of State back to the curriculum. I welcome the changes that he has announced. Important as it is for our young people to understand how to do quadratic equations and all the rest, it is also incredibly important that they should learn functional skills through the curriculum. I would therefore like to make a plea for financial education for young people, which could play a particularly important role in the mathematics curriculum, in functional maths. Although we obviously want our young people to learn all the important skills in the various subject areas, they must also learn something functional that they can put to use later in life.
Michael Gove
My hon. Friend makes an impeccable point. One of the problems with the mathematics curriculum is that it lacks many of the skills—and much of the knowledge—that are being taught in other countries, equipping the young people there with the ability to take advantage of the opportunities of the 21st century. The point that he makes could not be better made.
It is also the case that, as well as our curriculum not being fit for the 21st century, many of our schools are not fit for the 21st century either. It is a sad reflection of the last Government that there are still so many schools that are below acceptable standards. The Bill will therefore give the Department for Education the power to intervene where there is failure. I hope that all hon. Members will agree that where children are trapped in an underperforming school, there should be the opportunity to ensure that the leadership and the investment are in place so that those children have the same opportunities in life as those who were fortunate enough to be born in areas where the schools are stronger.
Michael Gove
In just a second.
We are raising the bar on floor standards; we are showing less tolerance of failure than has ever been shown before; and, where a school is failing, we are taking powers to intervene to ensure that when an academy solution is right, when the local authority can find a superior head teacher and when that school deserves to be federated, then whatever action is required will be taken. I hope that all hon. Members, in every part of the House, will join me in saying that there can be no excuse for failure. The culture that so often prevailed in the past which says, “These children come from such and such a background, or these children have such and such parents, so we cannot expect more of them,” should be consigned to the past, where it belongs. We must ensure that in every part of the country, children have a right to high-quality education. We must also ensure that the absurd bias of the past, which suggested that just because children have working-class parents or come from immigrant backgrounds, they cannot access an academic curriculum, is ditched too.
For anyone who doubts that that is possible, I would ask them to visit some of the superb schools out there, such as Mossbourne in Hackney or Durand in Lambeth, the latter in the constituency of the hon. Member for Vauxhall (Kate Hoey). One of the things that they will find at Durand, for example, is that it has a higher proportion of children who are eligible for free school meals than the Lambeth average, and a higher proportion of children on the special educational needs register, yet every child attains at least level 4, and many get level 5, at key stage 2. In other words, they are performing well above the national average.
Mossbourne community academy is outside local authority control, and it has an inspirational head teacher, Sir Michael Wilshaw. This year, 10 of its children are going to Cambridge. What are their backgrounds? They are from one of the poorest boroughs in London—
Michael Gove
They certainly did! The hon. Gentleman should listen, because he fails to appreciate that schools such as Mossbourne academy have head teachers who recognise that every child deserves an academic education. He can sneer if he likes, but if those 10 children had been in a school where he was the head teacher, they would not have had the opportunity to go to Cambridge. He would have said to them, “I’m terribly sorry, but it’s not for the likes of you.” He would have said of their studying academic subjects, “I’m terribly sorry, you’re not good enough.” It is that culture of “know your place”, of enforced mediocrity and of denying opportunity and aspiration that the Bill directly challenges.
The reason that there is so much discomfort among those on the Labour Front Bench is that they have been rumbled. They pose as meritocrats, but in fact, whenever an educational change comes about that tells people from disadvantaged backgrounds that they can achieve far more than they ever imagined, they say, “Oh no, we don’t want that. We don’t like it. It’s inappropriate.” For that reason, the unrepentant and unreformed socialists who form an increasing part of the representation on the Labour Benches object. It will be interesting to see whether every Labour Member votes against the Bill tonight, or whether some are sufficiently enlightened and reformist to see merit in the proposals and in aspiration, and to join us in supporting it.
Michael Gove
I am happy to give way to the hon. Gentleman, whom I would never accuse of being unrepentant or unreformed.
Stephen Pound
I am really not too sure how to take that, particularly as the right hon. Gentleman is now taking provocation to previously unimagined heights. He is rocketing down that pathway at breakneck speed, but I hope he will forgive me for taking him back to the point made by the hon. Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy). Does he agree that religious education is an absolutely core part of the curriculum? When he comes to consider, say, an English baccalaureate, will he recognise the significance, importance and vital nature of religious education as the core of the curriculum in our schools?
Michael Gove
The hon. Gentleman’s own saintly behaviour while he has been in the House of Commons is an advertisement not only for religious education but for the religious education offered by the Roman Catholic Church, of which he is such a distinguished ornament—[Laughter.] He is certainly venerable, and he might be blessed and, one day, perhaps, saintly, but at the moment we will settle for ornamental. He is both ornament and use. He is formidably well informed; I know from our previous exchanges in Committee that he knows every single member of the Aberdeen team that won the European cup winners cup in Gothenburg in 1982—[Interruption.] My dad was there, as a matter of fact. [Interruption.] I am grateful. We Aberdeen fans need all the support we can get at times like this. I was going to say to the hon. Gentleman that he is misinformed on this particular point, because religious education is in the curriculum. It is a compulsory subject. Moreover, the English baccalaureate is not a compulsory measure; it is simply a performance measure that will allow us to see how many students have access to five core academic subjects. The sad fact is that only 16% of students succeeded in securing the mix of subjects that make the English baccalaureate, when every other developed country demands that its students have that suite of qualifications at 15, 16 or 17. This is another example of our falling behind.
The case for reform, as I have mentioned, is one that many Labour Members might be tempted to support. One reason they may be tempted to support it is that they will see that progressive figures from across the world are moving in the same direction as this Government. Just two weeks ago, we were privileged to have visiting the UK Mike Feinberg, the founder of the Knowledge is Power Program set of schools.
Mike Feinberg used to be an intern for Senator Paul Simon, Barack Obama’s predecessor as Senator for Illinois. Mike Feinberg, a career Democrat, was here to support our free school programme. He was joined by Joel Klein, a former Assistant Attorney-General in the Clinton Administration, and was also here to support our free school programme. They followed Arne Duncan, Barack Obama’s Education Secretary, who also came here to back our free school programme. Our free school programme has also been backed by Conor Ryan, an adviser to the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough and to the former Prime Minister. He described the Labour party’s opposition to our proposals as “ridiculous”.
Conor Ryan is not a lone voice. He has been joined by Andrew Adonis, who described 400 academies as “a phenomenal achievement”. He said:
“Neither I nor Tony Blair believed that academies should be restricted to areas with failing schools. We wanted all schools to be eligible for academy status, and we were enthusiastic about the idea of entirely new schools being established on the academy model, as in Michael Gove’s Free Schools policy.”
It is not just a matter of what Conor Ryan and Andrew Adonis said, as I shall cite what Tony Blair himself said:
“In many areas of… policy, the Tories will be at their best when they are allowed to get on with it—as with reforms in education”.
I have a question for every Opposition Member: are they going to listen to the reformist Prime Minister who secured them three election victories, or are they going to go back to the atavistic class warrior instincts that will lead them to oppose this Bill? Tony Blair in his memoirs also pointed out that when a reformist Government are in power, it is very easy for an Opposition to oppose. He went on to say that when there are reforms like ours, the Opposition should support them, but he pointed out that Oppositions tend to get
“dragged almost unconsciously, almost unwillingly into wholesale opposition. It’s where the short-term market in votes is. It is where the party feels most comfortable. It’s what gets the biggest cheer. The trouble is it also chains the Opposition to positions that in the longer term look irresponsible, short-sighted, just plain wrong.”
That is Tony Blair’s verdict on the opposition of the current official Opposition Front-Bench team to this Bill—“irresponsible, short-sighted” and “just plain wrong”.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
I cannot remember how many years the Secretary of State has been a Member of this House, but I would like to know how many times he voted for one of Tony Blair’s Education Bills on Second Reading, which is what he is asking us to do tonight?
Michael Gove
One of my first acts was enthusiastically to support Tony Blair’s Education Bill on Second Reading. In fact, when I was a journalist, I was always happy to support Tony Blair—rather more conspicuously than some Labour Members, including the shadow Chancellor and indeed the current Leader of the Opposition, did—and I am happy to say that our Bill, as Fiona Millar points out in The Guardian today, is in many respects one that builds on what Tony Blair wanted to do in 2005, but was thwarted by reactionaries on the Labour Benches.
That brings me to the heart of the challenge for the Opposition tonight. Will they be on the side of reform, consensus and progress in favour of a 21st-century curriculum and a 21st-century school system, or will they vote against that and put themselves in a Division Lobby thus saying no to money for early intervention, no to support for students at primary school, no to turning around our weaker schools, no to getting rid of bureaucracy and no to more good school places.
Michael Gove
I shall not give way again.
This Bill provides an historic opportunity for this country. It will help to guarantee every child a high quality education, which will equip them for the technological, economic, social and cultural challenges of the next century. Throughout history, the opportunities we give to our young people have far too often been a matter of time and chance. Accidents of birth or geography have determined children’s fate, but education can change all that. Education allows each of us to become the author of our own life story. Instead of going down a path determined for us by external constraints, it allows each of us to shape our lives and the communities around us for the better. What this Bill offers is a chance for every Member to shape our education system for the better, to give every child a greater level of opportunity and to transform their futures. That is why I so enthusiastically commend it to the House.
Andy Burnham (Leigh) (Lab)
It is only weeks since the Government asked the House to pass an education Act using procedures normally reserved for counter-terrorism legislation. Today the Secretary of State is back with an even more audacious request. He is asking Members of the House of Commons to give him more than 50 new powers, and near-total control over almost every aspect of our school system in England. He wants the power to seize land, to close schools, to overrule councils on budgets, to ban teachers from working, to define early-years provision, and to rewrite the curriculum without reference to parents or the public.
The Secretary of State has been known to claim—and he did so again today—that he is continuing Labour’s reforms. Labour Members empowered parents with guarantees, but the Bill does precisely the opposite. It constitutes an unprecedented power grab from pupils, parents, professionals and the public, leaving them without essential safeguards in a free-for-all. As we have heard, the Secretary of State wants to tell children what subjects and facts they must learn, and what kind of schools they must go to. Student and parent choice is being restricted.
During the passage of the Bill, the House will have to reflect very carefully on whether it can ever be healthy for so much power over something as precious as our children’s education to be vested in one person. Given the Secretary of State’s record in office to date, would it not be downright reckless to give him a free hand in such crucial issues? Local authorities will be stripped of their long-standing role of looking after all children in their areas, balancing the wishes of one group against those of another and thereby ensuring that service is shaped by need and not by the loudest voices.
Where does this leave Government promises of localism? I look to the Liberal Democrat Benches. Where does it leave those promises? Absolutely nowhere. By preaching freedom and autonomy—as he so frequently does—only to come up with a highly prescriptive reform of the curriculum, the Secretary of State places himself in serious danger of collapsing under the weight of his own contradictions.
As with the Government’s national health service reforms, the fabric of public services is being ripped up. Power is being taken from people and handed back to the system. The result is a huge void in public accountability at local level. Liberal Democrat councillors can see that; why cannot Members of Parliament see it as well? The Bill reveals an unhealthy obsession with structures, and the mistaken view that structural reform automatically leads to higher standards. It does not. The Bill has little to say about what really matters to parents: high standards in the basics, a rich and balanced curriculum, and quality teaching in every classroom.
There are elements of the Bill that we support, such as the proposals relating to early-years provision and discipline, and I shall say something about those later. However, what we are witnessing from this Secretary of State—and, indeed, from the Secretary of State for Health—is an unseemly rush to reform in which the normal processes of government are simply ditched. There will be no pilots, no evidence and no consultation. No time will be taken to listen to parents and children, consult teachers, and build the broad consensus in the country that should properly underpin any education reform. We will oppose the Bill tonight because it represents too big a gamble with the life chances of our children, and because—as I shall now set out in terms—it takes power from pupils, parents, professionals and the public, leaving them with fewer protections in a less publicly accountable education system.
Let me explain first how the Bill takes power from pupils. It restricts student choice and takes away guarantees at a time when youth unemployment is at a record high. It strips yet more support from young people, adding to the growing risk of a lost generation. This is national apprenticeships week. Debating the abolition of a guarantee of an apprenticeship for all suitably qualified 16 to 19-year-olds seems to me an odd way in which to mark it. It cements the impression that this Secretary of State gives very little thought indeed to the hopes and life chances of the 50% of young people who are unlikely to go to university. That is further strengthened by clause 29, which lifts the requirement on local authorities to ensure young people have access to studying for the diploma. Both the Association of Colleges and the Association of School and College Leaders have expressed concerns that that sends the
“wrong message about the future of vocational education.”
[Interruption.] The Minister for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning shakes his head, but that is what they say. Does it not also send the wrong message about student choice in this day and age that young people might not be able to choose the courses that will give them the skills they need?
Mr Graham Stuart
May I gently request that the right hon. Gentleman does not take this line on apprenticeships? I served on the Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill Committee. One criticism was that the Bill gave a statutory right to an apprenticeship when one needs a job to get one. The right hon. Gentleman can correct me if I am wrong, but my understanding is that the current Bill simply recognises that reality, but does not alter the right of a young person who secures a job that needs apprenticeship funding to get that funding from Government. I therefore do not think the right hon. Gentleman is taking the right line on this very important issue.
Andy Burnham
I hear what the Chair of the Select Committee on Education says, but this guarantee was important because it was about bringing forward offers of apprenticeships, particularly from the public sector, so that there are sufficient opportunities for young people who decide that university is not for them. I put it to the hon. Gentleman that we in Parliament have neglected debating the opportunities for those 50% of young people who do not plan to go to university. We owe it to them to do more by debating the quality of the opportunities that we are going to give them so that they can have a foothold in the future and hope of a better life. We endlessly debate higher education, and that is very important, but is it not about time that we gave more thought to young people who want to get a good skill so that they can get on in life? The hon. Gentleman’s Secretary of State has absolutely nothing to say to them.
Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)
The right hon. Gentleman is ignoring the 75,000 extra apprenticeships this Government are creating, and the support for university technical colleges, which will provide vocational education to 14 to 19-year-olds, and which are being rolled out throughout the country.
Andy Burnham
I have two points to make in response to that. The Secretary of State is very fond of talking about the Mossbourne academy and quoting its head, Sir Michael Wilshaw, and rightly so as it is an amazing success story, but Sir Michael has pleaded with the Government to give him a
“technical and craft-based curriculum option”
in the curriculum review. The English baccalaureate has nothing to say to heads such as Sir Michael Wilshaw, and the Secretary of State needs to start listening to those views.
The Secretary of State also referred to Hong Kong today. Let me quote what the Under-Secretary for Education of Hong Kong said last week when he was asked about what makes his system so successful. He said the success was down to a curriculum that emphasises 21st century skills, not 1950s languages and not an approach to language study that fails to reflect the modern day. He also said that the success was not about
“asking students to memorise a whole set of facts and be able to regurgitate them in a test.”
The Secretary of State is fond of quoting international examples only to drop them, but he had better read up on what the Hong Kong Minister has said about why his system is successful.
The Minister for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning (Mr John Hayes)
I have just been pondering what language we were speaking in the 1950s that we are not speaking now, but, leaving that to one side, the right hon. Gentleman must know that this Government have placed unprecedented emphasis on skills. He must know that I have been a champion of the 50% of young people he mentions whose vocational tastes and talents deserve recognition in the education system. He must know that we published a schools strategy shortly after coming into government, and he must know that we have put enough funding in place to deliver 30,000 more apprenticeships for 16 to 18-year-olds. If he does not know that, he should.
Andy Burnham
On the Minister’s first point, my mum reliably informs me that in 1950s Liverpool the mass was said in Latin, but I can tell him that it is not today. On his second point, he needs to tell the shadow schools Minister in Committee why he is removing the apprenticeships guarantee. What is the reason? If we are convinced that this can be done without restricting opportunities to young people who are not planning to go to university, perhaps we will be satisfied, but he does not fill me with encouragement.
Steve Rotheram (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that Governments do not create apprenticeships, they fund apprenticeships? Employers create apprenticeships and under the previous Labour Government the number of apprenticeships trebled. Does he agree that it is simply laughable that the Secretary of State is trying to position himself as the champion of the working classes, and that we should invite him to Goodison Park to meet some ordinary working people, so that he can learn from them about what these policies will do to ordinary working-class families?
Andy Burnham
My hon. Friend is right that the Government have nothing to say to young people who want to plan to get a good skill so that they can get on in life. He rightly said that employers create apprenticeships, but the Government are a huge employer. When I was Health Secretary we increased the number of apprenticeships from 1,000 to 5,000, but that was not enough in the country’s biggest employer and the third biggest employer in the world. It was the existence of that guarantee that meant that public services had to work hard to increase the number of apprenticeship places they were making available. My worry is that by dropping this commitment the Government are going to throw that progress into reverse. The Government have figures for funding apprenticeships, but I am not certain that they are going to turn into a real increase in the number of apprenticeships, and the Minister for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning will need to have some good answers on that point in Committee.
Andy Burnham
I am going to make some progress now.
The Government are re-erecting the Berlin wall between academic qualifications and vocational qualifications, which sends a very poor message about student choice. At every turn, the Secretary of State is making life harder for young people who want to get good skills. Why, we might ask, is he pre-empting his own Wolf review by abandoning the diploma in this Bill?
Elizabeth Truss (South West Norfolk) (Con)
Do not our leading competitors, such as Germany, Japan and France, specify study for more core academic qualifications until 16 than Britain does and is it not the case that the number of people studying academic qualifications, such as modern foreign languages, has dropped in this country?
Andy Burnham
I wonder what evidence the hon. Lady has for that statement, because those countries—I cited the Hong Kong Minister—want to give young people skills for the world as it is now, not for the 1950s. How can it make sense to send the message to young people and schools in her constituency that it is better to study a dead language than to study information and communications technology, business studies and all the other things that will help young people to make their way in the world? The Secretary of State said in his speech, “We want to encourage the Googles, the Facebooks and the Microsofts.” I think I quoted him almost perfectly. Why, then, is ICT not in his English baccalaureate? How are we going to have a work force that can give a supply of trained people to those companies and encourage them to come to this country? Has he spoken to employers about his English baccalaureate?
Charlotte Leslie (Bristol North West) (Con)
Does the right hon. Gentleman recognise the massive gap between state education and private education in securing the top jobs in this country? Does he recognise that private schools offer more academic qualifications and that by not enabling state schools to offer those academic qualifications he is essentially relegating state school pupils from those top jobs?
Andy Burnham
I do not accept the hon. Lady’s analysis. I went from a state school to Cambridge and my dad said to me, “It will open every door for you in life. You will just walk into any job you want.” He said that because I took some persuading to go, as I was not convinced that it would be for me. My dad was wrong, because it did not open every door. It is the networks and the conversations around the dinner party table that open the doors to those top jobs. I am talking about the people who can sort out two weeks’ work experience in the holiday period, because that is what gets people through. What further restricts opportunities for young people is the culture of unpaid internships, where young people are expected to come to London to work for free. That is beyond the reach of many working-class young people in this country, who simply cannot afford to work for free for three months in London. That is what ensures that the top jobs remain in the reach of a small social circle, as the BBC creatively and accurately reported last week.
Geraint Davies
My right hon. Friend may be interested to know that the chief executive of German Industry UK gave evidence to the Select Committee on Welsh Affairs on inward investment today. He commented that master plumbers in Germany have the same status as people with many degrees. Apprenticeships are crucial to driving forward the German economy, which is expanding much faster than the zero growth that we have seen under this Government. Does he agree that that is not reflected in the Government’s plans, which will result in economic slowness in comparison with our competitors?
Andy Burnham
I strongly agree with my hon. Friend. The diploma, which the previous Labour Government introduced, was an attempt to bridge the divide between academic qualifications and vocational qualifications, which should remain our aim. We should want all children not to choose one route or another, but to do academic subjects and learn practical skills that will serve them well through life. My worry about this Secretary of State is that he is further entrenching the divide between academic qualifications and vocational qualifications and sending a message to those who wish to pursue a vocational route that they are second best or somehow second class, which is a damaging step to take. As my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea West (Geraint Davies) has said, most other countries do not have such a divide, which is why I argue that this Bill takes us back to the past.
Mel Stride (Central Devon) (Con)
The right hon. Gentleman and other Labour Members frequently refer to Sir Richard Lambert and his comments about our growth strategy, and they have quoted him at length. Does he agree with what Sir Richard Lambert said about education in this country and preparing young people for work in an interview in The Guardian in December 2009, when he said that the Labour Government’s record in that respect was “shameful”?
Andy Burnham
I agree that we need to ensure that all young people have absolute rigour in the basics in English and maths.
The Secretary of State began today by discussing a string of statistics, but he did not say how the number of young people leaving school with good GCSEs in English and maths increased considerably under the previous Government, as did the number of young people leaving school with five good GCSEs. When my right hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Mr Blunkett) entered office, some 50% of schools in this country had a record whereby kids were not leaving with five good GCSEs—it was total failure. When we left office, that figure had been massively reduced, which gives the lie to the Secretary of State’s comments at the beginning that we “failed a generation”. That was an outrageous comment, and it is not backed up by the facts.
Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)
My right hon. Friend might be interested in the words of Dr Christopher Ray writing in the January edition of The Old Mancunian:
“The latest wheeze from Whitehall is the English Baccalaureate, launched with a breathtaking lack of forethought by the Secretary of State for Education…MGS stands proudly at the bottom of these surreal tables—along with such other notable academic failures as St Paul’s, Eton, Winchester and King Edward’s Birmingham.”
Perhaps those are five cases where the Secretary of State can use his power to intervene.
Andy Burnham
As a proud Scouser, I can say that I never read The Old Mancunian. Indeed, I am surprised to find that I agree with something in it, but I do. I have visited schools recently and I have been struck by the anger and, in some cases, despair of head teachers. They have worked night and day with their staff to raise standards in their schools, and along has come a retrospectively applied league table, which has knocked the stuffing out of them. I think it is quite immoral to say to those schools, “You are now at zero: you have 0% five GCSEs under this measure,” when they were not being judged by that measure previously. That applies to all kinds of schools, many of which might ask why the Secretary of State has chosen those five subjects on which to test them. Schools are voting with their feet and young people are choosing to do other things.
Michael Gove
Will the right hon. Gentleman tell me why it is immoral to tell parents in which subjects schools are performing well? Will he also tell me which other European countries do not ask their students to have a suite of academic subjects assessed at the age of 15, 16 or 17?
Andy Burnham
Why did I make that comment? I made it because I believe in student choice and parent choice. I believe that the same subjects will not be right for everyone and I do not believe that an arbitrary selection of subjects that seems to have come from the Secretary of State and his office should be used to judge the performance of every child and school in the country. I do not understand why ICT, religious education and business studies are not in the selection if he wants to create the work force of tomorrow, as he said earlier. Yesterday, he stood at the Dispatch Box and quoted the Henley review of music education in England that he was publishing on that day. We all received a fairly pious lecture about this issue yesterday, but let me quote from the review. Paragraph 3.6 states:
“Music is an important academic subject in the secondary school curriculum. When its constituent parts are next reviewed, I believe that Music should be included as one of the subjects that go to make up the new English Baccalaureate.”
So, experts commissioned by him are telling him that his choices are too narrow and restrictive. [Interruption.] Does he want to comment on that?
Michael Gove
I just wanted an answer to my question about which other European countries do not ask of their 15, 16 or 17-year-old students what level of competency they have achieved in those academic subjects. I would be very interested to know which countries the right hon. Gentleman holds up as an exemplar because they deliberately do not insist on an academic core. Can he answer that?
Andy Burnham
As I said to the Secretary of State yesterday, the programme for international student assessment research says that the systems that give the most autonomy in choice are the most successful. Is the Secretary of State saying that they all replicate his English baccalaureate? I do not think so. They have a better mix of academic and vocational qualifications. [Interruption.] He would not listen to the example I just gave him about an expert whom he—
Mr Sheerman
On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. Is there any point in Back Benchers turning up to education debates? The Secretary of State spent 52 minutes at the Dispatch Box and this is the fourth intervention that he is making on my right hon. Friend’s speech. What is the point of the rest of us who are interested in education and who want to participate coming here at all.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
That is not a point of order but it is a good point that should be made to the House. I understand that both Front Benchers have a lot to say, but it does prevent Back Benchers from taking part in the debate. The sooner we can get on the better.
Andy Burnham
I have answered the Secretary of State’s question—[Interruption.]—and have I put it to him that an expert whom he commissioned is saying to him, “Keep music as an option in the English baccalaureate,” and answer there was none about what he is going to do with that recommendation. The Secretary of State has not convinced the experts and he is not even convincing his own side. [Interruption.]
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. Mr Gove, I am sure that we can restrain ourselves for a little longer.
Andy Burnham
The Secretary of State is not even convincing his own activists. On ConservativeHome today, there was an article by Ed Watkins, a music teacher in south London and the deputy chairman of Dulwich and West Norwood Conservatives. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”] Conservative Members cheer him, but will they still be cheering in a moment? He wrote:
“The principles lying behind the English Baccalaureate are therefore grounded in a sensible solution to a problem.”—
He is halfway there with that. He continued:
“Those principles have, however, been applied in an arbitrary manner in the selection of subjects. Why History but not R.E.? Why Biblical Hebrew but not Art? Why Geography but not Music?”
It seems that rather than heckling me, the Secretary of State has a little more work to do with his own side.
Andy Burnham
No, I will not.
My point—[Interruption.] My point, if the right hon. Gentleman will listen to it, is that children have a right to a broad and balanced curriculum, and his prescriptive English baccalaureate is taking us away from that. The body that has independently advised Ministers, which was set up by the previous Conservative Government, the Qualifications and Curriculum Development Agency, is being abolished, so what can we expect in the future? We can expect ministerial whim replacing independent expert advice. As the Education Committee pointed out last week, a mix of academic and vocational options is more likely to keep young people engaged and help reduce behaviour problems.
We welcome provisions in the Bill to ensure that every young person has access to independent careers advice, but we fear that this is yet another instance where rhetoric will fail to live up to the reality. Is not the truth that the Secretary of State’s mismanagement of transition arrangements to an all-age careers service and front-loaded cuts to local authority budgets have meant that careers advice is disappearing?
Why does the Bill remove the requirement on the Secretary of State to enforce the new legal participation age of 18? Is it because, with the scrapping of EMA and the other measures that I have described, he knows that full participation until 18 will never be achieved? Alongside the clauses on higher education, no wonder ASCL talks of a Bill with
“serious implications for social mobility”.
In the ways that I have described, the Bill takes power from pupils and, in the words of UNICEF,
“risks narrowing the educational agenda and limiting children’s rights within schools.”
Let me turn to how the Bill takes power from parents. The National Children’s Bureau has called this a Bill which
“chips away at hard-won parental rights”.
It removes their ability to challenge decisions about admissions and exclusions and to make local complaints. The Bill abolishes the local admissions forum. ASCL raises concerns that there
“may now be a void in policing admissions”.
Admissions forums involve local parent representation, governors and heads. They exist to give parents avenues of redress and to help them get a fair deal. As with many provisions in the Bill, their abolition seems at odds with ideas of localism. With no group co-ordinating fair admissions, the NASUWT says that there are real risks of increased inequality, back-door selection and covert discrimination.
We welcome the extension of the schools adjudicator’s powers in relation to academies and individual cases, but we fear that this move is undermined overall by a weakening of the adjudicator’s role and his ability to change admission arrangements. ASCL has said that it is
“essential that parents have a well defined route to deal with their grievances relating to admissions” ,
yet the Bill repeals parents’ power to complain to the local commissioner.
The Secretary of State mentioned Tony Blair and our reforms. They were all about empowering parents, just as in the health service we empowered patients with guarantees. The Bill strips away those powers from parents. That is why we do not support it.
Catherine McKinnell (Newcastle upon Tyne North) (Lab)
Does my right hon. Friend share my concern that in addition to the powers being stripped from parents by the Bill, they are also losing the right to legal aid for education cases? Parents without means finding themselves in difficult and challenging situations when fighting for their children will therefore be left without any recourse for help.
Andy Burnham
My hon. Friend makes an extremely important point. It brings me on to the subject of parents whose children have special educational needs or disabilities. Her point is particularly important in respect of such parents. Concerns have been raised about the measures in the Bill disempowering parents in relation to exclusions. The removal of the ability of appeals panels to tell schools to reinstate a pupil who has been expelled has been described by the National Children’s Bureau as
“counter to the principles of natural justice.”
These changes affect the rights of every parent and the life chances of every child, but they have big implications for the most vulnerable.
Parents of children with disabilities and special needs already face a battle to get them a good education. With its changes to admissions and exclusions, which will see schools become judge and jury, the Bill stacks the odds against those children even further. Poor behaviour can arise from a failure to identify or support a child’s special needs, yet in future any exclusions that might result will be much harder to challenge.
The changes must also be seen in the context of the diminishing ability of local authority to fund and co-ordinate specialist services that help children facing the biggest challenges. The Education Committee has noted that some pupils could be left
“without access to critical support”.
The autism charity, TreeHouse, fears that councils will no longer be able to plan services for children with complex needs.
That brings us to a central problem with the Government’s rush to reform: the Bill has been brought forward before the long-promised Green Paper on special educational needs. The National Autistic Society has stated:
“The impact of certain aspects of the Education Bill on children with SEN and disabilities… will not be known until the Green Paper has been made public.”
That means that the Government are asking Members to vote on these measures without giving them either answers to the questions posed by TreeHouse or the ability to feel sure that the most vulnerable children in their constituencies will not be adversely affected. That is profoundly wrong. It is an abusive process and an affront to this House, but, much worse, it sends a clear message to the parents who are most affected that their children are an afterthought for the Government.
Michael Gove
I note that the right hon. Gentleman has not answered my previous question about EU nations, but can he perhaps enlighten the House on—
Glenda Jackson
He is talking about children with special educational needs and you are going on about other matters. It is a disgrace—
Michael Gove
Those of us who have family members with special educational needs will have found the hon. Lady’s outburst objectionable. Can the right hon. Gentleman tell us how many special schools closed under the Labour Government and how many more parents were forced to buy private education for their children with special educational needs over the past 13 years?
Andy Burnham
I do not have those figures to hand, but special schools closed in my constituency and in my local authority area because we pursued a vision of inclusion within state schools. That was the right thing to do, because some of those young people are now educated alongside other children in their community, and it is human and social progress to teach those young people in that way. The question I put to the Secretary of State, which he did not answer, was this: how can he ask any Member to be sure that the Bill will not harm vulnerable children in their constituencies when we have not seen his proposals on special educational needs? What ability will anyone have to place obligations on academies or free schools to look out for their children? We do not know whether he is creating them as self-sufficient islands that can do whatever they like, so how can we be sure that children with special educational needs will not get second best from the schools system he is creating? He cannot answer that question tonight because we have not seen the Green Paper. It should have been published before the Bill was brought before the House.
Pat Glass (North West Durham) (Lab)
The Secretary of State knows very well that under the Labour Government some special schools closed because they were just not good enough, but special school places were created, and there were more when we left office than when we came into office.
Andy Burnham
My hon. Friend, who knows more about these matters than anyone in the House, has put the Secretary of State straight.
I have one final comment about parents. We support the extension of free early years provision for disadvantaged two-year-olds, but we are deeply concerned that that is undermined by the Government’s failure to protect Sure Start. Furthermore, giving the Secretary of State the power to define early years provision, who gets it and when they get it places question marks over the universal free entitlement for three and four-year olds. I ask him to make it clear that he does not intend to cut such provision or to introduce means-testing, particularly as fears have also been raised by the Bill’s introduction of powers to charge.
Mr Slaughter
One of the Secretary of State’s homilies was on equal chances, but my constituency is one of the most socially and ethnically diverse in the country, and more than half the Sure Start centres are being closed by a Conservative council. The Secretary of State and his Ministers wash their hands of that, but is it not perverse to talk about creating extra provision for two-year-olds when the provision for three and four-year-olds is being cut by 50% in seats such as mine?
Andy Burnham
The Government say that they have given councils enough money, but they have also given them a list of 20 or more things that they have to fund from the same budget as that which pays for Sure Start. How does my local authority, which is getting a cut of some £160 per head from the Government, keep all its support and provision open while other councils in other parts of the country get cuts on nothing like that scale? It is deeply unfair, and it will take away crucial services in constituencies such as my hon. Friend’s and mine.
Bill Esterson
In my right hon. Friend’s opening remarks, he mentioned contradictions and the ability to overrule local authorities when it comes to schools. In Sefton, the 12.9% cut in the early intervention grant means that all the children’s centres are now under review, but the Secretary of State says that he wants all children’s centres and the network to be maintained. My hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith (Mr Slaughter) describes what is happening in his constituency. Does my right hon. Friend agree that, if closures go ahead, they will undermine any good measures in the Bill to boost early years provision? Does he agree also that, if the Secretary of State is prepared to intervene on schools, he should take the same approach and intervene on local authorities when it comes to protecting the network of Sure Start centres?
Andy Burnham
My hon. Friend makes a very important point. I was struck yesterday by the comments of my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field), who feels that his report, which was commissioned by the Prime Minister, will be undermined if cuts on such a scale proceed, because the delivery system for early intervention will simply no longer be in place in constituencies throughout the country. Let us remember that this Prime Minister accused the former Prime Minister of trying to scare people about Sure Start. This Prime Minister said that he would build on Sure Start, but that is yet another broken promise.
Let me turn to how the Bill takes power from the profession. The Education Secretary says that he wants to put teachers in the driving seat, but again we see a widening gap between rhetoric and reality. There has been a 10% drop in applications for teacher training this year, which does not say much for his powers of recruitment. The drop has been blamed on his decision not to allow the Training and Development Agency for Schools to run its usual advertising and marketing campaigns to attract people to the profession. With the Bill’s abolition of the TDA, teacher training places cut by 14% and most bursaries scrapped, surely we can expect to see teacher shortages in a few years’ time.
The Bill restricts teachers’ freedoms, undermines the status of their profession, reduces their entitlement to ongoing professional development and fails to protect the rights of support staff. Ongoing development is a hugely important issue for many teachers. The TDA provided a vehicle for identifying the training needs of the profession, and its abolition raises concerns about the future of teacher training and professional development.
The think-tank million+ says that
“the TDA avoided teacher training being the subject of political interference”,
and that
“given the current ministerial view”,
there is a
“real danger that teaching as a profession is being downgraded.”
Those are its words; that is what million+ says.
Andy Burnham
I will not; I am making some progress.
On the abolition of the General Teaching Council for England, ASCL says that
“in this and other matters, we are concerned about the large number of additional powers being granted to the Secretary of State.”
How can the right hon. Gentleman possibly be judge and jury over every case of misconduct? Surely teachers have a right to be judged by their peers, not by politicians in Whitehall. I speak as a former Health Secretary, where we had well developed, independent systems of self-regulation for the medical profession. Surely that model is the right one for teaching.
Perhaps the Secretary of State’s biggest slight on the professional status of teachers is his insistence—
Andy Burnham
I will not.
Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman’s biggest slight on the professional status of teachers is his insistence that free schools must not be held back by the requirement to hire qualified individuals to teach. As my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington North (Helen Jones) said, it makes a mockery of his claims to value teacher training. Either he believes it is important or he does not; he does not have a convincing answer to that question.
The abolition of the School Support Staff Negotiating Body sets back efforts to improve professional standards among support staff, as well as fair pay and work force planning. Support staff are key members of the education team around the child. Unison has said that the Secretary of State is
“ignorant of the reasons for its establishment”.
This impression is given further weight by the fact that the Bill overlooks support staff in introducing anonymity for professionals facing allegations from pupils. The Secretary of State asked whether we would support that measure, and we do, but we agree with the ASCL that it should be
“extended to cover teachers and support staff in colleges and support staff in schools”.
The Secretary of State nods, and I hope that he will give that suggestion serious consideration.
On other provisions relating to behaviour and discipline, we are broadly supportive of a direction of travel that builds on our achievements, although we will seek reassurance in Committee that powers to search pupils are necessary and proportionate. We welcome the proposed changes to make schools find and fund alternative provision for excluded pupils, but we would like that measure to be included in the Bill.
Fourthly and finally, this Bill takes power from the public. Schools should be at the heart of local communities, but the Bill removes communities’ rights—
Andy Burnham
I will not.
This Bill removes communities’ rights to decide what kind of school they have—the Secretary of State is offering a one-size-fits-all model: an academy or nothing— and restricts the information available to them about their schools. It makes strategic, community-wide planning for children and young people more difficult. According to the National Children’s Bureau,
“it fails to promote and indeed protect the strategic relationship that schools must have with their local community.”
We know the Government’s answer to this—that communities can set up their own schools. It is the same with libraries, forests and children’s centres. Communities want control and involvement, but they do not want chaos and cuts to be unleashed on the services they value and then to be told, “It’s okay—you’re free to set up your own.”
Andy Burnham
No, I will not.
Communities need other, more practical avenues of redress. Free schools are approved by the Secretary of State with no requirement for groups setting them up to consult widely with the local population. There is a complete lack of transparency and accountability over funding. We know that the Government have set aside £50 million to pay for new free schools, and we know from reports yesterday that about £25 million has been pledged to just two schools. Earlier, the Secretary of State failed to answer a question from my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith (Mr Slaughter) about this. We know that a further 13 have been given promises of funding, but we do not know how much. Named day questions to Ministers simply go unanswered. It is not surprising that many communities believe that existing local schools are being left to fall into disrepair to allow free schools the money to be set up.
Andy Burnham
I have given way to the Secretary of State about three times, so I will give somebody else a chance.
Richard Fuller
It is important that the right hon. Gentleman gets a broader perspective on his two points about free schools. In the instance of the free school that is being set up in Kempston in my constituency, there has been widespread consultation involving parents and local schools, and a debate attended by the Anti Academies Alliance. The chair of the board of the free school has said that there will be full and clear transparency, and he is head of a college of further education in my constituency that is rated outstanding by Ofsted.
Andy Burnham
My point was that that level of consultation should be required. If a free school is set up, it may be good for those immediately planning to go there, but there may be an impact on the stability of provision around it and the viability of other local schools. There is a wider debate to be had in any community.
Andy Burnham
No, I will not give way to the hon. Gentleman again.
It is simply not acceptable that we have not had any figures. Pledges are being made; Ministers are going round the country waving cheque books at people wanting to set up their pet projects. When the Government have cancelled Building Schools for the Future, it is unacceptable that they are not prepared to answer parliamentary questions to tell us how much money has been committed to these new schools. It gives the impression that, shamefully, ideology and not need is driving the allocation of capital to schools.
We support autonomy for head teachers, but the Bill strips back the role of the local authority to an extent that even head teachers are uncomfortable with it. The ASCL has said that it is
“concerned that there may now be too few points of contact between local authorities and schools”.
The removal of the duty to co-operate in the production of a children’s plan and to work with children’s trusts raises concerns over the safeguarding of children and young people. The Laming review highlighted the need for all agencies involved with children, including schools, to have a joined-up approach to ensure that no child slipped through the net. Every Child Matters was an effort to remedy the failure of services to work together. Unison says that the Bill
“drives a wedge between schools and other local services and negates Every Child Matters”.
As I have said, the Bill takes power from the public and local communities.
Michael Gove
If the right hon. Gentleman were in power, would he rescind the academy status that has been acquired by schools and head teachers who want that new-found freedom?
Andy Burnham
That question is not for here and now. We would not close a good school that was well integrated with its local community and played its part in a local partnership to raise standards. I do not have a dogmatic position, as some of the acolytes of the Secretary of State like to say. I do not just want to close all free schools and all academies out of spite. That is not my position. If a school was not well integrated with its local community and was not playing its part to raise the standards of all children in the area, of course that would have to be looked at.
In conclusion, last year’s Liberal Democrat conference passed a motion supporting the role of local authorities in education and opposing an uneven playing field between schools, where some schools get more funding than others. This centralising Bill is the polar opposite of that motion. As I have shown today, it takes powers from pupils, parents, professionals and the public and leaves a huge democratic deficit in every community. Where are the Lib Dem voices now? Why are they not howling down a Bill that strips local councils of any meaningful role? They seem silent and defeated. This is a battle for the soul of state education. I hope for the sake of young people that the Lib Dems rediscover some principle and backbone, and stand up to a Bill that grants one man huge power to foist an elitist view of education on everyone.
The vision is of a 1950s curriculum in a 19th-century school system; a free-for-all where parents have no guarantees, where there is a lack of protection for the most vulnerable children, and where for every winner there is a loser. I respect the undoubted passion for education of the Secretary of State, but his is a vision for some children, not all children. In his rush to reform, he is failing to take people with him; he is losing the confidence of head teachers; he is inflicting an ideological experiment on young people, with no pilot schemes, no consultation and no evidence to support it; he is taking power away from parents; and he is gambling with the life chances of our children. Today, in the interests of a fair education system for all, I ask the House to put the brakes on him.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. Before we go on, I remind Members that there is an eight-minute limit. Members do not have to take all eight minutes and if they take fewer interventions, we will get more Members in. There is a huge list and very little time.
Mr Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)
It is a pleasure to take part in this debate. Last year, the Academies Act 2010 flew through Parliament. Today, we are debating the Government’s second education Bill, which follows on from the White Paper entitled “The Importance of Teaching”. Disraeli told the House 136 years ago:
“Upon the education of the people of this country the fate of this country depends.”—[Official Report, 15 June 1874; Vol. 219, c. 1618.]
That view was true then; today, it is even more obvious and is shared across the House.
There is a lot to support in the Bill—a lot that even the most opportunistic of Oppositions would struggle to oppose. I welcome the priority given to behaviour and discipline, the subject of the Education Committee’s first report, which was published last week. Anonymity for teachers prior to criminal charge and clarity about teachers’ powers will materially help, as will the more focused brief for Ofsted. The Committee urges the Government to collect appropriate data to monitor the actual, as opposed to the perceived, state of discipline in our schools. I hope that Ministers will think on that.
The emphasis on international comparison is also right. What was the point of the previous Government claiming higher standards at home if, compared with others, our relative position was collapsing? The changes to Ofqual are therefore also correct. The duty on schools to bring in specialist careers advice from outside is hugely welcome. The provision of advice is often woeful and exacerbates pre-existing disadvantage for those who do not have strong family networks. The change is a great move and needs to be extended to academies and free schools. If that cannot happen in the Bill, I should like to hear from Ministers that it will be included in the funding agreement.
Those are all good things, yet I cannot help feeling a little disappointed with the Bill. When I saw “The Importance of Teaching”, I thought, “Maybe the Government have got it. Maybe they’ll be obsessed with teacher quality above all else”, as the research suggests we should be. Attracting, retaining and motivating the brightest and best in teaching is a matter of existential importance to this country’s future, and removing the incompetent is likewise essential, so what does the Bill offer on that front? Less than I would like.
We know that Teach First, the highly selective programme to get the brightest graduates into teaching, is being doubled in size, which is extremely welcome. The entry level for teacher training is being raised to a 2:2 degree, and training will be reformed, with a big expansion of school-led initial teacher training, which the Education Committee has welcomed.
However, it seems to me that the biggest challenges are to increase the accountability of teachers and to manage variability both within and between schools. The Government have inherited a performance management system for teachers that is toothless. The so-called social partnership was a surrender to the teaching unions and the producer interest, strangling every effort to put the interests of the child brought up in poverty ahead of those of the well-paid, qualified adult who teaches them. Our professional standards, by which the performance of teachers is judged, were written as much by union leaders as by leaders in education. When will the Secretary of State rewrite the professional standards? That cannot be started too soon.
If the Government’s promise of autonomy and accountability is to be delivered, we need more than a refocused Ofsted. We need action when children stop progressing in a teacher’s class. We need a considered resetting of the rights of the child and the rights of the work force. Where are the provisions in the Bill to ensure that the teachers who do not help pupils to learn cease to teach?
The Government have stressed the importance of autonomy in their proposals for free schools and academies, which I broadly welcome. The best education systems in the world all give their schools and heads a lot of autonomy. However, we need to be wary of concluding that greater autonomy by itself brings higher standards. High-performing leaders tend to demand and be granted more autonomy in any organisation—it is a by-product of top performance rather than an initial driver. In business, a top manager is granted more freedom because of his success. He then uses that freedom further to improve his practice. A management consultant looking at businesses with branches would find that the best-performing branches in a variety of businesses tended to have leaders with greater autonomy from the centre. Observing that, the consultant might conclude that if only all managers had those greater freedoms, standards would necessarily rise elsewhere. I believe that that would be an erroneous judgment. Can Ministers assure me that we are not making that mistake in education?
McKinsey’s excellent report, “How the world’s most improved schools systems keep getting better”, shows that different interventions are required at different stages of school system improvement. Ministers should reflect on its analysis and recognise that in a system as large as England’s, one size does not fit all. Will they also expand on the respective roles of competition and co-operation? How will the Government ensure that competition, which is so critical to improvements in the business sector, will not stifle the exchange of best practices that is often so important in the education sector?
I entirely understand why Ministers have proposed what they have proposed on the English baccalaureate—they want to ensure that young people are not put on Mickey Mouse courses that should be removed for their lack of rigour. However, that rightful intervention does not necessarily mean that one should assume that all courses that are not academic courses are Mickey Mouse courses that lack rigour. Surely we should ensure that we remove inappropriate courses rather than condemn them all. I am concerned that we could end up getting the mix between vocational and academic courses wrong.
Chris Goodwin is the head teacher of Beverley grammar school in my constituency, which must be one of the highest-performing state schools in the country. Despite its name, it is the oldest state school—and indeed the oldest school—on one site in the country. It is a comprehensive school for boys and it has been found to be outstanding in its last three Ofsted inspections. Chris Goodwin and his team have extreme concerns about the potential impact of the baccalaureate. He said:
“I thought the whole drive of the government is to give power to the Headteachers to enable them to make the right choices for their students. By publishing tables and rating schools in this way, you are placing me, the staff and students in a strait-jacket. We will have no choice but to comply, to the detriment of all concerned…This is ironic, as my entire Senior Team are in favour of a better constructed English Baccalaureate—just not this one.”
I hope the Government remain open minded on that. I absolutely understand their desire for rigour and to make the basic right to a decent academic education an opportunity for everyone in our society, but we must ensure that vocational and other courses that schools often use are not squeezed out by the baccalaureate, thus undermining so much of the good work in many of our schools.
Meg Munn (Sheffield, Heeley) (Lab/Co-op)
I worked in the child protection field for many years before entering the House, and I am chair of the all-party group on child protection, so I intend to confine my remarks to the parts of the Bill that affect the protection of children.
I welcome the fact that the Bill will not repeal the safeguarding duties on schools—the duty to protect and promote the welfare of children. I understand that that was considered, and I am glad, following pressure from organisations such as the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, supported by a number of hon. Members on both sides of the House, the Government recognised that it was a bad idea. It is vital that schools continue to be safe place in which children can learn and grow.
Schools have a moral duty to keep children safe, and it is often the teacher to whom a child first turns for help when he or she faces problems at home. In my experience, it was often someone at school—a class teacher or a school nurse—who identified children at risk and monitored the well-being of those considered to be at risk.
The Government say that they will remove duties and statutory guidance that create burdens for schools. A duty of child protection is not a burden but an expectation that parents and communities rightly have of schools. I am concerned about two measures in the Bill: the repeal of the requirement to give 24 hours’ notice of detention, and changes to the powers of teachers to search children.
Clause 5 amends section 92 of the Education Inspections Act 2006 by removing the requirement to give a parent or carer a minimum of 24 hours’ written notice that their child is required to attend detention outside normal school hours. That has been trumpeted by the Government as a major step that will help to revolutionise discipline in schools, but I believe that they are wrong. Since the Minister first spoke of such a measure in the Chamber, other hon. Members and I have raised the matter on a number of occasions and received unsatisfactory responses that show a staggering disregard for the safety of children.
When I wrote to the Secretary of State to set out my concerns, I received a reply from the Minister that did not even attempt to address the issues that I had raised. Unfortunately, there seems to be a great reluctance on the part of the Government to respond to child protection concerns. The Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Lynne Featherstone), cancelled a meeting with the all-party group on child protection at 24 hours’ notice only this week.
Significant research tells us that often, schools are unaware of the responsibilities of young carers.
Meg Munn
I shall make a little more progress.
Children and parents do not tell the school of young carers’ responsibilities for fear of unhelpful or unwanted interference. Those children may also struggle at school due to their caring responsibilities, and consequently may well receive detention. In such circumstances, they may face a dilemma. Do they collect a younger sibling from their school, or do they disobey the teacher? That could result in a younger brother or sister being left to wait alone, or they could decide to walk home on their own in the dark. Surely the Government should be reasonable. When the matter was last discussed—in Committee on the 2006 Act—the Liberal Democrat spokesperson said that the Liberal Democrats were
“not…in favour of removing the period of notice. It would be totally impractical.”
Meg Munn
I shall make some progress.
The Liberal Democrat spokesperson went on to say this:
“In rural areas, especially on dark evenings, parents would not know what had happened to their child and would be extremely concerned. It is perfectly acceptable to give 24 hours’ notice, as it will allow parents to make other arrangements for travel or to arrange for a neighbour or other family member to stay at home to provide cover. Anything else would be unacceptable.”—[Official Report, Standing Committee E, 10 May 2006; c. 856.]
That spokesperson is now the Minister of State, Department for Education, the hon. Member for Brent Central (Sarah Teather), and she carries the responsibility as Children’s Minister. She should hold to that position.
At the very least, if the 24-hours’ notice period is to be removed, why are the Government not inserting a requirement to notify parents and carers before a detention takes place? Many schools regularly text or e-mail parents and carers. If schools need to give more immediate detentions to bolster discipline, as the Government believe they do, that should not happen at the expense of children’s safety. Hon. Members should be able to agree that the safety of children comes first, so I ask the Minister to introduce an appropriate amendment in Committee.
Clause 2 specifically allows a teacher of the opposite gender to search a pupil in situations of urgency, and—crucially—when no other teacher is present. That raises a number of concerns, certainly in respect of the protection of children, but also because it creates risks for the teacher involved. The Children’s Rights Alliance is also alarmed by the relaxation of safeguards for children being searched.
My understanding is that such searches should happen only when a member of staff believes that there is a risk that serious harm will be caused if they do not conduct the search, and when it is not practicable for the search to be carried out by a member of staff of the same sex as the pupil, or for the search to be witnessed by another member of staff. Frankly, I am struggling to think of a scenario in which the search of a pupil by a member of staff of a different gender without witnesses would be the right thing to do. Obtaining the assistance of other staff members, or indeed contacting the police, would surely be the way to go.
Can the Minister explain how that power will make a positive difference in schools? It appears to many that introducing that power could open teachers to more allegations of inappropriate behaviour, not fewer. Organisations who work with children in care have raised concerns that children who have already been physically or sexually abused would experience such a search as yet further abuse. That could lead to further trauma for them, which is surely the last thing we want.
The Children’s Rights Alliance has other concerns. It believes that such searches constitute a significant intrusion into children’s privacy. Intrusions must be shown to be necessary and proportionate to be lawful. However, as well as giving extensive rights to search the individual child, the Bill enables staff to look through phones, laptops and other devices, and to delete information
“if the person thinks there is a good reason to do so”.
I am puzzled as to why that detail is in the Bill. Perhaps the Minister can address that. Surely such issues would more appropriately be dealt with in guidance, which can be reconsidered and amended if necessary.
We all want good discipline in schools. A school with good discipline allows children better to learn, but it is also a safer place for children. However, I ask the Government to look again at those two measures. It appears to me that they are posturing and talking tough. Schools should protect the most vulnerable children, such as young carers and children who have been abused, but the two measures risk doing the exact opposite. Please think again.
Annette Brooke (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (LD)
I share the aspirations and passion of the Secretary of State to improve standards for all our children and young people, and I welcome the proposals to improve discipline in our schools, to tackle bullying of all types and to protect teachers from false allegations. Of course I also feel that head teachers need the freedom to exercise their professional judgment.
The Bill contains some welcome proposals, and some others that merit close scrutiny at later stages. For me, the most important part of improving standards is investing in early years in order to get the foundations right. I hope that the commitment to, and funding for, free pre-school provision for disadvantaged two-year-olds will be welcomed across the House. Research shows that good quality early-childhood services have wide-ranging benefits for children, particularly disadvantaged children. That obviously helps disadvantaged children with their development, and speech and language skills, which are vital as they progress through later schooling.
In 2010, the latest findings from the effective provision of pre-school education research project were that children aged 11 still showed benefits from attendance at high quality pre-schools, which emphasises the importance of high quality provision. With the cutbacks, however, we have to keep the focus on driving up the quality of pre-school education. I also agree with Save the Children that local authorities should be asked to publish the proportion of free early places for disadvantaged two-year-olds taken up in good or outstanding settings.
I commend the Labour Government for achieving the universal free entitlement of up to 15 hours for three and four-year-olds, and for achieving that very high take-up. However, we still face the conflicting problems of cost, quality, quantity and sustainability—we will face those challenges throughout. It is important in early years to establish the joy of learning, so I hope that any reforms we make will encourage it throughout schooling—and through life, really.
I want to comment, however, on a few clauses that concern me and on which I would like reassurance. I am particularly concerned about the removal of the duty to co-operate with local authorities. I have been involved in many Bill Committees concerned with legislation for children and young people, and I have always felt that schools have to be included—I think that my coalition partners felt that too. I can understand that people might be concerned about unnecessary bureaucracy for schools and colleges, and I can see a case for reviewing how that provision is working in practice, but a repeal with no obvious measure to fill the gap concerns me greatly.
Like the hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Meg Munn), I am deeply concerned about child protection. When I read through a serious case review that went back some years, I noticed that spattered throughout were cases in which teachers had not reported incidents. I worry, therefore, about taking away that duty, about the possibility of child protection being overlooked and about teachers not taking on their full responsibilities. I am also concerned about removing the duty to co-operate in respect of looked-after children, young carers, children with parents in prison and children with special needs. How can we ensure co-operation between schools, local authorities and other vital services for our vulnerable young people without something being put in place? I hope that the Minister will tell us what that something is.
Annette Brooke
I am afraid that I do not have the hon. Lady’s professional knowledge, only that of the limited serious case reviews I have had the opportunity to see. It is vital that everybody concerned with children is looking out for their protection.
I am equally concerned about removing the requirement on maintained schools in England to have regard to the children and young people’s plans. Obviously, the provision for vulnerable children within the plans is really important. I have even greater concerns about special educational needs. The National Autistic Society points out that where services are not co-ordinated, children may undergo tens of assessments, and essential support can be delayed. Parents have reported the constant battles they face to get all the services that their children need. I believe that by working together we can reduce bureaucracy and costs, but I remain concerned about the removal of duties on schools to co-operate and to have regard to the children and young people’s plans.
During the passage of the Autism Act 2009, which was sponsored by the right hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs Gillan), and which I was pleased to support throughout, the previous Government committed themselves to ensuring that the needs of children with autism would be supported locally through children and young people’s plans. How will the Government ensure that these needs are recognised and met locally?
The shadow Secretary of State for Education challenged the belief of Liberal Democrats in local authorities. I believe strongly that local authorities should play an important strategic role in the provision of high quality education in their local areas, and that they should play a pivotal role in ensuring that other related services necessary for a child’s well-being work together effectively.
I am concerned not only about removing the duty to co-operate but about the abolition of admissions forums and the reduction in the role of the schools adjudicator. I welcome the extension of the adjudicator’s role to academies, but I think that the ability to look at a whole school admissions policy when responding to a particular complaint has brought many benefits. I would hope that we all want to promote fair admissions to schools, but I seek reassurance from the Minister: if we are to reduce the role of the adjudicator and get rid of admissions forums, how are we to monitor the situation and ensure that admissions policies are administered fairly at a local level? I sincerely seek answers from him, because these are important aspects of the Bill—they are important across the board for disadvantaged young people, children with special educational needs and looked-after children.
With those comments, I would like to emphasise that local authorities have a strategic role to play. I would not want to return to the old-style model for local authorities, but I do think that they have a role to play, and if we are to take away some of their powers, we need to know what will be put in their place.
Mr David Blunkett (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)
I say to the Secretary of State that on reflection nothing is ever quite as good or bad as we think it is: I was not as good a Secretary of State as I thought I was, and I have a feeling that the right hon. Gentleman is not quite as bad as I think he is—at least I hope he is not.
The Bill is a mixture of incrementalism, with which I agree, contradiction, with which I do not, historical misinterpretation, downright old-fashioned conservatism and, with the exception of the hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke), complete humiliation for the Liberal Democrats, who have been against most of the things in the Bill, but who now have to vote for it.
On incrementalism, as the Secretary of State managed to get across several times in his 52-minute speech, there is clearly much in the Bill with which the Labour party can agree and which in fact we put in place. However, there are major contradictions, one of which is that the more academies and free schools we have, the less the Secretary of State’s prescriptions on the curriculum, which he laid down this afternoon, will actually apply. In fact, I thought at one stage this afternoon that the Secretary of State was going to lay down a menu for all school meals that would have sweet and sour from Hong Kong, a little tortilla from Mexico and rolled herrings from Sweden, and would be dictated by the Secretary of State, so that nobody missed out on the five portions of fruit and veg required every day, because that is how he is coming across.
There has been a complete misunderstanding of the historic mission of providing diversity and flexibility. We would all agree on having the highest quality world-class headship and top-class teaching in the classroom, but the Secretary of State went into great detail this afternoon, picking out a bit of the curriculum here and a bit there from across the world, indicating that schools would have to teach certain things to reach a particular configuration—an indigestible menu that will in fact not be manageable by most schools. I therefore ask the Secretary of State to think again. He should by all means build on the progress that has been made, learn from the mistakes that we made and transfer genuine power to heads and teachers, but he should not pretend that he is doing that when he is doing exactly the opposite.
Another contradiction that I have noticed over the past few days is the way in which the Prime Minister has indicated that we should have a sense of identity inculcated in our schooling system and our society. I do not disagree with that—indeed, I have put that in place on a number of occasions, both in education and at the Home Office—but we cannot have that at the same time as seeking to abolish citizenship from the curriculum. If we really want to ensure that we have a sense of belonging and mutuality together, and that we understand our history, we need more than simply the teaching of historical figures, so that we can understand how our world works and how people find their place in it.
Above all, my worry about this Bill is the sheer politicisation involved. The power placed in the hands of the Secretary of State, with the abolition of the Qualifications and Curriculum Development Agency, is a worrying factor. Let us just imagine for a moment what our media, including our beloved BBC, would have done if we had abolished the QCDA and the Training and Development Agency, and placed their powers directly in the hands of a Labour Secretary of State. It would have been on the “Today” programme every morning, with somebody, probably from Real Education—it would probably have been the former inspector, Chris Woodhead—parading themselves, saying what a dastardly thing it all was, yet here we have a Conservative Secretary of State politicising the education curriculum and the education service.
This is not just about central administration; it is about an hegemony that can be seen throughout, with the politicisation of our life more generally. In each area—it is most heavily writ large in the case of the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, matched only by the current Secretary of State for Education—the parade is of freedom and localism, while the measures are about centralisation and diktat, and this goes right across the board. I fear that as the Government preach freedom, they take away the rights, as has already been described, of those who should be driving the system, namely the parents of the children concerned. Taking away rights in respect of the adjudicator and sheer fairness, as well as the right to have one’s voice heard and to get redress, will lead either to the courts or to complete disillusionment. Either way, that is a bad outcome for the education system.
As we are dealing with a Bill that includes a real rate of interest for students under the new fees system, which will create difficulties and have a dangerous impact on access, it is worth reflecting on the fact that Cambridge university has today announced that it will be charging the full £9,000 fee, because it believes that the demolition of the contribution from the Government—the taxpayer—towards teaching makes it impossible to do otherwise. The whole Bill could have been about building on progress made, learning the lessons or drawing down on world-class experience; instead, it is about—
Mel Stride
The right hon. Gentleman refers to building on progress and mentions Cambridge. Does he feel that much progress was made when only 42 pupils who were on free school meals went to Oxford or Cambridge in the last year?
Mr Blunkett
I was about to say that the Bill is about those contradictions and a historical misinterpretation. What the hon. Gentleman might actually be arguing for is an increase in access and a transformation in how schools relate to Oxford and Cambridge. I was at Cambridge last week—it was the nearest thing to being at Cambridge that I have ever managed, unlike my right hon. Friend the Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham), the shadow Secretary of State. I was pleased to be there and to find not pomposity or exclusion but a desire—from the students at least—to reach out to try to persuade students and staff in schools across the country that their pupils could aspire to the best we have to offer. Incidentally, it is not always Oxford and Cambridge doing that; it is often our best universities and their departments across the country.
I want to give time to those who have not had the privilege that I have had of contributing to education debates over the years, but I appeal to the Secretary of State and his supporters please to not reinvent the wheel. We do not need what the Business Secretary described as the perpetual Maoist revolution; instead, we can come together on sensible ways of improving the life chances of our children.
Mr Rob Wilson (Reading East) (Con)
I rise to support the broad thrust of the Bill. It is unlikely to be remembered as one of the great education reform Bills—such as, arguably, the Bills of 1988 and 1944—but the sum of this Bill is probably much greater than its parts; and, if we add the changes that have already been pushed through in the Academies Act 2010, it is likely that this Government will have a claim to be remembered as a really radical reformer of education. For all the arguments that we have heard—and will hear again—against this Bill, few would disagree with the broad principles that lie behind it. Those principles are about devolving power down to schools; ensuring that exams reach the highest possible standards internationally; improving social mobility; and reducing the bureaucratic burden on schools, allowing the quality of teaching and leadership to flower, which, as Baroness Morgan, the new chair of Ofsted, has said, is the bedrock of any successful school.
Crucially for me, what this Bill has at its core is support for teachers. I particularly welcome the measures aimed at strengthening the power of teachers to maintain school discipline. We all know how one badly behaved child can threaten the prospects of all the pupils in a class if they are not dealt with firmly and quickly. The national statistics are quite shocking. Every day, nearly 1,000 children are excluded from school for abuse or assault against staff or fellow pupils. Major assaults on staff have reached a five-year high. Good teachers are leaving the profession because of bad behaviour, while talented graduates are discouraged from coming into teaching owing to fears for their safety. Across Reading in 2008-09, we had 390 suspensions for assaults and abuse, which is equivalent to two exclusions for every school day in the last recorded year. Why should we expect teachers to put up with that? We would not expect any other profession to put up with such violence.
Put simply, the substantial improvement in pupil attainment that all Members across this House wish to see will not be possible unless we give schools all the help that we can to set and maintain school discipline. Rules imposed by the previous, Labour Government deliberately made it more difficult for schools to expel pupils, undermining the authority of head teachers. By contrast, the measures in this Bill will ensure that we get adult authority back into schools. The fact that exclusion review panels will no longer be able to enforce the reinstatement of disruptive pupils will help to set boundaries for acceptable behaviour and ensure that teachers are not second-guessed all the time. The new powers on detentions and searching for items banned under school rules will help to give the necessary legal backing to enforce school rules whenever that is needed.
Pupils go to school to learn. That must be our message to parents, pupils and teachers. I am confident that the long-overdue measures in the Bill will considerably reinforce teachers’ authority in schools. But action on discipline on its own will not be enough to drive the vast improvement that we need to see in England’s schools. The latest OECD report, the “Programme for International Student Assessment”, made it clear that, under Labour, schools in England plummeted down the international league tables. As we have heard from the Secretary of State, we went from seventh to 25th in reading, from eighth to 28th in maths and from fourth to 16th in science.
This trend is deeply worrying for our economic future. Reading was recently named in Centre for Cities’ “Cities Outlook 2011” as one of the five cities best placed for a private sector-led recovery. Among the major local employers are international companies that require a highly skilled work force. In information technology, for example, Microsoft, Oracle, Cisco and Symantec all have important headquarters in Reading. To ensure that those employers continue to feel that Britain is the best place in which to run major parts of their operations and to enable them to draw on the skilled work force that they need, we must take every possible step to ensure that we reverse the decline, relative to other countries, and strive to get to the top once again. To do anything else would be to sell future generations short.
I welcome the provisions in the Bill that will require Ofqual to compare standards in England with others internationally. I also welcome the proposals to give the Government the power to require schools to make themselves accountable to international surveys.
Mr Graham Stuart
My hon. Friend is making a powerful case. Does he agree that big international companies such as Microsoft need not only excellent PhDs but first-class technicians to support the work that they do?
Mr Wilson
I thank the Select Committee Chairman for his question. Of course technical skills will be important, and I hope that university technical colleges will play an important role in that regard. I shall return to that point in a minute.
Rigour is absolutely essential, but we must not lose sight of the fact that not every pupil is right for university and the academic route. There has been a danger in recent weeks that all the emphasis might be placed on academic subjects and academic achievement. I have no doubt that that emphasis might be necessary temporarily while we are changing the prevailing philosophy that has surrounded education over the past decade, and, yes, we need academic rigour, but we also need alternative, equally valid and equally celebrated pathways in education. However, this should not come down to pushing some young people towards easier subjects, which is what the previous Government did. We have to find different ways of teaching and learning. I am looking forward to the findings of the review on vocational qualifications that is being led by the excellent Professor Alison Wolf. Unfortunately, they were not available in time for this debate, which was disappointing.
I welcome the Government’s support for initiatives such as university technical colleges under the academies and free schools programme. UTCs, as championed by the endlessly energetic Lord Baker and the Baker Dearing Educational Trust, offer 14 to 19-year-olds the opportunity to take a highly regarded, technically oriented course of study at a specialist college that is equipped to the highest standards. Those colleges specialise in subjects that require particular, modern equipment, and local employers, large and small, are asked to help to shape the specialist curriculum. The colleges offer a promising way of engaging young people through a different type of teaching, which is, as the name suggests, more technical in its orientation. They do not neglect the academic subjects, however, and they also help to ensure that local employers continue to have the skilled work force they need.
I welcome the priority given to academies in the establishment of new schools. This builds on the previous Government’s most successful reform programme, which in turn built on the success of city technology colleges. Academies are a proven success story, with their academic performance improving at almost twice the rate of other state schools. In 2009-10, the proportion of pupils in academies achieving the expected level at GCSE of five A* to C grades, including in English and maths, increased by 7.4 points on the previous year, compared with an increase of 4.1 points across all maintained schools. The OECD has concluded that
“in countries where schools have greater autonomy over what is taught and how students are assessed, students tend to perform better”.
Labour Members might not like the reforms, but teachers and parents in my constituency do. Three schools in Reading have already become academies, and all the secondary schools there will probably have converted by the end of next year. The number of proposals for new free schools is rising at what the Secretary of State might regard as an alarming rate. There is clearly an appetite among parents and professionals for our policies. With the extra priority being given to academies in the Bill, Reading might finally be relieved of the absurd situation in which Reading children cross into neighbouring local authority areas in search of good schools while pupils from other local authorities cross into Reading to attend what are successful but almost regional grammar schools. The quality of schools should not depend on the local authority in which they are situated. The measures in the Bill will give head teachers more freedom to determine what goes on in their schools and greater powers to drive improvement, wherever they might be. As such, I welcome these measures as a step in the right direction.
Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)
This Bill fails our children and young people. In spite of what the Secretary of State claims, many of its measures are grossly unfair, and I will not support it. It is full of rhetoric promising to devolve power to families and professionals, but the reality is quite different, with many parts of the Bill actually centralising power. As we have already heard, it will make it impossible for parents to challenge decisions about admissions, as well as limiting the choice of subjects that teachers can offer their students and denying communities the opportunities that can be gained by schools working together in partnership.
From early-years provision to students aspiring to higher education, the Bill restricts educational opportunity. With one hand, it extends free entitlement for early education and child care, which I support, yet with the other it removes the need for local authorities to ensure that there is enough quality child care available in their area. The Bill proposes to allow maintained nursery schools and classes to charge for any early-years provision above the 15-hour entitlement. That, in conjunction with the early-years single funding formula that will come into force in April, will have a devastating impact on settings that currently provide free full-time places for disadvantaged children.
More than 3,500 Sure Start children’s centres were opened under Labour, offering a range of early-years, health and parental support services to more than 2.5 million children and their families. Yesterday, we heard the Minister of State, Department for Education, the hon. Member for Brent Central (Sarah Teather) edge her way round the question of whether Sure Start children’s centres would continue to remain open and to offer every child the best start in life, or whether hundreds would close, as the survey carried out by 4Children and the Daycare Trust predicts. In my constituency, Sure Start workers are already being made redundant. It is no good saying that early-years education is important, only to take away the funding so that parents cannot access it.
The damage that will be done to early-years education by cutting the grants for Sure Start is just the start; every parent worries about getting their child into the school of their choice. Yet these proposals will make it harder, not easier, for parents to choose what is right for their child, as free schools and academies squeeze money out of the funding for schools in their area. Similarly, the proposals on admissions will mean that parents will struggle to fight for what their child needs. Clause 34 removes the requirement for local authorities to establish an admission forum.
Even if a child can get into the school that the parents want, the way in which the Secretary of State is narrowing the national curriculum will make it harder for children to achieve. He claims that he wants to consult parents and teachers on what should be taught, but by limiting the English baccalaureate he seems already to have made up his mind that it should be quite restrictive. How can I say to a young person from my constituency that it is more important for them to learn Latin than to be able to use a computer, especially when 10% of our gross domestic product is generated from the online economy? That simply does not make sense.
With the axing of Building Schools for the Future and the promise that it gave to every child, including those in my constituency, of the learning environment that they need to succeed, it is most worrying that the Bill still fails to define the capital funding that will be available for free schools and academies. The so-called academy conversions are another example of co-operation and partnership working between schools being undermined by this Government, with federated schools being able to apply to become an academy without any discussion with other schools.
My final point relates to part 8 on student finance, which my right hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Mr Blunkett) mentioned. This is like the small print of a dodgy contract: it is almost hidden, yet it proposes to remove the cap on student loan interest rates. In effect, this will allow profit to be made out of student debt. With the trebling of tuition fees, this is another example of the Government’s unfairness, kicking away the ladders of opportunity from our most disadvantaged young people.
Stephen McPartland (Stevenage) (Con)
I am grateful for the opportunity to contribute to this important education debate. My wife is a primary school teacher; my sister is a secondary school teacher; and my mother-in-law devoted her career to primary school children with special educational needs. I understand the challenges that many teachers in the school system face daily. However, that understanding does not give me the right to tell teachers how to do their jobs. That is why this Bill is so important. It gives power back to teachers and head teachers to take the decisions on how to deliver the best education for the children in their classrooms.
Everybody remembers a good teacher, and every teacher wants to see their class grow up, develop and get the best possible start in life. Teachers love to excite and inspire children to learn so that they can enjoy a journey of lifelong learning from the primary school classroom to the boardroom. Unfortunately, many children are left behind. The highest early-year achievers from deprived backgrounds are overtaken by lower-achieving children from advantaged backgrounds by the age of seven—and the gap gets larger as the poorer students get older. For example, the primary school in my constituency with 40% of children on free school meals has only 64% achieving level 4 at key stage 2, when they are 10 or 11. The primary school in my constituency with only 4% of children on free school meals has 90% achieving level 4 at key stage 2. It is unacceptable that children from poorer backgrounds are allowed to fall further behind year after year.
A good education is the best route out of poverty. I fully support the Bill’s provisions to introduce free early-years learning for disadvantaged two-year-olds and the pupil premium. These massive investments in the poorest children in our society will help spread fairness throughout our education system and lift children out of poverty. UNICEF currently ranks the UK as 13th out of 24 OECD countries for educational inequality, but it is not possible to lift children out of poverty if we measure only poverty of income. Poverty of education is an equally important factor, as it leads to a poverty of opportunity and aspiration in later life.
Before I briefly mention some of the opportunities provided by the Bill to transform educational achievement in Stevenage, I would like to make three quick points, to which I hope Ministers will be able to respond—in a little more detail, of course, in Committee. First, I fully support the introduction of a reading test for all six-year-olds so that parents know how their child is doing. However, I ask that an element of comprehension be included in this test. Many children and adults—including myself on many occasions—can often read a word, but without fully understanding its meaning, so they cannot use it correctly in a sentence. A little reassurance that the new reading test will have an element to demonstrate that children understand the meaning of the words they are reading would be welcome.
Secondly, many hon. Members will speak on the huge benefits that children and schools will obtain by converting to academies. However, will the Minister consider providing a little more clarification for those education authorities concerned about their responsibilities for casual admissions throughout the school year?
My final query is whether the pupil premium will be available to children currently in care. One of the saddest facts that I am aware of is that only 15% of children in care achieve five A to C grades at GCSE, compared with an average of 70% of all children in the UK.
I do not want to take up too much time, as many other Members want to contribute. In my final few minutes, however, I want to highlight some of the exciting developments taking place in Stevenage as a result of the freedoms that the Bill will give to schools. Plans to convert to academies are, of course, already under way. There are also discussions going on about the possibility of what we are calling an “educational village”—a school that provided full through-schooling for children from the age of four to 19. As one head teacher put it, it will allow for controlling the supply chain of the children coming through, so that the standards of the children are well known and can be developed. It should provide greater understanding of what the children are likely to achieve later in life.
My local college is looking at developing a vocational school for 14 to 19-year-olds, which is also called a university technical college. My constituency is also fortunate in having within it the headquarters of the Institution of Engineering and Technology, which I know is working with university technical colleges throughout the country to develop those schemes.
The most exciting prospect for me is that the Stevenage educational trust has been established this month. This is a charity set up by local head teachers, which is developing the idea of taking on the extended services that they consider important to educational provision in Stevenage. My ultimate aim for this charity—and, I hope, the aim of the head teachers—is that it will take over the responsibilities that will be devolved from the local education authority and allow solutions that are more focused on the needs of the children in a single town rather than across a widespread geographical area. It will be able to have an educational psychologist looking after the children in a particular small area rather than on a county basis.
Finally, I would like to end by quoting Patrick Marshall, the head teacher of Marriotts secondary school in Stevenage, who told me:
“The Government’s new reforms for education have meant that I have more freedom to target specific resources to the young people and families I know are in most need. My accountability is now transferred to my local community rather than centralised targets, which have in the past dictated the delivery of services at a local level”.
I very much look forward to voting for this Bill, which promises to lift educational attainment for the poorest children in my area.
Kate Hoey (Vauxhall) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to follow the measured speech of the hon. Member for Stevenage (Stephen McPartland). Let me say first that I support many aspects of the Bill and will not join my colleagues in opposing it tonight. A number of issues can be clarified and corrected in Committee. One important issue that I feel should be looked at again is the whole question of support staff, who are so important in any school. I am not sure that the issue has been looked at carefully enough. It is the sort of matter that should be probed in Committee.
I welcome the abolition of the Training and Development Agency and the General Teaching Council for England. I welcome the fact that we can finally get back to having a Secretary of State who has to take responsibility and has to be accountable to this Parliament for what happens in education. I also welcome the fact that the Bill makes it clear that trainee teachers who do not meet the required standards should face termination of employment. As I said earlier, for too long we have tolerated poor performance in the teaching profession and we have been afraid to be honest to those who simply are not good enough. For me, there is no more important profession than that of educating the next generation. We need to foster a culture of excellence, not of complacency. As many have pointed out, we would not tolerate a pilot who had a questionable record in flying and we would not go to a doctor who always gets a diagnosis wrong. Why, then, should we accept a teacher who we know does not deliver for her children?
There are many good schools in my constituency, but one in particular has always taken that sort of approach to teacher training—the Durand school, now the Durand academy. Durand spent years fighting the local authority, Lambeth council, because it refused to accept anything less than great teaching for its school. For more than 16 years, the school has had innovative social entrepreneurship under its belt, under the inspirational leadership of the executive head, Greg Martin and the head, Mark McLaughlin. It has gone from being a failing school to an outstanding one. It has built on-site accommodation for teachers who are new to London; it has a health club with special rates for parents; and it has truly self-helped.
Durand has been creative in showing how a school can use its property assets for social good, and I would encourage other schools to do the same. Through its own endeavours it bought 19 acres in Sussex, in the constituency of the hon. Member for Chichester (Mr Tyrie). It was formerly the site of a grade II listed private school and then a local education authority special school. It is the most amazing of locations, where Durand wants to open the first truly free-of-charge state boarding school, offering the best possible educational experience to inner-city teenagers.
The intake of the Durand primary school in Stockwell is extremely diverse: 95% of children come from black or ethnic minority backgrounds; more than 50% are on free school meals; and more than 40% live in overcrowded households. Despite those statistics, the quality of attainment, behaviour and attitude at the school is impeccable. It is an outstanding school, which has proved time and again that a low-income background need not mean low expectations for children. It is built on hugely important leadership.
Children leave Durand at the age of 11, and many subsequently fail to achieve five good GCSEs. Last year children leaving Durand were transferred to 20 different secondary schools, many outside the borough and many of poor quality. It is to be hoped that at the end of the current school year, if the right decisions are made and if the system proves successful, children will stay on in the middle school and, at the age of 13, will board between Monday morning and Friday afternoon. That will enable them to retain links with their community, and will allow their families—many of whom live in overcrowded accommodation—to see them receive the best possible education while also benefiting from the extra time that boarding schools provide for sport and the other extracurricular activities that are so rarely found in inner-city areas such as mine.
Parents want choice. They want the best, and they do not see why the best should be available, or offered, only to those who can pay or who come from the most affluent areas. That cannot be right. Labour Members need to be honest. For a long time we have espoused the benefits of academies as one part of a broad system of education. Academy status has given proven successful schools such as Durand the freedom that they need in order to develop education and tailor it in accordance with their intake, helping each and every child to reach its full potential. Parents want those options: they recognise that one size does not fit all, and that local authorities do not have all the answers. There have been many struggles involving my local authority, which wanted to impose a straitjacket on its schools to ensure that they were all the same.
As a former grammar school girl, I feel strongly that my party must not lose ownership of aspiration. In the past month, my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg) hosted an event in the House on behalf of Progress, which reached the same conclusion. For a number of years many of my hon. Friends supported the views of Lord Adonis of Camden Town, and we are familiar with his views on much of the Bill. My constituent Katharine Birbalsingh—who may be better known for speaking at a Conservative party conference but who is a brilliant teacher, as will be clear to anyone who meets and talks to her—has shown the same willingness to believe that every child can aspire to and, indeed, reach the top. I am proud that she is my constituent, because what she says and writes is based entirely on the reality of what is happening in many inner-city schools.
We must be honest, and reflect the views of all involved in education and teaching rather than just those of the unions. Theirs is an important voice, but it is not the only one. I want us to speak for the family of the child from Myatt’s Fields estate in Stockwell who wants to reach for the stars—for the family who want for their child the options that are available to a child from the richest family in the land. I want us to speak up for the silent majority, who are often without a voice.
If the Education Bill helps schools like Durand which pride themselves on great teaching to become a model for others to follow, I welcome it; if the Education Bill helps schools like Durand which insist on good discipline to enforce that discipline, I welcome it; and if the Education Bill helps schools like Durand which want to open a new secondary state boarding school for disadvantaged children to deliver that, I welcome it, and urge its adoption.
Jessica Lee (Erewash) (Con)
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for inviting me to speak in this important debate. I shall speak as briefly as possible so that others can contribute, but, if time allows, I shall touch on the subjects of early-years provision, academies and apprenticeships.
Why is early-years provision so important at this time? In my view it is a critical element in the Bill, because evidence increasingly suggests that it will become more crucial than ever in determining outcomes. A couple of weeks ago, in a debate initiated by Government Members—in the context of reports presented by the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field) and the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen)—the House benefited from speeches that demonstrated a wealth of experience in relation to early-years provision and early intervention in particular.
I believe that in providing 15 hours a week for disadvantaged children, the Government are taking a stand and making an active contribution. As a child protection lawyer, I encountered many cases whose outcomes jeopardised children and put them at risk. The situation was very delicate in such cases, and a central issue was what would happen to the children during those early years. Problems arose in relation to young children’s attachments to carers and other adults, which, in my view, were likely to determine their long-term educational and socio-economic prospects. I applaud that aspect of the Bill, and was reassured to hear from the right hon. Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham) that the Opposition supported it.
The provisions for academies, which amend provisions in the Academies Act 2010, offer some schools an exciting and positive future. They may not be appropriate for every school in Erewash, but we are fortunate in that three of our schools are seeking academy status and in each I see strong leadership, committed governors, and members of a school unit working to achieve better outcomes for children not just in their own schools, but in all the schools in their community.
Andrew Percy
My hon. Friend has made an important point in saying that such provision is not appropriate in all circumstances. Does she agree that when a school has made a decision either to become an academy or not to do so, we should support that decision and support the school’s governors? On the front page of a local paper in my constituency, a Labour councillor in Goole was quoted as saying that a school that had decided to become an academy would not take children from council estates.
Jessica Lee
I agree with my hon. Friend—of course we should support a school that makes that important decision, if it is right for the school. As I have said, I have seen great leadership from head teachers throughout my constituency who, having made their decision, have worked to gain the support of the whole school unit: parents, governors and the local community.
At Long Eaton school, which has perhaps travelled furthest towards achieving academy status, I have seen leadership and encouragement on the part of the head teacher and staff. I have been concerned by the distribution by trade unions of leaflets containing scare stories and negative comments about what the school has been trying to achieve, but I believe that their efforts have been unsuccessful. Now the scare stories have started again in regard to Bennerley school in Ilkeston, and I support the actions of the head teacher, the staff, the pupils and the school community in standing firm. If their decision is right for them, they should not be bullied by unions or anyone else.
I want to mention a third school, Kirk Hallam community technology and sports college. It is also in Ilkeston, in a more socially and economically deprived part of my constituency. For decades, it did not receive the investment and attention it deserved—and it has to be said that Derbyshire county council was Labour-controlled for 28 years. I am now asking, very clearly and vocally, for a level of support and investment in Erewash from the county council and the local council that it did not have in the past.
My constituency has a proud history of manufacturing, furniture making, engineering and high-tech companies, many of which have taken on apprenticeships over the years. Apprenticeships is a topic that comes up at every meeting of the Erewash Partnership, the local business partnership in which I play a role. There is a real thirst for apprenticeships, and enthusiasm for what the Government are doing to back them. I was interested to learn that 190 different types of apprenticeship can be taken, which is more than I thought. Giving young people this opportunity and variety for their future is extremely important.
The Bill emphasises prioritising funding for young people who have already secured an apprenticeship. That is important, as it will allow us to move forward both with the commitment to have more apprenticeships—which is, of course, the right thing to do—and with making sure the practical steps are in place so that that can be achieved.
I will vote with enthusiasm for the Bill. This is a positive day for young people in this country. I think that taking this step will enable us to go forward, and I hope we get as much cross-party support as possible in order to bring all these positive ideas to fruition.
Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)
This Bill is part of a Government strategy to turn away from the direction in developing education that the previous Government took. The previous Government’s system was founded on the principle of the equal opportunity to succeed—that is rooted in the comprehensive system—which focused on supporting failing schools in deprived areas and providing some choice and flexibility. It achieved remarkable success in GCSE results and standards.
The current Government want to shift resources—in an economic climate in which ever fewer resources are available—from the most deprived areas to those already achieving or to new schools in middle-class areas. In addition, their system will centralise power in the hands of the Secretary of State sitting in Whitehall to make decisions over the future of schools he has never seen or will never care to visit. It will undermine communities and their power to influence local intervention in schools via their democratically elected councils, and replace parent choice with head teacher choice as schools achieve growing power over selection and there is shrinking accountability to parents.
Meanwhile, the ability to plan for aggregate levels of special educational needs in an area will be undermined as that will be unknown, when what we need is, for example, the screening of all two-year-olds for speech and language difficulties in order to assess the level of need and to target early so that the system is cost-effective. We have yet to see the plans for SEN as this Bill has been introduced ahead of them.
What we know instead is that schools in middle-class areas will be empowered to select parents who can make a donation to the school and to avoid pupils who might incur disproportionate costs as the system for appeal has been weakened. Unfortunately therefore, the marketised system that will emerge will naturally adjust to create sink schools, risking the creation of dumping grounds of socially and financially disadvantaged children.
The aggregate impact of these market forces will be for the school system to exaggerate and amplify social Darwinism, and to punish people for being poor by kicking away the ladder of opportunity so that society overall suffers by being less productive, more unequal and more divided. When Britain most needs a society that is strong and united, the Lib Dem-Tories are unleashing market forces in education that will create an England that is weak and divided.
Alongside this, the Sure Start infrastructure for early intervention is being systematically cut so pupils from less well-off backgrounds will enter a worse school, worse prepared. Meanwhile, in sharp contrast, across the border in Wales, despite the Lib Dem-Tory bid to reduce the financial bloodstream to the comprehensive education system, the flame of hope for fair and equal education still burns bright. Fortunately, as NHS spending is not ring-fenced in Wales and the £3 billion cost of restructuring the NHS in England will not be wasted in Wales, we will have money to invest in education and to give all our children—not just the few—the life chances they deserve, with local authorities charged with streamlined strategic responsibilities to ensure holistic success and efficiency, with schools accountable and with a refreshed focus on leadership achievements and transparency, and with a new commitment to ensuring money meant for schools is spent on schools and not for other purposes.
The appalling waste we will see in England, of letting poorer schools go to the wall and fail and close, will still be avoided in Wales by early intervention that is locally driven, and with parents empowered through local democracy, not threatened by the distant foreign voice of Whitehall muttering the drumbeat of a one-size-fits-all curriculum. Local head teachers will not be given a free rein to run schools without parent power or be forced to stick to the new Tory curriculum diet of Billy-Bunter Britain that is being prescribed. In England, in education as in the NHS, we see the arrival of a market-led system, the withdrawal of democracy, and the distant diktat of the Secretary of State, with unaccountable schools competing to attract the most well-heeled parents and the least expensive children, who will be fed an intellectually grey diet that may keep them above their neighbours locally but will relegate them below their neighbours internationally.
This ill-thought-out patchwork of measures threatens to cast the children of England adrift from the firm anchorage of hope and opportunity to float into the uncertain and treacherous waters of growing inequality and underachievement. The Bill is a rag-bag of right-wing ideas dreamt up in haste, and threatens to undermine the future of a united and prosperous England. It is incomplete both in terms of SEN and apprenticeship provision, and it fails to acknowledge the withdrawal of support from Sure Start and will lead to us ending up with a two-tier system in respect of local authority access. All this underlines the case for Wales to avoid importing this half-baked Tory-Lib Dem plan for ruining education. Thankfully, the only good aspect of it is that it will encourage the people of Wales to vote Labour this May.
Dan Rogerson (North Cornwall) (LD)
It is a pleasure to follow such a vivid speech, describing—[Interruption.] Well, it contained a lot of imagery, but it described an outcome that I do not think many people outside this House who commented on the Bill will recognise. There are undoubtedly concerns and areas that require clarification, but while the language of the hon. Member for Swansea West (Geraint Davies) was very colourful, it was, perhaps, not entirely accurate. We will look back in a few years and see whether the vision he set out has come to pass. The hon. Gentleman’s party colleague, the hon. Member for Vauxhall (Kate Hoey), had a more generous view of both the intentions behind the Bill and the outcomes its provisions might produce.
I join other Members in welcoming the addition to the Bill of a commitment to extending early-years provision for those from disadvantaged backgrounds. That will have a huge impact. It will be tied to the pupil premium, which was a Liberal Democrat commitment. I greatly welcome the fact that the coalition is focusing on trying to raise the attainment of those from disadvantaged backgrounds, as the Secretary of State set out. I also hope that this encouragement to drive up the take-up of places in early-years education will lead to more investment and therefore greater provision as well. Other hon. Members have mentioned training and, by setting out greater investment in that sector, we hope to encourage more people to participate in delivering it and to improve it.
The issue of bureaucracy has been raised. The hon. Member for Stevenage (Stephen McPartland), who is no longer in his place, started his speech by stating his family’s educational credentials. Unlike some hon. Members, I have never been a teacher, but both my parents were teachers and my wife is a teacher. I did work for a while in a teacher training college and I have been a school governor, so I have seen close up the reams of guidance and prescription issued by the Department under the previous Government. Therefore, I very much welcome the fact that at last we have a Bill that puts at its heart cutting aside a lot of that and allowing schools to get on with teaching, because that is what teachers want to do.
The Government have already addressed issues such as financial management in schools and the self-assessment documentation, and in this Bill we are looking at the school profile. Those measures together deal with a huge amount of the reading through that has to be done. They also address the quantity of work that head teachers, governors and staff have to do to send back pieces of paper or to hang on to filing cabinets full of paper that do not achieve a huge amount—or a proportionate amount, given the time involved in doing that work—for the pupils in their school or for the wider community.
The Bill also seeks to abolish some organisations; we have heard a little today about the General Teaching Council, the Training and Development Agency for Schools and the Qualifications and Curriculum Development Agency. The Young People’s Learning Agency could have been mentioned too. Those organisations have undoubtedly performed a role, but it is right for the Government to challenge how effective they have been in discharging their roles. If it is at all possible, it is right to do that work far more efficiently.
The hon. Member for Vauxhall talked about accountability, which is also important. She made a good point, because I recall discussions about the Bill that set up the Infrastructure Planning Commission and I felt that it was all about taking tricky decisions away from the Secretary of State and giving them to an unelected body to consider. So I very much welcome the decisions that this Government have taken across their legislation to ensure that Government accountability is included and that the buck stops with them.
My hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke) made an excellent and measured contribution, in which she rightly set out some questions for the Government. She also mentioned bullying, which has been mentioned by all parties in election manifestos and so on. It is therefore welcome that the Government are dealing with discipline and are tackling bullying, so that teachers can feel confident that they will be supported when they try to intervene to ensure that they get the discipline that they want in their classes and so that parents can be reassured too.
The speech made by the right hon. Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham) laid into the issue of apprenticeships. He tried to pretend that the approach that had been adopted towards the end of the previous Parliament was going to deliver a huge number of apprenticeships. A responsibility had been placed to deliver those places, but we need employers to come forward with them. There is far more clarity in our arrangement because the funding and support is in place, and it is then up to people to get out and secure those places locally.
My questions for the Minister focus on school governance. We need to explore in greater detail the proposals for governing bodies to alter their own structures and remove some categories of governor. I have concerns about that with regard to local authority governors and staff governors, so I hope that we can hear more justification of that proposal.
The Association of School and College Leaders has said that it welcomes the exclusions proposals that will ensure that teachers will able to take action to remove pupils who are having a disruptive effect on their classmates. However, we must make sure that safeguards are in place. The Minister may correct me if I am wrong here, but I believe that the Bill provides that decisions on exclusions must recognise the position of children with special educational needs, particularly those who have autism. Could similar sorts of rights be put in place for looked-after children too, given the pressures that they are under and the disruptions that life has inflicted on them?
The measures on providing an independent careers service are also welcome. They will allow people to be confident that the advice being given is in the best interests of the young person. In most cases, it has been, but we have all heard examples of people being pushed to stay on at a particular school in the interests of the school, rather than the young person. The independence contained in the measures is good, but I hope that the Government will be considering transition arrangements to ensure that as we move to the new system, the experience that has been gained in providing careers advice will not be lost.
Dan Rogerson
In conclusion, we need to explore a number of questions in Committee and on Report that have been raised by hon. Members. I welcome the comments of those who have said that by giving the Bill a Second Reading we can develop and make progress on a number of aspects, such as early-years provision, apprenticeships and giving teachers and schools the room to get on with teaching, which is what they want to do.
Catherine McKinnell (Newcastle upon Tyne North) (Lab)
It may not surprise many right hon. and hon. Members to learn that I want to discuss part 7 of the Bill, which covers post-16 education and training. More specifically, I want to discuss clause 65 on “The apprenticeship offer”. This is particularly appropriate given that we are in national apprenticeship week, as the shadow Secretary of State said. I am pleased to see that the Minister for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning and his shadow counterpart are in their places.
I have been a passionate campaigner on the importance of apprenticeships for both businesses and workers, and for the economy and for wider society. They provide a structured career path for young and old people alike, while helping to develop the skills that UK plc will need if it is going to compete effectively on the global scale. It is for that reason that I introduced my Apprenticeships and Skills (Public Procurement Contracts) Bill, which seeks to increase the number of apprenticeship places available across the country by introducing a requirement that when awarding large contracts all public authorities must ensure that successful bidders demonstrate a firm commitment to providing skills training, wherever possible and appropriate, and, crucially, apprenticeship places.
I am delighted that my Bill is to have its Second Reading debate this Friday, during national apprenticeships week, and that it has garnered widespread support from organisations such as the Federation of Small Businesses, the TUC, the North East chamber of commerce, Unison, Unite, the Union of Construction, Allied Trades and Technicians, the Association of Colleges, the Federation of Master Builders, the Electrical Contractors Association and the GMB, and indeed from the former Government enterprise champion, Lord Sugar, to name but a few. It is a simple measure that will help to increase the number of apprenticeships available. It will ensure that employers do their bit and are on an equal footing when bidding for public contracts as the Bill will reward those with good practice and encourage the others to do more. I therefore urge the Government to do all they can to secure the Bill’s passage through the House or to take on the ideas and proposals in their own policies.
I was also delighted to welcome my own 16-year-old apprentice to her first day in my Newcastle office. Charlene Curry, a business administration apprentice from Newbiggin Hall, in my constituency, has been placed in my office by the excellent North East Apprenticeship Company, which works hard on a not-for-profit basis to marry businesses with willing apprentices, with great success. I wish to take this opportunity to urge all right hon. and hon. Members to make every effort to accommodate an apprentice in their office, if they have the ability to do so.
At this stage, it is useful to take stock and acknowledge that the previous Labour Government had a clear, unwavering commitment to boosting and expanding apprenticeships. As I have said, this is national apprenticeship week, which the previous Government launched in 2008 to celebrate and promote the important role that apprenticeships play. Under Labour, the apprenticeship system was lifted from its knees by a Government who invested money, status and opportunities in apprenticeships for young and older people alike.
In 1996-97, the final year of the previous Tory Government, only 65,000 people started an apprenticeship. By 2009-10, that figure had risen to almost 280,000, a massive and highly commendable increase which comfortably exceeded Labour’s original target of 250,000 starts.
Catherine McKinnell
I was about to pay tribute to the Minister’s efforts in that regard, but he can intervene later if I do not cover the matter sufficiently.
Labour increased the number of apprenticeship starts from the planned 200,000 to 279,000 in the final year alone, an increase which contrasts with the current Government’s ambition of funding an extra 50,000, 75,000 or 100,000 apprenticeship places over the next four years—an announcement was made yesterday, and I hope that the figure keeps rising. Either way, the target is unambitious over four years when we consider demand and the obstacles that young people now face in trying to stay on at school or carry on to higher education.
Labour’s commitment to expanding apprenticeships included the introduction of a statutory apprenticeship offer as part of the Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Act 2009, which required the Skills Funding Agency to secure an apprenticeship place for all suitably qualified 16 to 18-year-olds by 2013. Part 7 of the Bill seeks to repeal that duty and replace it with a requirement to fund apprenticeship training for those people who have already secured an apprenticeship place. I do not doubt that the Minister for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning shares my passion for promoting the importance of apprenticeships, but I am concerned about the signal that that repeal will send out. Should we not be encouraging all young people to think that an apprenticeship is at least an option for them?
Yesterday, City and Guilds published the results of a study showing that employers actually find apprentices to be more valuable than graduates. What impact does the Minister believe that taking away the guarantee of an apprenticeship will have on the number of young people seeking and successfully acquiring apprenticeship places, particularly among those from disadvantaged backgrounds?
Mr Hayes
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for giving way, because I know that time is short. I have three points. First, we warmly welcome her attempts to link procurement and apprenticeships. Regardless of whether we can support the Apprenticeships and Skills (Public Procurement Contracts) Bill, we will take action to support the intentions behind it. Secondly, on the numbers, we will grow apprenticeships on the back of the progress that Labour made, which I acknowledge, to an unprecedented level—we have put the funding in place for at least 105,000 more apprenticeships. Thirdly, we have changed the offer because we want to ensure that everyone who secures an apprenticeship place with an employer is funded. That is my commitment to the House tonight, which is reinforced in the legislation.
Catherine McKinnell
I thank the Minister for his response to those queries.
At a time when we are facing the highest recorded level of youth unemployment, with one fifth of young people out of work nationally, rising to one third in the north-east, should we not be putting every measure in place to ensure that our young people have the opportunities to gain skills and qualifications? It is creditable that the Minister has managed to secure funding for an additional 30,000 apprenticeship places for 16 to 18-year-olds, but does he genuinely believe that those extra places will even come close to meeting demand?
Recently published figures show that BT received 24,000 applications for only 400 places on its apprenticeship programme this year. PricewaterhouseCoopers has reported that applications to its school leavers entry scheme doubled to 800 in the past two years, while Network Rail has said that it received 4,000 entries for around 200 apprenticeship places this year. I would be grateful if the Minister took the opportunity provided by this debate and national apprenticeship week to clarify how removing the statutory guarantee will help the Government to increase the number of young people starting apprenticeships and the further measures that his Government intend to take to guarantee the expansion of both youth and adult apprenticeships across the UK.
Mr Andrew Turner (Isle of Wight) (Con)
One of the greatest failures of the previous Government, who started with great hope, was their failure to improve the performance of schools. We know that the performance of schools in international league tables, which is measured by the programme for international student assessment, fell from where we—the Conservatives—left it in 1997.
The Labour Government promised that their three main priorities in government would be “Education, education, education”. The aim was clearly for schools’ performance to get better and, more importantly, for schools to get better, but the problem was that performance was getting worse all the time. While Ministers here insisted all was well, every external audit proved the opposite.
Let me illustrate how well we were doing under Sir John Major’s Government and how much worse the statistics were by 2009. The first PISA assessment took place in 2000, three years after the Labour Government had won power. In it, the UK ranked seventh in reading, eighth in maths and fourth in science. In the 2009 assessment, the UK ranked 25th in reading, 28th in maths and 16th in science. I confess that there are many ways to read the statistics, as the PISA readings were collected over a long period and any one set of results used in the tables may have been taken over a period of five years, but the striking thing is that the United Kingdom was, using the average of the three results, in sixth place in 2000, and yet we were in 23rd place in 2009.
Opposition Members may argue about the finer details, but to any objective observer it is obvious that the UK has tumbled down the international league tables. Canada, New Zealand and Australia now occupy much higher positions, around sixth, seventh and ninth. Their positions are statistically significant above the OECD average. I would expect the United Kingdom to occupy a similar position, but we are ranked 23rd. We are only around average on the majority of indicators, although we are a little above average for science. The OECD says that average performance needs to be judged against a range of socio-economic indicators, most of which give the UK an advantage. The problem is not the money that we spend on education—only seven OECD countries spend more per student than the UK—but the way in which it is being spent. The best performing countries are China, South Korea, Finland and Hong Kong. The UK is now below Ireland and the United States, which, to make it clear, are pretty average.
To be fair, the problem was clear to us even in the 1980s, when from a good position we were starting to get worse. We needed to slow down that slide in performance, and there were two ways in which schools could improve. One was greater independence for all schools, which was called local management and which was reasonably successful in many areas. The other was giving schools greater freedom—grant-maintained schools. Seventeen schools became grant maintained in the first group in 1989. In 1994, 554 secondary schools—about 15% of the total—enjoyed the freedom to make the right decisions for their school and their pupils that grant-maintained status gave them. The results in those schools were well above average, and grant-maintained status did what needed to be done for individual schools in individual areas.
Finally, I draw hon. Members’ attention to small schools, which have also benefited from having more freedom. The smallest grant-maintained school was Kettleshulme in Cheshire: it had 12 pupils, but the number grew to 19 by the time it was grant-maintained. It was already a successful small school and after it achieved grant-maintained status it became very successful. The head teacher at that time was Allan Ramsdale-Capper, who is now one of my constituents. Let me take this opportunity to pay tribute to him and to all the other headmasters and mistresses of grant-maintained schools who have done so much to improve the education of their pupils. Large schools are often very good, but I want to make it clear that small ones are equally successful and that their position does not need a huge influx of money to keep them going. I believe that decisions are best made by parents, head teachers and governors. The OECD comments that
“the international achievement gap is imposing on the United Kingdom economy an invisible but recurring economic loss”.
That needs to be addressed urgently.
When grant-maintained schools were created in the ’90s, they were successful, and it was the freedoms they were given that made them so. I should like to say to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education that I am sure that free schools and academies will be successes given time, although they will not need that much time. They will be our successes and, most importantly, the successes of parents up and down the country.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
I think that all hon. Members who are interested in education struggle with the challenges of which we are all aware. We want every child in our country to fulfil their full potential and to garner from education the very best, from which many of us have benefited. I had a very happy educational experience and I wanted the same for my children and now for my growing number of grandchildren. We all want that, but the truth is that we are not doing well enough.
When Labour won the general election in 1997, I could not have been happier with the commitment of our young, new Prime Minister to education, education, education. I watched the performance of Labour Governments for 10 years as the Chair of the Select Committee on Education—indeed, it had three names in that time—and I saw them make tremendous efforts to raise standards and to innovate in order to do so. A great deal was achieved in that time through innovation, new ideas and confronting the truth that many of our young people had been given a pretty bad deal—and not only in the centres of great deprivation. When the Committee looked at Sure Start centres, we had to consider the fact that if one circles the areas of greatest poverty, one does not find the most children in poverty because most of them live outside those areas. That is why we had to have 3,500 children’s centres instead of the 500 originally envisaged. There is always this challenge of getting through to the most deprived families and constituents, and that is difficult for any Government.
I am going to be honest: much of the Bill could have come from the previous Labour Administration. I think some colleagues would agree with that. I shall not vote against its Second Reading because I want to make a plea. The longer I chaired the Select Committee, the more I realised that much of what really works comes when we have agreement across the House. One can see that from the history of educational progress in our country. It was true of the Education Act 1944, of the Callaghan speech that was taken up by Ken Baker and of later legislation.
We often throw across the Chamber allegations that the other side is being ideological— Government Members say it about the Opposition and vice versa—but I cannot find any ideology in this Bill. Indeed, if I were to vote against it, it would be because it is a bit of a mish-mash. There are some very good things in it, but there are other things that I do not really like and want to know much more about. I do not like the fact that the Government want to get rid of the Training and Development Agency for Schools, as that would be a retrograde step. I do not agree with what they have said about schools adjudicators or with giving parents less chance to challenge admissions policies and get them changed. The Select Committee worked very hard to persuade the former Government to change the powers of adjudicators and allow them to be called in more easily because we found that many schools, such as faith schools, were evading their responsibilities in terms of fairer admissions policies.
I want to be able to vote for the Bill and I am not going to vote against it today because I want to see whether we can improve it in Committee. However, I get very irritated when I hear about PISA studies and TIMSS—trends in international mathematics and science study—tables and about the OECD. I remember when the hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Mr Turner) and I went to Paris to talk to the OECD about the PISA study. The truth is that many such evaluations are quite flaky and have changed dramatically over the years. When I chaired the Select Committee I was constantly saying that I wanted our country to be compared with other countries such as ours—large, populous countries with high migration and high turnover in inner urban schools. The United States, Germany and France, and perhaps Italy and Spain, would be fairer comparisons for the UK. On that measure, our education system has improved dramatically in the past 13 years. I do not believe the PISA studies showing a cataclysmic decline: I do not believe that is true and I do not think that Ministers believe it either. Let us have some good sense.
When do we get good policy? As you will know from a previous incarnation, Madam Deputy Speaker, it is when it is based on evidence, good research and good experience in similar countries. It is not about pulling off what the Hong Kongs and Chinas of the world have done—or Alberta, which became a country earlier today. Let us learn from countries such as ours, but let us also have high-quality expertise and research. Too many Education Departments are not good enough and they should be better. There should be much more research on why we do not get better results.
Mr Sheerman
I take the point, but the basis of those tables has changed.
When all parties have concentrated on what works and on good research, we have come up with early-years education—children’s centres and Sure Start. I applaud the idea of reaching out to two-year-olds—the Government are right about that—but not in the context of changing the commitment to Sure Start children’s centres. That is good policy based on research and what is really happening.
What if we used the same holistic method as the Dutch to tackle those not in education, employment or training, and tied it to the welfare system? In Holland, people up to the age of 27 can get no welfare benefit unless they are in training and learning the Dutch language. Why not link welfare to training here? Why not make everyone on benefits do something to improve their training, skills and employability and to learn the English language?
One of the problems that we do not consider in this country is the effect on the ability of families to support their children in schools if they have no English language themselves, the television is on in the home language, and then we suffer deprivation in our inner cities. We see a new form of poverty, not the poverty that was found in the shipbuilding and mining areas. The new kind of poverty is based on high turnover. In schools in my inner town, 40% of the children in front of the school today will not be there next year. None of the political parties has examined the new poverty in sufficient detail and come up with policies to deal with it.
Too many people in education policy want to live in a mythical golden age that never existed, but also want some ideological determination of what happens. I was taught by Michael Oakeshott, the greatest Conservative philosopher of the 20th century, who believed in the pursuit of intimations. Education policy is best when we pursue the intimations, and very often when we do that across parties. I will not vote against Second Reading tonight.
Caroline Dinenage (Gosport) (Con)
I support the words of the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman), who made some excellent and even-handed points. No one will be surprised that I support the Bill, not least because it signals a shift of power away from bureaucrats and quangos and back towards those who run our schools.
For too long teachers and head teachers have been dictated to by Government and overloaded with complex bureaucracy and endless initiatives. How can it be that head teachers spend 15 hours a week on unnecessary paperwork—15 hours that do not raise a single teaching standard, improve a single result or support a single pupil?
I want to speak on one particular topic today—Ofsted. We must not undervalue Ofsted, for it does an important job in identifying the quality of schools and informing parents about the choices. However, we should be under no illusions that Ofsted is perfect. There are currently 27 separate headings under which schools are marked during inspections—27 headings, but, as one school told me, the inspectors did not speak to a single child during their visit.
Under the Bill, Ofsted inspections will focus on four key areas—the achievement of pupils, the quality of teaching, leadership and management, and the behaviour and safety of pupils at the school. In today’s society it is far too easy to judge a pupil by an exam result or a school by a rigid and complex Ofsted report. The results tell only a part, never the whole story.
Over the past few months, I have visited on average two schools a week. I have 39 schools in my constituency, so I still have a way to go. I am extremely fortunate that the diversity of my constituency gives me a good insight into the challenges that schools face. Not only do I have some schools in nice middle class areas, but I have others that are situated in areas with significant welfare dependency and high levels of multiple deprivation. In some of my schools well over half the children are on free school meals, more than 75% live with just one of their birth parents, and more than 10% are under child protection measures because of neglect or abuse.
Many children experience challenging home lives, sometimes with parents who have drug or alcohol problems or mental health issues. These kids, from an early age, have to get themselves up in the morning, feed themselves, dress themselves and get themselves to school, perhaps with a younger sibling, while their mum might still be in bed. For these children, school is their stability, their comfort zone, a safe haven where they know what to expect and what is expected of them, where they will be secure, nurtured, listened to and cared for, where their needs are put first.
The schools that take children from extremely vulnerable backgrounds often have to do much more than educate them. Often they have to heal them, deal with their issues and address their needs, and give them so much more than numeracy and literacy. Those that are doing this successfully are, to me, the very best schools and the very best teachers of all. The problem with the current system is that after this incredible level of achievement, they might still get only a satisfactory Ofsted report because they have not attained the same high level of results as schools in more affluent areas.
That must be incredibly demoralising for the amazing teachers and governors who pour so much of themselves into supporting the most vulnerable children. What incentive is there for more able teachers and heads to take jobs in the most challenging of schools, which should surely be the most rewarding of roles, when they know that all their effort could be seen as merely satisfactory?
Reforms to Ofsted inspections will help to prevent that. Of course grades and results are important, but there is hope that for the first time it will be more than the end result that is considered. It will be possible to achieve good Ofsted reports in certain circumstances by demonstrating the true progress that has been made, measuring achievement from where the school started, not just where it ends up. Ofsted must be more sophisticated in recognising the social justice agenda, not just performance levels.
In many schools, the move away from mainstream academic subjects such as modern languages could be laid partly at the door of Ofsted. The constant focus on performance levels and grades achieved, irrespective of the subject matter, means that curriculums have been altered to please Ofsted. In my constituency there are senior schools in which no one is studying a modern language, yet classes are crammed with pupils studying for a GCSE in dance. We will become a nation of people who can glide sure-footedly through the streets of the cities of the world, but unable to communicate with a soul who lives there.
The Bill removes the requirement for Ofsted to inspect every school, enabling more resources to be concentrated on the underperforming schools. This will lead to more targeted inspections, so schools in need of support will get the help that they require to progress and show that progress is being made. Above all, the Bill sends parents the message that allowing every child to flourish and be the very best that they can is at the heart of Government thinking. It sends heads the message that the Government prize educating more than ticking boxes and filling forms, and it sends teachers the message that the Government value teachers and understand that nothing is more important than attracting great people into teaching. That is why I will support the Bill.
Mrs Jenny Chapman (Darlington) (Lab)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Gosport (Caroline Dinenage) on her brief speech. I shall endeavour to be brief also. I was struck by the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman). I agreed with much of what he said.
I want to take colleagues on a journey to a not particularly closely examined part of the Bill, which deals with children’s trusts. Before I do that, I want to say something about social mobility. The Secretary of State often speaks about social mobility in a way that might lead people to think that he understood it. However, he refers only to statistics on free school meal take-up and admission to Oxford and Cambridge. In my constituency, Darlington, five or six years ago, there were one or two wards where a young woman of 18 or 19 would be more likely to be a mother than to be a student in higher education. I can report with great pride that that is no longer the case. Teenage pregnancies are reducing and participation in higher education in those wards is improving. That needs to be taken into account when we discuss social mobility in the House.
It is not right to portray Labour as the party that resists academies and is against them. Academies are a Labour initiative. [Interruption.] Alan Milburn, indeed. I am pleased that the remaining schools in my constituency that are not yet academies will become academies. I support them in that and I am pleased to see them aspiring to take that step.
Part 5 removes the duty on local authorities to establish children’s trusts. Let me remind the House of the origins of children’s trusts. In 2001 Lord Laming wrote a report commissioned by the former Secretary of State for Education, my right hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Mr Blunkett), and the former Secretary of State for Health, Alan Milburn. The report examined the murder of Victoria Climbié in north-west London. One of the key findings was that the various agencies that should have the safeguarding of children at the forefront of their minds were not able to protect that eight-year-old girl.
I quote from Lord Laming’s recommendations:
“Each local authority with social services responsibilities must establish a Committee of Members for Children and Families with lay members drawn from the management committees of each of the key services. This Committee must ensure the services to children and families are properly co-ordinated and that the inter-agency dimension of this work is being managed effectively.”
I do not think that anything that Lord Laming found in 2001 has changed. It is probably more important now that services are co-ordinated and integrated better than they were then.
The Children Act 2004 placed local authorities under a duty to make arrangements to co-operate and promote the safeguarding of children, including the sharing of resources, money and information. I am pleased that Darlington was an early adopter of the children’s trust model before it became a statutory requirement. The success from 2004 obviously differed between agency areas, which was partly because the model was optional and so some areas, such as Surrey, did not take up the recommendation as quickly as they might have done. As a former lead member for children’s services in Darlington and a former chair of its children’s trust, I remember attending a training course with the lead member for children’s services from Surrey county council and its chair of scrutiny, who were utterly perplexed by the idea that those services would need to work quite so closely together.
In 2008 it was realised, following consultation, that strengthening was needed, so all local authorities were required to set up trusts and “duty to co-operate” partners were expanded. Schools were included in that duty to co-operate, and it would be surprising if they were not, as they are best placed to know when things are going wrong and should, if anything, be better supported by the wider children’s services and properly involved in commissioning services.
In November 2010, Ofsted undertook to study six children’s trusts, Darlington being one of them, to find out whether this children’s trust business was all just bureaucracy and a load of nonsense that was having no impact. As chair of the children’s trust, I was relieved to find that what we were doing was having an effect. Ofsted concluded:
“Children’s Trusts were providing more integrated front-line services that were linked closely to and responded to local needs… Trust boards showed considerable flexibility and willingness to find common ground from which to move services forward. They showed strong commitment to intervention and prevention”,
of which everyone is saying they would like to see more.
“They worked effectively in a complex environment which involved different performance targets, priorities and ways of providing services.”
I am proud to have been chair of Darlington children’s trust at the time of that inspection and to have worked closely with the superb director of children’s services, Murray Rose. Our children’s trust was highlighted as an example of best practice. Success has not been replicated in every local authority, so we need to take lessons from the areas that have managed to make this work well for the benefit of children and families, rather than scrapping the whole infrastructure.
In conclusion, and in case anyone thinks that this is some sort of romantic ideal of mine that services should work together properly, I should point out that Ofsted found some tangible outcomes from Darlington’s children’s trust: a rise in the number of young people screened for chlamydia as a result of closer working between schools and health services; a reduction of more than 20% in teenage pregnancy rates; improvements in long-term stability of placements for looked-after children, an area that is close to my heart; the continued improvement of GCSE performance; importantly, an increase in the number of children receiving free school meals who achieve qualifications at age 19; and, most significantly, a reduction in the achievement gap at level 3 at age 19 between young people who had received free school meals and those who had not. I am proud of Darlington’s achievements and would like the Government to reconsider abolishing children’s trusts.
Charlotte Leslie (Bristol North West) (Con)
I have changed my speech; I have rewritten it while listening to the debate. I was going to talk about the free school bid in Bristol and my hope that the local council would give parents what they wanted: an all-through school. I was also going to make a plea to the Front-Bench team to consider my idea for a trigger for a special needs assessment after a certain number of exclusions to see whether something was wrong with the original assessment. However, I am not going to talk about any of that, because I want to address something else which has been at the heart of the debate: appearance versus reality.
The hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) talked about ideology and appearance and the importance of evidence, and I could not agree more with him. I know that Opposition Members are concerned about social mobility, as are Government Members, and I saw their bleak faces when the Secretary of State illustrated the awful situation facing children on free school meals and their lack of opportunity in comparison with their richer counterparts. I know that they are concerned, so we must ask how we deal with that.
In asking that question, we cannot shy away from things that might not be ideologically to our liking. International league tables are so important, because there is a tendency to get caught up in a self-referential bubble of success, of exam results getting ever better. Our young people always work hard, and I believe that the cohort of young people in the country today is every bit as good as that in the 1950s, but that is not the point. The point is this: what is the objective reality of the qualifications that we are offering those young people? We must look at those measures to work out what is going on and then what we can do about it.
I will re-rehearse the statistics. I understand that statistics always have wriggle room, but I do not think that Members can argue with the general thrust of the statistics from the OECD programme for international student assessment. They show that the UK has moved from fourth to 16th in science; from seventh to 25th in literacy; and from eighth to 28th in maths. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight (Mr Turner) for his brilliant breakdown of those figures and their background. The worst thing about that is that it is the poorest who suffer, and we have to look at why that is so. That is why the idea of an English baccalaureate is so interesting and crucial. The fact of the matter is that the poorest suffer in the curriculum. The evidence is overwhelming that those who go to state schools in deprived areas do not have access to the kind of academic subjects available to those who go to state schools in better-off areas or to private schools. That is because struggling schools have perverse incentives to put their pupils through qualifications that lead to equivalents so that they look good in the league tables. We cannot blame them for that, because it is obvious why they do it. The English baccalaureate is an attempt to offset that perverse incentive.
Mel Stride
Does my hon. Friend agree that the fact that apparently only 4% of young people receiving free school meals would currently qualify for the English baccalaureate illustrates her point?
Charlotte Leslie
I agree absolutely, and my hon. Friend anticipates my point. The English baccalaureate shines a cold and difficult light of reality on what is going on. I will ask a question that Members might expect to come from the Labour Benches: why is it that, because I went to a private school, I was able to study Latin and a range of academic subjects which friends of mine who did not go to private schools were not able to study? When I applied for difficult and competitive jobs in television, I was told time and again that Latin looked interesting on my CV. Why was I given that opportunity and my friends at state schools were not? I do not think that that is fair. I make no apology for a system that will enable people from less well-off schools to study academic subjects, because it is resetting a balance. It is a case not of having either academic or vocational subjects, but of having both. It is really very simple.
If we look at the other objective measures of what is going on, we see that universities have courses that they value. I have a concern that our schools, in their bid to look good in the league tables, are pushing our children through courses that the universities do not value as much. The statistics show that only 1% of children on free school meals are going on to Russell group universities. That is not because those children are any less able than their counterparts, but because we have got something wrong.
I would like to run through a few scenarios that I have come across to add colour to what I am saying. First, there is a boy in my constituency who went to a school in one of the more deprived wards, and he was prevented from taking physics. He was an incredibly bright chap and wanted to study physics, but he was prevented from doing so, which was awful. Secondly, the head who took over that same school recently said to me how despairing he was that he had bright students who had been told that they would do only vocational courses. Vocational courses are obviously equally important—someone had to build the building we are in now—but that does not mean that academically able children should not be able to pursue their course in life as well.
Thirdly, we do not have the vocational element right. I do not even like the name “vocational”, because a vocation is what one does, so one can have a vocation as a brain surgeon, as a plumber and even as an MP, but “vocational”, which has slipped into the political language, is a euphemism for manual, practical and technical skills and crafts.
Charlotte Leslie
Is it? Well, I am pleased to be in agreement with him. It bodes well.
To illustrate that point, I recall talking to a young offender in a young offenders institute. I asked him how he ended up there, expecting him just to be a bad sort, but he said, “I was really interested in electronics. I wanted to be an electrician, but every time I thought I was going to do something practical about electronics, they gave me paper about it.” He said, “I can’t do the paper; I can do the thing.” That is how we have failed—for 13 years and more—a whole generation of people whose skills lie in the practical and technical fields. I could go on about how restoring discipline in our schools will help most those on free school meals, and about how discipline problems are highest in schools in deprived areas, but I will not.
I finish with a plea, because I know that Opposition Members are as concerned as we are about the matter. We cannot any more afford the luxury of well-meaning idealism, and we cannot afford to refuse to face difficult realities, because the reality that we refuse to face is the reality that faces our poorest children throughout the country, every day and for the rest of their lives.
Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)
With so much in the Bill, it is difficult to know where to start. Some of it, such as the intention to give anonymity to teachers accused by pupils, is welcome. There are too many cases in which innocent teachers have had their careers and, sometimes, their lives ruined or, even worse, lost their lives, because of false accusations and malicious gossip, but such anonymity should be extended to support staff and to teachers and support staff in colleges, because they are equally vulnerable to accusations. I hope that the Bill will be amended to include them.
Much of the Bill is, however, unwelcome. The abolition of the school support staff negotiating body is a real step backwards for the professionalisation of school support staff, making those workers—predominantly women—vulnerable to a return to poor wages and poor terms and conditions. Setting a core contract and developing a qualification framework has been fundamental in making support staff an integral part of our school landscape, but the Bill will reverse that progress, and is it the thin end of the wedge? Academies are being actively dissuaded from signing up to national terms and conditions for teachers, so will teachers become the next group to be thrown to the market?
So much of the Bill seems to roll back the progress that has been made. It represents a view of education that does not match today’s reality. In most parts of the country, we no longer separate children at 11 years old, creaming off just a few for grammar school education while giving the rest a shorter, cheaper education. Now, we have a more equal education system, in which we try to enable all young people to fulfil their potential. We said that we need 50% of our children to be educated to degree level, but what about the other 50%?
We have very few low-skilled jobs left in our economy, and we need young people to be educated so that they are ready for the higher-skilled jobs that we do have. I therefore really do not understand why the Government are proposing a very narrow English baccalaureate and abandoning diplomas. Where is the research and evidence that those are the subjects that society and employers need? Why those narrow subjects? Should not education develop skills in investigation, analysis and comprehension? Is it not more important, therefore, that we have a range of equivalent subjects rather than a narrow definition?
As a scientist, I stopped doing history and geography in year 8. Is the Secretary of State saying that those subjects are better than the physics and chemistry that I did? Young people need a broad and balanced curriculum, not one based on the narrow views of a few individuals. We also need to recognise that different children and young people learn differently. Some are perfectly happy to listen and absorb information, but others need to learn by doing. The diplomas would have opened up different routes for young people to learn—and to learn things that employers want.
I met a group of apprentices in Parliament yesterday from my constituency. They work for MBDA, a company that manufactures missiles. It is clearly very high-tech engineering, and the company has a fantastic apprenticeship programme. Those apprentices will all do ONDs, HNDs and NVQs, which the company very much values, because they judge what the apprentice can actually do, not just what they can write on paper.
Many will also do a degree as part of their apprenticeship. I asked them why they decided to go down the apprenticeship route, and part of the reason was the fear that, if they went to university, they would just be hugely in debt and then possibly unable to get a job. They also did so because they preferred to learn by doing and to put theory into practice on a daily basis. I asked their training officer and their managing director what subjects they needed young people to learn in schools. They said they wanted maths, English and science, but they also believed that technology was essential. Why will the Secretary of State not listen to employers, such as MBDA, which are the highly technical, high-value manufacturers that our economy needs?
Moving on, I am as confused as the Bill appears to be about the future of careers guidance. As we speak, Connexions personal advisers all over the country are getting their redundancy notices. Of course, Connexions is more than careers guidance. It is also about working with young people who are either not in employment, education or training, or at risk of becoming a NEET, to help them to reach their full potential; and it is about working in partnership with schools and other agencies.
The Bill states that schools have to provide independent careers guidance, but that the school does not have to pass on information about the pupil to the adviser. The Department has announced the introduction of an all-age careers service later in the year, but as yet we have no details about it, and local authorities currently have a duty to provide the Connexions service. That part of the Bill appears to be an ill-thought-out mess. Surely the sensible thing to do is to fund Connexions until its staff can be transferred to the new all-age service, keeping intact all those years of experience and the expertise of careers advisers, with the service then having a duty to provide careers advice in schools and continuing to provide a much-needed service to young people. As one of the young female engineering apprentices said yesterday, “How will young people like me know about the option for apprenticeships like this if they don’t get good careers advice?”
Finally, I have concerns about education funding. Whether the schools budget is being cut or growing is for somebody else to argue, because there is no question but that funding for other parts of education has been slashed. All other funding streams have been put into the early intervention grant, covering such things as Sure Start, Connexions, teenage pregnancy, substance misuse and youth services—a much reduced pot of money compared with the original funding. The Government state that they are
“freeing local authorities to focus on essential frontline services”.
The reality is that, instead of devolving power, they are devolving cuts.
What we are seeing nationally is the utter destruction of youth work, both in maintained youth services and in the voluntary sector. The Education and Inspections Act 2006 gave statutory responsibility to local authorities to provide positive activities for young people, and to consult them about the services that should be delivered. The Bill appears to be silent on youth services, but surely there is a responsibility to ensure that youth services are delivered and young people consulted.
This Saturday, 30 national organisations and 1,000 young people representing hundreds of thousands of users of youth services will meet in Solihull to discuss the demise of the youth service. Some local authorities have shut their youth services altogether; many face 50% to 80% cuts. Unless the Government act, many parts of the country will have no youth service, nowhere for young people to go, nothing for them to do and, even more importantly, no one providing the informal education and support that is so vital to young people’s development. I beg the Minister to intervene to save the youth service.
Richard Fuller (Bedford) (Con)
I look forward to supporting this Bill with gusto on behalf of all my constituents. It is, indeed, a landmark Bill. Historic? Well, not quite historic. Landmark, I think, is better, but the canon of my right hon. Friend’s work as Secretary of State for Education will truly be seen as historic as time passes.
It has been interesting to sit on the Government Benches and hear not only the speeches recognising that the Bill honours, empowers and respects our head teachers, but the observations of right hon. and hon. Opposition Members and the real divisions within the Labour party over the Bill, which is really the continuation of a journey that their Government started. There are divisions between those who believed then and believe now; those who believed then and are now just a little bit iffy; and those who never believed in the first place and certainly do not now. It has been very interesting to hear the observations about those divisions in the Labour party. It is welcome, however, to hear that Labour Members will be supporting the Bill.
One part of the Bill that is extraordinarily useful and valuable is the requirement for local authorities to fund early-years teaching for the most disadvantaged. That will come as welcome news to the governing boards and teachers at Cherry Trees, Peter Pan and Southway nurseries in Cauldwell ward, one of the most deprived parts of my town, which are suffering cuts from the Liberal Democrat-controlled council. I hope that we can move this measure forward quickly so that they can see that there is some hope for their funding in future.
If we are moving forward with the reading test at the age of six, which my hon. Friend the Member for Stevenage (Stephen McPartland) welcomed, I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister and his colleagues will ensure that they maintain the grants that are extraordinarily important for children who do not have English as a primary language at home. At two primary schools in my constituency, Priory lower school and Queens Park lower school, well over 80% of pupils do not have English as a primary language. We must maintain the ethnic minority achievement grants for families where English is not the primary language spoken at home. I also draw the Minister’s attention to issues of exclusion, which were mentioned by the shadow Secretary of State. The National Autistic Society says that for children with autism the exclusion rate is 27%, but for the rest of the population it is 4%. That is a major difference that requires further consideration.
My main concerns are about the proposals on academies and free schools. I like the fact that the Bill enables schools, each in their own time, to move towards becoming an academy. The Bill gives them that freedom, which they did not have before it was proposed and will not have until it is passed. I urge us all to think about talking to our own local authorities. As this strong movement towards academies moves forward, there will come a tipping point when local authorities no longer have the critical mass to offer the services they provide to the remaining schools. That is not a reason to hold back on this new-found freedom for head teachers, but a push for us to ensure that our local authorities are thinking ahead about what they will do next.
The Bill overcomes inertia and intransigence and promotes inspiration. I know, Mr Deputy Speaker, that you will want me to give local examples of those three things, so I will accede to that. Let me start with inertia, which comes from the local authorities. As the shadow Secretary of State desperately tried not to be on the wrong side of history, he may have put a bit too much reliance on the record of local authorities. A total of 216 schools across the country are below the national minimum standard. That gives hon. Members a one in three chance of having one in their constituency. I inherited two: that was the record that my local authority bequeathed to me when I became the Member of Parliament.
I am not going to stand for that in my constituency. One of them, John Bunyan school, had been trailing at 19% and the low 20%s—at the lowest point, 9%—in terms of students who were achieving the minimum level of five GCSEs, including English and maths. Parents were voting with their feet, and its pupil numbers rolled down from 900 to 600. The school then became an academy. It has taken the action, and parents are responding. Now, its application rate makes it a 1,200-pupil school. Parents want this. They see that academies are a way of breaking down the inertia of local authorities, and I can see that in my town.
We have seen intransigence from the more extreme, unreconstructed class warriors or defenders of their own self-interest—by that I mean those at the Anti Academies Alliance and their fellow travellers at the Local Schools Network, who are, around the country, doing a great disservice to parents by distorting information, in some circumstances possibly to the extent of giving misinformation, about what academies and free schools are trying to do. They are also indulging in highly personalised attacks against people who want to establish academies and free schools—attacks they would never allow on members of their own union. We have seen that in Battersea, in Stourbridge, in Hammersmith and in my own constituency.
It is time that those people stopped acting as bovver boys for a Labour leadership who do not want their fingerprints on the crime of attacking people who have educational inspiration for their communities. I challenge the Labour leadership, in this debate, to draw the campaign by those groups to a close. There should be no more misinformation and no more attacks on people who are in the proudest tradition of trying to establish educational excellence in some of the most deprived areas of the country. In a blog for the Local Schools Network, the author refers to a debate in my town in which someone said of Mark Lehain, who has established a free school,
“Does he truly believe that local LA heads and teachers…are going to willingly and regularly exchange pleasantries?”
Well, I have got news for that person: we do things differently in Bedford and Kempston. I am very proud of our head teachers, 34 of whom came down here to make their case to the Secretary of State. We do things as a team in Bedford. Head teachers share what they learn from each other and grow together. I am very proud to say that that exchange partnership is going to welcome the head teacher of the free school, when it is established, as part of the family of schools. That is part of showing the way forward. That is the inspiration that we need, and that is what this Bill provides.
Roberta Blackman-Woods (City of Durham) (Lab)
Like the hon. Member for Bristol North West (Charlotte Leslie), I have changed some of what I was going to say, because I want to respond some of the outrageous and inaccurate comments made about Labour’s record in office with regard to education.
I want, however, to start a bit earlier than that—in the early 1990s, when I was vice-chair of education in Newcastle. I think that Conservative Members need a history lesson about what we inherited from the previous Tory Government. For very many years, because of budget cuts, all that we did when we met as an education committee was to take money out of the education system. We made teachers redundant, and we made class sizes larger and larger as the teachers disappeared, so that in the end we often had 48 or 50 pupils in our classes. When schools came to us with a request to do something about their roof leaking, we did not tell them how much money they would get or how many years it would take to mend it—we said “Go and buy buckets because there is no capital allowance for schools.” The outcome was that in my constituency and in many areas like it, 30% of young people or fewer got five A to C grades at GCSE in any subject. This generation was, in many ways, failed by that Tory Government.
When Labour came to office, we had to do something to try to reverse that dreadful situation, and we did. In my constituency, education was transformed under the Labour Government. We not only employed lots more teachers so that we could get more specialisms into schools, but reduced class sizes drastically. We did not waste money: we built new schools, which were absolutely necessary because of the appalling state of the school estate that we inherited. Most important of all, we improved qualifications so that by last year young people in my constituency were doing better than the national average for five A to C grades at GCSE, including maths and English. That was the reality under Labour, and it is an important legacy that I hope this Government will build on, rather than simply being trashed by Government Members.
In the time left, it is impossible to go through the Bill in any detail, but there are a few overriding considerations. The first is about the number of powers that are centralised in the Bill that previously resided with parents, schools, teaching agencies, the admissions adjudicator and the admissions forum. I do not see how the Bill is devolving powers to schools. Secondly, there is a lack of any clear direction on vocational skills. Thirdly, a number of the proposals could make the education system more unfair, not less.
I will start with part 8, which contains clauses 70 and 71. On Friday morning, I visited New College Durham in my constituency to discuss with 16 and 17-year-olds what they felt about the abolition of the education maintenance allowance and the introduction of the new tuition fees system. Clauses 70 and 71 are important in operationalising part of that new student funding system. I do not think that that should be done in a Bill such as this and outside the White Paper on higher education. I totally disagree with the market rates that are being introduced for student loans. It was quickly apparent on talking to the young people that fees of £9,000 would put them off even thinking about continuing their education. They cannot comprehend the sums involved—£27,000 on fees alone. When that is coupled with the payback on market interest rates, they just cannot believe that a Government of any description would ask for something that so dampens their aspirations. It was dreadful to witness that. I hope that, even at this late stage, the Government will think again about introducing this appalling and unfair system of student funding.
We have to look wider than just some poor students getting to Oxford and Cambridge. I am getting fed up with how much I hear about that in this House. Although that is important and although I want students from poorer backgrounds to go to Oxford and Cambridge, I want every young person who would benefit from it to go to higher education at the institution that suits them. Unfortunately, I do not think that will be possible with the Government proposals.
I will make a couple of points about early years and charges. I would like an explanation from the Minister about what clause 35 means and what the impact of introducing different levels of charges for services is likely to be on children. For example, people will pay a range of sums of money for milk or school meals. How that is implemented will be important, because there is a lot of stigma when some children get things free and others have to pay.
I am sorry that the Government did not take the opportunity to use the Bill to extend free school meals and to extend the pilots of universal free school meals to all areas. There is an obsession with how schools impact on children and young people, without seeing the wider context within which they live. Children need to be properly fed, and to have good parenting, housing and health to thrive in schools. They need adequate support to enable them to overcome difficulties. It is a pity that when the Government looked at Sweden’s free schools, they did not look at its excellent free school meals system.
John Glen (Salisbury) (Con)
I will make four points on four aspects of the Bill.
In Salisbury, I am blessed with some amazing schools, from the Trafalgar school at Downton in the south to Stonehenge school in the north. I have visited them all at least twice since I was elected. The school I am most proud of is Sarum academy, which operates in one of the most challenging communities in my constituency. When I first visited it a few months after being elected last summer, the headmaster would not show me round the school. He sat me down and explained many of the difficulties he had encountered. To his credit, he had made great progress in the previous 12 months in meeting some of the targets that had been set for him.
A few months later, I visited the school again. The excellent new principal, Ruth Johnson, took delight in showing me round, perhaps because she was keen for me to take up the case for greater investment in the school. I am pleased to say that the Government duly heard those pleas and money has been forthcoming. She said that what was critical was not only the investment in buildings—I acknowledge what the previous speaker said about that sometimes being critical to lift the morale of teachers and pupils—but the discipline that she was able to instil because of the culture of the school.
I welcome the provisions of the Bill, which give massive encouragement to teachers who have been struggling with discipline and pupil behaviour in recent years. It may be true, as was said by those on the Opposition Front Bench, that the cut in advertising will have an impact on recruitment. However, I suspect that the bigger reason for the drop in the number of people who want to go into the profession is that they have been unhappy at the level of discipline that they have had to deal with, and the level of support that they have been given, in the classroom. I am delighted that the Bill gives teachers practical powers to search and confiscate possessions when there are reasonable grounds for suspecting the possession of prohibited items. They need that detailed provision to deal with some of the situations that they face. It is a scandal that a quarter of school staff have been subject to false allegations. It is important and welcome that teachers will be able to impose detentions immediately, without having to give 24 hours’ notice.
The Bill could go further. Like other Members, I am concerned about the provision for excluded children, particularly those who suffer from special educational needs and who need extra provision. I hope that when the Government bring forward proposals in this area, there is special investment for individual children who need extra help from the state. Vulnerable children who are excluded still have to access education and support. For the past six months, I have been battling along with my constituents Stuart and Emma Verdin to secure the right provision for their son James, and it has not been an easy process. Finding the appropriate discretion and finance for such individual cases needs to be taken seriously.
I am delighted by the provisions on raising standards in schools. Currently, I do not think that educational standards have the full confidence of employers, parents and universities, particularly with respect to the examinations system. There seems to have been a conspiracy of affirmation that does not acknowledge the reality of grade inflation over the past 20 years. Every summer, every politician goes out of their way to praise the improvement in the quality of teaching. Some of that must be true, but I am not convinced that it is all true. Schools are choosing less rigorous subjects for their pupils to ensure that their league table position is maintained. That is not healthy. The provision for Ofqual to ensure that attainment standards are improved is welcome.
I urge the Government to think again about the great contribution that religious studies could make to the English baccalaureate curriculum. I have been lobbied about the matter by a number of my constituents, and having studied the subject myself to the age of 18, I believe that it is of great assistance to critical thinking, teaching pupils to respect themselves and other religions, beliefs and cultures.
I welcome, too, the simplification of the scrutiny process and the fact that Ofsted inspections will focus on four key areas. I welcome the fact that outstanding schools such as Bishop Wordsworth’s grammar school in my constituency—soon to be, if not already, an academy—will not need to be inspected unless their performance indicators fall. That seems to me a reasonable and practical step for schools that do not need masses of attention from regulators and scrutiny by the state.
I shall finish by addressing early-years provision. I echo the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Erewash (Jessica Lee), who endorsed the Bill’s provision of free early-years education for two-year-olds. It is critical that the Government have a joined-up policy across education and welfare reform, which we will discuss in a couple of weeks, to ensure that poor children do not become poor adults. I endorse the report by the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field), who has done so much to raise awareness of the critical importance of that issue.
We need to go further in recognising that there is too much micro-management in early-years provision. I remember visiting a school in my constituency last autumn and seeing pads of yellow Post-it notes lined up as the teachers and teachers’ assistants were getting ready to photograph every single element of behaviour in order to demonstrate change. It is right that parents want to see some evidence of progress, but do they really need a blow-by-blow account of every time their four-year-old blows his or her nose?
The Bill will make a massive contribution for children in this country and in my constituency. I have suggested a few improvements, but I welcome it massively. Those improvements can be taken on in Committee, and the Bill will make a massive contribution to education in this country.
Pat Glass (North West Durham) (Lab)
There are elements of the Bill that I welcome. I like the parts that are intended to ensure that full funding follows an excluded child from their school. Too often, some schools have simply washed their hands of children with difficulties and problems, and hopefully the Bill will make schools think carefully, and financially, before doing so in future.
I also like the plans that will, we hope, ensure that schools remain responsible for the educational outcomes of children they exclude. I have visited very many schools over very many years, from the smallest nursery schools to the highest-achieving grammar schools to the most specialist behaviour schools, and eventually the conversation always gets round to behaviour. At almost every school, I have been told at some point, “If you could just take away the five most difficult children, everything would be wonderful.” But teachers know, and I know, that if they took away the five most difficult children, the next five would simply rise to the surface.
Only when schools start to deal properly with their difficulties in the quality of teaching and learning, and introduce consistent approaches to behaviour and staff training, do they begin to feel confident in their ability to manage behavioural problems. I hope that preventing schools from simply washing their hands of the difficult children will make all schools begin a proper internal dialogue about those issues. I also welcome plans to provide anonymity to teachers accused by pupils until they are charged, and I hope that the Government will consider extending that to all school staff.
Given that I welcome some clauses in the Bill, I hope that Members will see that my remarks today are not about opposition for opposition’s sake but about making the Bill better for all children and young people, their schools and their families.
I wish to focus for a while on early intervention. We all know that there is an enormous body of evidence to support it, not least that provided to the House in recent months and years by the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis), my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field). As we all know, early intervention means not just intervention in the early years but intervention with children and young people as soon as a difficulty becomes apparent, whether that is when a special educational need is suspected, when other barriers to learning become clear or when the safety and well-being of a child or young person is suspected to be at risk.
The Bill is full of good intentions about early years and early intervention, but it cannot be separated from the reality of, in some cases, biblical-sized cuts facing local authorities. In the early years, Sure Start is widely recognised as a distinctive and increasingly important service that plays an essential role in helping our children get the right start in life and ensuring that they are ready to learn when they start school. Both the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister have made personal promises to keep Sure Start centres open. Even since the election, they have said that they do not want any to close, yet there are to be significant budget cuts that will mean the removal of funding for Sure Start and the ring-fencing that would have protected those centres.
The Government have said that they are safeguarding Sure Start funding, but they have cleverly rolled together 10 separate and previously ring-fenced budgets, including that for Sure Start, into their new early-intervention grant. That budget will increase to £2.2 billion in 2014, but they have dictated that that money has to support not only Sure Start centres but the cost of extending free education to two-year-olds; the cost of short breaks for disabled and vulnerable children; all support programmes targeted at preventing children from engaging in crime; all support programmes targeted at tackling substance misuse; all teenage pregnancy support programmes; programmes for children with mental health problems and learning difficulties; and all transition arrangements. It also has to support all behaviour support services in schools and local authorities; child and adolescent mental health services; children’s community paramedic services such as speech therapy; special educational needs services; and youth services.
For the Government to say that they are providing funding to support Sure Start and early intervention is not only wrong, given the current financial situation facing local authorities, but insulting. They are tying the hands of local authorities by slashing their budgets, while at the same time washing their hands of any proper support. Closures in the children’s centre network are inevitable.
Although I welcome some things in the Bill, some matters are missing from it that would have benefited it. I urge the Secretary of State to include measures to ensure that all schools take their fair share of pupils from poorer homes and those with special educational needs. All that we have had so far is a promise to simplify the admissions code of practice, but for many parents there are real concerns that “simplify” will mean “make opaque”, and that it will therefore be easier for schools regarded as good or outstanding effectively to exclude those groups of children through their admissions policies.
I also urge the Secretary of State to amend the Ofsted framework to ensure that all schools are properly held to account for all children’s outcomes. That can be done by including a limiting judgment that ensures that no school can be designated an outstanding school if it cannot demonstrate, first, that it takes its fair share of pupils from poorer homes and pupils with SEN, and secondly, that it is narrowing the gap between the achievements of those children and the most able in the school. In my view, that is what makes an outstanding school. Those would be real sanctions, and I recommend them to the Secretary of State if he is serious about improving outcomes for vulnerable children and those from poor homes.
As well as clauses that are missing from the Bill, there are those with which I disagree outright, including the ones that reduce the powers of independent exclusions panels. They will have a direct detrimental effect on children with SEN, particularly those with hearing impairments, autism, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, Tourette’s syndrome, epilepsy and diabetes. There is a known link with behaviour when those conditions are not properly addressed. The Select Committee on Education looked at that in some detail recently, and I recall that not even one witness from across the educational divide felt that the reduction of those powers was a good thing.
I disagree with the measures that seek to remove the requirement to give 24 hours’ notice of detention. That is at best disrespectful to parents, and at worst a child safeguarding issue. I also disagree with the measures that repeal the duty on schools to co-operate with local authorities and those that repeal the duty on schools to have regard to children and young people’s plans. As I said in an intervention, those duties have had a significant impact in reducing the number of serious case reviews in the middle years—from when a child starts school to the middle teenage years.
Finally, there is much in the Bill to recommend it, but there is much that I ask the Government to reconsider.
Christopher Pincher
Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, and to my dwindling number of fans in the Chamber for that unsolicited testimonial. I am grateful to have the opportunity to speak on Second Reading of this wide-ranging Bill. In the interests of time—the fickle finger of fate is working against us—I shall focus my remarks on one aspect of education that is essential to its success: the need to drive greater aspiration.
In Tamworth, we face a real challenge to encourage aspiration among our young people, because historically we have not had the sort of GCSE and A-level results that we could and should have had. However, parents, pupils and teachers are prepared to meet that challenge if they are given the tools with which to do the job.
There are three essential tools to driving up aspiration among our young people, the first of which is restoring discipline in our classrooms. I do not want to go on too much about that—my hon. Friend the Member for Reading East (Mr Wilson) has already spoken very eloquently about it—but we know that without good discipline, there cannot be good education. We heard the statistics. There are some 18,000 assaults on teachers each year, resulting in pupils being suspended or excluded, and that does not begin to describe the pain and fear that members of the teaching profession feel when those assaults happen.
Such indiscipline drives teachers out of the classroom, but it also distracts good children from their studies and means that the kids who really need help—the disadvantaged ones—do not even get into the classroom in the first place to be taught. I therefore welcome my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State’s announcement that the 24-hour notice period for detention will be abolished. That will give detention real teeth. I am pleased that we will encourage ex-members of the armed forces into the teaching profession, because they have dedication and enthusiasm and they know a little bit about discipline. I am also pleased that we will free-up pupil referral units, particularly in respect of my own excellent PRU at Two Rivers in Tamworth, to give them the opportunity to use their expertise to stem the tide of disruptive pupils who end up on the NEETs scrap heap.
We also need to use teachers. The Secretary of State paid tribute to them, as I do. We have some fantastic teachers in Tamworth, including a great set of maths A-level teachers at Belgrave high school. When I go to see my primary school heads at their quarterly meetings, I see the enthusiasm that they have for their subjects.
However, those professional people are burdened by bureaucracy. It is our responsibility to remove that burden of responsibility from our head teachers and other teachers, so that they can get on and do what they really want to do, which is to teach. That is what the Secretary of State will do. I also think that freeing-up schools via the academies programme encourages good teachers to stay in the profession and the recruitment of good teachers. We have one academy school in Tamworth, but by the end of next year all our secondary schools should be academies. Teachers in Tamworth are embracing freedom and the choice that freedom gives them.
It is important to stress vertical integration between primary and secondary schools. In Tamworth, we still have kids going into secondary school aged 11 who have a reading age of eight. Some even have reading ages of seven. I suppose that after 13 years in government, Labour might call that progressive. However, I do not think it is good enough, because it means that kids in that situation, entering Belgrave school, Wilnecote school, Queen Elizabeth’s Mercian school, Rawlett school or wherever, start at a disadvantage, and many of them will never catch up but will be put on the NEETs scrap heap.
I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will take note of this point, because we have discussed it before. We need to encourage greater linkage between primary and secondary schools, even joining them up, so that secondary and primary school teachers can work together to identify the children who need help and raise them up so that they are ready to go to secondary school and have the same chances as the other kids. Going to secondary school should be like going up a gentle incline; it should not be like facing a sheer cliff face. I hope that he will take that point onboard.
I should like to say one more thing about secondary school education and the need for greater aspiration. It is something that is not actually in the Bill, so I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister, in his winding-up speech, will make some remarks about it. Since the Butler Act—the Education Act 1944—we have clung to the antiquated notion that A-level students should apply to university six months before they sit the examinations that will determine whether they go. It is strange that the hopes and aspirations of young people should be determined by the educated guesses of their teachers, rather than their own merits. The fact is that they are just educated guesses: 55% of predicted grades, on which universities make their conditional offers, turn out to be wrong, and it is the most disadvantaged children who suffer, because of the kids doing A-levels in the lowest socio-economic group, 61% have mis-predicted grades and a very large proportion have under-predicted grades, the result being that many of them do not go to the university they want to and many do not go to university at all. That is a travesty.
I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will use all his eloquence and artistry to prevail upon the Minister for Universities and Science jointly to come up with a proposal for post-qualification applications to universities. It is a challenge, but it will mean less bureaucracy for universities and UCAS; it will end that horrible spectacle—I remember it back in 1988 when I left school—of kids going through the clearing process over the summer; and it will even up the advantage for those disadvantaged young people who currently go to university on the basis of crystal-ball gazing by their teachers, not on their merits.
Apart from that one, small caveat, I think that this is a good Bill. It offers freedom to schools, and we should support it. I shall be voting for it tonight.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
Order. A large number of Members are still trying to get into this debate, so the time limit will be reduced to six minutes. Even with that, I suspect that some Members still might not get in.
Steve Rotheram (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)
Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I am from Liverpool, so I suppose I am getting used to cuts. I will try to amend my speech to fit the six minutes allocated.
As we have already heard, the Bill covers a wide range of concerns—from school discipline and behaviour to schools admissions and exclusions, setting up new academies and even changes to apprenticeships and the reform of student fees and loans. It is a mishmash of proposals designed not to give everyone the best chance of a good education but to create a three-tier system of the haves, the have-nots and the have-not-got-a-chances. In the future, unless parents have money or good connections, their children will be sent to schools facing massive cuts in their budgets, while money is siphoned off to academies and free schools.
Narrowing the curriculum to five subjects will mean abandoning all the young people who have thrived on vocational courses. Removing the promise of an apprenticeship will leave a legacy of young people who do not fit into this 1950s vision of what an education should be—young people consigned to the scrap heap by a Secretary of State who cares more about Latin and the classics than he does about Liverpool and the educational attainment of children from ordinary working families.
Above all, the Secretary of State is asking this House to strip local authorities of their role in managing the provision of education, and to transfer to him 50 new powers to interfere in and control almost every aspect of our schools system in England, including what subjects our children learn and what kind of schools they go to. Indeed, so much will be affected that, in view of the time, I shall confine my remarks to an aspect of education that gets little attention in the Bill, something that I believe highlights this Government’s misguided priorities.
We on the Labour Benches judge a society by how it treats its most vulnerable, not by how the strong prosper. In that sense, many Members have been right to express deep concern today about what the proposals will mean for the treatment of children with special educational needs. As Ofsted highlights, just over one in five pupils—1.7 million school-age children in England—are identified as having special educational needs. Critically, as a whole, pupils currently identified as having special educational needs are disproportionately from disadvantaged backgrounds, are much more likely to be absent or even excluded from school, and achieve less well than their peers, in terms of both attainment at any given age and progress over time.
Getting education right for those young people transforms their chances and our ability as a society to benefit from what they could be, rather than dealing with the consequences of what they never get help to overcome. First and foremost, what many parents of children with SEN in Liverpool will ask about this Bill is: how can we judge what these proposals will mean for those children if we have not even been given notice of when the special educational needs Green Paper that this Government said they would publish will be published? In the absence of such information, the proposals offer little comfort to parents, who fight hard to ensure that their children receive the education they need, whatever their ability.
Many in the Chamber would recognise the challenges that Ofsted identified in its work reviewing SEN schooling and in the special educational needs and disability review. However, that is why it is all the more worrying that the proposals in the Bill have been brought forward without any details outlining what they will mean for children with SEN. Under the present system, a parent of a child with SEN often fights long and hard to get their child statemented, to ensure that they can access the services necessary to address their specific requirements. Under the proposals in the Bill, I fear for those children who need the co-operation of different services to participate in education—for example, children with a disability—or to access speech and language therapy, or mental health support.
It is not just in ensuring that children with special needs are supported that the cross-agency approach is important. Many of the current provisions were introduced as a result of the Laming report, as we heard earlier, following the death of Victoria Climbié, in order to protect the health, safety and well-being of children and young people. I therefore hope that Ministers will offer more than kind words for the parents of children with special educational needs who are listening today, and explain clearly how the Government’s proposals and the removal of the role of local authorities will not lead to a loss in joined-up services for our most vulnerable students. We know that children with SEN or a disability are more likely to face discrimination in admissions. The outcomes of the case often depend on the evidence presented, and if—
Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)
At its heart, the Bill is about social mobility and opportunity for all, and we need to address those issues urgently. No one would doubt the good intentions of the previous Government, but the statistics are there for all to see. The hon. Member for Darlington (Mrs Chapman) complained about how much people talked about Oxbridge statistics, and the hon. Member for North West Durham (Pat Glass) said she was fed up with hearing them. Sadly, however, there are many other, equally depressing, statistics. Among young adults, there are 1 million people who are not in employment, education or training. The lower income groups, which form 50% of the population, have only a 16% representation in the top universities represented by the Russell group. A student’s chances of getting five good GCSEs are four times as great if they have degree-educated parents than if they do not. Even at the age of three, twice as many children in the top income quintile are school-ready as in the bottom one.
Problems such as social immobility did not start under the previous Government, but we have every right to expect that these things will improve constantly. I am afraid that social mobility has stalled. It is stuck stubbornly at levels that, in some cases, we barely tolerated in the 1970s. The hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) said that we should look for evidence-based approaches, and I could not agree more. We know what makes a difference. Given the economic legacy that my right hon. and hon. Friends on the Front Bench inherited, with the Government spending £4 for every £3 that they received in income, it would perhaps have been easiest to postpone any expansionary programme. However, I am pleased and proud that the Government whom I support are finding ways to extend free nursery care to two-year-olds. They are extending the participation age to 18—or continuing its extension, to be fair—and, perhaps most dramatically, introducing the pupil premium, which represents a significant structural change to the way in which we fund education.
Another factor that we know from international studies makes a huge difference, not only to the overall average attainment in a school but to equality of opportunity, is the person standing at the front of the room: the teacher. That dwarfs other factors, including class size. When you, Mr Deputy Speaker, and I were at school, we were taught not to judge a book by its cover. In this case, however, we can do just that, because the front page of the White Paper tells us all that we need to know about this Government’s approach. It is entitled “The importance of teaching”.
This will be manifested by reinforcing the status and authority of the teacher, making a clear statement that they have an absolute right to impose reasonable measures to achieve classroom discipline, and to be protected from vexatious allegations. We need to move from a situation in which difficult children mutter, “I know my rights” to one in which all children can say, “I know where I stand.” Teachers repeatedly complain that they are burdened by too many targets, too much prescription and too many directives and missives landing on their doorstep. I therefore welcome the Government’s approach in rationalising the national curriculum to leave more room for innovation and for learning other things.
We have fantastic teachers in our school system—I think they actually work a lot harder today than they did when I was at school, and, by the way, I think the children do as well—but we need to encourage yet more talent into the profession. Teach First has been a great programme, and I celebrate the fact that it happened on the watch of the previous Government. Now, it is going to be doubled in size, and we should all welcome that. I hope that the publicity surrounding the troops to teachers programme, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Tamworth (Christopher Pincher) referred, will send a clear signal to men that more of them are needed and welcome, particularly in the primary sector, whether or not they have been troops.
Alongside mobility within the system, we also need to think about mobility opportunity for us collectively as a nation. I am afraid that one of the bad things about the past decade or so is that, as every single domestic record has been smashed, we have been falling further down the league tables. One of the most refreshing things about the new Government is that whenever anyone asks, “How did you come up with that idea?” or “Where did that one come from?”, the answer starts with, “We looked at where they do it best in the world.” I am pleased that that world outlook also extends to the international benchmarking of our qualifications.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bristol North West (Charlotte Leslie) explained quite brilliantly how some of the fastest growing qualifications were not those that are sought by universities or employers but those that offered quick, short-cut ladders up the performance tables. This misleads students and flatters the system, and it does nobody any favours except in the very short term.
There will be a sharper focus on the key aspects of an academic education, but, to be absolutely clear to the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Steve Rotheram), the English baccalaureate is not all that is in the curriculum: it comprises only five core academic subjects, and I do not think that for most people, English, maths, science, a humanity and a language would be a particularly controversial definition of what should constitute an academic core. Alongside it, of course, we must have proper valuing of, and political will behind, the vocational routes and qualifications.
We should not care only about headline results; we need to look at how to value every child and how to progress every child. CVA—contextual value-added—is a ridiculously complex measure, which nobody I have ever met understands. We need better ways of ensuring that schools’ efforts on behalf of every child are valued. Too often in this House we debate how we are going to tackle the bills of social failure, and I am delighted that today we are debating this Bill—a Bill for social opportunity.
Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)
I will, of course, oppose this Bill because it provides yet more evidence of an elitist approach to the education of our young people. This Tory-led Government are out of touch with teachers, with parents and with students.
I get sick and tired of people doing down our young people and their very real achievements, when we should be celebrating with them and praising and encouraging them to do better. They should be able to thrive, doing the things that they do best within a balanced curriculum. Yet at Education questions yesterday, the Secretary of State proudly promoted his narrow 1950s vision of what our education system should look like. His attachment to dead languages such as Latin is worrying. As Secretary of State, he has a responsibility to create a flexible education system that caters for all students—he is failing in that responsibility.
The proposals for the “English baccalaureate” are a backward step, which sends our young people the message that only traditional academic subjects hold any value. Instead of telling young people what subjects they should be studying, the Secretary of State should be giving them the freedom to pursue the subjects that they are passionate about. As my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams) rightly questioned, how can the Secretary of State proclaim that Latin is more important than information technology in the 21st century?
About 50% of our young people do not plan to go to university, and I think that number is going to grow as the tuition fees rises are brought into place. We have brilliant universities in this country, including the excellent Teesside and Durham universities, and the young people who aspire to attend university should be encouraged to do so. A university education, however, is not the be-all and end-all, because other things are happening in further education. We must be careful not to send the wrong message to our young people, many of whom work incredibly hard and are rightly proud of their achievements—irrespective of whether or not they reach university.
This Bill contains measures that give the Secretary of State free rein to set uncapped and commercial rates of interest on student loans. The thousands of students who marched passed my office as part of the protests against the rise in tuition fees are learning government lessons the hard way, and it will be their successors who know that we are not “all in it together”.
Youth unemployment is at an all-time high. One in five of our young people are out of work. The Tory-led Government are in danger of creating a lost generation of young people, so why does this Bill repeal Labour’s apprenticeship guarantee? With current levels of youth unemployment, we should be doing everything we can to help young people succeed in education and training. Over and again, we hear the mantra, “We’re all in this together”—but not according to the large numbers of young people in my constituency who have e-mailed me, angry at the way their generation is being targeted by this Tory-led Government. They are most particularly concerned about the move to scrap education maintenance allowance—another broken promise to add to the list.
There is much to criticise in this Bill, but I want to move on to focus on the Secretary of State’s pet project of free schools. The Government’s free schools initiative has serious implications for secondary education in the Stockton borough. Last week, the Secretary of State visited Stockton to announce he had given the go-ahead for an initial plan for a free school in my neighbouring constituency of Stockton South. In my former life as a local councillor in Stockton, I was the cabinet member for children and young people, so I know this is a very difficult local issue.
Ingleby Barwick is a modern and growing housing development, with only one secondary school. Many hundreds of local children have to travel a few miles to get to school. Parents in Ingleby Barwick have campaigned for years for another secondary school, but if they are successful the implications will be problematic. Conyers and Egglescliffe schools—both excellent local secondary schools—rely on pupils from Ingleby Barwick to keep their numbers up. At least one of these schools serves children from my constituency and potentially would have to close if the Secretary of State were to approve a new school in Ingleby Barwick.
If the free school proposal goes ahead, which other schools will suffer, and perhaps even close, as a result? That is what I and affected communities in my constituency want to know. I cannot understand how the Government can allow any school proposal to go ahead without consideration of the local authority strategy for schools. In Stockton the strategy provided for a massive expansion of All Saints school in the middle of Ingleby Barwick, which could have been facilitated without the investment that will be needed if the free school proposal is to go ahead. That idea was ditched by the Secretary of State when he axed Building Schools for the Future.
It is important for parents to have influence over local schools, but free schools will undermine local authorities. I am concerned about the impact that the free schools initiative will have across the Stockton borough as communities and schools are pitted against each other. When it comes to the free schools policy, for every winner there will be an even bigger loser.
The Bill requires the expenditure of hundreds of millions of pounds that would surely be better spent on supporting existing schools. The Secretary of State is preoccupied with his structural changes to the education system, while neglecting what teachers and parents care about most: the provision of the best possible education and training for all our young people, not just the most academically able. Contrary to what the Secretary of State claimed, in my area children across the education system did considerably better over the past 13 years than over the previous 10. We need to work with our schools and local authorities to achieve even greater success, rather than setting school against school. Let us build on success, not abandon it.
Mel Stride (Central Devon) (Con)
I welcome the Bill, because it will improve education in our country in the same way as the Academies Act 2010 does. That is vital not just to the pupils whom we have been discussing today, but to our standing in the world. It is important to our businesses and to our economy. We are trading in an increasingly international, globalised, competitive marketplace in which the knowledge-based industries are king, and knowledge is power in the modern world.
Over the past week or so, Opposition Members have taken great delight in bandying about the words of Sir Richard Lambert, the outgoing director general of the CBI, about our growth strategy. In December 2009, in an interview in The Guardian, Sir Richard said that the then Government should be ashamed of the results produced by the education system. The hon. Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham) should interpret such comments not as an attack on the pupils who are working so hard, but as an attack on a system that has consistently and utterly failed them.
Social mobility is essential, but, as was pointed out by my hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds), it is probably at its lowest level since the 1970s. I will not pretend that responsibility for that lies only with the previous Government, but no one can escape the simple reality that education is the great route of social mobility, and that we get it wrong at our peril. Some Opposition Members are irritated by the statistic revealing that last year just 42 pupils receiving free school meals obtained places at Oxford and Cambridge, compared to over 80 at one public school alone, Westminster. That is a disgrace, but, rather than being irritated by it, Opposition Members should feel angry and sorry for the many other children receiving free school meals who have been deprived of the opportunity to achieve the very best in their lives.
I welcome many aspects of the Bill. For instance, I welcome the way in which it encourages and promotes academies and free schools. I believe that parents should be the ultimate arbiters of what is best in education. They do not need league tables. They know—as they say in Northern Ireland—what the dogs in the street know. They know a good school from a mediocre school, and it is they who are most likely to stand up for their sons and daughters. We must promote academies at every turn.
I also welcome the Bill’s emphasis on the importance of improving qualifications, and on ensuring that Ofqual takes account of international league tables. As was pointed out by my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol North West (Charlotte Leslie), there is no point in our continually looking to the past and our inflated examination results, patting ourselves on the back and telling ourselves how well we are doing domestically, when we are plummeting in the international league tables year after year. The PISA numbers have frequently been cited in the debate. The hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) rightly pointed a finger at them, saying, “You can’t quite compare one year with another, as there’s a different cohort.” There may be some truth in that, but even Opposition Members must on occasion have pause for thought about the fact that there has been such a slump consistently over time.
It is important that through this Bill we get a firm grip on the issue of school discipline. Some 1,000 pupils are excluded each day for abusive or possibly even assault-based behaviour, and many teachers are being put off from even going into the classroom as a consequence. It is right that teachers should now be given the authority to search pupils; we should trust them to do that. Among the items they are currently not allowed to search for are hardcore pornography and video cameras, which can be used to film disruptive incidents that can then be posted on the web. It is right that we should empower them to take the necessary action.
It is also extremely important that we afford teachers our protection in respect of unfair claims made against them by pupils. An Association of Teachers and Lecturers survey has shown that about one in four teachers have been the recipient of false claims, and I welcome the Government’s commitment to ensuring that they are given anonymity up until the point at which they are—or are not—charged.
I welcome the Bill, and I want it to be a moment of hope not just for the children who are currently at school, but for future generations yet to come. I hope they will look back and see that this was a moment when their life chances were improved immeasurably.
Lisa Nandy (Wigan) (Lab)
I welcome some of the Bill’s measures, in particular the commitment to retain the extension of free early-years provision to two-year-olds, which could not be more important. I am sorry it is no longer envisaged as a universal provision, but I am grateful to Ministers for deciding to protect it for the targeted few at least. I would also welcome clarity on how it is to be funded.
I am less enthusiastic about the Bill’s provisions on behaviour and discipline, however. I am a member of the Education Committee, and we have spent a considerable amount of time debating that topic and hearing about it from witnesses in evidence, and it seems to me that there are two key principles: first, powers and protection for staff; and secondly, protection and freedom for pupils. I think Ministers have got that balance wrong. We heard from a range of witnesses and we could not find any evidence that over several years behaviour had worsened. In fact, the majority of witnesses agreed with Ofsted that the vast majority of behaviour in schools is good and no worse than previously.
I also think Ministers have got the balance wrong because there is cause to believe that their proposals may make the situation worse. The relationship between pupils and teachers should be based on mutual respect. Pupils learn by example and flourish in strong, trusting relationships with adults, yet what is proposed in the Bill is largely a one-way street that says to pupils, “We expect you to respect us, but we won’t respect you back.” No-notice detentions, which I raised earlier, are a pressing example of that. I am particularly concerned about them in respect of young carers, but I am concerned not only for the children but for teachers as well. The point that the Secretary of State failed to understand when responding to my question was that teachers do not necessarily know that young people have caring responsibilities. Rather than trusting teachers, this Government are putting them in an impossible position. This “bureaucratic burden” of giving notice is an important safeguard for teachers as well.
The same could be said of powers of search. Many of the teaching unions have said that they think what is proposed will lead to a rise in the number of legal cases against teachers, and I am extremely concerned about the protection for those teachers. Will the Secretary of State support teachers when a legal case is brought against them for overstepping their powers of search? If not, this is not so much liberation for teachers as abandonment.
There are signs that the Government wish to protect teachers, however. I am particularly grateful that the plans to remove the requirement to record incidents of the use of force have been reconsidered, because that is an important safeguard. Like many others, I welcome measures to protect anonymity, but why do they not also apply to support staff? We must be careful not to create an impression that, with the abolition of the school support staff negotiating body, we are saying to support staff that they do not matter.
I am also at a loss to understand why safeguards on exclusions are being removed, given that statistics show that head teacher decisions are overturned in only 2% of cases. I know from experience that we do not always get this right; looked-after children are nine times more likely and children with special educational needs are eight times more likely to be excluded from schools than others. That can produce appalling results, and are we seriously saying to children who have suffered that injustice that they cannot go back to the school where their friends are?
For the most vulnerable children the Bill seems to be a disastrous unravelling of a decade of progress. I am concerned about the removal of the Children Act 2004 duty to co-operate. As a school governor, I know that schools are really busy and pressed for time. That is why it is so important that they are required to sit round the table and take the time to talk to partners. I say to Ministers that, by taking schools out of that equation, they are putting children at risk. I urge them to reconsider.
I am not at all convinced by the fairness of the new school arrangements and I am particularly concerned about admissions forums. Ministers are reviewing the code with a view to slimming it down so, with the abolition of admissions forums and the watering down of powers for the school adjudicator, we simply do not know which standards, if any, schools will be held to for admissions. We need to know that if we are to understand the Bill’s implications.
I am most concerned about the aggressive expansion of new-style academies and free schools, for which the Bill provides. In my local area, a campaign group, Save Wigan Schools, is battling against academies, not just for the children who will lose out as a result of academies, but for teachers. According to international studies, their pay and conditions are one of the key factors, so I say to Government Members that this is a problem not just for teachers, but for children, as the evidence tells us that through pay and conditions we raise standards. I was appalled to see a letter from Lord Hill, the Education Minister, telling schools not to sign up to the NASUWT’s pay and conditions agreement. I say to those Government Members who talked about bullying tactics, if that is not a bullying tactic, what is?
My chief concern is that the Bill will entrench segregation and widen the achievement gap. I welcome the increase in the participation age, but how are students expected to carry on without the education maintenance allowance? Although the Bill contains measures that I welcome, its general direction is of great concern: it introduces more centralisation and prescription; it is based on a lack of respect for children; in reality, it removes protection for teachers; it shows a shocking lack of respect for the valuable contribution made by school support staff; and, most importantly, it is based on a vision of competition between schools that is sure to create winners and losers. The Bill undermines the key principle that education is a public good, held and managed in trust for the wider community. For that reason, the Bill will not just disadvantage the most disadvantaged children; it will disadvantage us all, and I will not be voting for it.
Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)
This has been an interesting debate, with the Bill having been described variously as minor tinkering building on Blairite successes and as creating a wasteland in education across England and Wales—and that is just from Labour Members. We have heard some very diverse opinions from them. Although there was some good in what the hon. Member for Wigan (Lisa Nandy) said, she fails to understand the reality of what classroom teachers face in our schools today.
An awful lot of myth has been put about in respect of many of the Bill’s proposals. I am broadly supportive of the Bill, although it contains bits that I do not particularly agree with and so I will get those out of the way first. Since I have been in this place, I have learned that legislation is like a box of chocolates: you do not like everything in it. I am not a particular fan of the forced raising of the participation age to 18, but I am probably out of sync with many people, on both sides of the debate, about that. I also have some concerns about the changes to student loan interest and I have some issues to raise about the English baccalaureate, which I shall discuss in a moment. Those are my minor concerns with the Bill, but in general I am a huge supporter of it and of the ministerial team in this Department, who have the best interests of this country’s young people at heart.
I wish to deal with some of the points made by Opposition Members about bringing unqualified people into the classroom, as if that were something new. I intervened on the Secretary of State on this matter. The practice is not new, although there are more unqualified staff teaching young people in our country today than at any time since the war and possibly ever. Studies have been done by the unions to prove that. Some of that teaching has been very good and in some circumstances schools have had to go down that route, because standards have slipped in some of our schools and they have been unable to recruit qualified staff. There is nothing wrong with bringing in people from different backgrounds. My personal view is that once they are teaching in the classroom, they should at least follow a route to a formal qualification. We should make that process as easy as possible, because it is desirable. When I did my postgraduate certificate of education, I learned important things in the classroom that people cannot necessarily obtain outside the classroom. We should not be worried about bringing in people from different backgrounds.
The hon. Members for Wigan and for Sheffield, Heeley (Meg Munn) have mentioned discipline. In specific circumstances, the power to search pupils there and then is important. One may have concerns about the wording of the provision, but sometimes situations arise in schools where classroom teachers need to act immediately—I can think of a number of situations in which it would be important to conduct a search there and then for the safety of other people in school. The power is important, but it is a permissive power, because Ministers would prefer teachers not to have to search young people.
On notice for detentions, there are times in teachers’ careers when they need to act there and then, because it is important to deal with an issue at the end of the school day. I taught at an incredibly difficult school, and I remember a huge problem on the local estate when a large number of our young people got involved in physical fights with another school—the situation also involved some parents, which was not helpful. We needed to deal with that situation there and then, and writing to say that we wanted to see a child in 24 hours’ time was not helpful. We had to deal with the situation there and then, but we were hamstrung by the rules.
The hon. Member for Wigan has raised the issue of discipline. I did not want to write home to some pupils’ parents to tell them that their child had a detention; I wanted to deal with the situation myself, because I knew that if I made contact with some of those young people’s homes, their lives would be made much more difficult. I would prefer to deal with such issues in the way in which I see fit rather than necessarily by engaging with parents. There is a protection issue for young people.
I do not have a great deal of time left, so I will not discuss exclusions, but I will comment on the curriculum and standards. I welcome the review of Ofsted, but the issue always comes down to interpretation. It is virtually impossible for a school to put itself through an Ofsted inspection in an honest way. The school has to step up to a mark that is not necessarily sustainable throughout the whole school year and jump through hoops that are impossible in any other circumstances. Classroom teachers are asked to do things that it is not possible to do all the time. I welcome the changes, but I hope that Ofsted’s interpretation will change.
The English baccalaureate is not simply a case of requiring schools to do certain subjects. However, it is probably drawn a little too narrowly, particularly where schools are required to do modern foreign languages. It might be very good to get young people to do modern foreign languages—I make these remarks as a history teacher, who will benefit from the change—but in a selfless act I appeal for the baccalaureate to be drawn a little more widely, because we will end up with its being used as a measure. In schools such as the one where I used to teach, engaging children and young people in modern foreign languages who may not receive support at home is incredibly difficult, and those schools will be judged against that standard, no matter how much we try to make it a secondary standard.
I am sorry that I do not have time to continue in further detail. I say to Ministers that the Bill is good and that I will support it, but please will they think again about the English baccalaureate?
Gavin Shuker (Luton South) (Lab/Co-op)
Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for instinctively knowing that I wanted to be called after the hon. Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy), who talks an awful lot of sense particularly about the English baccalaureate.
Today is an opportunity for us to discuss the principle of the Bill, which is why it is so disappointing that the first 52 minutes of the debate were about politics. A number of elephant traps were set to try to make the Labour party look as though it were the roadblock to reform, which is not the case.
The Bill raises important issues. It includes a shift from Whitehall to the classroom, but it also goes in other directions. It goes from local people, in the form of local authorities, to individual schools. Parts 5 and 6, in particular, relate to local authorities and schools admissions and they will remove the admissions role of schools adjudicators, increase the emphasis on academies and remove the requirement to consult on them. Also relevant are free schools, appropriate consultation and the disappearance of local admissions forums. All those issues point to a broad but consistent agenda that seeks to undermine the role of local authorities and each of us in our individual locations. We are losing the sense that we are together making decisions in our towns and cities about how we educate our young people. There are trade-offs involved and we should not seek to minimise them. This is our role in debating the principles behind the Bill.
There has been a lot of talk on both sides about the number of young people coming from a free school meals background and going to Cambridge. I came from a free school meals background and went to Cambridge, so I would have been included in the figures. Much as I am concerned about that issue, I am more concerned about the young people in my constituency who come from a free school meals background, or just above that line, and who are not achieving the results that they should. I went to a comprehensive school in Luton and when I left school in 1998, which is not so long ago, only one third of young people in my constituency were achieving five GCSEs at grades A to C—the kind of thing that would help them to get on in life. At the time of the last election, the figure was two thirds, so real progress was made under Labour.
I concede that much of that progress was made as a result of the arguments about whether we should have more choice and more autonomy in schools. We have two excellent academies in Luton, one of which started in my constituency and will shortly move into a new building. I do not want to undermine the ability of people to come in and turn around schools that are really struggling, but we should not pretend there is no trade-off in relation to the power of individual heads versus power being pooled, or to the sense that together we are educating our young people.
The situation in Luton illustrates those points very well. We had 11 Building Schools for the Future projects cancelled in the BSF cancellations. For us, the projects were not just about providing world-class facilities but about providing the additional capacity that we desperately need. We have a major issue with our primary schools: we have projected that we will need another 5,000 places at a cost of £76 million, but we will get only £4 million over the next four years. As a result of more providers coming in, there is a disjointed admissions policy and successful free schools and academies, will serve only to increase the gap. My concern is that we are squeezing provision and narrowing the options in places such as Luton about how to respond to the diverse challenges required in education. The choice is between academies and free schools or nothing. There is not even a chance to expand good-quality comprehensive education because no additional is money coming in and there is no scope for local people to step in, through the realms of the local authority, and choose what type of school is appropriate for them.
Last weekend, the English Defence League was in Luton and it raised the issue, once again, of community cohesion in our town. Education is about more than children achieving what they can in terms of grades and results. It is also about the kind of society that we want to create. If we want a comprehensive and mixed society in which people from different backgrounds come together, surely in a place such as Luton comprehensive education is the ideal. We have schools that are doing the work and want to expand, so why close them off and tell them that the only route is through free-school education? Schools are drilling down into more reduced catchment areas and the only route to expanding capacity is through academies or free schools. The slimmed-down admissions codes that are coming might make the situation even worse.
In his speech, the Secretary of State cast himself as a brave reformer and cast Labour Members as the luddites who refuse to adapt to a changing world, but that is not the case. I believe there is a move, which started under the previous Government and continues under this one, to put more power into the hands of individual head teachers and away from local authorities, which are tasked with the responsibility of together finding a response that is appropriate to their setting. We have to accept that doing that comes with a cost. If the very principle of the Bill is to suck power away from the pooling of heads, we will have a model for education that is prescribed, controlled and modelled. In Luton, the effect of the Bill will be to store up problems for the future and for that reason—for my constituents—I will not vote for it tonight.
Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)
I support the Bill. As a recipient of free school meals who went to his local comprehensive and then to a red-brick university, I think there has been too much concentration on Oxbridge in the debate tonight. There are significant aspects of the Bill that need improving in Committee, but we should recognise the improvements that the Bill will bring to education across the country.
As I have gone round the schools in my constituency, I have seen that they share a number of concerns. In the last year of the Labour Government, they received 5,000 pages of diktats and orders from Whitehall. They faced unnecessary bureaucratic interference. In most schools, which are excellent, head teachers know what to do, teachers know what to do, and they can get on with the job. They do not need diktats from Whitehall telling them how they should behave and how they should operate. I am glad that that will be swept away by the Bill.
All the schools in my constituency have excellent disciplinary records, with firm discipline and leadership from the top. They say that when they have to exclude a pupil, they do so regretfully. They do not rush to do so. They try to support the pupil all the way until, regrettably, an exclusion is necessary. I speak as someone who served on a governing body for a long time and had to chair exclusion panels and go through the appeals process after the exclusions were upheld. It is a nightmare for the head teachers and for the governors, and it is unfair to the poor children who are excluded. We must give head teachers and teachers the power to do what they need to do to maintain discipline in the school so that those children can be taught in a properly disciplined way, and so that they can aspire to be the best that they can be. Without strong discipline, there can be no learning.
I would like to see some aspects of the Bill improved. The first concerns the anonymity of individuals who have been accused of crimes, about which others have spoken. I agree that teachers should be protected, but so should support staff. In a school where I was a governor, the school caretaker, sadly, was accused—falsely, I am pleased to say—of the rape of a young child. The stain on his character after being named everywhere left his life in ruins. It is not fair for that individual or any member of school staff who has been falsely accused to suffer that. We should extend anonymity to support staff.
We need to get right the issue of standard assessment tests, which are not mentioned in the Bill. For far too long, teachers in primary schools have had to teach to the SATs and the league tables, rather than teaching the children to the best of their ability and as broadly as possible.
We must look at the subjects taught in our schools. I share with the hon. Member for Luton South (Gavin Shuker) the fact that the vast majority of the schools in my constituency have a majority of children for whom English is an additional language. Far from learning French or German, learning Hindi or Gujarati would be far more appropriate for them. It should be an option for them to achieve in schools. When we are talking about global expansion and our relationship with India and the far east, why should we limit ourselves to teaching European languages? That aspect must be examined as the Bill progresses.
Finally, we need to consider the bureaucracy that has built up and the ability of academies to set themselves free and be a beacon of excellence in their communities. I was one of those who opposed the Labour Government’s academy programme because I felt that it was far too elitist. It encouraged people who did not necessarily have the best interests of education at heart to take over schools.
The beauty of the Bill and of the agenda that we are pursuing is that they offer all children the opportunity to succeed to their optimum ability. They will not be limited necessarily by their parentage or by where they come from. By offering that opportunity to everyone, from all walks of life and all backgrounds, we will give children the opportunity to succeed in a much more equal society where their ability can come to the fore and where that is what is important, rather than the accident of their birth. I strongly support the Bill.
Glenda Jackson (Hampstead and Kilburn) (Lab)
What a pleasure it is to follow the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman), who has broken the overwhelming trend in the contributions we have heard from Government Members, which has been to paint a virtually dystopian picture of education in our country in which virtually every classroom is a battlefield, every teacher is incompetent and lacking in inspiration, every child is badly taught and where examination results are lamentable in comparison with other countries.
The ability of children who receive free school meals to make it to Oxbridge seems to have been the recurring theme. The hon. Member for Central Devon (Mel Stride), who was the most recent Member to make that contribution, gave the example of Westminster school. If he is so concerned, why is he not arguing ferociously with the Government to fund pupils in our schools to the level charged in fees by Westminster and for class sizes to be as small as the standard not only in Westminster, but in every private school in this country?
As far as I can see, the Bill is a typical Government piece of legislation; it purports to be under the overarching aegis of giving back to people in this country the right to make local decisions that affect them in their local areas, but it does exactly the opposite. It will put powers into the hands of the Secretary of State that are currently undreamt of by many local authorities and by the schools in my constituency.
What I find most paradoxical is the way Government Members have bought what the Government are attempting to sell in the Bill. It starts with early-years education, because the Govt have trumpeted loud and long that every disadvantaged two-year-old—we are yet to know what will constitute that disadvantage because the Government have given us no detail—will be able to have nursery education. They then attempt to convince us that a child going from age two to five will of course be given a place in a local primary school—there is a desperate need for primary school places in my constituency—and that there will then be a gradual progression on to secondary school. Hang on a moment, because it looks, certainly from what the Government have said and from what has happened in my constituency, as though when children get to the age of 11 there will be no comprehensive schools left, only academies and free schools. The central and monstrous aspect of the Bill is that it will reintroduce a form of selection in schools. If there is no concerted local area agreement on what constitutes an admissions policy for all schools, we will see a return to what people of my generation lived through, which is the “them and us” approach to education for all our children.
The Secretary of State’s speech this afternoon culminated with the example of two schools that he admires and wants us to admire, but he ignored the fact that they rose to their present heights under a Labour Government.
Glenda Jackson
No.
The Secretary of State also asserted that the Government are committed to ensuring that every child in this country has the best possible education. How can that conceivably be so when we are looking at a situation in which academies and free schools will be the only schools available to local people? We have no idea what the capital costs or revenue costs of those schools will be. The idea that we are making a real inroad into affording opportunity and aspiration for every child, however disadvantaged their background, by introducing free education for two-year-olds, when we know that Sure Start facilities are being closed even as we speak—
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Tim Loughton)
No they’re not.
Glenda Jackson
The lack of imagination from Government Members never fails to amaze me.
The idea that this Bill is going to ensure that every child has an absolutely clear ride from the age of two to 18, that there will never be a bump on the way and that at every single point they will be encouraged, inspired and told to aspire is utter nonsense. I shall not go down the road of discussing the abolition of the education maintenance allowance for those who stay on at school until aged 18.
For Liberal Democrat party members—who I presume obtained their degrees from the Pontius Pilate school of political philosophy—to support this Bill is yet something else of which they have real cause to be ashamed. But no one should be as ashamed as the Conservative party, which, despite its protestations about caring for every child in this country, is setting in train an educational system that, as my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Steve Rotheram) said, will create not just one or two but three tiers of education in this country.
Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)
I am reminded of the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr Stuart), the Education Committee Chairman, who, towards the beginning of the debate, talked about Benjamin Disraeli and how important education was to him.
When Disraeli was talking about education, however, Bismarck was launching secondary education in Germany, and we did not get around to that until 1944. Education has always been a case of catch-up for us, and that is one reason why it is so important to focus on international comparisons. The first battle that we have to fight is the battle between ourselves and other nation states. It is an important battle and one for which we have plenty of weapons. One is having trust and confidence in our head teachers, another is having trust and confidence in our teachers and another is ensuring that our reform of the education system empowers schools to get on with their job.
The second battle that we have to fight is the battle for fairness, and this legislation helps in that regard, too, because, first, 120,000 two-year-olds will receive proper reading support, which is absolutely imperative, and secondly, we are investing £2.5 billion in the pupil premium. Those are signal efforts to ensure that we can win the battle for fairness. So there are two battles, and both are critical.
I shall comment on a few aspects of the Bill which have not been mentioned. First, on our proposals to reform Ofsted, we are right to ensure that it focuses on teaching, leadership and management, not on peripheral matters which are important, but not to the exclusion of what goes on in the classroom. So the first thing I say is, “Get it right over Ofsted.” That leads me on to intervention.
Neil Carmichael
No, I am not going to, because I only have a few minutes.
We have to intervene in failing schools. In my constituency we have one or two, but a failing school is not a good school and we should never, ever tolerate it. So we have to ensure that action is taken.
Secondly, I welcome our focus on 16 to 19-year-old education. We are empowering the Secretary of State to be in charge of that budget, and quite right too, because we cannot have people sitting in the same college classroom receiving funding from different sources and, often, different levels of funding. That is not satisfactory, and we should not tolerate it, because we have to address the skills shortage and tackle the fact that too many people do not receive sufficient training when they need it. That is bad for the first battle to which I referred, in terms of our contest with other nation states, and it is bad for the small and medium-sized businesses in our constituencies. Let us be clear about this: our focus on skills training is absolutely right.
On the baccalaureate, it is not right to say that children should not have proper education in the key subjects—they should. That is what we are saying in the Bill, and quite right too. I fully support that.
The responsibility for ensuring that the leadership and management of a school are properly focused will come down to governance, and the Bill needs to say more about that. We must remember two things about governance. First, we must focus on the skills of governors to ensure that they are willing and able to challenge the teachers and head teachers when appropriate. They must have the confidence to stand up and say, “Enough is enough”, because they are standing up for our children. Secondly, we should think less about the representative side of governance and more about what governors do and the responsibilities they have. I should like to draw that to the attention of the Secretary of State.
In summary, I support the Bill. Of course it can be improved, as can all pieces of legislation. However, the two battles that I mentioned are the battles we fight and the battles we must win.
Mary Macleod (Brentford and Isleworth) (Con)
I welcome the Bill and congratulate the Government on bringing it before the House.
We have heard many passionate speeches today about education. I agreed with the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) when he said that across the House we want all children to achieve their potential. I think we all agree with that.
Education will determine our country as a nation, creating a strong foundation on which we can build for the future. It is about giving children a great start in life, increasing a child’s options, reducing crime and strengthening our entrepreneurship ability and the growth of our economy in the long term. That is one of the reasons I came into politics. If I could do one thing in politics, it would be to create aspiration for all across society, as my hon. Friend the Member for Tamworth (Christopher Pincher) said. That is why I became a school governor, like so many others here. Like my hon. Friends the Members for Gosport (Caroline Dinenage) and for Salisbury (John Glen), I have been visiting all the schools on my patch, including Heathland school, The Green school, Isleworth and Syon school and Chiswick community school.
I would like briefly to mention three issues, the first of which is discipline. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Central Devon (Mel Stride), I think it is an absolute scandal that every school day nearly 1,000 children are excluded from school for abusing and assaulting staff and fellow pupils. Major assaults on staff have reached a five-year high, and that cannot be tolerated. Discipline, as my mother would say, starts at home, but sadly not all children have this. In my experience of working as a school governor, discipline is absolutely critical to the success of a school. The head of Holland Park school, Colin Hall, who is also a constituent of mine, transformed the school by introducing a structure, values, pride, order and expectations. He introduced a clear code of conduct that was about creating a standard of zero tolerance whereby certain things were no longer acceptable, and the students abided by it. I believe that the measures in the Bill will help to restore that balance of power in schools, giving heads and teachers more support in their efforts to maintain discipline in the classroom.
My second point is about the curriculum. My hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight (Mr Turner) mentioned the international league tables for education. It is unacceptable that in the UK we have been falling down those league tables. My hon. Friend the Member for Bristol North West (Charlotte Leslie) spoke eloquently about the OECD figures, which show that we have slipped from 7th to 25th in reading, from 8th to 28th in maths, and from 4th to 16th in science. This has to be changed, and we must sort it out. I want to restore academic excellence in the UK. I agree with introducing the English baccalaureate because we want academic excellence for all. We want all children to have the opportunity to achieve that excellence. Education has traditionally been the core strength of this country, but we have let it slip and need to get it back on track. The proposals in the Bill will raise educational standards and give the next generation the education that it deserves.
On post-16 education, I welcome, especially in national apprenticeships week, the Government’s approach to apprenticeships. That investment is about creating skills and jobs for the future.
Finally, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bedford (Richard Fuller) said, the Bill gives us the inspiration to create free schools. Given that I need a new school in Brentford and Isleworth, I encourage parents, teachers, co-operatives and charitable trusts to create something for the future.
In conclusion, we need to give all children the best possible chance in life by giving them a great education, skills and aspirations so that they can go on to do their best and be the best that they can be. Teachers have a special role in helping children to believe in themselves and achieve their potential. The Bill will allow them to do that by restoring discipline, reducing bureaucracy and raising standards, which will create a better future for us all.
Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)
We have had an excellent debate this evening on the Second Reading of the Bill. If I counted correctly, following the opening speeches there were 34 speeches from the Back Benches—a full class in the state sector, although perhaps not in the sector in which most Government Members were educated.
There are many reasons to oppose the Bill. Indeed, the provision to increase the interest rate on student loans, which has been snuck into the Bill, would be sufficient reason on its own. The Secretary of State accuses us of being against everything in the Bill because we will vote against its Second Reading. In that case, perhaps we should warn the Liberal Democrats that they will be painted as voting in favour of increasing the interest rate on student loans, even if they voted against the student finance measure in the motion before Christmas.
Kevin Brennan
In a moment. I am sure that people will, in a “Focus”-like fashion, look at the way Government Members vote this evening.
There are many other reasons to oppose the Bill, which my right hon. Friend the Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham) pointed out in his opening speech. It strips power from pupils, professionals, parents and the public. That is not to say that we do not support some things in the Bill. We have heard about that during the course of the afternoon. On the surface, the Bill tries to make further progress on the excellent progress that we made in government on behaviour, including on the ability to search pupils and confiscate items, clarifying the position on the reasonable use of force by teachers, and allowing teachers to discipline pupils for behaviour beyond the school gate.
Like any reasonable Opposition, we want to scrutinise the detail in Committee. We want to be sure that the Government’s proposals will have a positive impact and not drag schools into further bureaucracy or legal challenge. The proposals should broadly promote the ability of a school to create a quiet, orderly environment for learning. That is the kind of environment that we all agree is not only good for the vast majority of non-disruptive students, but is in the interests of pupils whose behaviour impacts on their own learning and that of others. We will consider the proposals in forensic detail in Committee.
Kevin Brennan
In a minute.
In Committee, we will consider the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Meg Munn) and others to ensure that the proposals are not window dressing, but a genuine enhancement of what we achieved in office. We will consider whether they will cause more problems for teachers and schools. Part 1 of the Bill seeks to build on the revolution in early-years provision that Labour pioneered in office. In particular, we will look closely at the power the Secretary of State is awarding himself to decide who gets early-years teaching, how much and when. We will approach the Bill in Committee in that way.
Overall, we oppose the Bill on Second Reading because, along with a number of other pieces of legislation, it fits in with the ideology of the coalition Government; an ideology that the Lib Dems appear to have been duped into going along with, having been seduced, it seems, by Lady Localism. Well, she is not what she seems in this Bill and I ask the Lib Dems to consider carefully what the Bill does about localism. Localism, for them, used to mean enhancing local democracy. This fits in with the Orwellian use of language that the Government have adopted. Just as for the Home Secretary a curfew has become an “overnight residence requirement”, localism is used to describe a Bill that takes away local democratic power from communities, teachers and parents, and puts the power into the hands of one man—the Secretary of State. The Bill is described, unbelievably, as a decentralising measure, but he is taking more than 50 new powers to himself to control almost every single aspect of the schools system.
Kevin Brennan
I do not have time to list them all, as the Secretary of State knows, but here are a few examples: which subject students should study, how teachers should teach and what types of schools communities should have. He will say that he is just nudging them in that direction, but a nudge with a loaded gun is very different from a gentle steer.
What is it about the Secretary of State, assisted by the Minister of State, the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Mr Gibb), that makes him so obsessed with grabbing more and more power at the centre?
Kevin Brennan
I would not quite go that far, but whether it is the power to close schools or the power to discipline teachers individually, which has been so carefully and consensually put beyond politicians in recent years, we have to ask why the big power grab.
I do not know whether any Members with children have ever seen the TV cartoon “Pinky and the Brain”, but the Minister of State and the Secretary of State rather remind me of it. As the title suggests, there are two characters. Pinky is good-natured, but he is dominated by the Brain, who is self-centred and thinks he is a genius. Every episode, after the opening titles, there is the following piece of dialogue: Pinky says, “Gee, Brain, what do you want to do tonight?”, and the Brain says, “The same thing we do every night, Pinky. Try to take over the world.” That could almost be a transcript of the ministerial meeting at the Department for Education. I know the Secretary of State thinks he is clever, possibly the cleverest boy in the Government, but trying to create an education system in his own image, with all the powers in his own hands, is ultimately a recipe for chaos, not world domination.
The Secretary of State is so intent on making sure that he grabs all the power to himself that he is getting rid of some of the bodies that might get in the way of his scheme not once but twice. Bodies such as the General Teaching Council, which was set up to give teachers the same professional autonomy as other valued professions, are abolished not only in this Bill but in the Public Bodies Bill, presumably just in case abolishing them once is not enough to make absolutely certain that they are absolutely dead. It is in case they suddenly rise up, like the false ending of some schlock horror film. We knew that the Secretary of State had a penchant for drama—we see it every week in the Chamber—although, I hasten to add, not enough of a penchant to include it in the English baccalaureate. However, killing a body twice to make sure it is dead is a bit over the top, even for him.
Why this centralising power grab? It is not just power for power’s sake, it is part of his vision of education. In their mind’s eye, the Secretary of State and the Minister of State see serried ranks of schoolchildren sitting at individual desks, preferably wearing short trousers, chanting after their teacher their conjugated Latin verbs and copying down the dates of the kings and queens of England from the board. [Interruption.] Did I hear a “Hear, hear” from the Conservative Benches? I think I might have done.
If the Secretary of State thinks that is how to raise standards, he is wrong. A curriculum designed to train a few people to run the empire is not a system that will inspire and motivate the next generation to use their talent and creativity to the maximum benefit of themselves and the country. He has made it clear that in his mind a grade C GCSE in an ancient language, a laudable achievement in itself, is more valued than an A* in engineering or information and communications technology. He is, to coin a phrase, creating an analogue curriculum for a digital age.
All pupils need the basic building blocks of literacy and numeracy, but beyond that, corralling pupils into a narrow range of subjects post-16 restricts choice and stifles creativity. Schools up and down the country, having been nudged by the Secretary of State with his loaded gun, are busily rewriting their timetables and pressurising pupils into taking GCSEs that are not necessarily the best ones for them to fulfil their individual talents. We must bear in mind the fact that they will already have studied history, geography, science and a modern language through the national curriculum. The English bac took a bit of a kicking from some Members on his own side of the House today, and he should listen to what they had to say.
Why is the Secretary of State doing all this? Just so that at the end of this Parliament, he can point to a measure that he invented and imposed ex post—that is a bit of Latin, in case anybody did not know—and say, “Look how we’ve improved things. More people are studying the subjects that we have retrospectively said they should have been studying all along.” It is actually pretty hard for people to fail a test when they have set the questions themselves. The provisions in the Bill on PISA tables are fine, but the Secretary of State had better stop misquoting statistics that he knows the OECD has disowned, and he had better stop ignoring evidence, such as that from Hong Kong or Scandinavia, when it does not suit his overall vision.
When the Secretary of State finally gets round to saying something about vocational education, which he seems fundamentally to believe is for people who do not do well academically, he should remember that medicine is a vocational training that he ought to support. His problem is that he sees the English baccalaureate as the premiership and any league table of vocational qualifications as the Beazer Homes league—[Interruption.] I agree that there is nothing wrong with the Beazer Homes league.
Finally, presumably the Secretary of State blames the previous Labour Government for the decline in social mobility in Government Ministers, and believes that it is our fault that the Government Front Bench is dominated by old Etonians, because we did not do enough on social mobility in government. On that point, I shall sit down.
The Minister of State, Department for Education (Mr Nick Gibb)
This has been an excellent debate, with speeches delivered with passion and expertise on a subject that could not be more important. In the words of the hon. Member for Vauxhall (Kate Hoey), who made a principled speech in support of the Bill, the debate is about the education of the next generation and a Bill that will determine the kind of society we have in 20 or 30 years’ time.
Between April 2009 and March 2010, 20,094 children rang ChildLine because they were being bullied at school. The median age of the children concerned was between 10 and 14, and 342 of those children were so traumatised that they were considering suicide. It is unacceptable that a child’s education and childhood should be blighted by such stress. The coalition Government are committed to tackling all forms of bullying in our schools, including homophobic bullying, and the Bill makes a start by tackling the root cause of bullying—poor behaviour in our schools.
Last year, 2,890 pupils were expelled from school for violent or abusive behaviour, and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Reading East (Mr Wilson) pointed out, 1,000 pupils were suspended every day for such behaviour. The Bill ensures that when such a pupil is expelled, the appeals panel will be unable to require a school to take them back against its wishes.
We want to tackle violent behaviour, but we also want to tackle the widespread and corrosive, low-level disruption that challenges teachers throughout the day, which serves to deter people from entering the profession and pushes many to leave it. According to the National Foundation for Educational Research, two thirds of teachers say that negative behaviour is driving teachers out of the profession. Dealing with that is about even more than tackling low level disruption. In some schools, children refuse to do their homework and teachers know that their pupils will not do their French vocabulary or read the next chapter of the set novel. Tackling that culture of low expectation and the school ethos by which it is not cool to study and work hard is central to our educational reforms, because that culture is at its strongest in the weakest schools in the most disadvantaged areas.
The attainment gap between those from wealthy and poor backgrounds is unacceptably wide. Fifty-nine per cent. of non-free school meal pupils last year achieved five or more good GCSEs, compared with 31% of pupils who qualify for free school meals. That 28-point gap has remained stubbornly constant over the years. Our objective is to shift the balance of authority in schools away from the pupil and towards the teachers and heads—away from the child to the adult.
My hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) is right that we need to tackle the I-know-my-rights attitude of the disruptive child and enforce the rights of the overwhelming majority of children in schools, who just want to get on and learn in a safe, happy and stress-free environment. Pupils in schools make it clear that they know when they are being let down by poor behaviour, an inadequate curriculum or poor teaching. Addressing those issues is at the core of the Bill.
That is also why we have launched a major review of the national curriculum—we want to ensure that our schools are teaching at least the core knowledge of the main academic disciplines—and why we have introduced the English baccalaureate to include GCSEs in English, maths, science, history or geography and a language. My hon. Friend the Member for Bristol North West (Charlotte Leslie) was right to argue in a powerful speech that this is not an elitist education. It is elitist to say that children from poorer backgrounds are not entitled to a broad academic education. That is elitist and backward looking. It is that attitude that has led to this country having wider equality gaps than most other countries in the OECD.
My hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr Stuart) asked whether the duties in the Bill on school provision of independent careers advice will apply to new academies. They will do so through their funding agreements. He also asked how we can prevent competition from damaging co-operation between schools. Our whole approach is to encourage the best professionals and schools to support the improvement of other schools. That is why outstanding and good schools converting to academies are required to support weaker schools, and why we are increasing the number of national and local education leaders. The hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman), the former Chairman of the then Select Committee on Children, Schools and Families, is right to say that we need to take the party battles out of the education debate, and to look at the evidence—an approach that he always took when I served under his excellent chairmanship of the Select Committee. I welcome his comments about the Bill.
I felt that the shadow Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham), overstated his case, perhaps for internal Labour party reasons and the need to be seen to oppose. However, he was also wrong on a number of issues. Local authorities will continue to be responsible for co-ordinating admissions, parents will continue to be able to complain to the school governing body and then to the Secretary of State, and, on exclusions, parents will have the right to appeal to an independent review panel. My hon. Friends the Members for North Cornwall (Dan Rogerson) and for Bedford (Richard Fuller) will be pleased to learn that we are considering the expertise on the panel, including that on special educational needs. The adjudicator will continue to investigate complaints, and we are extending his role to academies, which I hope will reassure my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke). The shadow Secretary of State was also wrong about apprenticeships. Under the Bill, every 16 to 18-year-old who secures an apprenticeship place will have their training funded. Next year’s budget will be more than £1.4 billion, funding more than 350,000 apprenticeships.
The key objectives of the Bill are to raise standards of behaviour in our schools, to return authority to teachers and head teachers, and to send a message to schools that this is a Government who will support teachers. If teachers tell us that we are not doing enough on discipline, we will do more: clarifying and strengthening the rights of teachers, anonymity when facing damaging false accusations and abolishing the statutory requirement for 24 hours’ written notice of detentions. We are sweeping away swathes of bureaucratic burdens from the desks and staff rooms of the teaching profession in order to send the message that we trust teachers as professionals. We are abolishing five quangos while strengthening accountability and increasing choice for parents. The White Paper, “The Importance of Teaching”, set out a programme of reform designed to close the attainment gap between those from the poorest and wealthiest backgrounds, and to reverse this country’s decline in international performance tables so that all who are educated in our state schools have the opportunity to compete with the school leavers and graduates of countries with the best performing education systems.
We want an education system in which left-leaning journalists no longer feel they have no choice but to send their children to the independent sector. We want an education system where high performing schools such as Durand primary school, Mossbourne academy in Hackney and Twyford Church of England school are no longer regarded as extraordinary. This is a Government serious about education reform. The White Paper sets out our path, and this Education Bill marks a further stride towards delivering high-quality education for all. I commend the Bill to the House.
Question put, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
The House proceeded to a Division.
Mr Speaker
I ask the Serjeant at Arms to investigate the delay in the No Lobby.
Business without Debate
(13 years, 4 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Education Maintenance Allowance
(13 years, 4 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Mr Speaker
Order. Before the hon. Member for Mansfield (Mr Meale) presents his petition, may I issue my ritual exhortation to hon. Members, right hon. Members, and even Ministers who are planning to leave the Chamber to do so quickly and quietly, extending the same courtesy to the hon. Member for Mansfield that they would wish in such circumstances to be extended to them?
Mr Meale
Thank you very much, Mr Speaker—although I must say that I do not mind if the Secretary of State for Education remains in the Chamber to hear the petition. He is fully aware that the abolition of education maintenance allowance is causing mayhem throughout our education system. Indeed, in North Nottinghamshire, part of which I represent, 74% of students who apply for EMA receive it in one form or another, and in my constituency of Mansfield 64% receive the maximum amount.
The petition, addressed to the honourable the Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in Parliament assembled, states:
The Humble Petition of Stephen Yemm, citizen of Mansfield, Nottinghamshire, and others, including 420 other students of West Nottinghamshire College and Queen Elizabeth School, both based in Mansfield, Nottinghamshire,
Sheweth, that they are opposed to the axing of the Education Maintenance Allowance which currently helps thousands of young people reach their full potential.
Wherefore your Petitioners pray that your Honourable House calls upon the Government not to axe the EMA, but instead to continue with it supporting adult learners through this adult learning grant.
And your Petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray, &c.
[P000885]
Higher Education (Student Visas)
(13 years, 4 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Richard Bacon (South Norfolk) (Con)
I am pleased to have this opportunity to debate the impact on higher education of the proposed changes to tier 4 immigration rules, otherwise known as visas for students. The importance of this issue was drawn to my attention by my constituent, Professor Edward Acton, vice-chancellor of the university of East Anglia, who is chairing the Universities UK taskforce on this issue and who, like the Minister for Immigration, has recently given evidence to the Select Committee on Home Affairs inquiry on the subject. I should remind the House at the outset that the UK punches above its weight in this area: we have one in 100 of the world’s population, but seven in the top 200 of the world’s best universities.
Let me start by making a couple of basic observations. First, some people will perhaps be surprised—I certainly was—to learn that proper, genuine students are seriously considered to be part of the migration figures at all. Certainly, students must be subject to proper controls and have visas—student visas—but since they are self-evidently a transient population who come to this country to study, and who spend money in doing so, and who then leave when their studies are over, it is not immediately obvious why they should be considered as migrants. There is of course an issue—a very real issue—to do with whether students actually leave and, more to the point, whether those who call themselves students are nothing of the kind but in essence migrants by a different name, playing the system to come to this country for the purposes of long-term settlement. I will come to that later, but for now let me just say that students who come from overseas to this country genuinely to study should not in my view be properly understood as migrants, in the sense that they come here to stay and settle, that by being in this country for a given period of years they somehow acquire rights to stay that they did not have at the outset, or that they are somehow the source of political anxiety about immigration—they are not. They come here, they pay significant sums into our economy, they study, they eat, they drink and then they leave.
My second observation is that I have noticed that some people talk about this issue as a political problem. “I know there is a political problem,” they say, and they mean by that that this Government came to office saying that they would sort out immigration; they said that net immigration was too high and the figures would have to be reduced; and that that was the political reality that must be faced. The result is a clampdown—or potential clampdown—on visas.
One hears stories about eminent and hyper-qualified people, including some of the world’s foremost jurists and scientists, being unable to come to the UK to work, although without having personal experience of each such story one never knows for sure how true they are. I can say, however, that in my constituency I have encountered a Japanese paper conservator qualified to postgraduate level in both western and eastern conservation techniques who has had to leave the country because of the new rules. On hearing such stories, people say, “That’s not what we mean. We don’t want to exclude those who are going to help the country.” I think of what my constituents say to me on the issue. They have never said, “Let’s make sure we exclude the highly skilled—those with something to offer and who are going to help the country.”
The political problem in respect of immigration is quite different. My constituents are sick to the back teeth of people cheating when they want to migrate to this country—of people playing the system, and being more interested in what they can get from this country, including our benefits and health service, than in what they can contribute. My constituents hear stories about cheating, and they believe that at least some of them are true and they want it stamped out. For most fair-minded people, that is what lights the blue touch-paper in respect of immigration. There is not any desire to keep out those who will help us or those who want to study.
Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)
I congratulate the hon. Gentleman both on securing the debate and on having sat through the entire Select Committee sitting this morning. He will have heard every single witness, including the Minister and the representative of Migrationwatch UK, say that they have nothing against genuine students coming here, but that the people they are against are bogus students at bogus colleges.
Mr Bacon
I was particularly interested to hear Sir Andrew Green of Migrationwatch UK, who I have always thought is a very articulate spokesman on these matters, say that he was interested in bogus students, bogus applicants, bogus colleges and genuine students who overstayed, because those categories contribute to net migration, but that he would welcome more genuine overseas students, as he thinks that is good for the country and the economy.
My fear is that genuine overseas students have been caught up in all this, so let me say how pleased I am that the Government have taken steps to deal with bogus colleges. The Select Committee on Home Affairs produced a useful report on that issue in 2009 and I gather from the Minister’s evidence to the Committee today that some 58 colleges have had their status revoked and the Government have taken compliance action against a further 235, which may lead to suspension or revocation of status. I applaud those excellent and worthwhile moves. Nobody has a stronger interest in seeing bogus colleges put out of business than legitimate providers. I should add that the Committee’s previous recommendation to restrict by law the use of the word “college” is a good one that Ministers should take seriously.
There is no place for bogus colleges or bogus applicants; nor is there any place for genuine applicants who overstay. We should have clear rules that everyone understands and that are enforced. If we deal with the bogus colleges, the cheats, the bogus applicants and those who fiddle the system, a great deal of the heat—the political problem about immigration—goes away. At that point, we face chiefly not a political problem, but a much more entrenched and difficult economic problem. We are all living through the consequences of the worst financial crash for a century or more. We know that this will be very painful and that severe belt-tightening will take place, and we have seen the Government make a start on that. We all know that any Government would have had to do the same. We know that we have to rebalance the economy away from its heavy dependence on financial services and have much healthier growth in other sectors.
We know that in Norfolk as well as anywhere does in the UK, because Norfolk is poised for significant growth in other areas of the economy, particularly once we get the dualling of the A11 completed, which I am pleased the Government have agreed. Norfolk is poised to help that rebalancing and not only through tourism, agriculture and high value-added food production, in which East Anglia has excelled, because there is a broader potential for growth. For example, Norwich is home to a cluster of internationally renowned research organisations in health and life sciences.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that for a great many universities across the United Kingdom—particularly Queen’s university in Belfast—students on visas are very important to research and development and to contact with companies? That potential needs to be realised. Does he feel that the coalition Government can make changes to ensure that the students who have the right to be in this country can make a contribution to universities and, thus, secure development?
Mr Bacon
I certainly hope so. I hope that the Government understand, if they had not already, that two in five PhDs undertaken in this country are undertaken by overseas students. Damage that and we damage the research base of this country.
More than 2,500 scientists are working at the John Innes centre near Norwich, the Institute of Food Research, the Sainsbury Laboratory, the Genome Analysis Centre and the university of East Anglia cluster, which together form the Norwich research park. That is the largest concentration of food and plant scientists in Europe. The IFR was recently ranked in the top two of 36,000 worldwide research organisations for the influence and citation of its research.
UEA also has a growing medical school and a renowned school of environmental studies. Other growing sectors include offshore and other renewable energy, including tidal, biomass and biofuel energy production. In advanced engineering the area has more than 1,000 engineering companies, employing a skilled work force of about 10,000 people, which trade around the world with the likes of Boeing, Airbus, NASA and Toyota. Group Lotus, which is based in my constituency, is developing the next generation of high-performance cars using renewable energies, as well as being the catalyst for a large cluster of advanced automotive engineering businesses along the A11 corridor. Almost every Formula 1 team is supported by engineers based in Norfolk or is using engineering invented in the county.
Mr Robert Syms (Poole) (Con)
My hon. Friend is making a powerful argument. This is a very competitive area because there are other countries, other language centres, and other colleges and universities to go to. Unless we get rid of the uncertainty, we will lose millions of pounds and thousands of students.
Mr Bacon
My hon. Friend is right because the uncertainty is already proving damaging, particularly on the language issue, as I will discuss in a second. In East Anglia, we see around us the huge potential for a new rebalanced economy that places relatively less emphasis on financial services and has growth in all these other sectors. We have the potential for a golden triangle between Cambridge, Norwich and Ipswich, where BT Martlesham has its own electrical generating capacity, because it uses more electricity for computing power than many small towns.
Where is the role of the universities in all this? It is nothing short of crucial. As the Minister knows, we need more skilled people—all Governments talk about the need for more skills. Our education system produces far too many people who are not equipped to go further, which was the subject of this afternoon’s Second Reading debate. Some people cannot study at university, because they do not have the basics in English, maths and science. We have a shortage of science and maths teachers, which is being made worse by a vicious circle: not enough students reaching the basic standard; not enough students studying those subjects at A-level; not enough good people therefore applying to university to study those subjects; and accordingly not enough graduates to become teachers to help solve the problem.
What is helping to break that vicious circle? The answer is overseas students. In many STEM subjects—science, technology, engineering and mathematics—courses are viable only due to the substantial proportion of enrolments from outside the UK and the EU. If we get all this wrong, we will damage the possibility of our economy recovering and rebalancing away from an over-dependence on financial services. One need only look to the United States to see the enormously important role of a vibrant university sector in driving economic growth.
In 2009, a study by the Kauffman Foundation on the impact of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which analysed the economic effect of MIT alumni-founded companies and their entrepreneurial ecosystem, concluded that if the active companies founded by MIT graduates were to form an independent nation, their revenues would make that nation at least the 17th largest economy in the world. The state comptroller of New York has estimated that college and student spending directly or indirectly provides nearly 500,000 jobs and generates more than $62 billion of economic activity. The comptroller of public accounts in the state of Texas has estimated that every dollar invested in the state’s higher education system eventually returns $5.50 to the Texas economy.
Why are those American comparisons interesting? The United States is the most successful higher education market in the world. It is No. 1, but which is No. 2? Where is the second-favourite destination?
Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)
The university of Liverpool has 3,000 international students, who generate not only £30 million of income for the university but a positive, knock-on effect for our local economy. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that if we do not ensure that those students can come to the UK, we will see, at a time when we are seeing cuts to our university budgets, massive impacts on local economies?
Mr Bacon
I will not give way. I am sorry, but I must make some progress, because I must leave time for the Minister to answer and this is only a half-hour debate.
The UK higher education sector is a major export in a market that is set to grow rapidly. Professor Steve Smith of Universities UK told the Select Committee on Home Affairs that higher education is by some estimates the seventh largest export sector in the UK—others have put it as high as the third largest—and the market is growing by 7% a year. As the Home Secretary has pointed out, the combination of international fee income and personal off-campus expenditure by international higher education students alone already approaches £5 billion. That has become a vital income stream for universities and for the wider economy.
As I have mentioned, Professor Edward Acton told the Home Affairs Committee:
“In a tricky funding period, most universities plan to expand international numbers in the immediate future. The ability to do so reflects and enhances the performance and reputation of UK HE internationally: it is a Performance Indicator in international league tables. Culturally, the international student presence is key to ensuring our Home students prepare for and excel in a global graduate market”.
The UK’s international alumni provide a healthy anglophile network among public and private decision makers in every one of our trading partners. The key question for universities is whether the Government intend to promote or restrict our recruitment of bona fide non-EU students in higher education. As Professor Acton stated in his submission to the Home Affairs Committee:
“The answer might seem obvious, so forthright are No. 10, the Foreign Office and BIS on the matter and so vast are the economic, financial and cultural benefits to universities and the country.”
The Foreign Secretary announced in January that
“as British Ministers fan out across the world in the months to come we will be promoting British education as well as our economy as a whole.”
On his recent Asian trip, the Prime Minister emphasised
“how much we want to welcome international students to Britain”
and that international students are a
“great way of forming a partnership between our countries”.
Professor Acton and Universities UK fear that the UK Border Agency is set on a course which, if it is not altered, will drastically reduce legitimate higher education recruitment with a grave threat to pre-university pathway courses, which produce an income for universities of £1 billion a year. It is very important at this point to distinguish, as Professor Acton does in his paper, between sub-degree courses and pre-university pathway courses.
The Minister will know that the international passenger survey is deeply flawed and that the Treasury Committee said three years ago that it was not fit for purpose if that purpose was to play a central role in estimating international migration. I urge him to continue engaging with the universities sector, which has offered to pay for speedy research to provide the conclusive cross-check suggested by Professor Acton in his paper. We cannot wait for several years while e-Borders gets sorted—we need action sooner than that. The Select Committee has explored these matters in depth and raised many interesting issues, such as the role of accreditation bodies and whether they should be merged, the place of post-work study and the requirement or otherwise to return to one’s home country. However, I shall not dwell on those issues because there is precious little time left.
I shall concentrate on just two issues, the first of which is pre-university pathway courses. Yesterday, I visited the highly impressive £38 million INTO building at the university of East Anglia, which provides pathway courses for 700 students each year, half of whom go on to study for degrees at UEA and about half of whom go on to university studies elsewhere. That aspect of university provision is now a critical part of the international offer. Many countries do not have the equivalent of a second-year A-level and their students simply are not ready to start a university degree course without further preparation. In providing such preparation, universities such as UEA are taking a sensible entrepreneurial step to safeguard their future growth and to help safeguard the UK’s higher education market and make sure that it prospers.
The second issue, which relates to the intervention of my hon. Friend the Member for Poole (Mr Syms), is the importance of the English language in the mix. At a time when French universities have started offering university courses in the English language because of the richness of the potential English-language instruction market, I need hardly stress how important it is for the UK not to damage inadvertently that market in the UK. I can speak personally for the adage that there is no place to learn a language as good as the country concerned. I was a student in Berlin, where I attended lectures in English and German, and I acquired a new respect for any student studying overseas in a language that is not their mother tongue. That is an extraordinarily difficult thing to do without help. We are spoilt in the UK because English is the world’s language of business and academia. We are so used to hearing a high standard of English among educated northern Europeans such as Swedes, Germans and Dutch—at the B2 standard or higher—that we assume it is easily attainable, but it is not. Those countries have invested a huge amount over many years to get to where they are now. The B2 standard of English is not often achieved in southern Europe and is seldom achieved in east Asia. Any measures that include a requirement for a B2 standard of English as a condition of entry will have a significant, damaging effect on the market for overseas students coming to the UK.
This goes beyond language. UEA has developed the innovative Newton programme in which overseas students come to the UK to do A-levels in the sciences, mathematics and economics in a university environment and have the opportunity to attend lectures with university undergraduates in those disciplines. That is a great way of marketing the university overseas and attracts some of the highest calibre students. If there were ever an area that cried out for joined-up government it is this.
I really want to hear from the Minister on one issue above any other: do the Government intend to promote or reduce the UK’s recruitment of bona fide non-EU students in higher education? We have to get out of a big hole. It is simply critical, at a time when the Government are asking universities to be more entrepreneurial, to seek out new customers and to offer new courses that meet the needs of those customers; and at a time when the whole economy needs a lift, which the university sector can provide, that the right hand and the left hand of our Government each know what the other is doing and that we do not inadvertently choke off what should be a crucial part of this country’s recovery.
The Minister for Immigration (Damian Green)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for South Norfolk (Mr Bacon) on securing the debate. I appreciate that the unusually large attendance for an Adjournment debate means that many Members have come to intervene, but unfortunately, as my hon. Friend has taken up two thirds of the time available, I am afraid I will not be able to take any interventions. He has raised many important points that I want to address in the brief time remaining.
First, let me put the consultation into perspective. Reforming the immigration system and reducing the level of immigration to a sustainable number is one of the Government’s big tasks. The uncontrolled immigration levels of the previous decade led to a loss of public confidence, strain on public services and an increase in the visibility of extremist politicians holding unpleasant views seeking to exploit the problem. We as a country need to reverse this, and we as a Government are doing just that.
We have made it clear that we will take a different approach. We will tighten up our system, stop abuse and support only the most beneficial immigrants. We set out our approach last year to economic migration, we have just finished a consultation on student migration, the specific subject of the debate, and we will consult on families and settlement. We have indicated that, through a more rigorous and controlled approach, we will see fewer non-EU migrants than in the past. Our goal is an improved system that commands the confidence of the public and serves our economic interests. We expect this to come through a system that shows a significant fall in net migration to the UK, from the hundreds of thousands annually that we have seen in recent years to tens of thousands over the course of this Parliament. To set that in perspective, in 2009 net migration was at nearly 200,000 and continued rising in the early part of 2010. For non-EEA migrants—that is, excluding British and EU citizens—it was around 184,000. My principal task is to reduce the numbers coming, increase the numbers leaving when their visas are up, and eliminate abuse in the system, one of the important points raised by my hon. Friend.
I am taking action to tighten our migration system across all entry routes for non-EEA-migrants—work, study and family—and to break the link between temporary routes and permanent settlement. Some of the measures will take effect in the short term. Others will set us on a long-term road to sustainable immigration, where Britain benefits economically and culturally from new skills and backgrounds, but in a context where people are at ease with the changes that they see around them.
On the student immigration system, the majority of non-EU immigrants are students. Our public consultation on the student visa system closed on 31 January and we are carefully considering the more than 30,000 responses that we received, before finalising our proposals.
Let me deal directly with some of the points made by my hon. Friend. The UK’s education system is world renowned. We remain the second most popular global destination of choice for the many thousands of higher education students who choose to study abroad each year. We want to encourage all those genuine students coming here to study at our world-class academic institutions. Genuine international students make an important financial contribution to the institutions that they attend, including our universities, where their continued contribution will be all the more important in the light of changes to the way in which those institutions are funded.
The brightest and the best students who have the greatest contribution to make to the UK will continue to be welcomed under the student route, but we remain concerned that not all those using the student route at present are genuine students whose main intention is to come to the UK to study. There are significant numbers of students whose contribution is less easily defined.
One of the interesting points that my hon. Friend makes, which has also been made to me by Professor Acton, on whose behalf he was speaking, is that we should stop counting students as immigrants—that they come, they study and they go, so they should not count. I am afraid to tell my hon. Friend that the definition of an immigrant is a UN definition. It is not under my control or under the control of the British Government. According to that definition, an immigrant is somebody who comes to stay in a country with the intention of staying for more than a year. That is the international definition.
Those who invite me to change the definition make a tempting case. I could at a stroke define away 60% of the immigration into the UK. I could, with the statistical stroke of a pen, define away the immigration problem, but I am programmed to resist temptation. In all seriousness, the idea that any Government could say, “We’ve solved the serious problem of immigration simply by redefining what immigrants are” would have no credibility. It would clearly be an absurd thing to do. We have to keep using the internationally agreed figures that are always used.
It is important to put the arguments in a proper statistical perspective. Students now represent the largest proportion of non-EU net migration. In 2009 the student route, including dependants, accounted for approximately 139,000 out of the total net migration figure of 184,000, which is 76% of total net migration. Recent Home Office research shows that 13% of those granted settlement in 2009 were originally admitted as students—23,000 grants of settlement. Further Home Office research shows that more than one fifth of those who came here as students in 2004 were still here five years later in 2009.
Another point that is absolutely essential to understanding the debate is that all too often there is an assumption that the vast majority of those students who come here do so as university students. Actually, 41% of the students who come here from abroad do so to study a course below degree level, and abuse is particularly common at those lower levels. As my hon. Friend admitted, 58 education providers have had their sponsor licences revoked since 31 March 2009, and the vast majority of them were privately funded further education colleges.
Last year, the post-study route, which my hon. Friend mentioned, allowed 38,000 foreign graduates to enter the UK labour market at a time when one in 10 UK graduates were unemployed in their first six months after graduating. Another common misconception is that because those highly skilled students are coming to read degrees and then take up skilled jobs in the work force, surely they are upskilling our general industrial output. In a survey of users of that system in which respondents were asked about their current employment status, of those in the tier 1 post-study work category—precisely those who are meant to be the brightest and the best doing skilled jobs—almost one fifth were unemployed and only half of those who were employed were in a skilled or highly skilled job.
It is too sweeping a statement to say that the system as it has worked up to now is not delivering highly skilled people into highly skilled jobs, because it is doing some of that, but it is also doing an awful lot of something else that I suspect Members on both sides of the House would not regard as desirable. As was mentioned in the interesting Home Affairs Committee hearing this morning, when the new system was introduced by the previous Government, there was such widespread abuse in three parts of the world that after a few months the whole system had to be suspended there: no student could be let in from parts of China, India and Nepal because of the absolutely widespread abuse that we saw.
I have already identified the private sector FE colleges that provide education below degree level as the area where we have the most worries. In the last year for which we have figures, those institutions admitted 91,000 students, so we are not talking about a small number of students on the periphery of a system that basically involves universities. We are talking about tens of thousands of students coming to institutions, the vast majority of which are not highly trusted sponsors under our system. That is why one of the key proposals in our consultation document is that only providers who are highly trusted sponsors will be able to offer courses below degree level.
Another absolutely key item on which we have consulted is a stricter accreditation system, which we need to create. The accreditation system that has grown up for those private sector colleges in recent years is clearly not adequate, and we are talking to those who regulate education, as well as looking at the way in which we regulate immigration routes, so that a new accreditation system for those institutions can be introduced which ensures our confidence in them. In the past few days, we have finished the consultation, and we will finalise our proposals over the coming weeks and, of course, announce our response to the House as soon as possible.
We want to create for student migration a strong framework that requires education providers to tighten and improve their selection and recruitment procedures. There will be a greater emphasis on quality, and we shall drive abuse out of the system. That will generate public confidence in the immigration system and ultimately be good for all the legitimate international students who are welcome to study here. Those changes to the student route are a vital building block in our overall immigration policy.
Petition
Immigration (Sivarajah Suganthan)
Westminster Hall
(13 years, 4 months ago)
Westminster HallRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Independent Debt Advice
(13 years, 4 months ago)
Westminster HallRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Yvonne Fovargue (Makerfield) (Lab)
I am pleased to have secured this important debate and to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Riordan.
Research from Money Advice Trust suggests that at any given time up to 5 million people report being in arrears with consumer credit and mortgage payments or find that their credit commitments are an unsustainable burden. However, planned cuts to funding will significantly reduce the capacity of independent advice agencies to assist such people, which could result in potentially serious consequences both to the individual and the state.
I shall quote an example from my local citizens advice bureau in Wigan. John—not his real name—was receiving numerous letters from creditors. He came for assistance when his debts were beginning to get on top of him. He had even mentioned suicide. His community psychiatric nurse was concerned that the increasing pressure from his creditors was causing further harm to John’s mental health. An urgent home visit was arranged. A specialist debt adviser went through John’s benefits and discussed his options. John had wrongly believed that bailiffs could take all his goods and that he could be imprisoned and evicted. Time was taken to reassure him and to go through both his options and rights, and those of his creditors. He decided that bankruptcy would be the right option for him. The adviser completed the forms and accompanied John to court. The creditors can now no longer contact him. Moreover, the adviser helped to reinstate John’s benefit entitlement, which had been the reason why he got into debt in the first place.
John now needs less input from his care co-ordinator. He said, “I was in a real state, but I am now no longer afraid to answer the telephone, open my door or open my post.” John needed face-to-face advice to help deal with his problem. Without it, he would still be a suicide risk, living in isolation and fear.
More than 500 specialist advisers in independent local advice agencies are funded by the financial inclusion fund. Since 2006, more than 380,000 people have been helped to manage debt worth more than £6 billion in an extensive network of outreach settings, community centres, GP practices and Sure Start units. People who do not normally feel comfortable about seeking advice are able to go to such centres and speak in a place where they feel comfortable.
The CAB service managed the largest proportion of that funding, and it supports 338 advisers in local bureaux. Loss of the funding reduces the capacity of the CAB service by more than 70,000 cases a year, which is a cut in casework capacity of between 40% and 50%.
Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)
I thank the hon. Lady for being generous so early in her remarks. I completely agree with everything that she has said. The financial inclusion fund is of immense importance to my citizens advice bureaux in South Lakes. Most people think that the CAB is a state service; they do not realise that it is a charity, and that its ability to raise funds from other sources is incredibly limited. The fund is critical to its survival and to its ability to help people who are often in the most desperate circumstances.
Yvonne Fovargue
I totally agree. Having worked for a CAB, I know that people are extremely confused about where the funding comes from. The organisation gets very few donations. The depth of its service is often misunderstood as well. I have heard people say, “Oh, CAB, they tell people where to go.” We did not often do that.
Chris Ruane (Vale of Clwyd) (Lab)
My hon. Friend has given us some of the current statistics. Looking ahead over the next few years when hundreds of thousands of public sector workers will be sacked by the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats, what burden does she think that will place on Citizens Advice? In my constituency of Vale of Clwyd, some 50% of workers are in the public sector, about 4,000 of whom may be laid off. What effect will that have on citizens advice bureaux in my constituency and elsewhere?
Yvonne Fovargue
Indeed, over the past year, the number of debt clients seen by the CAB has risen by 23%, and a significant increase is expected in the next few years as well, so the loss of skilled advisers in local bureaux will have a catastrophic effect. It is essential that local links are retained. The trust that has been built up between local agencies, such as that between the bureau and the local authority council tax collection department, will be lost, to the detriment of local people who are struggling to pay. St Helen’s citizens advice bureau had regular meetings with the head of finance and the bailiffs to discuss tactics and to raise issues from clients’ experiences. It developed a protocol to assist residents, particularly those entering employment who found that all their creditors immediately descended on them, causing quite a number to leave work, feeling that they were better off on benefits, despite their increased income, because their debts had come back to haunt them.
Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)
Does my hon. Friend not agree that debt problems often come with clusters of other problems, including some related to employment and welfare benefits, as she suggested? Is it not therefore regrettable that neither legal aid funding, which we have previously been able to look to, nor—now—funding for debt advice will be available to support people with a multiplicity of difficulties?
Yvonne Fovargue
I completely agree. The idea that there were clusters of problems was identified at least 10 years ago. The legal aid cluster of social welfare law was developed so that the person could be addressed as a whole and not just seen as a set of individual problems.
A national telephone advice system could not help with our current problem of debt. Local knowledge, particularly about bailiffs, is vital. That was evidenced on Saturday in an article in The Times, which highlighted the different practices of bailiffs employed by neighbouring local authorities. The cuts cannot, however, be taken in isolation, as my hon. Friend pointed out. The consultation paper on legal aid proposes to remove debt from scope for all cases except those with an
“immediate risk of losing their home”.
That flies in the face of all the research demonstrating that early and timely intervention is crucial and actually saves the public purse money. For every £1 of expenditure on debt advice, the state potentially saves £2.98. Indeed the figure could be higher, particularly for the NHS.
Last Thursday in the Chamber, I mentioned a project that had been funded by my local primary care trust, which I managed until last May. It measured stress levels on a recognised NHS scale before and after the debt advice process. In the first nine months of the project, the PCT estimated that three suicides had been prevented. The project was a finalist for a national NHS innovation award due to its low cost and good outcomes for clients and the NHS.
Local authorities are also cutting the amount of money available for advice. The CAB in England and Wales faces an expected cut of 10% in 2011-12. If that is factored in with cuts to the financial inclusion fund and the proposed changes in legal aid from 2012, local bureaux can expect, on average, a 45% cut in funding.
Mr Dave Watts (St Helens North) (Lab)
With the cuts that we are seeing right across the spectrum, whether in local government or, in my case, the PCT, which part funds some of the posts in CABs in my area, does my hon. Friend agree that the only way to resolve the matter is for the Government to make a direct grant to citizens advice bureaux so that they can handle the massive increase in demand caused by the cuts imposed by the Tories and the Liberal Democrats?
Yvonne Fovargue
I have long been a supporter of a statutory duty to fund advice services, and I still believe that it is the only way in which the absolute importance of advice can be highlighted to local government and other funders. The cut to debt advice funding and the proposed cuts to local authorities and legal aid will be felt most significantly in urban areas, which have the greatest numbers of clients. To whom are those people expected to turn for advice on their debts?
The Government have announced their intention to establish a national money advice service to deliver free financial advice and an annual financial health check to provide people with a holistic overview of their finances.
Mr Mark Williams (Ceredigion) (LD)
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for giving way and I congratulate her on securing the debate. I think that she will agree that it would be wrong to characterise the issue as simply an urban issue. Rural areas in west Wales, such as my constituency, are served by only two citizens advice bureaux. She is right to highlight the cuts that such bureaux will suffer; those cuts will make access to the existing services even more difficult for people.
Yvonne Fovargue
I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. I agree. There are already “advice deserts” and people in rural areas already have difficulty getting access to face-to-face advice. They have to travel long distances to get it. These cuts will only make that situation worse.
I welcome any expansion of financial education but I would like the Minister to answer two questions. First, where will people who are identified as being in debt by the financial health check offered by the national money advice service go, as the number of local debt advisers will be dramatically reduced—to nil in many cases?
Mr Chuka Umunna (Streatham) (Lab)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate. Merton and Lambeth citizens advice bureau operates in my constituency. We have one caseworker, whom we are to lose as a result of what the Government are doing. That caseworker has dealt with more than 400 debt advice queries. I asked what the effects of their loss would be and Merton and Lambeth CAB was very clear: without that debt adviser there will be nowhere else for people to go. Does my hon. Friend agree that that situation will be repeated up and down the country?
Yvonne Fovargue
I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. I completely agree. I will come to the issue of where people are likely to go in the future.
Mrs Jenny Chapman (Darlington) (Lab)
I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way and I too congratulate her on securing this debate. On the issue of where people will go for their debt advice, I suspect that they will have somewhere to go, which will be into the arms of fee-charging providers who advertise their services and, according to the Office of Fair Trading, mercilessly use every opportunity to recruit people inappropriately to use their services.
Yvonne Fovargue
I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention; I will come to the issue of fee-paying debt management companies shortly.
As I was saying, I have a second question for the Minister. Does he expect financial education to eradicate the need for debt advice in the future? It is my experience that most people fall into debt due to unplanned events, for example bereavement, illness or the loss of a job. People do not plan to get into debt, and borrowing is only debt when people cannot afford to pay the money back. At such stressful times in people’s lives as dealing with a bereavement or an illness, timely advice is vital. Indeed, one of the most distressing cases that I have dealt with personally was that of a family who had a child with a severe disability. They received all the disability and carers’ benefits, and they had taken out loans to adapt their home and car to enable their daughter to be cared for at home rather than in residential care. However, she died suddenly and unexpectedly, and they were left on vastly reduced benefits and facing a high level of debt.
Where are those people to go in the future? Like my hon. Friend, I fear that they will be thrust into the clutches of the fee-charging debt management companies, the same companies that the OFT found flouted debt management guidelines by misrepresenting their services as free when they are not free. The OFT also reported that many front-line advisers working for those companies lacked competence and provided poor advice based on inadequate information. Unfortunately, urgent action was not taken to address the problem and the issue is now being considered as part of the consumer credit and personal insolvency review. Unless action on the regulation of debt management schemes is fast-tracked, it is very unlikely that the necessary protections will be in place until autumn 2011 at the earliest, if they are put in place at all.
Vulnerable people should not be put into the position of paying unregulated and often incompetent providers to deal with the fact that they do not have enough money to pay their bills. The situation is becoming more urgent daily, with more and more advice agencies closing their door to new debt clients, so I urge the Minister to consider extending the financial inclusion fund programme until the review of advice services is complete, or to provide sufficient alternative funding for free face-to-face debt advice to continue in local agencies. Not to do either of those things will have a great cost—both in human terms and for the state.
Lorely Burt (Solihull) (LD)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Makerfield (Yvonne Fovargue) on securing this very important debate. To some extent, it follows on from the Opposition-day debate that we had in the main Chamber last week.
Obviously, everyone in this room wants to see the same thing. We want to see a fair and open system of financial support for people who get themselves into financial difficulty. I know personally that the National Association of Citizens Advice Bureaux is a wonderful organisation. It took on the role of providing specialist debt management advice and it has done a really good job, so I share the hon. Lady’s concern regarding the financial inclusion fund.
Local authority cuts will mean that the citizens advice bureaux will not have as much support as they have had. That is having a drastic effect in my own region, the west midlands, where all five bureaux are destined to be closed. I hope very much that the Minister will be able to intervene in some way to ensure that that vital service for the Birmingham area is maintained. In Solihull, we have faced cuts to our citizens advice bureaux before and we have managed to survive them.
Ian Austin (Dudley North) (Lab)
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for giving way, but I must say that it is not good enough for Liberal Democrat MPs to come along to these debates and complain about what this Government are doing while they are supporting them. What has she said to Ministers? Has she threatened not to support the Government’s proposals? Has she told them that if these cuts go ahead she will not vote for something else that they are proposing? What have she and her colleagues done to try to prevent these cuts from happening?
Lorely Burt
I am glad that the hon. Gentleman made that intervention, because his Government caused cuts to be made to citizens advice bureaux. It is how the Government manage that is important. He asks what I have done and I will tell him. I have worked quite considerably on the issue of debt. In fact, I advise the Government and I am putting in my help and advice, as much as I can, to Government. That is what Governments do and that is what responsible coalition Governments do. We can make our points independently as Liberal Democrats, but we support what the Government are doing because of the financial situation that the hon. Gentleman’s Government left us in and everyone has to bear a share of the pain.
Lorely Burt
I would rather move on than talk about things other than the subject that we are here to discuss today, which is citizens advice bureaux and debt management.
Lorely Burt
Despite the heckling from a sedentary position, I will continue.
In 2009-10, citizens advice bureaux experienced a 23% rise in demand for their services. Of the queries that they dealt with, 150,000 were about quite complex debt problems, as outlined by the hon. Member for Makerfield. It is estimated that the loss of the financial inclusion fund reduces the debt advice capacity of citizens advice bureaux by 40% to 50%. So I am looking forward to hearing from the Minister today about what steps are being taken, particularly in relation to the national money advice service and how that service will help people and make up the shortfall.
Lorely Burt
If the hon. Lady will forgive me, I will not give way.
So how will the citizens advice bureaux replace that loss of support, because as I said we have faced such losses before? In relation to Birmingham, I am hopeful that the Minister will have some good news.
I also wanted to pick up on what the hon. Member for Makerfield said about debt management companies. I am absolutely delighted—as I am sure she is—that the licences of a number of debt management companies were withdrawn by the OFT. I think that 42 companies in all had their licences withdrawn. Those companies can lead to a spiral of debt. Some debt management companies operate free of charge to the recipient. They do that because they are able to be paid by the creditors. It is much better if those who stand to gain pay, rather than those who stand to lose.
The spiral of debt that comes with companies that charge up front is clear. Two months’ repayments are made up front, the company promises to get creditors off people’s backs, but often that does not happen and six months later the company says, “We’re very sorry, but we can’t do anything for you now. We think you should file for bankruptcy.” They then charge for bankruptcy, and the spiral continues.
Mr Umunna
In many respects, is not the hon. Lady seeking to face two ways at once? She makes these welcome comments on unscrupulous lenders, but she failed to vote in favour of the motion that was tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy) last Thursday. She says that she agrees with my hon. Friend the Member for Makerfield (Yvonne Fovargue), yet she refuses to vote against the measures to abolish the financial inclusion fund. The money will run out in March, so will she vote against the Budget if it does not reinstate the funding?
Lorely Burt
I was deeply disappointed by last week’s debate. In her last sentence, the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy) accused the coalition Government of being in the pocket of loan sharks. If any hon. Members imagine that we will vote for being castigated in that way, I am afraid that they have another thing coming. [Interruption.]
Lorely Burt
I am seeking to be helpful, and am not facing two ways at once.
Tim Farron
My hon. Friend is generous to let me butt in. Perhaps I could help Opposition Members. They spent 13 years in power towing the line and voting for things such as cuts in CAB funding—as they did in South Lakeland—and they do not seem to understand that it is entirely possible to be within a Government and at times be a critical friend instead of constantly being told what to think.
Mrs Linda Riordan (in the Chair)
Order. Can we listen to the hon. Lady and let her speak?
Lorely Burt
Thank you, Mrs Riordan, I am grateful.
I am disappointed with Opposition Members. I am sure that there must have been moments, in the 13 years during which they built up the biggest structural deficit in the G8, when it occurred to them that perhaps their Government were not going in exactly the right direction. We are a united coalition Government—[Laughter.] Opposition Members may laugh, but we are seeking to work together to help people in bad financial situations, situations that have been hugely exacerbated by the actions over 13 years of Members who are now in opposition.
In conclusion, I very much welcome the national money advice service. I ask the Minister: how will it help, and how will the Government help CABs to manage the shortfall caused by local authority cuts, and the cut in the financial inclusion fund?
Catherine McKinnell (Newcastle upon Tyne North) (Lab)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Makerfield (Yvonne Fovargue) on securing this very important debate. I am extremely concerned about the ending of the financial inclusion funding, as is my local CAB, which has asked me to put forward some of its sincere concerns about the proposals.
There was a record number of insolvencies in England and Wales in 2010, which was an increase of 0.7% on the previous year. The 2010 figures have not yet been broken down by constituency, but in 2009 my constituency of Newcastle upon Tyne North had the highest rate of personal insolvencies in England and Wales, closely followed by North Tyneside, Newcastle upon Tyne Central and Newcastle upon Tyne East, in that order. Furthermore, the top 11 constituencies for personal insolvencies all fall within the north-east of England. I want to convey to the Minister that those are not just figures; they are real people with real lives. We all know that debt can expose vulnerable people to the threat of homelessness, to bailiffs seizing their possessions, and to the loss of essential services and even their liberty. Therefore, having access to free, confidential and trustworthy debt advice is absolutely fundamental.
As my hon. Friend set out in detail, the financial inclusion fund was established in 2004 by the previous Labour Government to support fact-to-face debt advice services, in areas of deprivation where there had been difficulty in accessing debt advice. At Newcastle citizens advice bureau there are eight full and part-time debt advice workers whose work has been supported by the financial inclusion fund, and in 2010 they supported more than 1,000 local people in relation to £14.3 million of personal debt. I was shocked by those figures. In the last quarter of that year alone, the service saw more than 300 clients, which was the highest number in the history of the project in Newcastle; the appalling weather at that time did not prevent people from getting to their CAB for help. However, as a result of the coalition’s decision to end the financial inclusion fund, there is huge uncertainty about what will replace it. On 4 February, the CAB stopped offering advice supported by the financial inclusion fund.
Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)
There are many similarities between the city of Newcastle and the city of Sheffield, which I represent. We have 12 specialist face-to-face debt advisers supported through the financial inclusion fund, and they process similarly staggering amounts of debt casework. During 2009-10, which is the last full year for which information is available, they dealt with £25.6 million of debt. Crucially, they prevented the loss of homes for 110 clients, through negotiation with lenders and landlords, or through interventions in county courts, and successfully negotiated 655 payment plans. Does my hon. Friend agree that the withdrawal of the financial inclusion fund, which will mean that all those posts in Sheffield will disappear and all that help will go, is a particularly callous decision at a time when debt is rising as a result of this Government’s policies?
Catherine McKinnell
I strongly agree; that is precisely the point that I want to make today. With no news of any funding beyond March, the service in Newcastle is winding down, and so are bureaux right across Tyne and Wear. The situation is deeply worrying because of the personal insolvency figures and also because people, particularly in places such as the north-east where more than 50% of the population is employed in the public sector, will find themselves in even more worrying financial circumstances.
Ian Austin
Areas such as my hon. Friend’s constituency and mine, which have been hardest hit by the recession and are taking the longest to recover, will be most affected by the cut. In the west midlands, 62 staff are employed as a result of the financial inclusion fund, including five at the CAB in Dudley, and the staff there told me that it is hard-pressed families, the most vulnerable and people with learning difficulties who have got themselves into debt, who rely most heavily on the services. They also told me that their clients will have absolutely nowhere to go if the funding provided by the financial inclusion fund is withdrawn.
Catherine McKinnell
I thank my hon. Friend for reiterating the point that I am trying to make, which is that the cut is ill thought through and ill-timed for places facing an uncertain financial future. Unemployment in the north-east is rising, youth unemployment is at a record high and one in three young people in my constituency are out of work, compared with one in five nationally. At the same time, public sector workers face redundancy, the VAT rise and increasing fuel and energy prices. People will only get into more financial difficulty. It is shocking that at a time when increased demand on personal debt advice services is inevitable, funding for those services should be cut. It is also of concern that we are likely to lose highly skilled and trained staff who have built up a wealth of knowledge and expertise in helping people. Eight staff members in Newcastle are being made redundant, which is deeply worrying and shocking.
As I am sure the Minister is aware, in February 2010, the National Audit Office concluded that the face-to-face debt advice funded by the financial inclusion fund delivered good value for money. Indeed, the NAO found that the financial inclusion fund project was helping more people at slightly less cost per person than originally planned, and that the advice given was well regarded by those receiving it. That has certainly been the case in Newcastle, where 90% of clients who filled out a feedback form said that they would recommend the citizens advice bureau debt advice service to somebody with debt.
I recently saw at first hand the excellent advice services provided by the CAB during a special advice service day at a local community centre in the west end of Newcastle, the area that suffers the highest levels of deprivation and personal bankruptcy. The CAB brought together a series of advice services under one roof and took them out into the communities suffering the most. It was an impressive and productive day, and I know that it helped an awful lot of people in my constituency.
Justin Tomlinson (North Swindon) (Con)
I support that point. I did a similar joint exercise with the citizens advice bureau in my constituency, which trained my staff and me so that we, who are in some cases the first point of contact, could address the issues and work in conjunction with the CAB. I fully support that action.
Catherine McKinnell
I agree. I too have been working closely with the CAB and taking its advice. The difficulty is that the office is losing eight staff members and will struggle to provide the same level of service. The suggestion that such expertise and advice can be delivered by a Member of Parliament comes from cloud cuckoo land.
The advice service day exemplified the importance of the CAB’s services and the fact that it can reach out to people. The CAB knows that people will not use telephone or online advice services. They need face-to-face, personal advice, because they cannot manage the paperwork and the complexity involved in dealing with debt issues.
For all those reasons, I have written to the Chancellor to urge him to rethink his decision or, if it is suggested that a fund continue, to ensure that face-to-face debt advice through the CAB continues to be properly funded. I believe, as I have said, that the problems in places such as Newcastle will only get worse; they must be seriously addressed.
Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)
I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Makerfield (Yvonne Fovargue), who made her arguments in a consensual, sensible and detailed way, avoiding unnecessary party politicking. I congratulate her on securing this incredibly important debate. It is sad that a debate about debt has become a little too polarised at certain points, and that silly comments have been bandied back and forth. That does not help the people struggling with debts whom we should be here to protect. As important and emotive as the subject might be, reasonableness is key to making progress at all times.
On whether personal debt levels are rising, I must confess that I am not aware whether they are at the moment—I have seen suggestions in both directions—but we do know that personal debt levels have risen substantially over the past 10 years. I am not making a political point; I think that it is due to how society has changed. Debt is much more a part of our lives these days, which perhaps demonstrates why it is so important to have appropriate measures in place to protect people who cannot manage their debt. Managing debt is undoubtedly a reality of life now, and we as elected politicians must ensure that there are processes, procedures and services in place to protect people with debt.
I will comment specifically on the role of the financial inclusion fund in my constituency. I see that my friend the hon. Member for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin) plans to speak, so I will leave it to him to deal in more detail with Scunthorpe citizens advice bureau, which serves a large part of my constituency. However, I will discuss East Yorkshire CAB, which provides services across Hull and the East Riding, including through a centre in Goole.
East Yorkshire CAB helped 13,600 clients in 2009-10, and it tells me that more than half of those cases involved debt management issues. During that period, it assisted with about £14.5 million in debt, which gives the scale of the problem that we face in this country. As other Members have said, CAB advises face to face, which is key. I note the comments of the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell). Like my hon. Friend the Member for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson), she and her staff have been trained in debt management. That is certainly something that I plan to do with my staff. People come to us with a range of complex issues, and the more we can skill up our staff, the better.
Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)
I have been going to a lot of law centres and citizens advice bureaux recently while considering legal aid cuts. The Mary Ward Legal Centre, which manages a big contract in London, is losing 57 debt advisers due to FIF cuts. Does the hon. Gentleman believe that it is realistic to think that training my three staff members and two caseworkers can replace the 500 expert staff across the country who are being cut? It is insulting people’s intelligence to say so.
Andrew Percy
That is an absurd comment. It is not in the slightest what I was suggesting. I simply said that those of us in positions of responsibility should do whatever we can to help in the circumstances.
Andrew Percy
Hon. Members should listen to what I have to say before jumping up and down. All that I am saying is that training our staff to assist people who come to us with a complex range of issues is important, and that part of that training might involve directing people to the most appropriate services.
Andrew Percy
Well, if the hon. Gentleman does not want to do that for his constituents, that is his choice. I certainly intend to do it for mine.
Ian Austin
Of course all Members of Parliament ensure that our staff can provide advice to constituents, but surely the best way to help the most vulnerable people who rely on those services is to ensure that those services are not cut. Government Members have come here to go on about how serious the problems are and how valuable the services are that CAB provide, so why are they queuing up to walk through the Lobby to support a Budget that will remove that assistance?
Andrew Percy
That proves again that Labour Members cannot understand what they did to this country. The reality of the situation is that whoever might have been in Government now—
Andrew Percy
No, let me finish. If the hon. Gentleman is going to make a point, he should at least have the courtesy to listen to the response. He was part of a Government that ran up massive debts that the coalition Government must repay. Tough decisions have been made, but even when we are not necessarily happy with some of those decisions, our job as coalition Members is to come here and make it clear what we think our constituents deserve. In saying what I have, that is exactly what I have tried to do. I am trying to support exactly the point that Opposition Members have been making, which is that we need face-to-face debt advice.
Mr Watts
The hon. Gentleman must have come across the same sort of cases that I have as an MP, in which people have been given bad advice. My worry about training someone for one day, or even one week, is that it will not provide the level of skills required to advise people in the best possible way. Bad advice is worse than no advice at all.
Andrew Percy
I think we are getting bogged down by this. Training our staff and ourselves so that we can guide people in the correct direction for debt advice is probably more important now than ever, and that is the exact point that I was trying to make.
Andrew Percy
We seem to be getting bogged down, but I will give way one more time before making some progress.
Justin Tomlinson
I thank my hon. Friend for giving way. In the spirit of trying to work together and helping Opposition Members, we need to be clear that this strengthens the argument for citizens advice bureaux. Help on the telephone and online cannot help provide training to other people who assist the most vulnerable. That supports the argument.
Andrew Percy
I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. Perhaps Opposition Members will now reflect upon what some of us on this side of the Chamber are trying to do.
I shall move away from the help and assistance that I am trying to ensure that my staff are able to give people who contact me, and on to some of my concerns. The move away from a face-to-face debt advice service to a telephone or internet-based service has already been commented upon. I have bitter personal experience of debts. A few years ago, I tried to access assistance on some debts and, as much as I do not like to air my washing in public, it was incredibly difficult to access the correct advice on where to go with particular problems. I accrued debts through funding my postgraduate studies, as is the case with many people—in no way am I alone in that. [Interruption.] It was postgraduate education, which has had fees for a considerable number of years and is not affected by any current changes. It was incredibly difficult to access advice on where to go. As the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North has said, it is not always easy to interact properly with someone in a telephone conversation, and it is difficult to talk about one’s personal financial situation. Talking with somebody over the telephone is no substitute whatsoever for talking with someone face to face.
In support of the point made by the hon. Member for Makerfield, when searching for debt advice, particularly online, it is unclear who provides it at a profit to themselves and who does not. If a company calls itself a national debt or advice helpline, the natural assumption is to conclude that it is a charity, when in fact, as others have commented, it is out to make profits from people’s debts.
Andrew Percy
I will give way, because I know that the hon. Lady will make a reasonable and sensible point.
Mrs Chapman
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way. Would he support a scheme similar to that in Scotland in which debt management advice is more carefully regulated and caps are used to regulate provision?
Andrew Percy
We had an interesting debate about debt in the main Chamber last week. I was sorry that we could not get to the point where everybody was in agreement, even though I think that everyone was—the procedures and processes of this strange place meant that we ended up with a Division that we should not have had. We should certainly be looking at the way in which we manage people who want to put us into debt.
The issue has three parts. First, we need to deal with the companies that make money out of debt. They will always exist and, as I have said, that is part of life. Secondly, we need to deal with the sort of debt advice available to people who get themselves in trouble. Thirdly, we have to look at the provision for ensuring that people do not get into such a position in the first place. That is why the all-party parliamentary group on financial education for young people, which is chaired by my hon. Friend the Member for North Swindon, is so important. Only yesterday, I was at Goole high school and spoke to its deputy head about the delivery of financial education in schools and how he thinks we could roll it out nationally. That is certainly something in which I plan to play a big role in the all-party group, which he was so key in establishing.
In conclusion, it is not hypocrisy for us to say that people involved in citizens advice bureaux—
Andrew Percy
I must say that, sometimes, the debate in this place is worse than when I taught year 1 last year—the children gave more sensible responses. I have tried to make an important point on behalf of my constituents and have ended up being heckled in a childish way on an issue that is so important to people outside this place.
The reason that I have taken part in this debate is to say that the work that my local debt advisers have been doing through the financial inclusion fund is incredibly important. I know that the Minister shares my huge concern about the issue, so how exactly will the system that we propose to implement work, and what is his response to the comments made by Members on both sides of the Chamber about the face-to-face element? We need to know more.
As I said at the beginning—I will end where I began—this is such an important issue. Managing debt is a part of life now and, unfortunately, people get themselves into debt simply by making bad choices, which we have all made in our lives. We have to make sure that the support available to them is appropriate. I end with that plea. I am less concerned about the mechanism and more concerned about what is actually delivered to my constituents. In my view, that requires some sort of face-to-face interaction, whoever that interaction is with.
Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)
I apologise, Mrs Riordan, that I will have to leave before the debate’s conclusion in order to attend a Public Bill Committee. I am pleased to follow my neighbour, the hon. Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy), and I welcome the concerns expressed by Members on both sides of the Chamber. Our analyses may differ, but that does not alter the fact that we share a common concern. The reason why we are taking part in this debate and why it is so well attended is to get answers from the Minister to the points so ably made by my hon. Friend the Member for Makerfield (Yvonne Fovargue), whom I congratulate on securing this timely and important debate.
We are in a time of falling growth, rising unemployment and rising prices fuelled by the VAT increase. That may well mean that, notwithstanding the past, more families and people are more likely to get into financial difficulties in the future. They are, therefore, in danger of becoming prey to organisations that take advantage of the financially vulnerable, putting desperate people into a state of greater desperation.
My hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy) has done much already in this Parliament to raise awareness of the need to control the actions of loan sharks. We also need to ensure that accessible, independent debt advice remains available for people so that they can square up their affairs and remain healthy and effective in society. Statistics nationally show that demand for debt advice is already on the increase. Last year, Citizens Advice assisted 580,000 people with £2.4 million-worth of debt problems, which is an increase of 23% on the previous year. In addition, 1.4 million people—one in every 33 UK adults—received advice from charities such as National Debtline.
The financial inclusion fund was deliberately located in areas such as Scunthorpe to meet the needs of communities that had difficulty accessing debt advice. The vision was to create a step change in the availability of face-to-face debt advice services, and Members on both sides of the Chamber who have spoken so far have insisted upon the importance of those services in addressing the issues. Every year, the FIF debt advice services have directly helped more than 100,000 people nationally to resolve their debt problems. Audits and evaluations show that the services have been effective and well targeted at people who need such advice.
The situation in relation to the provision of independent debt advice in my Scunthorpe county constituency is particularly concerning, and I fear that it is typical of many other parts of the country. Some 200 people a year are currently being supported by FIF debt advice, and many of them have problems or communication needs that require face-to-face support for it to be effective.
An additional problem in the Scunthorpe area is that there is currently no legal service contract for debt advice, which exacerbates the problem for all advice agencies. The previous contract allowed for 400 new matter starts, or cases, per annum. The local firm of solicitors who provide this service tell me that all their clients were referred to them from other agencies, such as the CAB and North Lincolnshire Homes, which do not have the capacity to provide that advice themselves. To its credit, that solicitor’s practice is providing advice on a pro bono basis, but that is clearly not sustainable.
Kate Green
Does my hon. Friend agree that a significant concern about solicitors providing debt and other forms of advice as part of a package is that the legal aid changes will narrow access to advice, so that it is given only when a family home is at risk? As we know, creditors like to negotiate the whole package of debt together, including mortgage debt and other personal debt. However, that will no longer be possible because we have no single funding stream through which all debt advice can be provided.
Nic Dakin
My hon. Friend is completely right. Early intervention in providing debt advice saves money, saves homes and saves lives. There is a real danger that the legal aid changes will exacerbate an already difficult problem. I hope that a new contract will be agreed in the Scunthorpe area, but when the contracts expire in 2014, no further debt advice of that sort will be provided locally.
Mr Slaughter
All welfare debt legal aid will be taken out of scope if the Green Paper’s proposals go ahead. The financial inclusion fund provided a complementary service and was of a highly technical nature. Advice was provided on consumer credit, insolvency, mortgage arrears and other matters of that kind. The double-whammy of these cuts and the local authority cuts will be absolutely fatal to advice centres across the country. The type of advice provided shows that it is ludicrous for Government Members to say that the matter can in some way be picked up by amateurs. We are talking about highly technical issues that are for professional people to advise on.
Nic Dakin
I thank my hon. Friend. I think all hon. Members agree that these are specialist advice services with specialist staff. One of the points my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell) made was about the danger of losing specialist expertise. That is another consequence I am sure nobody wants to see. In Scunthorpe, the part-time debt adviser at Crosby community association was withdrawn in December. The area is now losing the FIF debt advice, and the debt advice provided through legal aid is not in place. North Lincolnshire credit union does not provide debt advice, so the local situation is bleak.
As my hon. Friends have pointed out, there is a direct correlation between debt advice and ill health. My hon. Friend the Member for Makerfield mentioned the case study of John. Grant Thornton’s recent study, “Psychology of Debt,” demonstrated that one in two adults with debts have a mental health problem and one in four people with a mental health problem is also in debt. It is therefore clear that the time spent helping people to address their debt problems can help their overall health and well-being. Money spent by the Government on debt advice is likely to save money being spent on the health service. Research by Friends Provident found that the provision of free debt advice allowed creditors to recover in one year £1 billion more than they would otherwise have done.
Nic Dakin
I am about to finish.
Independent free debt advice is good for the individual, good for the public and private sectors and good for UK plc as a whole. I hope that the Minister will take this opportunity to spell out the Government’s plans to ensure that independent debt advice remains available and accessible to all those who need it. It is crucial that the Government do not abandon people with debt problems at this time.
Mrs Linda Riordan (in the Chair)
Order. There are two more Members who wish to speak. If they both keep their comments to five or six minutes, I shall be able to call them both.
Chris White (Warwick and Leamington) (Con)
I add my thanks to those given to the hon. Member for Makerfield (Yvonne Fovargue) for initiating a debate on an issue of massive concern for my constituents. As Members of Parliament, we often have to deal with constituents who, for one reason or another, have fallen into debt and are going through a difficult and distressing time. They need support and advice that is tailored to them directly because that can make the difference between getting back on track or falling off the rails completely.
I am sure that I speak for everyone in the Chamber when I say that one of the most important resources that we call on in our working lives is the local citizens advice bureau. I particularly call on the CAB in Warwick and Leamington, and I thank those who work for the CAB for their contribution to our local communities. Since becoming a Member of Parliament, I have been continually impressed by the work of my local citizens advice bureau, especially its professionalism and dedication. Through the CAB’s work, individuals are able to get the support that they need, and consequently overcome the difficult situations in which they find themselves.
Last year, Warwickshire citizens advice bureaux helped nearly 26,000 individual clients and resolved more than 92,000 problems. Nearly 300 local people gave up their time to help Warwickshire CAB and they generated unpaid work worth nearly £1 million. At my local CAB for Warwick district, 5,000 local people were helped with around 22,000 problems. Around 80% of CAB work is taken up with debt, benefit, housing and employment issues. We simply cannot afford to lose that service. Reductions in funding will damage citizens advice bureaux across the country, particularly in south Warwickshire. Such cuts threaten to create an advice desert for those who have problems with debt and social welfare law. Thousands of individuals could be without the help of organisations such as the CAB, and they will be prevented from receiving the vital help that they need.
It is not as if citizens advice bureaux do not provide value for money. In Warwick district CAB, over the past year, just one money adviser dealt with 217 new clients who owed a total of more than £3 million—an average of more than £20,000 per client. The CAB has saved tens of millions of pounds in the long term and it has brought considerable benefit to local communities across the country by helping people to move forward with their lives and access the support that they need. There is a clear case for maintaining spending on such things, and it makes no financial sense to push problems from one place to another. People’s problems will not go away merely because we stop funding help for them. Such problems will get worse, until the point when the state has to intervene in more expensive and intrusive ways. We are talking about a short-term saving at long-term expense.
Angela Smith (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Lab)
I am hugely enjoying the hon. Gentleman’s speech. Does he agree that it is imperative that we do not lose the highly skilled and trained staff who are employed by the financial inclusion fund, because that too would be a short-term financial gain at the expense of a long-term loss to the service?
Chris White
I am trying to impress upon the Minister that these services need to continue and that they are important to our communities. It is important to make that case today. Again, I thank the hon. Member for Makerfield for initiating a debate that gives us the opportunity to raise the profile of our CABs and the important work they do.
Organisations and institutions will still be required to channel their support. The CAB is an example of an organisation that is able to turn the desire of local people to help those in trouble into practical action. Warwick district CAB is assisted by more than 50 volunteers, who are able to make a huge difference to their local community. That capacity will diminish and the opportunity for individuals to help will be reduced if there are not enough full-time staff on hand to train, organise and manage volunteers. The loss of full-time staff will therefore have serious consequences that cannot simply be picked up by extra volunteers. If we reduce the funding given to such important organisations, it sends the wrong message at a time when we are looking to galvanise people into doing more for their local community and spend more of their time helping worthwhile causes. I appreciate why the Government are looking to reduce spending, but I do not believe that the calculus of cost has been accurately measured in this case.
Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)
My hon. Friend will be aware that only today the Government have announced that a one-off revenue of £800 million will be generated through changes in taxation on the banks. The interest alone that the Government will save on their own debt financing as a result of that move is enough to continue funding the financial inclusion fund in perpetuity.
Chris White
My hon. Friend makes a very interesting point, which I am sure other people will pick up.
When we were campaigning during the last election, we made a promise to protect the front line. It does not get much more front line than the CAB. I urge Ministers to think again and look elsewhere for reductions in public spending. They should engage with the local legal profession, voluntary and community groups and other stakeholders to see whether other long-term savings can be made in an area of justice that will not impact heavily on our front-line services.
Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair this morning, Mrs Riordan. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Makerfield (Yvonne Fovargue) on securing this important and timely debate.
A few months ago, I spent a morning in the court—which, incidentally, is also to be closed by the Government—in Bishop Auckland with a CAB adviser who was helping people who were in court because their rents or mortgages were not paid, and they were under threat of losing their homes. That morning I saw how vital the service provided by the CAB is to people at the critical moment when their homes are at risk. I was, therefore, absolutely appalled to discover that the Government are proposing to end the financial inclusion fund in March.
Last year, 1.5 million people were given advice on debt by citizens advice bureaux. Those services were concentrated on people who are most in need in deprived and low-income areas. In my constituency, there are three CABs. The Wear Valley CAB lost a grant of £95,000 in the FIF cuts, together with the legal aid cuts and the cuts that have been forced on the county council by the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government. It will lose half its workers, which means that there will be no debt advice whatever in the whole of the Wear Valley district. The branch manager, Carol Shreeves, wrote to me in an e-mail:
“We have this week begun to tell clients coming to the bureau that we cannot take them on. Many have been very upset, as it has taken a lot of courage for them to come and seek help. The cut means that the bureau will have to reduce the number of hours it opens and will need to make approximately half its staff redundant. The difficulty is that since Christmas we have seen rise in demand for our services as various statutory agencies trying to save money at this difficult time have been referring clients to us…It seems to be generally accepted that debt advice is needed but the support for it is being withdrawn from all sides.”
Yvonne Fovargue
Does my hon. Friend agree that when there is an expansion of debt relief orders, requiring skilled advisers who have to take a complex examination to qualify to be an intermediary in the scheme, it is completely the wrong time to take funding away from skilled debt advisers? The CAB deals with 70% of debt relief orders, so there is no point in expanding the scheme and then leaving people with nowhere to go. There is no point in the expansion of the scheme.
Helen Goodman
My hon. Friend has made an extremely well-informed point and demonstrates to us all the complexity of this area and the significance of losing that kind of advice. Of course, the one group of people providing more advice are the loan sharks and the independent debt advisers, who are going round my constituency putting cards through letter boxes, saying, “Come to us”. If people go to them, they will be directed to precisely the people who will put them into a worse situation.
At the same time that that is happening, the Government are cutting the growth fund, which is the money that the Labour Government put into support for credit unions—another place where people can get low-cost finance and have a chat with somebody about how to manage their money.
Ian Austin
This is not just about CABs or other advice agencies. The benefits advice shop in Dudley does really important work to get local people the help they need if they have been made redundant or face losing their home, and helps many pensioners receive the benefits to which they are entitled. Is my hon. Friend aware that it is under threat from the local authority as a direct result of the Government’s cuts to local council spending? Does she agree that it is complete nonsense to cut such a service? It costs £300,000 to run but it brings in £2 million to local people, £1.5 million of which is spent in the local economy supporting local businesses.
Helen Goodman
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Although Dudley is very different from Teesdale, which is another part of my constituency, the situation there is similar. The Teesdale CAB also lost its grant and will have to cut the jobs of two people. Last year, it dealt with 220 cases and a total of £2.7 million of indebtedness.
The third CAB in my constituency is in Sedgefield. It too lost its financial inclusion fund grant of £150,000. Last year, 41% of its work was debt-related. All the debt workers in the Spennymoor CAB will be made redundant in April. The CAB social policy officer in Sedgefield, Martin Jones, said:
“The effect of ending the FIF scheme…will be catastrophic. The level of services that we can provide to our clients will be totally decimated as the CAB will lose over half of our debt team. And all this at a time when unemployment and inflation are rising and putting increasing stress on our clients, many of whom are the most vulnerable in society”.
I confirm that that is correct. On Friday, I learned that in just one part of my constituency, housing benefit cuts will mean that people will have to find another £1 million from their own pockets to pay their rents.
The Minister does not seem to understand that it is all very well to talk about the big society, but the vision of the big society is collapsing. In these communities, where incomes fall and businesses do not do very well due to the Government’s irresponsible policies, CABs will not be able to raise alternative funds to replace Government grants. Furthermore, this is a policy of total financial lunacy. It costs £150 to give a family debt advice. It costs £15,000 to re-house a family. I shall be very interested to hear how the Minister can defend such a lunatic policy.
Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)
It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Riordan.
I begin by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Makerfield (Yvonne Fovargue) on securing this debate on the very serious subject of debt advice, and on the important work that she herself has carried out to highlight the devastating effects that debt, and worrying about debt, can have on people’s lives. I will not repeat the excellent comments made by hon. Members who have outlined the problem clearly.
The number of people seeking debt advice is increasing, and the statistics are alarming. In 2009-10, the CAB dealt with some 2 million debt issues. The main non- fee-charging advice agencies offering debt advice are the CAB, National Debtline, Consumer Credit Counselling Service and Payplan. The CAB and National Debtline receive no money from the credit industry, whereas the CCCS and Payplan do. Of the four agencies, only the CAB offers an intensive, personal counselling service on debt.
Citizens advice bureaux, as we know, are generally staffed by volunteers, most of whom are generalist advisers, with some paid specialist advisers. Specialist advisers deal with the most complex cases, but they also supervise volunteers who undertake simpler casework in the specialist’s area of expertise. In the majority of cases, when a specialist adviser is made redundant, the bureau concerned generally no longer offers an advocacy service in that advice area. The bureau cannot expect volunteers to carry on without that back-up. The CAB is a highly professional organisation that recognises the considerable risks of people proffering advice that they are not qualified to give. Without the back-up of specialist advisers, they know that they have to limit the advice they can offer to clients.
In many cases that may mean that generalist advisers can only give the client access to information about the options and procedures that he or she might pursue. Providing information for a client to follow is a path used by bureaux when a client considers themselves sufficiently articulate, literate and confident to proceed on their own. However, most debt advice clients who approach the bureau for advice feel unable to communicate effectively with their creditors. They need the advocacy that specialist advisers provide.
Bureaux do not offer debt advice in isolation. The client also benefits from benefit, housing and employment advice. At the CAB they know that they are not just dealing with a debt problem; they are dealing with a human being. A person has their own unique set of circumstances: work circumstances such as losing their job or being put on reduced working hours, or retirement or giving up work to care for a family member; or personal circumstances such as relationship breakdown, dependent children and so on. People may not initially present as debt cases, but it may become apparent in talking through their other problems that they have an underlying debt problem.
Citizens advice bureaux have a highly trained network of volunteers who understand what they are and are not qualified to advise on. They know that if a client has complex debt problems that they are not qualified to advise on, they can arrange for them to see the appropriately qualified member of the team. CABs have led the way in using volunteers but making sure that they have proper training, and that they are backed up by qualified teams. In that way, they are able to make the most of their volunteers and to offer real value for money.
As Dame Elizabeth Hoodless, who is retiring after 36 years in charge of Community Service Volunteers, said:
“We know we need to save money, but there are other ways of saving money without destroying the volunteer army.”
She used the example of libraries and pointed out that people may want to help in a library but do not want to run it. The same is true of the CAB: volunteers are happy to come along and carry out clearly defined duties for which they have been trained, but they know that they can be more effective because they can call on a team of professionals when they recognise that a problem is beyond their competence. They certainly do not want to run the business.
We all appreciate the idea of a one-stop shop; we yearn to simplify matters, and we recognise that people often find themselves in a Catch-22 situation and have to deal with several different agencies. One of the vital features of CABs is their ability to deal with the whole range of problems that a client may have. That is why taking away any one of their streams of funding will have such a serious knock-on effect.
Let us look at the overall funding of the CABs. First, there is huge input from local councils, which provide some 43% of the total income of CABs. We all know that councils are facing severe difficulties in planning their budgets for the next few years and that in order to protect their statutory services, they will look at all options, including cuts to funding for CABs and similar organisations in their area.
Then there are the cuts in legal aid. A cut of one sixth of the legal aid budget will mean that some £350 million out of £2 billion will be cut. That, too, will have a serious effect on CABs because of the franchise work that some bureaux do. It is completely incomprehensible that legal aid will be available for debt work only when a person’s home is at immediate risk. One does not need to be a specialist adviser to recognise that early intervention is far preferable, much cheaper and more effective.
Mr Slaughter
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. In my constituency, three of the four advice agencies have lost all their local government funding, and if the Green Paper goes through, they will lose 90% of their Legal Services Commission funding. Even services that the Government say they will protect will not be available because the advice centres will have closed, and areas such as my constituency will be advice deserts. There simply will not be any advice available to anyone in most parts of the country.
Nia Griffith
My hon. Friend vividly highlights a serious problem; that is exactly what will happen.
There will be cuts to advice on education, employment, family, housing, immigration and welfare benefits. Those cuts will have a direct impact on funding for CABs and their ability to provide a comprehensive service, but they will also have a direct impact on clients’ debt problems. If clients are unable to fight for the welfare benefits or extra provision for a special needs child to which they are entitled, they may be faced with a worsening debt problem.
Given the cuts to legal aid and to CABs through the withdrawal of the financial inclusion fund and local government funding, CABs will struggle, and many will close. The Government’s Office for Civil Society has a transition fund that will apparently provide grant funding to bridge any gap, at least in the short term, but it applies only to England, and it applies only to organisations with an income of between £50,000 and £10 million, which excludes some CABs. Can the Minister clarify whether any of the transition fund will be used for debt advice and, if so, how much?
What are the alternatives to organisations such as the CAB? How else can debt advice be delivered? Are the Government expecting the Consumer Credit Counselling Service and Payplan to deal with all the additional workload of clients who will no longer be able to go to a CAB? Those organisations receive funding from the credit industry, and although Payplan has considerably expanded its services in recent years, it is simply unrealistic to expect it to be able to expand quickly enough to deal with an additional 2 million cases a year. Moreover, it deals with debt; it does not deal with the full range of clients’ problems, which are often inextricably linked to their debt problems.
We have to ask the Government what alternative they propose. Is it debt management companies? The record and practice of many such companies gives rise to serious concern. In September 2010, the Office of Fair Trading told 129 debt management firms that they faced losing their consumer credit licences unless immediate action was taken to comply with its debt management guidance. The OFT found misleading advertising; in particular, firms fail to disclose that a fee is retained by the business. In fact, firms misrepresent debt management services as being free when they are not. That is serious, as clients already have enough difficulties without being exploited still further.
Helen Goodman
Does my hon. Friend share my concern that meetings were sponsored at the Tory party conference by the very organisations that are perpetrating scams on our constituents?
Nia Griffith
I certainly share that very real concern, because not only is the advice not free, it is poor. The OFT found that front-line advisers working for debt management companies lack competence, and provide poor advice based on inadequate information. Not only is the client landed with having to pay a fee that is not made clear in the firm’s advertising, they are then poorly advised. Receiving poor advice on debt management is a serious business; it can cost the client considerable amounts of money.
Furthermore, the OFT also reports that there is low industry awareness of the Financial Ombudsman Service rules for resolving consumer complaints. Even with all the work that CABs and similar providers are doing at present, we currently have a situation where 129 companies that are not fit for purpose are trading on people’s debt problems.
What will happen to a CAB’s clients when the funding for debt advice is withdrawn? Some may not seek debt advice at all, perhaps because they do not know where else to go, or perhaps because they realise that debt advice companies will charge them fees and they worry, rightly, about being exploited and getting into yet more difficulty. Many will be driven to seek advice from debt management companies.
Angela Smith
Does my hon. Friend agree that the Government’s actions suggest that the concept of the big society is, indeed, a big sham, and that the real message coming from them is that if someone is struggling with debt, they are on their own?
Nia Griffith
Indeed I do.
People may not go to debt management companies because they realise that the advice given could be substandard, and that they will be charged fees and could end up in more difficulty, but many will be driven to seek advice from such companies, many of which have been shown to be doing a poor job. We could see a mushrooming of similar companies, out to profit from the loss of CAB advisers, and many more clients being charged fees for poor advice. No responsible Government should push forward policies that will allow that to happen.
What are the Government proposing as an alternative to the excellent work that CABs do? Can the Minister tell us how the proposed national money advice service will improve on the debt advice service that is currently funded by the financial inclusion fund and delivered through organisations such as Citizens Advice? Can he explain how clients who are currently being helped by CABs will be better served by the national money advice service?
Debt advice is a specialist area, and it is time-consuming and labour-intensive. No matter what expertise and computer programmes a debt adviser has, every client will have slightly different circumstances. It takes time to work through the problems, and for the client and adviser to discuss what the possible solutions might be and, when appropriate, for the adviser to arrange advocacy. Can the Minister explain what will happen to clients if the national money advice service is not up and running before CABs have to make their debt advisers redundant?
One of the problems for any new service is getting known and reaching the people who really need help. Citizens Advice is a well-established organisation—it is an established brand with a good reputation—and many people know that they can go to it to seek advice. People from all walks of life know where their local CAB is. Can the Minister explain how people will know about the national money advice service, and where they will go to access it? Can he explain the rationale for destroying an established service?
Given the economic outlook, with many more workers likely to lose their jobs due to Government cuts and the knock-on effects in the private sector, why does the Minister want to destroy a competent, independent, local, user-friendly service such as Citizens Advice and leave people bereft? At the moment, it is offering people very much needed and valuable debt advice.
The Minister for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning (Mr John Hayes)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Makerfield (Yvonne Fovargue) on bringing the subject to the attention of the House, and it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Riordan.
Many important questions have been asked in this debate. At the outset, let me commit the Under-Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Mr Davey), who is responsible for this area, to writing to Members who raised questions that I am unable to deal with giving specific answers. That is the least that Ministers can and should do in response to Westminster Hall debates.
Mr Hayes
I am not usually terribly critical about Back Benchers making comments. The contribution of hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman) was pretty intemperate, so she will understand my response being in the same vein.
I made a commitment that the Minister responsible will write to Members who have raised sensible questions, as the Opposition spokesman, the hon. Member for Llanelli (Nia Griffith), did, and will deal with them in a particular and specific way. I shall restrict my comments to some points of principle and detail, and make one or two further commitments.
Before I make the points of principle, let me add this: three points have emerged from the debate. First, debt is closely related to more general well-being, and that needs to underpin the Government’s approach. Secondly, our approach should be co-ordinated and, thirdly, coherent. That has come across strongly from Members on both sides of the Chamber. We heard a speech from the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland, which I critiqued earlier, and speeches from my hon. Friends the Members for Solihull (Lorely Burt), for Warwick and Leamington (Chris White) and for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy) and from the hon. Members for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell) and for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin). The hon. Member for Scunthorpe made one point particularly clearly when he rightly said that debt was related to well-being and mental health in a very broad sense. Other Members pointed out that we need a consistent and coherent approach.
I shall make six points of principle and then move on to some points of detail that inform the Government’s position.
Mr Slaughter
I appreciate the Minister’s approach, but will he answer the central question? Face-to-face advisers cover up to £2 billion of debt every year and about 100,000 people are advised. Who will do that now that all those people will lose their jobs? Who will pick up the burden?
Mr Hayes
I said that in the second part of my speech I would try to come to the specific measures the Government will take. I hope I will have time to do so.
The first of the six points of principle is that we want to ensure that the debt management regime means that those who can repay debt do so and those who cannot pay get appropriate debt relief. Debtors and creditors should benefit from a system that is clearer about expectations and provides good advice in advance; I will come to how that advice might be provided later. The picture painted by a range of hon. Members of an entirely haphazard system is not the Government’s intention and it would not help either responsible lenders or debtors. I understand that and it will inform what we do.
Secondly, we want to see empowered debtors accessing good quality preventive advice, as well as advice to deal with debt, to ensure that the most appropriate solutions are found for the debtor’s particular difficulty. Thirdly, some stakeholders have called for a review of the whole lending and borrowing landscape—a point that has been echoed today. I think such a wholesale review is necessary, and the Government will go about that.
Fourthly, we are told that some debtors and, potentially, their advisers, are confused by the array of choice. We heard today about independent debt advisers. We are aware of the issue, and I take the point about the OFT’s condemnation. Fifthly, it is important that we clarify the responsible options available to people rather than allowing a free-for-all in which the advice they receive is of varying quality.
Mr Hayes
I will deal with that specifically in the second part of my speech.
The OFT survey, as the hon. Lady said, points out that many players in the field are less than scrupulous, and that must be dealt with. Finally, we are looking for evidence on how the regime should work. We have called for evidence, and much has been received. I invite the hon. Member for Makerfield, who has expertise on this issue because she managed the CAB in St Helens, and others to play their part in the review.
On the specific measures, the House will know that the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills has been responsible for face-to-face debt advice on behalf of the Treasury for about five years. I am sure the House also knows that the financial inclusion fund, which provided funding for that project, was always due to close in March 2011. I understand the worry about the decline of face-to-face advice, which all contributions today seemed to reflect. Face-to-face advice must support online and telephone advice, and we will look at how to reinforce that.
Funding of £1 million has been confirmed for next year for the National Debtline, as has been acknowledged. We need further work on how to support some form of continued additional face-to-face guidance. I will ask the Under-Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston and Surbiton, to clarify as soon as possible, in a statement to the House, precisely how, when, why and whether that might happen.
Secondly, the Government are working with the Consumer Financial Education Body to provide better advice on debt. As hon. Members know, it will shortly be renamed the money advice service. It was set up to take over responsibility from the Financial Services Authority to promote understanding of the financial system and raise levels of financial capability across the UK. It is funded by a levy. We will launch the new service in spring. That preventive approach is critical to stop people getting into difficulties, with the results we heard about today.
The Government will also review the framework for financial services regulation. Two new regulators will replace the FSA: one focused on prudential issues with the Bank of England and the other on markets and consumer protection—the Consumer Protection and Markets Authority. We see this as an opportunity to improve how consumer credit is regulated and to create a simpler, more responsive regime.
As Members know, we have also launched our review of consumer credit and personal insolvency. It is taking an end-to-end view of consumer credit and personal insolvency, from the decision to borrow money through to how we support people in difficulty and help them to resolve their debts.
The feature that characterised most contributions to the debate was the CAB. As a constituency Member of Parliament, I am very aware of its work. I visited the CAB in Spalding to discuss these issues. Indeed, one of the many virtues of our system of parliamentary representation is that Ministers are also constituency MPs. I heard what was said today about the CAB and its importance in providing not only debt advice, but a holistic approach to advice that reflects the connection between debt, well-being and the wider range of challenges that many people face.
Duncan Hames
I welcome the announcements the Minister has made, but does he see that it is somewhat incongruous for a Government who are, rightly, concerned about getting their own debt under control to cease funding for voluntary sector support to people to get on top of their own debt?
Mr Hayes
Indeed. I think of John 8:7,
“he stood up and said to them, ‘Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone’”.
As the hon. Gentleman said, it is right that we should be consistent.
I shall make one further commitment on the CAB: as a result of representations received, and this debate, we commit to looking at what to do about the CAB on a cross-governmental basis. Ministers and Governments should be responsive to these debates and to arguments, which were sometimes well put, although at other times slightly partisan. They were no doubt put with a passion that reflects constituents’ concerns. On that basis, there will be a cross-departmental examination of what to do about the CAB.
Economic Regeneration (West Midlands)
(13 years, 4 months ago)
Westminster HallRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Paul Uppal (Wolverhampton South West) (Con)
I thank hon. Members for attending this debate. I have wanted to speak about the future of economic regeneration in the black country for some time. It is a pertinent matter that I am sure all hon. Members present deal with in their constituency case load. It is a topic high on everybody’s list as we seek to promote economic growth in the black country constituencies that we represent.
Government plans for planning policy and economic growth contain a strong emphasis on local powers and decision making, and it is important to look at how such tools can be used to promote economic regeneration in our area. As hon. Members are aware, the black country has missed out on some capital regeneration projects that we have seen across the country. I want this debate to raise the profile of our region at national and parliamentary level, provide a forum for discussing how to encourage private and public investment in the black country, and look at how to assist local businesses and communities to get involved in future ideas for the region.
Within Wolverhampton, the proposed £300 million Summer Row development has recently collapsed. That is a huge disappointment for the city as it would have provided new shops, cafés and much-needed jobs for the area. With one of the highest numbers of vacant shops in the country, regeneration in the area is desperately needed. However, I want not to dwell on the past, but to learn the lessons from what has gone before and move forward. As councillors in Wolverhampton have said, we must signal a new dawn for the city and, to quote the city’s motto, “Out of darkness, cometh light.” I am pleased with the attitude of the council and the local business men and women of the city who are looking forward to what the future can bring for Wolverhampton.
Previous Government plans have sought to close the gap between the greater south-east and the rest of England. In truth, however, the economy is still as regionally unbalanced as before—perhaps even more so at the moment. It is important to focus on projects that are already under way in the region and look ahead to what future investment can be attracted to our area.
In Wolverhampton, the council is currently implementing two main regeneration projects—the Wolverhampton Interchange, and the i54 technology park. The Wolverhampton Interchange is a great proposal for the city, but only the first phase of the project has currently received funding and is under way. It seeks to create a new transport hub for Wolverhampton, while also revitalising the station and the entrance to the city that people see when they arrive by train. The plan includes a new hotel, offices and canalside bars. It provides a great opportunity for the city, creating not only jobs but an important first impression when people arrive. I have looked into the funding options available, and I hope that by working with fellow MPs and the council, we can see the whole project succeed. I am aware that retailers such as Debenhams are interested in locating to Wolverhampton, and it is important that any future retail developments are well managed and receive support.
The Government have outlined their plans for promoting economic growth and regeneration across the country. I want to pick up on some of the points raised by the Localism Bill and the White Paper on local growth from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, which provide important tools and guidance for driving regeneration in the black country.
Mr Pat McFadden (Wolverhampton South East) (Lab)
Before the hon. Gentleman moves on from his list of important projects, I am sure that he will not miss out Bilston urban village, which is based in the part of the city that I represent. It is crucial for providing future homes, bringing former industrial land back into use, and providing new leisure facilities for people in Bilston.
Paul Uppal
I will refer later to Bilston, and I echo the right hon. Gentleman’s sentiments completely. There has been very good work there.
For regeneration of the black country it is important to give power to local authorities. I also want to talk about business rates and reforming the apprenticeship system. The important focus of the Localism Bill and the White Paper on local growth is the emphasis on giving power to local authorities and communities. That provides an important opportunity for the black country to lose some of the burden of nationally driven goals and targets, and allows instead for a tailored approach that reflects the needs of the region. The open source planning system will ensure that local governments can create sustainable and attractive places to live. I have no doubt that reforming the planning system is important to creating the confidence to invest.
Some people have expressed doubts over how localism will work in practice, such as how projects can be financed locally, and whether communities will have the will or the information to get involved in the planning process. On the first point, I think that the changes provide an important opportunity to encourage private investment into our region. I am confident that with the right co-ordination and guidance, we can see real involvement by communities, and investment by business in the future of the black country.
I have met many local people who are passionate about regenerating Wolverhampton into a more thriving city. Henry Carver, a local business man, has recently launched the Wolverhampton business group that aims to bring together businesses in the city, and put forward policies on what it believes the city needs. I have also met with the Black Country Reinvestment Society, which provides loans to small businesses that have struggled to get finance from the banks. It is pleased with the success it has seen so far, and I have supported its application to access the regional growth fund so that it can support even more businesses in the city. I hope that with increased money in the regional growth fund, it will be successful in its bid. Recently, I also met representatives from Lloyds bank and the Royal Bank of Scotland in Wolverhampton. I am encouraged that in these difficult times, I have seen practical examples of things being pushed forward. We are all conscious, however, that lending is not as free-flowing as we would wish.
The right hon. Member for Wolverhampton South East (Mr McFadden) referred to Bilston. I visited a business in Bilston called Tile Choice, which has been through a tough time over the past few years and reduced its number of staff from 80 to 60. I met the managing director and was encouraged to see that the business was being built back up, and that it was looking forwards rather than backwards. That is important; we must change the mindset. We can get immersed in looking at what has gone before, but I was struck by the optimism of a business that seemed to be going places and was looking forward to how it could take on new members of staff.
The Government plan to provide further incentives for councils to attract investment and economic growth, and the proposed business increase bonus will provide an incentive to all councils to seek long-term sustainable growth in their business rate base. Local enterprise partnerships may create an important link between businesses, communities and local government, and help to achieve economic growth and regeneration plans for the region. Too often, regeneration projects have been slowed down by time-consuming and complex planning procedures. For example, UK Trade and Investment has stated that complexities in the planning system are among the top five issues that deter inward investment into the UK. The Government are to introduce a national planning policy framework that will place a priority on economic growth through simplifying planning procedure and reducing guidance. Furthermore, the Localism Bill seeks to include communities in planning decisions from an early stage.
All such measures seek to change attitudes and foster a pro-development approach that will remove barriers to development and allow communities to get involved in planning proposals so they do not feel that developments are forced on them. Providing local authorities with a general power of competence gives them the freedom to implement proposals that work specifically for their area. Neighbourhood plans also provide an important opportunity for residents to be involved in the future of their areas. I understand that both the British Chambers of Commerce and London First believe that those proposals could be used in town and city centres and business parks, allowing whole communities to be involved in creating local ideas for their local areas.
An important new proposal, which in hindsight might have helped with some of the difficulties with the Summer Row development, is that large-scale developers will have to consult people in the local community before submitting planning proposals. That could help to ensure that communities get the development that they want.
I shall now move to my second point. The local growth White Paper outlines plans to change the nationalised system of business rates. It hands over more power to local governments, allowing them flexibility in respect of funds and business rates. New proposals will allow local authorities to offer local discounts on business rates, provided that they are funded locally. The Government recognise that different areas have different needs and economic circumstances. That policy will allow councils to respond to the economic circumstances in their area.
I will, however, enter a caveat in respect of business rates. At one of my weekly surgeries recently, I was approached by a constituent—a gentleman who owns a retail unit in the centre of Wolverhampton. He spoke to me about his situation. He felt almost at his wits’ end because of business rates. He felt driven almost to remove the roof from his shop because he felt that business rates had been particularly punitive. I ask my hon. Friend the Minister to pass on a message to the Government to be very conscious of that issue. It is very much about a mindset. The difficulty that we have with some of the investment angles for Wolverhampton is the perception that we are dealing with a problem. Having been in business for 20 years, I know that it is important to look at things as an opportunity rather than a problem. When it comes to business rates and the current system for empty properties, and industrial property in the black country and the wider west midlands, investors and business people are sometimes almost preoccupied with avoiding paying business rates, rather than looking at development, getting a tenant into a property and getting a thriving business going.
Let us turn to more optimistic things. In Wolverhampton, the council plans for a Wolverhampton technology corridor could benefit from the proposal under discussion. As the Municipal Journal notes, it could help new technology start-ups to access discounts. The i54 technology park has secured Moog, which is relocating to the park, and the council is in talks with the Indian aerospace industry about moving in. However, they need to address more businesses. The proposal under discussion could help to achieve that.
We are all aware that this is a time of economic austerity. In such times, regeneration may appear to be a difficult task. However, the local growth White Paper outlines approaches such as tax increment financing, which can assist councils to obtain the extra funds that they may need for regeneration projects. That approach allows councils to borrow against future additional uplift in their business rates base. Obviously, that will need to be managed to minimise risk, but it could provide the means for additional investment to go ahead. A point that I have previously made in the main Chamber is that in the US, where many of these business rate projects were piloted, they were often developer led. An article in Estates Gazette highlighted the fact that the Government might consider such an approach to financing: rather than the onus being put on local authorities and councils, perhaps the developer could move forward.
Linked to attracting new investment and businesses to our region is ensuring that we have the skilled work force to fill the new job vacancies created. The strategy for sustainable growth highlights the importance of skills in creating the conditions needed to reduce the deficit and to stimulate growth. Reforms to the apprenticeship programme, creating up to 75,000 new apprenticeship places, investing up to £250 million during the spending review period and increasing advanced level apprenticeships, will improve the skills of the potential work force and help to meet our target of having a world-class skills base. We need to ensure that training providers work with businesses to ensure that training meets the needs of employers and that businesses are helped to offer apprenticeship placements.
Recently, Professor John Bryson from the university of Birmingham has highlighted the fact that insufficient attention has been paid to equipping the work force with the skills required to take advantage of new high-tech, high-value engineering opportunities. There has been a lack of forward thinking. He estimates that 90,000 hard-to-fill manufacturing jobs will appear in the west midlands during the next five years. That is in line with research conducted by the region’s councils, which found that two thirds of the work force lack the technical skills required by employers. It underlines the importance of reforming the apprenticeship programme—creating more advanced level apprenticeships and ensuring that training matches the skills that the job market wants.
Let me illustrate the point. I remember being on vacation a few years ago with my son. We were at an event and at one point all the children were invited on to the stage and asked what they wanted to do in the future. Some said “journalist”. Most said that they wanted to be on TV. My son proffered the idea that he would like to be an engineer. I remember the look of incredulity on the faces of the parents in the audience, which illustrates the problem that we have in relation to engineering. I know from talking to lecturers at the university of Wolverhampton as well that there is huge demand from the engineering sector. We need to break down the perception that engineering is the sort of job where people have to roll up their sleeves and do difficult manual work. It is not. It is a very creative aspect of our economy at the moment and will offer great potential.
I shall return to the main point. Manufacturing is doing quite well at the moment. We have had encouraging figures in relation to manufacturing, and I would like to see the Government embed that for the future. Much of the discussion on this issue relates to the fact that sterling is quite low at the moment, but let us consider the German analogy. A few years ago, the Germans were in a similar situation. The question is how we can embed the progress that has been made, so that manufacturing becomes something that we can sing really loudly and proudly about, especially in the black country and in the west midlands in general.
Lorely Burt (Solihull) (LD)
I am listening to my hon. Friend’s speech with absolute fascination because it is a very good analysis of where we are at the moment. I am from the black country myself, hence my interest. On the importance of sterling and the manufacturing figures, which those who maintain the purchasing managers index say are the best since they started keeping records 19 years ago, does my hon. Friend agree that the figures relate also to extra demands, extra exports, more jobs being created and new orders coming in? It cannot just be down to sterling. It is because manufacturing is finally getting off its knees, and of course the black country is the home of manufacturing.
Paul Uppal
The hon. Lady makes an excellent point. She has pre-empted, as is always the case, something that I was going to come to. We in the UK are uniquely positioned in the global market to tap into the new emerging markets in India, China and south America. To go down to an even more specific level, the black country, with the significant community from the Indian sub-continent who have settled there, has a unique and wonderful opportunity to take that forward and expand on it. I wholeheartedly agree with the hon. Lady. There are great opportunities. It is not just a sterling issue.
I am confident that the Government are implementing plans that will put this country back on track financially. I know that the tools that they are providing for local growth will help the black country immensely. I sincerely hope that this debate will allow us to put a focus on the region that we all represent. I welcome everyone’s views in the debate and their opinions on how we can kick-start the investment that our area so desperately needs.
Mr Pat McFadden (Wolverhampton South East) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mrs Riordan. I congratulate my constituency neighbour, the hon. Member for Wolverhampton South West (Paul Uppal), on securing the debate. My other neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich West (Mr Bailey), the Chair of the Select Committee on Business, Innovation and Skills, said that he would have liked to be here, but he has Select Committee business.
This is an important debate because it is really about the hinge between the area’s past and its future. Wolverhampton and the wider black country rightly are proud of the industrial heritage that they enjoy. They are proud of the great names that put their stamp on the area. In my constituency, those names include Stewarts and Lloyds, Sankey’s, GKN, Rolls-Royce and Sunbeam. Those names ring through the years. Those names matter, and history matters, because it is from history that people draw identity and meaning. The question today, however, is what the black country will do for a living in the future. Where will people find jobs? How will they make a living? That matters very much in my constituency, which is, sadly, among the top 15 constituencies in the United Kingdom in terms of unemployment. In the time I have, I want to make a few points about that.
First, we should not pronounce manufacturing’s death rites, as we are sometimes too ready to do. Many of the big names I mentioned a few moments ago have gone, as have the individual sites that used to employ thousands of people, but manufacturing still employs a greater proportion of people in the local economy than it does in the national economy. In my constituency, companies such as Nuclear Engineering Services, Mueller Europe, Fortress Interlocks, Bilston Engineering, Barnshaws and many others do an excellent job and provide valuable local employment. As the hon. Gentleman said, we also have an important aerospace cluster, with firms such as Goodrich, Timken and Moog. That is a potential growth area, which can be nurtured and built on.
What the Government do on manufacturing can help or hinder it. If we want to support an economy that makes things—I think that that desire is shared across the House—it is a mistake to abolish programmes such as grants for business investment. Over the past six years, those grants amounted to £400 million across the country, they secured about 10 times that amount in private sector investment and they protected or created about 80,000 jobs. There is good news in manufacturing at the moment, but that is a reason to support it, not to withdraw help.
I make the same point about the changes that the Government have announced to capital allowances. Just because this complex issue is not widely understood, that does not mean that it does not have an effect. The Government are keen to talk about the cut to corporation tax, but it is actually being paid for by cuts in the tax support to manufacturing industry. The Budget Red Book makes it clear that the £2.8 billion that will be taken from manufacturing is exactly the same as the amount that will be given in corporation tax cuts. In effect, there will be a shift, with the help being given to the whole economy, rather than directly to manufacturing. To put it another way, manufacturing will pay for a tax cut for the rest of the economy, which is not in the interests of the economy in my area or the companies that I mentioned.
The second point I want to make is that, when it comes to the area’s regeneration, its future and investment, we should use the local population’s diversity as a source of economic strength. Some years ago, I co-founded the Wolverhampton India project with other partners in the city, such as the city council, the university and Wolverhampton college. It was founded precisely to build on the fact that we have a large Indian population and to see what more we could do in the fields of trade, education and sport. We had fantastic support from the city’s educational institutions and the Punjabi Wolves supporters club—a fine body of people, who have driven and created a groundbreaking friendship agreement between Wolverhampton Wanderers and Jagatjit Cotton and Textile Mills football club of Punjab. Such cultural and sporting links can help with future commerce and trade. The fact that the city has a large Indian population gives us a strong and living link to a country that is one of the economic giants of the 21st century. We should build on that for future trade and commerce, and the city is already trying to do that through aerospace work with the Bangalore area.
The third issue I want to raise is skills and equipping people for the future. We have made progress on skills. There has been a lot of investment in Wolverhampton university, as well as significant investment in Wolverhampton college, and we have some excellent schools. However, in too many cases, achievement in Wolverhampton and the black country is still lower than it should be, and opportunity is denied. Governments —of either colour—cannot make globalisation go away, but they should leave no stone unturned in equipping people for globalisation. That is why educational improvement is essential. Put bluntly, we need higher standards, better results and fewer excuses for underachievement.
In that light, it is a mistake to abolish education maintenance allowances when it is crucial in today’s labour market that people can get the skills and qualifications they need. In Wolverhampton, the abolition of EMAs will affect 4,000 young people. It will affect 2,000 16 to 18-year-olds at Wolverhampton college. I recently met its students, who told me that that will make it harder for them to achieve the skills and qualifications they need. We should remember that many of these young people are not from families with a history of people going on to further and higher education and that they are sometimes the first generation to do that. The Government’s role should be to help those young people, rather than to take away the support that is there.
Emma Reynolds (Wolverhampton North East) (Lab)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is not only short-sighted and wrong to end the education maintenance allowance, but that the so-called evidence base that was used for the decision did not take into account the particular circumstances of students who go to further education colleges such as Wolverhampton college? Many of my constituents travel there and back every day. Leaving school and going on to a further education college is difficult, and the costs involved are significant, but the Government’s decision has not taken that into account.
Mr McFadden
My hon. Friend makes a good point. The Institute for Fiscal Studies said that the maintenance allowances paid for themselves, given the benefits of higher participation in further education in the future. Issues such as transport have an important impact when families are often making decisions in difficult financial situations. The question of skills and equipping people for the future is therefore absolutely central to the economic future of Wolverhampton and the wider black country.
I want to touch on a point that the hon. Member for Wolverhampton South West made about decision making and planning, because it is crucial. He mentioned the Summer Row development, which dragged on for years. The fact is that the economics never really stacked up in the recession in the way they did beforehand. It is sad that the project is not going ahead, but we at least have clarity now, and we can plan for the future. However, I have an important question for the Government. I do not really expect the Minister to go into this in much detail, but if I was a betting man, I would say that robust discussions were taking place between his Department—Business, Innovation and Skills—and the Department for Communities and Local Government. There is a legitimate desire for localism and for people to be more involved in local decision making, but the Minister and the hon. Gentleman will also know that major investors want clarity and speed. Sometimes those two things are in tension, which is why the Labour Government made planning changes towards the end of their period in office to try to speed up the granting of permission for major projects, which has been too slow. My question as regards the rhetoric and practice of more localism is whether that tension will lead to businesses becoming frustrated about future planning and decision making. The truth is that we cannot say for certain at the moment, but it would be wrong to deny that there is a danger, because there is.
Although projects have been cancelled—in addition to Summer Row there has been the announcement by Hilton Hotels—there are also projects going ahead. On Friday I had the pleasure of being at the opening of the new Bilston police station, a development of several million pounds at the heart of the town. The increased visibility of the police presence in the town is very welcome. Of course it is a pity and an irony that we are opening a new police station at the moment when the number of police in the West Midlands police force is set to be cut significantly; but the police station itself is of course welcome. I was also able to tour the partially built new Bilston leisure centre. That is also a multi-million pound project. It is part of the Bilston urban village project, which is so important to the future of my constituency. It will have a new swimming pool, a training pool, indoor sports courts and a gymnasium. It is a crucial investment, not just because of its construction, but for quality of life and the future health of the local people. After I went there I visited a private sector development along the black country route, where a new car auction will be opened. The owners told me that at least 15 new jobs will be created there. Although we have had bad news, therefore, developments are going ahead in the city and we must build on that fact.
We must do better in decision making. The supermarket wars that affected the constituency of the hon. Member for Wolverhampton South West and my own constituency dragged on far too long. The problem was that although the different supermarkets may have owned the land they were not the only owners of the interest in the matter. The people of Wolverhampton also had an interest, which was in major sites not lying fallow for years while landowners fought battles in court, and in not having such blight on major parts of the city.
The city council has produced new plans, including the plan for the Bilston corridor. I recently attended a meeting of the Metro business partnership, which represents businesses sited along the Metro line, between the city centre and Bilston. It was ably chaired by Anna-Maria McAuliffe of the McAuliffe construction group. The concern expressed by a number of businesses was about whether we get the right balance between allocation of land for housing and for future employment. I think that in a constituency that is in the top 15 for unemployment it is important to allow potential for business to locate, and for jobs to be created. We should not get that balance wrong.
As to the local enterprise partnership, we could go back over Government decisions but I do not propose to. They made their decision to abolish the regional development agency. I would not have made it, but it has been made, and the question is what to do in the future. I pay tribute to the business people from around the black country who have worked so hard to put the local enterprise partnership project together. As we were briefed by Mr Stewart Towe last week at a meeting with the black country chamber of commerce, those people have identified a serious agenda involving skills, planning and some of the issues that we have been discussing, including transport, on which they want to take action. However, they need resources to do that, and the regional growth fund is already heavily oversubscribed. I believe that the Government will have given a false prospectus to businesses in the black country and, indeed, elsewhere in the country if, having worked so hard to put the partnerships together, they do not get the resources to deliver. We shall watch closely to see whether their effort is matched by Government effort to provide those resources. If that does not happen, it is not only the business people who have worked so hard, but our constituents, who will feel very let down.
These have been tough times for the black country economy. It was hit hard by the recession. Although unemployment is high, the interventions made by the previous Labour Government had an effect in stopping recession turning into depression. The figures for unemployment, business failure and home repossession are all significantly lower for the recession we are coming out of than they were in the previous ones. Our challenge now is to take the strong history and identity that I mentioned at the beginning of my speech and bend it to a new purpose. Our opportunity is there. We have a strong aerospace cluster: let us use it to win more trade and business. The economy is shifting towards lower-carbon purposes. Let us use the excellence and creativity of the manufacturing tradition, so that we can take opportunities in the automotive field and other low-carbon fields. The creative industries are a growing percentage of the economy and they should also be supported and nurtured in the local economy, as should distribution industries and retail, and many more. We need the right skills and the right decision-making framework, nationally and locally, and we need the backing of Government to make it happen.
Emma Reynolds (Wolverhampton North East) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Riordan. I congratulate my parliamentary neighbour, the hon. Member for Wolverhampton South West (Paul Uppal), on securing this important debate. Each of the three Wolverhampton MPs agree, I think, that driving regeneration in our city is a priority. There has been recent frustration about the Summer Row project to which the hon. Gentleman referred. If anything good can come out of bad news it will be the mood of co-operation in Wolverhampton—the sense that we need to pull together to make regeneration happen.
I know that in last week’s and previous council meetings there have often been heated debates, but councillors of each of the three parties understand how difficult it is to bring about regeneration. It might be easy to draw up the plans but it is hard to deliver, and lessons should be learned about the lack of progress on Summer Row, and other projects, which my right hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton South East (Mr McFadden) mentioned. I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend in particular for his work as Business Minister in the Labour Government, and I want to echo some of his concerns, and the questions he put to the Minister today.
As a Member for the north of the city I shall, as the House might expect, concentrate my first remarks on the aerospace industry because there is an aerospace cluster in the north of the city. We have three major aerospace companies: Moog, Goodrich and HS Marston. We also have Timken in the south of the city. The hon. Gentleman mentioned the i54 business park and the importance of that site in creating and sustaining jobs in the city.
One of my first meetings as a Member of Parliament was with Moog, which was considering moving out of Wolverhampton, or to the i54 business park. We were determined to make sure it stayed in Wolverhampton so that we could retain the hundreds of jobs it supports. I thank Advantage West Midlands not only for working with Moog to ensure it stayed in Wolverhampton and moved on to the i54 site, but for getting the project off the ground. A lot of decontamination work was done on the site, thanks to the work of Advantage West Midlands. As my right hon. Friend said, we understand that the decision to abolish the regional development agency has been made, but I should like the Minister to comment on how to retain some regional strategic vision for the west midlands, and the black country in particular. I think that the i54 is central to that. Will the Minister say how the Government will see that vision once Advantage West Midlands has been abolished?
I would also like to comment, as did my right hon. Friend, on the work of the local enterprise partnerships. It is important that LEPs in the black country and elsewhere in the region work together. Like the i54 technology park, they have a strategic importance.
I have another question for the Minister about the i54. I know that consultation is taking place at the moment, but what will happen to the assets of Advantage West Midlands? Wolverhampton city council and South Staffordshire council have a stake in the i54 site, but most of it is owned by the RDA. I would prefer the state to retain ownership of that significant asset, as the cost of security there is substantial and I doubt whether a private sector company would want to take it on at the moment.
I turn now to exports and inward investment, which were mentioned by both of my parliamentary neighbours. I wish to speak specifically about exports. Last year, I went on a parliamentary visit to China. On my return, I was inspired to ask the manufacturing advisory service in the west midlands if it would organise a meeting for local businesses in Wolverhampton and more widely with the aim of helping them to export to China, as it is not always easy to export there. The meeting took place two weeks ago in Birmingham and there was a great turnout, with great demand from local businesses. Will the Minister say a little more about the Government’s overall strategy on driving up such exports, and ensuring that local businesses have the necessary advice and are given it on a timely basis?
My right hon. Friend mentioned partnership work with India, which is incredibly important. I know that the leadership of the council—both the Labour leader, Roger Lawrence, and the chief executive—are determined to ensure that we exploit the cultural and trade links, referred to by my right hon. Friend, between our city and India and other emerging economies around the world. Will the Minister reassure this House that when the Government finally set out their growth strategy they will take account of the strengths and weaknesses of the regions? I agree with the hon. Member for Wolverhampton South West that many of the opportunities presented by globalisation have in the past gone to London and the south-east, and that we have not always been able to grasp them. The Government should take account of those strengths and weaknesses and of the needs of the regions, and particularly of the black country. As my right hon. Friend said, the black country is shaped by its history. We used to be the beating heart of the industrial revolution. Although we still have a large manufacturing base, we have lost jobs in that sector. There is much talk about rebalancing the economy, but will the Minister tell us how much work is going on to make it happen?
I declare an interest, in that the manufacturing advisory service is based in my constituency at the Wolverhampton business park. However, that is not the only reason why I would like MAS to have a continuing regional focus. Will the Minister tell us something of the Government’s intentions? Various rumours are flying around about wanting to centralise MAS in London, but I would advise against that. Local businesses need advice that is tailored to their specific needs, and it should be delivered locally. I have received that message from several businesses in Wolverhampton, and I urge the Minister to take it on board.
I deal now with the regional growth fund. We know that that there is a substantial decrease in the money being made available. The RDAs used to receive in the region of £2 billion a year, and the regional growth fund is set at £1.4 billion over three years. If my maths is correct, that is a little over £500,000 a year, which is barely a fifth of what we had before. Like my right hon. Friend, I do not want the Government to give local business organisations a false prospectus about how much money they will receive from this pot. Will the Minister clarify the timing of decisions on bids for the regional growth fund? As expected, I support the bid from the black country local enterprise partnership, as well as that of the Black Country Reinvestment Society mentioned by the hon. Member for Wolverhampton South West. Will the Government give special consideration to those parts of the country whose needs are greatest and who were hit particularly hard?
Mr McFadden
I endorse what my hon. Friend said about the Black Country Reinvestment Society. Every time we meet businesses, they question us about access to credit, difficulties with the banks, the terms of loans and all sorts of other conditions being changed—and sometimes refusals, which makes life harder for them. The society plays a crucial role in filling that market gap by lending to small businesses that cannot otherwise get credit. It helps them to survive, to grow and to employ. I am sure my hon. Friend will acknowledge that many in our region have supported the society’s bid to the regional growth fund precisely because it fills that gap. Daily experience tells us that the banks are not filling it.
Emma Reynolds
I could not agree more. The Minister will doubtless take on board the strong message that he has received from the three Members for Wolverhampton about our support for the bid from the Black Country Reinvestment Society. As my right hon. Friend said, it is important that the Government fill that gap, to ensure that loans are available to enable local businesses to grow, and thus to employ more people. Frustration is felt across the House—this is not a party political point—that the banks are not lending to viable businesses that need money to be able to flourish. The Minister will have received that message loud and clear.
Some projects have been set back by various problems, the main one being planning. My right hon. Friend mentioned the fact that two supermarkets are wrangling with each other over sites in his constituency and in that of the hon. Member for Wolverhampton South West. As my right hon. Friend so eloquently said, it affects not only the two supermarkets but our constituents. We have seen those sites lying redundant for many years while the supermarkets fight it out in the courts. I hope that progress will be made, and that the Raglan street and the old Royal hospital sites can be developed. There is a great need and a demand for that.
Another site in my constituency that has gone through this process, with bids and projects falling through, is the Springfield brewery site near the railway station. It is another example of plans being frustrated. The hon. Gentleman mentioned phase 2 of the Wolverhampton interchange project. I would like to see the railway station completed, but the work has been put back. There are uncertainties about whether it will take place, but I hope we can get it back on track.
My right hon. Friend made the good point that there is a tension between the drive for localism and the demand of business, which we hear loud and clear, for clarity and speed in the planning process. I would like to hear the Minister’s thinking on this. If we are to drive regeneration in Wolverhampton, it is essential that some of these planning problems are resolved, and that businesses have the certainty necessary to invest in Wolverhampton. We need to think about these things clearly. Is there a tension between the spirit and the provisions of the Localism Bill, and in some of the issues that we have outlined today?
Ian Austin (Dudley North) (Lab)
It is great to see you in the Chair, Mrs Riordan, and to be taking part in this debate. I congratulate the hon. Member for Wolverhampton South West (Paul Uppal) on securing the debate, and the two Wolverhampton MPs on their brilliant contributions. My right hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton South East (Mr McFadden) was absolutely correct when he said that the central issue that faces us is how to restructure our economy to exploit the opportunities provided by the new industries to bring new jobs and prosperity to Wolverhampton and the wider black country, including to my own constituency.
My right hon. Friend listed a series of great 19th and 20th-century companies that have made a huge contribution to the British economy. I represent Dudley, which lit the spark that fired the industrial revolution. It was the first place to learn how to smelt cast iron using coke, without which the industrial revolution would never have taken place, changing not just Dudley and the black country but the whole of the world. The central question now is how we learn from those great innovators, who were thinking not just about the future but how they could bring in new industries and new jobs to change the region in which they lived and worked. We must do the same again in the 21st century.
Let me speak briefly about the particular issues that relate to Dudley and then about those that relate to the wider sub-region. I grew up in Dudley. I love it to bits and am really proud to represent it. Anyone who lived in Dudley in the ’70s and ’80s will know that our town centre has seen better days. We have been hit hard by three things: the growth of out-of-town shopping, the decline of traditional manufacturing on which the area’s prosperity was based, and the loss of our university campus—it was originally a teacher training college.
Under the leadership of Bill Kirk, the council is at last introducing long-awaited redevelopment plans, but they need to be put into action urgently. Will the Minister tell me whether those plans will receive the same level of support in the future as was planned in the past? It is crucial that they do so that we can get new investment in the town centre, develop vacant sites and provide new car parking and new shopping. It is crucial that the world-renowned tourism attractions at Castle Hill, such as Dudley zoo and the world-class black country museum, receive the funding that they are bidding for from the regional growth fund so that we can attract new visitors and boost the town’s economy.
I invite the Minister to visit Dudley. He will not regret it, because it is the greatest town in the country. He will see our fantastic facilities and our great plans for the town centre, which I hope he will support.
Dudley is the largest place in the country to have no university campus. The university was originally Dudley teacher training college. I grew up on the street that had the teaching training college at one end and the halls of residence at the other. As a child, I would see students with books under their arms walking up and down the road, and that must have persuaded me that staying on at school and going to college and university were the normal things to do. It is tragic that we no longer have that example in our area, because we need to get more young people staying on at college and going to university. Is the Minister prepared to treat Dudley as a special case?
Paul Uppal
I thank all hon. and right hon. Members for such a good debate. I am very heartened by the non-partisan attitude that has prevailed. It is obvious that we all have our own constituencies at heart here. I am also a trustee of the Sikh temple on Upper Villiers street in the constituency of the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton South East (Mr McFadden). It used to be the site of the original Sunbeam motor factories. Although cars are no longer produced there, love and happiness can still be found there on a Sunday—because of the more spiritual dimension that the temple has brought to Wolverhampton.
Let me return to the point about education and how we can tap into our young people’s ambition and aspiration. Much of the heritage that has been fondly mentioned here today came from a buccaneering spirit: people often felt that they could beat the world. I am sure that that attitude still exists, but it is latent and needs to be inspired. Coming from a modest background and going to a state school, I am aware of the issue. It is about being exposed to an environment that makes us think we can do whatever we want to do. We need to spread that message and ensure that it reaches down not just to teenagers but to primary and secondary schools.
[Annette Brooke in the Chair]
Ian Austin
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely correct. We have many great strengths in our region: hard work, ingenuity, adaptability and innovation. Those are the attributes on which we launched the industrial revolution and built Britain’s economy. As my right hon. Friend said, although we have some world-beating companies, we do not have enough. The truth is—this is the central point that I want the Minister to consider—that our region has been hit harder than anywhere else in Britain during this recession. The recovery is more fragile. We will take longer to emerge from the recession and to attract new industries and new jobs unless we take action now. Such structural problems are not the result of mistakes made over the past few years. In 1971, the combined economies of the midlands and the north were greater in size that those of London and the south-east. By 1976, the economy of the west midlands had fallen behind and we have not matched the national average of output and productivity on a per capita basis for more than 30 years. We have been falling further and further behind.
Our region is the only place in the country where private sector investment has declined over the past 20 years. That is as a result of major structural challenges in relation to transport, trade, innovation, reputation and skills. The central issue is that of skills. It absolutely underpins the challenges that we face and how we need to address them. As my right hon. Friend said, we have made major improvements in this area over the past 10 years or so. For example, in 2005 employer investment in training and retraining in the west midlands was the lowest in England. By 2007, it was the fourth highest. In 2005, we had the highest proportion of vacancies owing to skill shortages, but by 2007 we had completely turned that around so that we had the lowest. We had the best performing apprenticeship programme in the country and the best Train to Gain service.
We need to boost the number of graduates working in the regional economy. We have 70,000 fewer graduates working in the west midlands than in other parts of the country. Much of that is about the structural make-up of our economy. Our region has a larger proportion of small and medium-sized enterprises than elsewhere. A struggling owner/manager of a small business who is trying to keep their head above water is not likely to be thinking about how to build links with universities, employ graduates and invest in new technologies and all the rest of it, as the major companies are able to do, so we need to address that point in particular.
Despite our region attracting some of the world-beating aerospace and engineering companies that my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton North East (Emma Reynolds) and my right hon. Friend have both listed, the central issue of skills is the reason why we have not been able to attract the new industries in ways that other regions have. For example, Britain is a world leader in the manufacture of pharmaceuticals, but all the jobs in that sector went to the south-east because we did not have the skills that the pharmaceutical companies were looking for. Similarly, during the computer revolution in Britain we did not manage to attract the number of jobs that the Thames valley did because we were unable to persuade the computer companies investing in Britain that we had the skills they were looking for.
During the next few years, there will be major opportunities in the low-carbon sector, in advanced manufacturing, in health care and biomedical sciences, and in digital media, which will provide hundreds of thousands of well-paid, highly skilled jobs, and it is absolutely crucial that we have a new industrial revolution to bring those jobs to the black country. That is why the whole of our sub-region should decide collectively that we will set for our communities the ambition of achieving the biggest rise in educational standards anywhere in the country. If we do that and get colleges and universities working together to equip people with the skills they will need for the advanced manufacturing revolution and the new low-carbon industries that will emerge, as well as getting the councils working together on these issues, I am absolutely convinced that we can build a stronger economy for the future.
There are just a few final points that I want to raise with the Minister. First, I have to tell him that, for an area such as the black country, increases in tuition fees present very serious challenges to the aim of getting more young people to stay on at college and go to university. Also, the abolition of the education maintenance allowance is a disaster for the communities that the Members here today represent. I visited students at Dudley college and I found that four out of five students at the college receive EMA. Many of them are very worried about whether they will be able to stay on at college if they lose it. They are not using it for going out or for luxuries. Those who are studying construction or public services have to buy uniforms and equipment with it. They and other students use it for their transport, to buy their lunch and for their books. It is the funding that is enabling them to stay on at college, and I plead with the Minister to make an area such as ours a real priority for the support that will be available for students so that they are able to continue their studies.
Will the Minister reflect on the points that I have made about the structural challenges that the black country faces and consider how he can make an area such as ours a priority when it comes to allocating funds from the regional growth fund? If we do not restructure and breathe new life into the economy in an area such as the black country, there is no way we will be able to get the economy of the country as a whole moving forward in a way that I am sure the Government want.
Ian Lucas (Wrexham) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to appear before you again, Mrs Brooke, and it has been a pleasure to listen to the debate.
I commend the hon. Member for Wolverhampton South West (Paul Uppal) for initiating this debate on behalf of his constituency and, of course, the wider region. I hope that I get all the geographical directions and references correct in my contribution. I also commend all the right hon. and hon. Members who have spoken eloquently on behalf of their constituents today. It is extremely valuable to have the opportunity in Adjournment debates to focus on particular areas. Although that is very valuable for me, it is even more valuable for the Minister, because he can focus on that particular area of the country and the particular issues relating to it not only in the contribution that he will make to today’s debate but in his preparation for it.
The contribution that debates such as this make cannot be undervalued, especially when we have had such excellent speeches today from all parts of the House. As the hon. Member for Wolverhampton South West said, it has been a non-partisan debate because all of us want Wolverhampton and the black country to succeed. Although we have different road maps to achieve that aim I am sure that all of us can make positive contributions towards achieving it.
One issue is that we are, of course, in difficult economic times. We have just come through the worst recession since 1929 and a huge banking crisis. There are difficult times at present with very difficult growth figures. In that context, finding the right policies to allow Wolverhampton and the black country to develop and prosper is extremely difficult, and there are different routes that can be taken.
Concerns have been expressed about the possible conflicts that exist in legislation such as the Localism Bill. In an area such as Wolverhampton, it seems to me—although I of course defer to the local knowledge of the area of all right hon. and hon. Members who have spoken today—that getting the balance right between the interests of business and the interests of residents will be extremely difficult. We all have planning issues that arise in our area that are difficult for us to make calls on, because there are different and conflicting ideas about them.
One of the themes that has emerged in the debate is that, as far as Wolverhampton and the black country are concerned, the focus must be on business and growth. My right hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton South East (Mr McFadden) referred to the fact that his constituency is in the bottom 15 in the country as far as unemployment is concerned. That is a major threat to the prosperity and the attractiveness of the area, as it would be for any area of the country.
Of course, Wolverhampton has been well established for many years as a hugely important manufacturing city and as a city that has a huge amount to offer. As we have already heard, what needs to happen is that the attractions that made Wolverhampton successful in the past—entrepreneurial drive and individuals with ideas who were able to use those ideas to create manufacturing, jobs and prosperity—need to be developed once more. Those attractions have been developed before and they need to be developed again.
At the heart of that process is the skilled work force that we have just heard my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley North (Ian Austin) talk about. He referred to the fact that, at present, there are young people who are training and trying to get on in their lives, and they are being given support through the education maintenance allowance, but that support is being withdrawn. That is pulling a ladder away from those young people and it is a very damaging policy.
I know that the Government are introducing alternatives to the EMA. However, earlier this morning I was speaking to a group of young people from my constituency of Wrexham about the EMA. For the west midlands, that Government policy will lead to a competitive disadvantage, and that also applies to tuition fees. Therefore, that educational limb of development policy is putting Wolverhampton at a disadvantage.
What is very striking about the globalised world in which we live is that it is intensely competitive. Globalisation will not go backwards. It will continue and become more intense. Consequently, if we are to compete we must devise in our own country the right policies to deal with it. That means that we need to take advantage of the skills and the established industries that we have.
In the Wolverhampton area, aerospace is a hugely important industry. We are one of the leading aerospace manufacturers on the planet. In fact, we are the number two aerospace manufacturer, behind only the United States. To ensure that we continue in that position and continue to offer work of the highest quality, an area such as Wolverhampton needs to compete. It needs to compete internationally, so it needs to have the support of Government with provisions such as the grants for business that were referred to by my right hon. Friend. The reality is that, if that Government support is not provided within the UK, it will be provided in France, Germany, Spain, China and other parts of the world. It is simply not the case that businesses and industries such as aerospace will not move. If we do not compete on a level playing field—to use that dreadful phrase—with those countries, in terms of the type of support that the Government offer, we will lose out.
Mr McFadden
Does my hon. Friend agree that the other important point about that state help is that it is not just the Government going around signing cheques for business, as it has sometimes been characterised, but their playing a, usually, small role in levering in significantly more private sector investment? One of the striking characteristics of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills figures on the grants for business investment scheme is that for every £1 spent by the Government £10 more was levered in from the private sector. This is not, therefore, just about propping up failing industries or holding back the future, it is about the Government playing a small role to get the private sector to play a far bigger one.
Ian Lucas
My right hon. Friend is of course absolutely right, and the examples are many, the most obvious recent one being Nissan in the north-east. Its Leaf vehicle manufacturing is supported by this Government, who decided that it was a sensible investment. With one exception, the Government have looked at the investments made by the previous Government and have supported them. They do lever in private finance, and that inward investment has to come.
We have heard that Wolverhampton has a strong Indian connection. As someone from outside of the region, I beg to suggest that that connection be used strongly by the community—I am sure it is—in relation to its competitiveness within the UK. The type of connection that culturally can exist between a city with Wolverhampton’s background and the Indian community locally can create huge export opportunities, and I venture to suggest that the university of Wolverhampton will develop Indian contacts. Does the Minister believe that the student visa restrictions being considered by the Government are in the best long-term interests of UK industry? The granting of those visas brings so much inward investment and income to our universities, and I am receiving many representations about the visa restrictions, from universities both in my constituency and beyond.
Emma Reynolds
On that very point, I have had a representation from the vice-chancellor of the university of Wolverhampton, who is very concerned about the restriction on the number of student visas, especially when universities are seeing their teaching grant cut back significantly. The university of Wolverhampton grant is being cut by more than 80%, which is greater than the average, and the vice-chancellor is concerned that restricting student visa numbers will deprive the university of a significant income stream.
Ian Lucas
I thank my hon. Friend for her contribution. There is a significant diminution of the income stream at present, but the connections in the long term are also massively important. She and I visited China in the latter part of last year, and I was stunned to hear that 70% of Chinese graduates who go to university abroad take up employment abroad and do not return to China. What struck me about that was that huge cultural and business connections can be established with those students in the countries to which they have moved—it might be the United States; it might be the UK. For an export-driven economy, which I know the Minister wants to achieve, we need to have that type of connection, and that way of working with the hugely developing countries of the developing world will enable it to happen.
I would like to raise a point about local business structures and local government structures with the Minister, because I am confused about the position of the Government office for the west midlands. We all heard last year that it would be abolished as part of the restructuring of governmental agencies, and that to support localism the functions would be transferred to local government level and to centralised level—to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. I have read reports, including in the Financial Times, in the past week that the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills is talking about creating regional structures within certain UK geographical areas. Could the Minister indicate whether the Government office for the west midlands, among other Government offices, will have a role as far as BIS is concerned? It is important that in an area such as the west midlands there is a contribution, of some sort, at a regional level. The sense of that is far more important than the political face that might be lost by reversing the decision. Provided that the structure was right, such a body could support the type of redevelopment and regeneration that we all want to see in Wolverhampton and the black country, across the west midlands and, of course, across the rest of the UK.
I congratulate the hon. Member for Wolverhampton South West on his contribution today. He has initiated and engendered a very worthwhile debate, which I am sure will continue.
The Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (Mr Mark Prisk)
This is the first time that I have served under your chairmanship, Mrs Brooke, and I am happy to be guided by you in ensuring that we maintain order.
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton South West (Paul Uppal) on securing the debate. I had better get my geography right. I notice that north-west Wolverhampton is struggling here, but I am sure that the Wolverhampton Members have it all covered. This has been a really good debate, with an excellent and insightful contribution at the beginning by my hon. Friend who, like other right hon. and hon. Members, correctly pointed to the need for local collaboration, whether between Members—evidence of which we have seen today—or between different civic and business partners, looking at how the future of not just the Wolverhampton economy, but those economies that surround Wolverhampton, can flourish.
My private office will be appalled by yet another diary request, but the temptations of Dudley zoo are strong, so I shall have to see when a visit might be feasible. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Dudley North (Ian Austin) for his invitation, and I shall certainly be happy to receive a more formal one in due course.
Right hon. and hon. Members are absolutely right to start by looking back at the history of the area. I will not get into the local concerns about whether the spark was in Walsall, Dudley or Wolverhampton, because I do not think that my job is worth that. What is important is that—
Mr Prisk
No, I will not get into even that debate. What is important is that Wolverhampton and its surrounding areas—the black country—are a genuinely industrial heartland, and that context makes regeneration doubly difficult, as technology and industrial capabilities have moved on. I think that the point that the hon. Member for Dudley North made was that in more recent years, as technologies and capabilities have changed, it is difficult to regenerate an area that has a long history in contaminated land, or whatever. The renewal task, therefore, can be challenging, and highlights the importance of clear national economic policies and good local leadership. I shall come on to a number of the wide-ranging issues that have been raised today.
The Government and I feel that we need fiscal stability and clear policies to best promote future growth and jobs, which does mean supporting infrastructure, ensuring that we invest in things such as manufacturing, and setting free enterprise and that can-do spirit, to which my hon. Friend referred. That is why we have set out our £200 billion 10-year national infrastructure plan, with £14 billion going into rail and £10 billion into roads, and why we want to press ahead with High Speed 2 so that London and the midlands are conjoined more effectively and dynamically. It is why we are supporting small businesses by reducing the corporation tax rate from 21p to 20p, reversing the previously planned increase in the employers’ national insurance contributions, and increasing the limit for the 10% entrepreneurial relief rate on capital gains from £2 million to £5 million. It is important to send out a signal that taking the step of building a business will be rewarded by gains created, wealth generated and, of course, additional jobs.
That is why we seek to support sectors of the economy that have been largely ignored in recent years by what I call the commentariat. Advanced manufacturing is a strong example. Although we might have different road maps for getting there, I think that all Members share a belief that the role, importance and current capabilities of manufacturing in this country have too often been ignored, particularly by the media.
That is why we are cutting the main rate of corporation tax from 28p to 24p by 2014. To address an issue raised by various Members about skills and training, it is also why we are seeking to boost apprenticeships funding by up to £250 million by the end of this spending review, which will create up to 75,000 more places a year. To return to how apprenticeships are progressed, we are seeking to ensure that we consider higher qualification levels and strengthen the element of learning alongside experienced hands. Although the classroom has a role, my instinct is that, especially in engineering, the crucial gain for apprentices is working alongside someone whose skills they are trying to learn. That practical change will be important.
Paul Uppal
I am heartened to hear that. One thing that I hear increasingly in feedback from businesses and constituents is that sometimes apprentices come along who need to develop soft skills such as communication and social skills. The academic boxes might all be ticked and everything on the CV might look fine and dandy, but they need that final level of nuance in developing business contacts and sealing the deal. Sometimes the softer, fuzzier peripheral skills need developing as well.
Mr Prisk
I agree entirely. It is not just about the core elements in the curriculum; it is also about how individuals learn what I call employability skills. [Interruption.] Did I gather that the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton South East (Mr McFadden) wanted to intervene?
Mr Prisk
Okay. I will canter on until the right hon. Gentleman wants to intervene further. Another important issue about skills that is relevant to the black country is the new generation of university technology colleges where students will be able to start training at age 14.
Mr McFadden
I thank the Minister for giving way. I wanted to intervene before he moved on from apprenticeships, but I did not want to cut short his answer to the hon. Member for Wolverhampton South West (Paul Uppal).
When I was in the Minister’s shoes and had some responsibility for these issues, we put more funds into what we called higher-level or technician-level apprenticeships, precisely in order to address the skills gaps that have been referred to. Will he acknowledge that a significant proportion of the funds that the Government are putting into apprenticeships is coming from the Train to Gain scheme? Therefore—this is a factual question; I do not want to enter into a debate about the whys and wherefores of Train to Gain—will he acknowledge that, given the cost of one apprenticeship, for which we trained three or four people under the Train to Gain scheme, if we fast-forward two years or so, the Government will actually be funding fewer learners at work than they are today?
Mr Prisk
The difficulty is that we are not comparing apples with apples. What is gained under Train to Gain is different from what is secured by apprenticeships. That is why we have sought to increase the number of apprenticeships over that period. I do not think that one can say that it is just about head count; it is also about quality, not least because engineering employers say to me that they need the right people with the right range of skills.
Mr McFadden
We could have a debate about the benefits, but my question concerns the number of people at work being helped by Government support. The Minister must know the answer. Will he acknowledge that in two years, there will be fewer learners at work funded by Government as a result of the decision to switch Government money from the Train to Gain budget, as he outlined?
Mr Prisk
The point that I am trying to make is that we are talking to businesses and asking them what they need. I am not the Minister with responsibility for skills, so before he tells me that I have said something incorrect, I will check with him and write back to hon. Members here. I am wary of making a statement that might prove incorrect. However, the right hon. Gentleman has made a sensible point. I will double-check before giving an incorrect answer.
University technology colleges are important because students will be able to start at age 14. One of the first UTCs will open at Bloxwich in the black country this September. It is an important element.
Ian Austin
I am excited by the idea of university technology colleges. I have written to the leader of Dudley council asking whether she is prepared to consider having one. I do not see why Walsall should have one and not Dudley. Perhaps when the Minister comes to Dudley he can meet the council leader and extol the policy’s virtues to her.
I do not want to get into a debate about the rights and wrongs of abolishing the education maintenance allowance, but if student numbers in a place such as Dudley, where education skills must be our No. 1 priority, decline as a result of its abolition—although I know that the Minister hopes that they will not—will the Government think again and restore the funding that enables students to undertake studies? I am not trying to catch him out. It is a serious question.
Mr Prisk
I realise that. Our view is that by putting a strong emphasis on vocational education rather than on higher education alone, as has been the habit in recent years, we will help those numbers to grow. When the previous Government went from no tuition fees to £3,000, I suspect that we all thought that the number of participants would drop, but it rose. We must be careful when speculating, but I take the point.
A number of other issues were raised. I am aware that I have only four minutes left, so I will canter through them briefly. On the Moog deal, I say to the hon. Member for Wolverhampton North East (Emma Reynolds) and other Members that I was aware of it at the start and am pleased that regional, local and national officials were able to sort it out, because it was a concern early on. I agree with her on that point. On the broader issue of aerospace, we are strengthening our national focus on it, as we have tremendous national assets. However, we also recognise that local enterprise partnerships are best placed to lead. I know that several of them with a strong aerospace dimension are considering how they want to collaborate to work with us nationally. Getting the fusion right is important.
On the role of the local enterprise partnership, I was pleased that Wolverhampton became part of the black country LEP. Along with Dudley, Sandwell and Walsall and under the new chairmanship and board, it has drawn together strong civic and business leaders. The right hon. Gentleman was right to say that the board now looks outward, and it hopes to play on its Indian connections globally.
My hon. Friend mentioned business rates. We want to help, which is why we are simplifying how small business tax relief operates, so that it is automated and need not be bid for. We are considering greater discretion for local councils to ensure that they can use the business rate system in a way that helps locally.
Other questions were asked about assets. We have received a full register of assets from the regional development agencies. We are mindful of the balance that we need to strike between local economic regeneration and public value for money, and we will set out shortly exactly how the process will operate. The hon. Lady and others made several pitches. That is understandable, but as there are 450 applications, I will remain mute on the subject, for the obvious reason that we want to ensure that the process is open and fair.
We are investing an additional £50 million in the Manufacturing Advisory Service over the next three years. We want the service to be consistent. It has always been highly regarded, but it is of course an outreach service. I say to the hon. Lady that no decisions have yet been taken about where the headquarters might be. My concern is to ensure that the small and medium-sized businesses get a good, consistent service and, importantly, an outreach service that comes to them.
I was asked how foreign direct investment will work. Our view is that UK Trade and Investment abroad should be the voice and face of the UK when we seek inward investment, but that there should be a strong national network within England that handles inquiries. That should and will include the west midlands and the area represented by the hon. Lady.
A number of other questions relating to planning were asked, and I am sorry that I did not come to them. However, the long-term—
National Defence Medal
(13 years, 4 months ago)
Westminster HallRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Mr Denis MacShane (Rotherham) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Brooke.
In essence, this debate is simple. The time has come to honour all the servicemen and women who serve our nation with a medal called the national defence medal. It would be given to the thousands upon thousands of former soldiers, sailors and air force personnel who have served their nation but have nothing to show for it. I am glad to say that some of them are present to listen to this debate. They place all their hope and confidence in the Minister that, by 1 o’clock, their wish will be granted.
The relationship of the British people to their armed forces has been transformed in recent years. Television and modern warfare have brought home the service and sacrifice that veterans have always understood, but that the public perhaps has not. Long gone are the days when Kipling could mock a nation that did not honour its soldiers when he wrote:
“For it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ ‘Chuck him out, the brute!’
But it’s ‘Saviour of ’is country’ when the guns begin to shoot”.
That scorn is over. In each year since 1945—save, I think, one—British armed forces personnel have been in action. Remembrance day in Rotherham and nationally is as crowded as ever, but we still have no recognition for that service. Of course, gallantry and leadership are recognised, and I urge a visit to the Imperial War museum across the river Thames to see Lord Ashcroft’s Victoria Cross gallery.
There is no recognition, however, for the many soldiers who served, and saw comrades die or wounded, or who provided the long tail of logistics and support that is as vital to military endeavour and success as the teeth of those doing the shooting at the front. A national defence medal would put that right.
Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
In a spirit of non-partisanship, when the right hon. Gentleman’s party was in government, they introduced the veterans badge, which is a form of recognition that can be worn all year round. Perhaps he ought to address that point.
Mr MacShane
My very next point was that a veterans badge—welcome as it is—is the most that can be aspired to. Only 10% of those eligible for the badge have taken it up. A medal that arrives at one’s home and that can be shown to one’s children, grandchildren and others is qualitatively different, and I believe that the House and the nation want something better.
To achieve that, we have to take on and defeat the enemy, by which I do not mean the actual foe out in the field, or even the traditional enemy of all our soldiers, the Treasury, but the most dangerous enemy that serving men and women can face—the gentlemen of the Ministry of Defence who always know best. I remember the wonderful song, “One staff officer jumped right over another staff officer’s back”, from “Oh! What a Lovely War”, and I fear that our major generals are making Ministers jump over each other’s backs as they find excuse after excuse not to award a national defence medal to those who have served our nation.
This is not about the present Administration. More than two years ago, nearly 200 MPs signed a Commons motion calling for the establishment of a national defence medal. It was initiated by our former colleague, the right hon. and gallant Colonel Michael Mates, and supported by all Members of the House. Frankly, I wish that members of my party had dealt with the issue when in power, rather than leaving it to my colleague, the Minister, who is an occasional skiing companion of mine in the parliamentary ski race and in whom I have every confidence. The motion, however, is opposed by a committee of anonymous major generals in Whitehall who do not want to award such a medal. They are of the view that the award of a medal in recognition purely of service would somehow devalue the medal system.
We already award medals for long service and good conduct in the regular and reserve forces. In addition, medals in recognition of service have been awarded at particular times during our monarch’s reign, such as the coronation and the silver and golden jubilees. Medals are therefore awarded to people just for the coincidence of having been in uniform when the Queen was crowned or when she had served a certain number of years on the throne.
Caroline Dinenage (Gosport) (Con)
Does the right hon. Gentleman accept that although his is an extremely noble endeavour, there have been conflicts and incidents for which incredibly brave members of our armed forces have not received a medal? I am thinking in particular about the campaign to get a medal for the Arctic convoy veterans of the second world war. Those guys put up with unbelievable hardship, but they did not qualify for a medal because it was thought that they would qualify for the Atlantic star. However, they needed to have served for six months for that, and no one could manage that in the extreme conditions of keeping the supply chains open to Russia. It belittles their contribution to the war effort to say that—
Annette Brooke (in the Chair)
Order. I remind the hon. Lady that interventions should be brief in a short Adjournment debate.
Mr MacShane
I agree with the hon. Member for Gosport (Caroline Dinenage); I feel strongly about the issue. My uncle, Neil MacShane, died when his ship was sunk while on Arctic convoy duties. I have also campaigned for Bomber Command veterans to be given a medal, but that too has been refused. I could not agree more with the hon. Lady. We are talking about one or two people who are now probably in their late 80s, or even in their 90s, and I do not think it would do any harm at all. My family would certainly appreciate the award of an Arctic medal, even though it would be extremely posthumous.
Patrick Mercer (Newark) (Con)
The Peninsular general service medal was awarded from 1832 onwards. It was retrospectively awarded not for peacetime service, but for operational service. Therefore, following the logic of the right hon. Gentleman’s sensible arguments, I could reclaim retrospectively for my great-great-grandfather, who served in the Irish militia during the Napoleonic wars but who saw not a stroke of action. We cannot have the proposed medal if we do not honour our fathers and forefathers who actually saw campaign service but received no recognition at all. As I understand it, this is simply a medal for service, rather than campaign service.
Mr MacShane
The medal is indeed for service. The Arctic convoy and Bomber Command medals are a separate case, but if people who served in those campaigns who are still alive were given a medal that they could wear on Remembrance day and pass on to their grandchildren and so on, it would at least be some recognition.
There are medals for given conflicts and campaigns, and I welcome the decision to award the Afghanistan service medal to medical personnel who fly in for a short time. However, thousands of veterans who are still with us are denied the chance to wear a medal. In the Cyprus campaign, for example, 371 men were killed—more than in Afghanistan—over a short period in the mid-1950s, yet they needed to serve for 120 days to qualify for a medal, which is more than three months longer than the time required for the Afghanistan medal.
We should also give recognition to the more than 2 million young men between the ages of 18 and 21 who were taken away from their homes by the Act of Parliament that introduced national service. They were obliged to serve in the armed forces, and without them this country and its interests around the world at the time would not have been protected. Many are now dead, and the remainder are in their 70s and 80s. How would it devalue the medal system to award them a national defence medal?
The cold war involved a formidable threat from the Soviet and Warsaw pact forces. Many service personnel died not while fighting, but while on duty in north-west Europe, and many more were discharged through injury. One of the most critical moments was the Berlin airlift. The RAF worked tirelessly to keep West Berlin alive and to stop Stalin’s effort to take control of the city. Thirty-nine of our service personnel died in that operation. Would giving them a medal devalue the medal system? Of course not.
One of the most scandalous examples of ill treatment of our service personnel occurred in the 1950s in relation to nuclear weapon testing in Australia. Some 28,000 members of UK armed forces were used as guinea pigs in the nuclear tests conducted in Australia and the Pacific ocean area. None of those veterans had protective clothing, and they were subjected to high levels of radiation. Fewer than 3,000 of those veterans are still alive today, and it is estimated that 30% of those deceased died early in their 50s from different cancers. Many people in our communities across the country would fail to see how recognition of the award of a national defence medal to those cold war veterans would devalue the medal system.
Let us consider Northern Ireland, where IRA extremists posed a specific threat to British service personnel and their families not just in the Province, but outside Northern Ireland and, indeed, the United Kingdom. During that time, there was no normal way of life for those service personnel and certainly no safe haven. For example, nine soldiers were blown up in their barracks in Duisburg in far away Germany, and 10 Royal Marine bandsmen were killed and 20 more injured when the military school of music was blown up in Deal. A coach crowded with soldiers and their families was blown up on the M62 while they were returning to their barracks after a weekend away; there were 11 dead, including a corporal, his wife, and their two children aged 5 and 2. A staff sergeant was blown up in his car in Colchester; a colonel was shot in Bielefeld, Germany; and an RAF corporal and his four-month-old baby were shot and killed at a petrol station in Wildenrath. The list goes on.
Recognition of such service by creating a national defence medal cannot be deemed to devalue our medal system. I strongly urge the Minister to overrule his major generals and to recommend to Her Majesty that she award a UK national defence medal. On the recommendation of the Australian and New Zealand Governments, Her Majesty has already agreed to award a defence medal to their respective armed forces and veterans. If the Anzac forces and Governments can agree that with the approval of Buckingham palace, I really do not know why Britain has to trail behind.
I have been in correspondence with the Secretary of State for Defence on the matter and, in a reply sent to me last month, he got several facts wrong. For example, he wrote:
“The position remains that medals are not awarded solely as a record of service.”
However, those of us who support the idea of a national defence medal have never made that argument. We believe that there should be a single medal for service. There is the precedent of medals for specific periods of service, including the long-service good conduct medal, which is awarded for 15 years regular service; the volunteer reserve service medal, awarded after 10 years in the Territorial Army; the jubilee medals, which mark service at a particular point in time; and the Rhodesia medal, which is awarded for just 14 days service between designated dates and is not a campaign medal.
In his letter to me, the Secretary of State made reference to the veterans badge and the Elizabeth cross. I welcome the veterans badge, but we want recognition from Her Majesty and the right to wear her medal because one has served her in the armed forces. Fewer than 10% of those eligible have taken up the offer of a veterans badge. Service personnel want a medal that they can wear with pride on Remembrance day and on other appropriate occasions. The Elizabeth cross is a marvellous new decoration, but it is not an award to servicemen and women, although, of course, it is a welcome gift to their families. For armed forces personnel past or present, there remains no award for those injured or killed during service, or those present when a terrorist or other attack takes place that is aimed at military personnel.
May I politely suggest that the Ministry of Defence is out of step with public opinion, with the 184 MPs who have signed the early-day motion and with what is happening in the Commonwealth? While our Whitehall warriors ponder and pontificate, the New Zealanders, with Her Majesty’s approval, are getting ready to award their first medals in February this year.
As I said, I know from previous campaigns to get an award for Bomber Command veterans how hard the MOD combats those who want to reward our armed services personnel with a medal. My uncle was drowned when his ship was sunk on Arctic convoy duties. Those who survived have been denied a medal. Now they are in their 80s and 90s, can we not be generous and let them hand on to their grandchildren and great-grandchildren a medal that recalls the service of those sailors? I just do not understand why the Major General Blimps of the MOD are so mean and unwilling to honour service with a medal. We failed in our campaign to get a Bomber Command medal or an Arctic convoy medal, but I hope that this new Government can read the mood of the nation better, particularly as far more former serving officers are now MPs and Ministers. I urge the Minister to take command of the issue himself and tell the MOD to get on with bringing in a national defence medal.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Mr Andrew Robathan)
It is a pleasure to serve under you for the first time in Westminster Hall, Mrs Brooke. I am sure that there will be many more such occasions. I congratulate the right hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr MacShane) on securing this short debate on a proposal for a national defence medal. He speaks with some history on this long-running campaign, and I acknowledge that he has an interest in the recognition of former service personnel; indeed, I have with me the letter he sent to the Secretary of State in January. I am sorry to hear that today the right hon. Gentleman regards me as representing the enemy but, nevertheless, that appears to be my position.
First, I pay tribute to the courage and dedication of both current service personnel and those who have served in the past—those from the second world war who are still alive and those have served since then whether as part of national service or whatever. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister uses words such as “awesome” to describe our armed forces, but no words can describe the outstanding, courageous work they are doing today and, indeed, have done in the past. There can be no doubt that they have earned the nation’s recognition of their service to our country and the nation’s gratitude.
As a former serviceman, I know the hardships of service life and the pride of earning a medal. I got two after 15 years; I had to rejoin the Army to get the second one, but I do not know of anyone who joined the services in order to gain a medal. Heroic personnel who perform gallant acts do not perform such actions in hope of a medal; they do so out of instinct and because they feel it is the right thing to do. I question the value of a medal that is essentially given to anyone who has served in the armed forces. Medals should be earned not expected, and I would certainly be surprised if they were demanded.
There is a belief that the rules governing the award of medals have been applied inconsistently, so the coalition Government pledged to address that in their agreement. We have honoured that pledge and have undertaken to review the rules governing the awarding of medals. The review is considering the numerous campaigns by veterans to reconsider past cases and the justification for a national defence medal is again being re-considered as part of that. The review will report to me and work is now under way. Senior military officers—Major General Blimps, the right hon. Gentleman might call them—are contributing to the review and the chiefs of staff have been consulted. Campaign representations have also been considered.
The review aims to report its conclusions in the near future and will address the following four issues: the principles underpinning the award of medals, operational medals currently awarded to the armed forces, the award of foreign medals and proposals, such as this one, for medals for past service. At present, the position remains that medals are not awarded solely for service. The only exceptions are coronation and jubilee medals, and even then strict qualifying criteria have to be satisfied before a medal is issued. As I am sure the right hon. Gentleman will appreciate, that position cannot change until the review has concluded.
As the right hon. Gentleman knows, there are already many forms of recognition that acknowledge many aspects of service in the British armed forces. I shall set out clearly what they are. First, service personnel are already recognised for their extra effort, for courageous, distinguished and gallant acts, and for the risk and rigour they face on operations, by the award of state decorations, meritorious medals, campaign medals and commendations. The integrity of the operational honours system is a matter of the utmost importance to the Ministry of Defence and, indeed, to all service personnel to whom I speak. Medals are generally introduced for particular operations when there is the presence of particular risk and rigour. However, many service personnel have served and continue to serve on commitments that are demanding in their own way but are not recognised by a medal.
There is no evidence that today’s personnel have any particular desire for a universal defence medal. New medals are instituted primarily for serving personnel, not for veterans. Medals awarded to members of the British armed forces have a relative scarcity about them, which is not shared by many other nations; for example, the former Soviet Union, North Korea and, indeed, some of our allies. Such an approach leaves people in no doubt that medals have been truly earned. That ethos has stood us in good stead in the past and we should be cautious about changing it.
Secondly, as the right hon. Gentleman will be aware, long service and good conduct are also recognised. Thirdly, official recognition from the Government for service in the armed forces is awarded in the form of Her Majesty’s armed forces veterans badge, to which my hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) has already alluded. Although the national defence medal supporters claim that the badge is insufficient recognition for having served, almost 1 million veterans have claimed a badge and one is now issued to all personnel as they leave the armed forces.
I have taken the time to look at the national defence medal veterans recognition report, submitted to the Ministry of Defence in June 2009 under the previous Administration. I was interested to see that the campaigners for the medal agree with, and quote, the words of Winston Churchill:
“The object of giving medals, stars and ribbons is to give pride and pleasure to those who have deserved them. At the same time a distinction is something which everybody does not possess. If all have it, it is of less value. There must, therefore, be heartburnings and disappointments on the borderline. A medal glitters, but it also casts a shadow. The task of drawing up regulations for such awards is one which does not admit of a perfect solution. It is not possible to satisfy everybody without running the risk of satisfying nobody. All that is possible is to give the greatest satisfaction to the greatest number and to hurt the feelings of the fewest.”
That was written in 1944 when Winston Churchill was busy with the second world war, and it is extraordinarily prescient. Is it not true, therefore, that just to give a medal for service would challenge that comment?
Some argue that by serving in the armed forces and by performing the daily duties of service life, service personnel should automatically receive a medal irrespective of the duties they undertook. I am sure the right hon. Gentleman agrees that duties undertaken in areas of heightened risk and rigour are not comparable to those undertaken by service personnel based in Chelsea, for example, or in Germany or Colchester. Should they qualify for the same level of recognition? A similar argument could be applied to many other professions. Doctors, nurses, police and firefighters, to name but a few, perform selfless acts on a daily basis, but they are not automatically awarded a medal in recognition of their efforts.
There needs to be a compelling argument as to why service in the armed forces should be so completely different. Some argue that being on call to deploy on operations should entitle personnel to a medal, but joining the armed forces does not guarantee operational service, even though it is highly likely in today’s climate. Many have stood ready to go to war, but thankfully were never called on to do so.
Some argue that those who undertook national service should receive special recognition, such as a national defence medal, on the grounds that conscription was mandatory and disrupted lives. Many feel that the sacrifices that were made have largely gone unrecognised by the nation. However, although there is no medal specifically for those who performed a period of national service, those conscripted for military service could qualify for the same medals as their regular colleagues, and many did. Furthermore, since national service was terminated in 1960, it has been the personal choice of an individual to join the armed forces. It would be divisive, and I have to say curious, to offer national servicemen a medal simply for being conscripted, when those who volunteered for service would be excluded from receiving the same award.
Some argue that we should adopt the principles of other countries such as Australia and New Zealand, but they withdrew from the imperial honours system many years ago. It is for them and their Governments to decide which medals they wish to institute.
The right hon. Gentleman and the national defence medal campaigners claim that there is a significant amount of support for the institution of such a medal. Although I am sure that many people are concerned about the matter—indeed, some of them are here today—in reality the representation made to my Department is very low. Of the estimated 4 million former service personnel who would qualify for the medal, less than 200 have contacted the Ministry of Defence either directly or through their Member of Parliament. Frankly, those communications are likely to be the result of the national defence medal campaign targeting former service personnel to lobby as many MPs as possible on their behalf. It is notable that an e-mail was sent out yesterday. It said that “you might suggest”—
that the recipient—
“use the short letter below for your MP to send directly to the Defence Minister...If you haven’t already could you please send me your postcode so I can ensure that every MP in the country has at least one active supporter in their constituency.”
I am sure that there are many active supporters in every constituency, but that would make a grand total of 650 people campaigning on behalf of the proposal, and I do not think that would be a great many.
I shall briefly touch on the issue of cost. The right hon. Gentleman may be interested to know that it is estimated that approximately 4 million people could apply, either for themselves or on behalf of a deceased relation, for a national defence medal, should the review conclude that one should be instituted. The estimated cost of a national defence medal could extend to as much as £300 million, or even more, because one would have to research each case where somebody claimed to qualify for a medal. Otherwise one would just be giving out medals to anybody who claimed that they were in the forces. The right hon. Gentleman grimaces, but not far from my constituency in Burbage there was a man who used to go to Remembrance day ceremonies wearing a Special Air Service beret, a full array of medals and a blazer. People thought that he was very smart until they started looking at the medals; indeed, I understand that he is currently being prosecuted. The medals he wore included medals for the Korean war, the Falklands war and, I think, the Afghan war. It is quite difficult to fit in all those wars in one period of service.
I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman would agree that the medal would cost a huge amount of taxpayers money, especially in the current financial climate. To justify such expense would be hard, particularly when the grounds for doing so appear to be somewhat thin. I must state that we would be unlikely to decline a proposal for a new medal on the grounds of cost alone, but such an expense must be warranted.
Campaigners for the medal have suggested that it could be paid for by individuals. Medals are awarded free of charge to individuals who meet or exceed the published qualifying criteria laid down for each one, from a grateful nation, expressed by the Queen. If a charge was placed on such a medal it would devalue the status of the award, and the UK honours and awards system more generally. I understand that one can buy commercially produced medals to commemorate having served under national service. However, I think that is not what people wish to have.
I have listened to the right hon. Gentleman and I assure him that we firmly believe that it is important to review the rules governing the award of medals, and that we are considering carefully the case for a national defence medal. In conclusion, I must say that those who are serving at present, or who have served in the past 50, 60, 70 or 80 years, have done their duty. The Government and I pay the highest tribute to them, but I am not sure that most of them would want that tribute recognised by the receipt of a material object such as a medal simply for having been there. The right hon. Gentleman said that the time has come. Well, it is noteworthy that this campaign started relatively recently, when personnel are earning many campaign medals—many more than I did when I was serving—but little demand for this was heard in the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s or even in the 1990s. Today, the right hon. Gentleman has urged me not to disappoint. I fear that I will disappoint him, but we will await the results of the review.
Annette Brooke (in the Chair)
I thank all the participants in the debate. As everyone we need for the next debate is here, we can commence it. I call Charlie Elphicke. You have two extra minutes.
Care for the Elderly (Kent)
(13 years, 4 months ago)
Westminster HallRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)
Thank you, Mrs Brooke. I am deeply obliged to you for giving me an extra two minutes for this debate. I am delighted and proud to have secured a debate on this important issue, which matters to all residents in Kent. I shall focus on my constituents and those of my hon. Friend the Member for Dartford (Gareth Johnson).
This matter is extremely dear to the hearts of my constituents. Securing a safe, loving home is of the utmost importance for any family member hoping to make the final years of their relation, normally their parents, nice and happy. It is not always easy, and once people find a good home, they want their family member to settle there for a long time, and not have the disruption of moving from one home to another.
That was the experience I had with my father, who was in residential care for some 10 years. For the last 10 years of his life, he suffered from Alzheimer’s. He barely recognised me and could not communicate very effectively. I had to look after him and ensure that his needs were met. That experience coincided with the period between 1997 and 2002, when regulations were changed and care homes were closing all around Kent. I had to move him from home to home, trying to ensure that he had the love, care, support and, in particular, stability that older people need in residential care.
Hon. Members will recall that we lost some 2,000 care homes during that period. My father’s experience, which was by no means unique, left me with a passion for ensuring that we look after older people who should have dignity in their final years, and the stability and care that they deserve.
Glyn Davies (Montgomeryshire) (Con)
I thank my hon. Friend for allowing me to comment. I am clearly not from Kent, but I have a huge interest in the issue that he raises. Does he agree that providing a service for the elderly, particularly those who suffer from neurological illness, is one of the greatest challenges for the current Government over the next few years, and that over the past two decades the British Parliament simply has not met that challenge?
Charlie Elphicke
I strongly agree. The population is ageing, and we know that the need for care of the elderly will increase, not lessen, over time. With the triumph of longevity comes the downside that people may well require more care—respite and day care but also residential care—for longer, and that will have a cost. There will be an expense to society, but society can rise to the challenge by ensuring that services are of the standard that we would expect. My hon. Friend’s comment is particularly relevant, given the announcement that Sampson Court, the much loved care home in my town of Deal, is to be closed by Kent county council.
Sampson Court provides a range of services—palliative care, day care and respite care—and specialises in dementia and separate elderly mentally infirm care. It is extremely important to the community and loved not only by residents but by their families, all of whom have been passionate in their support for keeping that important community facility open. Despite that, Sampson Court is no longer classed as meeting care standards—hon. Members will recall that the previous Government introduced the decent homes standard—and because it does not have en-suite bathrooms and the building is costly to maintain and in need of renovation, Kent county council says that it is too expensive to make those changes and that it cannot continue to run the home.
That decision was a challenge to the community, which started a consultation. The community has worked hard and, led by Councillor Julie Rook in Deal, has made a passionate case for not closing the home—a petition with 5,000 signatures was delivered to the council—and for finding an alternative way forward. A transfer of going concern has been raised as a possibility.
The parents of my constituent, Mr Hawker, receive care at Sampson Court. He wrote to me:
“Sampson Court is in no way beyond the end of its life at 25 years old…it’s well maintained, clean and hygienic, and en-suite facilities would be actually hazardous to those who cannot even use a toilet without assistance such as my father who has dementia and is incontinent.”
Kent county council has cited European Union procurement rules as a reason for not doing a transfer of going concern. It says that it is extraordinarily costly to do such a transfer under those rules, and that, because of the complexity, the only realistic possibility is simply to close the home and sell the site, despite the potential interest of other care home operators who might like to take it on.
My constituent Gareth Fowler, whose mother has been at Sampson Court for four years, asked the council representative at a public meeting during the consultation process where the 15 EMI residents would go. The council had no answer other than “the local area”. Mr Fowler rang every EMI care home in the local area, but none had any space. If a decision is taken to close a home, there must be an alternative. There is great concern among my constituents that there is no alternative place for them to go to.
My constituents point to the Kent county council consultation, which states:
“People rightly expect more choice in their care”.
There is no doubt that its decision has left less choice, not more. I would ask the Minister to review whether Kent county council has an effective alternative plan for elderly people. Mr Fowler’s experience suggests that it does not. Sampson Court is a much-loved community resource that is fully workable. That begs the question, why can it not be retained, if not by Kent county council then by another body, to ensure that we have proper care for the elderly in Kent?
As well as criticising Kent county council, I want to be positive about it. I understand the challenge to its budget, the challenge in meeting the decent homes standard, and the challenge of the EU public procurement regime, which is expensive and, frankly, gold-plated—it ought to be minimised. Can anything be done about public procurement in this kind of case?
The other case I have been making to Kent county council is that it could transfer the home, not as a going concern in the market but to a community interest company. That is where my interest particularly lies. Allowing a community outside the regime of Government, the procurement rules and all the regulations to take it on would enable the expertise of local care home operators to be captured so that a home could continue to operate on that site in the future. I am asking for Government support and guidance on how Sampson Court might be transferred to a CIC in partnership with local care home operators.
Hon. Members will no doubt know that a CIC could provide the benefit and excellence of a care home in a local community. It would have flexibility and access to a range of financing options, and would be a solution to the decision that Kent county council has made. It would mean that local people can come together and work to secure a community takeover that would bring the community together, provide better value for money and ensure more freedom to offer extended services. We could turn a community resource that is fast disappearing into one that is expanding.
We should not lose community resources such as Sampson Court, but this debate is not just about Sampson Court or care for the elderly in Kent. I bring the matter to the Minister’s attention because I suspect that this is a wider issue across counties and the country as a whole, and that there are many similar cases involving aged buildings, the decent homes standard and EU public procurement rules. Many communities are in the same boat, so the national picture needs to be examined to ensure that there is effective transition—and enough care for the elderly across the whole of Kent.
Local GP, John Sharvill, wrote to me. He said that, without a doubt, Sampson Court
“is an excellent institution providing fantastic care...there is no other home in this area which provides the level of care that they do in the spacious, airy, surroundings they provide”.
Using the community right to challenge and the community right to buy under the Localism Bill, soon to become an Act, may provide a way forward. There is a right for voluntary and community groups, social enterprises, parish councils and local authority employees to challenge a local authority on delivery of a service by expressing an interest in running a service for which they are responsible. The local authority must consider and respond to such a challenge, which may trigger a procurement exercise for the service, in line with relevant procedure, in which the challenging organisation could bid, alongside others. Such rights are part of the Government’s aim to create a big society. The Minister of State, Department for Communities and Local Government, my right hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark), is sitting next to me. He has an interest in the Localism Bill, which is currently before the House.
When listed assets—either the freehold or a long leasehold—come up for disposal, communities will be given the chance to develop a bid and raise the capital to buy the asset when it comes on the open market. However, there are issues with that, which I would like to flag up. First, the local authority does not have to seek out possible community owners, and there is no compulsion for it to do so. That means that communities may struggle if they are up against the local authority, especially as there is no independent monitor to judge a community bid against a local authority’s plans. Secondly, if a local authority wishes to proceed with a sell-off, there is no provision for a temporary stop, a break for consideration, or a certain designated time that would allow community groups time to put together and advance a bid.
John Porter of the “Bowles Lodge Stays!” campaign, run elsewhere in Kent, also flagged up those kind of problems. He pointed out the difficulties he had over the care of his mother, Vera Woylor, who is an 89-year-old resident of the care home and does not want to move. On her behalf, he has made a strong case to Kent county council, which does not think that the right process has been followed. The ideal would be to enable continuity of care. Such issues need to be addressed, and community interest companies should be encouraged.
Ministers may consider the matter to be simply a local issue, but given the terms of the Localism Bill it is a wider national issue of how we can encourage takeovers by community interest companies and what we can do to simplify EU public procurement regulations to ensure that homes, such as Sampson Court and others across Kent, give continuity of care and love under new ownership if they cannot remain under that of Kent county council.
Gareth Johnson (Dartford) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Dover (Charlie Elphicke) on securing this debate on an issue that is clearly important not only for Dover and Dartford but for the whole of Kent.
I hope that I will be forgiven for speaking about the Manorbrooke and The Limes care homes, which are the two affected in my constituency, because the principles that affect them are similar to those that affect homes around the entire county. I have visited both care homes and have met the staff and residents. They are two types of care home and offer two distinct services to the residents of Dartford.
First, The Limes is a care and day centre that offers an almost unique service in Kent. Many of my constituents have benefited over a considerable number of years from the service it provides because it allows patients who would otherwise need to remain in hospital to be discharged into its care, thereby relieving pressure on the local hospital in Dartford, Darent Valley hospital. It had to deal recently with extra pressure after the A&E department at nearby Queen Mary’s hospital closed its doors, and I fear that the closure of The Limes can only add to the pressure on it. Patients who might otherwise have been discharged to The Limes will either have to remain at Darent Valley hospital or find alternative care home provision. Clearly, that provision will be harder to find if care homes are closed around the county.
The “Save The Limes” campaign group has been passionate in standing up for the care home, and none more so than Laura Whitehead and Karen Baldwin, who I am pleased are engaged enough with the campaign to make the trip to Westminster for the debate my hon. Friend secured. They have made it clear that it would be a huge mistake to close The Limes. It has been claimed that it is very expensive to run, and the line that Kent county council has used time and time again is that it costs an inordinate amount of money, but in my experience the staff have not been given the opportunity to reduce the costs of care provision at the home. They certainly have not shown any reluctance or unwillingness to modernise or introduce efficiency savings. They simply have not had the chance to show that they can make savings.
The situation for Manorbrooke is similar. It is a residential care home earmarked for closure by Kent county council. The plan is for it to be demolished and a more modern facility built on the same site in the manner described by my hon. Friend. It would mean the residents having to leave their home at Manorbrooke, move elsewhere and then move back to Manorbrooke a couple of years later once the building work is complete. That would mean three different homes in two years. Surely, our elderly deserve better. Yes, the homes will be larger, with gymnasiums and even internet cafés, but we are talking about people’s homes, and that goes to the heart of the debate. No one in this Chamber or Palace would want their home taken from them, and yet that is precisely what is happening in care homes across Kent. The residents in Manorbrooke and The Limes are happy where they are—they are very happy—and they want to stay there.
Yvette Knight, who is in Strangers Gallery, has worked extremely hard to keep the care home open, and has approached the issue with a dignified and commendable attitude; as has the local county councillor, Penny Cole, who has worked tirelessly on this issue. Those who support The Limes and Manorbrooke are enormously frustrated by the whole closure programme. Surely, land could be purchased to build a new care home before the closure of the existing home takes place. One home in Kent could have been closed for that to happen, and the money used to purchase land as part of a rolling programme. That would have prevented anyone from losing their home and having to go elsewhere while other homes were built. I hope that even at this late stage, the homes can be saved and an alternative solution found by the county council, if necessary with support from central Government. I understand what the county council is trying to achieve, but I feel that the planned process of closure is wrong—very wrong. A rethink is needed.
The Minister of State, Department of Health (Paul Burstow)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Brooke. I congratulate the hon. Member for Dover (Charlie Elphicke) on securing the debate. He, like the hon. Member for Dartford (Gareth Johnson), has used it to ensure that those responsible for making the decisions are properly held to account and the issues are fully aired and in the public domain. The summing up given by the hon. Member for Dartford underlines the important contribution that a debate in Parliament can make to illuminating an issue and ensuring that local decision makers account to their public for their decisions.
The hon. Member for Dover raised an issue that is causing a great deal of concern to his constituents, the hon. Member for Dartford and many other Kent residents. He talked specifically about Sampson Court and identified the commitment that he and his constituents feel towards that facility. It is a much loved, long-standing part of the community. Both hon. Gentlemen talked about the passion displayed by those campaigning on these issues.
The county council has already taken decisions on this and other home closures of the sort about which the hon. Member for Dartford spoke. Parliament has given the responsibility for taking final decisions on care home closures to councils not to Ministers. I know from my constituency work just how upsetting care home closures can be. Clearly, in the event of any care home closure—I will not prejudge where a subsequent challenge to the decisions in Kent would get to—our first thoughts have to be about the welfare of those who live in the homes and use the services, as has been clearly described by the hon. Member for Dover who talked about his father and about the representations received from constituents. I realise that for residents and families associated with the care homes, this is an unsettling time. Moving home when a person is elderly or frail can be hugely distressing and potentially damaging to their health. If badly handled, it can actually foreshorten life—I make no bones about that.
I have asked Kent county council for reassurance about its plans to reduce the disruption and harm to residents who will be transferred as a result of the decisions that it has made. As I understand, the council is currently assessing the needs and preferences of all residents and services, and it is doing everything in its power to accommodate people’s wishes. For example, it is ensuring that people are not moved to a place that is different from the place their friends from the home are moved to. If people want to stay together, they will have the opportunity to do so.
The council also told me that the families or advocates of those affected are being kept informed during the process. That is crucial, although some of what I have heard during the debate suggests that there are different opinions about that statement, and from some of the body language, I see that others share that feeling. The council hopes to support residents to move at a pace with which they are comfortable, and evidence from past closures demonstrates that that is crucial for minimising the effects of such a move. The sense that there is an arbitrary timetable can have a significant impact on the health and well-being of an individual.
I am told that all residents and service users will be found places in centres and homes of an equivalent or higher standard. I do note, however, the representation made by the hon. Member for Dover about the experiences of his constituents and the lack of assurance that they have received so far in their efforts to discover an appropriate home for their loved ones. The council has said that, within reason, service users will not lose out financially, and that an independent arbiter will deal with any disputes over costs associated with the move.
The hon. Gentleman was right to say that we must put this into a national context, and across the country all councils are having to grasp the nettle and take painful decisions to reshape social care around the changing needs of their population. We need a broad strategic shift towards preventing and postponing dependency, and promoting greater independence. That includes ensuring that the services available are the right services for a particular point in a person’s journey with a degenerative neurological condition, such as dementia, for example, which he mentioned. Earlier diagnosis is key to sensible planning and it is important to ensure that we deliver the right care at each stage of the journey taken by an individual and their family carers. That means that over time, councils need to spend less on care services where there is overcapacity, and free-up resources to invest in more personalised support.
This Government have no ideological opposition to residential care, although there is a sense that that was the case in the past under previous Administrations. There will always be a need for good-quality residential and nursing care in our communities, and anyone who has had a long-term engagement with the sector—as I have, and I am sure other hon. Members have—will know how much it has changed over the past 20 years. The level of need and dependency of residents has risen significantly, and the length of stay has shortened.
Currently there are approximately 50,000 vacancies in care and nursing homes across the country. According to the recent “Care of Elderly People UK Market Survey” by the independent health care analysts, Laing and Buisson, the level of spare capacity in the care home sector is currently 10% nationally. That carries a significant opportunity cost and locks a public resource that could be released and spent more effectively on early intervention and more personalised forms of care.
We should be clear that these closures are not—or should not be—a question of budget pressures forcing the council’s hands. The money for social care is there. The Government made a clear choice on decisions about funding critical services, and despite inheriting the largest peacetime deficit in our history and the largest structural deficit in Europe, and despite paying £120 million a day in interest repayments on the national debt, we have chosen to protect the care and dignity of older people. In the spending review, we made it clear that an extra £2 billion a year for adult social care would be available by the end of the spending review period. Furthermore, £1 billion of that would be added to the local government formula grant, which comes on top of the existing £1.3 billion social care grant. That means that total grant funding from the Department for social care will reach £2.4 billion by 2014-15. For those keeping up with the numbers, the other £1 billion will be transferred from the NHS and spent on social care measures that also support health.
That settlement is frontloaded, so that extra resources are put into the system at the beginning of the spending period. It means that considerable amounts of extra investment are available now. Kent county council has already received £1.4 million in November to improve re-ablement services, and £4.1 million in January as part of a national investment of £162 million to cope with winter pressures facing social care services. From April, it will get an additional injection of £16.2 million, which is its share of the £648 million that we are allocating via primary care trusts to support social care. That is on top of the extra funding for social care that we are putting into the local government finance settlement—a share of the £530 million extra available nationally next year, rising to the £1 billion I have just mentioned.
My understanding from briefings I have received is that Kent county council’s approach is not a sudden, hasty, knee-jerk response to tighter financial circumstances. The proposals are part of a long-term plan in Kent to improve care and meet the changing needs of the local population. The council published its “Later Life” plan in 2009, and it has been working over the last two years to restructure and transform services to put more emphasis on prevention and practical support.
Services need to be tailored to people’s circumstances and population need, and I emphasise that residential care is part of that mix and must be carefully thought through when services are designed. We need services that deliver value for money in a climate where we expect higher demand as the population ages, and we want good quality services—whether provided in the public or independent sector—that are well equipped to give people the choice, comfort, compassion and independence they deserve.
The council argues that the facilities at Sampson Court no longer meet the standards we should expect. The hon. Gentleman has rehearsed that argument and stated his concerns. The council also argues that the building would require extensive refurbishment to bring it up to scratch, and that the money could be better used in other ways. The council’s view—painful though it clearly is—is that closure is the right way forward. I understand that many people will disagree with that, and believe that alternatives have not been adequately considered—the hon. Gentleman referred to the petition collected by Councillor Julie Rook. The Government are keen to give communities the opportunity to run community facilities. That is what the Localism Bill currently making its way through the House attempts to put in place. That Bill also seeks to reduce the barriers that enable a variety of organisations, including community groups, to provide services.
The council’s view is that it has been through an extensive consultation process and considered the alternative options. The 11 care home changes have been debated in the council’s chambers, and the proposals have been the subject of the council’s overview and scrutiny committee. I know that there are great concerns among those who have led the campaign against the closures, and I am told that lawyers have been instructed to look at pursuing the matter through a judicial review. In that way, the process that the council has gone through can be tested, and if it is flawed, the decisions will be reopened and further options considered. However, that is not a matter for me as a Minister; it is about deciding whether the process has been properly followed, and a matter for judicial review. Parliament has not given Ministers that power, and the Government have made it clear that in the past, far too much rested on the desks of Ministers in Whitehall and other officials.
During conversations with Kent council over the past few days, the director of adult social services said that the council would be pleased to continue discussions with the hon. Gentleman and his colleagues, to see whether further points of concern can be addressed. In conclusion, I hope that we have covered some of the issues raised, but in the end, this matter must be resolved locally.
Housing Benefit (Scotland)
(13 years, 4 months ago)
Westminster HallRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Gregg McClymont (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (Lab)
I am sure that hon. Members on both sides of the Chamber would agree that the provision of decent homes is the mark of a civilised society. Parliament has a role in ensuring that that consensus is reflected in policy. That is why I asked for the debate. I am concerned about the consequences of the Government’s choices on housing benefit and on local housing allowances for my constituents and for the whole of Scotland.
According to the Department’s impact assessment, 55,000 households in Scotland will be worse off this year as a result of the Government’s choices on housing benefit. I have been speaking to community groups, local government, housing associations and charities in my constituency. They are deeply concerned about the impact of the Government’s choices on some of the most vulnerable members of our community. As a result of just some of the changes, £2.2 million will be taken out of the pockets of people claiming housing benefits in north Lanarkshire alone every year, and 75% of social tenants claiming housing benefit will lose out in north Lanarkshire.
Some Ministers have expressed concerns about the impact of the cuts. The Under-Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, the hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Mr Davey), has said that they mean that
“some people who are on the breadline will be put below the breadline.”
Therefore, I know that this Minister will treat these genuine concerns with the respect that they deserve.
I hope that the Minister will also accept that choices that the Government have made interact in a way that will make life harder for some people. I want to draw his attention to the problems posed by the interactions between some of the changes. For instance, consider a family in which working-age social tenants claiming housing benefit are living with grown-up children. There are many such families in all our constituencies. The Government have announced their intention substantially to increase non-dependant reductions in housing benefit for both social and private tenants.
Mr Tom Clarke (Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill) (Lab)
My hon. Friend is speaking remarkably well in an excellently chosen debate. Is he aware that, in addition to the vulnerable people whom he has mentioned, many of the organisations of and for people with disabilities are particularly worried about the impact on them? Many of them might be affected out of proportion to their numbers, and they really are the least able to bear it.
Gregg McClymont
My right hon. Friend raises a very good point. He is well known in the House for his expertise in that area. He is right to raise the issue of the impact on disabled individuals and families in particular.
One issue that I want to press with the Minister is the Government’s intention to extend the reduced shared-room rate of housing benefit to all single people under the age of 35. That will make it harder for young people on low incomes to move out of their family home, as the rate is frequently too low to cover the costs of accommodation. Outside major cities, there are very few licences for houses in multiple occupation in Scotland. Even in the major cities, those HMOs are likely to be fully occupied already. Also, some young people, particularly those with mental or physical health problems, would find it very difficult to live in shared accommodation, in many cases with strangers.
Even if young people do move out of the family home, another problem looms. If their parents are, like many people in my constituency, working-age social tenants, they will fall foul of the limit on payments for working-age tenants who are deemed to be “under-occupying”.
Ian Murray (Edinburgh South) (Lab)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this very important debate. One key issue in my constituency is that there is a major drive—quite rightly, in many instances—to restrict the number of HMO licences due to the concentration in small areas. Would my hon. Friend like to comment on what impact that might have on this policy?
Gregg McClymont
My hon. Friend raises a very good point. There clearly is, broadly speaking, a real pressure on HMOs. That is one area in which policies, as I am sure the Minister will agree, can have interactions and unintended consequences that lead to deleterious outcomes for vulnerable individuals.
I was saying that there are parents who are working-age social tenants who will fall foul of the limit on payments for working-age tenants who are deemed to be under-occupying. However, we know that no social landlord deliberately puts people into properties that are too large for them. The Government believe that a negative financial incentive will lead social landlords to manage their properties more efficiently. My concern is that that outcome is not guaranteed. It seems likely that that choice could harm existing tenants whose circumstances have changed: the bereaved, the divorced or those whose children have left home.
A similar negative financial incentive is being introduced for the long-term unemployed to move home to seek work. The Government will penalise the unemployed by cutting their housing benefit entitlement by 10% once they have been unemployed for a year. That cut will apply even to those who are actively seeking work. It could affect almost 300 jobseeker’s allowance claimants in my constituency alone, and I am sure that it will affect many more in some of my hon. Friends’ constituencies.
The problem—again, I am sure that the Minister will agree—is that it is not easy at the moment to find work anywhere in the country, and Scotland has a particular problem. It is a harsh reality that at the end of last year there were four people chasing every job vacancy in Scotland, and there are few signs, so far at least, of that ratio improving.
My local YMCA, which I have spoken with recently, deals every week with cases of young people who are out of work and out of a home. Those are the most vulnerable young people.
Margaret Curran (Glasgow East) (Lab)
On the issue of young people leaving home and perhaps not having a home, I appreciate that my hon. Friend is not from the same city as I am, but is he aware of a report by Glasgow city council, which has assessed the impact of the housing benefit reforms and calculated that there could be a loss of £8.5 million to homelessness services? That would have an impact not only on homeless people themselves, but on the regeneration of the city of Glasgow, which we have done much work to improve. Does my hon. Friend agree that whatever the Government do to tackle housing benefit, that should not exacerbate the problem of homelessness, which we have made great strides to deal with?
Gregg McClymont
I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention. She raises a very good point about Glasgow in particular, although I should say that I do consider myself a Glaswegian. Cumbernauld is not very far away. However, although I may consider myself a Glaswegian, Glaswegians may have a different view.
Every week, my local YMCA deals with young people who are out of a home and out of a job. Those are the most vulnerable young people. Many are unable even to provide the right documentation to make an initial claim for housing benefit within the narrow window open to them. Those are often young people with psychological and dependency problems, coming from difficult family backgrounds. Things that we find easy are sometimes difficult for people in a vulnerable situation.
The YMCA and other local charities tell me that the cut to housing benefits for JSA claimants will leave the young unemployed at greater risk of falling into rent arrears if they do find a place to live. I know that Ministers say that they want to encourage the unemployed to move to different areas to find work, but the Government underestimate perhaps the social, cultural and psychological challenges that are sometimes involved in that process.
Dame Anne Begg (Aberdeen South) (Lab)
Has my hon. Friend considered that the issue is not just that young people find it difficult to move? Very often, the areas where jobs are available are the areas where there is the biggest pressure on housing, so even if young people move and find a job, they might not be able to find somewhere to live.
Gregg McClymont
My hon. Friend makes a good point. I was just going to suggest that Ministers will also be aware that there is a relationship between the number of jobs available and the cost of accommodation in an area. That is an extra problem facing those dealing with this aspect of policy.
Cuts to local housing allowances will make the private rented sector less affordable in more prosperous areas where work might be found. As I observed, the extension of the shared-room rate will make it harder for young people to find affordable accommodation once they leave home. Existing claimants in Glasgow will lose £7 a week on average as a result of that single change. That £7 could render a tenancy unaffordable for somebody moving in search of work. Research conducted by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation shows that there is already a shortage of private rented accommodation that meets the shared-room rate criteria.
Meanwhile, restricting payments to the 30th percentile of market rents, rather than the median, as was previously the case, will put many properties in major cities further out of reach. In north Lanarkshire, that single change will reduce the support available for a single room by £5 a week and that available for a one-bedroom flat by £7 a week. Switching uprating to the consumer prices index will, over time, compound the problem.
Anas Sarwar (Glasgow Central) (Lab)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate. Many people, especially in charity organisations and in the city of Glasgow, are deeply concerned about changing the uprating to CPI. Between 1997 and 2007, CPI increased by 20%, but rents increased by 70%. If we carry on in that way, housing benefit will cover only 10% of available properties by 2020. That will have a massive and devastating impact on Glasgow and other cities across the country.
Gregg McClymont
I thank my hon. Friend for that important intervention. It is worth adding that CPI does not include housing costs as it stands.
The Government argue that reducing LHA will lead landlords to put rents down, but market pressure on rents in Scotland is moving them sharply upwards—it is supply and demand—and that is particularly true in the private rented sector. House building is falling. First-time buyers who are unable to secure mortgages are moving into the private rented sector. That is increasing the pressure on rents, and it would be an unusual landlord indeed who reduced his rents out of kindness.
Thanks to the Scottish National party Government slashing the budget for social housing in Scotland, waiting lists are rapidly increasing. In that context, social housing does not offer a credible alternative to the private rented sector. The vacancy rate for social homes in my constituency is less than 1%.
I am concerned that people in Scotland could face a triple whammy over the next few years. Conditions in the housing market are pushing rents upwards. At the same time, cuts to benefits are putting affordable homes out of reach. Meanwhile, the Scottish Government’s cuts to social housing mean that the sector cannot provide a viable alternative.
I therefore ask the Minister for a number of assurances. What is he doing to ensure that the housing benefits system encourages and supports people into work? What is he doing to ensure that the most vulnerable, particularly people with mental and physical health problems, including disabilities, are given the financial support that they need to remain in suitable accommodation? How will his Department support housing associations through the proposed changes and the ultimate switch to universal credit? What is his response to calls from Crisis and other organisations for tenants to be given the right to choose to have housing benefit and local housing allowances paid directly to their landlord? What is he doing to encourage his colleague the Secretary of State for Scotland to meet the head of the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities? I am sure that the Minister will address those concerns, having watched him as he has seriously addressed other concerns raised by Opposition Members.
The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Steve Webb)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship for what I think is the first time, Mrs Brooke. I congratulate the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East (Gregg McClymont) on securing the debate; I was trained before we started in how to pronounce his constituency’s name by the right hon. Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill (Mr Clarke).
This is an important subject, and I know that the hon. Gentleman takes a close interest in it, not least because I seem constantly to be answering his written parliamentary questions on it. He has pursued the issue in an entirely thoughtful and measured manner, which is always helpful in such debates.
The hon. Gentleman raised a broad set of issues relating to the impact of the changes on his constituency and on Scotland. He also raised some more general points. He brought together changes that will come in during April, some that will be phased in with a nine-month lag for existing recipients, some for which the primary legislation has not yet been passed and some that will happen in 2013. He therefore raises quite a raft of things, and properly so, but it is worth saying that these things will not suddenly happen in April. There is, therefore, time for tenants, landlords and local authorities—but particularly tenants and landlords—to change their choices and behaviour. That is part of the point of the reforms.
The figures that the hon. Gentleman quoted at the start—the £2.2 million going out of his constituency as a result of housing benefit reductions—assume that nothing changes, but part of the point of the exercise is that things will be different in the new regime. As I am sure he knows, the context for these things is the sky-rocketing bill we face, although it is not necessarily his role to say where the £1 billion that will be added to that bill each year will come from. However, without the measures that we are taking, a large amount of extra money will go into the system without necessarily benefiting tenants.
Let me cite a slightly surprising source of evidence for that view. On 10 September, COSLA submitted to the Department its response to the consultation on the first version of the housing benefit amendments. I would not for a second suggest that it was supportive—quite the contrary; it is not—but its analysis was rather interesting. COSLA said:
“We had previously flagged up concerns, during the formal consultation prior to the roll-out of Local Housing Allowance nationally from April 2008, that this new scheme was”—
here we go—
“likely to result in a huge increase in expenditure on Housing Benefit for private sector tenants for little return”,
and that is what has happened. LHA has essentially driven up rents; it has not meant more poor people in nice houses. The response goes on:
“We raised concerns that very many landlords would increase their rents up to the LHA level and that allowing claimants to keep any excess above their contractual rent was unlikely to benefit them… because of that upward drift of rents.”
Steve Webb
Let me say for the benefit of hon. Members that although I should very much welcome their contributions, this debate was initiated by the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East, and I will give way to him at any point. It is only fair to him to respond to his points.
The Scottish perspective from COSLA is that the convention expected LHA to drive up rents, and that is what seems to have happened. The question now is what will happen when we try to stop that escalation, which is where the CPI point comes in. In that respect, I should say that the CPI excludes only owner-occupiers’ housing costs, not all housing costs. That, however, is where we are trying to put a cap on the process. As far as I am aware, the national cap does not affect Scotland at all.
The question is what landlords will do in response. The hon. Gentleman’s hypothesis was that there is plenty of demand out there, so they will do nothing. However, a landlord with a potential tenant who is on LHA has a choice between not going with that tenant or telling the local authority, “What would clinch it for me would be direct payment.” We have said that we will extend the scope of direct payment, which the hon. Gentleman asked about at the end of his speech, so that a local authority will be able to agree with a landlord and a tenant to make payments direct to the landlord in return for securing a tenancy that would not otherwise have happened and for getting rents down.
Plenty of landlords rent to people on housing benefit; it is not that landlords will not do so, although I accept that some will not. A large number of landlords will rent to people on housing benefit, who are the people we are talking about. It is not that these things do not happen. A landlord looking at a potential housing benefit or LHA tenant, or thinking about renewing a tenancy, can have uncertainty about whether the tenant will pay or they can have direct payments. Direct payments are like a triple A bond; they are like guaranteed money. That is worth something to the landlord. For an investor, certainty is worth something. If a landlord just shaves a bit off the rent in return for the direct payment, which is the deal we shall try to strike, the shortfalls that the hon. Gentleman mentioned, which look a bit scary when they are multiplied, will be reduced.
The debate is about the impact on Scotland, and the hon. Gentleman will know that the average shortfall in the United Kingdom is £12, while the average figure for Scotland, if I remember correctly, is £10. It does not take much, therefore: let us take the example of a rent of £200. A landlord who reduces that by 2.5%, which is £5, or by 5%, which is £10, has suddenly wiped out the shortfall. Clearly we must ensure that that happens. We cannot just sit back and hope that landlords will cut their rent. I fully accept that. That is why we have made the change. That is important.
The regulations have been improved by the consultation and by the changes that we have made, specifically with respect to transition. We said that from April new tenancies will go straight on to the new rules, because the whole philosophy of the reforms is that the choices made by people on housing benefit—who, I fully accept, may be in work—should mirror the choice that someone would make if they had no subsidy but were just doing a low-paid job. That is the parallel. We are not trying to take a penal approach or to be harsh towards people who happen to be on LHA; we are simply trying to level the playing field. The idea is that they will make the choices in a constrained way, just as people in a low-paid job would have to do. That would, again, mean that they focused on a reduced section of the market; but properties would still be affordable. To take the broad rental market area that serves the hon. Gentleman’s constituency, which I assume is the North Lanarkshire BRMA, we estimate that after the reforms 37% of properties will be affordable. Clearly we are telling people on a relatively low income or benefit, “You have a more constrained choice than you did”; but 37% is still, by definition, more than a third of the market.
The hon. Gentleman asked questions on some more detailed points, including the single room rent. We will publish an impact assessment on that change. He also raised the important issue of people with mental health problems and what would happen if, through a reduction in subsidy, someone were to be coerced inappropriately into shared accommodation. There are already exemptions for vulnerable groups. For example, certain disabled people are not affected by the single room rent regulations; but, clearly, we will always consider the issue of vulnerable people and the impact of changes on them.
Steve Webb
Because this is the debate of the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East it is only fair if I respond to him and the questions he has raised.
Steve Webb
I think, technically, that right hon. and hon. Members who intervene are meant to tell me formally that they want to do so; I do not mind at all, but they have made their comments and I think it is fair that I respond to the hon. Gentleman.
There are several Scottish angles to the debate and I want to deal with some of them rather than make more general points. There is an issue about whether people who are covered by LHA are being driven into pockets—very localised areas. One aspect of the Scottish situation is that the 30th percentile tends to be closer to the 50th percentile than perhaps it is in other parts of Great Britain. The cash difference tends to be smaller, as I said earlier, so the impact is not as great as it might be in other areas where the rent distribution is more dispersed. I fully accept the point that the impact of the measures will be different in different places, but the 30th percentile has a smaller impact in Scotland because of the compressed rent distribution.
The hon. Gentleman quite properly raised the issue of unemployment. I would not for a moment suggest that it is ever easy or straightforward to find a job; but, again, headline unemployment is slightly lower in Scotland than for Great Britain as a whole. The majority of Scottish local authorities have lower unemployment rates than the Great Britain average. That is not to belittle the matter, but it is not a purely Scottish dimension. The issue is clearly one to be dealt with nationally.
As to the hon. Gentleman’s constituency and the support that we are giving, an important feature of the new scheme is discretionary housing payments. We recognise that we cannot anticipate every hard case, so we give local authorities discretion. We give them funds so that if there is someone who just does not fit the rules terribly well or who is acutely affected by the changes—the hon. Gentleman gave examples of situations that might be difficult—local authorities have discretionary funding. In 2011-12, Scotland as a whole will be getting an increase of 15% over 2010-11. That is an increase of £360,000 in discretionary housing payments. The hon. Gentleman’s local authority will be getting a 34% increase; more than double the Scottish average increase will be going to North Lanarkshire to provide additional assistance. The figure will go from £77,000 in support this year to £103,000. It is worth saying that the 2011 DHP increase is much smaller than the increases will be in succeeding years; the Great Britain-wide figure will go from £20 million this year to £30 million, and then £60 million a year. Most of the increase in DHP will be in later years, but we have already added 34% to it in the coming year for the broad rental market area of the hon. Gentleman’s constituency. Although, inevitably, that money will have to do a lot of work, it is specifically designed for the sort of hard cases he spoke about.
Gregg McClymont
I have been listening closely to the Minister, because I wanted him to develop his argument before I intervened. Is he comfortable with a policy which, as he perfectly fairly described it, tries to put people who get housing benefit and may be working, on a level playing field with people who are, as he described it, low paid, but who do not get housing benefit, in the context of an economy in which there is not much evidence that people can move into better paid jobs? The structure of the economy in a place such as North Lanarkshire does not include many professional—middle-class, if you like—positions for people to move up to, if the Minister’s broader argument is about social mobility. From our point of view there is a danger that instead of focusing on trying to increase opportunities for a broad range of people from near the bottom to the middle of the income distribution, the focus is on people who are already struggling. I think the Minister would agree that we must do something about what happens further up the scale, to open up opportunities for the people who are affected.
Steve Webb
I entirely agree with that point. We want to encourage people not simply to move into any job at the bottom of the scale; we also want to encourage career progression and additional hours and training—the things that make people employable and enable them to earn more. That is the philosophy behind the universal credit. One of the problems is that there is an issue about the incentive to take any job; once a person has a job the current system can withdraw 95% in the pound, in extreme cases. That cannot be right and it traps people. Even if jobs are available and there are opportunities to do more work or gain more skills, there is no point, because the money is simply clawed away. With a lower taper rate for most people the universal credit will give people more opportunity to do just the sort of things that the hon. Gentleman describes.
Gregg McClymont
We know that the hon. Gentleman is a thoughtful Minister. A larger question looms over the issue, and that is whether, in the economy as it stands—not just in this recession but structurally over the past 30 years—there are opportunities for people to move up the ladder in large enough numbers. Does the Minister agree that such macro-structural political economy issues are related? Unless we have that possibility, what is happening may be seen as an attack on people who are already not exactly living luxurious lives.
Steve Webb
I certainly agree that we are not talking about people leading luxurious lives. There are, as the hon. Gentleman says, bigger structural issues affecting the economy. In the past few years under a series of Governments the economy has created millions of new jobs, but some of them are part-time, and they vary in nature. One of the things that the Government are trying to do, whether through apprenticeships or a range of other initiatives, is to upskill the work force. In a global economy we shall not be able to compete with very low wages in the far east, for example.
In the final couple of moments available to me I stress that we are keen to engage with the Scottish perspective, as the hon. Gentleman suggested. COSLA is represented on the Department for Work and Pensions local authority associations steering group, which meets each month, and along with the local authority associations it was formally consulted on the draft regulations for 2011 that I mentioned earlier. Officials from the Scottish Government have attended events and meetings to discuss the impact of LHA reforms, and Members of the Scottish Government have been invited to attend a conference that we are holding in Glasgow on 3 March 2011. We have invited all Scottish benefit managers from local authorities to attend, and we are inviting officials from the Scottish Government to be involved in the LHA reform national implementation group and the evaluation of the reforms.
Gregg McClymont
Would the Minister consider publishing evidence that LHA is pushing up rents in Scotland? He referred to that earlier and it would be an interesting piece of information for us, if he would undertake to pass it on.
Steve Webb
I was quoting from COSLA’s assertion, but we are happy to give the hon. Gentleman what evidence we have, although trying to prove cause and effect is a challenge.
I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on raising this important debate, and I am grateful to colleagues who contributed.
Question put and agreed to.
Written Ministerial Statements
(13 years, 4 months ago)
Written StatementsRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Parliamentary Written Question (Correction)
(13 years, 4 months ago)
Written StatementsRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Robert Neill)
I would like to inform the House that I have today placed in the Library of the House a corrected table showing annual income from parking charges for each local authority across the years 2005-06 to 2008-09.
This table supersedes the table placed in the Library in response to parliamentary question 302116 in the 2009-10 session. Question 302116 was tabled by the hon. Member for Regent’s Park and Kensington, North (Ms Buck) and answered by the Member for Stevenage (Barbara Follett) on 7 December 2009, Official Report, column 66W. Unfortunately investigations have revealed that there were miscalculations in the figures provided in the original table.
I am sorry for these errors and assure you that steps have been taken to enhance the quality assurance of relevant routine checks of answers to parliamentary questions to minimise the possibility of such an occurrence being repeated.
Search and Rescue Helicopter Procurement
(13 years, 4 months ago)
Written StatementsRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Secretary of State for Transport (Mr Philip Hammond)
On 16 December I and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence announced that information had come to light regarding the preferred bid in the search and rescue helicopter competition which required clarification.
In mid-December, the preferred bidder in the SAR-H competition, Soteria, voluntarily came forward to inform the Government of irregularities regarding the conduct of their bid team which had only then recently come to light. The irregularities included access by one of the consortium members, CHC Helicopter, to commercially sensitive information regarding the joint MOD/DFT project team’s evaluations of industry bids and evidence that a former member of that project team had assisted the consortium in its bid preparation, contrary to explicit assurances given to the project team.
Since December, our two Departments have been working with Soteria to understand better the situation and its implications for the procurement process. In addition, the Ministry of Defence police are investigating how the commercially sensitive information came to be in the possession of the bidder. It would be inappropriate to comment further on the details of the investigation until it has finished.
However, even without the outcome of that investigation, the Government have sufficient information to enable them to conclude that the irregularities that have been identified were such that it would not be appropriate to proceed with either the preferred bid or with the current procurement process.
Office for Nuclear Regulation
(13 years, 4 months ago)
Written StatementsRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Chris Grayling)
The Government intend to bring forward legislation to create a new independent statutory body outside of the HSE to regulate the nuclear power industry. The new statutory corporation would be known as the Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) and would take on the relevant functions currently carried out by the Health and Safety Executive and the Department for Transport.
The ONR would be a new independent regulator, formally responsible in law for delivering its regulatory functions. The creation of the ONR would consolidate civil nuclear and radioactive transport safety and security regulation in one place. The proposal will not affect the current regulatory requirements or standards with which industry must comply, and the vast majority of the costs of the regulator would continue to be recovered in charges from operators in the nuclear industry rather than funded by the public purse. Additional organisational costs will be entirely met by the nuclear industry.
Pending the legislation, the Health and Safety Executive is taking steps to establish the ONR as a non-statutory body from 1 April 2011, signalling our commitment to securing an appropriately resourced and responsive regulator for the future challenges of the nuclear sector. The Government will review the functions and processes of the interim body in order to inform their planned legislation.
Grand Committee
(13 years, 4 months ago)
Grand CommitteeRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Energy Bill [HL]
(13 years, 4 months ago)
Grand CommitteeRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Geddes)
I must advise the Committee, as is usual on these occasions, that if there is a Division in the Chamber while we are sitting the Committee will adjourn as soon as the Division Bells are rung and resume after 10 minutes—it says that on my brief, but it is give or take 10 minutes; it sometimes takes a little longer.
Amendment 35
Lord Teverson
“Geothermal power
(1) Within eighteen months of this Act coming into force, the Secretary of State shall, after a period of consultation with industry, geological experts, the devolved administrations, local authorities, energy producers and other interested parties, put into place for the United Kingdom a licensing system and regulations for the exploitation of heat from deep geothermal sources for both the direct use of that heat and for the generation of electricity.
(2) The licences shall relate to—
(a) individual geographically delineated areas on land;(b) the heat held by rocks greater than one kilometre below the surface.(3) Licences shall give exclusive exploration and production rights for the purpose of energy production from geothermal sources, both direct heat and electricity generation, to the licensee, for that area, and for a specific period of time.
(4) The Secretary of State shall lay down regulations for the method of allocation of licences to those organisations wishing to explore or exploit those resources, or both.
(5) The Secretary of State shall undertake the first round of allocations within six months of the licensing regulations under subsection (1) being approved.
(6) Any organisation already undertaking exploration or exploitation from geothermal sources within the United Kingdom, in that they have already undertaken, at the time the licensing regime comes into force, boring for the purpose of exploiting geothermal heat to below one kilometre, shall be entitled to hold the first licence awarded for that licence area, and any licence fee or other consideration for that licence area as a part of the licencing regime will then be determined by arbitration under rules determined by the Secretary of State reflecting the fees or other consideration paid for licences deemed to have similar potential.
(7) The holding of a licence for the exploration or exploitation of deep geothermal heat, or both, shall not convey any automatic rights in terms of planning permissions for surface development, or give any rights in terms of surface access.”
Lord Teverson
My Lords, we come to a specific issue here, which is around one of the older renewable technologies in many ways—geothermal or, in this case, deep geothermal. I do not wish in any way to give noble Lords a lecture, but I would like briefly to summarise the position of geothermal energy. It is a tried-and-tested technology in many parts of the world. In the volcanic areas of our globe, hot water rises naturally—it does not need persuasion or drilling—and is used for heating directly or for generating. That part of the technology has existed for some time in places such as Italy, Japan, New Zealand and Iceland in particular. It is a fundamental part of electricity and power generation in those countries. It is also possible to have a variation where there is drilling, often down to five or 10 kilometres, with cold water pushed down and hot water coming out at the top. That is the clever bit—the bit that needs to happen. In the oil industry and other industries, drilling technology is pretty proven.
A great deal of work is taking place on geothermal in Australia, the United States and Europe to make the technology work. The good thing about it—this is where I will end my sales pitch—is that it is the one renewable technology that can produce large-scale electricity, but it is also consistent in its operation. It is not intermittent, as so many other of the renewable technologies—tidal, wave, solar and wind—can be, which is important. In many ways, the United Kingdom led the field in the 1970s and 1980s. Then, as happened with so many of these technologies, with the crash of oil prices the research stopped taking place and progress happened elsewhere in the world. Various bits of the technology are proven; it is highly desirable in its characteristics; and it is available in the United Kingdom, particularly but not only in the south-west, so it could be an important part of our renewable energy mix. Indeed, two planning permissions have been granted in Cornwall for geothermal stations of a smaller scale than the large ones that there can be. Visually, they have a small footprint and do not have great impact either.
However, as noble Lords will understand, one of the areas that must be tied up for exploitation of any energy resource is certainty for investors and the engineers who make these systems work. Elsewhere in the world, in Ireland next door, Germany, Australia and various other parts of the world, licensing regimes have been introduced. What should not happen is that if there is a strike and a well is made that produces hot water— 200 degrees plus is the optimum—someone in the next field should not be able to exploit that resource and that heat for themselves because they have not had the risk or made the investment for exploration.
The amendment would do one simple thing. It would give power to the Secretary of State to consult and then put into place within a certain time period, which I will come back to, a licensing regime for geothermal. The industry feels that one key part of the jigsaw is to allow investment with some certainty on the return, so that investments can be made.
The amendment refers to 18 months in terms of the licensing regime. When I tabled this amendment for the last Energy Bill I thought it should be two years, but now that these types of agreement have moved on, I feel that 18 months is perhaps the maximum. The industry feels that it could go through this process within a year. Since the industry has said that it can cope, I would prefer 18 months.
That is why the amendment is so important. It fits very well in the Bill because it has a whole area on renewable technologies. It is something that the United Kingdom still has an opportunity to lead on. That may be difficult because other nations have got further ahead at the moment, but it is an important technology. It works in other parts of the world and we should benefit from it in terms of meeting our own renewable energy targets—not necessarily up to 2020, although it may make a small contribution, but certainly beyond that. I beg to move.
Lord Oxburgh
My Lords, I am happy to support the amendment, to which I put my name, and I support everything that the Lord, Lord Teverson, just said. The Government have very challenging targets for renewable energy by 2020. They will achieve those targets only if there is sufficient private investment. Investment decisions depend on assessment of risk.
In the case of geothermal in this country, there is a really no doubt about the existence of the resource. Indeed, a couple of decades ago, I was co-leader of the group that produced the first geothermal map of the UK. The resource is certainly there. I declare an interest as a technical consultant to one of the companies to which the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, just referred.
We know that we have the hot rocks at depth. The real question is whether we have adequate technology to extract the heat from those rocks. Therein lies the uncertainty and the exploration risk. There is a good chance that we can do that, but if an investor is going to invest in this he really wants to see the risks minimised. As the noble Lord pointed out, after the demonstration of a successful well in one place, there is a real danger of someone else coming in and drilling nearby.
At an earlier stage in informal discussions, the Government’s position was that that could probably be managed through local planning consents, but I do not think that that is the case. Modern drilling technology allows you to drill in one place, maybe 10 miles away, and then turn your well horizontal and go into anywhere within a pretty wide radius. In other words, if we are really to give investors the kind of security which I suspect they will demand in order to support this kind of investment, we really have to have a licensing regime which effectively pre-empts others who come in later and have not made the primary investment from tapping in on the risky exploration work that the initial company has done. I am not sure whether this amendment is in the exact terms that we need, but there will not be significant investment in geothermal in this country, I believe, unless something along these lines is done fairly rapidly.
What we have to bear in mind is that capital moves between countries and that any company interested in investing in geothermal will compare the opportunities in this country with those elsewhere. For example, I believe that Ireland has legislation in place to give the kind of protection that we are asking for here. Ireland has comparable geothermal possibilities; the same is true in other parts of Europe. If we do not do this, the capital will simply move elsewhere and this contribution to the 2020 target will not be realised.
Lord O'Neill of Clackmannan
Perhaps the noble Lord can help me. I understand exactly where he is going on the protection of the investment but he is being incredibly coy about telling us what the scope of the possibility would be. He said that he conducted an inquiry some years ago. How many gigawatts or megawatts of electricity could there be in the UK? I am not wanting to pour cold water on this—I stumbled into that one. However, are we going to do something here that could, at the end of the day, be worth while or are we just kidding ourselves? Perhaps this is another technology that might be appropriate in countries or areas of the world where tectonic plates are crashing. In Iceland, that is self-evident but one does not get the feeling that there are too many serious earthquake areas in the UK where you are likely to access those kind of geothermal possibilities. Can the noble Lord be a little more specific about what he would regard as the likely output from a geothermal electricity industry?
Lord Oxburgh
My Lords, that is a difficult question to answer at the moment; we would be in a better position to answer it after the Cornish exploration has gone ahead. The fact is that this work was killed around about 25 years ago, as the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, said, by the crash of the oil price and by the DTI, as it was then, simply being no longer interested in supporting this work. Until that time, we had very good support from the DTI. In fact, the one geothermal source in this country that is functioning at the moment, which is the one around Southampton, was the outcome of the PhD work of one of my students at the time.
Since that time, drilling and fracturing technology has improved enormously. The oil companies have developed that to a very fine art. One can now drill, with control of the drill tip, to about the same precision as a brain surgeon uses when operating on a brain. It can be a very fine control indeed. We really have to see how successful this is at exploiting these resources, which have been known about for quite a long time. It is very simple to tell the noble Lord how many gigawatts of energy could in principle be removed, but that is a meaningless figure until we have some feeling about how effective the new technology is going to be. I would not want to say at this stage that this will save our renewables targets. At the moment, I would say there is a good chance that it will amount to good housekeeping but it may be considerably more than that.
Lord Judd
My Lords, I would like unreservedly to congratulate those who tabled this amendment, which makes a great deal of sense. I have for a long time been a bit bemused about why the geothermal dimensions of energy policy have not had greater prominence in the UK approach. That anxiety has been greatly strengthened because I have the privilege of being a member of Court of Newcastle University and Professor Younger at Newcastle has done a lot of really important research on this.
To reassure my noble friend a bit about his anxieties, I hope, this amendment is very topical because the news has just broken that with government support there is to be a very significant project in the heart of Newcastle. There is a proposal to drill 2,000 metres in search of this form of energy. The Department of Energy and Climate Change has awarded £400,000 to Newcastle and Durham universities to take this work forward. The borehole will be the deepest ever drilled in a UK city. Scientists believe that at that depth it will bring up hot water at a temperature of 80 degrees centigrade. It will be an unlimited source of water that will be hot enough to heat any domestic or commercial central heating system.
This project has been described not only as imaginative but as full of good prospects. The scientists concerned are saying that, depending on the mix of rock at the depth to which they are drilling, they are optimistic of reaching temperatures not short of boiling point. This will provide a fully renewable energy supply and will massively reduce reliance on fossil fuels. It will strengthen Newcastle’s position as a sustainable city. The project is expected to last for six months only, and the team hopes to be able to pump out the first hot water in early June. If it is successful, it will open up all sorts of prospects not only in the north-east but across in the west in places such as Carlisle where the geology is not dissimilar. If it proves successful in Newcastle, the same techniques could apply.
Taking up the very important point made by the noble Lord, Lord Oxburgh, about the knowledge, experience and professionalism available, there are still a lot of resources from the old mining industry around in some of these parts of the world. They could be rejuvenated to play a very important part in this. I think that this amendment is very timely because it comes just as practical work is going forward. I commend it.
The Lord Bishop of Chester
My Lords, in principle we are surely all in favour of this technology playing a part in our energy policy. It is simply practicalities that I want to ask the noble Lords, Lord Teverson or Lord Oxburgh, or the Minister about. First, we have been told by the Minister that the Government will not favour subsidies for developed technologies, but for developing technologies, such as offshore wind. We are told by the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, that this is a well developed technology. Does his proposal require some structural subsidy in the regulations he anticipates? It would be helpful to the Committee to know what financial arrangements are envisaged because there is no point in going into all this work if it is never to going to happen.
Secondly, does the success of geothermal depend on some combination of electricity generation and community heating systems? Do you need to have both? If so, there has to be a big enough community near to the geothermal unit for that to be possible. I understand that Cornwall is geologically the best area in this country in which to exploit this technology, not the north-east.
Thirdly, I understand that once a well has been drilled, the heat is gradually depleted in that locality under the surface. A typical geothermal station might operate for 20 or 25 years, which is a decent length of time for some purposes, but not if you are designing a heating system for a substantial urban area. Those are some practical questions on which either the mover of the amendment or, in due course, the Minister might want to comment.
Lord Lea of Crondall
I support one of the points made by the right reverend Prelate. I am sure that the principle underlining this Bill, and other Bills, is not that we have a totally random system of subsidies but that we have a consistent system of subsidies, a point to which the Minister will perhaps respond when I move my amendment a little later. Nothing would be more fatal than for people to think that any fool can get energy from any place they like and receive unlimited subsidy to do so. As I understand it, that is not part of the principle of a Bill, but it deals with how this consistent pattern of subsidies, or a consistent pattern of carbon taxes, for that matter—that is the reverse side of the coin—will operate, so that it is transparent to all. I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, would agree with that principle. It would mean that we would not have the anxieties that have been revealed.
I am all in favour of geothermal, by the way; in fact I spent much of last summer in Iceland and Greenland, where one can see boiling water coming out of the earth all over the place; it is a good form of cheap energy. However, we have to look at the competing forms of energy with some consistent system of units, whether a price per kilowatt hour delivered or whatever. I am sure that this is capable of being embraced within the spirit of the amendment.
Lord Grantchester
I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, for tabling his amendment today, as both he and I mentioned it at Second Reading last year. The Minister replied in that debate that he was actively looking at a licensing system. I trust that he will be able to update us today with a positive proposal. As we know, the industry has spent £4 million of the £6 million allocation from our previous Labour Administration, and from the remaining £2 million, the Conservative-led Government have cut the funding by 50 per cent to £1 million with no arrangements in place thereafter.
The noble Lord, Lord Judd, has already updated us on one such proposal. My noble friend Lord O'Neill will also know that geothermal energy has been tapped into since Roman times, with the enjoyment of hot springs, and shallow geothermal projects such as ground-source heat pumps are slowly growing. Even conservative estimates calculate that deep geothermals a few kilometres down could provide 10 per cent of the UK's electricity. It operates 24 hours a day and is always hot; emission levels are virtually non-existent and it should not run out. We agree with the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, that the timing in his amendment specifying within 18 months gives an unnecessarily long leeway within which the Secretary of State could operate such a system. We would support a shorter timeframe.
I would also add to the suggestion of my noble friend Lord Lea that perhaps we could look at increasing the feed-in tariff threshold to 10 megawatts and include a deep geothermal tariff of 23p. If the Minister's plans have extended that far, he could update us on what those might be. We look forward to that.
Lord Marland
My Lords, welcome back to what I hope will be the last day of our Committee stage. I also welcome back the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Basildon. I hope that her foot is much better. Should we have a vote later today, a number of coalition Peers will be very happy to push her into the Chamber in her wheelchair to ensure that, for once, she goes into the right Lobby.
The coalition Government welcome this amendment. I have telegraphed this before in various debates that we have had on the subject. The noble Lord, Lord Teverson, is a recognised expert and, as usual, is thumping the drum for Cornwall. I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Judd, for thumping the drum for the north-east, which I looked at very closely and from where I have also had representations. The noble Lord, Lord Oxburgh, is absolutely right that capital moves within countries and, if we are to take this matter forward, we should do it as quickly as we can to look at the possibilities.
To answer a number of questions, geothermal does benefit from two ROCs. There is financial support available. As recently as December, we gave grants to Keele, Newcastle and Southampton universities to continue their activities. I hope that that deals with part of what the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chester said.
As I have said before, we are looking actively at the practicalities and, in particular, the legal aspects. In fact, only the other day we looked to see whether we could use the Irish licensing system, legal system and legal documents to do it, but it is a huge amount of work. It is not a question of just adopting their system and using it as a template. Unfortunately, because the UK legal system is silent on this issue, we start with a blank sheet of paper and have to create our own licensing regime, which, those of you who have been in government will know, is quite complex.
Given the potential complexity of the licensing scheme, it is my proposal that the Government continue to work on this issue and to take the matter away. I can assure noble Lords, as I have done in the past, that looking closely at trying to find a regime that suits is something that has my sympathy and support. I am very grateful that we should have the scientific evidence that the noble Lord, Lord Oxburgh, mentioned to support this excellent amendment. However, I ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.
The Lord Bishop of Chester
Before the Minister sits down, I want to press one of the points I made. Imagine an electricity generating station in Cornwall, generating electricity from this source. Will the Government view this as akin to nuclear generation and offer no subsidy so that it has to stand on its own commercial feet or will it be regarded as equivalent to offshore wind, where there is an ongoing subsidy for the actual units produced?
Lord Marland
Giving it a ROC is an incentive to use it. This means that it is in a totally different category from nuclear and therefore fits into the same category as onshore and offshore wind, which also benefit from the same revenue contributions and financial support. I hope that clarifies the point.
Lord Jenkin of Roding
Following on from that question, will the Minister confirm that, if there turns out to be a need for a subsidy for geothermal energy in the way discussed, and the subsidy is in the same form as that for onshore and offshore wind, the cost would fall, as with those two generating systems, on the consumer?
Lord Grantchester
The noble Lord mentioned two ROCs as a subsidy to the industry. My understanding from submissions I have received is that the industry feels that this is insufficient. Has his department looked at increasing this? The submissions asked for these to be upgraded to four.
Lord Marland
I am sure that all industries are keen to upgrade the amount of ROCs that they get, but we consider that a very suitable figure at this point.
Lord Marland
May I deal with one question at a time? I cannot multi-task, like women. That will appear in Hansard.
We feel that this is greater than some of the other technology that we use and that it is appropriate at the moment.
Lord O'Neill of Clackmannan
I imagine that this will be part of the electricity market review. We cannot keep adding more subsidies provided by often impecunious consumers to the research fantasies of the British generating industry. There has to be some degree of control. One would imagine that the electricity market review, to which the Government are committed, will give proper consideration to this so that we do not have the creeping incrementalism that results in the submerged and disadvantaged groups in the country subsidising such research programmes.
Lord Marland
The noble Lord makes a good point. We have been looking at this matter very carefully for the past month or so. There is a framework in place; we have a deep geothermal challenge fund and have been allocating funds towards research. There is a ROC that is currently cast in stone and we are in a very adequate space to take this issue forward. I invite my noble friend to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Oxburgh
To answer a couple of points raised by the right reverend Prelate, I should say that 25 years is a perfectly reasonable time, but it might well be 35 years for the life of a field of this kind.
Lord Oxburgh
I am sorry. To repeat, 25 to 35 years is a plausible length of time for a field such as this to operate. There are various possibilities of rejuvenation, but it is too early to think of that.
The right reverend Prelate also asked whether there would be low-grade heat available as well. Yes, there normally is low-grade heat available after you have generated electricity. The aspiration is that a project such as this would wash its face commercially simply on the basis of electricity generation. If you can find a local use for low-grade heat associated with it, whether it is for agriculture or for district heating, that is an additional bonus.
Lord Teverson
I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in this debate. I should like to follow through on a couple of questions. The noble Lord, Lord Oxburgh, was talking about generation that was purely electricity or purely heat. If there is a demand for hot water, whether it be for market gardening or district heating, the most energy-efficient thing to do would be to use as much of it as you could for that purpose. This is primarily for electricity generation although you could theoretically have one or the other.
In terms of depletion, as I understand it—the noble Lord, Lord Oxburgh, knows about it far better than I do—that is a conservative estimate. It could be argued that there should be no depletion over time on very deep exploration; there is a chance for rejuvenation. The industry is rightly conservative regarding those estimates because ultimately the earth is being heated from the core upwards. Cornwall and Devon are particularly good in this respect because there is a layer of limestone over granite, which makes it a particularly good cocktail. I have probably got that slightly wrong. I see from the noble Lord, Lord Oxburgh, that I have. That is what someone from the industry told me, but there we are. It is not just Devon and Cornwall—this relates to other areas as well.
On remuneration, the two-ROCs regime is already in place, as the Minister said. The industry would like to look at the renewable heat initiative in terms of the hot water that comes out. That is probably an area of future discussion.
I am very encouraged by the Minister. I know that these things are not necessarily easy to achieve. Other countries, particularly in Europe, have these systems in place and they are the sine qua non. Without them, you will not get development of this technology. That is why it is important to get on with it. I would have thought that setting up a licensing regime from fresh would be a civil servant’s heaven—that there would probably be people queueing up in DECC to invent the British geothermal licensing system. That clearly has a cost in people power, but there is no ongoing cost to the department afterwards. Indeed, I hope that in due course revenues will come in from this technology, as in oil or whatever.
I am encouraged by the Minister’s remarks. I am sure that this will be a point of discussion between now and Report, and on that basis I am pleased to withdraw my amendment.
Lord Whitty
“Secretary of State not to grant petroleum licence incompatible with offshore renewable energy site
(1) In this section, “offshore renewable energy site” means a site in United Kingdom territorial waters or the REZ which is developed or operated, or is intended to be developed or operated, for—
(a) generating electricity from wind, wave or tidal energy, or(b) transmitting electricity generated in that way,in respect of which the Crown Estates have granted a lease, licence, agreement to lease or agreement to license for that purpose.
(2) The Secretary of State may not grant a licence under section 3 of the Petroleum Act 1998 (licence to search and bore for and get petroleum) to the extent that the licence would permit an activity within an offshore renewable energy site, unless the person entitled to the benefit of the lease, licence or agreement in respect of that site so agrees in writing to the grant.”
Lord Whitty
My Lords, as the noble Lord, Lord Oxburgh, said on the previous amendment, it is clearly the general target of the Government—as shown by providing the ROCs incentive—to increase the amount of renewable energy in this country by 2020, and to make offshore wind the major component of the provision of that quota. We have already done reasonably well, in that there are already 1.3 gigawatts of offshore wind operating around our coasts, and other projects are in the pipeline. However, the process takes considerable time. For it to happen—again, as the noble Lord, Lord Oxburgh, said—we need not only the incentive of the ROCs in place, but the means of mobilising substantial sums of private capital. That private capital needs to minimise risk. At the moment, the problem for an offshore wind facility, either in operation or provisional—with a lease granted by the Crown Estate or with an agreement to lease—is that the prospect of an oil or gas facility being put in the same area will kill that investment stone dead. It would certainly put off prospective investors in that scheme or potential scheme.
The amendment therefore seeks to ensure that investors in the industry and the supply industry—an important economic by-product of offshore wind—have sufficient confidence to invest sums of money in offshore facilities that are not threatened by effectively being displaced by a future oil or gas facility. That is needed because of the present disparity of provision in the rules governing offshore oil and gas consents. The amendment would prevent a forced intervention by the Secretary of State to consent to an oil and gas works on top of an existing lease, or agreement to lease, for an offshore renewable project. It would allow the offshore oil or gas project to occur were consent to be given by the operator or potential operator of the offshore activity—in other words, provided that negotiations could operate and an agreement could be reached, there could be coexistence. Although theoretically both sides of the equation recognise the need for coexistence, there is no balanced system for dealing with them.
It is not that we are creating a special, privileged position for offshore wind, because the consenting system for offshore renewables in general—tidal and wave power would also be covered by the amendment— includes a requirement to negotiate with other sea users. The offshore operator is required to negotiate with the potential gas operators and other users of the seabed. On the other hand, the current guidance from the Infrastructure Planning Commission—which, until the Government get their way, is the planning authority—requires that the views of other sea users must be sought out, that action taken in response to those views must be reported and that justification must be given where no action is taken. However, the Petroleum Act requires oil and gas activity to take due regard of other projects, such as renewables, but there is no requirement to negotiate in those circumstances. We are not talking about a level playing field at the moment, and I therefore hope that the Minister and the Government will recognise that there is an issue here.
There is particularly an issue about discouraging the substantial amounts of private investment that will be needed in these offshore technologies in order to meet the Government’s targets for renewables. It is already public policy to reach those targets, but the present system threatens confidence in investments in those targets. It is certainly the case that for those seeking finance from the City and elsewhere for these projects—particularly as we go further offshore, as we will need to do—questions of confidence and the possibility of the leases being overridden by a subsequent decision on oil and gas facilities are major considerations and some of the reasons why such investment is inhibited. I hope that the Minister will at least recognise that this is a problem. If he is not prepared to accept the exact wording of this amendment, I hope that he will recognise that this is something that the Government have to address and that some degree of equal treatment will be needed down the line.
I think all sides of this Committee recognise the importance of meeting these renewable targets and want to remove any inhibition in doing so. Therefore, this amendment, or something like it, is a necessary step to ensure that the investment is there to meet those targets. I beg to move.
Lord O'Neill of Clackmannan
Is the basis for this amendment that somehow it is preferable for us to have offshore wind rather than access to oil and gas? For many of us, it is as important in this country that we have access to the reserves of oil and gas in order to sustain a number of our vital industries. They will depend on electricity for a lot of their fuel sources. If I were still speaking as a constituency MP representing a seat near Grangemouth, the last thing I would want to do would be to support offshore wind at the expense of adequate supplies of gas and oil to go into the oil refinery and the chemical processing plants that are a major source of employment for my constituents. My noble friend needs to be rather more frank with us. Is it just for the convenience of investors or it is based on the assumption that somehow oil and gas are bad and windmills are good?
Lord Whitty
I think it is just as well that the MP for Grangemouth does not determine our energy policy. It is important to recognise that there are substantial employment opportunities in renewables.
Lord Whitty
Indeed. Many of those jobs have the skills that will be required in renewable technologies as well. However, at the moment it is the Government’s policy, the previous Government’s policy and the policy of all parties in this House to reach the target for renewables in this country. That is not saying that we should close down oil and gas opportunities; it is saying that in future we should give the renewables industry, whether wind, tidal or wave, equal opportunity with gas and oil facilities. When offshore wind providers are seeking private investment in a relatively new technology, the confidence of those investors and the realisation of government policy in this area are inhibited by the threat of the oil and gas facilities trumping them. To look at it the other way around, if proposers proposing a renewables process operation are faced with the possibility of an oil and gas facility coming in, they have to negotiate. At the moment, there is no obligation on the oil and gas companies to negotiate, which is the injustice that I am addressing.
To be frank with my noble friend, I think that, yes, it is a matter of public policy to give some preference to renewable industries and that we reduce the carbon content of our energy supply. It is therefore important to reduce the reliance on carbon-based fossil fuel. But that is not quite what this amendment is addressing. It is to address the disparity of treatment between the two sectors and to ensure that confidence can be inspired for developing renewable technologies offshore.
Lord O'Neill of Clackmannan
I was not going to speak on this amendment, but I have to say that there is a lot of water up in the North Sea and I am not sure why the two cannot coexist. You cannot move the oil and gas fields, but a lot of windmills can be moved because there is rather a lot of wind up there, which tends to be spread over a bigger area. I think that it is incumbent on the mover of this amendment to be more explicit about in which areas he would envisage a degree of overlap or competition. At the moment, he is seeking to legislate by assertion, not by evidence, and seeking to tell us that there could be some need for reassuring of investors. Frankly, there are lots of other reasons why investors are a bit leery of offshore wind farms. The technology, the durability of the metals and the exposure to all kinds of elements mean that the North Sea is more inhospitable than a lot of areas where offshore wind developments have taken place so far.
However, perhaps the noble Lord can tell us where there is likely to be an overlap; that is, where there is a clear need for wind power in addition to reservoirs of oil and gas. I have to come back to the point that not all the output of the North Sea is used for energy-generating purposes. A lot is used for the high-tech existing industries. We are in the process of losing Pfizer, but the petrochemical complexes across the United Kingdom are sources of high-tech, well paid employment for large numbers of people. These jobs exist and they will carry on as long as oil and gas is coming through to be reprocessed. National security and various economic objectives would stand up just as robustly and strongly as anything in relation to renewable targets, from which I do not demur.
I have yet to see where we would find that there would be a conflict on such a scale as to require amendments of this kind. If there is a case, it has not been made. If there is not a case, I think that it is part of the anti-oil and gas mentality of certain sections of what chooses to call itself the green and renewable movements in this country. Therefore, it has to be balanced out. I do not think that the case has been made adequately for such an amendment.
Lord Oxburgh
In the interests of reducing internecine strife, I think the prospects of serious incompatibility here are quite small. There is not really as much scope for moving wind farm locations as it might appear—wind is pretty variable—but, given the kind of technology of which I spoke in relation to the previous amendment, one can now exploit gas fields or oil fields at an angle from some distance without too much difficulty. It is important to give some confidence, as far as it is needed for investors in this area, but I do not think this is going to be a big problem.
Lord Jenkin of Roding
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Oxburgh, is absolutely right. The more I have looked into this, the more I see that it is a very complex problem. It has been under discussion with the two industries and my noble friend’s department for some years. From time to time, pressure has been brought on one or the other to try to find a solution. I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Oxburgh, is right but the prospects of a serious overlap are pretty small.
It seems to me that often the problem is bringing the product ashore. The problems with offshore oil and gas are well known but I know that some wind farms have found difficulty in finding ways of getting their supplies ashore. It has been suggested to me—I think this has been discussed with my noble friend’s department—that there might be some form of compulsory purchase onshore to ensure that the product of a wind farm can be brought ashore at the most appropriate place, even if at present the landowners are reluctant to give permission. However, it does not seem to me that this complex matter has been dealt with by a single amendment in a Bill of this sort.
I entirely take the point made by the noble Lord, Lord O'Neill of Clackmannan, that oil and gas will be very important—particularly gas—for many years ahead. It is not so long ago that there was a major discovery off the coast of Scotland—the Buzzard gas field—and that could still happen. These things are far from certain and gas has to be exploited where it is. Yes, as the noble Lord, Lord Oxburgh, implies, there is a limited capacity for drilling horizontally, if necessary, or at an angle to develop a field but my impression is that the two industries have tried over a long period to reach an accommodation about how this might be handled. I think we would be a little unwise to start legislating in the way the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, suggests and simply say that there can be a retrospective revocation or variation of a lease that has been given in respect of which a great deal of capital investment may have taken place.
On the whole, I do not support the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, but I think that the discussions should continue. If it appears to my noble friend’s department that some legislative provision needs to be made, perhaps the Government could look at that for the next energy Bill, whenever it appears. My impression is that we may not see it this Session.
Lord Judd
In the cause of cohesion on this side of the Committee, might I say that it has been very intoxicating to have the thesis and the antithesis and, like others, in all humility I would like to put myself on the side of the synthesis? It seems to me that it would be tragic if we got into a vicious either/or battle. The issue is how to bring these things together constructively. I make the observation—no doubt I could be described as an unreconstructed politician of former days—that it seems to bring home to me the hazards of a market-dominated approach in these crucial strategic issues and that we really need very effective strategic planning into which the private sector can then feed its contribution. This debate brings home the need for a strategic approach, not just targets but how they are to be delivered because that is the crucial issue all the time. It is not just to spell out the aspirations; it is actually to have the mechanisms there to ensure they happen.
I take the urgency and importance of the vigorous argument of my noble friend Lord O’Neill seriously, and if I have one anxiety it is on that point. Employment, security, economy, the real immediate needs—those are all crucial and it would be naive to overlook them. However, I am fearful because we seem to keep getting caught up in the immediacy of the management situation, but the Bill should unashamedly take a visionary approach to the long-term future. I am sure that my noble friend Lord O’Neill would be the first to agree that he is talking about what we all know to be finite resources. That is crucial at this juncture. Sooner or later, this country will have to face the issue. It is not an ephemeral kind of idea; it is absolute fundamental practicality that the economy of this has to keep going at some future point without the availability—it is taken for granted—of the finite resources. If we always get into the crude argument, the long-term thinking will always be pushed to the side. We will always hear about all the difficulties and doubts.
Objective considerations about the reality of what is proposed are important, but many of these things are challenges to be overcome and to be got right; they are not excuses for delaying and pushing to one side. I for one put firmly on record that whether or not the idea is acceptable as an amendment, my noble friend Lord Whitty is to be warmly congratulated on again having brought it home to the Committee, in his characteristically firm way, that either we are serious about alternatives or we are not. If we are, we have to start putting some consistent muscle and priority behind those alternatives and stop saying that they are an also-ran to be fitted in when there are no other objections to be raised.
Baroness Parminter
I support the principle of creating a level playing field, to which the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, referred. The question seems to be about whether a reasonable dispute resolution process is in place for future conflicts between renewable energy and oil and gas. That is the heart of the issue, on which the Committee ought to focus. As it stands, the law gives the Secretary of State the ability to terminate offshore wind farm leases early, which implies primacy to oil and gas developments. That is clearly not the wish of the Government or in support of the policy developments with which we seek to move.
The noble Lord, Lord Whitty, has done well to remind us that that could seriously undermine the financing of future developments. While it is fair to say that until now financing has been less controversial and difficult, it is clear that offshore wind projects are moving further offshore, are larger and are going within known oil and gas provinces. That will make the financing of those projects more complex, so we need to consider seriously any barrier to the investment for them.
We all recognise that there is an importance to the coexistence between oil and gas companies and renewable operations. I pay tribute to organisations such as RenewableUK that have put a lot of effort in, with the support of DECC, to draw up protocols and guidance so that the respective companies can work in harmony, as they have done until now, finding a way forward where there are areas of the seabed on which they both wish to operate. The issue is whether a reasonable dispute process is there for the future; we need that level playing field.
Therefore, while there might be questions about this amendment, it is right and proper that the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, has raised it. As my noble friend Lord Jenkin has mentioned, I too hope that this issue will get further consideration. If this clause is maintained, would it not be more appropriate that there should be compensation if these leases were terminated early in order that there is a degree of parity between the respective businesses in the field?
I welcome the principle of the necessity for a level playing field and I hope that ongoing discussions might look at some of the wider issues around compensation for a reasonable dispute resolution process.
Lord Lea of Crondall
My Lords, now that the point has been put in terms of a mechanism, I begin by not having any knowledge about whether a conflict is likely. Assuming that it is conceivable, as in the case made by my noble friend Lord Whitty—my noble friend Lord O’Neill has questioned whether it is just either/or as regards renewables having preference—I thought that the general philosophy with which we deal with energy policy is that we put a price on market externalities. In other words, we level the playing field financially, whether that is through Kyoto, carbon tax or something else. Everyone pays the same price through a carbon tax or something like that, but once you have done that, you do not make a separate judgment about preferring renewables to hydrocarbons. That market externality to meet our medium-term targets should be incorporated into the fiscal system. We are gradually doing that through the myriad consultations about carbon price floor, entry tariffs, the document produced by the Treasury before Christmas entitled Carbon Price Floor, and so on.
If I could take the suggestion that has just been made a stage further, the word “criteria” is not just a mechanism because the Department of Energy and Climate Change cannot be left just holding a pup, it has to know the criteria on which it has to operate. How far is it that this famous level playing field can be made level by not treating all forms of energy alike? That is not what we mean. We are trying to make the level playing field level on the basis of market externalities which are made into financial quantities in the tax and subsidy system. We do not need to do it twice. As I understand it, that would be the criterion.
You cannot just ask the department to have a mechanism without stating so that there is no ambiguity how the market externality is translated into a level playing field price. I hope that that can also be fed into the thinking and the way in which my noble friend Lord Whitty takes forward this thought in his amendment.
Baroness Smith of Basildon
My Lords, I hope that noble Lords will forgive me for not standing up because I may fall over. I thank the Minister for his comments and for his good wishes to my foot, which were gratefully received. I hope that he will not mind if I do not take him up on his offer to take my wheelchair through the voting Lobby. I will rely on my noble friends to ensure that I get into the right place. On a serious note, I am grateful to him for agreeing to suspend last week’s Committee sitting so that we could sit today and I could be here. I am grateful to noble Lords for their indulgence on that.
I thank my noble friend Lord Whitty for bringing forward this amendment. It has invoked a lively discussion. I am not sure that there is as much disagreement between us as might seem apparent from some of the debates. We are all trying to seek a sensible energy mix and to ensure that there is access for all forms of energy. The Government have targets for renewable energy. If those targets are to be met there has to be some certainty for the renewable energy industry.
It is worth reminding ourselves that my noble friend’s amendment is not anti-oil or anti-gas—I did not see it in that way at all—but tries to find a way in which both can coexist sensibly on a level playing field and one does not undermine the other. Like the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, I pay tribute to the work of RenewableUK, which has been trying to seek the kind of protocols, or guidance, required that means that problems can be addressed before they arise so that we do not have to move to the position we would have to under this amendment.
However, there may be cases where a proper disputes procedure has to be in place to ensure that we are not in the position that we are at the moment. If oil or gas is always a priority, there will be a difficulty in ensuring investment in renewables. Indeed, the amendment talks about a site that is developed or operated for renewables, or is intended to be developed or operated, or for transmitting electricity from renewables,
“in respect of which the Crown Estates that have granted a lease license, agreement to lease or agreement to license for that purpose”.
It is not just a site that has been chosen but a site that has been granted a licence already.
The proposed new clause says that the Secretary of State is not able to grant a licence for activities within an offshore renewable energy site without the agreement of the holder of the lease, licence or agreement. One problem is that, with no disputes procedure, there is no compensation for a licence-holder if their licensed renewable site is to be overridden for access to gas and oil.
I do not think that there is much disagreement. There is, and has been, a clear wish within this Committee to ensure that we maximise all our resources for all energy sources. However, I have concerns that, if some kind of dispute procedure or something along the lines suggested in the amendment is not put in place, the Government could be unable to reach their targets on many renewables. If a licence can be revoked purely on the order of a Secretary of State, that lack of certainty will lead to a lack of investment.
I understand that the Minister may have concerns about the wording and the way forward. It would extremely helpful, however, if he could take this away and give some thought to the principles behind the amendment to look for a way forward that gives certainty to licence-holders of renewable energy sites.
We believe that both the offshore wind industry and the oil and gas industry are needed and can successfully coexist to ensure the nation’s energy needs are met. DECC is working with both industries and their trade associations to encourage effective co-ordination and co-operation in their respective development processes. Our expectation is that suitable consultation, planning and phasing of the respective operations will in most cases allow both developments to achieve their objectives in full, or with only minor compromise. I note what the noble Lords, Lord Oxburgh and Lord Jenkin, said on this.
At the stage of formal consent, an application from either industry to exploit the natural resources of our marine environment would be considered as part of the standard procedures of the relevant authority and be consulted upon with interested stakeholders. Any user of the sea—including oil and gas and offshore renewables industry players—is able to make representations at a number of stages, including the formal consent process and the environmental impact assessment. We recommend that interested parties do so, so that their views can be taken into account in any decision-making.
It is worth noting that the Government are well aware that this issue is causing concern, particularly to the offshore wind industry. Therefore, the department is working on a solution that is acceptable to all parties. I hope that that will help to reassure the noble Lord, Lord Whitty.
Clearly, in terms of the financial compensation that has been referred to, if the oil company is not prepared to offer appropriate compensation, there is no question of the Secretary of State intervening to override what is happening there.
We understand the motivation behind what the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, is proposing, and it is extremely important that there is equal treatment. I am a great believer in equal treatment. Therefore, we understand why he has brought this forward. We do not think it appropriate at this stage to agree this amendment to primary legislation—to hardwire it in—but we understand the issue. It is being looked at currently in DECC. Obviously we do not want any situation to develop that will disadvantage what we are trying to do with the Bill as a whole. As the noble Lord, Lord Judd, pointed out, it is the vision of where we are going as a whole that is important in this Bill. That is apparent from the Bill and everybody's involvement in it. If we bear that in mind, it is important that these issues are resolved and DECC is looking at that at the moment. I hope that in the light of that explanation, the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Whitty
My Lords, I thank the Minister and everybody who took part in what was a rather wider debate than I originally envisaged. I thank particularly the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, and my noble friend Lady Smith for their support for the amendment. My noble friend Lord O'Neill, not for the first time and I suspect not the last, provoked me into saying more than I ever intended and more than was particularly helpful to this amendment. As my noble friend Lord Lea said, the preference or otherwise is largely a matter for the fiscal system, which is already there. But if there is in addition a disadvantage to one sector as against another in the process, we should address that as well.
I am grateful to the Minister for saying that this is at least on the radar screens of the department. But it has been on the radar screens of the department and predecessor departments for at least eight years to my knowledge. We need to hurry this up.
Whatever I may have said earlier, this is not about giving a preferential position. Nor is it dealing with the whole of the ocean. It is dealing with those areas where a licence or lease has been given or is about to be given or where a project is already operating. The rest of the ocean is open to the oil and gas industry in any case. Nor is the amendment saying that in no circumstances will oil and gas be allowed to operate there. All I am requiring them to do is to negotiate to reach an agreement. I hope that the Government can help to set up a process whereby that happens and thereby to equalise the hoops that any new developer will have to go through. There are two different forms of consenting and they are not the same. Some would say that they slightly—I think they are significantly—disadvantageous to renewables as against oil and gas.
I am grateful to the department for the terms in which the Minister has responded. However, I ask her and her officials to hurry up because this is an outstanding issue. In a sense, the oil and gas industries can go to their boards—the noble Lord, Lord Oxburgh, used to sign these off himself. Yes, they have the option of going anywhere in the world, but so does the kind of City finance that, by and large, offshore, wind and certainly the newer technologies of tidal and wave will have to go for. They also have the option of going elsewhere and it is important that the element of risk is reduced and that coexistence is a reality. It must be coexistence between equal partners in the delivery of our energy mix and not one that gives an advantage to one sector as against another.
Having said that, I accept the Government’s good faith in looking at this. I would be grateful if in a month or two we could complete that process and come back with a system that addresses the problem. In the mean time, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Smith of Basildon
My Lords, this is a probing amendment. It may help the Minister to know that I am just seeking some clarification because I was puzzled. In an earlier debate, the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin of Roding, referred to the complexity of some of the legislation. We have to go back to previous legislation and previous Energy Acts to understand the Bill before us today. I did that. Section 46 of the Energy Act 2008 relates to the approval of funded decommissioning programmes and the Section 48 referred to here is about the modification of such funded decommissioning programmes. I do not understand why it is necessary—and if it is necessary, it seems rather a Henry VIII clause—to insert into Section 48 of the Energy Act that: “When approving a” funded decommissioning,
“programme the Secretary of State may agree to exercise, or not to exercise, the section 48 power … in a particular manner … within a particular period”.
What on earth does that mean? If the Minister can enlighten me, I will be very grateful.
The rest of the clause goes on in the same way. It seems unnecessary because if you read Section 48 of the 2008 Act, those powers seem to be available already. “In a particular manner” and “within a particular period” are very wide and do not make much sense to enable the reader to understand this legislation. Why does the Minister think we need to insert those phrases in legislation that seems already clear to me? If he is able to enlighten me, I will be very grateful.
Lord Jenkin of Roding
I have words of comfort for the noble Baroness. I have on previous occasions said that I totally share her dismay at the complexity of the legislation, and I have arranged a meeting next week with the chairman and the chief parliamentary counsel of the Law Commission to discuss the whole process of consolidation, how the Law Commission approaches it, where the initiative lies and whether it considers that the Electricity Act and the Gas Act would be a case for consolidation. I am not just talking the talk; I am, I hope, walking the walk. I hope that Ministers and officials in the department will recognise that some of us are not going to let that matter rest.
I am very glad that the noble Baroness said that this is a probing amendment, because the issue is extremely simple. Section 48 of the 2008 Act gives the Government power to impose changes on a funded decommissioning programme after it has been done. It has, no doubt, been represented by the nuclear industry that it contains a considerable element of uncertainty about additional charges possibly being made after the original programme had been agreed or about changes being made to the timing of the payments. At the moment, the payments are intended to be spread over the life of a plant so that by the end of that time there will be a sufficient fund available to cover the decommissioning and waste treatment. It is absolutely right that that should not now fall on the taxpayer but is part of the cost of producing the electricity. Under that section, the Government have the power to impose a change. All this clause is doing, as I understand it, is requiring the Government to agree a change with the developer. It may well be possible for the Government to suggest there should be changes, but the developer has to agree. Given what we have been saying in earlier debates about the need to try to create certainty, I think this clause is entirely right. I am glad the noble Baroness decided to table merely a probing amendment because I think the clause should be allowed to stand in the interests of certainty for the nuclear industry.
Lord O'Neill of Clackmannan
My Lords, one thing that has struck me about this House is that although we often talk about scrutiny we rarely use the probing amendment, which is one of the regular tools of the discredited Standing Committee process in the House of Commons. It is often used there for time-wasting purposes as well. However, in today’s case it is useful when there is a certain degree—in fact, a large degree—of opacity in the wording of the Bill, for quite understandable reasons. You have to work your way through the network to try and get to the point.
On the substance of the issue, speaking as the chairman of the Nuclear Industry Association, we are quite relaxed about this. We think that there will always be something which we have not anticipated—God forbid that, in terms of nuclear power generation or waste management, it was of the order of any terribly serious or dreadful prospect. My real point is that we recognise that there can be unforeseen circumstances. The Government have, on occasion, to change step for whatever reason but should do so, as far as is reasonably possible, with the agreement and understanding of those who are going to be affected by that. At the moment, with the agreement which has been reached on waste management—in terms of both the funding of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority and the costing programme for its long-term cost—the industry is, within reasonable bounds, happy on that issue. On that point, I hope that my noble friend is only probing and will withdraw.
Lord Marland
My Lords, I am grateful for this amendment because it provoked my noble friend Lord Jenkin to use the full majesty of what used to be his office, and probably should be again, to demonstrate clearly the reasoning for this subsection staying in the Bill. I am grateful that we should have the support of no greater or more august figure than the chairman of the NIA itself, the noble Lord, Lord O'Neill of Clackmannan. Both noble Lords gave extremely good reasons for it.
I will explain briefly that the real reason for this change is to remove the power to subsequently modify an approved programme that has the potential to create uncertainty for operators and investors financing significant long-term investments. The key to this is giving long-term investment commitment to those who are investing in new nuclear. I have nothing to add to what the two noble Lords have so aptly said with their greater experience of the subject, and I invite the noble Baroness to withdraw her amendment.
“Bodies able to produce and supply renewable energyProduction and supply of renewable energy by National Park authorities and the Broads Authority
(1) Section 11 of the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1976 (production and supply of heat etc. by local authorities) is amended as follows.
(2) After subsection (1) insert—
“(1A) In subsection (1) the definition of “a local authority” shall be understood to include the Broads Authority and National Park authorities when applied to subsection (1)(a), (b) and (d) (production of heat or electricity or both; establishment and operation of generating stations for production of heat or electricity or both; and use or sale of heat or electricity).”
(3) In subection (3), after “a local authority” insert “including the Broads Authority and National Park authorities”.”
Lord Judd
My Lords, I must say how grateful I am for the cross-party support and indeed the support of my own Front Bench. It is good to have that for an amendment. I should make plain that I am not a member of a park authority, but I take a close interest in their affairs both as vice-president of the Campaign for National Parks and as president of Friends of the Lake District.
The amendment would put national park authorities on an equal footing with the rest of local government in terms of the ability to generate and sell renewable energy. The current position for other local authorities is that they can sell electricity from renewable energy resources. Existing legislation—Section 11 of the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1976—already allowed them to generate electricity and heat. Following the change made by the Government last summer through the sale of electricity by local authority regulations, they were given these additional powers.
This change makes it much easier from a financial point of view for local authorities to install renewable technologies and so play their part in the transition to a low-carbon society because they can benefit in full from the Government’s feed-in tariff. For their part, the national park authorities are tackling climate change on a number of fronts, including providing leadership on low-carbon innovation and national park communities, while also reducing the greenhouse gas emissions from their own activities. An important aspect of this can be the installation of small-scale renewable energy measures that are suitable for a protected landscape. Since the park authorities are not included in the relevant piece of legislation—Section 11 of the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1976—it would appear that they do not currently have the power to generate or sell renewable energy. Through amending the relevant provisions of the 1976 Act to include the Broads Authority and the national park authorities as set out in this amendment, it would be possible to put this right. The prescriptions on the sale of electricity as set out in the 2010 regulations would then also apply to the Broads Authority and the national park authorities.
There might be other means of achieving the same outcome which the Government prefer. However, what is important is to put the national parks on an equal footing with other local authorities in terms of the generation of the electricity and heat from renewable energy and the potential to sell any surplus electricity from this renewable generation. I hope that the Minister will be able to respond positively. The national park authorities are keen to set an example of what can be done in an environmentally and aesthetically acceptable way. It is surely important for us all to give them every possible support.
Lord Davies of Oldham
My Lords, first, I am surprised that my noble friend is surprised that the Front Bench has signed the amendment. It would be somewhat remiss on our part if we did not see merits in it. He made an excellent case. What he kindly—for the Government—left out of his analysis of the situation is an actual feature of the national parks and the Broads Authority themselves: their powers in relation to the Public Bodies Bill that is before the House at present. Perhaps the Minister will offer some reassurance on that front. Suffice it to say that one can already see the national parks adjusting to a changed future in terms of the pressures upon them. We all know the particular circumstances of the Broads Authority, which was considered by this House only 18 months ago.
I emphasise the obvious fact that it is a good move to associate the national parks with the same capacity as local authorities. In fact, it seems somewhat surprising that this issue has not been pressed somewhat earlier than this Bill. I congratulate my noble friend on that point. I emphasise to him that we are in full support. I hope that on this constructive amendment the Minister is able to give a rather more positive response than has been the case on the most constructive amendments thus far. I look forward to his reply.
Lord Marland
I am not sure that I quite caught the end of that last sentence. Perhaps it is best that I did not. Suffice it to say that I welcome the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Judd. I am grateful that it should have the support of his Front Bench, which is excellent news. It is not the first time that his amendments have found favour with government. We are obviously extremely disposed to look at this amendment. Unfortunately, the timing was too tight for us to consult as widely as we wanted with the national park authorities before introducing this Bill, so we have to do that. Of course, like the noble Lord, I welcome their ambition to generate electricity on their own land and support that commendable ambition. With that in mind, and knowing that we will give this amendment consideration in coming days and months, I—
Lord Deben
My experience of working with the national parks was not anything like as cheerful as that presented by the noble Lord, Lord Judd. In many cases, the national parks have not been helpful for enterprises within them. I hope that when he talks to the national parks, he will make it clear that he wants them to make it as easy as possible for others within national parks to generate electricity and that this will not be another occasion for the national parks to make it extremely difficult for anybody who is not themselves to do things within their areas.
Lord Marland
I note what my noble friend Lord Deben says. If we are going to look at the national parks and what they will do with their microgeneration, we should obviously encourage them to practise as they preach, which I think are the words he is looking to hear from us. With that in mind, I hope the noble Lord, Lord Judd, will withdraw his amendment.
Lord Judd
I thank the Minister for that encouraging and warm response. I am sure it will be noted by everybody and bodes well for the future. We look forward to what he brings forward at a later stage on the Bill, because he has indicated that he will respond to this. That is great. I say to others who have intervened that we should not tilt at windmills. I see no evidence whatever of the danger or the prospect to which the noble Lord referred. By contrast, I am very much encouraged by the Minister. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Smith of Basildon
I rise to speak—or not, as the case may be. One of the oddities of procedure in your Lordships’ House is that sometimes it seems that we have to say the exact opposite of what we want to say in order to have the opportunity to, in this case, congratulate the Minister. I have had to give notice of my intention to oppose the Question that the clause stand part of the Bill, which is the opposite of what I want to do. In fact, I congratulate the Minister: he will recall that, under Schedule 7 to the Public Bodies Bill, I have proposed an amendment to delete the Coal Authority from that Bill. It seemed to me that any change to the functions of the Coal Authority should be undertaken not by secondary legislation—by order—but by primary legislation. That is exactly what the Minister has done in Clause 100 of this Bill, so I merely congratulate him as it is the appropriate way to make such changes. I hope that he will either support my amendment to Schedule 7 to the Public Bodies Bill or take other action to ensure that the Coal Authority is no longer in it.
Lord Jenkin of Roding
I understand from the impact statement on this that some possible competition issues will need to be addressed as to whether the Coal Authority will have, in some way, a preferred position as against other contractors that may compete for the business. I hope that my noble friend can give me some assurance that that will be taken account of.
Baroness Northover
My Lords, I am delighted to have been assigned this clause stand part debate, because therefore I am by proxy receiving congratulations that are not deserved, which is a great pleasure. My noble friend has raised another issue on the substance of the clause, so I shall spell out what it seeks to do.
This simple clause extends the Coal Authority’s powers in England and Wales, which would enable the Coal Authority to use, and charge for, its existing expertise in remediating coal-related environmental and safety liabilities in non-coal related contexts. For example, it could assist other public bodies and private landowners in dealing with mine-water treatment and subsidence or surface hazard remediation outside the coal-mining sphere, but that would not take precedence over the authority’s existing statutory duties.
On whether we are talking here about non-flat playing fields again, I assure my noble friend Lord Jenkin that the clause enables the Coal Authority to work in the area without cutting across its statutory duties, but it does not give it precedence in the area. It does not even place an obligation on the Coal Authority to act in this way or on others to use it; it is just an enabling power. I hope that that reassures him. We will return to the Public Bodies Bill—maybe not, depending on what happens with the AV Bill—and no doubt we will get into further discussions on what it says. In the mean time, I hope that the noble Baroness will be happy not to oppose the Question that the clause stand part.
The Duke of Montrose
It is nice to have an explanation given as to how the powers will affect England and Wales. It will be reassuring to the Scots on the next clause, as I am sure that the same arguments will apply there.
Baroness Northover
I confirm that Clause 101 mirrors the clause and extends the powers to Scotland, so I hope that it is not room 101.
Baroness Smith of Basildon
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness who I think has taken on board my comments about Schedule 7. I apologise if I was not more explicit when I asked the noble Baroness the question, but will there be extra funding to go with those extra responsibilities for the Coal Authority?
Baroness Northover
To clarify, this is not an extra responsibility. It extends the powers of the Coal Authority. This would not lead to an additional call on the public purse as the authority would be able to charge for this additional non-coal work if it wishes to undertake it. It is not appropriate even to be thinking about whether this should be a further charge to the public purse.
Lord Lea of Crondall
“PART 4AEnergy revenues and taxes: price effectsStatement on energy revenues, taxes and subsidies
(1) The Treasury shall publish an annual financial statement of all fiscal instruments, including revenues, tax expenditures and subsidies, currently in force which relate to the supply of energy, and the quantum of money generated or provided by each of them.
(2) The statement shall also list any relevant regulations relating to those fiscal instruments.
(3) The Treasury shall also publish, along with the statement, an assessment of the degree to which each fiscal instrument differentially affects consumers with different levels of income.
(4) The statement published under subsection (1) must assess the effect of any revenue, expenditure or subsidy on the Energy component of the Retail Prices Index, and must specify what effect those fiscal instruments have distinct from other impacts on the energy component.”
Lord Lea of Crondall
My Lords, expenditure on energy in Britain before tax is now about £76 billion. With tax, it is about £145 billion. That is of the order of just over 10 per cent of total UK expenditure. The statistical series which is the most obviously pertinent for this discussion is the annual statement produced by the Office for National Statistics called Environmental Accounts 2010. In 2009, environmental tax receipts—the label given by the ONS which includes hydrocarbons, unlike some other definitions of environmental tax receipts—totalled £40 billion. The tax take was £40 billion a year, which is double—I repeat, double—the amount collected in 1993. Therefore, it doubled in about 16 years.
It would be foolish to suppose that we will not see another move like that in the next 16 years, notably through the commitment to introduce carbon taxes of one sort or another. At present, by far the largest contributor to that £40 billion is hydrocarbon oils, which accounts for two-thirds of the above number—that is, £26 billion. The Institute of Fiscal Studies has a table showing all green tax receipts—on the same definition as the ONS and not the DECC definition—rising from £40 billion to £60 billion by 2015-16. That, noble Lords will notice, indicates that it will take six years for, on the face of it, the next 50 per cent increase. That shows the acceleration doubling every 12 years. It is an obvious acceleration. The GDP deflator for the six years concerned aggregates to 17 per cent, which brings the 50 per cent increase in real terms down to between 35 per cent and 40 per cent. Even so, that is an increase to £1,400 for a family presently paying £1,000 a year.
The statistical picture on taxes and transfers is becoming a jigsaw on which it is essential to get some clarity. I studied physics and mathematics—the noble Lord, Lord Oxburgh, will recognise this—and the thing you have to do is have a consistent system of units. You cannot compare apples and oranges all the time. That is true of energy finances as well. We are getting into a jigsaw where a great many of the pieces do not easily fit together. It is easier to double count or miss things out. There are things like the winter fuel allowance and a plethora of means-tested benefits. This is a pattern of complexity across the piece.
A few moments ago I referred to the treatment of energy subsidies, or quasi-subsidies of one sort or another. To give one example, right in the middle of the Bill there is a tweaking of the rate of interest for the Green Deal. You have to have a consistent system of financial accounts which treats all such moneys equally.
Dealing with regressiveness is a central purpose of my amendment, if we are to keep the people with us. There is a rather obscure publication—it was obscure to me, at least, but I am most grateful to the officials of DECC and the Treasury for drawing it to my attention at a meeting which the noble Lord, Lord Marland, kindly facilitated last Wednesday—called Estimated Impacts of Energy and Climate Change Policies on Energy Prices and Bills. I recommend it as bedtime reading for anyone who wants to, as it were, spend more time looking at these statistics.
The document shows the remarkable contrast between the top and bottom deciles in the impact of energy and climate change policies—particularly on what you might call home heating, because that definition does not include hydrocarbons. I shall come back to that in a minute. The tables are very vivid. They are all in the form of the steeply declining share of a household’s income spent on energy as you go from the bottom decile of income distribution to the top decile. This is quite a remarkable contrast: the top decile pays 2 per cent of income on household energy bills and the bottom decile 16 per cent.
There are also three interesting paragraphs in the text, which I shall read out. They are paragraphs 17, 18 and 19 of this document, which was produced last July, after a very thorough and expert review of all of these quasi-subsidies, subsidies and arrangements. I am taking only these three points but noble Lords can perhaps see why I think they illustrate an important principle. Paragraph 17 says:
“The increases in gas and electricity prices accelerate closer to 2020 as the ambition of the policies that are rolled out increases. However, there are a number of policies that already have some impact in 2010 (including the”,
renewables obligation—there are a lot of acronyms here—the,
“Carbon Emissions Reduction Target … Feed-in-Tariffs … and EU”,
Emissions Trading Scheme.
Paragraph 18 says:
“Table 1 also shows the estimated impact of energy and climate change policies on an average domestic energy (gas plus electricity) bill. In total, policies are estimated to increase the average bill by £13 (1%) compared to a bill in 2020 in the absence of these policies. The breakdown of the energy bill into separate gas and electricity bills shows that the biggest percentage increase comes from the rise in domestic gas bills”.
Now, noble Lords might say, “£13? Well, that’s peanuts”, but let them listen to paragraph 19:
“The impact of policies on gas and electricity prices is much greater than the impact on gas and electricity bills. This is because bills are a combination of prices and energy usage, and therefore include the impact of a range of policies which improve energy efficiency by helping households and businesses reduce energy consumption, lessening the overall bill impact. Chart 3 … shows the estimated average bill impact of individual policies in 2020”.
Lord Teverson
In terms of home energy costs, surely price elasticity is directly related to the income group that you are relating to. In a fuel poverty area, price elasticity is extremely high, which is one of the big problems of the energy crisis that the noble Lord is talking about. At the higher income levels, price elasticity is remarkably low, which I should think is the thing that affects price elasticity rather than the particular source of energy.
Lord Lea of Crondall
I think that the noble Lord is wrong. On reading the literature, heating is inelastic because people do not want to freeze to death, whereas they can drive less in their cars. This is the difference between the two elasticities.
Lord Teverson
I say this as a really serious point. One of the biggest obscenities in this country is that people die because they do not heat themselves sufficiently. It is a real issue and I am sure that others share my concern. Statistically, when the temperature goes down in this country, we get a significant increase in deaths, which is because people will not put on the heat.
Lord Lea of Crondall
I am comparing the price elasticity of home heating with the price elasticity of petrol for your car. That is my main point. It is precisely because people do not generally in this country freeze to death that price elasticity is different.
It is necessary to note that, in practice, the people at the bottom are stopping motoring. There is another statistical problem, or fallacy, built into the ONS statistics. Because they have disappeared from the statistics, it does not look as if the detailed distribution for motorists is as bad as it was. It is rather like saying, “The working class can no longer go to the Costa Brava for their holidays. We do not want that riff-raff going there anyway”. They are out of the statistics and they are out of the motoring statistics. This is another problem with the idea that we can easily use the price mechanism to determine consumption, even though in an ideal world it might be somehow very nice if there was a big reduction in motoring or airline expenditure. As I said in an earlier intervention, the logic is to have the same market externality carbon price, whether it is for aviation or for anything else. But how do you deal with the poverty effects on home heating?
I have three other points. At Second Reading, I used the phrase, “hypothetical hypothecation”, which will not get wider circulation in the bar in Burton upon Trent. We need a statistical picture which would be revealed by hypothetical hypothecation—I will not use the word again I can assure you—but would be quite separate from the actual amount of recycling of revenues within the system to deal with the actual regressiveness.
On the consultative forum, people will ask themselves intuitively, “Where is all this money going?” There is an extent to which we want to say that it is obvious how we are going to spend it. My noble friend Lord Prescott always used to say, “It doesn't matter if someone is charging £50 to drive 100 yards down Piccadilly in a Rolls-Royce. You can throw £50 notes out of it and that will satisfy the Rolls-Royce driver”. But Ken Livingstone or somebody like that would put it all into new buses. That is hypothecation. There is implicitly some undercurrent of the need for hypothecation—with a less fancy word—in what we are talking about. We need a statistical picture that would be revealed by hypothecation even though that is separate from the actual amount of recycling of revenues.
Finally, on fiscal arithmetic, there is a price floor for carbon, which is currently £15 per tonne. The power industry argues that the price needs to be about £35 a tonne to provide a viable return and the noble Lord, Lord Stern, for his part, is in a different fantasyland with an assumption of £75 a tonne at 2010 prices to make his scheme work.
Putting all that together, we have to take a crack at what I am saying in my first amendment so that there is no doubt that we have an agreed statistical basis. Who is going to agree it? That is the second amendment. A consultative body, I might be told by the noble Lord, Lord Marland, is not going to be flavour of the month with a coalition Government who is scrapping public bodies right, left and centre. However, I will make a practical point that even the Government’s own philosophy on the Public Bodies Bill is that it is not supposed to be the slaughter of the innocents. It is supposed to be ostensibly the slaughter of those who are not fit for purpose. I radically disagree with some of the conclusions that they make about that, but fit for purpose this would be. It would have a very clear purpose to get agreement, understanding and therefore some ownership of buy-in on behalf of their constituents—in every sense of that word—and all the different stakeholders in the country.
We have got to a point where this will literally begin to make sense in the bar in Burton upon Trent. It is those people who will complain about the price of heating, petrol, congestion taxes, parking taxes or whatever. This is where the regressiveness issue provides a bridge with the consultative stakeholder forum I referred to on Amendment 37B.
I should leave it there. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Marland, for his co-operation in getting some of these statistics sorted out with the department and the Treasury. I beg to move.
Baroness Noakes
My Lords, I rise to support the principle behind the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Lea of Crondall. I am not sure that the wording is easy to follow because it starts with the term “fiscal instruments”. The noble Lord went on to talk about a lot of the things that are leading to increased energy prices. He referred to the document put out by the department last summer showing the impact of policies on prices. Most things that have an impact on prices are not fiscal instruments in the way that you would customarily describe them in the sense of specific moneys going in or out of the Treasury. They are items that are borne by the energy companies and passed on to consumers. At the heart of what the noble Lord, Lord Lea of Crondall, was talking about is an important issue: there is a complete lack of transparency on the impact of the Government’s various energy policies and the way in which they impose costs on the energy sector, which are in consequence passed on to consumers. It is important that we have greater transparency.
Lord Deben
I oppose the amendment, first, because it suggests that the Treasury will be able to do things that even it cannot do. I am always suspicious of requests for the Treasury to do something, but this seems to go beyond the normal. In the interesting discussion between the noble Lord on this side of the Committee and the noble Lord, Lord Lea, on whether one situation is more elastic than another, we missed the important point: people make very different decisions, which are not necessarily connected with their income. Many of us have had the experience of canvassing in not the richest parts of constituencies and being hit by a wall of heat. That is in circumstances where people are clearly in the quartile to which the noble Lord, Lord Lea, referred. As I said, people make very different decisions. To ask the Treasury to produce some sort of documentation in which it applies these requirements to so wide a range of individual decision-making seems to me not sensible.
Secondly, the amendment does not fit into the whole context of the Bill and what we are trying to do. I say to my noble friend Lady Noakes that of course we want to have an effect on the consumer; that is part of what we have to do. However, the idea that there is some secret thing that we are not putting forward misses the point. The point is that we do not pay the proper price of our energy because we do not pay the price for destroying our climate. I know that my noble friend does not believe that the climate is changing, but most of us do. In those circumstances, we would do great harm to a future generation if we allowed people to go on treating energy as if it did not have these costs. Therefore, those of us who believe in a marketplace have to make sure that the market pays the costs.
We ought to be a bit bolder in telling people what we are about; that we are hoping to provide alternative means which do not destroy the future for our children and our grandchildren. The idea of trying to twist the argument in order to say that it is somehow unfair on a statistical fault is one that I have always found so difficult in politics. Of course it is true that if you have a smaller income, any increase has a bigger effect. It says nothing to say that. You can put up the price of anything and it is bound to affect those on the poorest incomes by its nature. That is not a statistical statement but a fact of life which is obvious to all.
The question is: can we take alternative measures in order to help those who are most hurt by this? However, you do not do that by providing even those very erudite people who clearly speak in the pubs of Burton with the material suggested in both these amendments. I cannot believe—although it may be true of Burton, it certainly is not true of any town that I know—that this would be the subject of discussion in the saloon bar, let alone the public bar. The fact of the matter is that there would be a general moan about the increase in prices.
We have to face the problem that if we are to deliver a world in which our children are able to live comfortably, we have to change our energy arrangements. In this Bill, we are doing that to help poor people to have the kind of housing which does not need as much heat. That is part of what we are trying to do and I hope that the Minister will be extremely robust in her reply to the noble Lord, Lord Lea. This seems to me to be both out of date and not a sensible use of Treasury time. I would like to see the Treasury getting down to understanding why on earth it cannot allow sensible borrowing from the private sector to improve energy efficiency. It pretends that that is somehow or other on the books when it could quite easily be off them.
There are a lot of things that the Treasury can be doing but it should not be doing this and we certainly should not kid ourselves that we either make these changes or, in fact, leave the world a worse place. I am a Conservative; I believe in passing on to the next generation something better than I have received. That is why I am very much in favour of this Bill and I hope that we will be really tough about the proposals in this amendment.
Lord Dixon-Smith
Perhaps I might intervene after my two noble friends, partly because I would like to introduce a little bit of hope. I should say to the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, that in fact the consumer pays for it all. We should not duck on that. Even if they do not pay for it through their use of the fuel, they do so through their taxes. The consumer has to pay the total bill, one way or another. Of course, through the tax system we share the bill out a little differently from the actual consumption figures, which are what I really want to talk about. My noble friend Lord Deben brings me to my feet, because I want to look backwards instead of forwards.
The fact of my life is that in 1960, I paid one shilling and thre’pence and three-eighths of a penny for a gallon—that is, five litres—of farm red tractor diesel. Petrol prices were commensurate but the duty rates were of course higher. In the case of petrol, prices have risen as they have with red diesel oil but the duties have risen even further.
Lord Dixon-Smith
My Lords, I do not need to go back to the beginning. My point was that I was paying one shilling and thre’pence and three-eighths of a penny for a gallon of tractor diesel in 1960—50 years ago. I suppose I had better convert that to metric currency, as most people here are probably not familiar with one shilling and thre’pence and three-eighths of a penny. It was about 6.25p for a gallon of fuel or a fraction more perhaps than 1.25p per litre. Currently, the price is around 61p to 62p per litre. That includes an element of tax, which of course has gone up on that as it has on everything else. That, over my lifetime—or all our lifetimes—is an energy price rise of 5,000 per cent.
If anyone had stopped to think about that in 1960, they would have thought that the world would collapse. For sure, the noble Lord, Lord Lea of Crondall, has a point when he is concerned about the future. We need to be concerned about the rise in the price of energy and about the way in which that use affects people’s lives. Having said that, we have all lived already through enormous change and I see no reason to believe that we cannot continue to do that.
The Lord Bishop of Chester
My Lords, whether one takes the view that current government policies will lead to an unpleasant, unfortunate and regrettable increase in energy prices through the renewables obligation and so forth or one takes the line of the noble Lord, Lord Deben, who is not back from the vote yet, that this is all in order to save the universe, the public needs a certain amount of transparency on the issue.
Another reason it is important concerns the great increase in energy prices since the youth of the noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith, who must be even older than me if it was that cheap when he was young. The key question going forward is how energy prices in this country relate to energy prices in other countries. If such prices in this country get out of step internationally, that would have profound implications precisely for the people in the pub in Burton upon Trent who would find their jobs under threat if they were dependent on energy usage.
Whichever way you look at it, a consistent, annual process of reporting should be as far as possible value-neutral. We can all then make our minds up on a fair and accepted basis of available information, which is important for going forward. It would be very hard to say that that is available at the moment. As has been said, there is a great deal of confusion. One way or another, I do not doubt that this amendment is not right in its present form—perhaps this is not the Bill for it—but we need to have information or there will be misinformation. It needs to be a priority as we go forward with our energy policies.
Lord Whitty
My Lords, I broadly support the thrust of these amendments. It seems to me that there are four separate issues. First, on transparency, most people who have spoken think that there should be more transparency. The noble Lord, Lord Deben, is not in his place, but it would not be that difficult for the Treasury to provide more transparency in this area. Between DECC, the Treasury, Ofgem and DWP, a lot of information needs to be pulled together. It should be presented in such a way that debate can be focused and different policy options can be properly addressed. That does not exist as effectively as it should. The first of these amendments attempts to address that issue.
The second issue is, faced with that information, what is the policy? To address the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Deben, we clearly all agree that if you are going to have behavioural change, somebody has to bear the price. It is a question of who bears that price, what the social consequences are of bearing it, what the structure of tariffs is—to go back to the point raised a few days ago by the noble Earl, Lord Cathcart and the noble Lord, Lord Teverson—and how they affect people’s behaviour and energy use. We can draw different conclusions. We can have a proper policy debate as long as we have the basic information in a form that is understandable, at least at some level, not only by us but in a public bar in Burton upon Trent.
The third dimension is the narrative. Wearing my consumer hat until very recently, I have argued that the narrative to consumers about where we are going on energy has been missing. Without that narrative, we are not going to convince the public in general that we have an energy policy that works for them and which has a clear outcome. From their different perspectives, the energy companies, consumer groups and the Government are in desperate need of a clear narrative, but it depends on having clarity of figures.
The last point addressed by the second amendment is about where we discuss this. Whether or not the exact form that my noble friend Lord Lea proposes is suitable for our approach to government, clearly there has to be somewhere where energy policy issues are addressed from the different objectives of energy policy: decarbonisation, fuel poverty, climate change, energy security, investment necessities, the structure of regulation and other government interventions. Of course, there are going to be definitional problems even with regard to the basic information. Is road fuel duty an environmental tax or not? It was started by Lloyd George when climate change was not a well known problem. It is difficult to say that it is entirely an environmental tax as distinct from a general tax-raising power. Likewise, is the winter fuel payment really to address fuel poverty or is it a supplement to social security policy?
There will be serious definitional problems, but let us get them out in the open. We can then move on to clearer policy discussion and to a narrative that the public might eventually be persuaded to understand. Although noble Lords will no doubt have some problems with aspects of the amendments as down, it would behove all of us to recognise that these four issues need to be addressed. At the moment, one of the problems of energy policy is that people have got hold of part of the problem but cannot see the totality. One of the reasons for that is the lack of agreed and clear statistics and information on the basic facts about energy.
Lord Judd
I agree with my noble friend that our noble friend has opened up huge issues, but does he not agree that what this exchange really illustrates is that we limit ourselves by talking about energy as though it were a commodity, when it is not? Like water and the atmosphere, it is a public good, in effect, because human societies simply cannot operate without it. From that standpoint, these strategic considerations and how they come together are crucial.
Lord Whitty
It is a public good, but public goods also have a price, and somebody has to bear that price. The public good of energy is a variable commodity in the form in which it comes, in the way that water and air are not. Therefore, there are more policy options and more complications.
Lord Davies of Oldham
It is not often that I express thanks for the result of the last general election, but I do on this occasion. I am really glad I am not in the position of having to respond to this amendment because it raises areas of such profound complexity and objectives to which we all ought to subscribe. This is a very difficult debate to respond to and my sympathy goes out to the Minister as she prepares herself for that response.
The first and obvious fact I want to emphasise is that we owe a considerable debt of gratitude to my noble friend Lord Lea of Crondall. It is important that we address the total perspective of energy pricing which, after all, lies at the heart of everything that we are trying to do with regard to the green deal and the green revolution. It affects the whole way in which our society adjusts to the levels of consumption of energy and how we generate cheaper forms of energy. If we are not successful with the new strategies, the pressure on energy sources will be such that the increases energy prices over the past 50 years, to which the noble Lord, Lord Dixon, referred, may look absolutely marginal compared with what might obtain over the next 50 years.
However, the noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith, did fulfil an adage which I often use in general discussion, which is that men may not know too many prices but there is always one price that they know and that is the price of petrol or diesel for their car. That is not just because stations are obliged to put it up in lights but because men have one great consumption factor which is their cars. That does not mean to say that rational behaviour takes place. We all know those who would go the extra 15 miles to save something like 40p on filling the car up but they consume that amount and perhaps more getting there and back. One should not underestimate the issue of irrationality even when a price is transferred.
My noble friend must have taken some sustenance from the fact that the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, offered some support for his position: she emphasised the fact that this is a plea for transparency, and we need transparency. Our present factors of production, our present modes of consumption are such as to make it extremely difficult for people to respond accurately and effectively to energy prices or to know the factors that produce the price. This is particularly the case with the householder in terms of the supply of electricity and gas. My noble friend has made a most valiant effort to try to see the way in which the Treasury might throw some light on some very dark and murky quarters in circumstances where we all appreciate that we will not get the community response to the energy transformation of the future unless people have confidence that what our society is doing, what our Government are doing on behalf of our society and what individual productive units in our society are doing is fair and reasonable and clear in terms of policy.
I listened very closely to the noble Lord, Lord Deben, who has a great deal of authority on these matters, particularly in this area to which he contributed a great deal as a Minister. He says that it is all about price signals, that we have to ensure that people recognise that the costs will increase and that people will have to knuckle under and respond to it, but we do not say the same thing about food. The Government do not put VAT on food and yet there is a world crisis in food. Many of us believe that there is considerable overconsumption of food and consumption of the wrong cheap foods in our society. Which Government would dare to talk about sending out a price signal to make food more expensive by imposing VAT? I cannot recall either side of the House or even the third part of the House—I have difficulties adjusting to the coalition even now although I do not include the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, in that—the Liberal Democrats, during the freedom they had before they joined the coalition, talking about sending out price signals for food.
We operate within a situation where the Government seek to give support to certain essential goods, of which food is obviously one, and, clearly, we have to do that for energy. We do it with fuel payments. In this Committee, we have discussed whether the tariff should change so that consumption on the early parts of the tariff should be reduced, rather than the present position where it is the most expensive. These are very real issues that my noble friend has raised.
However, all Members of the Committee have raised some reservations about it. They have seen difficulties with these proposals. I am not sure whether it is a matter of the Treasury being overworked if it takes on this objective, although it looks like a massive agenda to me. The point is whether the Treasury could hit the objectives that my noble friend identifies, particularly as it is quite clear that he would also like to see the revenues received from energy prices put into a bundle— he was very gentle about his use of the word “hypothecation”—in which they could be directed to counter the most regressive elements in the present price inquisition.
That is a pretty challenging agenda. I have spent a small amount of time on Treasury matters over the past few years in your Lordships' House and taking that on seems to be quite a challenge for policy makers. I do not have the slightest doubt that the Minister is likely to say the same thing. I emphasise to my noble friend that he has done us a service with the introduction of these two very challenging amendments and I hope that the Minister, in reply, will indicate that she thinks that from these discussions there may be strategies which we can pursue and which will be effective.
Baroness Northover
My Lords, we come back to the heart of the Bill at its conclusion. At the very start, my noble friend Lord Marland laid out the vision of this Bill. These amendments, which are about the transparency required to ensure that we deliver what we are seeking to do, have brought us back there again. Therefore, I welcome the opportunity to be able to debate this set of issues. The Government are very committed to greater transparency, thus building on what the previous Government were committed to and we seek to take that further. It is extremely important that transparency enables the public to hold politicians and public bodies to account and we are strongly committed to that. We need to be very clear and very public about where we are heading.
On these amendments, I point out that publications by the Office for Budget Responsibility, the Treasury and the Department of Energy and Climate Change already provide information relating to revenues, tax expenditures and distributional impacts similar to those suggested in the amendment. They clearly are not especially popular in the sense that not everyone is totally familiar with them all. However, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Lea, for taking the time to go over these publications with DECC and Treasury officials and for discussing his amendments with them. His opening speech showed that a tremendous amount of material is already available and it reminded me of the discussions I hear my sons—both of whom are doing PPE—having about the economic effect of this and that and whether it will happen in this direction or that. Nevertheless, the noble Lord was able to do that, I suggest, because much of that information is available.
Obviously, we need to go further and faster, as I think we would all agree. However, a great deal of information is already available. We welcome the noble Lord’s suggestions about how to take this forward. I also point out that DECC produces an annual publication, alongside the annual energy statement, setting out the impact of energy and climate change policies on gas and electricity bills for households and businesses. People may not pay too much attention to that, but it is available.
The department is looking for opportunities to build on and refine the analysis so that it is more accessible to the public, and the noble Lord’s contribution will feed into that. For example, we expect the next publication to include an analysis looking at the impact on illustrative energy-intensive users, which was mentioned just now. It is also extremely important to remember—the previous Government deserve credit for this—that the Equality Act, which we passed just before the general election and which we are now implementing, requires an assessment of the impact in various areas, including on those who may be in deprived groups, of various policies right across government. Wearing one of my other hats, I know that this is indeed happening and that the assessment of the impact of policies is being made in a way which I think the noble Lord, Lord Lea, would welcome. This is an early stage of the development but it is very important and will be taken forward. It is already happening.
I turn to the important elements emphasised by the noble Lords, Lord Deben and Lord Whitty, which is that we need to stand back and look at what we are seeking to do here. Clearly, we need to get the case across. Transparency helps, but do not doubt that statistics will be used by both sides in different ways as they seek to bolster their own arguments. In the end, that is why it comes down to what the Government decide should be the right strategy. There is a tremendous amount of agreement in the Committee, although there are one or two dissenting voices, but generally speaking we know where we are trying to head and we certainly wish to have greater transparency so that we can take people with us. In the end, the decision will go beyond that. Either we have to tackle climate change and we have the tools in this Bill to do that, or we do not. Generally, I think we agree that we need to do that, which is why we have introduced the Bill and why we are taking these proposals forward.
As there is already a lot of information available and as we welcome the suggestions about how we improve on that, how we take that forward and how we ensure that there is as much public discussion as possible, although not necessarily on the details of hypothecation, I hope that the noble Lord will be willing to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Lea of Crondall
My Lords, I thank everyone who has spoken, not least the Minister, for a very positive and helpful conclusion. I will disappoint her if she thinks that I am inclined to leave the matter here. Some alterations are needed and some of this material needs to be altered by an amendment on Report. I hope my Front Bench agrees, but I have yet to find out.
I will just, if I may, say that I did not know the Equality Act had been a topic in looking at this. I know that there is horizontal equality, but I did not know that vertical equality was part of the scope of the discussion arising from the Equality Act.
Baroness Northover
Perhaps I can help the noble Lord by pointing out that you have to look at an impact assessment of everything you are doing to see how it might disproportionately affect different groups. Therefore, policies such as this come within that. Everything that the Government do comes within that.
Lord Lea of Crondall
I thank the Minister. She knows that I have the highest regard for her. But can I take it one by one, if I may put it that way? I am particularly grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, for her broad support for the idea. She said that it was something that needed to be raised even though she stopped short of making it a mutual admiration society. That would be awkward for both of us. Many things that she said rang a bell with me. I will look at all the points that she raised.
We all know the noble Lord, Lord Deben, much better as Mr Gummer. He may remember Rio where I was a delegate, in 1991 or 1992. I am sorry that he adopted a slightly theological approach. I will rephrase that: it was an ideological approach. It was as if anybody raising the point that I was raising must be trying to destroy the policy. I have been on this wicket batting and scoring runs for as long as he has and we will hit a brick wall—to mix my metaphors, which I always do—unless we get some more buy-in in Burton upon Trent. I am very glad that Burton upon Trent has been mentioned four or five times. I will rechristen the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chester, the Bishop of Burton upon Trent. That will help also the scoreline.
I take issue with the noble Lord, Lord Deben, about this point. Surely it is making a mountain out of a mole hill to say that the Treasury cannot do the work. As we have just heard from the Minister, a lot of this material is around.
Lord Lea of Crondall
My Lords, I rather cut short my thanks to the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, but she will perhaps forgive me for that. I think I thanked the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, and was addressing some remarks to the noble Lord, Lord Deben. I made one remark about this being a great cost to the Treasury. I do not think it is a great cost, but I think it is a challenge, and I make no apology for mentioning Burton upon Trent once again because we have to keep in mind the audience that we have to get to if it is not going to revolt. It is not just a statistical bulletin. Statistics unfortunately do not speak for themselves. That is where spin comes in. I would rather there was a stakeholder body that agreed on certain things that needed to be done or were self-evidently true. We cannot afford to be elitist. That is a statement of the obvious. There is a huge increase in taxation in these tables.
The second point on which I would very respectfully part company with the noble Lord, Lord Deben, is about his remark that this is the wrong Bill. When two or three years ago, my noble friend Lord Rooker was summing up on the Climate Change Bill, which was not a million miles different from this Bill, he said that his job was to get the Bill through, but he was not sure that it was the right Bill. I can foresee the next 10 energy Bills never being the right Bill, so I have got my teeth into the backside of this particular elephant.
Lord Deben
I said a number of things, but I do not think I said that this is the wrong Bill. It seems perfectly reasonable to put it in; I just think it is the wrong amendment, which is rather different.
Lord Lea of Crondall
I am pleased about that. It may have been the noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith, and as he is not here, he cannot deny it.
I thank my noble friend Lord Whitty for his broad support. I totally take his point about the need to make some adjustment. I say to my noble friend Lord Judd that rationing by price is a rather crude but accurate way of describing the world we live in. Whether it is capitalism or socialism, rationing by price is a fact of life in the middle of India or anywhere else. We also have to bear in mind that if we cannot change the income distribution in this country to be more reasonable than the outrageous distribution at the moment, we will have to fiddle around with a lot of discounts, exceptions and adjustments. Unfortunately, the question would then be whether so many people would be excluded from the heavy incidences of some of those price rises that we would not raise the revenue or have the carbon effect that we wished. That is the moral hazard that we are into, and it requires a lot of thought.
My penultimate point is that I do not think that today is the day when Treasury officials in the Room are going to stand up and say, “We’ve fallen in love with hypothecation”. What I am suggesting is in the Treasury’s interest. The priesthood in the Treasury is not separate from the rest of society, and we want to encourage it to be part of fronting up some of these matters. The consultative body and all the stakeholders have got to be able to communicate with Burton upon Trent. I think that community needs to be brought together.
Finally, my noble friend Lord Davies of Oldham was very kind in what he said. I can assure him that we are at one in wanting to get this in a form that does not have all the teething points. I do not think the amendment as it stands states as crudely as he implied that we put all these taxes into one bundle and redistribute them in energy. I go halfway to that to make sure that the quantum is clearly identified. I recognise that this is mainly for general taxation, but in Burton upon Trent, it is a huge selling point to be able to say, “This is what we are doing with some of the money”. I want to be a bit pedantic about that distinction. I hope that it is acceptable for me to say that one bundle does not quite sum up what I was trying to say. I will conclude on that note. Although I hope that we can come back to this on Report with a slightly different amendment, I would like to withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Maddock
My Lords, I will be very brief. I cannot let this moment pass. Clause 102 comes under the heading of “Miscellaneous”. It might be miscellaneous to everybody else in the room but, to me, there is nothing miscellaneous about it. It repeals the Home Energy Conservation Act 1995, which I was lucky enough to steer through the other House when I was a Member of it. We have a little bit left: the definitions in Section 1 of the Act that have effect for the purposes of the Sustainable Energy Act 2003.
I have spoken about it before. A lot of people did a lot of work to enable that Private Member’s Bill to become law. It was when the Conservatives were last in Government. Unfortunately, the Labour Government never used it in the way that it was intended. If they had we might have more houses that were not in need of a lot of energy-efficient measures today. I pay tribute to all the people who helped and worked in local authorities as Home Energy Conservation Act officers. There was a whole army of them. It created lots of jobs. It led to homes becoming more energy efficient and I know that the Minister has said that he understands the important role of local authorities. They were particularly good at taking whole areas and rolling out programmes in streets. I hope that those are the sorts of lessons that can go forward as the Green Deal goes forward. On Report, I look forward perhaps to hearing a little bit more about the detail of the involvement of local authorities. However, I could not possibly let it go past.
House of Lords
Crime: Media Reporting
(13 years, 4 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Lord Bishop of Chester
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they will review the rules for reporting the arrest and questioning of individuals by the police before they are charged with any criminal offence.
The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Neville-Jones)
My Lords, the principle of a free but responsible press without state intervention is fundamental to our democracy, but the right reverend Prelate’s Question raises a number of important issues. On Friday, during the Second Reading of the Anonymity (Arrested Persons) Bill in the other place, the Government undertook to consider whether the contempt laws and guidance on pre-charge reporting contain any gaps that may impede justice.
The Lord Bishop of Chester
I thank the noble Baroness for that Answer. I acknowledge that this is a complex area, as emerged in the debate in the other place on Friday, but will the Government at least consider extending the post-charge restrictions on reporting contained in the Contempt of Court Act to pre-charge questioning of suspects?
Baroness Neville-Jones
My Lords, on the whole the Government take the view that we want to maintain a free but, as I said, responsible press. I do not wish at this stage to go any further than to say that the Government think that there is a potential gap in our protections and that they are more than prepared to look at whether the contempt laws and police guidance on reporting contain omissions that need to be remedied.
The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord McNally)
My Lords, I think that we shall take a question from the Cross Benches and then from the noble and learned Lord.
Lord Lloyd of Berwick
My Lords, in high-profile cases, as I am sure the Minister knows, the police are often under great pressure from the press and others to make an arrest. Does she agree that it is all the more important in such cases that the police should be scrupulous in applying the test of reasonable suspicion, which is an objective as well as a subjective test?
Baroness Neville-Jones
Yes, my Lords. I think that the police would agree that they need to be scrupulous in applying the guidance that they have in such cases. Indeed, they should apply it in relation to a person who has been detained by them but not charged. They should take care not to impugn that person’s reputation.
Lord Morris of Aberavon
My Lords, while the press are usually economical in the reporting of an arrested person, would I be right in surmising that the Attorney-General would have expressed some anxieties about the extent of the reports on the arrests in the Bristol case? As Attorney-General, I sometimes had to refer to the courts cases about which I was anxious. I did so not always successfully, as it was not easy to judge where the line had been crossed. In discussions between the Attorney-General and the press, would there be any merit in revisiting the boundary lines of what is fair reporting without prejudicing an arrested person?
Baroness Neville-Jones
My Lords, the Attorney-General will obviously take his remit extremely seriously. I do not know whether he will choose that route; the view has certainly been expressed, so I have no doubt that he will take notice of it. I can assure the House that the Attorney-General is quite clear that he needs to examine this issue seriously, because it has considerable ramifications.
Lord Borrie
My Lords, does the noble Baroness agree that it is usually unwise to act to change the law because some unfortunate individual has been embarrassed or irritated? Does she also agree that, in this type of case, questioning and the publication of the questioning by police often encourage potential witnesses to jog their memories and assist in the successful prosecution of somebody, not necessarily the first suspect?
Baroness Neville-Jones
My Lords, the noble Lord is quite right that this can be of assistance. It obviously has to be balanced with the rights of individuals who may have been detained and subsequently not charged. The Attorney-General has not chosen to act immediately precisely because he wishes to look at the issues involved, not necessarily just at this case. The Private Member’s Bill was not supported by the Government and has been withdrawn, but he is going to look at the issues.
Lord Campbell of Alloway
My Lords, in these days of severe attack, one has to be careful about these rules in the interests of the whole country. To some degree, does one not have to trust the police to exercise a fair discretion and not put everything in writing?
Baroness Neville-Jones
My Lords, the police of course have guidance in writing, but the noble Lord is quite right to say that they have to interpret that guidance in light of the operational circumstances of any case. I am sure that that is what they try to do. Clearly there are tensions in the whole question of the freedom of the press, the need for the police to conduct an investigation and the rights of individuals who may be affected by that. It is that balance that we need to strike.
Lord Soley
All good things come to those who wait. This is a much wider problem and it needs to be faced. It is not just the trashing of people’s private lives but also the increasing use of fishing expeditions to invade people’s privacy. Is it not time that the Government said to the press that we need to discuss this in a much more serious way? It is a balance between the rights of reporting and the rights of privacy and how that is dealt with. The Government need to take the lead and maybe put it on the agenda of the next meeting in Downing Street.
Baroness Neville-Jones
My Lords, I think that many of your Lordships would agree with the proposition that there are wider issues involved. Indeed, there are wider categories of people involved, not simply the persons whom we have just been talking about. The Attorney-General wants to look at, first, the question of balance and, secondly, where you draw the line in relation to categories of people.
Baroness Harris of Richmond
My Lords, can the noble Baroness say why the Government changed their decision and dropped the proposed anonymity for those accused of rape?
Baroness Neville-Jones
My Lords, the noble Baroness asks a question that I cannot entirely answer—I do not have the depth of knowledge. I will seek an answer in writing for her. The Government have certainly been looking at this issue for some time and, in the light of this case, have decided that it needs to be gripped.
Equality
(13 years, 4 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Smith of Clifton
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their policy regarding the growing gap between the rich and the poor in the United Kingdom.
The Commercial Secretary to the Treasury (Lord Sassoon)
My Lords, action taken in the June Budget and spending review has demonstrated the Government’s commitment to fairness. We set out in the spending review our best estimate of the overall distributional impact of the fiscal consolidation. This shows that the top 20 per cent contribute most to the fiscal consolidation as a percentage of net income and benefits in kind.
Lord Smith of Clifton
I thank the Minister for that Answer in so far as it goes. This gap has been growing for three decades. When does the Minister think that the gap will be so great that it constitutes a threat to the social fabric? Will he also give us a progress report on the pay crackdown on bankers promised by the Chancellor of the Exchequer?
Lord Sassoon
My Lords, the Government take extremely seriously the question of fairness, which is why we introduced for the first time a distributional analysis to show the effects of not only our Budget but also our spending review decisions. In the measures that we have announced so far, in what is a very difficult fiscal situation, there is a fairness premium of £7.2 billion. The Government are putting these issues centre stage. In relation to bankers’ pay, my right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer has announced today that the levy on banks will be brought forward, so that the banks will be taxed at a higher level than under the previous Government’s one-off spending plans. We will await further developments in relation to discussions ongoing with the banks.
Lord Eatwell
My Lords, in the noble Lord’s reference to his Government’s policy on this matter and to the Budget, was he not being a little misleading, as the equality analysis in the Budget included the measures introduced by Mr Darling in March? When the measures introduced by the coalition are taken alone, they do not contribute to greater equality.
Lord Sassoon
My Lords, we took some very difficult decisions about which of the previous Government’s measures we would continue with and which we would not. The principal measure of the previous Government that we did not continue with was the full national insurance tax—the jobs tax—which would have been a significant drag on the growth prospects of this economy. Of course it was right that we should take into account the distributional effect of the total package of measures that we put through as a Government this year in the Budget and in the spending review. That is just what we have done.
Lord McFall of Alcluith
Is it the Government’s intention to adhere to the last Government’s ambition to eliminate child poverty completely by 2020?
Lord Sassoon
My Lords, this Government are committed to the Child Poverty Act 2010. I note that the previous Government struggled somewhat with their previous child poverty target; the target to halve child poverty by 2010 was widely acknowledged to have been missed. This Government are committed to the targets in the Child Poverty Act and will bring forward a strategy by the end of March 2011.
The Earl of Listowel
My Lords, the Minister will recall that the right honourable David Cameron, the Prime Minister, appointed Frank Field MP to produce a report on child poverty, which he duly did and recommended early intervention. Is he aware of the report in yesterday’s Times in which Frank Field said that he is very concerned at the threatened closure of many Sure Start children’s centres? Will the noble Lord consider with his colleagues what might be done to prevent this? Frank Field suggests that local authorities should be made aware that shortly there will be new child poverty indices and that local authorities will fall down if they do not meet them and if they close these centres.
Lord Sassoon
My Lords, Frank Field’s work will indeed inform the child poverty strategy, which, as I said, will be coming forward by the end of March this year. In relation to his reported comments in the newspapers, the Government have introduced an early intervention grant amounting to £2.2 billion, rising to almost £2.3 billion in 2012-13. It is up to local authorities how they spend that and their other resources. We have taken away significant numbers of the ring-fenced targets that they had to meet. They have money with which to keep the existing network of children’s centres open and they have obligations under the Childcare Act 2006, but it is a decision for the local authorities.
Lord Boswell of Aynho
My Lords, while I in no sense wish to minimise the realities of poverty, is it not time that we started to move at least some of the terms of this debate away from a static analysis about whether one measure is or is not helpful, or whether there is enough incentive at one point in time, towards a much more dynamic approach in which we emphasise the importance of personal development, education, training and personal responsibility so that, as people move into employment, which is the best solution for poverty, they may better themselves financially and lead a more fulfilling and satisfactory life?
Lord Sassoon
I am grateful to my noble friend and I agree completely with his analysis. That is why we have introduced the £2.5 billion pupil premium to increase the emphasis on the educational development of children from the most disadvantaged backgrounds; that is why we are introducing the £150 million per annum national scholarship fund; and that is why my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions is working on the most complex and important reassessment of welfare and benefits that has been attempted for two generations in order to get away from the overcomplex system of means-tested cash benefits and the dependency of far too many families who are trapped in welfare.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton
My Lords, would the Minister care to answer the question put by the noble Lord, Lord Smith of Clifton, who asked not about the taxation of banks but about bankers? Does he agree with me that if I received a bonus of £100 million and were to lose even half of it, that would not be the same as being in poverty and losing £10 a week?
Lord Sassoon
My Lords, the subject of the Question this afternoon is what the Government are doing about the gap between the rich and the poor, which is something that we take extremely seriously. The best thing that we can do is to set the stable conditions for sustained growth in the economy, because that is what will improve the lot of the poorest in our society.
EU: Police and Justice
(13 years, 4 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Pearson of Rannoch
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they will exercise their right to opt out of the police and justice provisions of the Lisbon treaty after 2014.
The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord McNally)
My Lords, the Government are considering carefully the many different factors and implications involved in this decision, which does not have to be taken until 31 May 2014.
Lord Pearson of Rannoch
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for that Answer, which does not quite give the full picture. The Government can opt out of all the 90 or so laws now and, if they want to, opt in to any of them individually thereafter.
Does the noble Lord remember the Prime Minister saying:
“We will want to prevent EU judges gaining steadily greater control over our criminal justice system by negotiating an arrangement which would protect it. That will mean limiting the European Court of Justice’s jurisdiction over criminal law”?
First, will the Government support that promise in any vote on this matter—in the House of Commons and in your Lordships’ House—which, as the noble Lord knows, has been promised down the other end? Secondly, are not the Government faced here with a straight dilemma: is it to be the wishes of the British people or is it to be appeasement?
Lord McNally
The answer to the last question is the former. The length and complexity of the noble Lord’s supplementary questions indicate why the Government are sensibly taking great care to study and consult on these matters, particularly with the committees of both this House and another place, and as he rightly said, my right honourable friend David Lidington has made it clear in a Statement to the House that when the decision is to be made on these matters, there will be a full debate and vote in both Houses of Parliament.
Lord Thomas of Gresford
Does not my noble friend agree that to scrap the co-operation in surveillance, pursuit, arrest and extradition that exists with European countries in areas such as drugs, international fraud and trafficking would be simply daft?
Lord McNally
I will have to check carefully whether “daft” is a parliamentary term, but I would have thought that such a course of action would be somewhere in that range of description.
Lord Bach
My Lords, it is very good to have the Minister back answering Questions on behalf of the Government. We missed him.
The Minister will know that, during the last Parliament, the Justice Select Committee looked at this matter with some care and, I have to say, commended the last Government for much that they did in this undoubtedly very complex field. The present Government are to be commended on their reply to the Select Committee of another place, in which they said that,
“this Government intends to play a strong and positive role in the European Union”.
We say “Hear, hear” to that.
Would the Minister agree that what are needed before we move to legislation of any kind under the Stockholm programme are evidence-based proposals and a long look before we actually legislate? Is it not the truth about this matter that it is necessary always to be sensible and practical about it?
Lord McNally
My Lords, yes it is. That is why we are following the pattern, as the noble Lord said, of looking at these matters in a pragmatic and practical way, with a mind to defending essential British interests and making sure that our judicial system is protected while also ensuring that we retain the many benefits of cross-border and EU co-operation referred to by my noble friend Lord Thomas.
Lord Hannay of Chiswick
Does the Minister agree that it would be a little odd to suggest that we should give up the right to decide whether to opt in? Will he confirm that the Government would opt into an EU measure only when they considered it to be in Britain’s national interests? Does he not think that to be able to opt in only after the matter has been negotiated by everyone else and not by us would be the least good way in which to bring our influence to bear?
Lord McNally
Again, I agree. The practical way in which we have operated since coming into office is to look at the merits of the case, to put our decision before the two Select Committees of both Houses and to listen to their advice. It makes no sense at all to have knee-jerk reactions or to play to various galleries. We are looking at these matters in Britain’s interests, consulting as far and wide as we can and listening to Parliament. That is the best way in which to get the best decisions.
Lord Vinson
My Lords, under the guise of anti-terrorism and protecting society, many measures throughout history have been introduced that chip away quietly at many of our ancient liberties as enshrined, not least, under habeas corpus. I hope that the Minister will take very seriously the widespread anxiety about the continual erosion of the rights of the British citizen, which is done possibly for good short-term reasons but, in the long run, is chipping away at many of our basic and fundamental liberties.
Lord McNally
My Lords, one of my responsibilities at the Ministry of Justice is as Minister for civil liberties. I assure my noble friend that the concerns that he expressed are never far from my thoughts. Our civil liberties will have to be protected and guarded.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
Can the Minister recall that, when he and I fought side by side in the Labour movement for Europe for greater co-operation among the countries of the European Community, we were exceeded in our enthusiasm only by the Liberal Democrats? Is that still the case?
Lord McNally
The last time I waited to respond to an intervention from the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, I keeled over and spent four days in St Thomas’ Hospital. But I am glad to walk down memory lane with him.
Lord McAvoy
My Lords, would the Minister not agree that using denigratory terms such as “daft” and “playing to various galleries” devalues the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Pearson of Rannoch, who, for the purposes of this Question, I will call my noble friend—that will be a first in this House, I think. There is a serious point in the thrust of my noble friend’s Question. In taking these decisions, it should always be borne in mind that the British public still need to be convinced that the social and other laws coming from Europe are in tune with British national opinion.
Lord McNally
Again, I could not agree more. I am saying that successive Governments have built in methods of scrutiny and consultation that should reassure all but the most sceptical of colleagues. What we are doing now and what is before both Houses should give them that reassurance. Perhaps the noble Lords, Lord Foulkes, Lord Pearson of Rannoch and Lord McAvoy, and I could meet to discuss these matters.
Citizens Advice Bureaux
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the impact of the reduction in grants to citizens advice bureaux on their ability to provide advice to the public.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (Baroness Wilcox)
My Lords, the Government value highly the work of Citizens Advice and of citizens advice bureaux, but the provision of advice and the funding that goes with it are a matter that rests with local authorities based on local needs and priorities. We know how difficult it is at the moment for local authorities facing tough decisions, but we have made it clear to them that in setting budgets the voluntary sector is good value for money and should be seen as a solution, not as a problem for them.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness. She says that this falls to local authorities. Is she aware that as a result of the cuts made to the CABs in Birmingham, which has a Conservative/Lib Dem authority, all its bureaux are due for closure in the next few weeks? Is she also aware that the Law Centre is similarly affected by cuts in legal aid, which are the responsibility of central government? That is being replicated up and down the country. Where are people to turn to for advice and what price the big society?
Baroness Wilcox
The noble Lord is of course right to talk about Birmingham, because after all he comes from Hall Green in Birmingham and this is very much a local issue for him. We understand that Birmingham is changing the way in which it funds advice services to ensure greater value for money in a tougher environment. It is not taking away funding for advice services—you should not always believe what you read in the newspapers. There are four bureaux there and negotiations are going on. We will keep our telephone line open while those negotiations are going on. We understand that there will be some transition funding to bridge the gap before recommissioning for services later this year. We hope that the people of Birmingham will support their local CAB during the intervening period until recommissioning. It is a difficult time for them and we need to help all we can.
Lord Phillips of Sudbury
My Lords, I declare an interest as one who advised Citizens Advice for many years. Will the Government pay particular attention to the needs of poor people for whom year after year this place legislates rights but who cannot access those rights without the requisite legal help and advice? I am sure that my noble friend will agree that for us not to do that makes hypocrites of us all.
Baroness Wilcox
I agree with everything that my noble friend has said. Worrying about the poorest people in the country is one of the reasons why Citizens Advice is going to be supported so well by the Secretary of State for Business, because it is nearest to the people. In terms of education, advocacy and the role of Consumer Direct, we think that Citizens Advice and Citizens Advice Scotland are nearest to the people in the street for them to be able to get the advice that they need.
Lord Touhig
My Lords, as the Government are determined to cut one very fine source of free advice in Wales by removing 25 per cent of our Members of Parliament, will the Government consider providing central funding for Citizens Advice?
Baroness Wilcox
No, this is a local issue to be dealt with in Wales, for Wales, by its local governments. I am sure that they will take on board all the noble Lord’s recommendations.
Lord Elystan-Morgan
Does the noble Baroness accept that the deeper the cuts that affect citizens advice bureaux and legal aid centres, the greater will be the number of cases in our courts, both civil and criminal, that are unnecessarily taken to an elongated, bitter end, to the chagrin and distress of judges and magistrates?
Baroness Wilcox
Yes, of course I agree with what the noble Lord has said. We will do everything that we can to make sure that the advice that is needed by all our people is brought as close to them as possible. That is why local government, local work, localism and the big society are going to succeed where the previous Government failed.
Baroness Turner of Camden
Families will be particularly affected by the decision not to provide legal aid in respect of the family courts. I know that as far as domestic violence is concerned aid will still be available, but on other issues families will be left on their own without any advice. Extra care must be taken to ensure that they have appropriate advice in what are often very difficult circumstances.
Baroness Wilcox
Proposals for legal aid reform are, as the noble Baroness knows, a matter for the Ministry of Justice, which is currently consulting on Lord Justice Jackson’s recommendations. It will make some announcements on this fairly soon.
The Lord Bishop of Exeter
My Lords, I declare an interest as the patron of Exeter CAB. I was interested that the noble Baroness talked about the need for value for money. Could she go further and describe the mechanisms that the Government have in place for assessing the respective value of services delivered through CABs, which in the past have been judged excellent, and those services offered through other media?
Baroness Wilcox
With the local authorities, consultation happens at all times and at all levels to make sure that money is being as well spent as possible. One of the things that we try to emphasise to local authorities is that the voluntary sector is enormously good value for money. This is one of the reasons why these bureaux have been so successful, manned as they have been for so many years by volunteers—since 1939, I think, or 70 years continuously. They certainly are to be congratulated.
Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (Codes of Practice) (Revision of Codes A, B and D) Order 2011
(13 years, 4 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Baroness Neville-Jones
That the draft order laid before the House on 17 November 2010 be approved.
Relevant documents: 9th Report from the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments and 14th Report from the Merits Committee. Considered in Grand Committee on 25 January.
Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill
(13 years, 4 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord McNally
That the Order of Consideration of 7 February be varied so that amendments to clause 12 be marshalled and considered before those to clause 10.
Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill
(13 years, 4 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
16:51 - Division on Amendment 27GA - Ayes: -1 / Noes: 266 - Amendment 27GA disagreed.
17:52 - Division on Amendment 16HA - Ayes: 201 / Noes: 287 - Amendment 16HA disagreed.
18:31 - Division on Amendment 16J - Ayes: 192 / Noes: 266 - Amendment 16J disagreed.
19:51 - Division on Amendment 18F - Ayes: 171 / Noes: 252 - Amendment 18F disagreed.
“(1) Once a Boundary Commission have decided what constituencies they propose to recommend in a report under section 3(1)(a) above—
(a) the Commission shall take such steps as they think fit to inform people in each of the proposed constituencies—(i) what the proposals are,(ii) that a copy of the proposals is open to inspection at a specified place within the proposed constituency, and(iii) that written representations with respect to the proposals may be made to the Commission during a specified period of 12 weeks (“the initial consultation period”);(b) the Commission shall cause public hearings to be held during the period beginning with the fifth week of the initial consultation period and ending with the tenth week of it.(2) Subsection (1)(a)(ii) above does not apply to a constituency with respect to which no alteration is proposed.
(3) Schedule 2A to this Act, which makes further provision about public hearings under subsection (1)(b) above, has effect.
(4) After the end of the initial consultation period the Commission—
(a) shall publish, in such manner as they think fit, representations made as mentioned in subsection (1)(a) above and records of public hearings held under subsection (1)(b) above;(b) shall take such steps as they think fit to inform people in the proposed constituencies that further written representations with respect to the things published under paragraph (a) above may be made to the Commission during a specified period of four weeks (“the secondary consultation period”).(5) If after the end of the secondary consultation period the Commission are minded to revise their original proposals so as to recommend different constituencies, they shall take such steps as they see fit to inform people in each of those revised proposed constituencies—
(a) what the revised proposals are,(b) that a copy of the revised proposals is open to inspection at a specified place within the revised proposed constituency, and(c) that written representations with respect to the revised proposals may be made to the Commission during a specified period of eight weeks.(6) Subsection (5) above does not apply to any proposals to make further revisions.
(7) Steps taken under subsection (4) or (5) above need not be of the same kind as those taken under subsection (1) above.
(8) A Boundary Commission shall take into consideration—
(a) written representations duly made to them as mentioned in subsection (1)(a), (4)(b) or (5)(c) above, and(b) representations made at public hearings under subsection (1)(b) above. (9) Except as provided by this section and Schedule 2A to this Act, a Boundary Commission shall not cause any public hearing or inquiry to be held for the purposes of a report under this Act.
(10) Where a Boundary Commission publish—
(a) general information about how they propose to carry out their functions (including, in the case of the Boundary Commission for England, information about the extent (if any) to which they propose to take into account the boundaries mentioned in rule 5(2) of Schedule 2 to this Act), or(b) anything else to which subsection (1), (4) or (5) above does not apply,it is for the Commission to determine whether to invite representations and, if they decide to do so, the procedure that is to apply.””
The Advocate-General for Scotland (Lord Wallace of Tankerness)
My Lords, these amendments provide for public hearings as part of the Boundary Commission’s consultation on its initial recommendations.
In Committee last week, in response to the amendment put forward by the noble Baroness, Lady D’Souza, I undertook on behalf of the Government to bring forward amendments for a public hearing process, enabling an opportunity for the public and the parties to express their view in a way that the timetable for completion of that review is met. These amendments, which are in the name of my noble friend Lord McNally, fulfil that commitment.
Perhaps it will be useful if I start by setting out how we arrived at this position. Clearly it is vital that all those with an interest in the proposals have an opportunity to have their say. In the Bill, as it was brought from the other place and as it now stands, there is no provision at all for any oral participation. We believe, however, that the boundary reviews have taken far too long in the past. The last review in England took six years and seven months to report.
Let me be absolutely clear why the Government believe that is wrong. It is not simply a question of impatience or change for its own sake. Constituency boundaries—and this is at the heart of this part of the Bill—are the means by which representation in the other place is distributed. The point has been made on all sides of the House in debates on this Bill that they must accurately reflect that representation. That means work to increase the registration rate. The same principled concern applies to making sure that boundaries are up to date and reflect where people live, not where they used to live. If we took no action, the next boundary review may not take effect until 2020. This would mean that in 2018 there will be electors who reach voting age and register to vote who will not even have been born when the basis of the pattern of representation in the Commons was determined. That is unfair and unacceptable and drives inequality in the weight of a vote. It is one of the key principles that the Bill must address.
When we were drafting these proposals it became clear that the existing system of local inquiries was not fit for purpose. Yes, it satisfies the urges of political parties to put their case at considerable length at times, but it was rarely successful in engaging the general public. I cannot make this point forcefully enough to the House. We have, many times in these debates, traded quotes across the Dispatch Box in a bid to claim that the weight of academic evidence supports our case. However, it is clear that the academic literature supports the view, first put forward by leading expert in the field Professor Ron Johnston in 2008, that inquiries are “far too elaborate”. I accept—I think the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, quoted this in our first debate on this—that Professor Johnston made a telling observation to the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee when he conceded that there was an argument against his view on the limited value of the public inquiry stage when he told that committee:
“This time you are going to have much more where the local people are going to be concerned because suddenly the pattern of representation is going to be very different from what they have been used to for a long time”.
The observation has been made on all sides of the House that there might indeed be a far greater degree of interest in the next review on the part of local people, because there will be a greater degree of change in the constituency map. We have reflected on those concerns and we have heard concerns during our debates. I think the noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe, mentioned his experience, when people having the opportunity to have their say was so important. The noble Baroness, Lady Liddell of Coatdyke, referred to an inquiry in the Monklands constituency—in which the late John Smith had his last public engagement—where local communities had a valuable opportunity to have their say. However, that is not the same as an argument for restoring the old system of local inquiries. If the concern is to give people the chance to have their say on proposals, old-style local inquiries will not do that. The body of evidence on that point is emphatic.
The amendments before your Lordships’ House today are the Government’s response to all these issues. They provide for a new public hearings stage as part of the consultation process. Their purpose is set out in new Schedule 2A, in government Amendment 39, and could not be plainer:
“The purpose of a public hearing is to enable representations to be made about any of the proposals with which the hearing is concerned”.
Representations to the commission in person will be considered in the same way as the written submissions. The commissions have sensible discretion as to how many hearings there are in each region and to vary the length of the hearing, but there must be a balance of process against the principle of up-to-date boundaries. We cannot have an unlimited number of lengthy inquiries—in some cases during the previous boundary review these lasted for 12 or 10 days—focused on one or two counties or boroughs, in which lawyers can speak at length on behalf of political parties, thereby crowding out the general public, unless they happen to suit a political party interest. We will protect the commissions by placing a clear limit of five hearings in each nation or region of a maximum of two days’ duration, which between them will cover the full range of the commissions’ proposals.
I should be clear that what we envisage here is genuine public engagement. The public hearings will take place during the period for written representations. They will not commence until week 5, so that everyone has time to consider the commissions’ proposals and form an initial view. There are four weeks for representations under the present system. The hearings will conclude by week 10, so that there will be two weeks from the date of the last public hearing for further written submissions. Those submissions might be put forward in the light of the arguments and alternatives that have been advanced during these hearings, or they might not be; other issues might have arisen.
In addition, we have recognised that there is value in the scrutiny of others’ proposals. That is why these amendments also provide that at the end of the 12-week initial consultation stage, all the representations, including the record of the public hearing, will be published. There will then follow a four-week period for counter-representations on these proposals. This will allow for the effective scrutiny of the arguments put forward by others, and will ensure that the commissioners’ deliberations are better informed and that the recommendations are more robust. This kind of scrutiny does not need a process akin to a court, whereby a witness is cross-examined. This part of the amendment fulfils our commitment to the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, who brought the recommendations of the British Academy, including those of Professor Johnston, to the attention of the House. That aspect of this amendment is modelled on that British Academy report.
We recognise the legitimate stake that political parties have in this process and that they can assist in bringing the arguments of others to light. That is why the amendments provide explicitly for a role for the parties at each hearing; but they allow the chair to regulate that and not exclude other voices. I cannot emphasise enough that due process is exceptionally important.
Lord Clinton-Davis
Will the commission be able to extend the period of consultation where due notice is given? I am thinking of illness or other good reasons interceding.
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
My Lords, in order to give the Boundary Commissions a clear direction on this, we have indicated that there will be a maximum of two days. I do not think that anything would prevent a postponement of two days. We are giving the commissions a degree of flexibility, but the period will be a maximum of two days to make it clear that the hearings cannot go on and on. They are intended to be public engagement, not lengthy inquiry hearings.
In response also to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, it is open to the commissions to set clear procedures for the hearings to ensure consistency. However, the chair will be able to ensure that the procedure for the hearings can adapt to local or unexpected circumstances. This balance of discretion for the commissions and the clear powers for the chair set out in legislation makes the procedures robust against judicial review.
Let us not forget that the Boundary Commissions are each chaired by a High Court judge—or, rather, they are chaired by the Speaker, but the deputy chairs will be High Court judges or their equivalent. I have no doubt whatever that sensitivity to due process will be paramount among their concerns. There has been no suggestion throughout our long debates that the Boundary Commissions have been anything other than scrupulously independent and committed to fairness in their deliberations. They are guarantees of the process being fair. However, let me be clear what these amendments envisage. It is not a return to adversarial inquiries dominated by legal argument. That would be to invent what we know, from experience, does not work. It is new; it is a culture change; and we believe it is a better concept—an open hearing, neutrally and fairly chaired, at which the people can have their say. It is not a substitute for the deliberations of the Boundary Commissions, but another means for people to tell them what they think.
We will no doubt hear arguments about the importance or otherwise of legal professionals being involved in chairing hearings. The commissions will have absolute discretion to appoint individuals who may or may not be legally qualified, and we have tabled an amendment to broaden the purposes for which assistant commissioners may be engaged. If the commissions consider that there is merit in using a suitably legally qualified person to chair the hearings—and we recognise that a legal skill set may well be advantageous—it is open to them to do so. However, if there are other individuals, such as senior public servants or commission employees, who are equally able to chair these proceedings that are designed to engage the public, there is no way in which they should be disqualified from doing so—indeed, they should be allowed to do so.
It is worth considering that the Parliamentary Constituencies Act 1986 makes no provision that the existing inquiries must be chaired by a legally qualified person, or indeed be involved in any of the elaborate processes that have grown up around these inquiries. What that legislation fails to do—a failing that our proposals address—is to make the purpose of a hearing sufficiently clear. The result is that the commissions are exposed and inquiries are no longer about people having their say but about exhaustive legal arguments designed to avoid a judicial review.
I expect that we will hear also that an oral stage requires a chair who is independent from the commissions, and who must produce a lengthy deliberative report. The Government do not accept this premise. The commissions themselves are independent, so there is no need for further separation between a commission and the arguments being put forward. The representations made at the hearings will be taken into consideration by the commissions—the amendment requires them to do it—and it will be for them to consider how best to do this. Weighing the representations made in writing, and those put in person at hearings, against all the other factors in the legislation, and against the proposals made across the regions, is the point of having a Boundary Commission. We do not require a further intermediate step.
We propose something that is culturally different from what has gone before. I note the amendments to the amendment that have been tabled, and I am grateful for the dialogue that I have had with the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Scotland. However, at the end of the day it boils down to a difference in culture and approach. Several amendments state: “delete ‘hearing’, insert ‘inquiry’”. That is at the heart of what this is about.
Lord Rooker
I agree with much of what the Minister says, but if we are going to have a real culture change, it will be no good starting at 10.30 am and finishing at 3:30 pm, which is what the old culture does. If we are down to two days, let us have two real working days so that we have genuine participation even in the truncated time that I think is too short; I suggested five days. The new culture will be no good on the timescales that operated in the past.
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
I will not go down the road of wondering who the timescale was intended to suit. It is clear that Boundary Commissions have discretion in their proceedings. The comment made by the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, is very fair. We want to make sure that the time is best used and that people whose work patterns do not necessarily fit a 10.30 am to 3.30 pm programme have the opportunity to exercise their discretion, and that people have the maximum number of opportunities to contribute.
Lord Hamilton of Epsom
Perhaps my noble and learned friend would agree that the answer to this is not to have members of the legal profession chairing the inquiries.
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
My noble friend perhaps articulated the point that I was hinting at.
The government amendments complete the task of putting the public at the heart of the process, and of delivering effective public engagement with a clear but proportionate role for political parties. The complementary amendment on a counter-representations stage, suggested in Committee by the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, will allow for the effective scrutiny of the arguments and proposals of others. People who, with the best will in the world, may not be able to attend a public hearing will still be able to make counterproposals in writing.
Also, importantly, this will be achieved on a timescale that will allow for up-to-date boundaries to be in place by the 2015 general election, and during each Parliament thereafter. This will give effect to a key principle underpinning the Bill: fair and equally weighted votes throughout the UK. The amendments respond to the spirit that has been expressed in many of our debates about the public having the opportunity to have their say, without adopting an unduly legalistic view that can exclude the public. I beg to move the amendment standing in the name of my noble friend Lord McNally.
The Lord Speaker (Baroness Hayman)
I have to inform the House that if this amendment is agreed to, I cannot call Amendments 27H to 27K inclusive for reason of pre-emption.
Amendment 27GA (to Amendment 27G)
Lord Falconer of Thoroton
Lord Falconer of Thoroton
My Lords, I propose a number of amendments to those proposed by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, on behalf of the Government. At the heart of the noble and learned Lord’s proposals is the introduction of a process which, as he accepts, is not in any sense an inquiry but is intended to enable the public to make representations about any proposals regarding boundary changes with which the hearing is concerned.
As I understand the Government’s proposal, it will be open to individuals to make oral representations. A chair will be present to govern the proceedings—presumably to determine the order in which people speak; perhaps to determine whether what they say properly relates to the proposals; and also to determine how long they speak to ensure that everyone has an opportunity to do so. A record will be kept of what is said and that will be put into a public place for people to see. It is not envisaged that there will be any resolution or that the chair will play any part in determining any issues that arise on the wisdom or otherwise of the boundary proposals. However, it is envisaged that the oral hearing process should take place before the conclusion of the written representation period, which I think ends at week 12, with the oral hearing process taking place between weeks five and 10. Therefore, what the Government propose is not in any sense an inquiry and resolution of issues in the form of a report making recommendations to the Boundary Commission; it is simply an opportunity to make oral representations, which are recorded and then made public.
Previously, the Government proposed to ban the Boundary Commission from holding public inquiries altogether. They have not moved from that position but they have introduced the public hearing process that I have described. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, expresses his opposition to public inquiries primarily because he is concerned that an open-ended process of public inquiries could cause a fatal delay to the timetable for completing the next boundary review before the intended 2015 general election. He was also concerned that political parties would be too involved. For that reason, the Government have reduced the process to one of only a hearing.
It is important to hear what those who have experience of this situation have said. Robin Gray, former chairman of the Boundary Commission for England, said concerning the proposals in the Bill:
“Particularly with this first round … there is a real need for public inquiries particularly to enable those who are interested, political parties and others, to actually argue this through because these are going to be big changes”.
Ron Johnston, as the noble and learned Lord fairly said, is normally an opponent of public inquiries. In this area, he said that,
“you are drawing a totally new map with new constituencies and nearly everything will be different ... local people are going to be concerned because suddenly the pattern of representation is going to be very different from what they have been used to for a long time”.
Noble Lords will form their own view of the extent to which they have received representations from members of the public about, for example, the Isle of Wight, Cornwall, Anglesey and a number of other issues relating to the proposed boundary changes.
Our initial proposals to reinstate public inquiries in their current form did not address the noble and learned Lord’s concerns about the prospect of delay or the fact that there needed to be streamlined public inquiries. We agree with him that there needs to be proper control, as efficient focus as possible and a real focus on real issues. We listened to what the Government said and moved to a new amendment, which allowed for public inquiries but with significant new limitations that would give the Boundary Commissions discretion over whether an inquiry was held. It also placed a cap on the length of time that inquiries could take. During the debate on our amendment, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, who, I am happy to see, is in his place, made an important intervention. He pointed out:
“If there is no provision for an inquiry”—
I interpose that there is no doubt that by “inquiry” he meant a proper inquiry, not the hearing process to which the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace, refers—
“I anticipate that there will inevitably be an increase in applications for judicial review”.—[Official Report, 26/1/11; col. 1067.]
The Minister, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, responded favourably to that first debate, which was on our amendments. He said:
“It is not a fundamental principle of the Bill that there should be no oral inquiries”.—[Official Report, 26/1/11; col. 1070.]
Although he did not mention it at that point, when he said “inquiries”, I think he meant the sort of hearings that he has been referring to.
Lord Lloyd of Berwick
Apart from the question of timing and the chairmanship of an inquiry, or whatever we call it, what is the substantive difference between a public inquiry and what is proposed, a public hearing? Can the noble and learned Lord summarise the substantive differences for my sake?
Lord Falconer of Thoroton
I am grateful to the noble and learned Lord for that opportunity. As I am sure that the noble and learned Lord will confirm, a public hearing simply involves an opportunity for people to come to a room—a town hall or a village hall—to make or read a statement. It is recorded, and that is it. The next person then stands up and makes a statement, and then he or she sits down. It goes on like that. A record is kept of what is said, but there is no resolution of any issues. The statement of what is said is then, I assume, placed on the web so that everybody can see what was said
A public inquiry would involve Mr X saying, “I think that the boundaries should be here”, and Mr Y saying, “I think that the boundaries should be there”. Then the chair—having heard all the representations that people want to make, determining what the process is, having heard what everybody has said—says, “I recommend to the Boundary Commission that it should draw the boundaries there”. So it is a process where issues are identified and some resolution is given. That is the fundamental difference.
Lord Thomas of Gresford
That is the weakness in the position at present and as outlined by the noble and learned Lord: there are two recommendations. There is the recommendation from the chairman of the inquiry and then the Boundary Commission makes a recommendation to the Secretary of State as to where the boundary should be. What is the need for a double decision?
Lord Falconer of Thoroton
The effect of the Bill and all previous Bills is that the Boundary Commission's conclusions are in practice final. Yes, they have to be given to the Secretary of State, but the Bill—in my view, correctly—takes away any discretion from the Secretary of State to do anything other than lay them before Parliament, so, in practice, they are final.
The Boundary Commission does not come in any shape or form from the locality; it does not hear local representations; and it does not hear argument about where the boundaries should be. It is fundamentally different; it is carrying out an administrative process.
Lord Thomas of Gresford
Is the difference, therefore, that the Boundary Commission will be the body that considers all representations, whether oral or written? Will this not be more desirable than it simply acting administratively, as the noble and learned Lord says, upon the recommendation of somebody else?
Lord Falconer of Thoroton
Absolutely not, because where, as a result of the representations made at written stage, an issue is identified that would be assisted by hearing people locally, not only do you get local engagement—which everybody thinks is important—you also focus on a particular issue with somebody hearing and resolving the arguments. Of all the people in the world who would think that that was a worthwhile process, I can think of nobody who would regard it as more so than the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, who in all my years in the House has upheld every single aspect of such a process.
Lord Thomas of Gresford
It is important that the Boundary Commission, which has an overall view, should be the body that takes the decision and makes the final recommendation.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton
I apologise for not making this clear. It will, but with the benefit of the recommendation made by the chair after a local inquiry.
Lord Phillips of Sudbury
The noble Lord has been extraordinarily patient, but I am sure that he wants us all to understand—and I may not be the only person in the Chamber who does not from his explanation—whether cross-examination will be allowed.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton
It will be entirely a matter for the chair, probably operating in accordance with guidance given by the assistant or deputy chairs of the Boundary Commission. We will encourage a process that is streamlined and non-formal. If cross-examination would help let it be so, if it would not let it be a matter for the assistant chair hearing the inquiry on the day. I trust the right people to make the right decisions on how to get to a conclusion as shortly, as economically and as appropriately as possible.
In our amendment we propose that the chair of such a public inquiry must be a legally qualified assistant commissioner, appointed by the chair of the Boundary Commission, with the power to make recommendations. We say this must be a legally qualified person because they will have experience of ensuring short, sharp hearings, which I think is what everybody wants. Without that, the system of hearings put forward by the Government is little more than a public reading of statements. It will lead, I am sure, to a sense of frustration because there is no response of any detailed sort.
The issue of public inquiries is one of the most central concerns we have with the Bill. The Government’s initial response to the debates we had on this matter was pivotal in breaking the deadlock in Committee. We have understood that they would respond favourably to this and other amendments on public enquiries; it matters hugely. However, we have put the proposal forward in a spirit of compromise. We have sought at every stage to listen to what the Government have said.
Lord Campbell of Alloway
I have not taken much active interest in this debate but I have read all the official reports. I cannot understand why one has to go into this rather complex, devious regime and not leave this matter of tremendous importance—non-political importance—to the Boundary Commission. I may have missed it, but I have been listening and I do not understand.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton
I have considerable sympathy with that view. If the Bill had said, “Let there be public inquiries and let the chair or the deputy chair of the Boundary Commission determine the right course and whether or not there should be a public inquiry”, I anticipate and understand that the Government would have been concerned about the delay that that might cause to the timing of the boundary review. We are prepared to enter into a scheme, whose structure is in effect proposed by the Government, that does its level best to ensure that the process will be over by 30 October 2013, in accordance with the fresh proposals now being made, so that the Government’s timescale would be met. That is why the Government have taken this approach.
In an attempt to reach a conclusion, the Government’s amendment, as amended by ours, would do what your Lordships’ House does very well—namely, improve the Bill in a way which is both a sensible solution and a product of compromise and good sense. I beg to move.
Lord Woolf
My Lords, the Government have moved a long way but, in my view, they have not moved far enough. Indeed, some of what they propose is not constructive in the way they intend. The Government’s proposals, if coupled with those put forward by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, would produce a much better result. This is very important for the public because the scale of the changes involved means that the public should have a proper hearing.
I am not surprised that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd of Berwick, asked what is the difference between a public hearing and a public inquiry. Normally a proper hearing involves the kind of matters to which the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, referred. It is no use having a hearing if it does not serve its purpose. The great defect in the Government’s proposals is that they arrange a hearing following which the person who has to make the decision will not have an opportunity of having any more than a record of what has occurred in the hearing.
In times out of number within our legal system—whether it be in the form of a planning or any other inquiry—a hearing has resulted in an opportunity to be heard, which is then reported upon by a neutral and independent person, normally someone with skill and experience in the area in question. Here it is quite clear that, in the end, the Boundary Commission will have to make the decision and, on both proposals, its decision will be coloured by what has happened at the public hearing. However, on the Government’s case, the Boundary Commission will have only a written record. What is the purpose of having an oral hearing if there is going to be no more than that?
What should happen—I submit that this is what is intended to happen in the amendment of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer—is that there should be included in the matters that go before the Boundary Commission the views of the person who is chairing the hearing. That does not mean, as was thought by the noble Lord, Lord Thomas—I say this with great respect—that there would be two decisions; there will be only one decision. The chairman will take great care to do no more than assist the Boundary Commission to reach its decision.
Those who have had the task of looking at many inspectors’ reports will know how a decision that is to be made by the Secretary of State is assisted by an inspector’s report. I anticipate that the chairman will say, “So and so was contended on behalf of X, but Y said so and so, which the Boundary Commission may think is the stronger argument”. The chairman might say, “The Boundary Commission may submit that this point or that point was not properly considered by X in giving his evidence”.
A multitude of situations could arise whereby that process could properly be dealt with by a report by the person who actually conducted the hearing. If that was allowed, you would avoid the frustration felt on the part of those appearing before the chairman that their words are apparently disappearing into the ether with no conclusion being given on them. I strongly urge the Government to think again objectively about what is proposed to avoid that situation, especially if they are concerned about delay.
The Boundary Commission can be given the task of reaching its final decision within a specific time. If, as the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Alloway, suggested, it is given the power to control the chairman, it can ensure that there will be no undue delay, which would have the undesirable results on which the Government speculate. An important point is that there are provisions in the Government’s proposal for questions to be asked of those making oral statements to the hearing—I refer to paragraph 8 of new Schedule 2A, proposed in Amendment 39, where that is made clear. That comes very close to the procedure which would normally take place before someone such as the chairman at a public hearing, as that is normally known. Therefore, you have questioning only under the control of the chairman. Answers are given and you have—and should have—the views of the chairman on what has occurred. If that is not done, a very strange animal indeed will be produced.
Lord Thomas of Gresford
Is the noble and learned Lord suggesting that the chairman should have a power to comment, or is he suggesting that the chairman should recommend, which is really where the issue lies?
Lord Woolf
It would be a preliminary recommendation to be considered by the Boundary Commission, which would make the final recommendation. The only other alternative is that the hearing should take place before the Boundary Commission and that is obviously not a practical proposition. I am sorry that I have obviously not persuaded the noble Lord, Lord Thomas, on this.
Lord Thomas of Gresford
I have been at Boundary Commission hearings, although I do not recall a judicial review. Does not the noble and learned Lord’s suggestion mean that the recommendations of the chairman would be open to judicial review? Is that not one of the things that we are trying to avoid?
Lord Woolf
I certainly cannot say that in no circumstances could the chairman’s recommendations be the subject of judicial review, but there is a greater risk of judicial review if you do not allow the chairman to put before the Boundary Commission the information that it will need to make a decision. I cannot anticipate what a judge would say on an application for judicial review in all cases, but, in the majority of cases, I think that the possibility of judicial review at that stage would be very slim.
As the noble Lord knows well from his experience of judicial review, what is normally judicially reviewed is the final recommendation. A preliminary recommendation made by the chairman would not be the subject of judicial review, because if it was criticised, as it would have to be, as not being in accordance of the legal requirements, the answer would be, “Well, what are you worrying about? The Boundary Commission will put that right, and, if they don’t, you can come back to us then”. You do not come, at this first stage, to seek judicial review of what is no more than a preliminary recommendation. I think that that is the trite law which the noble Lord would expect the court to follow on applications for judicial review.
Let us have sensible provisions; let us give the widest possible discretion to the Boundary Commission; let us have the ability to go that one step further than the Government’s proposals so far and enable the person who chairs the hearing to make a preliminary recommendation. Of course, he may decide not to make a recommendation, but he should not be prevented from doing so. He may think that the situation is sufficient. I would therefore urge flexibility.
In that regard, could I also urge the Government to reconsider the requirement that there should be at least two public hearings? There may be situations where to have public hearings will serve no real purpose. That should be a matter of which the Boundary Commission is again in charge.
Lord Campbell of Alloway
I am grateful to the noble and learned Lord for his helpful clarification, but how can judicial review, which is of general application, have any specific relationship with this particular question? Acceptance of judicial review is a matter always for the discretion of the court. You have no right to it, unless the court accepts your application.
Lord Woolf
The noble Lord, Lord Campbell, is of course absolutely right that the matter is in the hands of the judge who hears the application, but he will forgive me if I do not from these Benches seek to give my opinion as to what a judge can do and should do other than in the most cautious of terms. I have tried to assist the House by indicating that, from my experience, it is unlikely that the fears expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Thomas, would have any basis in reality.
Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames
My Lords, the government amendments give expression to a widespread feeling in the House, which I share, that there should be some oral procedure in the Boundary Commission’s decision-making process. The amendments give the political parties and members of the public the opportunity to give evidence, to make representations orally and in public, to develop written submissions that have already been submitted and to put forward arguments orally.
The system proposed by the government amendments achieves that in a way that is proportionate, reasonably economical and reasonably expeditious. It avoids effectively dividing the decision-making process between the recommendation of the chair of a public inquiry and the final recommendation of the Boundary Commission itself. The amendments allow for two-day hearings across the whole country, which the Boundary Commission must take into account. They have at their heart a trust in the Boundary Commission and its decision-making ability that is, in our submission, in no way misplaced.
The proposals offer a transparent system with the public having a genuine and adequate chance to participate at every stage, whereas the amendments put forward by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, and the noble Lord, Lord Bach, would, I suggest, revert to a cumbersome system of public inquiries that has often led to the whole system becoming bogged down. Those inquiries may be as long as four months. That is not expeditious.
Further, in answer to the point made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd of Berwick—one which, with the greatest of respect, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, did not adequately deal with in his speech—they open up a dual decision-making process with different and distinct decision-making stages. I give way to the noble Lord.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
My Lords, I am sorry to interrupt but I have taken part in a number of hearings in Ayrshire. In one case, the assistant commissioner recommended something which was accepted by the Boundary Commission; and in another a different commissioner recommended something that was not accepted by it. The decision of the Boundary Commission is always final.
Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames
My Lords, that is precisely the point. The intervention of the noble Lord illustrates that the Boundary Commission makes decisions, taking into account recommendations of the commissioners that may be inconsistent, which negates the importance or effect of the public inquiries. Amendment 43 empowers the assistant commissioner to,
“adjudicate between the arguments and to make a final recommendation on proposed boundary changes”.
As the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, explains, there is no explanation anywhere of how that would work or what the precise status or effect of the recommendation would be. Presumably, as he says, the Boundary Commission would have to take that into account but that would—again with respect to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf—open up the public hearings or inquiries to judicial review, possibly not as to the content of the recommendation but as to the procedure adopted before the public inquiry.
Then there would be the difficulty that any departure by the Boundary Commission from the recommendation from a public inquiry would be challengeable as irrational. That itself would be fruitful grounds for judicial review hearings. The amendment does not state how these problems would be dealt with. I give way.
Lord Campbell of Alloway
My Lords, could the noble Lord explain what on earth a public inquiry subject to judicial review means in practice in the courts?
Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames
My Lords, what it means is that there is a difficult and delaying process at that stage because there is the interposition of the public inquiry; that is, with a public hearing as proposed by the Government, there is a hearing which is essentially, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, explained, an evidence- and argument-gathering procedure, orally in public, prior to a decision-making process by the Boundary Commission which, as I say, we should trust.
The government amendments quite properly exclude this unhappy intermediate stage in the decision-making process. Furthermore, the cost of the public inquiry proposed by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, is considerable. It cuts out a substantial and essential element of transparency from the system proposed by the government amendments. The opposition amendments would remove the requirement to publish the records of public hearings to enable informed public comment.
In terms of timing, the proposals of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, and the noble Lord, Lord Bach, would total 26 weeks in cases where there were proposals to revise recommendations—six for written submissions, 16 or 17 for public inquiries and then four for further inquiries. The proposals of the government amendments are much shorter overall—12 weeks for written submissions and public hearings, four for a period of secondary consultation and eight if revisions are proposed: so, 16 weeks rising to a maximum of 24 weeks. However, the amendments of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, keep his timetable down to 26 or 27 weeks only by cutting from 12 weeks to six the period for public written submissions; by cutting entirely the four-week secondary consultation period proposed by the Government and by allowing only four weeks instead of eight for the public to make written representations on any revised proposals.
At the heart of our position on these amendments is the notion that members of the public are more likely to make written representations than they are to attend long public inquiries, which would largely be the forum of the political parties. The amendments proposed by the Opposition favour a return to a long, cumbersome, legalistic and expensive decision-making process of public inquiries going before the Boundary Commission’s recommendation, a process whose status is entirely uncertain because its effect on the final decision is not clear.
Finally, an entirely lawyerly point, Amendment 27GH of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, inserts a reference to subsection (4)(b) of government Amendment 27G which, by Amendment 27GD, they have entirely deleted. That is a small point by comparison with the central point. The public hearings proposed by the Government amendments are essentially creatures of the public with longer timescales for written representations and a shorter, simpler arrangement for public hearings with all the evidence and all the argument then considered by the Boundary Commission, which we ought to trust. I urge the House to accept the government amendments and reject those proposed by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer.
Lord Lloyd of Berwick
Experience shows that where two or three lawyers are gathered together one is sure to disagree. I entirely agree with every word that has fallen from the noble Lord, Lord Marks, which I am afraid inevitably means that, with great respect, I venture to disagree with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf. He suggested that the advantage of his proposals was flexibility. I suggest that the disadvantage is an absence of simplicity. I can see no possible advantage in having a double decision process in a matter such as this. On the face of it, one would think it must increase the likelihood of an application for judicial review. In any event, the question should not be decided simply by that—it was a strong argument at one stage. But now we have before us not the original amendment proposed by the Convenor, the noble Baroness, Lady D’Souza, which in its way was a very good amendment, but an amendment from the Government containing everything that was in that amendment, which, to my mind, is essential. A public inquiry as such is not essential. A public hearing is, and that is what is promised.
Lord Pannick
My Lords, I share the Government’s objective here, which is to make this process more efficient. At the moment it is not efficient. It is too slow, too cumbersome and there are too many lawyers involved. I therefore share the Government’s objective. However, I also share the concerns so eloquently expressed by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf. The Government will abolish any effective inquiry and will introduce a procedure which will ensure that the decision-maker—and here I say to the noble Lord, Lord Marks, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd of Berwick, that there is only one decision-maker on the opposition amendment: the Boundary Commission—does not hear the oral representations that have been made. The person who does hear those oral representations has no role in communicating to the decision-maker any advice on what he or she thinks of what he or she has just heard. It is absolutely inevitable that the introduction of such a procedure will exacerbate rather than diminish the sense of grievance that has led people to make representations in the first place.
Lord Martin of Springburn
When the noble Lord mentions the Government’s proposals, is it the case that those proposals will not allow cross-examination at the inquiry?
Lord Pannick
As I understand it, that is the position. The opposition amendments will leave that to the discretion of the person who is hearing the representations, which seems to me right and proper. The proposal from the Government at the moment is a sort of legal interruptus in which the person hearing the material will end the process in a profoundly unsatisfactory way—unsatisfactory to the person who made the representations—because nothing arises from that other than communication to the decision-maker who has not actually heard what has been going on.
Lord Thomas of Gresford
Does the noble Lord not agree that the person to whom he refers, the person who would be aggrieved, would prefer that their contribution goes directly to the decision-maker and is not filtered in an intermediate stage by the chairman, who may have all sorts of views of his own and may colour the way in which that person wants his representations to be heard?
Lord Pannick
I would say to the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, that in my experience it is most unusual indeed to arrange for oral representations, and let us not forget that this is what the Government are rightly proposing, in which the person hearing them then has no role, not even an advisory one. It is my experience in all areas of the law, and I hope that it is the experience of the noble Lord as well, that if you give people a fair hearing and then a reasoned conclusion at the end of it, even if it is only advisory in nature, they are normally—not always—prepared to accept the result, however disappointing it may be. The Government’s proposals, by contrast, will inevitably raise expectations which they cannot satisfy and which will inevitably frustrate and anger people, who will inevitably feel that this is a charade. On a matter as sensitive and important as constituency boundaries, it is vital for this House to maintain some genuine process of inquiry leading to a result, even if it is only advisory. Inquiries have contributed substantially to the confidence that all sections of the public now have in the process of boundary review.
Lord Thomas of Gresford
Would the noble Lord not agree that if the Boundary Commission failed to follow the recommendation of the first decision-maker— which may be provisional—that would inevitably trigger judicial review? That is the problem when you have double decision-making.
Lord Pannick
I am sorry, but I simply do not accept that. The noble Lord is very familiar with the general process of planning inquiries, when advice is regularly given that is not followed by the decision-maker. The courts are sophisticated enough to understand in this sensitive area that advice is not necessarily followed. The Boundary Commission is the decision-maker. If I were to go to the court tomorrow and rely on advice that the Boundary Commission had rejected, and if that were the basis of my judicial review, the case would not last very long, as I think the noble Lord knows.
Lord Pannick
I have taken a number of interventions. This is Report, and I hope that the House will agree with me that it is appropriate that we proceed with this matter.
Even at this late stage, will the Minister and the Government please think again? They can make this process more efficient, but they should not abolish the inquiry, which is what they are in effect doing, as it serves a very valuable purpose.
Lord Faulks
My Lords, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, described this proposal as being culturally different from what had gone before. He is right in one sense, but I respectfully suggest that it is very much in line with the way in which a lot of procedures are developing. We are not obsessed by prolonged oral hearings with laborious cross-examination, dominated by lawyers—and here I must declare an interest as a member of that much maligned species. Rather, it is a sensible way of dealing with matters so that there can be full written representations followed by a public hearing. I think that the expression “public hearing” is an attractive one, as opposed to a “public inquiry”, which sounds rather murky and obscure from the point of view of the public, for whose benefit it is supposed to be.
I hope very much that such a hearing will be “lawyer light”. There is no need for the chair to be a lawyer; it might be better if they are not. What we require from the chair is someone who is capable of organising a hearing at which everyone who has a reasonable interest in a matter can have their interest properly heard and recorded. I accept the observation by the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, that there is no need to stick to strict court hours, and one hopes that the chair will allow a longer period as necessary.
We are talking about, I hope, an informal but thorough hearing. It allows what, as I understood it, the Opposition required—in effect, a day in court, an opportunity for people to say that they have said something as well as written something. This seems to be an extremely practical and fair solution, and I will support it.
Lord Rooker
I want to raise a point that only the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, has touched on. I speak as someone who was in the other place and went through two boundary inquiries. Most Members of Parliament fail when dealing with casework, and they have to give their constituents bad news. Most constituents receive that news on the basis that their case has been taken to the top; they accept that, and that is the end of the matter. That is a generalisation, but by and large it is my experience.
On both of the boundary changes that we dealt with—I am speaking only about the evidence from the city of Birmingham—we as Members of Parliament took criticism from members of the public, churches and party members, and this applied to both major parties as we were very much a two-party city in those days. The criticism was that someone had come up from London who had never been there before and was redrawing boundaries and sticking this ward into the constituency when we wanted that one instead.
I remember one particular incident, at a public community meeting separate from the boundary inquiry, that I was able to quell. It was not a riot, but it was pretty bad. I said to people, “Look, we might disagree, but we don’t even know this guy’s name or his background. He’s a lawyer, and he has chaired the meeting, but at least we’ve been able to put our case and argue the case with the Tory party”. There was a major argument about a big ward, with 20,000 electors, going in. We were able to say to people, “We’ve had our day in court”—the very phrase that has just been used. We were able to say that we had argued the toss with our political opponents and that it had been done openly and transparently. Everyone accepted that. Whether we won or lost, it probably did not materially affect the political outcome, but it was thought that it might.
There are probably far more people interested in this change than there have been in previous boundary changes, for obvious reasons. It is important to be able to report back to the interested public and say that their case has been listened to; that they have been able to put up a challenge, because there will be political arguments on this; and that they might have lost, but it was done openly and fairly. However, I do not think that it will be seen to have been done fairly. No MP will be able to do what I did and say to constituents, “You were able to argue and challenge the opposing views. We lost, but it was done in the open, and that’s the way that it is done in Britain”. That is something to be regretted.
Lord Tyler
My Lords, I am encouraged by the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, to make a brief intervention, because I am not a lawyer. Until he spoke, everyone was speaking with huge legal experience.
I have a practical question that your Lordships’ House needs to give some attention to. It seems to me that the danger is not successful judicial review—or any sort of legal challenge—rather, it is that all over the country the opportunity will be taken to try and delay the process, for reasons that we all understand, so that the changes will not be in place ready for the 2015 election. I have appeared at inquiries and before commissions—unpaid, of course, as I was not a lawyer. I was reminded of this by the noble Lord, Lord Rooker. Imagine the circumstances when a number of MPs who see their seats being changed do not necessarily think that they could be successful at judicial review but think it is worth trying to delay the process. There could be 400 applications for judicial review. That seems to be the danger.
I understand what the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, is saying. I understand what other lawyers are saying. My fear is simply that this process will be undermined not by successful judicial review but by attempts to try and delay the process. If that is the game that we have to foresee, then your Lordships’ House will be blamed for delaying an important process that will give equality of votes to a lot of our fellow citizens.
Lord Pannick
Does the noble Lord understand that no judicial review may be brought without the leave of the court? Does he understand that the courts are highly experienced in hearing speedily—by which I mean within days if necessary or within weeks—any case that is urgent, as these cases, if they were brought, would clearly be?
Lord Campbell of Alloway
Very briefly, my Lords, I got involved in this affair with a lot of other members of the Bar and I have to say where I stand. I totally support the legal analysis of the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, who is totally correct. Of course, it puts me in a very odd position because I am a Conservative and part of the coalition, but I cannot help that. I know that what the noble Lord said is right.
Lord Thomas of Gresford
I intervene very briefly because the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, reminded me of appearing in the planning inquiry in mid-Wales on the drowning of Dulais valley, which was proposed by his council, Birmingham council. We were concerned because the Secretary of State for Wales, Lord Cledwyn, was to take the decision, but the person who heard the inquiry came up from London; “Who was he?” and “What does he know about Wales?”. These were real concerns that affected the people who I was representing—for nothing, if it matters—in that particular inquiry. We would much have preferred to put our views before the Secretary of State for Wales directly—to the decision-maker—who we knew knew something about the issues. As it happened, the inspector held in our favour and was upheld by Lord Cledwyn, who made the final decision and announced that no valley in Wales would ever be drowned again.
That is an example of wishing to make representations not to the unknown person from London but to the real decision-maker. The government amendment would enable all the representations and the evidence given by objectors to be put in their raw condition to the boundary commissioners, without any intervening stage.
Lord Phillips of Sudbury
My Lords, while there has been a lot of anxiety in this House over recent weeks about what we are doing here, the debate that we have had on this very difficult amendment has shown just what an extraordinary resource of experience this place can provide.
I have three points to make. First, I would be most grateful if the Minister, in summing up this debate, could answer the forceful point made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, that by having the public inquiry when he plans to have it—that is to say, after five weeks before all the written representations are in—surely deprives the oral hearing of being able to respond to the points that local citizens are making.
Secondly, I was much struck by what my noble friend Lord Marks said about the virtue of the timetable proposed by the Government, which gives a full 12 weeks for written submissions, until he rightly said that most members of the public will provide their opinions by that route and will not appear at the oral hearing.
My final point is to assist the noble Lord, Lord Martin, who asked the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, whether there could be cross-examination under the Government’s system, if I can call it that. The answer to that is yes. Amendment 39 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord McNally, specifically prescribes that cross-examination will be in the gift of the person conducting the inquiry under the proposals being put forward by my noble and learned friend, Lord Wallace of Tankerness.
Lord Shutt of Greetland
My Lords, I think an intervention is required. The Report rules are such that Members are entitled to speak once to an amendment. There is a problem when a speech is an intervention or an intervention is a speech. However, it would be helpful if people were a bit sparing with their interventions. People ought to realise that they have one turn.
Lord Martin of Springburn
My Lords, if the rule is that my intervention denies me the right to speak, I will sit down. It was a very brief intervention and it was for information. I understand the agitation of the Liberal Democrat Whip, but the Liberal Democrats were no slouches in speaking, so I wonder whether I might make a brief speech. If the noble Lord is saying that I cannot do it—
Lord Martin of Springburn
I thank the noble Lord; I am obliged. I intervened on cross-examination but it was not my interest to worry about cross-examination by solicitors or QCs in an inquiry. Like the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, I have been to three inquiries, but they were in the city of Glasgow. They were very fair indeed. People from all walks of life turned up to put their case. Sometimes people would go along and say that they represented several community organisations. No lawyer present would have known how to test the case that was being put—that they belonged to those community organisations—but someone who lived in the community would. It was lay people who sometimes brought out in cross-examination that perhaps they were not, and could not claim that they were, truly representative of the community councils or residents’ associations as they claimed to be. Those lay people had local knowledge.
It is easy to talk about splitting up wards and putting one ward into another. However, often the argument for moving a ward from one constituency into another is based on where the local facilities, such as transport and schools, are. That is often why church leaders turn up where the local churches are based. Therefore, in the course of cross-examination, lay people can paint a picture of the true local situation for the examiner. I would be just a bit worried about discretion. People should be able to cross-examine as of right.
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
My Lords, I thank all noble Lords and noble and learned Lords who have participated in this important debate. It has been a good and helpful debate, with views forcefully expressed but set out in a measured way. There is some agreement that we want to find the best way to achieve effective consultation on Boundary Commission proposals. However, it has also become clear—I made this point when I opened the debate and it was reflected on by my noble friend Lord Faulks—that the issue very much represents a choice of culture. Will we have what is essentially the old system of the local public inquiry—albeit with some timetable improvements; and I acknowledge the efforts made there—or a change of culture towards the public hearings proposed in the Government’s amendment? My noble friend Lord Faulks indicated that our proposal goes with the grain of making arrangements for similar matters to be dealt with.
The process we have set out combines written representations with a new public hearing stage aimed at providing for real public engagement, and involves a counter-representation stage to allow for scrutiny. We believe that that adds up to a comprehensive and rigorous process which learns the lessons of previous reviews and allows us to achieve the key principles of the Bill, whereby constituencies will become more equal and fair and their representation in the other place will be reflected by the time of the 2015 election.
It was suggested by the noble and learned Lords, Lord Falconer of Thoroton and Lord Woolf, that the representations made at an oral hearing would disappear into the ether. However, it is it is important to recall that not only after the end of the period will there still be an opportunity for follow-up representations, but, in response to amendments in Committee from the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, there will be an opportunity for counter-representations to be made. It is a requirement set out in the amendment that the Boundary Commission shall give consideration not only to the written representations and counter-representations, but to the record of those who engage in the oral hearings.
The process that we propose is a considerable departure from the original proposals in the Bill. That was acknowledged by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf. The Government have listened to the reasonable concerns on the importance of public engagement, not least at the first review under the new rules. We have listened to the argument that our process could be strengthened if there was an opportunity for the scrutiny of arguments put forward by others. We have shown that we are willing to move in the interests of a better outcome, but not at the cost of the key principles of the Bill. That cost would include delays that could undermine those principles.
The opposition proposals—whether those of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, or the suggested changes to the Government’s amendments—would, in effect, restore the existing inquiry process. They require a legally qualified chair and a report back to the commissions by the legally qualified person—we have had exchanges on whether there are to be two decisions or two determinations. The opposition proposals would remove the time limit on the number of days an inquiry will last. Those old-style inquiries would take place after the submission of written evidence, as they do now—albeit for a slightly longer period—in order that the parties can send their lawyers and that their legally qualified person in the chair can cross-examine them.
Even the noble and learned Lords among us can imagine that that process is unlikely to engage the general public at large. The work of academics who have researched these issues in depth means that we do not have to imagine what that would mean, because the evidence is in their reports. An in-depth study by Ron Johnston, David Rossiter and Charles Pattie in 2008 stated:
“It would be a major error to assume that the consultation process largely involves the general public having its say on the recommendations. The entire procedure is dominated—in influence and outcome if not in terms of the numbers of representations and petitions (many stimulated by the main actors)—by the political parties”.
There has been a flavour of the political parties’ heavy engagement.
It has also been said that somehow or other the public inquiry system assuages pent-up local demand. Before I came to the Chamber this afternoon, I looked at the last Boundary Commission review of the constituencies for the Scottish Parliament. In the case of East Lothian, Midlothian and the Scottish Borders, the inquiry process, which led to a recommendation from the reporter, who I think was Sheriff Edward Bowen QC, was completely and utterly dismissed by the Boundary Commission. I am not sure what that would do to promote public confidence in the system proposed by the Opposition.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
Will the Minister confirm that there was no application for a judicial hearing in relation to that? Everyone accepted it.
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
I am not aware that there was a judicial review. The noble Lord said that everyone accepted it. He should consult my noble friend Lord Steel of Aikwood about how effective he thinks the present public inquiry system is.
The role of the chair has been much debated. It was said that the chair should be legally qualified in order to provide clarity and consistency of practice, and to make the process resistant to judicial review. It was claimed also that there must be report back. We have just heard about the pros and cons of that. The Government do not agree. The hearings that we propose are about giving the public and the political parties a chance to have their say as part of the consultation process. The legislation provides that a commission shall take into account the representations made at hearings, as it does the written submissions.
Another of my concerns about the opposition proposals is that the value of the written submissions appears to be somewhat relegated. We propose that there should be a counter-representation period. As I understand the Opposition's proposals, any written counter-representations would have to be channelled into the public inquiry: there would not be a time period for them.
It is important to remember that the commissions are independent. They exist to weigh the arguments. It will be for them to decide how best to do that. There is no need to interpose an independent lawyer between the commissions and the arguments in order to allow the public to have their say. The commissions will be chaired by a High Court judge or equivalent and will be very sensitive to those issues. It will be open to them to appoint the chair that they think best for the job. I will not detain the House at the moment by speaking to Amendment 18E in this group, save to say that we have tabled it to broaden the purposes for which assistant commissioners may be engaged.
The Opposition claim that the process is flawed because the hearings will take place at a point in the process before all the written representations are known. This point was picked up by my noble friend Lord Phillips. Again, that is a concern if one has the mindset of a public inquiry. We say that parties will be able to feed in their views of the commission's initial recommendations, and others will be able to hear them. We have provided for counter-representation that will allow scrutiny of the arguments of others. Although we do not envisage a public inquiry with a quasi-judicial cross-examination, I say to the noble Lord, Lord Martin of Springburn, that our amendment provides for the chair to put questions or allow questions to be put to a person present at the hearing and, if the question is allowed to be put, to regulate the manner of the questioning or restrict the number of questions that a person may ask. Therefore, there will be an opportunity for the kind of engagement that the noble Lord clearly feels is of value.
The noble and learned Lord stated that the Opposition are arguing that if we adjust the number of weeks for written consultation there is time for oral inquiries to be held. Putting a deadline in the Bill does not guarantee that it will be achieved. The Boundary Commission for England was set a deadline in primary legislation in 1992. However, it reported months later because it felt the need to focus on the process under the previous legislation. I do not criticise it for that: it believed that the process was important. However, I ask the House to consider that the Boundary Commissions may think that the process is important, and that whatever deadline we set may not be met. If that happens, there is a danger that one of the key principles of the Bill will be seriously undermined.
The noble and learned Lord indicated that two days was not enough for an inquiry. Past inquiries have taken 12 days, or 10 under the previous review. Under the Government's proposal, there would be a maximum of 90 days of public hearings in England: five in each region, lasting two days each. That would be the upper limit. The Opposition would remove the limit on the number of days, and the period for counter-representations, meaning that the only place for scrutinising the arguments of others would be in that oral public inquiry. Therefore, we could expect more 10 and 12-day inquiries. We believe that this proposal is simply impractical. I recognise that in toto the number of weeks is similar to ours but I fear that I am sceptical about whether it could be achieved in practice, even if it were desirable to restore the old-style, legalistic form of inquiry. I remind the House that it is not. I quote from academic literature:
“In effect, the public consultation process is very largely an exercise in allowing the political parties to seek influence over the Commission’s recommendations—in which their sole goal is to promote their own electoral interests”.
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd of Berwick, indicated that he thought that all the key components were in fact ticked off with the Government’s amendment.
In conclusion, the House is faced with a choice between a new mechanism for ensuring that the public can genuinely engage in the boundary review process through hearings or the recreation of the old inquiry process that we know can be alien to the public and would return us to the days of six-year boundary reviews. Even if it does not do that, it would certainly lead to a length of time which could undermine getting the boundary review through and the next election being fought on modern, up-to-date boundaries. I believe that the Government have moved a long way on this point and they have done so after careful consideration. I urge noble Lords carefully to consider the proposals that we are putting before the House today and to support them.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton
My Lords, there is a very real and important issue here. On close analysis, the noble and learned Lord’s proposals are flawed, and fatally so. First, on the point about delay, I do not think that the noble and learned Lord was listening to what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, and the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, were saying. In his closing remarks, he agreed that the period of time specified for his scheme and for the Opposition’s scheme is broadly the same. With ours it is 26 weeks and with his it is 24 weeks. Therefore, a scheme is being proposed to enable the process to finish by October 2013. I want to spare the blushes of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, and the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, but they are probably the two leading experts on judicial review in this country and they are saying that there will be more judicial reviews. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, whom I greatly respect, is shaking his head but, with respect, I am listening to them, not to him, and they are saying that there will be more judicial reviews. They say that they do not know what form they will take but there will be more of them. Therefore, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace, is making his scheme more vulnerable to delay through the process that he is proposing. I say that not on the basis of my opinion but on the basis of the opinion of the noble Lord and the noble and learned Lord. Therefore, with respect, his point about a delay is wrong.
Secondly, he says that this process will engage people, in that his scheme will allow people to come and say something—a process that the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, described as a day in court. The noble Lord, Lord Faulks, spent many days in court, but I have never known a day in court where you say something but then nothing happens. As the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, said—in my submission, entirely correctly—that will be bound to increase resentment, not reduce it. As my noble friend Lord Rooker said, someone will not be saying, “Well, I have heard your arguments and you’re wrong on this and right on that”. It is, with respect, a point that the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, put his finger on and it is incredibly important.
The third point that the noble and learned Lord made is that academics are all against us. They are not. They are saying, as we are saying, that we must streamline the process. We must not allow it to become abused, but we must have some process like this. The person who knows best about this is the boundary commissioner, Robin Gray, who said that if you do not have a process where the public can put their point of view and have a response to their point of view rather than complete silence, you are going to have real disquiet about an area where there is no disquiet at the moment. With the greatest of respect, I must say that the Government have moved some way, but they have moved nowhere near enough, and they have put us in a position where we have no alternative but to seek the opinion of the House. I beg to move.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark
“( ) of all representations received in writing or any electronic format made to a Boundary Commission, by publishing item online within 72 hours of receipt”
Lord Kennedy of Southwark
This amendment is similar to the one that I moved in Committee. The amendment in Committee required that all representations received should be published online within 24 hours; this amendment requires that they should be published online within 72 hours—three days—of receipt.
After listening to the Minister, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, I withdrew my amendment in Committee. However, what the Government have come back with is disappointing, because representations will be published only after the close of the consultation period. Although I accept that the majority of representations will be received towards the end of the consultation process, under the Government’s proposals representations could be received more than three months before they are made public. That is not good and, quite frankly, I had hoped for a little more. I also cannot find any requirement for the Boundary Commission to publish—
Baroness Anelay of St Johns
My Lords, I hesitate to interrupt the noble Lord when he is so carefully introducing his amendment. I know that the House wishes to listen to him. Therefore, I invite noble Lords who are leaving the crowded Chamber to do so quietly so that we may have the full benefit of listening to the noble Lord.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark
I thank the noble Baroness for that. I cannot find any requirement for the Boundary Commission to publish representations received in any secondary consultation. If I am wrong in that, I hope that it will be pointed out to me. Finally, my amendment is green, makes sense and would save trees.
The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Lord Strathclyde)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for moving his amendment and for again raising this issue, which was discussed in Committee. The Government support the idea of a good flow of information between the Boundary Commission and the public so that people can be informed about the review and have their say. The noble Lord has kindly amended his original proposal to allow 72 hours for publication. However, this is still likely to be impractical given the tendency that we have noted of people to respond to consultations just before the end of the consultation period. The Boundary Commission will no doubt publish representations as speedily as possible, but a deadline of 72 hours may be too stringent, particularly in cases where it has to deal with significant numbers of representations in paper form, which will have to be converted to an electronic version for publication.
Amendment 27G provides for a further consultation period of four weeks to comment on representations made to the Boundary Commission, which the commission shall be required to publish before that four-week period starts. I hope that that is a full explanation of how we hope to deal with the points raised by the noble Lord’s amendment.
“(1A) After Schedule 2 to the 1986 Act there is inserted the Schedule set out in Schedule (Public hearings about Boundary Commission proposals) to this Act.”
Lord Wills
“Committee of Inquiry on Parliamentary constituencies
(1) There shall be a Committee of Inquiry, chaired by a High Court judge, comprising members of both Houses of Parliament, including representatives of the principal political parties in the House of Commons, as well as individuals with no party attachment, and others.
(2) The Committee of Inquiry shall—
(a) review the current rules for conducting Parliamentary boundary reviews (contained in Schedule 2 to the Parliamentary Constituencies Act 1986) considering in particular—(i) how to address the inequality of constituency sizes;(ii) how to stabilise the size of the House of Commons;(iii) the relative importance of electoral equality against the specific character of individual constituencies, including the rules relating to geographical considerations, local ties and “inconveniences”, and the rules on crossing borough and county boundaries; and(iv) make recommendations;(b) examine in this context the question of the optimum size of a constituency taking into account the need to maintain the Union, the proper role of MPs in their constituencies and in Parliament, and the implications for these roles of the responsibilities of other representative bodies including local authorities and the House of Lords, and make recommendations;(c) consider the implications of an optimum size for the House of Commons, for an optimum size for the House of Lords, and make recommendations; (d) review the time taken to conduct boundary reviews, particularly in England, and make recommendations;(e) review the alignment between the timing of local and parliamentary boundary reviews to ensure that stable local government electoral boundaries can form the basis for each parliamentary review, and make recommendations;(f) examine the question of a role for keeping the operation of the rules under review and ensuring consistency of approach by the four Parliamentary Boundary Commissions, including monitoring their standards of performance, and make recommendations; and(g) examine the arguments surrounding the statistical basis on which electoral areas are currently constructed, in particular whether the eligible population rather than electoral statistics should be used, and make recommendations.(3) The Committee of Inquiry established under subsection (1) shall report to Parliament annually on its progress, and deliver a final report with recommendations to the Secretary of State within three years of the passing of this Act.
(4) Within 6 months of the Committee of Inquiry’s report, the Secretary of State shall lay before Parliament, for Parliament’s consideration, a scheme including draft Bills to implement the recommendations of the Committee of Inquiry.”
Lord Wills
My Lords, the House will be aware that I moved an identical amendment in Committee. I did not seek to divide the House then but said that I would return to this issue on Report if the Government showed no sign of engaging with the issues raised in that lengthy debate. The Government have not engaged with the issues in any serious way and so, as I said I would, I now return to this amendment. In doing so, my approach is informed not only by my experience as a Minister in the previous Labour Government responsible for these issues but as someone—a member of a tiny minority in this House—who believes in the objectives of both parts of this Bill. I support a move to the alternative vote system not as a compromise or halfway house but as a desirable end in itself. I, of course, support any attempt to make the process of boundary revisions fairer and more efficient. I am certainly not opposed in principle to a reduction in the size of the House of Commons.
In Committee, I set out the case for an independent, impartial inquiry into the important and complex constitutional issues created by Part 2. I will not rehearse the case in detail again but I stress what I stressed then: this amendment does not seek to substitute my judgment for that of the Government in addressing these issues; instead, it sets up a process for an independent, fair and principled judgment to be made, which can then inform the legislation.
Over and again, as the debates on this Bill have progressed, it has become clear that the Government have not thought through the implications of their proposals. The process has been irredeemably flawed. That is all the more worrying as the measures, technical though they may often be, are of great constitutional importance. There has been no public engagement with the issues, no attempt at elucidating any underlying principles for the changes, no consideration of the implications of a referendum held after legislation, apparently no realisation that the proposals threaten community identity and no serious attempt to address the widespread belief, which has only grown as the Bill has progressed, that the Bill has been engineered to secure partisan advantage. Instead, there has been just a breakneck rush to get these half-baked proposals into law.
That, in sum, is the case for a pause—a relatively brief pause—so that an impartial inquiry can establish the principles on which these significant constitutional reforms should proceed. The Government’s response to this proposal has been, to put it at its politest, inadequate. That is why I am bringing back the amendment to the House.
In responding to my original amendment, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace, said that it asked the Government to,
“wait longer to turn the Bill from a Bill that is workable and achievable into a deeply analysed but almost impossible one that would then have to be taken forward”.
He referred to,
“the dangers of a perfectionist approach”.—[Official Report, 10/1/11; cols. 1221-22.]
I believe that that accurately encapsulates the Government’s resistance to the amendment. I will happily give way to the Leader of the House if he wants to correct me. He remains seated, so I assume from that and the benign expression on his face that I have accurately encapsulated the Government’s position.
I understand this argument. In certain circumstances, it can be a valid one—for example, when there is some immutable deadline or when delay can cause greater damage than action. It is true that management textbooks often have chapters titled along the lines of “The best is the enemy of the good”, but they also tend to have chapters titled along the lines of “Better right than quick”.
The question of when speed should take precedence over deliberation is always a matter of judgment. The case has to be made every time judgment is exercised. That case has not been made here—not even remotely. The only argument for such speed that I can recall the Government making is that the Bill addresses issues that need addressing, that they have not been addressed for too long and that they must therefore be dealt with immediately. This argument does not stand up to any sort of scrutiny. It does not follow axiomatically from the fact that a problem needs a solution that the solution has to be immediate. Indeed, if a problem has persisted so long, it could equally be argued that a few months’ delay is neither here nor there, particularly when the case for further impartial deliberation rests on the real improvements that it will bring to the legislation and on the way in which it will help to ensure that the legislation endures.
There are three arguments for the value of such an inquiry that outweigh any putative disadvantage arising from delay. First, it would enable the reforms to proceed on the basis of coherent principle in a way that they manifestly do not in their current form. Secondly, it would enable them to do so following the sustained engagement with the public—whom, let us not forget, our constitutional arrangements serve—which has not been possible under the rushed timetable laid down by the Government. Thirdly, the amendment would help to deal with the corrosive suspicion that the Bill is a partisan measure, motivated not by high constitutional principle but by low self-interest. I am not in a position to make a judgment on whether that is the case, but Ministers must recognise that this suspicion was there from the start and has only grown as the Bill has progressed through both Houses of Parliament.
Let me give the House a brief example of how this might work. A principled decision on the optimum size for the House of Commons would dispel this continuing suspicion that the figure of 600 was chosen because it most advantaged the government parties. The sum of the explanations so far advanced for how this figure was decided is that both government parties were committed at the election to reducing the size of the House of Commons and so decided that the new size would be 600—a nice round number. That is a little like a child asking a parent where they came from and getting the reply, “Well, my darling, Mummy and Daddy met and fell in love, and then nine months later along you came”. It may all be true but it misses out some rather crucial details about what happened in the mean time.
Why did the Conservative Party decide to increase—not decrease or reduce—the size of the House of Commons from the 585 that it pledged in its manifesto? Who suggested it? Why did the Liberals agree to it rather than insisting in the coalition agreement that the number be lower than that? They had a figure of 500. What discussions on the appropriate figure were held within the coalition? How exactly was the figure of 600 arrived at—and so on and on? We do not know the answer to any of these questions because Ministers refuse to tell us. They airily wave away all such questions as if they are not really important. They are important. The difference of 15 seats between the figure that the Conservative Party was pledged to in the election and the figure now in the Bill is the difference between one party being in government and its not being in government. It is that important. The Government must realise that, as long as they fail to produce any coherent explanation of how this figure was arrived at and why they went back on what they promised in the election, the suspicion must remain that this decision was motivated by the pursuit of partisan advantage. That suspicion could easily be dispelled by the work of the inquiry that this amendment would establish to explore the optimum size for the House of Commons.
In tabling Amendment 28A, the Government have belatedly recognised that there might be an issue here that needs to be addressed. I do not wish to pre-empt the discussion that we will no doubt have on that amendment, but it is not a substitute for this amendment. Unlike this one, that committee’s remit would be imprecise and its composition vague. It would remain in the tight grip of the Executive—there would be nothing independent or impartial about it—and it would commence its work after the new system was in place. It is another ill thought-out proposal of the sort that litter this Bill.
What if this committee that the Government propose to set up decides that 600 is not the optimum size for the House of Commons? The amendment makes no commitment to action, only to publishing its finding. Will the Government act on the findings of their own committee, so inflicting further wholesale change on the electoral system, or will they ignore them, in which case the exercise is simply cynical window-dressing? Now that the Government have conceded the case for an inquiry on this issue, which is one of the most important issues in Part 2, they should abandon their amendment and support this one, which, unlike theirs, would set up an inquiry in a fair, impartial and timely way. There should be no other way.
Moreover, the relatively short delay envisaged by this amendment would also help to address deep concerns about another important issue raised by the Bill—the Government’s proposals that the boundary revision should take place on the basis of a register that everybody, including the Government, accepts is deeply flawed because more than 3 million voters who would otherwise be eligible to vote are simply not on it. In doing this, they must recognise that they are creating suspicions that they are motivated by partisan considerations, as it is widely believed that doing the boundary revision on the basis of this flawed register will primarily disadvantage the Labour Party. A short delay would allow the measures that the previous Labour Government brought in to improve the register to take effect and would mean that an election could be held on the basis of boundaries on a new, truly comprehensive and accurate register.
Finally, there is no reason to think that if your Lordships’ House agrees to this amendment the Government will not get their legislation in this Parliament. Under the new fixed-term Parliament proposed by the Government, they will have adequate time to digest the results of the inquiry and get the legislation through before the next election. The only cost of this delay would be that the new constituency boundaries and a new system of voting—if that is what the referendum decides—would be in place not for the next general election but for the election after that. I ask the Minister what really is so wrong about that—is that really too high a price to pay for all the improvements that just a few months’ extra reflection, deliberation and public engagement could bring to this important legislation? Constitutional reforms should be built to last; they should not become subject to constant fiddling and wholesale revision from one Parliament to the next. That corrodes public trust in our democratic system because it suggests to the public that politicians are more interested in rigging the system to serve their own interests than in using it to serve the people who elect them. If these reforms are to endure, as I think they should, it should be immaterial whether they are in place for this election or the next. I ask the Government to reflect on that point.
This amendment would get the Government to the place that they want to be and with all the additional benefits that such further impartial, independent deliberation and public engagement can bring. It would help to sustain public trust in our constitutional arrangements by helping to ensure that this legislation can be viewed as genuinely principled and valuable constitutional reform rather than the product of arbitrary and partisan calculation, as so many people see it at the moment. I beg to move.
Lord Renton of Mount Harry
I confess that I was not proposing to speak to this amendment, but I have just listened to the noble Lord, Lord Wills, who I believe was Minister for Constitutional Affairs in another place, and I have to say to him that, frankly, I have rarely read a paragraph that horrified me as much as the one on his committee of inquiry. It seems to me that he is going down absolutely the wrong route by proposing a committee of inquiry composed of,
“a High Court judge … members of both Houses of Parliament … representatives of the principal political parties in the House of Commons as well as individuals with no party attachment, and others”.
That is a joke. The inquiry would go on for ever and would not reach sensible conclusions. We in this House and the other House are expert in what is required here.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton
As the noble Lord, Lord Renton, will know, my noble friend Lord Wills’ provision states that they have to produce a report within three years. So it will not go on for ever.
Lord Wills
I am very grateful to my noble friend Lord Falconer for pointing that out. Perhaps I may also say to the noble Lord, Lord Renton, that this committee is based on what used to be known as a royal commission. I was told by the powers in this House that I could not refer to it as a royal commission, but the royal commission, as he ought to know, has a very long and distinguished provenance. If he has read my remarks in the earlier debate on this amendment he will have seen that the period of time provided by the amendment is pretty much the average time given to the last 12 royal commissions that have reported.
Lord Renton of Mount Harry
The noble Lord’s amendment provides for three years after the passage of the Act, but it does so on what basis? That is what really surprises me. He has been a Member of the other place as well as a Minister in the other place. I cannot understand why he feels that a committee composed of,
“individuals with no party attachment, and others”,
is likely, even if it reports after three years, to reach a better judgment on what is needed in the two Houses than would be achieved by the Members of this House and the other place. Frankly, I think that he has no knowledge of history. Throughout history Parliament has reformed itself, starting with King John and Magna Carta; moving on, after some centuries, to 1911 when, because of the strength of Lloyd George and the Liberal Party, changes were made which stopped this House considering financial matters; and, more recently, to the 1999 Act, which greatly reduced the number of hereditary Peers. That shows the ability of both Houses to do this work sensibly themselves, and that is vitally important.
If we go down the other road of saying to the public, “Come on, everyone. Let us all have a voice in it”, you will have three years of muddle without any clear knowledge of what we should be doing. It is important that these matters are now taken forward quickly, and that is surely the point of the Bill before us. We may not like bits of it, but it is a serious attempt to move reform forward within the judgment of the two Houses themselves. So I have to say that a committee of inquiry with many people on it who are not in this place would be a fatal thing to do.
Lord Soley
My Lords, I shall be very brief, but I do not in any way want to underplay the importance of this amendment. So far as I am concerned, it goes to the heart of the problem of this Government. Having won the election, they have decided that they will change the number of Members of the House of Commons to suit their own party political advantage. It comes from the history of the document written by Andrew Tyrie MP and various others, where the suggestion was to reduce the number by 60 or close to that figure in the first five years and then by another 60 in the following five years in order to maximise the Conservatives’ advantage in winning elections. That is what is so profoundly wrong in this.
As I have said on other occasions, it is an invitation not just for this Government but for future Governments of any political complexion to do exactly the same after every election. This is an invitation to gerrymander the House of Commons by the party that wins. I shall not labour the point, but if we were investigating an election in a country emerging from a communist regime where they were trying to assess the size of a House that would benefit the reformed communist party, we would blow the whistle. We are now, shamefully, doing the same.
Lord Garel-Jones
Does the noble Lord not consider that it might be fairer to say that what the coalition Government are doing is beginning to deal with the totally unfair built-in advantage that the Labour Party has enjoyed for many years?
Lord Soley
I do not accept that. The advantage of my noble friend’s amendment is that it invites a considered response. If the noble Lord is right, although I do not believe he is for a moment, then this is the opportunity to look at it. This is the way that any future Government would, I hope, address the issue. Like my noble friend, I support a reduction of the numbers in the House of Commons, but we should not do it this way. You should not fiddle around with the constitution to suit your own party advantage. This proposal offers structure, which is very important. I give way to my noble friend.
Lord Howarth of Newport
Is it not rather remarkable that the noble Lord, Lord Garel-Jones, has just admitted that the motive of the coalition in introducing this legislation is to achieve a more favourable political structure in the distribution of constituencies to the benefit of the Conservative Party?
Lord Soley
There is a genuine argument about whether it automatically gives a bigger majority to the Conservative Party because all sorts of issues like turnout and so on have to be taken into account. However, the general view has been expressed consistently ever since Andrew Tyrie wrote his document in 2004 that this would benefit the Conservative Party. That is what it does. So I would say this, particularly to the Members opposite: bear it in mind that you will not be in power for ever and you will then not be in a position to complain about a Government who come in and do the same to you. I shall give way one last time, but I am anxious not to delay the House.
Lord Garel-Jones
I am extremely grateful to the noble Lord. Picking up on the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, will he reflect on the fact that I mentioned the word “fair”? Perhaps he may wish to reflect on why it is that in 1992 the Conservative Party achieved the largest popular vote in the history of this country and was rewarded with a majority of 21, a vote never achieved by the outgoing Labour Government who, I think I recall, achieved majorities in excess of 170.
Lord Soley
I invite the noble Lord to read the debates held during the Committee stage, where he will find that those issues were dealt with. I do not want to repeat it all again. I would also say to him that he should read his own party’s literature on this matter since 2004. The arguments are very clearly put in favour of the Conservatives reducing the number of seats not just for fairness but because a reduction would increase their majority. That is a fact, and my concern about it is that any future Government could do the same.
If the Conservative Party is then in opposition, as well as the Liberal party—although why that party is pursuing this is beyond me, because if it was on this side of the House it would fight it fiercely, and its friends in the press would support it—that party would be saying that it was the Labour Party gerrymandering. This is a gerrymandering issue. What my noble friend has done is come up with a structure so that we can take our time and deliberate on very important issues related to the size of the House of Commons. We could do it over time and we would not need to delay the Government getting their Bill. This is a very important amendment that goes to the heart of the problem that the Government have on this. In my view, the position is deeply undesirable and I would love this amendment to be taken in the spirit in which it is intended. It recognises that there is a case to review the size of the House of Commons, but not doing that to the advantage of one or other political party. If my own party tried to do this, I would feel just as strongly about it.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton
My Lords, my noble friend Lord Wills’ amendment is back with us by popular demand, having achieved a very supportive hearing and interesting debate in Committee. I would imagine that that is why we are being treated to a guest appearance by the noble Lord, Lord Garel-Jones. We are disappointed that he has not played more of a part in our debates. Had he been here, as my noble friend Lord Soley said, he would have discovered—because these points have been made on many occasions—that the reasons why the Conservatives do not do so well are threefold. First, it is because their vote is spread all over the country; secondly, there are lower turnouts in Labour seats than Tory seats; and thirdly, that yes, there is some inequality, but that is the third and most minor of the reasons. I am glad to see the noble Lord, Lord Garel-Jones, nodding sagely, and I am only disappointed that he has come today, because the result might have been different in the previous vote.
The amendment moved by my noble friend Lord Wills is an attempt to force the Government to face up to the reality that the issues being dealt with in this Bill need proper thought. The Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill provides for significant changes to the British constitution, significant changes that everyone agrees ought to be properly considered in due time and by those with the expertise and the means to disseminate the many views and opinions on these major constitutional issues. These are matters which everyone agrees need proper consideration and resolution, but they undoubtedly will not get that from this Government.
It is therefore right that Members of your Lordships’ House—like my noble friend Lord Wills, who takes these matters seriously and has a proud record in what he has achieved as a Minister, particularly when he was responsible for constitutional matters, and who not only believes in good process and informed proposals but put those into practice when he was a Minister—should put forward amendments like the one before us now. I ask noble Lords to look at what, if I may say, is the rather idle government amendment tabled in the name of the noble Lord, Lord McNally, which can be found on page 14 of the Marshalled List. A minimum effort has been made in order to have an inquiry and it is almost contemptible in the way it has been done. No effort of any sort has been made, despite accepting the proposition which the noble Lord, Lord Renton of Mount Harry, finds so difficult.
The effect of my noble friend’s amendment would be to provide time for the key questions raised by the contents of Part 2 of the Bill to be answered. It would give the time for the sort of consideration that the constitutional matters at hand deserve, and time that we on this side of your Lordships’ House have been trying to provide. We have given this Bill proper scrutiny, and on this side we have forced the House to provide time to allow that to happen. There are so many things that the Government have not done properly in the Bill: no public consultation, no pre-legislative scrutiny, and no respect for the usual gaps between stages in Parliament. The consequence is that parts of the Bill were not considered at all in the House of Commons. The consequence is a shambles where correspondence from Ministers arrives after we have had a debate. That feels like a corrosive process as far as constitutional change is concerned.
But there is more—and my noble friend Lord Wills made this point very effectively. Noble Lords will know that allegations have been made, not by the Labour Party, although it does make them, but by Members of Parliament who are Conservative, for example, and “Newsnight”. People like that would be regarded as not parti pris. The effect is that these constitutional changes, effectively unheralded by a manifesto and effectively unmandated, would go through with an air of suspicion. The consequence is that, for the first time since the Second World War, the method by which we determine how many Members of Parliament there should be is in the hands of the majority of the House of Commons and in the hands of the House of Lords, which has received 114 new Members since May 2010. Every single one of those Members is delightful and personable, men and women of real merit, whatever party they come from or whether they come from no party at all, but I have the deepest and most profound suspicion that if we counted the numbers we would find that they have increased the coalition’s majority. Looking across the House, I see many delightful new Peers, many of whom have made a major contribution to British public life, but many of them are voting in accordance with a Whip that they receive from the Government. The consequence is that the Government now have the ability to ram through their choice on the size of the House of Commons in such a way that there is real suspicion that it has been done in the interests not of the country but of a party. The consequence is that that aspect of the coalition gets into political play.
The effect of my noble friend’s proposals is that there can be an independent review. We like the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, very much indeed, but we wonder whether his justification for there being 600 in the House of Commons—that it is a nice, round number—carries the weight that perhaps it needs when you are trying to persuade people that the reason you have reduced the number in the House of Commons is not for political but for good constitutional reasons.
We support this amendment. We think that a lot of trouble has gone into it and that it has real merit. With respect to the noble Lord, Lord Renton of Mount Harry, I think that it is entirely unfair when he said that the process would go on. I am glad that it was pointed out to him that my noble friend Lord Wills has thought about all the issues that he mentioned.
I very much hope that there will now be a change of heart and that the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, one of the most powerful members of the Government, will indicate that we are now going to have a committee of inquiry.
Lord Strathclyde
My Lords, that was a kind and generous invitation from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, but one that I shall have to resist—and therefore I shall disappoint him. However, I shall try to explain why and give some coherence to this debate, which has been an interesting one, because this issue goes to the core of the disagreement that has taken place over this Bill. The noble Lord, Lord Wills, must wake up every morning kicking himself that he did not set up this inquiry when he was a Minister a year or two ago, because now we would be anticipating its results. Maybe he did try to set it up and maybe he could tell us a bit about that when he comes to wind up.
The main accusation being made by noble Lords opposite is not so much that we are rigging the system as that the proposals raise a suspicion that we are rigging the system. Yet nobody can bring any evidence to bear that that would be the likely effects of what we are trying to do—either reducing the number of seats or reaching an equalisation in the number of voters in each seat.
The amendment would require a committee of inquiry to conduct a wide-ranging review not only of the structure of our electoral institutions and processes but of how they interrelate. The Government have accepted the argument made by noble Lords that consideration of the impact of a House of 600 seats is important. I know that the noble and learned Lord rather pooh-poohed it, but when we get to that matter, I shall explain why I believe that it is the right way in which to look at it. Why have we done it as we have? It is because we should not allow this issue to prevent a boundary review taking place, leading to boundaries that are as much as 20 years out of date if a review does not report before the next general election.
Lord Wills
I am extremely grateful to the noble Lord for that, and I accept his assurance that that is the best answer that we are going to get. He is right about that.
This has been an important debate. It has been limited in contributions, but they have been distinguished by their pithiness. With great respect to the noble Lord, Lord Renton, I do not feel that I have no sense of history—I think that I have a different sense of history from him. The instances that he gave precisely illustrate the point. All the instances of these great constitutional turning points in our recent history that he evidenced did not come out of nowhere—they were the subject of prolonged and vigorous debate in and outside Parliament. Nobody with the best will in the world can say anything like that in relation to the proposals in this Bill. That is precisely the point and purpose of this amendment: to allow space for a proper consultation to take place.
I was extremely struck by what can come across only as contempt by the noble Lord, Lord Renton, and the Leader of the House, about consulting the public on this. We have heard very little about that in all the debates, but it is very important. We had a very good debate about local inquiries just a few minutes ago in this Chamber, but what about the broader issues? These are the electoral arrangements for the people of this country to determine how they elect their Government. It is not our Government—it is their Government.
We have had no consultation. We have had no Green Paper, no White Paper, no pre-legislative scrutiny, none of the more modern forms of engagement with the public that I would like to see, such as deliberative engagement where people come together and discuss these issues, sometimes for days at a time—none of that. I find the contempt for the British public shown by the Benches opposite profoundly depressing and, incidentally, at odds with all the rhetoric from the Prime Minster and the Deputy Prime Minister about a “new politics”. This has been a pithy debate but rather a saddening one with regard to the way that the British public have been treated by the government Benches.
I want to comment on the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Garel-Jones, about remedying the unfairness. I understand how deeply the Conservative Party feels that the system is unfair, of course I do, and he has put it very well. However, he has to understand that there are other issues that come into play, as my noble friend Lord Soley said, and we all have a strong sense ourselves of what is fair. I am afraid that fairness is always a relative point. If we are going to command the respect of the British people that this is an impartial process, it is not, with respect, the noble Lord or I who should be judging what is fair and what is not; it should be an independent and impartial inquiry that is seen to be such. That is the point of this amendment.
Despite all this, the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, came up with the same old argument that this measure has to be pushed through for the next general election; it cannot wait for the election after next. The sense of history of the noble Lord, Lord Renton, is out the window, according to the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde. I respectfully point out to him that great swathes of British history are not measured by the period from one general election to the next; they are measured by decades and generations. Given that sort of timeframe, why is he so bothered that it has to be the next general election rather than the one after it? He has no answer at all.
I am afraid that because of the poverty of the response that I have had from the government Front Benches—incidentally, before I conclude, I want to say that the noble Lord is right: I kick myself that we were not able to put this committee into place. Perhaps he could just intervene on me; in fact, I would be grateful if he would. If I had succeeded in my aim to set up this commission before the general election and the election had been the same, would he have scrapped it or abided by it? I will give way to him now. Will he tell me?
Lord Strathclyde
That is the most hypothetical of all hypothetical questions. If the noble Lord had set it up, we would have co-operated with it fully.
Lord Wills
More opacity in this debate, I am afraid. The Minister’s response has been profoundly inadequate—charming, but inadequate. Because these issues are so important and go to the heart of the Bill, I am not going to withdraw the amendment. I would like to test the opinion of the House.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton
Lord Falconer of Thoroton
My Lords, this amendment would change the Bill so that the date of the next boundary review would be set by the Boundary Commission, rather than the Government,
“once the Electoral Commission has certified that every local authority has taken all reasonable steps to ensure that the electoral register is as complete and accurate as possible”.
The amendment stems from a deep concern that has been expressed not just by Members on these Benches but by many noble Peers, and which is shared by the Government, about the incomplete nature of the current voter register. It makes it a flawed basis on which to redraw the electoral map in the way that the Bill proposes. The Bill states in rule 10(5) in Clause 11 that the basis of the next boundary review will be the electoral register as it stands two years and 10 months before the submission date of 2013. In plain English that means that the Boundary Commissions must use the 2010 electoral register in carrying out their redrawing.
We now know, and the Government have acknowledged during these debates, that this register is likely to be missing upwards of 3.5 million eligible voters. We also know, and the Government have also acknowledged, that the problem of under-registration is most acute among particular social groups in particular areas. As the Electoral Commission has reported,
“underregistration is concentrated among specific social groups, with registration rates being especially low among young people, private renters and those who have recently moved home … The highest concentrations of under-registration are most likely to be found in metropolitan areas, smaller towns and cities with large student populations, and coastal areas with significant population turnover and high levels of social deprivation”.
The Electoral Commission’s study was underpinned by Ipsos MORI research, which found that only 69 per cent of black and minority ethnic voters are registered, and only 44 per cent of 20 to 24 year-olds are registered, as opposed to 97 per cent of 60 to 64 year-olds. Therefore, the December 2010 register is clearly a flawed basis for the boundary review, but the Bill insists that this is the register that must be used.
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, explained in Committee that it was,
“the wish of the Government that constituency sizes should be of an equal size”.—[Official Report, 10/1/11; col. 1278.]
That is a reasonable objective. We support the principle of more equal seats, but you cannot have equal seats on the basis of an unequal register. That goes against basic democratic principles. That is why our amendment stipulates that before the next boundary review—which will be very significant and widely disruptive—the electoral register should be brought to as complete a state as is reasonably possible. We suggest that this can be done by requiring the Electoral Commission to check that local authorities have taken all reasonable steps to ensure that this has happened. This does not seem an unreasonable or impossible demand. As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, pointed out in Committee:
“electoral registration officers are under a statutory duty to compile and maintain comprehensive and accurate electoral registers. It is not as if it is a voluntary activity; there is an obligation on local authorities to compile as best they can comprehensive and accurate electoral registers”.—[Official Report, 10/1/11; col. 1280.]
If that is the legal obligation, what is wrong with holding those registration officers to account?
At the moment, there are self-reported performance standards, but they are not doing the trick. We know that because of the markedly different registration rates across different parts of the UK, which the Electoral Commission has itself uncovered. It seems perfectly possible and reasonable to ask the Electoral Commission to take a more proactive approach to the registration of electors. The central aim of the commission is to ensure,
“integrity and public confidence in the democratic process”.
That should be our aim, too. We will fail to achieve it if we do not place some safeguard in the Bill that takes into account the problem of under-registration among particular social groups in particular places. I beg to move.
The Lord Speaker (Baroness Hayman)
I have to inform the House that if either Amendment 16J or Amendment 16K is agreed to, I cannot call Amendments 16L to 17 inclusive by reason of pre-emption.
Lord Campbell-Savours
My Lords, I will not speak to Amendment 26. However, I have a question to ask the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde. The boundaries are being set on the basis of the December 2010 register. Why cannot the date be January, February or March 2011, particularly since local authorities are right now registering people all over the country? Why cannot those additional signatories—registered persons—be taken into account?
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
My Lords, I was swithering about whether to speak to Amendment 25A in my name and Amendment 26 in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours. I got to my feet only because of the demands of the noble Lords, Lord Rennard and Lord Tyler, who said that they missed my contributions to this debate. I am very pleased to do this request number, as it were.
However, it is very important, as my noble and learned friend, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, said, to get as accurate a register as possible on which to carry out the revision of the boundaries. I am sure the Liberal Democrats would agree with that. They might not agree with our solutions and prescription, but I am sure they would agree with the thesis that it is important to get it as accurate as possible. My noble and learned friend Lord Falconer has suggested one option. These two amendments suggest two more. Amendment 25A suggests using the census, which fortuitously will come in 2011 and will give us a figure for those who are eligible to vote, together with updates that are available. My noble friend Lord Maxton commented in Committee on how the register could be updated.
Amendment 26 is even simpler. It would use those who are eligible to vote, not necessarily all those on the register. In Committee it was suggested that there might be some problems about identifying the numbers. With respect, I do not see how there can be when the Government cite the percentage of those in an age group who are registered. If they are able to give a percentage that is registered in each group in each constituency, they must know the number who are eligible. It would be far fairer to use figures that are more accurate and up to date, as my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours said. I hope the Minister will respond to those two points.
Lord Howarth of Newport
My Lords, we all endorse the ambition to achieve equality between constituencies, although on this side of the House we consider that there are other factors that have been too much discounted by the Government in their proposals. However, there is the very serious question of whether the flawed data that the electoral registers provide undermine this project of seeking equalisation between constituencies. Research by Dr Roger Mortimore, investigating the 2009 electoral registers across eight study areas, found variations in the completeness of the electoral register in a range of 73 per cent to 94 cent. In some constituencies the register was thought to be that incomplete; only 73 per cent of those who should have been on the register were. His study of the accuracy of the register in those same areas found a variation of between 77 per cent and 91 per cent. In the worst instances, which could be some 50 to 100 constituencies in which the condition of the electoral register is seriously inadequate, it must cast doubt on whether the Government are realistic in seeking to achieve equality.
While we would in no way wish to discourage them from seeking to achieve equality between constituencies, we very much hope that they will conduct an energetic drive throughout the country to ensure that electoral registers are both complete and accurate. They can do this outside the terms of the legislation, so even if they do not accept these amendments they will still be free to do this if they wish. It will not be enough if they respond by saying that moving to individual registration should make a substantial contribution to solving the problem, because individual registration will improve accuracy but will certainly not improve completeness. A substantial problem will remain.
I certainly think, as we suggested in Committee, that a serious effort should be made to absorb the findings of the census, which is to be carried out next month. It would be possible for those concerned with drawing up electoral registers to begin to take account of interim findings from the census, and they should do that, just as the Government intend to use other databases to help to improve the completeness and accuracy of the register.
As it is, we are conducting this immense and controversial process of redrawing constituency boundaries on a principle that cannot in practice be carried through, given the serious inadequacy of registration. I hope we will hear from the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, that the Government have practical proposals as to how they will improve the condition of the registers to fulfil the objectives that we share on all sides of the House.
Lord Strathclyde
I recognise the importance of the subject raised in this group of amendments and I will speak to them all. I am grateful to noble Lords for raising their queries in the way that they have done.
Amendment 16J prohibits the first boundary review from taking place until all local authorities in the country have been certified as having taken all reasonable steps to ensure that the electoral register is as complete and as accurate as possible. The amendment also leaves it to the Boundary Commission to decide when the first review should be completed. The Government’s position has not changed on this issue since we debated it in Committee, because if we delay the implementation of new boundaries whereby they do not take effect before the general election in 2015, we end up with the absurd situation of electors in England coming on to the register in 2018 who were not born when the electoral data that are used to determine the pattern of representation across the UK was compiled. This should not be allowed.
As the Government made clear, action is being taken to accelerate progress towards individual registration. We are introducing measures such as data-matching schemes to help local authorities gain as complete a picture as possible of the eligible voters in their area. However, we cannot allow boundary reviews to be delayed, potentially indefinitely, which the amendment may do. It states that a boundary review could not take place until all—I stress, all—local authorities in the country had been certified as having completed all reasonable steps to ensure that the register was as complete and accurate as possible. This does not seem to be either reasonable or proportionate, given that the electoral register has been used as the basis for boundary reviews for decades. It is important that steps are taken to support registration, but we do not see this as an either/or situation; we should not tolerate out-of-date boundaries while the registration work is ongoing.
The noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, asked a perfectly fair question as to why the register from January or February 2011 could not be used. The answer is that 1 December is the date by which the electoral register is published, following the annual census. The research that has been undertaken independently by the Electoral Commission shows that the register becomes less accurate throughout the year from that point. Therefore, by using the register that was due to be published on 1 December, we are addressing the concerns expressed about the accuracy of the register.
Lord Campbell-Savours
That is not the information that we are being given by Members of the other House. They are saying that the register now carries more registered people than at any other stage. Perhaps the noble Lord can ask departmental officials to check, prior to the debates tomorrow.
Lord Strathclyde
My Lords, I am very happy to do so; more than that, I will try to get a letter sent to the noble Lord overnight for him to study before we reach his further amendment.
Amendment 26, in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Campbell-Savours and Lord Foulkes, also seeks to require the Boundary Commission to estimate the number of people entitled to vote, based on data from the 2011 census and any other data available, and to use this as the basis for the electoral quota, or simply to estimate the number of the eligible electorate. There are practical difficulties in estimating the number of people who are eligible to register but have not chosen to do so. Again, the Electoral Commission has called estimating the completeness and accuracy of the electoral registers an imprecise science, and acknowledges that all current approaches to estimating the data are imperfect. That is not a solid basis on which to draw up constituency boundaries. Even if it were possible to make estimates of the total electorate who are unregistered to vote, this amendment proposes the use of data from the 2011 census. The census is being carried out, as the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, pointed out, on 27 March. Data will not be available until at least the end of the year. Data at local authority ward level, which would be necessary to make estimates that would be of any use in a boundary review, will not be available until well into the following year. It will be well into 2012 before the data set for the review can even begin to be compiled.
The Boundary Commission for England will not be able to conduct a review that allows for proper consultation and allows enough time for parties, candidates and administrators to prepare for an election on new boundaries in 2015 if they have barely begun the task at the start of 2013. Furthermore, any such estimates will doubtless be the subject of considerable critique and challenge by those with a vested interest, which might risk further delay and undermine confidence in the commissions. It is far better to base the review on the electoral register, because whatever the debate about the number of electors who should be on the registers, the number who actually are on them is a simple matter of fact.
If it is not possible to wait for the census and have new boundaries in place for 2015, then it seems to me—
Lord Howarth of Newport
Will the noble Lord explain why it will take such an extremely long time to get findings from the census? The Government’s computers must be grinding very slowly.
Lord Strathclyde
My Lords, it is a nice idea that I would able to explain that now. My understanding is that it takes that long to get the figures out. If there were a way of speeding up the process, we would have done so, because we want the most up-to-date figures available for the review to use.
Lord Myners
In that case, will the Minister confirm that the Government have therefore taken all steps to investigate how they could speed the completion of the data collection, analysis and report of the census, as far as it would relate to electoral registration? The time taken to compute this information sounds extraordinarily long. The Minister is, I think, giving us comfort that he has taken steps to do that, but it would be helpful if that were to be confirmed.
Lord Strathclyde
My Lords, when there is a census every 10 years, there is a great debate about how quickly the information taken by that census can be applied to policy. Every 10 years, the answer is that it will come about as quickly as possible, and Ministers are encouraged to make it even quicker than that. However, it is not always possible to make the process quicker. Those who run the census do it on the basis of trying to provide the information quickly. I am very happy try to find out from them exactly why it takes so long. I will write to the noble Lord and put a copy of that letter in the Library.
Amendment 26 proposes to amend the definition of electorate to include all those eligible to vote in the UK, even if they have not registered to do so. This would have a consequent effect on the calculation of the electoral quota of the United Kingdom, and thus the size of constituencies drawn up by the Boundary Commissions in their reviews. This is very similar to Amendment 25A. I do not need to explain its drawbacks further.
Throughout the debates on this subject, in Committee and on Report, we made it clear that we agree that it is vital that the register is as complete and as accurate as possible. That must serve our interests as well as those of Parliament and ultimately those of the people we serve. However, progress on this must sit alongside the Boundary Commission's work on updating constituency boundaries. Solving the problem of under-registration will be a long-term process in which we should all be involved. Delaying the boundary review process until it is complete would mean that the 2015 election would be likely to be fought in constituencies based on electoral data from 2000. If noble Lords are genuinely concerned that representation should reflect entitlement—and I believe that they are—they should strongly support the Government's proposals. By leaving existing boundaries in place for the 2015 election and the next Parliament, the amendments would achieve precisely the opposite. On that basis, I hope that the noble and learned Lord will withdraw his amendment.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton
I thank the noble Lord for his response. It was extremely disappointing and reflected an approach that has been taken by the Government throughout the process. They have accepted the problem but offered few proposals in relation to it. Two things need to be done. Active steps must be taken and a proposal must be made about how the date problem should be dealt with. Neither is impossible. In these circumstances, I wish to test the opinion of the House.
Lord Lipsey
Lord Lipsey
This amendment follows on from one that I moved in Committee. In that one, I favoured seven years, which was the time given in the original amendment in the name of my noble and learned friend Lord Falconer. However, I am a sinner who repenteth and have changed my mind, now believing that 10 years is the right period. I am trying to prevent perpetual revolution in constituencies, allowing MPs to be MPs and not—as they would be should the system under the Bill survive the 2013-15 experience, which it might well not—turning them into carpetbaggers, devoting their lives to finding new seats instead of doing what they and every Member of that House would want them to do, which is to serve their constituencies and our country.
The advantage of 10 years over any other period is that it would accord with the five-yearly elections proposed in the Fixed-term Parliaments Bill. I think that it provides the right balance between updating population changes and so on—which we all want because we want greater equality in constituencies—and providing a measure of stability for the Members of another place that will enable them to do their jobs properly without keeping half an eye on their next move. I beg to move.
Lord Bach
My Lords, I will speak to the one amendment in this group that has now been moved but, first, I apologise to the House. Having studied the lead amendment in this group, which is in our name, we find that it is defective. Perhaps that is partly a symptom of the absolutely ridiculous haste with which we are being asked by the Government to table amendments for Report. The noble Lord says from a sedentary position that there is no excuse at all—he says that when the gap between Report and Committee is cut from a fortnight to in effect one sitting day. Mistakes were bound to occur. We own up to having got one amendment wrong, which is why we have not moved it. However, the matters that we hoped to raise are effectively covered by my noble friend’s amendment, to which I shall speak briefly.
There is a balance to be struck on the timing of the boundary review process. The more frequent the boundary reviews, the more up to date the electoral registers on which they are based. In the light of our previous amendment and concern about the accuracy and quality of the registers, we do not judge eight or 10 years to be an advisable interval between reviews. On the other hand, frequent boundary reviews lead to more frequent disruption of the UK electoral map, especially if such reviews take place on the basis of the narrow parity law contained in this Bill. Such disruption has been confirmed in evidence to the bodies that have often been mentioned during our proceedings—the Constitution Committee of this House and the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee of another place. A serious issue arises from regular and widespread disruption—one can ask any Member of Parliament about that—and that is the disconnect that it might cause between Members of Parliament and the electors they represent, many of whom will find that their constituency will change at each review in each Parliament if the Government’s proposals are implemented. Therefore, we are grateful to my noble friend for moving his amendment.
Lord Strathclyde
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, for moving his amendment. I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Bach, for not moving his amendment, as he had spotted that it was defective. It raises remarkably similar issues, so he will get a remarkably similar answer—or he would have done if he had been able to move it.
On the question of the disconnect for Members of Parliament. I do know whether this has been said before—if it has not, it should have been—but this is not being done for the convenience of Members of Parliament; it is being done to equalise the electorate across the whole country and to try to create a fairer system. Once we have the 600 seats in place with equalisation of the electorate, I do not believe that minor changes every Parliament will be an insurmountable burden.
The amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, requires the Boundary Commission to report every 10 years after October 2013 instead of every five, as laid out in the Bill. The Parliamentary Constituencies Act 1986 requires reports from the Boundary Commissions every eight to 12 years. The intention of the Bill is to increase their frequency, ensuring that boundaries are more up to date than at present. There is a cost implication to holding more frequent reviews, but this is offset by the estimated £12.2 million in annual savings made by the reduction from 650 to 600 MPs.
Many noble Lords have rightly spoken in Committee and on Report about the important issue of the accuracy and completeness of the electoral register. That work is incredibly valuable in enabling people to participate in the democratic process, but it will not be reflected in their constituency boundaries if reviews are insufficiently frequent. That is why we advocate reviews every five years. I know that noble Lords opposite might feel that we have not gone far enough on the accuracy or completeness of the electoral register, but I hope that they will accept the logic of having reviews every five years. The Government’s view is that reviews can be completed once a Parliament, giving sufficient time for the commissioners to do their work and for parties and electors to familiarise themselves with new boundaries before the next general election. If that is the case, I see no reason why we should make do with more out-of-date electoral data. We should have reviews during each Parliament so that boundaries remain refreshed; and more frequent reviews will limit the degree of upheaval each time.
I know that the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, was trying to be helpful and constructive, but I hope that he sees the force of the argument of having regular reviews every five years.
Lord Lipsey
My Lords, I see the force of the argument; I just think that the argument for a review every 10 years is a good deal stronger. However, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
Lord Lipsey
“( ) If in the event a general election is not held in 2015, or in one of the subsequent five-yearly intervals thereafter, the government shall set up an independent inquiry to recommend appropriate changes to the provisions of this Act.”
Lord Lipsey
My Lords, this amendment seeks to deal with the following situation. At the moment we have a five-yearly review, and that accords with the timetable of elections every five years, which has been proposed under the Fixed-term Parliaments Bill. As I understand it, when that Bill comes to us, it will contain provision for an early election in certain circumstances: for example, a vote of no confidence in the Government in the Commons. If such a vote happens and an early election is held, the timetable in the current Bill would go awry.
We have learnt, during the passage of this Bill, to accord almost religious significance to the pronouncements of the wonderful British Academy’s study of the Bill, to which the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, referred earlier this afternoon in kindly accepting an amendment from me that incorporated one of its suggestions. On this subject, the British Academy says:
“Parliament may wish to consider the possible implications of an early dissolution on the timetable for reviews set out in the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill, either by an amendment or by ad hoc legislation should such an occasion arise”.
In view of this rightful plea that Parliament should consider it, I asked the authors of the British Academy study what they suggested by way of an amendment, and they replied honestly, being academics: “It is beyond the wit of man, or at least the four men who wrote this pamphlet, to suggest how”. I was therefore forced back to my own suggestion here, which is a quick independent inquiry. If that does not win favour with the Government, I have another main purpose in raising this: to bring the Government’s attention to this possible situation so that appropriate contingency planning can be put in place for what the British Academy called an “ad hoc” solution, should the matter arise. With that, I beg to move.
Lord Strathclyde
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, for moving that amendment. The issue that he is pursuing here is that the Government should themselves set up an independent inquiry, as the amendment says,
“to recommend appropriate changes to the provisions of this Act”.
As I said in reply to the earlier amendment, the Bill requires reports every five years after 2013. Amendment 16M, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, would see reports every four years. As I said earlier, the five-yearly timetable in the Bill is intended to give sufficient opportunity for the boundary commissioners to complete their task and for political parties and candidates to organise themselves ahead of the next election, which will be the case if Parliament passes the Fixed-term Parliaments Bill in its current form. We would move away from the pattern of fixed-term Parliaments starting in May 2015 if the terms in the Fixed-term Parliaments Bill were changed to something other than five years or if there was an extraordinary general election.
The noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, is right that the Government undertook to consider this issue further in Committee. Having done so, we remain of the view that it would be difficult to provide for every possible reason why an election might not occur at an exact five-year interval. We have also considered a power for the Minister to vary the arrangements, exercisable only in the event of an extraordinary election. However, this would place the decision in the hands of a Minister who would have just won an election on the basis of the new boundaries. I think all noble Lords would agree that this might not be a helpful principle and that we should allow Parliament to decide if it becomes necessary. Instead of involving such complexity, the Bill seeks a middle way that does not waste those resources.
I hope that that explains our thinking behind why we are doing what we are doing. I hope that that honours the commitment that we gave in Committee to reflect on the noble Lord’s suggestion.
Lord Lipsey
I am most grateful to the noble Lord for giving it that consideration. He makes it plain that the Government have considered this issue and no doubt will be ready to respond to it should the situation arise. I take the force of the argument that he makes about new Ministers, and therefore beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
Lord McNally
Lord McNally
My Lords, this series of government amendments seeks to remove any ambiguity about the discretion afforded to the Government over the Boundary Commission reports. The noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, raised these issues in an amendment in Committee, and we thank him for this. As my noble and learned friend Lord Wallace said at the time, it is not the Government’s intention that the Secretary of State should have the discretion whether to accept any modifications that the Boundary Commissions wish to make to their reports. We have always been clear that we are willing to make sensible and reasonable improvements to the Bill that do not compromise on the key principles that underpin it, and this is one such example.
A government amendment in the other place made it clear that the Secretary of State could bring forward modifications only at the request of the Boundary Commission. The amendments are intended to remove any remaining potential for confusion by specifying that if the commission requests modifications, the Order in Council laid by the Secretary of State must give effect to the recommendations with the least modifications. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, and all noble Lords who raised this important matter in Committee, and I ask the House to accept the amendments.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton
“United Kingdom electoral quota
1 The United Kingdom electoral quota shall be defined as the total electorate of the United Kingdom on the designated enumeration day divided by 650.”
Lord Falconer of Thoroton
My Lords, Amendment 18F would replace the current provision of the Bill to fix the House of Commons at 600 seats with an alternative rule that would anchor the size of the Commons at its current membership of 650. We have touched down on this a few times this afternoon.
We contend that the Government have failed properly to explain why the figure of 600 seats has been identified as the optimum membership in the other place. They began by claiming that the House of Commons is a “bloated” Chamber and that the UK suffers from overrepresentation, but those arguments were quickly disproved. The claim that Britain is overrepresented in comparison with other similar-sized countries is based on a simple international comparison of numbers of elected representatives per head of population. In fact, the extent to which the UK has more representatives in the national legislature per head of the national population can be exaggerated.
As a briefing note from the House of Commons Library makes clear, the UK has roughly the same ratio as France and Italy. Of course, those calculations take account only of national legislatures and do not include reference to levels of representation beneath that tier. If we look below the national level, we see that the UK has far fewer elected officeholders per head of population than almost all comparable countries. One academic study found that, at the level of local government, the population per elected member is 2,603 in the UK, 350 in Germany and 118 in France. When subnational elected representatives are factored in, it is apparent that the UK does not suffer from overrepresentation.
In any event, there is a fundamental problem in seeking to draw simple comparisons between numbers of elected representatives in different national legislatures. Some countries are unitary states; others are federal. Some have a Westminster model; some have a presidential system. As a consequence, comparison is difficult.
A more sensible basis on which to decide what level of representation is right for the UK is to examine how the size of the House of Commons has changed over time. If the number of MPs was inexorably growing out of all proportion to the size of the electorate, there would clearly be a problem. The evidence shows that that is not the case. The Commons has not grown disproportionately in recent years. It has increased by about 3 to 4 per cent—that is, 25 Members—since 1950. However, the electorate and therefore the average size of constituencies have increased by approximately 25 per cent. That has produced a significant increase in the workload of MPs, which has in any event grown out of all proportion to the increase in population as a consequence of changing social norms, political developments and new forms of communication.
There is no evidence that having fewer MPs will reduce the demand for their services. Assuming that that remains the same, the pressure on the remaining Members and their staff will increase. If the service that MPs provide to their constituencies is not to deteriorate, they will no doubt need greater resources—employing people as caseworkers and those assisting them. The savings made by a reduction of 50 Members of Parliament are then likely to be lost, or reduced, undermining the argument that this is worthy as a cost-cutting measure.
As the initial justifications for the proposed reduction in the other place have broadly collapsed, the government Front Bench has adopted other numbers: a nice round number, now famous in this House. No wonder your Lordships’ Constitution Committee said in its report on the Bill:
“We conclude that the Government have not calculated the proposed reduction in the size of the House of Commons on the basis of any considered assessment of the role and functions of MPs”.
That is now confirmed by the Marshalled List of amendments, which includes, on page 14, Amendment 28A, which provides for a review into the proposed reduction in the number of constituencies. Your Lordships may note that the review is not due to begin until after the election, when the reduction will have happened.
The reduction in the number of MPs is a gamble based on no proper evidence, but it will be pursued anyway. The timeline was explained to us in discussion with the Government on the basis that it would be pointless to try to assess the impact of the proposed reduction on MPs before it had happened. If the reduction turns out to have a very negative impact, it will be too late to prevent it.
In most organisations, you consider the decision first on the evidence and then you take the decision. This Government take the decision, set up a body to look at it and then decide whether it was the right decision. Their approach to whether it affects our national Parliament to the total detriment of the people is, “Who cares?”. Surely the more sensible approach would be to assess the workload and responsibilities of MPs now, with a House of Commons of 650 seats, before making a change of the sort now proposed.
We believe that the case for a 650-seat Commons has not changed since the current Prime Minister, Mr David Cameron, spoke in its favour—indeed, in favour of a slightly larger elected Chamber—at the 2003 Oxfordshire boundary inquiry. Opposing proposals to alter his constituency boundaries at one of the last public inquiries to be allowed into constituency boundaries, he told that inquiry—what a valuable inquiry it was:
“Somebody might take the view that at 659 there are already too many Members of Parliament at Westminster. They may take the view, depending on what happens in the European constitution, that Westminster has less to do, with less MPs—I certainly hope that is not the case”.
Our amendment stems from a conviction that the current Commons of 650 is the most appropriate basis on which to stabilise the size of that Chamber.
Put simply, under our proposals for alternative rules, an initial UK quota would be calculated by dividing the total UK electorate by 650. That would stabilise the House at about 650, but, with a mathematical rounding up or down involved in the calculation of seats in the four parts of the United Kingdom, it would enable minor fluctuations of up to one or two seats either side of 650, which would help the Boundary Commission to deal with remainders. That will give the Boundary Commission flexibility. That seems to be plain common sense. Unfortunately, the Government have struggled to respond positively to those common-sense views.
This is an incredibly important part of the Bill. We are being asked to cut 50 seats from the primary national political body in the United Kingdom. We are being asked to fix its size in statute in perpetuity at 600 and we are not being given any proper explanation as to why that is the most appropriate size for the House of Commons. Does anyone here honestly think that that is the right way to enact such fundamental constitutional change? I beg to move.
Lord Howarth of Newport
My Lords, my noble and learned friend, as the House has come to expect of him, has laid out all the relevant issues with magisterial authority. However, I suggest that there is one issue that he may have overlooked, which is that the population of this country is projected to grow very rapidly in the next few decades. If we fix the number of constituencies at 600, or even at 650, we will shortly find that the average number of constituents is unmanageably large. My noble friend Lady McDonagh made an interesting and thoughtful speech on the subject in Committee. We will quickly find ourselves with constituencies of 100,000 voters, trending upwards. Something has to give. You cannot have a fixed quota and a fixed number of constituencies. If the fixed number of constituencies is to be the paramount consideration, the quota will have to jump up at frequent intervals. That is unsatisfactory.
That leads me to my second point, on which I slightly take issue with my noble and learned friend. I question whether it is appropriate for the Government to invite Parliament to determine the precise number of Members that there should be in the House of Commons. That has not been our practice in the past. The Boundary Commissions have had the discretion to recommend the number of constituencies that they judge to be appropriate, which I think is more practical and more proper. If we were to look at the case of a country in Africa—it might be Zimbabwe, Kenya or Rwanda, one of those countries whose political conduct we are quite apt to criticise and where the regime wins less than universal admiration from all of us around the House—
Lord Falconer of Thoroton
I think that the noble Lord slightly mischaracterises my argument. The effect of my proposal is that it will be for the Boundary Commission to determine the precise number of MPs, which might not be 650. That is the same as the current position.
Lord Howarth of Newport
I am hugely relieved as a result of my noble and learned friend’s intervention. However, I do not think that we should lean particularly on the Boundary Commission; it is not for Governments or politicians to suggest a desirable norm for the precise number of constituencies. Just as we would deplore the regimes of other countries whose practices we considered to be seriously illiberal determining the number of constituencies, so we should not do so here. I acquit my noble and learned friend of any such exact intention, but it is important that no one should suffer from the same misapprehension of his purposes as I did.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
My Lords, I want to say a few words in support of Amendment 18H. I am sure that the Minister will say that it is defective in some way. If it is, I must apologise, but it had to be written rather quickly because of this very short period between Committee and Report, which has created tremendous problems.
Understandably, the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, and I have affection for nice round figures. I can quite understand why he is attracted to 600. However, he has never produced a logical argument for that figure. It was alighted on; it was plucked out of the air. This amendment, which is in my name and that of my noble friend Lord McAvoy, suggests that the figure should be between 600 and 650. The exact figure should be recommended by the Boundary Commission following consultation with all interested parties and then approved by Order in Council, or by Parliament by some method, in time for the general election in 2015. I am not suggesting anything that would hold up this review, which should be completed in time for the general election. The Boundary Commission—I should say the Boundary Commissions, to allow for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland as well—should consult and come up with a figure that they consider more appropriate, taking account of all factors. I considered whether the Electoral Commission should be the body to deal with this, which may be something for discussion.
As was said in Committee, it is unique, unparalleled and regrettable when a Government decide the number of those elected to the main Chamber of Parliament. It is quite outrageous for this to be suggested. My amendment would take it out of the hands of the Government and put it in the hands of a body with some degree of impartiality and respect that can take account of the wider view. The decision will still come back to Parliament and will be agreed in time for the election in 2015.
I also thought that this might be attractive to the Liberal Democrats. On the one hand, you have 650 as an option, while someone else might suggest 600; usually the Liberal Democrats like somewhere in between and this allows for that. However, the Liberal Democrats do not seem the same as they were in the old days, when, as I remember well, they used to like these kinds of compromises and halfway houses where human rights were so important and democracy was considered to be an important element. These days, we see them trooping through in astonishingly rigid and disciplined fashion. The Liberal Democrat Whips must be by far the most successful and powerful Whips anywhere in this Parliament. They march their Members through with astonishing ruthlessness, following this great mantra set down by Mr Nicholas Clegg, who has returned from his expedition in Europe and encourages us to follow some of its patterns of activity.
I am straying. If there was a Speaker with powers—as there ought to be, by the way—he or she, more likely she, would tell me that I was entirely out of order, as indeed I am, so I had better stop.
Lord Lipsey
My Lords, I declare an interest as chairman of Straight Statistics, a group working against statistical abuse by the media, companies, advertisers and the Government. The Minister, in an earlier debate, used in justification for the cut in the number of Members of Parliament by 50 an alleged saving of £12.5 million—he will correct me if I have this figure wrong, as my hearing is not as good as it was. He is nodding in approval, but I cannot approve of that statistic.
If you take the average cost of each MP and multiply it by 50, you get to the figure of £12.5 million or thereabouts. However, that is of course an entirely phoney way to do it. There will be more constituency cases and more people for each MP to write letters to. The workload will not change. The only thing that you save by having 50 fewer MPs is the MPs’ salaries, with a total saving of about £3 million. Perhaps the difference between £12.5 million and £3 million is regarded as insignificant—
Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top
My Lords, I wonder if my noble friend would take that a little further. If the Government want to save £12.5 million, they have to make sure that costs elsewhere do not rise. The level of work needed to be done by the Electoral Commission will involve the employment of more staff—a recurrent expense year on year. I do not think that the Government have thought about that. If they are going to tell us what this measure is going to save—and the only argument that I have heard from the Government is that this will save money—I think that we have the right to know precisely what it will cost in other areas, so that we can see the real costs.
Lord Lipsey
My noble friend is right. There are bags of extra costs in this Bill, including £80 million well spent on the AV referendum—well spent, that is, if it gets the result that both the noble Baroness and I would like to see. I am, however, confining myself to the saving on MPs, because that is the one argument that the Minister has made this afternoon. My point is that he has used a totally bogus figure—inadvertently, I am sure. If he wants to dispute this later, he can put a letter in the Library and we can no doubt correspond about it. It is extremely worrying if a Minister has inadvertently misled—
Lord Tyler
I know that in the past we have assumed that the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, has been a Member of the other place, but I can assure him from my own experience that he is mistaken if he thinks that Members of Parliament are paid by results. You do not get paid more because you have more constituents; the payment is standard. I had an electorate of 87,000 constituents at one point; that constituency is now much reduced, but my successor does not get paid less just because he has fewer constituents. The whole basis of his calculation should be taken back to his statistician friends and looked at again.
Lord Lipsey
I am sorry that the noble Lord’s long experience in another place has not enabled him easily to absorb points being put by people who are, no doubt, less articulate than he is.
Lord Lipsey
The point I hope to make clear is that I am not claiming that there will not be a saving in salary; I am claiming that the workload will remain the same but that there will be fewer people to do it. You will still need people to deal with that workload and letters will still need to be sent. Is the noble Lord saying that if his constituency had increased in size by 10 per cent, he would not have written to anyone in that 10 per cent; that their problems could go fly because he had not got the money to pay for it?
Lord Lipsey
If the noble Lord will forgive me, we should not have multiple interventions on Report. The last intervention did not take the debate forward in the way that the House would desire.
Lord Tyler
But the allowance is not increased. The staffing allowance is not increased simply because there are more constituents.
Lord Lipsey
This often happens in this life. I was just coming to that. What will happen is that MPs will come back and find that they have got an increasing workload. Their staff are worked to the bone, anyway, and they will suddenly see that they have an opportunity to put in an irresistible bid for yet more of them. It will be impossible for a Government to resist that pressure from their own Members, and so the extra staff will be granted and staff allowances will go up. The probability is that this will swamp, dwarf and completely eliminate any saving made by having 50 fewer MPs.
The proof of this particular pudding will lie in the eating. I therefore ask the Leader of the House to put his calculations in the Library so that we can look at the facts when they emerge after the next general election. It would be a nice subject for the independent inquiry into the number of MPs to consider and would give it a good factual basis for saying that this huge error, justified on the grounds of cost, is a statistical howler of the utmost proportions.
Lord Renton of Mount Harry
I would like to pick up on one or two of the comments made by the noble Lords, Lord Lipsey and Lord Foulkes. I serve on the Constitution Committee, to which the Deputy Chairman and the Deputy Leader of the House of Commons came and told us, perfectly truly, as others have said, that there was no big explanation of why the figure was going down from 650 to 600. That has to be said. However, after listening to the debate—and particularly to the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, whom I knew for many years in the other place—I do not believe that it has been made clear that during the time that the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, and I were in the House of Commons the amount of expenses went up hugely.
I well remember that when I became a Member of Parliament in 1974—I know that to talk about one’s past in the House of Commons is not on in this debate—I had only sufficient expenses to employ a secretary for three days a week. Now we all know that Members of Parliament have expenses which, I have heard, enable them to have five or six people in their offices. It is not for me to say the precise figure or the precise number.
Certainly an awful lot of the work that I and other working MPs such as the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, did in our constituencies is now done by members of the office—and quite right, too. The prime job of a Member of Parliament is surely to be in Parliament, debating and making points there. However, the support that Members of Parliament now receive through their expenses is of very great value to them.
I do not know the precise reason for 600 rather than 650, but I can understand the view that there should now be fewer Members of Parliament because they have got so much support in their offices and in dealing with their constituencies. This takes away from them many of the jobs that burdened us. I see that the noble Lord, Lord Kinnock, is about to say something. Under those circumstances, having been 25 years a Member of Parliament, I do not find the move down to 600 from 650 odd or extraordinary. I support it.
Lord Kinnock
My Lords, I have been tempted to enter the debate, to some extent, by the noble Lord, Lord Renton.
A couple of fundamental points need to be made in the context of the amendment of my noble friend Lord Lipsey. First, it is well known to those Members of the House who have been following this part of the debate that, since 1950, the electorate has gone up by 25 per cent and the number of Members of Parliament has gone up by 4 per cent, and we are speaking now against a background of a guaranteed further rise in the population and, therefore, a rise in the electorate. At the same time, there is to be a radical reduction of 50 seats in the other place and an equalisation of the number of constituents in the remaining seats. The only deduction that can be taken from that is that, all other things being equal, the workload of Members of Parliament will continue to increase—and increase additionally because of the reduction in their number, the point made by my noble friend Lord Lipsey.
As the noble Lord, Lord Renton, rightly said, the workload and the character of the work typically undertaken by Members of Parliament have changed substantially over the years. I was a Member of the House of Commons for 25 years and the noble Lord for 30 years, and in those long periods of time the character and the size of the case load changed radically. Like him, in the 1970s I could afford a secretary for three or three and a half days a week, which, given our individual efforts, was sufficient to ensure that the casework of our constituents was adequately covered. There was a period early in my parliamentary career when I found the time and opportunity to go to employment tribunals, with some success. I always wanted to continue doing so but the remainder of the workload made that impossible. Now, of course, I might have a caseworker in my constituency, and with a suitably qualified person I could perhaps make extra inroads into the areas of particular concern to constituents.
In any event, as the noble Lord, Lord Renton, said, accompanying the increase and change in the nature of the workload has been an increase, to some extent, in the staff support for Members of Parliament. That is welcome. However, it is far from the number that he guesses at. Typically it will be three: usually a qualified researcher, a secretary in Parliament and a caseworker in the constituency, sometimes with part-time secretarial support. That is the size of it. Some Members of Parliament, in order to guarantee the quality of service, will go into their own resources and add to the amount officially made available for staff expenditure. I used to do that and, knowing the noble Lord, Lord Renton, I guess that he would do exactly the same.
However, in this situation, no one is proposing a guaranteed increase in staffing to run in parallel with, or as a consequence of, the guaranteed increase in the workload of Members of Parliament as a result of the arbitrary reduction in their numbers. Even without that guarantee, as my noble friend Lord Lipsey suggests, if Members of the other place take account of their increased workload and put it to whatever Government of the day that their workloads have demonstrably increased, there will be additional staff. In those circumstances, any assumed savings from the reduced number of Members of Parliament will evaporate. The picture that I paint is one of a massively increased workload, a change in the quality as well as the quantity of work undertaken and a welcome increase in staff establishing a benevolent trend which will guarantee, not too far ahead in years, a further increase in staff. All that my noble friend was pleading for was the absolute dismissal of any assumed financial advantage for the public purse arising from the change in the Bill. I suggest that the House accepts the wisdom of my noble friend’s words.
Lord Grocott
My Lords, I can make my remarks in two minutes. I have had the enormous privilege of serving not only this House but two different parliamentary constituencies. In one the electorate was 100,000, in the other it was just under 60,000 when I retired. I simply report the situation to the House as accurately and genuinely as I can. Anyone who thinks there is no difference whatever in the level of service that you can give as a Member of Parliament when you are representing 100,000 people compared with 60,000 ought to try providing that service. I have tried to provide it. I say that with feeling because part of the overall justification that has been given for the various constitutional changes with which we will have to deal is that they will reconnect Parliament with the people. I seem to recall Nick Clegg using that phrase. I do not know how on earth you can reconnect Parliament with the people when you have bigger parliamentary constituencies. The noble Lord, Lord Renton, is right to say that staff can help with some of this work, but I would find it deeply depressing if we ended up with a House of Commons that was rather like the House of Representatives in the United States, where you do not see the representative but rather a member of his or her staff. The personal connection that we have in this country is so different from the position in many other countries. That is why I am always so wary of these comparisons.
I think that I have spoken for two minutes but I shall speak for one more. One of the things that make some of us so resistant to the raft of changes being proposed is the great opposition that exists to them. I know that as a matter of reportage. This is a friendless Bill. If there is any uncertainty about that on the government Front Benches, they should try offering a free vote on these issues in the Commons. I have never known so many Conservative MPs—I have not heard a Liberal say this yet, but perhaps one will—telling us to keep up the debate. It is dawning on them that the number of MPs will be reduced, that fights will break out between constituencies and neighbours, and that that is guaranteed to happen every five years. I was going to say that the light is dawning, but I think that it has dawned. Perhaps it is worth the Government checking that out. I may be wrong about the view of Conservative and Liberal Democrat MPs—people over the other side of the Chamber have more experience in that regard than I have—but why do the Government not do a little check behind the scenes first and then demonstrate publicly that this huge constitutional change represents the will of the House of Commons and the House of Lords, and they can prove it because they have given a free vote to the Members?
Lord Kennedy of Southwark
My Lords, I wish to make it clear to the House that I shall not move my Amendment 18G in this group in favour of the amendments tabled by my noble and learned friend Lord Falconer of Thoroton and my noble friend Lord Foulkes of Cumnock.
Lord Strathclyde
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for that clarification. The noble Lord, Lord Grocott, as a former government Chief Whip, espouses the free vote. On the whole I agree with him, but not all the time; in fact, probably not most of the time and probably not on this Bill. The noble Lord said that I should demonstrate publicly why we are doing these things and I shall try to do that. Noble Lords opposite came forward with what I thought were entirely rational arguments. However, I will try to demonstrate that, however rational they were, they start from a false premise. I will not say to the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes of Cumnock, that his amendment is defective. I do not know whether it is or not. It is of no interest to me whether it is defective or not. I know what he was trying to achieve and I accept that he had limited time to get it right, and so I think it is unnecessary to say that. I greatly admire the quality of the research done by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton. He went all the way back to 2003 and found a quotation from the Prime Minister himself, saying something that he would no doubt now regret. That shows just how far he has come over the past few years.
A number of amendments have been tabled to change the number of constituencies required by the Bill to more than 600. We discussed this issue at length on the ninth day of Committee, and I can understand why. I shall set out the Government’s thinking for today’s debate and explain why we are clear that there is a case for making what we consider to be a modest reduction in the size of the House. First, our proposal simply aims to end the upward pressure on the number of MPs and to make a modest reduction in the overall number. With the exception of the review after the creation of the Scottish Parliament, which took effect in 2005, all other boundary reviews since 1950 have seen an increase of between four and 15 seats. The fourth and fifth reviews of the Boundary Commission for England noted that the rules are currently drafted in the Parliamentary Constituencies Act 1986, which contributed to this problem. The fifth general review laid out the details of the issue and noted:
“We illustrate, in paragraph 2.11, how the consequence of the interplay of the existing Rules, other than Rule 1, is a tendency for an ever increasing allocation of constituencies in England in future reviews. This could be changed if the Rules were altered”.
The Boundary Commissions have no formal role in advising on the rules that they must apply. However, as the bodies which have extensive experience of the practical result of applying these rules, their views are clearly important. The changes proposed in this Bill will address those concerns, a point underlined by the British Academy which notes that the revised rules were a very substantial improvement on those currently implemented by the Boundary Commissions, have a clear hierarchy and are not contradictory.
Secondly, making a modest reduction in the overall number of MPs will allow a saving to the public purse. We feel that it is right to lead by example at a time when the whole of the public sector is being asked to make savings. We estimate that reducing the size of the other place will save £12.2 million annually, made up of a reduced salary cost of £4.1 million and £8.1 million in reduced expenditure on MPs’ expenses. I shall turn in a moment to the increased workload raised by many noble Lords. The fundamental point here is that at a time when the whole public sector is being asked to do more with less, this is a relatively modest saving but one which we think is worth making. There is no reason why MPs and the House of Commons should not be more efficient. These amendments would wipe out any prospect of reducing the cost of politics, while we believe that we should lead by example.
Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top
Will the noble Lord tell us what the Government’s estimate is of the increased costs in the Electoral Commission?
Lord Strathclyde
My Lords, there is no estimate of the increase in costs. I shall answer that point when I get to the point about workload.
Lord Kinnock
On the basis that the Government want to do more with less, can the noble Lord suggest to me the reason for a very major increase in the size of this House which—setting apart the change in the allowances system—is hardly doing more for less? Secondly, as the Prime Minister was quoted earlier, perhaps I may bring the noble Lord more up to date and mention the Conservative Party manifesto and the proposed 10 per cent cut, which would take the size of the House of Commons down to 585. In those circumstances, we would have had a logical, electoral-based number to debate. In place of that and the Liberal alternative, we have the neat figure of 600. Would we not be getting more for less if we had 585, as the noble Lord’s party promised?
Lord Strathclyde
We certainly would. Ten per cent is also a nice round figure and very convenient for working out what the reduction would have been. However, we did not win the election with the majority that we wished. We had to reach an agreement with our coalition partners and, on that basis, we came to the figure of 600.
Lord Beecham
Will the Government apply the principle of more for less to the number of Ministers?
Lord Strathclyde
We have accepted the case for that. We would like to do it, but it will not be in this Bill. There is a time and a place for everything.
My third point is the one that the noble Lord, Lord Kinnock, raised about the manifesto of the Conservative Party, which I explained. Of course, there is also another point—that the House of Commons has voted for the figure of 600. Perhaps it was not on a free vote, but who is to say that if there had been a free vote, the House of Commons would not have voted for it? We should therefore tread carefully in questioning that decision.
Noble Lords made an entirely rational argument about workload. The noble Lord, Lord Grocott, said that his experience has shown that the type of service that MPs can give varies according to size of constituency. We have been mindful to reflect the existing range of experience. On the basis of the 2009 electoral register data, 600 seats would create an electoral quota of around 76,000. That means that around a third of seats are already within the 5 per cent variation and will therefore generate no increase in workload. A number are considerably greater than that, and they may get a reduced workload. I wholly accept also that a number of seats will be below that. While it is logical to argue that a reduction from 650 to 600 seats will mean that everyone will have to work a bit harder, the figures do not demonstrate that.
This way of doing it would cause less disruption to current circumstances than would a reduction that is far outside the existing range of MPs and constituencies we are used to. Currently, some Members of the other place represent twice the number represented by other Members of that House. Our proposals for more equally sized constituencies will go some way to providing a more equitable workload for each MP, although I accept that different constituencies have different workloads depending on where they are and the different kinds of electorates they represent.
There are also international comparisons to be made, and the noble and learned Lord has helpfully brought those to our attention. We should decide the size of our House of Commons primarily on the basis of what is right for the specific circumstances of the UK, but we should also not reject international trends completely. The present size of the Commons makes it the largest directly elected national chamber in the EU. Six hundred seats would put us in line with some countries with comparable populations. Germany’s Bundestag has 622 members and the Italian Chamber of Deputies has 630. I know that the noble and learned Lord was referring to the number of elected members right across the range, from locally elected officials up, whereas I have taken the figures for the respective countries’ national Parliaments.
The Bill’s key principle of delivering a more equitable value to each elector’s vote in time for the next general election also informs our choosing not to provide for a sliding scale of constituencies with an independent body exercising discretion over the final number.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton
The noble Lord’s speech was again attractively delivered and charmingly put, but it got worse and worse as a justification for 600 being the number of seats. I listened very carefully to him: he said that there were three reasons for introducing the reduction. The first was that arguments against it imply that we are departing from well known rules; the second that the current arrangements produce a “steady upward pressure”; and the third that we have a good starting point in the commission which will meet and give its report three years after the introduction of the figure 600. What he said was risible. He said that we would have as our starting point a commission that has not yet been formed and that, in order to get rid of the “steady upward pressure” in the House of Commons, the Government were reducing its size to 600 seats. Noble Lords will know that the House of Commons has never been less than 615 in the past 160 years. When it was 615, the electorate was 20,874,000. In 2004, when the number of seats was 646, the electorate was 44,245,000. The inexorable upwards pressure has in the past 25 years led to the membership of the House of Commons increasing from 650 to—blow me down—650. The arguments being advanced are risible. We are being asked to reduce our House of Commons by 7.5 per cent.
I understand the noble Lord’s dilemma. He can be the stand-up comic who says that 600 is a nice round number and he likes it—he is a nice round man, and a nice round number matches that—or he can be incomprehensible, as he was today. What he cannot give—it is not his fault—is any justification for this reduction from 650 to 600. I invite the opinion of the House.
Earl Attlee
My Lords, I beg to move that further consideration on Report be now adjourned. In doing so, I suggest that Report stage not begin before 9.04 pm.
Baroness McDonagh
“1 The number of constituencies in the United Kingdom shall not be substantially more than 600.
Electorate per constituency2 (1) A Boundary Commission must, when recommending the number of constituencies under rule 1, aim to create constituencies with an electorate of 72,000 voters, subject to rule 2(2) below.
(2) A Boundary Commission may vary the size of constituencies but must ensure that the electorate of any constituency is—
(a) no less than 7.5% less than the electorate specified in rule 2(1), and(b) no more than 7.5% more than the electorate specified in rule 2(1).Factors for consideration3 When recommending constituencies under rule 1, a Boundary Commission must ensure that constituency boundaries—
(a) do not cross historic county boundaries, such as those between Cornwall and Devon,(b) only cross London borough boundaries where absolutely necessary,(c) in England, do not cross local government ward boundaries, and(d) are sympathetic to local ties and natural boundaries.”
Baroness McDonagh
My amendment seeks to look at all the issues that a Bill such as this needs to incorporate. Any Bill of this nature needs four parts to it: the size of the House; the size of the constituency; the things to look at when trying to establish the boundary of a constituency; and a fourth part covering how the public can complain or test the Government or their agency on the decisions that they make, particularly on an important matter such as our democratic system. The fourth part is not in my amendment because it has already been debated today. I listened particularly to noble and learned Lords on the issue. I hope that the Government will look again at the provisions on the public inquiries. It concerns me that there will be a lot of challenge to this legislation if it goes through in its current form. But I have not included that last part in my amendment.
Of the three parts that I have considered, the most important part under our democratic, first past the post system with one Member per constituency that represents a community of interest, is that community and constituency, and is its size. The amendment makes it very clear that there is a principle of equal sizes for constituencies, and sets the figure at 72,000, plus or minus a variation of 7.5 per cent. So that is clear, and it is a matter that we can all agree on. It is an issue of primacy. At 72,000, that increases the average constituency by 2,000 from its current size.
The first part of the amendment, which works in conjunction with the number of voters that you have in a constituency but is slightly less important, is the overall number of seats in the House. I use the words “not substantially more than” not because of any sleight of hand here but as a basis for voters in the constituency, who are the most important thing. Since I came into the House, I have had experience of how mature and responsible this House is when scrutinising legislation. It would be immature and irresponsible for us to pass legislation that we know will be out of date by the time the ink is dry on this Bill. We know from the ONS figures that over the next 20 years the population will rise by 70 million, we know that the number of 18 year-olds will increase, and we know that over the next 20 years there is quite a high likelihood of a reduction in the voting age to 17 or 16. If the Bill called for constituencies to be increased to 100,000 or 105,000 or 110,000 or 115,000, this House would vote that down. Therefore, we should be very straightforward about the impact of this legislation. It is one thing for both Houses to pass legislation which through unforeseen circumstances at some future date becomes outdated and has to be updated. It is quite another thing to pass legislation that we know cannot work, not only over the medium term but over the short term. So I hope the House accepts the principle here. The Leader of the House said earlier that the most important thing was equalisation of constituencies.
The final issue that I have addressed, because these things work together, is that if you have 72,000 within a variation, what are the things that you look towards to try to make a community of interest work? All four things that I have laid out here can work within this size of constituency. First, historic county boundaries need not be crossed, something that we have never done. I cited Cornwall and Devon as an example but you could easily use Lancashire and Yorkshire. Secondly, London borough boundaries would be crossed only where absolutely necessary, but you could do so if required. The third point concerned not crossing local government ward boundaries in England. You could not get to this number of voters and not cross ward boundaries in Scotland or Wales because there is a different electoral system for local government there now. The fourth point was that we ought largely, wherever possible, to be sympathetic to local ties and natural boundaries. I see the importance of the individual amendments that noble Lords have tabled, but ultimately all parts of the Bill have to hang together.
I am sure that noble Lords on this side of the House have faced this on many occasions when in government, but there are many concerns when you are trying to pass legislation. I appreciate, and I am not belittling this, that the Conservative Benches are under huge pressure from their leadership and from the other place. I also appreciate that the Lib Dem Benches are very concerned, should they err or somehow seem to be disloyal, that they may not get their AV referendum. Both parties have privately explained to me their concerns in these areas. I think that neither of those things will happen. The bigger risk that both parties face is that they will pass legislation that will not work in practice and, without meaning to, they will create a democratic system that alienates the public. I have put this amendment together as a way of showing how it could address the principles that noble Lords are seeking to address within the available parameters. I beg to move.
Lord Bach
I have some brief comments. I congratulate my noble friend on her amendment. The House knows that when she speaks, she does so with a great amount of experience and expertise in this field, and the House should take note of what she has said.
I shall concentrate on the phrase that she uses in paragraph 1 of her amendment:
“The number of constituencies in the United Kingdom shall not be substantially more than 600”.
The Front Bench, as the House will know already, thinks that a number nearer 650 is to be preferred. If we put that one side for a moment, the way that my noble friend phrases that is taken—I hope she will forgive me for saying so; in fact I am sure that she will not have to forgive me for saying so, because it is obvious—from Schedule 2 to the Parliamentary Constituencies Act 1986, an Act passed by a Conservative Government and one that they should be proud of. Schedule 2, relating to the rules, says:
“The number of constituencies in Great Britain shall not be substantially greater or less than 613”.
When you add the number for Northern Ireland, the total is around 630. The crucial point is that it does not say, “it shall be 600” or “it shall be 650”. Subtly, and, I would say, in a pretty obvious British tradition, that Act is very cautious in its wording. I therefore congratulate my noble friend on the way she has phrased her amendment. The Government propose a blunt 600. It would not matter what the number was in one sense—a blunt 500, a blunt 700. But the fact that the Government through Parliament are trying to put forward an exact number still seems to me constitutionally offensive.
Even after all the days that we have debated this Bill, the Boundary Commission for England’s Fifth Periodical Report has not been quoted from. Let me change that briefly. At the very end of the report, on page 485, paragraph 6.25, it says:
“We do not consider it right”—
this is the Boundary Commission speaking—
“for us arbitrarily to set a fixed target number of constituencies and adhere rigidly to that number”.
That is the phrase it uses. It is almost as though it is a given that you would not expect an exact number to be put down in legislation. What is depressing about this Bill—one of the many things that are perhaps depressing about Part 2 of this Bill—is that, however hard we have tried and others from other parts of the House have tried, that exact number of 600 stands. That is a real shame. It marks a change in the constitution of this country. I much prefer the way in which my noble friend has phrased her amendment.
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
My Lords, first, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady McDonagh, for her amendment. In a number of ways it brings together issues that have been debated both in Committee and this evening and, I suspect, will be debated in future groups of amendments.
On the rules of the Boundary Commission and the number of seats, as the noble Baroness indicated, her amendment has a number of parts to it. First, it would set a target of 600 seats, not to be substantially exceeded. Secondly, it would introduce a fixed electoral quota of 72,000 voters and a tolerance of 7.5 per cent on either side. Finally, it would require the Boundary Commission to draw up recommendations for boundaries that do not cross historic county boundaries or English local government wards, and cross London borough boundaries only where absolutely necessary and where sympathetic to local ties and natural boundaries. The Government have on each of these issues already made their view clear in the debates that we have already had on this Bill. I am sure that there will be other opportunities to revisit them before the Bill leaves your Lordships’ House.
I start with the noble Baroness’s suggestion that there should be a target of 600 seats. The noble Lord, Lord Bach, referred to the Parliamentary Constituencies Act 1986, in which the figure of 613 seats was set using similar wording.
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
Indeed. The figure is 613 for Great Britain, which, with Northern Ireland, takes it to 630. We are agreed on that. That, in many respects, just underlines the problem. Even with that wording, if you subtract the 18 Northern Ireland seats from the current 650, you get 632, so we are already some 19 seats up. Noble Lords might recall that when the 1986 legislation was passed, it also had the provision that there had to be at least 71 or 72 seats in Scotland, which is now down to 59, so we can perhaps add another 12 to that. Not only are we 19 up, we have a further 12, so we would have drifted upwards by some 31 from the target figure.
The noble Lord, Lord Bach, quoted the fifth report. I do not dispute that no one else has, but I do think that somewhere along the line there have been some quotations from it before, although that is neither here nor there. While he indicated that in the view of the Boundary Commission it was not right for it to set a fixed target or adhere to a fixed number, I rather think that, given the rules under which it operates in the 1986 legislation, that is probably a proper way for it to go about its business. The whole point is that Parliament is setting a figure of 600. It is not the Boundary Commission but Parliament that will set a fixed number.
The Government’s position has been made clear; there needs to be a legislative cap on the number of seats to control the ratchet effect of the current legislation, under which the number of seats has increased at every review—with the exception of the post-devolution review—since 1950. It is likely that the target would be missed under the noble Baroness’s amendment even at the first review, since the 2009 electorate divided into constituencies at an average of 72,000 would fill 631 constituencies. Indeed, she said that we would be invited to address the issue of constituencies of around 100,000, but that is wildly out of kilter with anything that is being proposed here. That is not what Parliament is being asked to address. We are looking at a quota of approximately 76,000, with a variation of 5 per cent on either side—a band of 7,600.
Setting out the size of the electoral quota in the Bill poses some problems for the way in which the noble Baroness’s amendment is framed. However, the way in which the Bill is written allows for changes in the number of registered voters while maintaining a smaller House of Commons. A specified quota, such as that proposed in this amendment, would mean that the number of seats will rise as the number of registered electors rises, making it yet more unlikely that the commissions will ever meet the target of 600 seats.
Lord Campbell-Savours
What happens if the population rises by 2.5 million and, when it is spread out as a ripple effect across the whole population, each constituency then meets the limit of 76,000 plus 5 per cent? Do we then increase the number of seats or simply increase the number of voters in each constituency?
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
My Lords, as the Bill is set out, at each relevant date the quota for the Boundary Commission—the number of registered voters—will take that into account. Given that the Bill provides for five-yearly boundary reviews, the population is unlikely to increase by 2.5 million in one boundary review, although it could happen over time. We are still talking about 600 seats. Therefore, the quota would increase, still allowing for a variation of 5 per cent either way. My point about the noble Baroness’s amendment is that with the quota being set in the Bill—if her amendment were to be carried—an increase of 2.5 million in the population would significantly increase the number of seats and move further away from her other objective, stated in her amendment, of not being substantially in excess of 600.
The next issue is that of the 7.5 per cent tolerance from the parity quota. Your Lordships’ House has discussed increasing the tolerance from the quota set out in the Bill on several occasions. I merely confirm that the Government are committed to the principle of equity and of equally weighted votes. Five per cent is the minimum variance necessary to ensure that the Boundary Commissions are able to take into consideration the important practical factors set out in rule 5 without undermining the principle of fairness for voters that is at the core of these reforms. A greater tolerance in these circumstances would be unfair to electors. The discretion given to the Boundary Commission by a tolerance of 7.5 per cent allows for the possibility that different Boundary Commissions could adopt different practices and, therefore, that there could be an imbalance in the number of seats in each part of the United Kingdom.
The amendment also sets up a potential for internal conflict. The provisions in the Bill have been praised as a substantial improvement on those currently implemented by the Boundary Commissions because they have a clear hierarchy and are not contradictory. However, the provisions in the amendment do not have such a hierarchy and there is no guarantee that the commissions will be able to draw constituencies of 76,000 people without crossing historic county boundaries—a term that remains undefined.
I turn to the other leg of the noble Baroness’s amendment. To ensure that constituency boundaries do not cross various other boundaries, we have listened to the concerns of noble Lords and are bringing forward an amendment later this evening that will put into the Bill the local government boundaries that we know each Boundary Commission considers when drawing up constituencies. The 5 per cent variation will allow the Boundary Commission for England to use wards as building blocks in most if not all cases. We expect that it will do so. However, it is important to allow the Boundary Commission for England discretion as it carries out its independent duties. The amendment talks of historic county boundaries and specifically mentions Devon and Cornwall. I thought I heard the noble Baroness say that historic boundaries had never been crossed before. I am told that the Littleborough and Saddleworth constituency crossed the Yorkshire-Lancashire border. If there ever was an historic sensitive boundary, I suspect that it might be that one.
Lord Trimble
On the question of historic county boundaries, I do not have the precise facts, but I think I am accurate in saying that half the current constituencies in Northern Ireland cross historic county boundaries. It would be totally impossible for the amendment to operate in Northern Ireland.
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
I hear my noble friend and, although I do not have an exact figure, a significant number of county boundaries within England are crossed by constituencies. I am not quite sure whether those counties would be defined as historic.
Lord Bach
Which other examples does the noble and learned Lord have in mind? He is quite right to mention Oldham and Saddleworth. Our point is that if this Bill is passed as it stands, there will be many more Oldham and Saddleworths. Those of us who visited that lovely part of the world a few weeks ago will know that it is a constituency of many parts that are absolutely different from each other. Do the Government really want boundaries with no links at all—never mind historic links—that are just jammed together for political convenience? The Government should want to avoid that, rather than encourage it. I ask again—does the noble and learned Lord have other examples?
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
I do not have the figures immediately to hand, although before I finish I might be able to provide the number of county boundaries that are crossed by constituencies. I accept that the number of constituencies that cross county boundaries is different. From my recollection of our previous debates on this issue, a number of county boundaries are crossed by constituencies. I hope that by the time I conclude my remarks I can advise the House as to the exact number of county boundaries that are crossed. I am sure that in each case it is thought the counties are properly historic.
Lord Beecham
Does the Minister accept that if the 5 per cent threshold were adopted, only nine out of 46 county boundaries would not be crossed by new constituencies?
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
My Lords, one can only speculate at present on what the Boundary Commission will propose. I know that some efforts are being made to work out what might happen. I could not accept that because we have not seen any Boundary Commission proposals. However, I emphasise to your Lordships the importance of wards, which the noble Baroness mentions in her amendment. We will debate this matter later, because the Government have responded to requests that wards should be one of the key building blocks. It is, of course, at the ward level that many local ties are reflected. The wards will be significant building blocks in the new constituencies.
Lord Tyler
The noble Baroness will be aware that the present constituency of Dulwich and West Norwood crosses a London borough boundary. It is therefore important to mention, for the benefit of your Lordships’ House, when considering sub-paragraphs (b) and (c) of proposed new rule 3 in the amendment that, as has been pointed out on several occasions, in Birmingham it would be impossible to fulfil the requirements of sub-paragraph (c). Under the present arrangements, the constituency boundaries of local government boundaries are certainly not protected. It is important that we live in the real world.
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
My Lords, my noble friend makes the point that constituencies cross London borough boundaries. I repeat that the important building blocks are the wards. They will be the units in which local ties are best expressed.
Sixteen out of 35 shire county boundaries are crossed; 31 out of 40 unitary authority boundaries are crossed; and 19 out of 32 London borough boundaries are crossed. That is a significant number. Therefore, I cannot accept that it has never been done before.
The Bill already permits the Boundary Commission to take into consideration factors that the amendment suggests: county boundaries, London borough boundaries, local ties and natural geography. I agree with the noble Baroness that these are all important and should be considered by the commissions when they make their recommendations. That is why we have included them in the Bill. However, as we have said on numerous occasions, we do not believe that these factors should outweigh the fundamental principle of equality in the weight of votes that the Bill will provide. It was the lack of hierarchy in the past that led to a divergence and a ratcheting up from the target of 613 seats. For these reasons, I urge the noble Baroness to withdraw her amendment.
Baroness McDonagh
I thank the Minister for his response. I will respond quickly. I would be surprised if it were the Government’s intention to pass legislation that sets out to cross historic county boundaries. One area that has not been debated properly is the size of constituencies. It has not been debated in the context of either the amendments or the Bill as a whole. It is inaccurate to suggest that constituencies would not be reduced by my amendment, which would waive the minimum number for Welsh constituencies. The average size of a constituency would increase by 2,000, which would make a major difference to the number of constituencies and would allow their population to grow.
I will respond to the noble Lord, Lord Tyler. Sub-paragraph (b) of my proposed new rule 3 states that a constituency boundary must,
“only cross London borough boundaries where absolutely necessary”.
It does not say that you cannot cross London borough boundaries. It is perfectly possible, within the constraints of a 72,000 electorate, plus or minus 7.5 per cent, to take these factors into consideration.
Paragraph (2) of my proposed new rule 2 states:
“A Boundary Commission may vary the size of constituencies but must ensure that the electorate of any constituency is”,
within 7.5 per cent of 72,000 electors. That makes it clear that the primacy of the rule is the equalisation of constituencies and not the reduction in the number of Members of the House. Setting the overall number in the House is important only when one looks at a different electoral system, and in particular at PR. However, I will think about the points that the Minister made and beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
“( ) In England the Boundary Commission should where practicable have regard to the boundaries of counties and London boroughs and in any case no constituency shall include the whole or part of more than two counties or London boroughs.”
Lord Bach
My Lords, other noble Lords have also tabled amendments in this group. They would insert a number of additional factors for Boundary Commissions to take into account when drawing up constituencies for the four parts of the United Kingdom. In particular, they would insist that regard should be had to the boundaries of English counties and London boroughs. It would also place greater emphasis on the importance of electoral wards in the boundary-drawing process.
At present, the new rules for drawing constituency boundaries proposed in the Bill are dominated by the overriding requirement for every constituency, with very few exceptions, to fall within the margins of 5 per cent either side of a new UK-wide electoral quota. Although in rule 5 of Schedule 2 under Clause 11 a number of further factors are listed which the Boundary Commissions may also take into account when drawing constituencies, these additional factors are of course subordinate to the numerical prerequisite.
Independent electoral experts and the heads of the four Boundary Commissions have all made it clear on the record that, in order to meet the proposed numerical targets, individual wards will almost certainly need to be divided. The four heads of the Boundary Commissions told the Political and Constitutional Reform Select Committee:
“The changes to the total number of constituencies, and the tighter limits on the number of electors in each constituency, will result in a complete redrawing of constituency boundaries ... The electoral parity target may require the Commissions to work with electorate data below ward level in many cases”.
That statement is utterly at odds with the words of the right honourable gentleman the Deputy Prime Minister, who told your Lordships’ Constitution Committee that,
“we must be able to use wards as the continued building blocks of constituency boundaries”.
Splitting wards in many cases will, as the Boundary Commissioners warn, result in major changes to the established pattern of political representation, and that is true of England in particular. The secretaries of the four commissions went on to tell the Select Committee:
“The electoral parity target will result in many constituencies crossing local authority boundaries. Early modelling suggests that in Scotland between 15 and 20 constituencies (of 50), and in Wales between 23 and 28 constituencies (of 30), would cross a local authority boundary ... the application of the electoral parity target is likely to result in many communities feeling that they are being divided between constituencies”.
The fracturing of wards and the crossing of county and local government boundaries would create administrative confusions that would feed into a sense of social dislocation. It would create particular problems for political parties at a structural level, especially in the case of the Conservative Party and my own party, the Labour Party, which are both organised on a constituency and ward basis. Significantly, Professor Ron Johnston, whom the Government are always praying in aid, told the Political and Constitutional Reform Select Committee that one academic study had shown that,
“when a ward was split a lot of the ward activists drifted away. They had lost their rationale to represent this place, this place no longer existed, it was in two parts and political activity declined”.
That will mean, of course, very great organisational challenges for local parties, especially with the much more frequent and disruptive boundary reviews that the Bill envisages. Our amendments would provide more solidity to the boundary review process, better balance to the process for drawing constituencies and a greater understanding about the potentially damaging knock-on effect of the rigidly mathematical framework on which the Government are currently fixated.
I hope that the Government can respond favourably to these amendments and, in particular, I hope that they are able to accept Amendment 21C, which would insert into rule 5 of Schedule 2 in Clause 11 the following statement:
“Wards shall be the building blocks for parliamentary constituencies”.
That is word for word what the Deputy Prime Minister said to your Lordships’ Constitution Committee. I wonder whether the Minister is able to concede an amendment to the Opposition that merely requires the Government to agree with what the Deputy Prime Minister said. I beg to move.
Lord Tyler
My Lords, I shall speak to Amendments 27A, 27C and 27D. I want to pay tribute to my noble friends on the Front Bench because this responds directly to a request made in Committee by my noble friend Lord Rennard and me that we should have some very simple, practical rules in the Bill to deal with the issue to which the noble Lord, Lord Bach, has just referred. These amendments together seem to us fully to meet our concerns. I think that they are practical and sensible, but they recognise that in certain parts of the United Kingdom it will be very difficult to be precise; for example, in a big city like Birmingham where the wards are very big indeed—I believe that they run to hundreds of thousands of people. In those circumstances, obviously you cannot have a hard-and-fast rule. However, Amendments 27A, 27C and 27D meet fully the requirements of a realistic appreciation that wards will indeed be the building blocks of constituency size; but we have to have some flexibility to meet the particular concerns and needs of different parts of the United Kingdom. I am very grateful to my noble friends.
Lord Howarth of Newport
My Lords, I have three amendments in this group: Amendments 27AA, 27BA and 27BB. These are technical amendments and I do not think that they have any political implications at all. Certainly I do not think that they do anything to challenge what the Government regard as the principles of this Bill. I am rather puzzled that in the definitions of local government boundaries on page 12 in Clause 10(3)(a), reference is made to the boundaries of each county, each district and each London borough, but no reference is made to the boundaries of other unitary authorities. If the noble Lord is able to tell me that other unitary authorities are covered by these definitions as already stated in the Bill, I have no problem; but I do not think that they are. There are unitary authorities that are not counties or London boroughs. Surely it would be desirable in principle if the Boundary Commissions, in applying rule 5(1)(b) on page 10, were to seek to avoid crossing the boundaries of other unitary authorities when drawing up the boundaries of constituencies. Professor Ron Johnston made that point in his evidence to the Select Committee on Political and Constitutional Reform of another place. He suggested that it was no more than an oversight that other unitary authorities had not been included within the clarification of terms in the Bill.
Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top
My noble friend might like to know that a couple of years ago Durham County became a new unitary authority and is no longer counted as either a county or as being in any of the other categories. There is, none the less, a real pride in being the new unitary authority within the old county of Durham. It would be very weird if we had to stray from wards within that area into Tyneside, Wearside or, indeed, into Cumbria, at the top of the county, and Northumberland. It seems to me that my noble friend has hit on something important—certainly in Durham we would take it as very important indeed.
Lord Howarth of Newport
My noble friend speaks with her characteristic sensitivity to political emotions, which are very important among political realities. She speaks with pride on behalf of the historic county of Devon. Durham—forgive me, it is late in the evening. I hope that my noble friend will forgive me.
Lord Howarth of Newport
Technically, perhaps the county of Durham is no longer a county council as such; I do not know. It seems to me all the more important that there should be recognition in the Bill of the important contemporary reality of unitary authorities.
Among his observations in debate on a previous amendment, the noble Lord noted that parliamentary constituency boundaries crossed the boundaries of a significant proportion of unitary authorities. That is not a good reason to surrender those unitary authorities, assuming that there will be no concern among the people who live within them that their integrity should be preserved when drawing parliamentary constituency boundaries—and, very importantly, the working relationship between Members of Parliament and the local authorities governing the areas, the communities, which they represent. It must be desirable that Members of Parliament deal with the smallest possible number of local authorities. The complexity, the multiplication of tasks, the time-wasting and the cost involved in Members of Parliament having to deal with a proliferation of different local authorities overlapping with their constituencies is clearly undesirable. I hope that the Government will accept that the Bill should be amended on the lines of my amendments.
I say just a word on the question of wards as building blocks. If it has to be accepted that, with the tight tolerance around the electoral quota, it will be more commonly the case than it has been hitherto that individual wards will be bisected in the drawing up of constituencies, some administrative questions follow. What is to be the subdivision of wards that the Boundary Commission will need to take account of? If it is to be polling districts, how can we be sure that local authorities will not redefine polling districts so as to frustrate the purposes of the Boundary Commission?
Those administrative processes ought to be sensibly related to each other. If we are to see the fragmentation of wards, we need some sub-unit which the Boundary Commission will respect. If it is to be the polling district within the ward—which it could be—we need a guarantee that the polling districts will not be arbitrarily chopped and changed. I beg to move.
Lord Davies of Stamford
I suspect that at this stage in the proceedings and at this time of night, there is not a great appetite in the House for a long speech. I want to speak briefly to my amendment, Amendment 22, which is grouped and is about wards.
It would be churlish not to start off by saying that I recognise—and am grateful and appreciative—that the Government have moved some way in our direction. The Minister will recall that I pressed him on the matter of wards at some length in Committee. After quite a long discussion, he ended up by saying that there may be,
“some merit in placing discretionary consideration”—[Official Report; 24/1/11; 713.]—
of wards in the Bill. I place on record that I recognise that the noble and learned Lord has done what he promised to do and has tabled an amendment, which he has not yet had a chance to move, Amendment 27A, which puts wards in the same category as other local authority boundaries for the purposes of the Bill.
Your Lordships may say: why are you rising at all to speak to the amendment? The reason is that there is a significant difference between what the Government propose—I recognise that they have taken steps in the right direction—and what I propose. The essential phrase in Clause 5, which all of us will remember, is that the Boundary Commission “may, if it sees fit” take into account local government boundaries. Wards are now included for the first time as a local government boundary.
“May, if it sees fit,” is a very weak indication or encouragement to the Boundary Commission to take ward boundaries seriously.
I have a greater degree of optimism in practice, because I have a great respect for the Boundary Commission and it is as familiar as we are with the strong arguments for respecting wards made very well by my noble friend Lord Bach. They are that wards are the building blocks of both local government and the major political parties in this country. To break them up or cut across them would be an attack on democracy at the grassroots. I am quite sure that neither the Tory party nor the Liberal Democrat party really want to do that. However, there is considerable merit in having a stronger formulation as in my amendment:
“Except in circumstances they judge to be exceptional, a Boundary Commission may not allow a ward to form part of more than one constituency”.
The obligation is placed on the Boundary Commission to make a case of exceptional circumstances if it decides to split a ward. That seems a much stronger formulation and I would be grateful if the Minister could say why he cannot accept an amendment which seems to encapsulate the spirit of the debate we had in Committee.
Lord Myners
My Lords, I was not intending to speak to this series of amendments but I believe there is an important generality here of respect for established boundaries and division points that define one community from another, be they county council boundaries or wards or other forms of distinct governmental boundaries and definitions. The House should proceed with great care before we disturb natural groupings—natural directions in which people look to have influence and where decisions will be taken which affect their lives and communities.
I have added my name to an amendment about Cornwall which the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, will table tomorrow. Unfortunately I am unable to be in the House then so I will speak for one moment now. The people of Cornwall recognise it as a unit of great integrity; they are very proud of being Cornish. The six MPs from Cornwall, three Liberal Democrats and three Conservatives, are all agreed that Cornwall must remain an intact area in terms of preserved constituencies. I will not be able to speak tomorrow in support of the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, but I want to use this generality around respect for boundaries and traditional definitions of areas in relation to Cornwall. In would be a monstrous outcome if Cornwall was required to share a constituency with Devon.
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
My Lords, I thank noble Lords who have taken part in this debate, and I thank them for the amendments they have tabled. We have focused on the important issue of boundaries, particularly ward boundaries. I especially thank my noble friend Lord Tyler and the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Stamford, for acknowledging that, in response to representations they made earlier, the Government have brought forward amendments that reflect the importance of using wards in the Boundary Commission’s deliberations and determinations.
The Government have listened, and I hope that our amendments will satisfy the House. They reflect the variations in local government geography in the four constituent nations of the United Kingdom. We have taken the local government boundaries that we know each Boundary Commission considers when drawing up the constituencies and the amendment puts them on the face of the Bill. The Boundary Commissions will have the discretion to consider ward boundaries along with the other local government boundaries referred to in the debate.
The noble Lord, Lord Howarth of Newport, and the noble Baroness, Lady Armstrong, mentioned the position of the unitary authorities. In the other place, the Government listened to the matter raised by the honourable Member for Slough regarding the unique position of the unitary authorities in Berkshire, which are districts. The Government listened and made an amendment to ensure that their boundaries were included. They will still be covered by our amendment which refers to all council areas in England, whether unitary or two tier, and for that reason we believe that there is no need for the amendments of the noble Lord, Lord Howarth of Newport, although I accept the rationale behind them. The government amendment already allows the Boundary Commission to consider unitary authorities.
Amendment 21A would prevent constituencies including the whole or part of more than two counties or London boroughs. I note that the honourable Member for Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale, Mr David Mundell, represents a constituency which contains parts of three council areas, including my own native parts in Dumfriesshire. It shows that Members of Parliament can perform this task. Indeed, at the last general election Mr Mundell was returned with an increased majority, which, given that he is the only Conservative MP in Scotland, was no small achievement. The administrative convenience of MPs should not be set above other factors to be considered by the Boundary Commissions.
The amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Davies, would prevent wards being split except in exceptional circumstances. The difficulty with exceptional circumstances is that in some of the largest wards of around 20,000 electors, there could well be perfectly valid arguments that it might better reflect the community characteristics for them to be divided between two different constituencies. In an earlier debate the noble Baroness, Lady McDonagh, recognised that wards are already split by parliamentary constituency boundaries in Scotland, where, because of the single transferable vote system of local elections, wards are by their very nature considerably greater.
We believe that the best approach is to give discretion to the Boundary Commissions. We should not forget that the secretary to the Boundary Commission for England said in evidence to the Commons Political and Constitutional Reform Committee in September of last year:
“We have done some modelling earlier in the year … and it appears possible to allocate the correct number of constituencies using wards. However, it may be necessary to use a geography below ward level”.
So we expect wards to continue to be used as the building blocks of constituencies in England.
I am sympathetic to the intentions of opposition Amendment 21C. However, the Government favour placing a discretion on the commissions in the form of our amendment. I hope we agree that it is helpful for the commissions to be able to have regard to the boundaries of wards and other local government boundaries, and it is for that reason that we have placed them in the Bill. I urge the noble Lord, Lord Bach, to withdraw his amendment and the other noble Lords not to move theirs. I will move Amendments 27A, 27C and 27D in good time.
Lord Bach
My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken in the debate, not least to the Minister for his comments. At the start of my speech I did not thank the Government for the move that they have made on this issue, which I now acknowledge from the Front Bench. Our problem is that they have not moved far enough. My amendment and the amendment of my noble friend Lord Davies of Stamford seem to be stronger, tougher and more likely to mean that wards would not be divided in the changes to come. However, we have had a full discussion on this issue today and the Government have at least moved some way in this field. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Bach
My Lords, rule 4 is designed to place a limit on the territorial extent of a constituency. That rule is deemed necessary because, if the principle of the equality of representation was continued to its logical end, we would see at least one gigantic parliamentary constituency in the highlands of Scotland. This is because the scarcity of population in that part of the United Kingdom means that a constituency would have to cover an enormous area if it was going to attain the proposed electoral quota of approximately 75,800 electors.
The electoral parity rule, born out of rules 2 and 5(3) in the Government’s scheme, is clear that every seat in Britain, save for the two Scottish island seats—and now, by the will of your Lordships’ House, the Isle of Wight—would have to have an electorate of between 95 per cent and 105 per cent of that UK average electorate. This would mean between about 73,000 and 80,000 voters. Rule 4 overrides that requirement. It states on the one hand that no constituency may exceed 13,000 square kilometres in size and, on the other, that a constituency may be exempted from the rule requiring it to meet the electoral quota in the event that it has a land area of over 12,000 square metres.
The first question that stems from rule 4 is: what was the basis for these numbers? So far as we know, there has never been a statutory limit on the size of a constituency, still less on electorates, and an exemption from that limit based on territorial extent, so where did these numbers come from? Rule 4 can conceivably apply in only one part of the United Kingdom—namely, the Scottish highlands—but why should the geography of that area be the only geography to qualify for special recognition in the construction of parliamentary constituencies? We understand why it might be sensible to put a limit on how large a constituency should be allowed to grow territorially in pursuit of the electoral quota, but would it not be sensible to place other protections on potentially undesirable geographical entities that could be produced as a consequence of the electoral parity rule? If the Minister tries to explain the rule by referring to the accessibility of a constituency, which I suspect he might be tempted to do—for example, the ability of the MP to travel round his or her constituency—why is Argyll and Bute, with 13 islands, or St Ives, which incorporates the Isles of Scilly, not also included as exceptions to the parity rule? If he uses the accessibility argument, I should like an answer to that question.
It might be possible to prioritise either the geographical size of constituencies or the number of electors in a constituency, but the Government should not attempt to do both, so why were these figures of 13,000 square kilometres and 12,000 square kilometres chosen? The Government obviously had a particular area in mind, but we would like to hear from the Minister what led the Government to come to that view. I beg to move.
Lord McNally
I will not refer to the accessibility argument. Amendment 21B seeks to remove the provision for an exemption for geographically extremely large constituencies provided for by rule 4 in the Bill. As the Government said when the noble Lord, Lord Bach, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, raised this issue in Committee, this exemption exists to ensure that constituencies are not created that would be impracticably large, damaging the valuable link between constituent and MP. The noble Lord asked why these numbers have been included in the Bill. We have set a limit roughly the size of the largest existing UK constituency, as the Boundary Commission for Scotland felt able to recommend a constituency of this size at the previous review, and that independent judgment seemed to us to be the best basis for a provision of this kind. The range of 12,000 to 13,000 square kilometres is simply to avoid the Boundary Commission having to draw a line resulting in a constituency at exactly 13,000 square kilometres, which might involve a very unnatural boundary.
As the noble Lord rightly says, the provision is almost uniquely applicable to the Scottish highlands. The consequences of this amendment would not, of course, be fully known until the Boundary Commission had made its report. However, it is inevitable that constituencies in sparsely populated parts of Scotland would be enlarged if rule 4 were removed. The provision at rule 4 would not preserve the boundaries of any particular existing constituency, nor was it ever intended to. Like all the Government's proposals, it is designed to allow sensible reform without departing too far from the existing experience. Some noble Lords claim that the Government are inflexible and yet support the removal of one of the provisions of the Bill designed to allow flexibility to take account of particular local circumstances. They may do so in support of an alternative scheme to deal with the highlands, although that would not be the effect of the amendment. Whatever the merits of alternative schemes, the amendment before us would simply delete sensible and practical flexibility for the Boundary Commission. On that basis, I urge the noble Lord to withdraw it.
Lord Bach
I shall withdraw the amendment; I thank the Minister for his reply. However, it seems a remarkable feature of the Bill that it picks out one constituency or part of the United Kingdom in this way. The figures referred to are those given in the Bill. I understand that the Government are unlikely to give way on this issue, and I do not think that it would be sensible to divide the House on it, so I seek leave to withdraw it.
Lord Bach
My Lords, this is a very simple amendment which we feel the Government should be able to accept without any fuss. It makes a minor textual change that does no more than include in the Bill a statement of fact made by the government Front Bench. It proposes that the reference to “local ties” in rule 5 of Clause 11 should also include a reference to local wards. There should not be much argument about this because in Committee the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, told your Lordships that,
“wards are in many cases already the building blocks of constituencies. They are the level that can often reflect local community ties”.—[Official Report, 24/1/11; col. 743.]
Today, he has gone further and the Government have moved an amendment, which has been passed, that will strengthen that to some extent. Therefore, the case for adding the expression set out in my Amendment 21J is sensible, clear and unarguable. I hope that the Minister will accept it. I beg to move.
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
My Lords, as I understand it, what the noble Lord intends is for rule 5, on factors which the Boundary Commission may take into account, to read:
“A Boundary Commission may take into account, if and to such an extent as they think fit … any local ties, including wards, that would be broken by changes in constituencies”.
The reason for our not wishing to accept the amendment is, as has already been indicated—we have already had a good debate on wards—that “wards” will be inserted in the Bill by Amendments 27A, 27C and 27D when they are passed. As the noble Lord knows, wards will in that way be imported into the Bill, so the position would in many respects be duplicated by his amendment. I do not think that there is any dispute between us as to the importance of wards, but I believe that the amendments which the Government will move when we reach the appropriate part of the Marshalled List will address the point that the noble Lord makes.
Lord Bach
My Lords, I thank the noble and learned Lord for the speed with which he found the passage. Oh, did he not? I take back those thanks at once but thank him for his response.
He is being too cautious here. This is such a small amendment and it fits in exactly with what he told the House about how important the Government now feel that wards are in the whole structure of the new process. I will of course withdraw the amendment but ask him, please, to go back and consider whether adding those words in that part of the Bill would really not be an improvement. There is no adverse reason why that should not happen. I ask him, before Third Reading, to go back and consider that but for now I beg leave to withdraw my amendment. I am grateful to the House for its indulgence.