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Oral Answers to Questions
(13 years, 9 months ago)
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Gavin Barwell (Croydon Central) (Con)
1. What recent representations he has received on his proposals to create fewer and more equally sized constituencies.
The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Mr Mark Harper)
The last representation that I received on this matter was from Parliament, to say that the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act 2011 received Royal Assent on 16 February, and I am sure that many Members of this House and the other place were grateful that it did.
Gavin Barwell
Figures published by the Office for National Statistics last Wednesday showed that on 1 December the Wirral—represented in this House by four Members of Parliament—had 239,000 electors, whereas my borough of Croydon, with just three MPs, had 243,000 electors. Can my hon. Friend tell me when the boundary commissions will publish their draft proposals to deal with this shocking injustice?
Mr Harper
My hon. Friend puts his finger on exactly why it was necessary to have more equally sized constituencies across the country, so that voters will have equal weight when they cast their votes. He will know that the boundary commissions have to report finally to Ministers by 1 October 2013. We expect that they will set out their initial proposals some time this year, but that is a matter for the independent boundary commissions.
Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton) (Lab)
Democratic Audit has said that equalising constituency sizes will lead to chaotic boundaries. Does the Minister think that the Deputy Prime Minister—or, to be more precise, his immediate successor in 2015—will be happy representing not only parts of Fullwood and Broom Hill, but Glossop, 20 miles away?
Mr Harper
I simply do not agree with the premise of the hon. Gentleman’s question. The 2011 Act provides for a spread of plus or minus 5% of the quota, which is quite a significant number—around 8,000 electors—so that the boundary commissions can take into account all the traditional things, such as local ties and local government boundaries, but ultimately they have to deliver constituencies of more equal size. At the moment, constituencies can vary by over 50%, which is simply not right.
Nadhim Zahawi (Stratford-on-Avon) (Con)
2. What plans he has to introduce a power for electors in a constituency to recall their elected Member of Parliament.
Chris Skidmore (Kingswood) (Con)
5. What plans he has to introduce a power for electors in a constituency to recall their elected Member of Parliament.
Roberta Blackman-Woods (City of Durham) (Lab)
7. When he plans to publish his proposals to allow electors in a constituency to recall their elected Member of Parliament.
The Deputy Prime Minister (Mr Nick Clegg)
The Government are committed to bringing forward legislation to introduce a power to recall Members of Parliament. We are currently considering what would be the fairest, and most appropriate and robust, procedure, and we will make a statement soon setting out our plans to establish a recall mechanism.
Nadhim Zahawi
Will the Government’s proposals provide a definition of serious wrongdoing, enabling voters to know clearly what could trigger a recall? That is important in providing clarity about what voters can do.
The Deputy Prime Minister
My hon. Friend is exactly right: that is precisely the kind of detail that we need to get right in the Bill. In some cases it is clear: if someone is sentenced to prison for 12 months or more they are automatically disqualified already, under the present rules. There is certainly a case for removing that 12-month cut-off line. If someone is imprisoned for any period, it seems to me that there is a strong case for disqualifying them. The key problem is when wrongdoings do not lead to a prison sentence, and that is exactly why we would want to engage the House authorities, to provide a means by which they could be clearly proven.
Chris Skidmore
In other countries that already have a right of recall, there is a significant annual cost in having departments to administer public petitions. Has the Minister considered making an impact assessment of the annual cost of introducing such a measure?
The Deputy Prime Minister
As my hon. Friend may know, we want the recall mechanism to be based on two simple steps: first, proof that wrongdoing has been committed, as I explained in answer to the previous question; and secondly, a petition by at least 10% of the electors to trigger a by-election in the constituency concerned. That is slightly different from some of the models to which my hon. Friend referred, in California and elsewhere, where there is a much more open-ended process.
Roberta Blackman-Woods
Can the Deputy Prime Minister tell the House whether he still believes that MPs should be recalled for breaking their promises—and if he does, how many Liberal Democrat MPs does he expect would be subject to that system?
The Deputy Prime Minister
The recall mechanism—as supported, I think, in the manifestos of all three parties—is for serious wrongdoing, as I explained in answer to previous questions.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
I am not quite sure that that is right, is it? Did not the Liberal Democrat manifesto say that people would be given the right to sack MPs who had broken the rules? The question then is: who gets to decide who has broken the rules? If, as the right hon. Gentleman says, it is the courts, that is a fairly straightforward process. However, if it was left up to voters, might they not think that if someone promised 3,000 more police officers and then cut 10,000, or promised not to raise VAT and then put it up by 2.5%, they had broken the rules?
The Deputy Prime Minister
As I said before, wrongdoing has clearly been committed if someone is given a prison sentence, and I think that any prison sentence of any length should disqualify MPs. Otherwise, we clearly need to establish a mechanism here in the House to prove serious wrongdoing, and only once that has been established would we grant electors the right, following a petition of 10% of the electors, to trigger a by-election—[Interruption.] I think that the hon. Gentleman is asking from a sedentary position whether that mechanism should be without any kind of filtering here in the House. The honest truth is that if we did it like that, and had a sort of free-for-all, there would be a real danger of a lot of vexatious and unjustified claims being made against one Member by others.
Sir Peter Tapsell (Louth and Horncastle) (Con)
Will extreme care be taken in the drafting of the legislation to ensure that in absolutely no circumstances will a recall of a Member of Parliament be possible because of the way in which a Member votes or speaks—however objectionably—or because he changes party, as Winston Churchill did on two occasions?
The Deputy Prime Minister
We certainly would not want a recall mechanism that would have disqualified Winston Churchill. Precisely for the reasons that my hon. Friend has alluded to, we need to ensure that the system contains checks and balances so that it does not impinge on the freedom of Members on both sides of the House to speak out and articulate our views. That will not be the purpose of the recall mechanism. Its purpose will be to bear down on serious wrongdoing and to give people a chance to have their say in their own constituencies without having to wait until the next election for an opportunity to do so.
Steve Rotheram (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)
4. What estimate he has made of the cost to the public purse of holding constituency boundary reviews every five years.
The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Mr Mark Harper)
Our current estimate of the costs of undertaking a boundary review under the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act 2011 is £11.2 million. We are currently working on that estimate to update it to take into account all the changes made to that legislation in the later stages of its progress through Parliament.
Steve Rotheram
Although it appears that the Deputy Prime Minister has calculated the cost of the changes in pound notes, he does not have a clue about the social cost of his plans, which will lead to the fragmentation of communities as new constituencies cut through historical, political and cultural boundaries simply to achieve his arbitrary arithmetical norm. Does the Minister not wish that he had simply decoupled that part of the Bill to secure his miserable little compromise?
Mr Harper
I do not agree with the premise of the hon. Gentleman’s question. There is a 10% margin, plus or minus 5%, within which the independent boundary commissions can take account of factors such as local ties and local government boundaries, but it has to be right that constituencies should be more equal in size. In the part of the world that the hon. Gentleman represents voters have more weight in the House of Commons than they should, compared with those in other parts of the country, and that is simply not right.
Mr Nigel Dodds (Belfast North) (DUP)
Does the Minister not agree that holding a boundary review every five years will be a recipe for chaos and uncertainty, given that the number of seats allocated in each country within the United Kingdom could change in that period? That would create great uncertainty among local electors, local authorities and local communities, who will not know what constituency they are going to be in. That will have a direct impact on the make-up of the Northern Ireland Assembly, the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly.
Mr Harper
There is a choice: we can have either infrequent boundary reviews, which would be more disruptive, or more frequent ones, which—all other things being equal—would be smaller. Clearly the first boundary review, with a change in the rules that will result in a reduction in the number of seats in the House from 650 to 600, will be a fairly significant one. After that, however, boundary reviews will simply reflect the movements of the electorate, and I think that that will be a much less disruptive process.
Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)
6. What progress he is making on proposals for the reform of the House of Lords.
The Deputy Prime Minister (Mr Nick Clegg)
The cross-party Committee, which I chair, has been considering proposals for a wholly or mainly elected second Chamber. The Government will publish a draft Bill shortly, which will then be subject to pre-legislative scrutiny. The Government hope that that will be carried out by a Joint Committee of both Houses.
Paul Blomfield
I thank the Deputy Prime Minister for that answer. Will the proposals include a fulfilment of the Liberal Democrat manifesto commitment to a fully elected House of Lords?
The Deputy Prime Minister
From what the hon. Gentleman has said, I take it that he supports 100% election to the other place, which is a great advance on the 0% of elected Members that the Labour Government delivered over the past 13 years. My party’s manifesto was very clear about a fully elected House of Lords, so it is no secret that that would be my preference, but as I have explained, we want to proceed with this process on a cross-party basis as much as possible. That is why I have been chairing the cross-party Committee, and why I would like all the proposals in the draft Bill to be subjected to rigorous scrutiny by a Joint Committee of both Houses. My preference is clear, but all I would say to the hon. Gentleman is that, given the fact that the reform of the other place has been stalled for about 150 years, there is always a danger of making the best the enemy of the good.
Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
The Deputy Prime Minister said that it had taken 150 years to get to this stage. May I urge him to take another 150 years before we have to vote?
The Deputy Prime Minister
I do not agree with my hon. Friend, for the simple reason that a principle is at stake—that those who make the laws of the land should be accountable, as is common to bicameral systems across the democratic world, to the people who have to abide by those laws. That is a simple principle. As he knows, we are committed by the coalition agreement to introducing legislation for a wholly or mainly elected House of Lords. As I said, we shall publish a Bill shortly, and it will then be subject to extensive scrutiny by a Joint Committee of both Houses.
Sadiq Khan (Tooting) (Lab)
The Deputy Prime Minister has just confirmed what he said at the last Deputy Prime Minister’s Questions, which is that he has not made up him mind whether the draft Bill will keep his promise to have a 100% fully elected second Chamber, or whether there will only be a partially elected one.
On another issue of timing, the Deputy Prime Minister has said that he will publish the draft Bill shortly. Before the general election he said that a Bill would be published within six to seven weeks of a new Parliament being formed, and the coalition agreement said that one would be published by December 2010. I know that he is a busy, hard-working Deputy Prime Minister, so when exactly can we expect to see this draft Bill, and what is the reason for the delay?
The Deputy Prime Minister
I profess to being a little surprised, given that the right hon. Gentleman sat in the cross-party Committee that I chair, and I seem to remember that our last meeting was shortly before Christmas. He may profess ignorance of this matter, but he knows very well that the Committee, which I think has been proceeding in a methodical, co-operative and cross-party manner to try to create a cross-party consensus, concluded its work only relatively recently. He attended the last meeting shortly before Christmas, and we are now doing the work in government, which is entirely reasonable, to present a draft Bill based on that Committee’s work—and as I said, we shall do that shortly.
Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)
T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.
The Deputy Prime Minister (Mr Nick Clegg)
As Deputy Prime Minister, I support the Prime Minister on the full range of Government policies and initiatives. Within that, I take special responsibility for this Government’s programme of political and constitutional reform.
Kelvin Hopkins
We have heard that while the Prime Minister was touring the middle east, the Deputy Prime Minister was skiing in the Alps. Does that suggest that the Prime Minister prefers to have the Foreign Secretary in charge, rather than leave the Deputy Prime Minister running the shop?
The Deputy Prime Minister
As for the events of last week, I am sure everyone will agree that we should all pay tribute to the extraordinary courage and professionalism of the armed services personnel who did so much—last week, again this weekend and ongoing now—to secure the safe return of British citizens from Libya, which was the first priority of the Government throughout last week. In the end, I spent just short of two days—two working days—away last week, but as soon as it became obvious that I was needed here, I returned.
Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) (Con)
T3. Can my right hon. Friend please tell me what steps he is taking to restore the public’s faith in politics, and in their Members of Parliament?
The Deputy Prime Minister
Our whole constitutional reform programme is directed towards restoring the public’s faith in politics, and in their MPs. That is why we have legislated to give people a choice in the electoral system for the House of Commons. We have also legislated to introduce more evenly sized constituencies so that people feel they are equally represented in the House of Commons. As was discussed earlier, we will introduce a recall mechanism so that when an MP is found to have committed serious wrongdoing, a by-election can be held. We will introduce a statutory register of lobbyists, and our plans for fixed-term Parliaments will mean that Prime Ministers can no longer manipulate the timing of general elections for their own party’s advantage. Finally, our plans for a wholly or mainly elected second Chamber will mean that the people, not the Prime Minister, will have a role in determining how our legislatures work.
Ms Harriet Harman (Camberwell and Peckham) (Lab)
I welcome the Deputy Prime Minister back to the Dispatch Box. At least today it has not slipped his mind that he is Deputy Prime Minister. May I follow up on the question asked by the hon. Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom)? The Deputy Prime Minister talked about how the Lib Dems represent trust in politics—a politics that keeps its promises. Will he remind the House what he promised at the general election about police numbers?
The Deputy Prime Minister
As the right hon. and learned Lady knows very well, this Government have the unenviable, difficult task of clearing up the unholy mess that she left. I know that she and her colleagues want to live in complete denial, but because of the mistakes and economic incompetence of the Labour Government, we are spending £120 million, every single day of every single week, simply to pay off the interest on her debts. That is why, as the outgoing Labour Chief Secretary to the Treasury said, “There’s no money left.” Unfortunately, when there is no money left, we must make savings across the public services.
Ms Harman
But that has not stopped the Government spending £100 million on elected police commissioners, and the Deputy Prime Minister has not answered the question; perhaps it has slipped his memory again. May I remind him? He promised 3,000 more police, and he has voted for 10,000 fewer police. Is the problem not just his forgetting that he is Deputy Prime Minister, but that he has forgotten every promise he ever made? Is he aware that his complete betrayal on tuition fees, VAT, the NHS and the police has led to a new word in the English language: if someone has been the victim of a total sell-out, we say that they have been “clegged”? Is he proud of that?
The Deputy Prime Minister
What an extraordinarily laboured question! The right hon. and learned Lady may have forgotten that her party promised an emergency Budget some time soon, and £14 billion of cuts starting in a few weeks. She complains about the difficult decisions that we are having to take, yet I have not heard her and her colleagues make a single suggestion about how to fill the enormous black hole in the public finances that they left to us to sort out.
Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)
T5. Will my right hon. Friend agree to consider extending the terms of the Protection of Freedoms Bill to give stronger powers to the Information Commissioner to fine internet companies who misuse people’s personal data? Does he not agree that we need an internet Bill of Rights to stop the advance of the privatised surveillance society?
The Deputy Prime Minister
This is a very important issue. As it happens, since April last year the Information Commissioner has had the power to impose a penalty of up to half a million pounds for serious breaches of the Data Protection Act, and that applies to internet companies who misuse personal data. The commissioner can also serve information notices and enforcement notices, apply for warrants, pursue prosecutions and accept undertakings. As my hon. Friend may know, the commissioner has issued a code of practice for collecting personal information online. Finally, he might be interested to know that the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills are working on updating the relevant regulations and are considering extending the powers of the Information Commissioner and the sanctions available when privacy is breached.
Mr Tom Clarke (Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill) (Lab)
T2. Will the Deputy Prime Minister give the House his definition of front-line policing? If he cannot, does he understand that the House will have great difficulty in believing that he can protect essential services?
The Deputy Prime Minister
Actually, I think that one of the problems in policing, as is widely recognised, has been that there are not enough police officers out on the front line, on the beat, in our communities. By some estimates, only 11% of police officers are out and about in our communities at any one time. Yes, we are having to deal with financial pressures because of the reasons that I explained earlier, but at the same time we must reform policing to minimise the amount of time that police officers allocate to work in the back office, and to ensure that they are free to be out on the streets, which is where we want them, for as much time as possible.
Nick de Bois (Enfield North) (Con)
T7. In a sample of more than 80 immigration cases coming through my constituency, more than 15% of those involved were found to be on the electoral roll when they had no entitlement to be there. Does the Deputy Prime Minister not agree that urgent, immediate steps are needed to introduce positive voter identification?
The Deputy Prime Minister
I strongly agree that we must introduce measures to tackle electoral fraud. As my hon. Friend may know, we have announced that we will legislate to speed up the introduction of individual electoral registration to before the next general election, in 2014. Under that new scheme each person will have to register individually, whereas the current system is registration by household, and they will be asked to provide personal identifiers, including their national insurance number, to enable registration officers to verify the identity of a person before they are added to the register. That should tackle fraudulent or inaccurate register entries, which my hon. Friend rightly highlights.
Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab /Co-op)
T4. Before the election the Deputy Prime Minister said that providing more police was “the only way to create safer streets.” Now the Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice says that there is no link between crime and police numbers. Which is it?
The Deputy Prime Minister
As I explained in answer to an earlier question, of course we want the police officers who are available to be out on the streets as much as possible. It is true that this is partly a question of resources—[Interruption.] Nothing is possible when there is no money. It was the outgoing Labour Chief Secretary to the Treasury who said, “There’s no money left.” Those were not our words; they were his words.
We cannot provide for our schools, hospitals and police forces unless we have money. Because of the mistakes made by the hon. Lady’s party, we are pouring £120 million down the drain every single day simply to pay off the interest on her party’s debts. That is the problem that we face. At the same time, we need to reform policing to ensure that police officers can spend as much time as possible out on the beat rather than behind their desks.
Mr Edward Timpson (Crewe and Nantwich) (Con)
T8. In both Nantwich and Crewe, and in the surrounding rural areas, many people feel strongly that the current planning system is not on their side, particularly when it comes to wind turbines, mobile phone masts and overdevelopment. Can my right hon. Friend tell me what the Government are doing to improve the situation?
The Deputy Prime Minister
The basic principle is that we want people to feel that they have a stake in the planning system rather than feeling that things are being done to them. That is why, in the Localism Bill and in further measures that we wish to take, we are introducing new powers enabling local communities and neighbourhoods to determine for themselves what kind of decisions they want to be pursued in their areas, if necessary by triggering local referendums. For too long planning has been obscure, difficult to understand, very technocratic and highly over-centralised, and that is what we will be trying to change in the coming years.
John Mann (Bassetlaw) (Lab)
T6. The first Deputy Prime Minister in British history to fail to turn up for work when the Prime Minister has gone abroad for a week! I think what I want to ask is, “What is the point of Nick Clegg?”
The Deputy Prime Minister
That was another much-rehearsed question. [Interruption.] I merely sigh at the laborious way in which these questions have been rehearsed and over-rehearsed.
The Prime Minister was away on an official trip. The fact that the Prime Minister is away on an official trip does not mean that he is not the Prime Minister any more. When the chief executive of a company goes on a business trip, he is still the chief executive. When the manager of a football club attends an away game, he is still the manager. As I sought to explain earlier, last week I was away for just under two working days, and I returned as soon as it became clear that I was needed back here.
Stuart Andrew (Pudsey) (Con)
T9. The pilot for the public reading stage of the Protection of Freedoms Bill is an innovative way of opening up the legislative process to the public. In that context, can my right hon. Friend update the House on progress on the delivery of a mechanism allowing formal parliamentary debate of petitions bearing at least 100,000 signatures?
The Deputy Prime Minister
My right hon. Friend the Leader of the House is working on a proposal to deliver precisely what my hon. Friend has described: the ability of people who petition the House to ensure that their demands are heard on the Floor of the House of Commons. That is one of a number of innovations that will open up the way in which we scrutinise legislation and allow the public, as well as ourselves, to have a say in how we do it.
Meg Munn (Sheffield, Heeley) (Lab/Co-op)
How will the boundary reviews take the 2011 census into account, given that the preliminary results will not be available until the middle of next year?
The Deputy Prime Minister
As the hon. Lady may know, we are basing the boundary reviews on the electoral register rather than the census. That has been standard practice for a long time, and we do not intend to change it.
Mr Mark Spencer (Sherwood) (Con)
What action can the Deputy Prime Minister take to ensure that local authorities make every effort to ensure that young people find their way on to the electoral roll?
The Deputy Prime Minister
It is a vital issue of concern for all Members on both sides of the House that those who are not registered should be registered. One step that we will soon be piloting is to allow electoral registration officers to compare their databases with other publicly available databases, so that they can literally go from door to door and say, “You’re on this database, but you’re not on that one,” and thereby encourage people to register. Drawing international comparisons, our registration rates of just over 90% are pretty respectable, but of course we want to continue to do whatever we can to raise that standard even further.
Jack Dromey (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab)
Birmingham city council will today vote through the biggest local government cuts in history, with cuts of £212 million for next year. Two weeks ago the council’s deputy leader, Liberal Democrat Councillor Paul Tilsley, wrote to The Times protesting against the cuts, but 24 hours later he signed the budget. As the Deputy Prime Minister believes in restoring faith in politics, how would he describe the actions of Councillor Tilsley, or is he too on a slippery slope?
The Deputy Prime Minister
All local authorities of whatever political persuasion are clearly facing a very tough local government finance settlement, and we have never hidden the fact that it is extremely difficult. I think there is a great deal of discretion in how local councils can respond to those same pressures, however. For example, I am very struck by the fact that in Sheffield, the city where I am an MP, the Liberal Democrat council has kept every library and swimming pool open and has not made any major cuts to adult social services, and only 270 people will be laid off next year, whereas across the Pennines in Labour-controlled Manchester, 2,500 people have been laid off and almost everything has been closed across the whole city. In Birmingham, as in all great cities, difficult decisions are being made, and I trust that they are being made in a way that safeguards the services for the most vulnerable in that city.
Jo Swinson (East Dunbartonshire) (LD)
I too welcome the excellent innovation of a public reading stage for the Protection of Freedoms Bill, to involve the public in the law-making process. Can the Deputy Prime Minister confirm that the Government intend ultimately to extend that process of public engagement to all Bills? Will they also consider improving it even further—for example, by putting a Bill’s explanatory notes on the consultation website and considering the public’s suggestions at Committee stage?
The Deputy Prime Minister
As my hon. Friend may know, using the Protection of Freedoms Bill as the first pilot for providing the public with a public reading stage is precisely that: a pilot. We must learn the lessons from that, and see whether a public reading stage sufficiently engages people and makes the whole legislative process accessible to the public. If it does prove to be successful, and if we can make all the technical adjustments that might be needed work, then yes of course, in principle we would like to see this extended to all other pieces of legislation and draft Bills.
Mr Speaker
Order. I am sorry but demand has exceeded supply as usual, and we must now move on.
Mr Speaker
I call Tom Harris to ask Question 1. He is not here, so I call Hugh Bayley.
Hugh Bayley (York Central) (Lab)
2. What the policy of the Serious Fraud Office is on seeking costs from those convicted as a result of a prosecution brought by the office.
The Attorney-General (Mr Dominic Grieve)
The SFO considers costs in all criminal proceedings where a conviction is secured.
Hugh Bayley
I am extremely pleased about the change of policy in the case of the British Aerospace contract in Tanzania, for which costs were sought and paid. Will the Attorney-General make sure that costs are always sought where there is a conviction? At a time of very tight public expenditure, it is important for the SFO to get income from wherever it can in order to investigate and prosecute such cases.
The Attorney-General
I entirely agree that costs should normally be sought. Of course there may be instances where that is simply not appropriate, such as where the defendant is destitute or penniless and it is clear that a cost order will serve no purpose—and, indeed, a court is unlikely to make one. Subject to that, however, it is the normal policy that where a conviction is secured, costs are sought.
Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)
3. What plans the Crown Prosecution Service has to improve the effectiveness of prosecution policy in human trafficking cases.
The Solicitor-General (Mr Edward Garnier)
The CPS keeps the effectiveness of prosecution policy and guidance to prosecutors on human trafficking under review, and updates them on a regular basis. The CPS will soon publish a new public policy statement on human trafficking to explain the prosecutor’s role in such cases and the approach taken by the CPS.
Valerie Vaz
I thank the Solicitor-General for his answer. In June 2010 there were 139 convictions for human trafficking. Will he write to me with an updated figure for such convictions?
Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
Will the Attorney-General meet the officers of the all-party group on human trafficking, because one thing we have learned is that there is a considerable problem in prosecuting human trafficking cases and prosecutors often decide to pursue a lesser offence as it is easier to get a conviction?
The Solicitor-General
On the first point, both my right hon. and learned Friend and I would be delighted to meet my hon. Friend and the group at some mutually convenient time, and I look forward to doing so. On the second point, all successful prosecutions depend on bringing the available evidence to court. It is not only our policy, but that of the Crown Prosecution Service and the police, that every assistance should be given to vulnerable witnesses, particularly those in cases of the sort that my hon. Friend describes, so that we can achieve prosecutions. We take this matter extremely seriously—indeed, I was in the Court of Appeal just before Christmas applying successfully to have an unduly lenient sentence increased.
Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)
But the Solicitor-General will be aware that often in human trafficking cases the victim is reluctant to give evidence or does not assist the progress of the case. Can he assure the House that in such cases, where the victim is more frightened of the police than she is of her abusers, the CPS is committed to carrying forward prosecutions wherever possible?
The Solicitor-General
Yes, I can. The hon. Lady is perfectly right to say that many victims of human trafficking come from countries and jurisdictions where the police are seen as oppressors, rather than as assistants to the criminal justice system and to victims. However, the CPS and this country’s police forces are acutely aware of that and are sensitive to the needs of those traumatised victims. I can assure her that everything will be done to assist the prosecution of traffickers, with or without the evidence of the victim.
Catherine McKinnell (Newcastle upon Tyne North) (Lab)
The Solicitor-General will be aware of the recent legal challenge to the Government threatened by the POPPY project, the organisation that supports victims of trafficking. It is based on the Ministry of Justice’s failure to consult and to publish an equality impact assessment on the proposed funding cuts, which the POPPY project claims breaches the Council of Europe convention against human trafficking. Given the High Court’s recent damning verdict on the way in which the Department for Education cancelled the Building Schools for the Future programme and given the Fawcett Society’s challenge relating to the disproportionate impact on women of the emergency Budget, will the Solicitor-General assure the House that Departments are aware of their duties to consult properly and consider rigorously equality impacts before decisions are made? Will he place a guidance note on the matter in the Library so that Parliament can better understand the obligations, thereby avoiding such abuses of power?
The Solicitor-General
The hon. Lady’s first paragraph or so would be better directed at the relevant Departments—the Ministry of Justice and the Department for Education—but the points that she makes will doubtless have been noted. On the later points, I will certainly consider what she has to say and see whether it is appropriate to put such a note in the Library.
Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)
5. If he will place in the Library a copy of the speech he made to Politeia on 14 February 2011.
The Attorney-General (Mr Dominic Grieve)
I did not make a formal speech during the Politeia event, so any comments I made were in response to points raised during a seminar. I therefore regret that I do not have any written record that can be placed in the Library.
Tony Baldry
The Attorney-General is reported as having said the following at the Politeia seminar:
“The court”—
the European Court of Human Rights—
“doesn’t have the last word. It only has the last word so far as parliament has decided that it should. We could, if we wanted to, undo that—I think we should always bear that in mind—and actually undo it without some of the consequences we have over the European Union.”
Did he say that? If so, what does it mean?
The Attorney-General
The question arose in the context of parliamentary sovereignty. What I said to the seminar was what I also said to this House on the previous Thursday, which was that the operation of the European convention on human rights and the jurisdiction of the Court are based on the UK having signed up to the convention in the late 1940s and having ratified it through Parliament, with Parliament thereby accepting the jurisdiction of the Court. It is legally open to Parliament to enact primary legislation or otherwise to withdraw from the convention if it wished to do so and if the Government wished that through Parliament. That was the point that I was making; I was simply trying to explain the legal framework under which parliamentary sovereignty works in this context. I would add that any withdrawal would not come without costs or consequences, and it is not Government policy to withdraw.
Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)
6. What steps he is taking to ensure better co-ordination between the Crown Prosecution Service and police forces.
The Solicitor-General (Mr Edward Garnier)
The Crown Prosecution Service and the police have a close working relationship. They are working together on returning the charging of some offences to the police, eradicating duplicated work and improving communications, making greater use of information technology through the service and delivery of electronic case files and providing a better service to victims and witnesses.
Andrew Selous
In 2010, more than a fifth of abandoned prosecutions were because of the CPS’s failure to review cases before they came to trial, which was extremely upsetting for the victims concerned. What steps can my hon. and learned Friend take to make sure that the police and the CPS work together more collaboratively and share information so that this does not happen so much in future?
The Solicitor-General
I commend my hon. Friend on his close interest, both within his county and nationally, in matters of this sort. Police charging of some offences will clearly help to cut time-wasting, as will doing away with the unnecessary duplication of case file preparation and the better use of IT. The police and the CPS need to co-operate and work together from a very early stage so that the gathering and assessment of evidence can be effectively and efficiently directed towards achieving justice.
Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)
Will the Minister advise the House what contact his Department has had with the Attorney-General for Northern Ireland, the public prosecutor, the Police Service for Northern Ireland and our Justice Minister to ensure that cases in our courts are processed expeditiously and that there is not a two-gear system in which cases in Northern Ireland progress considerably more slowly than in the rest of the United Kingdom?
The Solicitor-General
My right hon. and learned Friend and I meet and speak to the Attorney-General for Northern Ireland from time to time, but the hon. Gentleman will understand that the justice system in Northern Ireland is devolved to Northern Ireland and that it would not be right for us to interfere in its day-to-day work.
Stephen Phillips (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)
My hon. and learned Friend will be aware that one problem faced by the CPS is that there often is not sufficient time for those who have the charge of cases to review them, partly because they have to spend so much time on administration. What steps is he taking to ensure that changes?
The Solicitor-General
I am not sure that the picture my hon. and learned Friend paints is of general application, although I am sure it is true in some cases. Certainly, the Attorney-General’s office and the senior management of the CPS, from the Director of Public Prosecutions downwards, are determined to ensure that we have a system of prosecution that is not only just but efficient and effective.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
How can the CPS and the police work together better to persuade courts not to give bail to persistent and prolific offenders? Nothing annoys the police more than regular offenders appearing before a court only to be released to commit offences while on bail.
The Solicitor-General
I understand the point of frustration that my hon. Friend raises. The Law Officers are not here to direct judges on what to do in any given case, but the CPS and the police need to co-operate to make sure that relevant evidence is put before the court so that it can make a decision based on its application of the facts to the law and the sort of cases to which my hon. Friend refers happen on fewer occasions.
Mr Tom Clarke (Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill) (Lab)
9. What steps he plans to take to ensure that the outcome of the comprehensive spending review will not have an adverse effect on the provision of services by witness care units.
The Attorney-General (Mr Dominic Grieve)
The Crown Prosecution Service is committed to ensuring that the provision of services by witness care units is protected. Future funding for witness care units will still be made from the CPS baseline budget along with the commitment that also comes from the Ministry of Justice. Consequently, the outcome of the comprehensive spending review will not have an adverse effect on the provision of those services.
The Attorney-General
It is my experience, from the importance that the Home Secretary attaches to ensuring that witnesses and victims are properly cared for, that she gives this matter considerable priority. I have not been made aware of anything that suggests that my Department’s work will be adversely affected in this area by anything being done by the police, but I will certainly raise the matter with my right hon. Friend. If she or I can provide the right hon. Gentleman with some reassurance, I am sure we will be happy to do so.
Nicky Morgan (Loughborough) (Con)
1. What steps the Electoral Commission is taking to improve levels of voter registration among students.
Mr Gary Streeter (South West Devon)
The commission runs campaigns before every election to encourage electors to register to vote. These typically include activities targeted at students. The commission is running a public awareness campaign ahead of the May 2011 elections and referendum, which will include working with student unions and other student groups across the UK to promote awareness of the election and referendum and the voter registration deadline.
Nicky Morgan
In the Loughborough constituency, 12,000 students are studying at university, yet only 50% or so are on the electoral register. Registration is patchy among those in halls and those living out. It is important that students register to vote because for many of them this will be the first election in which they can vote. Is my hon. Friend happy that the Electoral Commission is providing specific guidance on the fact that they can be registered at their home and also where they are studying?
Mr Streeter
My hon. Friend raises an important point. We are confident that all the information that students need is on the Electoral Commission website, but the role of local electoral registration officers, student unions and universities in getting that information across to students is critical.
Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)
The Electoral Commission has had discussions with the Deputy Prime Minister about the use of national data sources to aid registration levels. Does this extend to the use of the national insurance database, which contains rising 16-year-olds? Giving them early experience of electoral registration might improve subsequent levels of registration by students.
Mr Streeter
The hon. Gentleman makes an interesting point. I know that these matters are being discussed between the Deputy Prime Minister’s Department and the Electoral Commission. Hopefully, these discussions will come to a fruitful conclusion before too long.
Hugh Bayley (York Central) (Lab)
2. What steps the Electoral Commission plans to take to inform members of the public about the merits and demerits of the alternative vote system for elections to the House of Commons.
John Glen (Salisbury) (Con)
5. What steps the Electoral Commission plans to take to provide information to voters on the forthcoming referendum on the alternative vote system for elections to the House of Commons.
Mr Streeter
The Electoral Commission plans to send an information booklet to each household in the United Kingdom. The booklet will include a factual description of the first-past-the-post and alternative vote systems. It will not comment on the merits of different electoral systems used for particular elections. That is a matter for the yes and no campaigns. The booklet will also include information on the devolved elections and how to register to vote, and will be supported by an advertising campaign.
Hugh Bayley
I have already seen some palpably false claims about the alternative vote system from the no campaign, which the yes campaign will obviously need to rebut, yet I note that it has been awarded only £380,000 to make its arguments, as of course has the no campaign, whereas a maximum of £600,000 was available. Is there any chance that the Electoral Commission will increase the funding equally to both sides?
Mr Streeter
Nobody has been awarded any money yet because nobody has been designated to run the yes and no campaigns. That will happen later in March. I am not aware of the specific figures that the hon. Gentleman mentions, but I will refer his comments to the Electoral Commission. If there is an opportunity to do more and do better, we will certainly take it.
Mr Streeter
I am happy to be able to reassure my hon. Friend on that point. As part of the development of the text for the core section of the information booklet, the commission consulted academic experts on electoral systems. These were Professor Colin Rallings of the university of Plymouth and Professor David Sanders of the university of Essex. The consultation was intended to ensure that the explanations of the first-past-the-post and alternative vote systems were accurate. The commission also consulted the Plain Language Commission to ensure that the text was as accessible as possible, and undertook research co-ordinated by the Central Office of Information to ensure that the text was understood by voters. This involved in-depth interviews with members of the public in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)
3. What procedure exists for resolving disputes between the Church Commissioners and third parties over the ownership of property.
The Second Church Estates Commissioner (Tony Baldry)
There is no set procedure for resolving disputes of property ownership. Each dispute is treated individually, having regard for the particular circumstances of the case.
Robert Halfon
In one of the villages in my constituency, just outside Harlow, a community group is in dispute with the local parish church over the ownership of a hall and its land. Does my hon. Friend agree that an arbitration service would surely be preferable to a costly court case in such matters, as the community group concerned does not have the resources to fight a lengthy legal battle?
Tony Baldry
In such instances, I suggest that mediation is always preferable. I understand that the Archdeacon of Harlow offered to act as a mediator but was turned down. I am a qualified and trained mediator, so if I was acceptable to Roydon parochial church council and the Dobbs Weir residents association, I would be willing, pro bono, to act as mediator.
Mr Speaker
We are grateful to the hon. Gentleman, as obviously is the House.
Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)
4. What assessment the Electoral Commission has made of the adequacy of the time available for provision of information to the public on the forthcoming referendum on the alternative vote system for elections to the House of Commons.
Mr Gary Streeter (South West Devon)
The Electoral Commission believes that there is sufficient time for it to provide factual information to the public on the alternative vote and first-past-the-post voting systems and for campaigners to put across their arguments effectively. The commission has been preparing for the referendum since the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill was introduced in Parliament last summer.
Fiona Bruce
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his reply. However, in response to an earlier question he indicated that the Electoral Commission will not even designate the yes and no campaigns until the end of March, or thereabouts, leaving only April and five days in May for the campaigns. Is that really long enough?
Mr Streeter
My hon. Friend makes an extremely important point. The designation of the yes and no campaigns will happen as soon as possible after 15 March—anyone can bid to become part of those campaigns before then—and in any event by 29 March. The Electoral Commission is confident that the campaign period is adequate for the purpose.
Mr Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab)
Will the hon. Gentleman condemn the outlandish and wholly fictitious claims being made by the no campaign about the costs of introducing the alternative vote if there is a yes vote? These include claims about voting machines, which the Electoral Commission has confirmed would not be necessary, about the cost of the referendum itself, which will be the same whichever campaign wins, and about the cost of an education campaign, which the commission has made quite clear would not be necessary. Will he deprecate those false claims?
Mr Streeter
I am delighted to say that it is not the role of the Electoral Commission to act as a referee between the yes and no campaigns. It is up to those campaigns to make their political arguments and rebut those with which they do not agree.
Bob Russell (Colchester) (LD)
6. How many former Roman Catholic priests have sought ordination in the Church of England since 2005; and if he will make a statement.
The Second Church Estates Commissioner (Tony Baldry)
Figures held by the Archbishops Council show that in the past five years 14 former Roman Catholic priests have sought to be received into ordained ministry within the Church of England. As there is also discretion at diocesan level for acceptance into the ministry, not all candidates are centrally recorded, so the national figure is likely to be higher.
Bob Russell
National newspapers suggest that there is a one-way road leading from Canterbury to Rome. I have no brief for the established Church—I come from good non-conformist stock—but does the hon. Gentleman agree that more should be done to make it clear to those Roman Catholic priests who are unhappy that there is a welcome for them in the Church of England?
Tony Baldry
I say to my hon. Friend that there is a welcome for everyone in the Church of England. He makes a good point; national newspapers give the impression that there is a one-way street for disaffected Church of England priests going to the Roman Catholic Church, but that is certainly not the case. There are very good ecumenical relations between the Church of England and the Roman Catholic Church, as was demonstrated by Pope Benedict’s recent visit to the UK. There is certainly two-way traffic, and long may that continue.
Mr John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)
7. What recent representations the Electoral Commission has received on its report on fraud in the 2010 elections.
Mr Gary Streeter (South West Devon)
The Electoral Commission published its report on cases of alleged electoral malpractice in 2010 on 16 February 2011 and has received no representations on it.
Mr Spellar
I will make one representation. The commission’s report stated that it was not aware at the time of any case reported to the police that affected the outcome of the election to which it related. In fact, there has been one case of alleged electoral malpractice resulting in prosecution and conviction, and court proceedings have been initiated in another case. Does that not make absolutely absurd the claim made in September by the Conservative party chair, Baroness Warsi, that the Conservatives failed to win an overall majority in the general election because of electoral fraud, predominantly within the Asian community, that benefited Labour? Does the Baroness not owe the Electoral Commission an apology for the slur on its oversight of electoral proceedings? Frankly, does she not owe an apology to the Labour party and the Asian community as well?
Mr Streeter
The Electoral Commission is not responsible for the comments of any politician in this country, I am delighted to say. The report on electoral fraud showed that there were 232 cases of alleged electoral malpractice in 2010, 137 of which required no further action. Sixty-eight cases remain under investigation; in 23 cases police advice was given; two cases resulted in a caution; and court proceedings were brought in two cases, resulting in one conviction.
Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)
The House will know that, regrettably, six individuals have been found guilty of election malpractice arising from personation and postal vote fraud in Peterborough in the past four years. What specific strategies are the Electoral Commission pursuing to concentrate on postal vote fraud?
Mr Streeter
The Electoral Commission has made recommendations to the Government about tightening up voter identification, and the Government are considering that report. Naturally, the Electoral Commission takes all allegations of fraud seriously, but it is a matter for the police to investigate each and every incident.
Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)
8. What the policy of the Church of England is on the retention of freehold accommodation for clergy.
The Second Church Estates Commissioner (Tony Baldry)
There is no single Church of England policy on the retention of freehold accommodation for clergy.
Mr Chope
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that answer, but does he not think that there should be such a policy in the light of what is happening in Christchurch at the moment? The vicarage adjoining the priory lies empty, but the diocese pays more than £2,000 a month to rent alternative accommodation, several miles from the priory, for the new priest in charge, who is quite willing to occupy the priory should the diocese be willing to allow that to happen. Will my hon. Friend convene a meeting, using his powers of mediation, to try to drum some common sense and economic sense into the diocese on that issue?
Tony Baldry
The Christchurch parsonage is a very large building, being twice the recommended size, and it is very expensive for the diocese to maintain and for the occupier to run. The diocese is looking to replace it with a more suitable property, and the newly appointed priest in charge has therefore simply been housed temporarily in a rented property. In this instance, I do not need to act as a mediator, because there is a perfectly good remedy. If the parochial church council is unhappy with what the diocese is doing, it can make representations that the Church Commissioners will have to consider.
Greg Hands (Chelsea and Fulham) (Con)
9. What recent discussions the Electoral Commission has had with Ministers on increasing the level of (a) registration and (b) turnout of electors resident outside the UK.
Mr Gary Streeter (South West Devon)
The Electoral Commission meets Ministers regularly to discuss the delivery of elections and referendums, including how to ensure that all electors, whether overseas or in the UK, can cast their votes easily and securely.
Greg Hands
My hon. Friend will be aware of the shockingly low participation by overseas electors in UK elections. Of the potential 5.5 million British subjects living abroad, only about 15,000 are registered. What work has the Electoral Commission done on the implications of fixed-term Parliaments for sending out postal ballot papers significantly earlier in the electoral cycle, thereby improving the participation rate of overseas electors?
Mr Streeter
My hon. Friend is a consistent advocate of overseas voters. The Electoral Commission has done work on the issue and submitted representations to the Deputy Prime Minister as part of a comprehensive modernisation strategy for our electoral system. We wait to see what the Government will do with that report.
Fiona O'Donnell (East Lothian) (Lab)
As I am out knocking on doors just now in East Lothian, encouraging people who are not on the register to register, or those who are on the register to register for a postal vote, I am not always confident that the forms will be returned. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that a freepost return facility on all the forms would increase participation and registration?
Mr Streeter
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her recommendation, which I shall certainly pass on to the Electoral Commission. I thought that that already happened. Obviously it does not, so I shall make representations, and we will write to her with our response.
Sajid Javid (Bromsgrove) (Con)
10. What discussions the Electoral Commission has had with electoral registration officers on their performance in respect of voter registration.
Mr Streeter
Since 2008, the Electoral Commission has monitored the performance of electoral registration officers in Great Britain against a set of standards, and it publishes an annual assessment of those standards which covers the key planning and management processes put in place by EROs. The Electoral Commission advises and works closely with EROs who do not meet these standards in order to improve their performance.
Sajid Javid
I thank my hon. Friend for his answer and welcome the steps that he has outlined. Should those steps not bear fruit, has the Electoral Commission considered any other, more directly interventionist actions that it could possibly take?
Mr Streeter
Once again, my hon. Friend makes a very important point. The Electoral Commission does work with EROs who underperform, but they remain at all times employees of the local authority, and the commission has no statutory power to intervene. It is of course a matter for this House whether we wish to consider further powers to enable the Electoral Commission to do an even better job.
Aid Reviews
(13 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Secretary of State for International Development (Mr Andrew Mitchell)
With permission, Mr Speaker, I should like to make a statement about the Government’s bilateral and multilateral aid reviews, which are published today.
The coalition Government’s decision to increase the UK’s aid budget to 0.7% of national income from 2013 reflects the values we hold as a nation. It is also firmly in Britain’s national interest, but this decision imposes on us a double duty to spend this money well. On my first day in office, I took immediate steps to make our aid as focused and effective as possible. I commissioned reviews of the Department for International Development’s bilateral programmes in developing countries and of the UK’s aid funding to international organisations. These reviews have been thorough, rigorous, evidence-based and scrutinised by independent development experts. They will fundamentally change the way in which aid is allocated.
Recent events in north Africa and the wider middle east have demonstrated why it is critical that the UK increases its focus on helping countries to build open and responsive political systems, tackle the root causes of fragility, and empower citizens to hold their Governments to account. It is the best investment we can make to avoid violence and protect the poorest and most vulnerable. In the middle east and north Africa, we are monitoring events closely and will respond as appropriate.
The bilateral aid review considered where and how we should spend UK aid. Each DFID country team was asked to develop a “results offer” setting out what they could achieve for poor people over the next four years. Each offer was underpinned by evidence, analysis of value for money, and a focus on girls and women. The results offers were scrutinised by more than 100 internal technical reviewers and a panel of independent experts. Ministers then considered the whole picture, deciding which results should be prioritised in each country. Consultation with civil society and other Government Departments was undertaken throughout.
As a result of the bilateral aid review, we will dramatically increase our focus on tackling ill health and killer diseases in poor countries, with a particular emphasis on immunisation, malaria, maternal and newborn health, extending choice to girls and women over when and whether they have children; and polio eradication. We will do more to tackle malnutrition, which stunts children’s development and destroys their life chances, and do more to get children, particularly girls, into school. We will put wealth creation at the heart of our efforts, with far more emphasis on giving poor people property rights and encouraging investment and trade in the poorest countries. We will deal with the root causes of conflict and help to build more stable societies, as people who live amidst violence have no chance of lifting themselves out of poverty. And we will help the poorest, who will be hit first and hardest by floods, drought and extreme weather—the effects of climate change.
As a result of this review, we have decided to focus British aid more tightly on the countries where Britain is well placed to have a significant long-term impact on poverty. By 2016, DFID will have closed significant bilateral programmes in 16 countries. This will be a phased process, honouring our existing commitments and exiting responsibly. These countries are China, Russia, Vietnam, Cambodia, Moldova, Bosnia, Cameroon, Lesotho, Niger, Kosovo, Angola, Burundi, Gambia, Indonesia, Iraq and Serbia. This will allow us to focus our bilateral resources in the following 27 countries: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Burma, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Ghana, India, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, Liberia, Malawi, Mozambique, Nepal, Nigeria, the occupied Palestinian territories, Pakistan, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Africa, Sudan, Tajikistan, Tanzania, Uganda, Yemen, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Together, those countries account for three quarters of global maternal mortality, nearly three quarters of global malaria deaths and almost two thirds of children out of school. Many of them are affected by fragility and conflict, so we will meet the commitment made through the strategic defence and security review to spend 30% of British aid on supporting fragile and conflict-affected states, and to help some of the poorest countries in the world to address the root causes of their problems.
We will have three regional programmes in Africa, Asia and the Caribbean, and an ongoing aid relationship with three aid-dependent overseas territories, namely St Helena, the Pitcairn Islands and Montserrat.
The multilateral aid review took a hard look at the value for money offered by 43 international funds and organisations through which the UK spends aid. It considered how effective each organisation was at tackling poverty. It provides a detailed evidence base on which Ministers can take decisions about where to increase funding, where to press for reforms and improvements, and in some cases where to withdraw taxpayer funding altogether. The 43 multilateral agencies fall into four broad categories.
First, I am delighted to tell the House that nine organisations have been assessed as providing very good value for the British taxpayer. They include UNICEF, the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation, or GAVI, the Private Infrastructure Development Group, and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. We will increase funding to those organisations, because they have a proven track record of delivering excellent results for poor people. Of course there is always room for improvement and we will still require strong commitments to continued reform and even better performance.
Funding for the next group of agencies—those rated as good or adequate value for money, such as the United Nations Development Programme and the World Health Organisation—will be accompanied by specific pressure from the UK for a series of reforms and improvements that we expect to see in the coming years.
We are placing four organisations in special measures and demanding that they improve their performance as a matter of urgency. Those organisations are UNESCO, the Food and Agriculture Organisation, the development programmes of the Commonwealth Secretariat, and the International Organisation for Migration. Those organisations offer poor value for money for UK aid, but they have a potentially critical niche development or humanitarian role that is not well covered elsewhere in the international system, or they contribute to broader UK Government objectives. We expect to see serious reforms and improvements in performance. We will take stock within two years and DFID’s core funding may be reconsidered if improvements are not made.
Finally, the review found that four agencies performed poorly or failed to demonstrate relevance to Britain’s development objectives. The review therefore concluded that it is no longer acceptable for taxpayers’ money from my Department to continue to fund them centrally. I can therefore tell the House today that the British Government will withdraw their membership of the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation, and that DFID will stop voluntary core funding to UN-Habitat, the International Labour Organisation and the UN International Strategy for Disaster Reduction. That will allow more than £50 million of taxpayers’ money to be redirected immediately to better performing agencies. We are working closely with other countries to build a coalition for ambitious reform and improvement of all multilateral agencies.
As a result of the reviews, over the next four years British aid will secure schooling for 11 million children, which is more than we educate throughout the UK, but at 2.5% of the cost; vaccinate more children against preventable diseases than there are people in England; provide access to safe drinking water and improved sanitation to more people than there are in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland combined; save the lives of 50,000 women in pregnancy and childbirth; stop 250,000 newborn babies dying needlessly; support 13 countries to hold freer and fairer elections; and help 10 million women to access modern family planning.
I believe that those results, which will transform the lives of millions of people across the world, will make everyone in the House and this country proud. They reflect our values as a nation—generosity, compassion and humanity. However, those results are not only delivered from the British people; they are for the British people. They contribute to building a safer, more stable and more prosperous world, which in turn helps to keep our country safe from instability, infectious disease and organised crime.
Aid can perform miracles, but it must be well spent and properly targeted. The UK’s development programme has now been reshaped and refocused so that it can meet that challenge. I commend this statement to the House.
Ms Harriet Harman (Camberwell and Peckham) (Lab)
I thank the Secretary of State for his statement and for giving me advance copies of it.
I welcome the Secretary of State’s declaration that our aid programme is both morally right and in our national interest. As he argues against those who decry aid, he will have our strong support. This is not just about charity; it is about justice, tackling global inequality and fulfilling our responsibilities to the world. We put development at the heart of our agenda because we believe we must struggle for a fairer and more equal world.
As things change in the world, as we are seeing in north Africa and the middle east, it is right to review our aid programme, but what should not and must not change is the commitment to spend 0.7% of our national income on aid by 2013. There must be no slipping back on that. Will the Secretary of State tell the House when he will bring forward the Bill to put that promise into law?
Will the Secretary of State campaign vigorously to show that our aid matters and saves lives? The girls and boys sitting in classrooms in Nepal, the Nigerian women who no longer have to walk miles to fetch water and the millions of children who no longer die from preventable disease are proof of that. Is not that the way to build support for aid, rather than by announcing as “new” decisions that we had already made? Will the Secretary of State admit that there is nothing new about ending significant bilateral aid to Russia? We ended it in 2007. Grand gestures of shutting down already closed programmes create a misleading picture of aid and undermine rather than support it. He should know better. As tackling poverty depends greatly on trade as well as aid, will he implement the Bribery Act 2010 now?
Will the Secretary of State acknowledge that after 13 years in which the Labour Government tripled the aid budget, reversing the cuts of the previous Tory Government, this country led the world in tackling global poverty? Is he not concerned that that leadership, which is so important during a global economic downturn, is undermined by his decision to freeze the percentage of aid as a share of national income for the next two years? Can he tell the House how many lives will be lost and how many fewer children will go to school because of the lost £2.2 billion in aid?
Will the Secretary of State assure the House that he will protect his Department from raids by other Government Departments? DFID’s budget is for the world’s poorest, and he must not let other Government Departments use his budget as a source of cash. Will he reclaim the £1.8 million that he gave to fund the Pope’s visit? That was not tackling global poverty, nor was his Department’s loan of £161 million to the Turks and Caicos Islands. He has to be strong and stop his ministerial colleagues using DFID as a hole in the wall.
In our 2009 White Paper, we recognised the need to help people who suffer the twin problems of grinding poverty and living in an area ravaged by violence. It is right that we co-ordinate our development, diplomatic and security efforts, but our aid programme must not become subsumed in our military and security objectives. Of course, in places such as Yemen it is right that our aid efforts complement our foreign and security policy objectives where they can. We are absolutely committed to upholding our security and countering terrorism, but that must be the responsibility of the Ministry of Defence and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Will the Secretary of State confirm that poverty reduction will remain the focus of DFID money?
I welcome the Government’s continuation of Labour’s commitment to the international co-ordination of aid through multilateral organisations, and in particular the Secretary of State’s reaffirmation of the EU’s work, but will he reconsider his decision on the ILO?
The Secretary of State’s men-only ministerial team talk a lot about how they will empower women in the developing world. Why, then, has he still not decided how much he will contribute to the new UN women’s agency? Why should the women of the world have to wait for the men in his Government to put their money where their mouth is?
On bilateral aid, we welcome the focus on setting aid objectives for each country, but did the recipient countries play a part in that? Will the Secretary of State continue the spirit of the 2005 Paris declaration, which put the developing country in the driving seat and did so much to end the problematic post-colonial relationship between donor and recipient countries? Will he confirm that the decisions to cut aid to very poor countries such as Niger and Lesotho involved co-ordination with other donor countries, to ensure that our decisions do not leave them high and dry? Will he also explain his decision to end aid to Burundi, where there is deep poverty, and which is in the great lakes region, where there is still instability?
I welcome the Secretary of State’s continuation of the previous Labour Government’s focus on results and value for money. We made progress towards the millennium development goals, such as cutting maternal mortality and increasing child survival. To say that that was wasting money is an insult to all those who worked on those programmes, and it is to deny the value of those lives that were saved. I hope we will hear no more of that.
With more than 1 billion people still living in poverty, the Secretary of State is right to recognise that there is a long way to go. As Secretary of State for International Development, he will have the Opposition’s support. We will back him in his work if he keeps faith with British generosity and our duty to the world’s poor.
Mr Mitchell
I think I will take that as qualified support for the Government’s position.
The right hon. and learned Lady emphasises that it is morally right and in our national interests to stand by the very strong commitments that have been made by all parties in the House, which I welcome. We made it absolutely clear when we took office that in sorting out the dreadful economic inheritance we received from the Labour Government, we would not balance the books on the backs of the poorest people in the world, and we honour that promise today. On that point, let me make it clear to her that the legislation agreed before the election in support of the 0.7% pledge from 2013 will come before the House as soon as the parliamentary business managers can find a convenient time.
Let me make it clear that I have cut back the programmes in Russia and China that we inherited. The programme in Russia will be completed by the end of April, and the programme in China will be completed by the end of March, but the coalition Government have made the decision to rein back those programmes—we inherited a continuing programme.
I should make it clear to the right hon. and learned Lady that support came in equal proportions from a number of British Government Departments involved with the Pope’s visit, but that included DFID because, as she will be aware, the Catholic Church and its organisations deliver health care and education in some of the most difficult parts of the world, and DFID has a very strong relationship with the Church on that basis. However, let me put her mind at rest: my Department’s share of the cost of the visit did not come out of the 0.7% budget or the official development assistance budget.
The right hon. and learned Lady also asks whether other Departments are raiding the DFID budget. She should know, because we have made it absolutely clear, that we will stand by the OECD development assistance committee definition of what is and is not aid. We stand by that, and it governs what can and cannot be spent by the British taxpayer under the ODA budget.
The right hon. and learned Lady referred to the guarantee that has been so skilfully negotiated in the Turks and Caicos Islands by my right hon. Friend the Minister of State. The islands are a dependent territory, and we stand by our dependent territories—she will be aware that that is one of the first commitments in the International Development Act 2002. However, thanks to my right hon. Friend’s skill, we have negotiated a guarantee while they sort themselves out, rather than funding from the British taxpayer.
The right hon. and learned Lady asked whether we would reconsider our decision about the ILO. I emphasise to the House that the decision came from a recommendation in the multilateral aid review, which I strongly encourage her to look at, and in which the professional analysis reads:
“The ILO has a wide range of organisational weaknesses including weak cost control and results reporting”
and
“limited transparency”.
It continued:
“We will consider, on a case by case basis, funding the ILO in country on specific projects—provided it represents good value for money and is consistent with UK poverty reduction goals”.
That is a fair analysis. However, I invite hon. Members who do not agree with it to have a look at the multilateral aid review and reach their own conclusions. I want to emphasise that the four elements of a decent work agenda—employment, social protection, labour standards and social dialogue—form a core part of my Department’s work in this area, and will continue to do so.
Mr Mitchell
The right hon. Gentleman mentions trade unions from a sedentary position. Let me make it clear that the trade unions, for the work they do, will be able to apply to the global poverty action fund, and I look forward to their doing so.
The right hon. and learned Lady made three other points. The first related to support for the new United Nations women’s agency. The Government strongly support the agency and argued for it to be set up. One of my noble Friends was there last week, and I saw Michelle Bachelet, the brilliant new head of UN Women, on—I think—her first day in office. We have offered her staff in order to assist in her tasks, and when she comes forward with a strategic plan in July, I have no doubt that we will be able to fund it. We will urge other countries to share the burden appropriately, but we will be very strong supporters of what she is doing.
The right hon. and learned Lady asked me about Niger and whether I would confirm that other donors were involved in the decision. We decided that it was not appropriate to keep a bilateral programme in Niger. Other donors were certainly involved in the decision. Much of the work that is being done in Niger, which she will know is an enormously food-insecure part of the world, is done on a multilateral basis. Last year, I agreed specific support on a humanitarian basis to feed 810,000 people, including 35,500 children suffering from acute malnutrition. Some 81,000 families received seeds, and we sent specific support for 15,000 livestock, which of course is very important to people continuing their lives. We are very much engaged in Niger on a humanitarian basis, but we look to other countries to share the burden, and we strongly support the multilateral architecture in addressing the situation in Niger.
The right hon. and learned Lady also asked about Burundi. We have completed our work on revenue capacity-building. We had a very small programme there, but we judged that it was right to close it. These are tough and difficult decisions, but we thought that we could spend the money better elsewhere. However, TradeMark East Africa, which we strongly support, will be based there as well. Wiring that into the regional infrastructure is extremely important, and work is ongoing on that.
Finally, a letter and a copy of the document “Changing lives, delivering results”, which sets out the results of the review, are available to all Members on the Board. Furthermore, the full multilateral aid review can be read on the internet by anyone who wishes to do so.
Mr Speaker
Order. A great many right hon. and hon. Members are seeking to catch my eye, but I remind the House that there is another statement to follow and thereafter an important Second Reading debate. If I am to accommodate the level of interest, brevity in questions and answers alike is of the essence.
Sir Peter Tapsell (Louth and Horncastle) (Con)
May I warmly congratulate my right hon. Friend on a truly impressive statement, which was both highly practical and highly moral? May I also make a micro-economic point? It is one thing—and difficult enough—to establish projects in poor countries, but the most difficult thing of all is ensuring their subsequent daily, humble maintenance. When I walked around poor villages in Africa and Asia, I often came across a tap with clean water in it—one of the greatest assets that we can provide through aid—in the middle of the village. However, very often the tap was either dripping or gushing, and when one asked why, one was told that the rubber washer was always stolen within a few days of being installed. Nobody has ever told me what subsequent use the rubber washers are put to, but if the tap does not work or runs out of water, the whole scheme collapses.
Mr Mitchell
My hon. Friend said he was going to make a micro-economic point! He has great experience of such matters from his distinguished past, and he is absolutely right. Seeing assets that have been installed but are not in working order is an enormously depressing aspect of international development. Seeing empty schools in Africa that do not have children to go to them or teachers to serve them is similar to what he described. All our work is designed to achieve effective and transparent results that work not only for British taxpayers but for those we are trying to help.
Mr Tom Clarke (Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill) (Lab)
I declare an interest as the chair of the all-party friends of CAFOD—the Catholic Fund for Overseas Development—group. Does the right hon. Gentleman acknowledge the contribution of aid agencies and non-governmental organisations to the current focus of his Department’s work? Does he also agree with the overwhelming view that the greater the transparency, the greater the support will be from the British people for our objectives in this field? As two examples of how he can act quickly on such matters, may I urge him to accept the advice about implementing the Bribery Act 2010 as quickly as possible and to consider the role of British companies involved in mineral extraction in developing countries?
Mr Mitchell
I certainly pay tribute to CAFOD and the brilliant work of Chris Bain in leading it. I agree with the right hon. Gentleman about the importance of transparency, which is why one of the coalition Government’s first acts was to publish our transparency guarantee. He is right about results and openness. We are all strongly behind the Bribery Act 2010. There are some standing instructions that need to be worked out by a number of Departments, but that will happen relatively quickly and the Act will be fully implemented.
Malcolm Bruce (Gordon) (LD)
The review was right, and the tighter focus is welcome. The Select Committee on International Development will monitor not just the quantity and transparency of aid, but its effectiveness in tackling poverty and creating the space for development. However, will he explain one or two anomalies in his announcement? Burundi, which has already been mentioned, is a surprising omission, given that it is a poor country, but South Africa is included. What is the case for that, given that every other country on the list is a low-income country? Finally, will he confirm that targeting fewer countries will enable some of the staffing shortfalls that have been so apparent to be addressed, so that DFID staff are fully complemented where they are operating bilaterally?
Mr Mitchell
The Chairman of the Select Committee makes an important point. Programme staffing will be set to ensure that we can implement all the programmes. South Africa is a regional hub—an engine of economic development throughout the region—and much of our programme there is devoted to that. I have explained the position on Burundi, but, clearly, it too benefits from that engine of regional economic development. On his first point, the independent commission for aid impact, which is led by chief commissioner Graham Ward, one of Britain’s most distinguished accountants, reports to his Committee, not me, injecting that independent evaluation of British aid that is so important in maintaining taxpayer confidence in what we are doing.
Mr Speaker
Order. My exhortations to brevity have not been quite as faithfully heeded as I might have hoped, but I feel sure that we will return to the path of virtue with a question from Mr Chris Ruane.
Chris Ruane (Vale of Clwyd) (Lab)
Today is St David’s day, and Wales is twinned with Lesotho. Will the Secretary of State tell us why Lesotho has been victimised in these cuts, and whether he had any discussions with the Welsh Assembly Government about his decision?
Mr Mitchell
The Under-Secretary of State for International Development will be visiting Wales shortly. I reciprocate the comments of the hon. Member for Vale of Clwyd (Chris Ruane) about St David’s day. In regard to Lesotho, we think that there are better ways of supporting that country than through a bilateral programme, for the reasons that I set out earlier. When my hon. Friend goes to Wales and meets Members of the Welsh Assembly, I am sure that this is one of the matters that can be discussed.
Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)
Will my right hon. Friend make two things clear to the NGOs? The first is that they have a shared responsibility with us to make it clear that international development is a moral obligation as well as being in our national interest? The second is that, given that international development aid is now at 0.6% of GDP and will soon be at 0.7%, if people want more aid spent on a specific topic or area, it behoves them to explain which part of my right hon. Friend’s programme they want money to be taken away from, because the Department has now reached the maximum amount of funds that it is going to have during the course of this Parliament.
Mr Mitchell
I will certainly pass on my hon. Friend’s message to the NGOs. They also have a strong agenda of accountability and transparency, and we encourage them strongly in that. The workings of the Global Poverty Action Fund will greatly simplify the way in which NGOs access taxpayer support, and will also be very effective in driving forward that agenda.
Mr David Blunkett (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)
Will the Secretary of State join me in applauding the generosity of the British people, not least at the moment through their donations to Comic Relief? Will he also say something about his review’s impact on the poorest of the very poor—namely, the children and men and women with severe disabilities in the developing world, who constantly get lost in these debates, not least because they were not included in the millennium development goals?
Mr Mitchell
The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right on that point. Some four years ago, I went to Laos and Cambodia deliberately to look at the way in which disability impacted on development. We have not forgotten about this, and disability is clearly recognised in the work that we are taking forward.
Mrs Anne Main (St Albans) (Con)
Will the Secretary of State give me an indication of how he intends to work with the Dalit community, some 65,000 of whom live in Dhaka, to ensure that they are not excluded in spite of the best efforts to deliver aid to poor people?
Mr Mitchell
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The Dalit community represent the poorest of the poor in India, and we are looking specifically at ways of introducing a scholarship scheme to bring advantage to hundreds of thousands of Dalit girls in that country.
Hugh Bayley (York Central) (Lab)
More than half the world’s population now lives in urban areas, and less than half in the countryside. Just over a year ago the International Development Select Committee published a report on urbanisation which recommended a large increase in funding for UN-Habitat. I am astonished at the decision to pull the plug on UN-Habitat. Will the Secretary of State look at the report’s recommendations and write a note to the Select Committee explaining how his Department is going to meet them?
Mr Mitchell
The hon. Gentleman makes a good point about urbanisation. Only in the very recent past has the majority of the world lived in towns and cities rather than in the countryside, and the report to which he refers is a very good one. If he looks at the multilateral aid review, he will see the comments that were made about UN-Habitat, and I think that he will find them helpful in understanding the Government’s approach.
Mr Peter Lilley (Hitchin and Harpenden) (Con)
May I congratulate my right hon. Friend on putting such a strong emphasis on the effectiveness of aid, given that its purpose is not to make us feel good but to do good? Does he agree with the all-party parliamentary group on Trade Out of Poverty that, although effective aid is important in alleviating poverty, countries can leave poverty behind in the long run only if they have opportunities to trade their way out of it? Will he place great emphasis on encouraging the rich unilaterally to remove tariffs, quotas and other barriers to poor countries trading with us?
Mr Mitchell
I am most grateful to my right hon. Friend for his remarks. He, of course, led our party’s approach to the “globalisation of poverty” review of 2005—a most important document. I entirely endorse what he says about the importance of trade and trading out of poverty. The fact that there is such a strong coalition—if I may put it that way—between my right hon. Friend and Clare Short, who are driving forward this issue, emphasises how wide the support is for what he is doing. That underlines the importance of continuing to work flat out for a successful outcome to the Doha round.
Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)
The Secretary of State has said that there will be a new focus on both bilateral and multilateral aid. Will that focus include giving priority consideration to marginal farmers, with women numbering heavily among them? Did he have them in mind in his reference to property rights? How will he ensure that the special measures attaching to the Food and Agriculture Organisation do not interfere with improved focus on the position of women marginal farmers?
Mr Mitchell
The hon. Gentleman will have heard the contrast between what I said about the Food and Agriculture Organisation, which has been placed in a form of special measures, and the World Food Programme, which is doing extremely well under the leadership of Josette Sheeran. We would probably have pulled out of the FAO but it is about to recruit a new director and we want to work with that new director to ensure that the FAO becomes a much more effective organisation. I completely endorse what the hon. Gentleman says about the importance of my Department’s focus on farming and agriculture.
Mr Gary Streeter (South West Devon) (Con)
I warmly welcome my right hon. Friend’s statement, giving a renewed focus to British aid policy. He will know that improving good governance is one of the most effective ways of lifting people out of poverty. Will he confirm that, under his new order, there will still be a significant investment in capacity as he develops his targets for developing countries, as this will help them improve their democratic systems and their good governance?
Mr Mitchell
My hon. Friend is absolutely right in the emphasis he places on good governance. Helping people to hold their leaders and their politicians to account is an extremely important part of an open and free society, as events—not least, in the middle east—have made clear in recent weeks. This is an important focus of my Department’s work.
Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)
The Secretary of State will recognise that among the most exploited workers in the world are Dalits, garment makers and brick makers working in the very poorest countries. Their way out of poverty is organisation, better employment practices and decent wages. In that light, why is the right hon. Gentleman cutting money for the International Labour Organisation, which provides an important benchmark on the employment basis of those people and, of course, on the rights of migrant workers as well?
Mr Mitchell
The hon. Gentleman is entirely right to emphasise that there are four key elements of the decent work agenda, which I mentioned earlier: social dialogue, labour standards, social protection and employment. It is a common purpose across the House that those elements should be supported, and we will work in a variety of ways, including with the trade unions, to ensure that we uphold them.
Mr William Cash (Stone) (Con)
The Secretary of State will know that the all-party groups on Kenya, Uganda and sanitation and water will be extremely glad to hear that they are still going to receive aid. I notice, however, that Commonwealth Secretariat and UNESCO are being placed into special measures as a matter of urgency. Is there a case for putting the EU in the same category?
Mr Mitchell
We have looked carefully at EU aid spending and while it is true that the spending through the Commission is not as good as it should be, it is nevertheless also true that the European development fund spends British taxpayers’ money quite well. Let me also make it clear to my hon. Friend that although some 17% of the funding comes from Britain, 40% of it is spent on the Commonwealth countries for which I know he has a particular affection.
Richard Burden (Birmingham, Northfield) (Lab)
The Secretary of State suggests terminating the aid programme in Vietnam. I suggest that he look again at the report of the Select Committee after its visit to the country in 2007. It recognised that although the aid relationship needed to change, the graduation of Vietnam to middle-income status was fragile, that many good ideas that could be used elsewhere in the world were being tested, and that the aid relationship, although changing, should continue. Will the right hon. Gentleman look at that again?
Mr Mitchell
We had specific discussions with Vietnam on our programme there, which does not wind down, I think, until 2016—it has the longest tail of any of the wind-down programmes. Vietnam is powering out of poverty, and ensuring that the role of the private sector is fully embraced is a big part of the work that my Department is undertaking. We have agreed the scale-down with the Government of Vietnam, and it works for us and them.
Richard Harrington (Watford) (Con)
I too commend the Secretary of State and his colleagues on today’s statement and the review behind it. On a visit to Kashmir last week, the outcomes of British aid that I saw in the capital, Muzaffarabad, impressed me. Given his mention of the European development fund, is he satisfied about the hundreds of millions of euros that go via the development fund to Turkey and Croatia, which are neither contaminated with a lot of poverty nor fragile states? If he is dissatisfied, will he take measures in future to ensure that the money is redirected to other countries.
Mr Mitchell
I hear what my hon. Friend says, but many people would agree that building up Turkey’s capacity to trade with us through such assistance is a sensible use of European Union funds. I will have a good look at his point in respect of Croatia.
Eric Joyce (Falkirk) (Lab)
Today’s announcement of the continuation of bilateral aid to the Democratic Republic of the Congo is welcome, but will the Secretary of State continue to press the DRC Government on the importance of transparency in getting UK companies to engage and take risks in that country?
Mr Mitchell
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to stress the importance of that agenda in the DRC, which is a strong partner of ours. Over the next four years, we will be doing a great deal of work there, spending on average £198 million, with a strong focus on tackling malaria, ensuring that 6 million people get access to clean water, boosting the electoral system, and ensuring that girls get into school.
Roger Williams (Brecon and Radnorshire) (LD)
Unfolding events in north Africa and the wider middle east could not have been anticipated when the review began. Will the Government’s proposals allow enough flexibility to deal with these issues and with others that are bound to arise in future?
Mr Mitchell
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right: we are watching extremely carefully what is happening. We are fully engaged on issues of humanitarian relief on Libya’s borders with Egypt and Tunisia, and I will be going there in the next couple of days.
Sir Gerald Kaufman (Manchester, Gorton) (Lab)
Will the right hon. Gentleman confirm that when he refers to the occupied Palestinian territories, he includes the prison camp of Gaza and the hells on earth that are the refugee camps in Lebanon? Is he aware that the $2.4 million that his Department has awarded for medical aid in the Lebanese refugee camps is enormously appreciated but will last for only a month, which is a symbol of the dire need in these places?
Mr Mitchell
The right hon. Gentleman is extremely experienced in the issues of the occupied Palestinian territories and of Gaza. Through the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, we take a careful interest in what is happening in Gaza and will continue to do so.
Jason McCartney (Colne Valley) (Con)
Having visited the flood-hit areas of Pakistan and Kashmir before Christmas, may I ask my right hon. Friend whether he will confirm that the money saved on aid to China and Russia will go to such areas and to the other poorest areas in the world that need the aid most?
Mr Mitchell
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. As a result of the much more careful prioritisation of aid and aid programmes, we are able to re-channel British taxpayer’s money into the kind of causes that he identifies.
Mr William Bain (Glasgow North East) (Lab)
How does the Secretary of State justify ending bilateral aid to Cambodia, given that last year 31% of the population were estimated as living under the poverty line, and the country is in danger of missing seven of its eight millennium development goals?
Mr Mitchell
I hear what the hon. Gentleman says, but it is important to recognise whether a British bilateral programme that is small compared with several other bilateral and multilateral programmes was having a real impact. We concluded that such a programme was not the best way of spending taxpayer’s money.
Nicholas Soames (Mid Sussex) (Con)
I congratulate my right hon. Friend and his team on an important piece of work that is in the national interest, but may I press him a little further on the subject of the European Union? Would he consider discussing with the EU the possibility of a pan-European review conducted on the basis on which he conducted his valuable review of this country’s aid, to establish whether that would help the EU to deliver its aid more effectively?
Mr Mitchell
We continue to discuss a range of matters with the EU and with Commissioner Andris Piebalgs, who is in charge of development. The multilateral aid review examined the work of the European development fund in much the same way as the bilateral review examined our country-to-country programme. There is ongoing work to be done, but I assure my hon. Friend that we are very much on the case.
Dr Eilidh Whiteford (Banff and Buchan) (SNP)
Last week I was in Ghana with the all-party parliamentary group on agriculture and food for development. Members of both Houses observed for themselves the critical importance of agriculture not just to the sustaining of livelihoods but to the potential for economic growth in developing countries. I noted the Secretary of State’s concern about the Food and Agriculture Organisation, but what strategic role will agriculture play in DFID’s plans for the future?
Mr Mitchell
Food security and agriculture are at the heart of many of the programmes that we operate in food-stressed areas. We are working increasingly closely with the World Food Programme, not only on the provision of emergency aid but on trying to enable food-insecure areas to change the way in which they secure their food so that it is sustainable in the long term. Very good work is being done in Karamoja, in northern Uganda, and we intend to intensify it.
Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con)
The Secretary of State said that he would put more money into the development of democracy in 13 of the 16 countries that he listed. Elections have already taken place last year and this year, so we have missed the boat on those. Can we be certain that the programme will continue and that we will carry out intensive work with some of the countries that have not done as well as they might have in reducing corruption in the electoral process, not just during the four-year period that has been mentioned but, if necessary, for five or six years?
Mr Mitchell
My hon. Friend has asked a very good question. Over the next four years, we will work intensively to try to boost freer and fairer elections. As I said in my statement, we shall be working in 13 countries, notably Zimbabwe. We have made it clear that if there is a proper route map towards freer and fairer elections in that country, we shall be able engage much more directly in development work there.
Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)
It is all very well for the Secretary of State to be charming about Mrs Bachelet, the head of UN Women, but when I heard her speak at the Commission on the Status of Women last week, she pointed out that she still had to raise the bulk of the $500 million dollar budget of UN Women. Britain was the fourth biggest donor to UN Women last year, but although some 30 other countries have made commitments for 2011, we have thus far failed to do so. UN Women has an ambitious programme to tackle violence against women, to empower women, and to ensure that women’s voices are heard in some of the poorest countries in the world. Why has the Secretary of State not yet made a decision?
Mr Mitchell
I think that I was respectful rather than charming about Mrs Bachelet, but as soon as we have a plan that we can fund, we will fund it. We have already provided some transitional funds. As the hon. Lady will know, there is specific funding to tackle violence against women, and she can rest assured that the Government strongly support this agency, as we always have. When we see the plan, we will fund it.
Joseph Johnson (Orpington) (Con)
I welcome the tighter focus of the aid programme, but the India programme continues to present a juicy target for aid sceptics who criticise it for being directed at a nuclear power and a space power. Does the Secretary of State agree that it would be fairer for them to acknowledge that the civil nuclear programme is playing an essential part in meeting India’s energy deficit, and that since its inception the space programme has focused largely on development, using satellite technology to give Indians in rural areas access to long-distance learning opportunities, remote health care and crop-related weather analysis?
Mr Mitchell
My hon. Friend makes an extremely good point. India presents a paradox, because although it has the programmes to which he refers, there are also more poor people in India than in the whole of sub-Saharan Africa. Our programme is in transition: we are shifting its focus on to only three of the poorest states in India, and over the next four years up to half the programme will be spent on pro-poor private sector investment for development. We will not be there for ever, but now is not the time to end this programme.
Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)
How will the increase in aid to conflict-affected countries be evaluated to ensure it is having the greatest impact?
Mr Mitchell
In future, all our programmes will have detailed evaluation criteria from day one whether or not they are in conflict-affected areas, and, of course, the Independent Commission for Aid Impact will evaluate whether the taxpayer is getting good value for money. These criteria therefore apply across all our programmes, not just those that are easiest to evaluate.
Mr David Evennett (Bexleyheath and Crayford) (Con)
I welcome my right hon. Friend’s statement on the refocusing of our aid to target it and get value for money from it. Does he agree that education, particularly for girls, remains a top priority? What is his Department doing, and what more can it do, to encourage education throughout the developing world?
Mr Mitchell
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. For reasons he will readily appreciate, one of the best development investments we can make in terms of outcomes is to get girls into school, which is why that is such a key target for us. Over the next four years, Britain will educate 11 million children overseas, far more than in the whole of Britain, and, as I have said, at 2.5% of the cost. Therefore, if any of my hon. Friend’s constituents say that this programme should be repatriated, he should point out that 2.5% of the cost would not even get one laptop per class.
Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)
An Inter-Parliamentary Union delegation visiting a former communist country last week was shocked to hear from the head of a trade union that she was under pressure to relinquish her post so that she could be replaced by a Government stooge. We offered her hope from the International Labour Organisation, which is the only effective body that can influence her Government. Why are we denying the ILO funds?
Mr Mitchell
As the hon. Gentleman will have heard me say, we are maintaining our membership of the ILO. However, if he looks at the report—which he can download from the internet immediately after this statement—he will see the professional analysis of the ILO’s work, and he may then decide that there are organisations that might be better than the ILO in assisting the lady he mentioned in the specific circumstances he described.
Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)
Save the Children, which is a very well-supported charity in West Worcestershire, has particularly welcomed this review. The Secretary of State has just emphasised the importance of educating girls. Can he tell us how many more girls will receive an education as a result of this review?
Mr Mitchell
I am afraid that I cannot give that precise figure to my hon. Friend off the top of my head, but I shall write to her on the matter. What I can tell her is that last year Britain educated about 5 million children overseas, but that figure will rise substantially in the future.
Emma Reynolds (Wolverhampton North East) (Lab)
Further to the question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart), does the Secretary of State recognise that the new agency UN Women needs some certainty about its budget in order to prepare its strategic plan, rather than the other way around? Will he therefore lead from the front, instead of delaying his decision as to how much to commit to this vital UN agency?
Mr Mitchell
I can reassure the hon. Lady that we are in very close touch with UN Women. When the plan is produced, I am sure we will be able to fund it. Meanwhile, we have given some hundreds of thousands of pounds in transitional funding to assist the agency to get to that point. This agency has only just been started; the hon. Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart) suggested we failed to fund it last year, but it has only just come into existence. With the transitional funding, it will be able to produce its strategic plan, and then I am sure we will be able to fund it.
Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)
I welcome the Secretary of State’s excellent statement. Will he join me in paying tribute to the excellent work of UNICEF, which saves the lives of millions of children around the world, and will he now publish, in full and in detail, the review’s analysis of UNICEF’s performance?
Mr Mitchell
My hon. Friend will be able to download the review straight after this statement. UNICEF is doing a brilliant job, and I can assure him that we are going to be able to double its funding in the next two years and support it because of the excellent results that it is achieving and the very good work that it does.
Mr Michael McCann (East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow) (Lab)
Can the Secretary of State tell us what proportion of the current aid programme is allocated to multilateral aid, what proportion is allocated to bilateral aid and what the proportions will be after his reviews are put in place?
Mr Mitchell
If the hon. Gentleman downloads the reviews, he will be able to see the precise figures. The proportion used to be about 50:50, but it will be slightly different in the future. I stand to be corrected but, as I recall it, the multilateral element increases slightly, principally because of the very strong support for the World Bank. I will write to him on this matter.
Bob Russell (Colchester) (LD)
I thank my right hon. Friend for his commitment to an ongoing aid relationship with the island of St Helena, whose citizens are, of course, British citizens. Can he confirm that proposals for the airfield on the island are still firmly on track?
Mr Mitchell
My hon. Friend is right to identify St Helena as an important dependent territory which rightly has our support. He will know that negotiations are ongoing on three key areas which, when they are the subject of agreement, will form the basis of a contract. I hope to be able to give the House more information in due course.
Ms Gisela Stuart (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab)
I very much welcome the Secretary of State’s announcement. He categorised the multilateral organisations as the good, the bad and the ugly, so will he say where, in his assessments, CDC falls?
Mr Mitchell
CDC is not one of the organisations that has been assessed as part of the multilateral aid review, because we are in the process of reforming the way in which it operates. The point that we have made in a written statement to the House is that widespread consultation is taking place on how we inject more development genes into CDC. Those negotiations and discussions are continuing, and I hope to be able to say more to the House shortly about how that will proceed.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
What proportion of the ongoing aid budget will be absorbed by India, and across the global programme what is the split between funding direct to Governments and funding to non-governmental organisations?
Mr Mitchell
My hon. Friend will be able to see that the figure for India is frozen at its current level for the next four years. If he looks at the results, which are available on the internet, he will see the different proportions of spending, but I can tell him that there will be less direct budget support under this Government’s programme than there was under the previous Government’s.
Mr Denis MacShane (Rotherham) (Lab)
The Prime Minister, both in Kuwait last week and yesterday, has held up freedom of association as something that Britain should support, so this attack on the International Labour Organisation will horrify every trade union worker around the world. Britain founded the ILO, and in the 1980s the ILO was central to getting rid of Soviet communism and apartheid in South Africa. I know that the Secretary of State has to represent Lazard and the banking community, but this attack on working people around the world is shameful.
Mr Mitchell
That may have been a little over the top. First, we are not withdrawing from the ILO. We have made it clear that we will not be making any voluntary contributions to it. We remain a member of the ILO, but the subscription is paid for by the Department for Work and Pensions. Where countries find that the ILO is able to provide a specific service that offers value for money and effectiveness, they will be able to take on its services.
Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
The Secretary of State’s performance today has confirmed, yet again, that he is the only Member of this House who can really run overseas aid. Given that, will he confirm that the extra £21 billion the previous Government forced us to pay to the EU to provide aid in the poorer EU states should come into his Department?
Mr Mitchell
My hon. Friend has a long record of speaking out vigorously on European issues and the whole House will have heard his comments today.
Catherine McKinnell (Newcastle upon Tyne North) (Lab)
The Secretary of State said, in response to my right hon. Friend the Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill (Mr Clarke), that the Bribery Act 2010 will be implemented soon. Given that combating bribery, fraud and corruption is paramount in ensuring that aid gets to the right people and the right places, could he be a little more specific about when he anticipates Labour’s Bribery Act being implemented and what he is doing to press his Government on this very important matter?
Mr Mitchell
I have made no secret of my very strong support for the Bribery Act—anyone who holds this office realises how incredibly important it is. I would say that the hon. Lady is a member of a party that did not do an awful lot about this in its 13 years in government. However, we will ensure that, once the wrinkles are ironed out, the legislation is up and running as soon as possible.
Mr Speaker
Order. It is always a pleasure to hear the hon. Gentleman but I have a faint suspicion that he toddled out of the Chamber at one point, which is of itself not a criminal offence, but it does rather disqualify him from participating in the exchanges on the statement. We will hear from him again soon I am sure.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
Why on earth are the Government lending £160 million to the Turks and Caicos Islands, which have a very high gross domestic product per head, and why are we also allowing the Cayman Islands to borrow a similar amount of money without introducing anything to tackle their tax haven status?
Mr Mitchell
The hon. Gentleman did not listen carefully to my earlier response, which was that the Government are supplying a guarantee to the Government of the Turks and Caicos Islands so that they have a period of time in which to sort out their financial difficulties. If all goes well, there will not be any costs at all to the British taxpayer as a result.
Mr Speaker
I must thank the Secretary of State and colleagues for their succinctness, which has meant that everybody who wanted to get in was able to do so.
Intercity Express and Rail Electrification
(13 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Secretary of State for Transport (Mr Philip Hammond)
With permission, Mr Speaker, I shall make a statement on the Government’s plans for extension of the electrification of the Great Western main line and for the procurement of a replacement for the existing diesel inter-city trains. The two issues are closely connected. First, I shall address the provision of a new generation of inter-city 125 mph trains to take advantage of the electrification of the Great Western main line and to allow the phasing out of most of the ageing diesel InterCity 125s.
In February 2009, the intercity express programme, launched by the previous Government, identified Agility Trains, a consortium of Hitachi Rail and John Laing plc, as the preferred bidder to provide a new fleet of inter-city trains. Subsequently, the previous Government placed the process on hold and ordered a review of the procurement by Sir Andrew Foster. Last summer, recognising the fiscal challenges that the UK faces and the impact of the new Government’s plans for high-speed rail to Leeds and Manchester, Agility put forward an improved, lower-cost proposal to provide the required service through a mixed IEP fleet with some all-electric trains and some with a combination of electric and diesel power, allowing it to operate through services beyond the electrified railway. The proposal retained the more modern electric InterCity 225s on the east coast main line, as the previous Administration had proposed.
We have reviewed the proposal against the alternative of an all-electric fleet, with purpose-built diesel locomotives coupled to trains to haul them beyond the electrified railway. Either way, it would represent a multi-billion pound investment for this country, underpinning the operation of inter-city services on the conventional railway for many years to come, and it is imperative that the right choice be made.
As I said at the time of my statement to the House on 25 November, there were complex legal, technical and commercial issues to be addressed and both the Government and Agility Trains, as preferred bidder, recognised that. Over the past few months, we have worked together on these issues and I can now announce that I am resuming the IEP procurement and proceeding with the proposal that Agility Trains has put forward as preferred bidder. We will now work with Agility Trains with a view to reaching financial close by the end of this year. That is, of course, subject to the Government’s continuing to be satisfied that the proposal offers value for money as the commercial negotiations are concluded and that the final arrangements are compliant with the United Kingdom’s European Union obligations. This deal will allow us to provide better, faster, more comfortable services and to continue providing through journeys between London and parts of the rail network that are not electrified. In total, there will be over 11,000 more peak-time seats each day on the Great Western main line and the east coast main line post-IEP compared with today.
Hitachi is today confirming its plans to locate its European train manufacturing and assembly centre at Newton Aycliffe in County Durham. That investment is expected to create at least 500 direct permanent jobs, as well as hundreds of temporary construction jobs. Thousands more job opportunities will be created in the UK manufacturing and service supply chains. Coming just days after the news of the reopening of the Redcar steelworks, this is a massive and very welcome shot in the arm for the skilled work forces of the north-east’s industrial heartland.
I turn now to the related issue of electrification of the Great Western main line. I announced to the House on 25 November that, over the next six years, Network Rail will electrify the commuter services on the Great Western main line from London to Didcot, Oxford and Newbury. I recognise that this announcement, although welcomed in the Thames valley, left unanswered the clear aspirations of rail users further west for the extension of electrification to Bristol and into Wales. I and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales have subsequently considered the options for extending electrification, alongside the Government’s consideration of the proposals for replacement of the current diesel InterCity trains, and in close consultation with the Welsh Assembly Government.
We have concluded that there is a case for extending electrification westwards to Bristol and Cardiff, and I am today asking Network Rail to add that major extension to its electrification programme immediately. This is good news for Wales and the south-west against a backdrop of public spending constraint as we deal with the legacy of debt that we inherited. Bringing electrification to Cardiff will mean that we are linking, for the first time, the capital cities of England, Scotland and Wales by electrified rail. These measures will deliver a London to Cardiff journey time of 1 hour and 42 minutes and will shave 22 minutes off the London to Bristol journey.
I have received representations calling for the electrification of the Great Western main line to be extended as far west as Swansea and we have looked carefully at the arguments. The business case for electrification is heavily dependent on the frequency of service. Services between London and Swansea currently operate at a frequency of only one train an hour off-peak. There is no evidence of a pattern of demand that would be likely to lead imminently to an increase in this frequency. Consequently, I regret to have to say that there is not, at present, a viable business case for electrification of the main line between Cardiff and Swansea.
However, because of the decision to proceed with Agility’s proposal for a bi-mode train, journey times from London to Swansea will be shortened to 2 hours and 39 minutes—20 minutes faster than today—with trains switching automatically to diesel power as they leave Cardiff. As the constraining factor on the south Wales main line is speed limitations dictated by the geometry of the line, there would be no time-saving benefits from electrifying the line from Cardiff to Swansea. However, the policy of the Government is to support a progressive electrification of the rail network in England and Wales, for environmental reasons among others. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales and I will therefore keep under active review the business case for future electrification of the Great Western main line between Cardiff and Swansea in the light of developing future service patterns.
I have a further announcement to make to the House. In the course of the examination of the case for electrification in south Wales that I and my right hon. Friend have undertaken, we have established, at an initial high level, that there appears to be a good case for electrifying the key valley commuter lines north of Cardiff via Pontypridd and Caerphilly to Treherbert, Aberdare, Merthyr Tydfil, Coryton and Rhymney, as well as the lines to Penarth and Barry Island to the west. My Department will therefore work with the Welsh Assembly Government to develop a full business case for the electrification of the Cardiff valley lines during the next rail investment control period beginning in 2014. The Welsh Assembly Government will need, in parallel, to consider the case for specifying suitable electric trains for those routes when the Wales and Borders franchise is re-let in 2018. That would, of course, be a prerequisite for electrification proceeding, and the timetable for franchise re-letting and re-specification necessarily dictates the time scale of the proposed electrification.
On the basis of our preliminary evaluation, the valleys electrification represents the best value for money rail electrification investment that can be made in Wales. It promises to bring all the benefits of electric commuter trains—faster acceleration, greater comfort, cleaner and greener travel, and greater reliability—to rail users in south Wales. It would have a significant effect on the economy of Cardiff and the valleys by deepening labour markets, improving connectivity and significantly enhancing the attractiveness of the area to investors. Coupled with the electrification of the Great Western main line, it would represent a major boost to the economy of south Wales as a whole. These three decisions—on the intercity express programme, on Great Western main line electrification and on building the business case for electrification of the valleys commuter lines—represent a major further investment in UK rail infrastructure. They follow the announcements that I have already made on Crossrail, Thameslink, tube upgrades, Thames valley and north western electrification and additional rolling stock.
The decisions sit alongside the Government’s proposals for high-speed rail, the consultation on which I announced to the House in a written statement yesterday, as testimony to this Government’s commitment to investment in the future of Britain’s railways. They represent excellent news for passengers on the Great Western main line and the east coast main line, for commuters on the Cardiff valley lines and for the economies of south Wales and north-east England as a whole. I commend this statement to the House.
Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)
I thank the Secretary of State for the early sight of his statement—he actually sent me two statements, although they appear to be the same. I will begin by welcoming the much delayed green light that he has today given to the new intercity express programme, which was launched by Labour before the last election. That this programme is now to go ahead, with the significant boost for jobs that he referred to, is testament to the tenacity and tireless campaigning of my hon. Friend the Member for Sedgefield (Phil Wilson), The Northern Echo, the local community trade unions, particularly Unite, and the local work force. I congratulate them all on what has been an incredible triumph for their campaign.
Can the Secretary of State confirm when passengers will first be able to enjoy these new trains? Have the delays in making the announcement had any impact on the delivery date for the trains? Will he confirm whether he has made any other changes to the contract, for example to the number of trains or the cascading plan for the existing rolling stock, as a result of today’s announcement?
The Opposition obviously welcome the decision to go ahead with the electrification of a further stretch of the Great Western main line to Cardiff. It is the result of the commitment we made in government and also the efforts made since the Secretary of State’s last statement in November by my right hon. Friend the Member for Neath (Mr Hain), my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd (Owen Smith), the First Minister of Wales, Carwyn Jones, other MPs and Assembly Members, and the business community across south Wales. I am glad that the Secretary of State has listened to them about the vital need for modernisation, which will speed up the journey time between our capitals from 2 hours five minutes to 1 hour 40 minutes, which has to be welcome. It is a real boost to business, with the potential for investment and jobs, and to Wales.
However, does the Secretary of State understand the deep upset that will be felt by people in Swansea and across Wales at the St David’s day disappointment that the electrification will not continue as far as Swansea, as Labour had intended? He has broken his manifesto commitment to
“support the electrification of the Great Western line to South Wales.”
The Secretary of State for Wales, who I am glad to see is in her place, was pretty quiet yesterday when the Transport Secretary confirmed plans for a high-speed rail route through her constituency, which she previously said she could not support. The people of south Wales will expect her to be more vocal today in explaining why the Government have let down the people and businesses that are further south and west than Cardiff.
The Transport Secretary has just extolled the virtues of electrification, including, in his own words, its “significant effect on the economy of Cardiff and the valleys—deepening labour markets, improving connectivity and significantly enhancing the attractiveness of the area to investors.” Why cannot the people of Swansea, and of west Wales beyond Swansea, also have that advantage? Can he confirm when the electrification of the line to Cardiff will be completed, and why, as far as he is concerned, electrifying just 40 more miles of track to Swansea appears to be such a bad idea?
Is it not true that the case for electrification was previously approved by the Treasury? Anybody who has dealt with the Treasury, as we now all have, knows that the rate of return would have had to meet its tough criteria, so why does the right hon. Gentleman continue to suggest that there is no proper business case for electrification all the way to Swansea? Does he accept that, if Swansea is not a part of the single roll-out construction programme, the Government will incur 20% additional costs to stop construction and then take it up again? He is in fact saying that the stretch of line from Cardiff to Swansea will not be electrified at all—except by incurring unnecessarily high extra costs.
I welcome in the right hon. Gentleman’s statement the part about looking at further electrification in Wales on the valleys train lines, but he is holding out the promise of potentially producing a post-dated cheque at a later date, because there is no funding available in this spending review period. He says that he has made a decision about the matter, but his only decision has been to look at whether there is a business case, so there is no guarantee of his carrying out the project. Perhaps he is trying to deflect attention from the fact that he is failing to meet his manifesto commitment to take electrification all the way to Swansea.
Will the right hon. Gentleman update the House on where his Department is with the procurement of the 1,200 new carriages for Thameslink? We still have not heard about that major project, in which many UK jobs are at stake, and it would be good if we did not have to put up with Thameslink being hit by the same delays that have beset the IEP project. Does he have an updated time scale for when the new Thameslink and Crossrail trains will benefit passengers by actually being in service? Will he explain what impact the delay will have on the plans for cascading the existing rolling stock?
Why, when the right hon. Gentleman must have known that he was making a statement today, did he choose yesterday to slip out by written answer—without informing the media or the House—a decision to end all funding for local rail schemes that local authorities and integrated transport authorities develop? His decision means that no new schemes will be able to go ahead between now and April 2015. Can he explain why that decision was not made in the comprehensive spending review, and why he put it out yesterday under cover of his publication of the high-speed rail consultation?
As I have made clear, I welcome today’s confirmation of the investment in the rail network that Labour planned and announced when in government. The additional electrification and the major project to replace our outdated inter-city fleet will significantly improve the passenger experience on our rail network and bring economic benefits to the country. However, the unnecessary delays in bringing forward those plans, and the decision to bring disappointment to south Wales on St David’s day, are just further evidence of the dither and delay that seems to grip the right hon. Gentleman’s Department. Both of his announcements today imply more delay than the original plans. His third announcement on further electrification in Wales is another example of jam tomorrow but no money today, and no guarantee of progress. In the end, he will be judged on what he delivers, and Labour Members will be looking closely at that.
Mr Hammond
We have been treated to a classic rant. There are two types of people in this world: the glass-half-full brigade and the glass-half-empty brigade—and let us guess which one the hon. Lady belongs to. She is determined resolutely to find bad news even in a statement about massive investment at a time of constrained public spending.
The hon. Lady, apart from treating us to a read-out of her contacts book, which was fascinating, had the nerve to accuse us of unnecessary delays. I would like to remind her that it was the previous Administration who pulled the IEP procurement and asked Sir Andrew Foster to review it, reopening the issues. I can tell her today that trains will start to be delivered to the Great Western main line from 2016 and on to the east coast main line from 2018.
On the question of electrification, the hon. Lady mentioned the right hon. Member for Neath (Mr Hain), the man who talks a good talk about electrification but was, if I remember rightly, Secretary of State for Wales in the previous Administration—an Administration who, in 13 years, did not manage to electrify a single inch of railway in the Principality. A couple of weeks ago, the hon. Lady, who is now so keen on electrification in Wales, was telling us that Labour had no commitment to electrification in Wales because it was conducting a spending review and everything was up for grabs. That was until the very same right hon. Member for Neath came along and slapped her down, and made her change her tune.
The hon. Lady talked about our manifesto commitment at the last general election. I can tell her—[Interruption.] I have it right here; I will quote it back to her in a minute if she wants. Our manifesto commitment at the last general election was to electrify the railway into south Wales. I know that she is not shadow Secretary of State for Wales, but even she should know that Cardiff is in south Wales. We have delivered today on the commitment that we made.
The hon. Lady made a plea for electrification to Swansea. I understand that people in Swansea will be disappointed by the announcement that I have made today because of the expectations that the previous Government raised without bothering to establish that there was a sound business case for the proposed expenditure. However, she has not, at any point, made a logical argument for the electrification that she pleads for. I have told her that the bi-mode trains that we are procuring will deliver a journey time saving of 20 minutes to Swansea—the same journey time saving that the previous Government were promising through electrification. We will deliver the benefits to the people of Swansea from electrification to Cardiff and continuing bi-mode train operation onward from Cardiff to Swansea. She asked me about the electrification to Cardiff. That will be completed in 2017.
On the valleys electrification, the hon. Lady says that there is no funding in the spending review. I am disappointed that she has not yet grasped the complexities of rail capital funding. Network Rail funds electrification through its regulated asset base. The investment programme is set in control periods, the next of which starts in 2014. What I have announced today is that we have established that there is, on the face of it, a strong business case for this investment in the valleys electrification. We will work it up with Network Rail and the Welsh Assembly Government, with a view to including it in the next investment programme period.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
Order. A lot of Members wish to get in on this statement, so single and short questions would be welcome.
Roger Williams (Brecon and Radnorshire) (LD)
In the face of gloom, doom and whingeing from the Opposition, this is really good news for Wales. St David’s day will be toasted with a full glass in Cardiff and a nearly full glass in Swansea. I am pleased that the Secretary of State said that he will continue to review the case for electrification to Swansea. Will he confirm that he will do so?
Mr Hammond
As I have said, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales and I will continue actively to look at the case for electrification to Swansea. I said that we would do so in the light of developing service patterns. The important point is that once the valleys lines are electrified, it is quite possible that new electric services could be provided that head through Cardiff and to the west, which might change the economics, and thus the business case, for the Cardiff to Swansea section.
Phil Wilson (Sedgefield) (Lab)
I congratulate the Secretary of State on his announcement on the intercity express programme. As he knows, the investment and jobs involved are very important for my constituents in north-east England. Will he join me in congratulating the Back on Track campaign, which was led by The Northern Echo, Durham county council, the chamber of commerce and the northern TUC? Will he also congratulate my constituents on the way in which they brought this matter to the attention of the Department for Transport, and helped it to make the right decision?
Mr Hammond
I am happy to acknowledge the hon. Gentleman’s tireless battle for the IEP. He has arranged for various worthies from his constituency to visit me and the Department to make the case. This has been a complex process with legal, technical, financial and commercial issues to resolve. We have worked closely with Hitachi to get to this point. I understand that he wanted us to get here more quickly, but I assure him that we have progressed as fast as possible.
Jonathan Evans (Cardiff North) (Con)
As a Cardiff Member of Parliament, I thank my right hon. Friend unequivocally for today’s announcement. I also congratulate my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales, who has fought her corner wonderfully. Making the case for the electrification of the valley lines in the announcement was something that Opposition Members did not expect and that they were never committed to. From June 2009, they were supposedly committed to electrification, and yet nothing whatsoever was done. Will my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport commit to ensuring that this announcement is carried forward, unlike the announcements that were made by those who are now on the Opposition Benches?
Mr Hammond
Absolutely; I give my hon. Friend that commitment. The hon. Member for Garston and Halewood (Maria Eagle) used most of her time in responding to the statement by talking about Swansea. The evidence shows that there is a much stronger business case for the electrification of the valley lines. When a limited amount of public money is available, it is absolutely incumbent on us—she can ask her sister about this—to ensure that it is spent on the areas that deliver the best value for money to the Exchequer.
Mrs Siân C. James (Swansea East) (Lab)
Having fought a long and hard campaign to get rail electrification in Swansea, I congratulate Cardiff and the valleys because their glass is very much full at the moment—I will raise a glass to them. Unfortunately, I will have to go back to my constituents in Swansea and explain that they are not as important. I will have to explain that modern transport and infrastructure, and opportunities for investment and tourism are not on the cards for them. The Secretary of State spoke about there being no good financial case for rail electrification to Swansea. All the trains along the south Wales main line—I will talk slowly to make this point—
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
Order. I know how passionate the hon. Lady is about this matter, but please can we have single, short questions, because a lot of Members wish to get in?
Mr Hammond
Obviously I understand that the hon. Lady is disappointed. She has made her pitch to me repeatedly, having caught me every time I have passed behind the Chair over the past few months. I am sorry that I have had to be rather uncommunicative, but she will understand the reasons. I am disappointed that she has not acknowledged that the huge time-saving benefit from electrification will be delivered through the introduction of bi-mode IEP trains and the electrification of the route as far as Cardiff. Because of the line speed restrictions, there would be no further time savings for Swansea even if we electrified the rest of the line. Huge benefits will be delivered to Swansea—a 20 minute time saving is extremely significant. I hope she will at least acknowledge that that will be a huge benefit for the area that she represents.
Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)
I warmly welcome the Secretary of State’s announcement this afternoon. Will he confirm my memory that Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s Great Western main line runs from Swindon, through Chippenham and Bath, to Bristol Temple Meads, not on the branch line from Bristol Parkway and onwards to Wales? Does he intend to allow the electrification of the line to Bristol Temple Meads, as well as the branch line to Wales?
Mr Hammond
I am not sure whether I mentioned this in my statement, but my hon. Friend is absolutely correct—the electrification will include the line through Bath to Bristol Temple Meads and also the line from Bristol Parkway to Bristol Temple Meads. That will ensure that we can increase the frequency of London-Bristol Temple Meads trains to four per hour and shave 20 minutes off the journey time to Bristol Temple Meads from London, using the Bristol Parkway route rather than the Bath route to get the additional time saving.
Mr Elfyn Llwyd (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)
I fully appreciate the announcement as far as Cardiff and the valley lines are concerned, and I congratulate the Government on it. In a spirit of, I hope, reasonable suggestion, may I ask the Government to ensure that work is done urgently to see how the line speed from Cardiff to Swansea can be improved in due course, so that electrification can be taken across to Swansea with, I am sure, a good business case?
Mr Hammond
I welcome the right hon. Gentleman’s comment, because it is at least a constructive comment that plays into the need to develop a proper business case for a proposal. We can consider line speed improvements, and indeed the current rail investment programme includes a significant number of them, including some on the network in south Wales. However, I understand that the geography of the area creates some difficulties and potentially some very significant expense in enhancing the line speed between Cardiff and Swansea.
Martin Horwood (Cheltenham) (LD)
Having travelled the Great Western main line this morning, may I welcome the statement warmly? It promises far more quiet, efficient, reliable and energy-efficient trains for my constituents and many others than the last Government ever delivered. It is good news for English and Welsh jobs, and incidentally it makes an even stronger case for the redoubling of the Swindon to Kemble line, which would add resilience.
In the Department’s long-term thinking, will Ministers still look favourably on eventual electrification to Swansea and on longer franchises for train operators, which might in time enable them to specify their own rolling stock? That would add even more to an increasingly bright future for Britain’s railways.
Mr Hammond
As the hon. Gentleman will know, we have already announced that we intend to operate a longer default franchise period of 15 years, to start to stimulate exactly the type of behaviour that he talks about.
It is the Government’s policy to support a progressive electrification of the railway throughout England and Wales—Scotland makes its own rail infrastructure investment decisions—not only because of time savings but because of the environmental case for an electric railway. Through progressive investment control periods, we will continue to look to roll out the electrification of the railway across England and Wales.
Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)
This is a sad and disappointing St David’s day for Swansea—[Hon. Members: “Ah!”] Well, it is, particularly in the light of the fact that the Secretary of State denied a meeting with private sector stakeholders and Swansea university, alongside the MPs of Swansea and west Wales, to examine the business case for inward investment in further electrification. Given that Swansea is the second worst-hit city in the UK from Government cuts, will he undertake to have that meeting at long last with those stakeholders, including the university, even though he has made the decision already? That would enable them to discuss the co-operation and inward investment of Rolls-Royce, Tata, Boots and other companies that are coming to Swansea. They would have made that case had he been bothered to have a meeting with them.
Mr Hammond
I can tell the hon. Gentleman that my officials discussed the business case for electrification to Swansea with Welsh Assembly Government officials exhaustively, but he misses the fundamental point. He talks about Rolls-Royce and Tata, and if they are looking at rail investment as a criterion for investment, they will be examining journey time savings. The IEP announcement that I have just made introduces a journey time saving of 20 minutes to Swansea. He should go back to Swansea, rejoice in that saving and pick up the phone to Rolls-Royce and Tata to tell them how it improves the case for investment in his city.
Alun Cairns (Vale of Glamorgan) (Con)
This is a first-class announcement on St David’s day for my constituency and the whole south Wales economy. Announcing electrification of just the main line would have been good, but to consider the valleys lines and the line to Barry Island, which is in my constituency, gives the statement gravitas.
My right hon. Friend the Transport Secretary has mentioned the inaction of the former Secretary of State for Wales, but will he outline what action was taken by the current Secretary of State for Wales in bringing about pressure for this announcement?
Mr Hammond
My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales and I discuss such matters all the time—I always discuss with them matters that trespass into the jurisdictions of my right hon. Friends the Secretaries of State for Wales and for Scotland—but it would be inappropriate for me to give the House details of discussions that occur between Cabinet colleagues.
Mrs Louise Ellman (Liverpool, Riverside) (Lab/Co-op)
I welcome the announcement of major investment in rail, although there is considerable disappointment in relation to Swansea. Will the Secretary of State indicate what the benefits of that investment will be in terms of jobs and economic growth, and when does he expect them to materialise?
Mr Hammond
If the hon. Lady is talking about the wider package, I can tell her that there are obviously many components to it. Jobs will be created through the electrification process over a number of years as Network Rail gears up to deliver that programme, and others will be created at Newton Aycliffe for the IEP. Further jobs—thousands of jobs—will be created in the UK supply chain that will support that major investment which, incidentally, is not just about delivering the UK IEP, but about Hitachi’s manufacturing and development base for its involvement in European rail in future.
In addition, of course, there will be huge benefits in the south Wales area from the electrification of the valleys lines—what economists like to call agglomeration benefits, meaning the reinforcement of the economy that happens when connectivity is improved and labour markets are deepened. Those will allow people in towns up the valleys lines, some of which, frankly, are among the most deprived in Wales, more readily to access the markets and economy of Cardiff, which is a powerhouse for the area. That will bring significantly increasing prosperity and wider opportunities for people who live in the Cardiff hinterland.
David T. C. Davies (Monmouth) (Con)
Had the Secretary of State announced that he was electrifying and putting a high-speed train on every branch line in Wales, Opposition Members would still object. Will he instead accept the congratulations of all those who are worried that some want Wales to become more separate? His statement is a tangible way of putting Wales at the heart of the UK. Dewi Sant will be looking down today with a glass not half full, but almost overflowing.
Mr Hammond
My hon. Friend puts it very eloquently. He has clearly spotted the glass-half-empty tendency of Opposition Members, which disappoints me. I cannot think why they would wish to score political points today.
Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)
The Secretary of State probably knows that the first steam trains were made in Shildon, so it is quite right that the skills of the County Durham work force should be recognised in his statement. He says that he will work for financial close over the course of this year, but can he say when jobs will materialise?
Mr Hammond
I understand that Hitachi will issue a press release broadly simultaneously with my statement that will set out more details of its plans, but clearly, it will be unable to start building factories until financial close occurs later this year. There will then be a factory to build, which will create hundreds of temporary jobs in the area. I have heard that the owners of the industrial estate on which the factory will be built have also indicated that they will expect to build other units simultaneously on a speculative basis in anticipation of suppliers to Hitachi wanting to locate around the factory. I therefore hope that there will be significant construction job creation quite early in the programme. Then, of course, Hitachi will begin recruiting for the permanent jobs for the actual building of the trains—my guess is that this will happen later next year, but it is for the company to confirm.
Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)
I welcome the Secretary of State’s clarification that electrification to Bristol will also take in the line through Bath and Chippenham. Can he confirm my estimation that this proposal might even bring down journey times from London Paddington to Chippenham to less than one hour?
Mr Hammond
It may surprise the hon. Gentleman to know that among the many destinations for which I have journey time savings, Chippenham does not appear, I am afraid. However, I will be very happy to get back to him immediately after this statement.
Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)
My constituents will be very disappointed that electrification will be starting in Cardiff, but not in Swansea. However, will the Secretary of State look into the franchising agreement and consider whether anything can be done so that my constituents can benefit more from reductions in journey times by having more through bi-mode trains that go all the way from London to Llanelli, Kidwelly and beyond to the Irish ferries, rather than having to change? That is the case with nearly all the trains at the moment, and it involves an enormous amount of delay and wasted time.
Mr Hammond
I am happy to look at the issues that the hon. Lady raises. Of course, responsibility for franchised operations is shared between the UK Government, in respect of the through services from London, and the Welsh Assembly Government, in respect of locally originating services. However, I will certainly consider her point. The IEP train fleet will give us greater flexibility.
Mr Rob Wilson (Reading East) (Con)
I welcome the statement, particularly the increase in passenger capacity that will result. My right hon. Friend will be aware that over the next five years Reading station will undergo a major redevelopment through Government investment. Will he ensure that all necessary works for IEP and electrification are undertaken alongside the alterations made to Reading station, because I am sure that it would result in cost savings?
Mr Hammond
My hon. Friend makes a very sensible point. I will raise it at my next meeting with the chief executive of Network Rail, and ensure that it is being done in a properly co-ordinated manner.
Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)
I welcome today’s announcement on the intercity express programme, and I look forward to welcoming the trains themselves to Newcastle in due course. Will the Secretary of State confirm that he will work with his colleagues across Government to ensure that local communities, businesses, universities and further education colleges receive the kind of support that they need to ensure that the Hitachi centre can be a platform for jobs and growth for the region as a whole?
Mr Hammond
The hon. Lady is absolutely right that when we get such an opportunity to reinforce our skills base and move up the value-adding curve with our work force, we have to seize it. There is already a project in Nottingham that I am hoping to visit very shortly that involves rail engineering apprenticeships, and there is another project in Crewe that I have been invited to go and see. We need to generate more of these projects in response to the investment opportunities arising. I agree completely with the sentiment that she expresses.
Stephen Hammond (Wimbledon) (Con)
I welcome unequivocally my right hon. Friend’s statement and its excellent news for rail infrastructure. He will be aware that ongoing designs for existing platforms are usually more cost-effective than new designs. Will he confirm to the House, therefore, that the revised Agility proposal represents better value for the British taxpayer both in what it represents and in cost terms?
Mr Hammond
The value-for-money appraisal certainly shows that the revised Agility proposal represents the highest value for money of the proposals that we have considered for the replacement of the inter-city diesel express trains. It represents a strong value-for-money case and is affordable. Hitachi has responded in an exemplary way to the Government’s commitment to high-speed rail—that changes the dynamics—and to the UK’s fiscal situation in order to ensure that we can go ahead with the programme.
Stewart Hosie (Dundee East) (SNP)
I welcome both the statement and having had early sight of it. I agree with the Secretary of State that the purchase of the locomotives will represent a multi-billion pound investment that, as he said, will underpin the provision of inter-city services. May I ask him whether the decision is for bi-mode hybrid trains or for a mixed fleet of diesel and electric trains, and whether sufficient numbers will be bought on time to guarantee the continuity and frequency of direct services from London on the east coast main line north of Edinburgh, through Fife, Dundee, Angus and Aberdeen?
Mr Hammond
It is not about diesels. There will be no diesel traction locomotives in the mix; there will be bi-mode electric-diesel trains and all-electric trains. The services to Aberdeen and Inverness will be provided by the bi-mode trains, running straight off the wires at Edinburgh and on to the existing routes, so that service will be protected.
Mr Wayne David (Caerphilly) (Lab)
In the spirit of St David’s day, I respectfully remind the Secretary of State that St David probably lived in west Wales. Has he made any assessment of the extent to which west Wales and Swansea will lose out from his partial electrification of the south Wales line?
Mr Hammond
Many people coming from England will access west Wales through Cardiff, and journey times to Cardiff are being reduced. Everybody would like a high-speed railway running right to their front door, but as we—[Interruption.] Okay, to the next street. As we progressively modernise our infrastructure with electrification and new train services, the impact will be felt by all locations. Even those locations not directly benefiting from the new, faster services will benefit from the savings in time, and I am sure that the hon. Gentleman’s constituents in west Wales will benefit significantly from today’s announcement.
Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)
In congratulating the Secretary of State on a first-class example of investment in infrastructure that, in the context of protecting the environment, will bring jobs and further growth, may I remind him that, as my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood) said, it also strengthens the case for taking action to continue doubling the line from Swindon up to Kemble and Stroud?
Mr Hammond
I am well aware of the vigorous campaign to redouble the Kemble to Swindon link, and I know that the case will continue to be made for it as a major investment programme, and also for its possible inclusion in Network Rail’s next control period.
Gavin Shuker (Luton South) (Lab/Co-op)
Following the delivery of the IEP, will the Secretary of State tell the House how many ageing InterCity 125s will still be on the network and for how long?
Mr Hammond
Only a small number of diesel 125s will remain on the network, and they will be serving the route down to Penzance in Cornwall. All the other 125s will be replaced by bi-mode trains under today’s proposal. I cannot say for how long those diesel 125s will remain on the network. There are no specific proposals to replace them at the moment, but I would remind the hon. Gentleman that the intercity express programme was always conceived as a commitment to a firm fleet of trains as the first phase, with options on further trains for future phases. It will therefore be for my successors at some point in the future to consider whether the remaining InterCity 125s should in due course be replaced by bi-mode IEPs.
James Wharton (Stockton South) (Con)
It is a matter for hon. Members whether they see their glasses as half empty or half full, but I am pleased to see the Government busily topping glasses up. As a representative of a north-east constituency, I am also pleased to say that last week we had the excellent news that Teesside Cast Products was being sold to SSI—Sahaviriya Steel Industries—and now we have today’s announcement from the Government. Does my right hon. Friend agree that this is a vote of confidence—not just by the private sector, but by the Government—in the skills and abilities of those working in manufacturing right across the north-east?
Mr Hammond
I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend: it is a vote of confidence in UK manufacturing. This Government are committed to rebalancing the economy, reviving manufacturing and reasserting the value of Britain’s manufacturing skills base, and both announcements play to that theme.
Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)
Let me bring the Secretary of State to the question of the midland main line—the forgotten line in this country—and ask him about the ageing high-speed trains, as my hon. Friend the Member for Luton South (Gavin Shuker) has just done. Those trains were second-hand when they were introduced on the line. Can he give a commitment that we will actually see bi-mode trains introduced on the midland main line? We have the immediate advantage of being able to use the electric line up to Bedford, allowing electrification of the rest of the line progressively and incrementally in the future.
Mr Hammond
The announcement today does not include provision for the midland main line. The hon. Gentleman mentioned bi-mode trains, and I am sure that he has also been lobbying for the electrification of the line, as have many other midlands Members. The debate about the line’s future also has to take account of the implications of High Speed 2, however. Once the High Speed 2 consultation, which began yesterday, has been completed and the Government have announced their definitive plans later this year, it will be much easier to plan for the long-term future of the midland main line.
Karl MᶜCartney (Lincoln) (Con)
This might not be quite as headline-grabbing as my right hon. Friend’s statement today, but he will be aware that, on 22 May this year, my constituents will see the reintroduction of a direct link to London. However, this will be only a single daily service—once up and down. Does he think that the old diesel stock whose replacement he has announced today could be put to good use in increasing the level of service to and from my constituency?
Mr Hammond
My hon. Friend is certainly right to say that one of the benefits of any announcement of new rolling stock is that it creates a larger pool of retired rolling stock and thus creates greater opportunities for train operators to acquire rolling stock leases at sensible prices. This helps to change the dynamics of the rolling stock market for the benefit of passengers and train operators.
Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)
A word of croeso for the report, but my constituents are still greatly irritated by the fact that the Ebbw Vale to Cardiff line, which was reopened by the previous Government and is hugely successful, passes through the city of Newport but does not stop at the main station there. This affects many passengers who normally commute to Newport and whose access to the shopping centre there is now being denied. When can the appropriate link be put in place?
Mr Hammond
I am looking at my map, and, as the Minister of State, Department for Transport, my right hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet (Mrs Villiers) reminds me, it is a matter for the Welsh Assembly Government to specify services on the Wales and west franchise.
Mr Edward Timpson (Crewe and Nantwich) (Con)
Will my right hon. Friend ensure that, should the preferred consortium for the IEP contract be unable to deliver all that is has offered, other bidders in the procurement process, including Bombardier Transportation, which has a site in my constituency, will be given due and proper consideration in any future procurement that might result from such a situation? Will he also ensure that its strong, advanced technical expertise is taken into account?
Mr Hammond
My hon. Friend makes a plea for Bombardier, which has a site in his constituency. Bombardier is involved in programmes for the delivery of other trains in the United Kingdom, and I think that it has a very bright future in the UK train market. The IEP project is a train availability contract to supply trains, ready for use and fully maintained. Hitachi or the Agility consortium will therefore be entering into an obligation to deliver specified numbers of trains ready and available for use in accordance with that contract, and it will be a matter for them to ensure that those trains are made available.
Stephen Williams (Bristol West) (LD)
This statement will be warmly welcomed in Bristol. As an émigré valleys boy, may I also point out that it will be welcomed in my home village of Abercynon, where the world’s first railway journey ended in 1804? The Secretary of State mentioned that the line from Bristol Temple Meads to Bristol Parkway was to be included in the electrification plans. Will that open the window for looking at the business case for electrifying the Severn Beach line, which the Rail Minister will be visiting with me on Friday?
Mr Hammond
I always learn something in these situations. I thought that the world’s first railway journey started somewhere up near Darlington, so if it ended in the Welsh valleys, it was doing extremely well. My right hon. Friend the Rail Minister will be happy to discuss this matter further with my hon. Friend. I know that she has already discussed the proposal with him and is looking at the business case for it with a view to its inclusion in future programmes.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
May I press the case for the midland main line and encourage the Secretary of State to look at the introduction of upgraded, bi-mode inter-city trains on that line, not least because that might well facilitate the reintroduction of an inter-city service between Kettering and London, which was taken away when it was effectively downgraded to an outer suburban service?
Mr Hammond
I can only say to my hon. Friend what I said to the hon. Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts)—that the future use of the midland main line is bound to change if the high-speed rail network proposal goes ahead. By the end of this year—once the high-speed network is to be built, if that is the decision taken, following the consultation—we will be in a much better position to talk about the future plans for the midland main line and, indeed, for the east coast and west coast main lines.
Point of Order
John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. Some months ago, the Foreign Secretary announced a cut to the funding of the BBC’s World Service and devolved the budget to the BBC itself. The first wave of cuts to the World Service’s services has now been announced and they apply to Africa, Latin America and eastern Europe. Those cuts have consequences not just for job losses but for the role of the World Service in purveying independent information in those world regions.
I would have expected—and I think the House would have expected—a statement from the Foreign Secretary to inform us about this wave of cuts, so that we could debate them. At the very least, we should have had a written statement, but no statement of any kind has been provided for Members. May I, through you, Mr Deputy Speaker, express the House’s concern that a Minister has not kept Members informed of these important decisions and say that, in future, Members should be afforded at least a written ministerial statement, even if not an oral one in which we could question a Minister?
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
I have been given no indication of any statement today on the World Service. Although this is not a matter for the Chair, I am sure that those on the Treasury Bench will have heard the hon. Gentleman’s remarks on the World Service.
Resource Extraction (Transparency and Reporting)
Anas Sarwar (Glasgow Central) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to require certain companies engaged in oil or gas extraction, and other mining activities, to disclose the type and total amount of payments made to any national government, or any company wholly or partly owned by a national government; and for connected purposes.
This Bill is designed to make it a legally binding requirement for companies involved in natural resource extraction that are listed on the London stock exchange to provide in their annual report details of the payments they have made to national Governments on a project-by-project and country-by-country basis.
I am a passionate believer in international development because I deeply believe in the principles of equality and social justice, both at home and abroad. That is why, on entering the House, I immediately put myself forward for election to the International Development Committee.
I hope you will indulge me for a moment, Mr Deputy Speaker, if I ask you to picture a country filled with vast areas of natural beauty and heritage—a country in which there is an abundance of natural resources. You will be surprised at my next request when I ask you to picture that very same country as being home to some of the most impoverished and poorest people in the world. Sadly, there are many countries around the world where this is precisely the case—countries that have significant natural resource wealth in terms of oil, gas and precious metal reserves but for which this natural wealth has not translated into the economic prosperity that it should have.
Right hon. and hon. Members may have heard this situation described as “the resource curse”. In the absence of strong democratic institutions and strong governance, the people of these countries are unable to hold corrupt officials to account, as those officials siphon off public money for their own benefit instead of using it for the public good.
The figures from Equatorial Guinea display just one example. Equatorial Guinea had the 12th highest gross domestic product in the world in 2008, with more than $30,000 per capita. However, it also ranked 121st out of 177 countries on the United Nations human development index. Africa as a whole exported over £400 billion-worth of oil and minerals in 2008—nearly nine times the value of international aid to the continent, yet millions still struggle to survive.
One major problem is a lack of transparency. As Paul Collier, the director of Oxford university’s centre for the study of African economics points out, the sale of natural resource extraction rights in the developing world has so far
“been spectacularly deficient in respect of transparency”.
In recent years, the UK has been a leader in the promotion of corporate transparency. My right hon. Friend the Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown) put tax transparency on the agenda for the G20 in 2009. The international extractive industries transparency initiative, EITI, launched by the former Member for Sedgefield when he was Prime Minister, has also played a fantastic role in improving voluntary transparency in the extractive industries.
This time, however, America is blazing the trail for improvements in tax transparency. The bipartisan Cardin-Lugar amendment to the Dodd-Frank Bill, passed in the United States last year, has given the voluntary rules of the EITI the force of law in the US. Backing that amendment, President Obama said:
“We know that countries are more likely to prosper when governments are accountable to their people…That’s why we now require oil, gas and mining companies that raise capital in the United States to disclose all payments they make to foreign governments”.
It represents a long-awaited regulatory change, championed globally by a 600-strong group of non-governmental organisations and charities known as Publish What You Pay, and could ultimately improve the lives of millions of people in developing countries that are consistently resource-rich but cash-poor.
In effect, the Bill would replicate the measures in the Cardin-Lugar amendment for UK listed extractive companies, supporting the move towards a global standard on the issue and a first step towards full tax justice for developing countries. The changes would enable civil society and NGOs to hold Governments to account. Albert Oduman, Uganda’s shadow Minister for Finance, in a recent video interview for the ONE campaign, expressed incredibly powerfully his support and appreciation for the new global transparency efforts, which will empower him with the information to challenge corruption in his own country.
In one of my first speeches in the House, I emphasised the importance of aid in the developing world. At the same time, however, I stressed the need to promote stronger governance through an accountable state-citizen relationship. The Bill seeks to do precisely that, and the potential benefits are huge. Transparent, effective tax systems and the reduction of corruption could allow money otherwise lost to be spent on schools, doctors, clean water and infrastructure—exactly the kind of projects on which British aid money is spent now. Improving access to their own wealth could lead many developing countries out of poverty, away from aid dependency, and into self-sufficiency and sustainable growth—the ultimate development goal.
With more than 80 extractive companies listed on the London stock exchange, representing more than £1 trillion of capital, the UK has a responsibility to take action on the issue, for the benefit not only of the developing world but of UK business. Many of the British companies that would be caught by a UK rule are already listed on the New York stock exchange, and therefore will already be providing the information in the near future. Bringing the London stock exchange in line with the New York stock exchange would level the playing field for those organisations already reporting, by requiring the remaining companies in the UK extractive sector to do exactly the same.
Transparent disclosure of payments will also help responsible companies reduce the reputational risk in operating in unstable nations and states where false accusations of supporting corruption are only too easily made. Transparency would also help UK investors to value companies and evaluate regulatory, taxation and geopolitical risks, while enhancing company accountability and governance. The improved stability that we hope would develop in resource-rich nations would also provide a better environment for investment, both for British business ventures and UK-sponsored aid projects.
Although I have been working on the Bill for several months, its introduction could not have come at a much better time. During the recess, we had the welcome news that the Chancellor and the Business Secretary are backing President Sarkozy’s plans for Europe-wide rules on the issue. I believe that EU legislation is crucial if the global drive for increased transparency in the extractive industries is to be truly successful. That is why I anxiously await a statement in the House from the Chancellor, clarifying what active steps the Government will take to ensure swift progress at EU level.
However, potential EU regulation should not be seen as a reason for us to withhold from legislating independently. Natural resources are finite, and obtaining EU approval and implementation of such rules could take a considerable time. The amount of money disappearing every day could translate into lifting millions of people out of poverty in developing countries. Independent action by the UK would not jeopardise EU progress, but would strengthen the campaign by setting an important example. It would represent a big contribution to international development at little or no cost, while at the same time promoting the kind of corporate social responsibility of which we can all be proud.
I am delighted to say that the Bill enjoys strong support from all three main political parties. As with many development issues, it can be said genuinely to transcend party politics. I thank all the Members who have shown their support by being present today, and I especially thank those who have agreed to sponsor the Bill.
This Bill has the support of non-governmental organisations, independent economists, and leaders of the developing world and developing countries. It has cross-party support in the House, and above all it has the support of the British people. In the last 10 days alone, nearly 9,000 people have signed a ONE campaign petition on the issue with which it deals. The Financial Times has said that the United States has shone a light into an area that is widely considered to be shrouded in mystery, and has applauded the brave leadership that it has demonstrated on the issue. It is now up to us to show similar leadership here in Europe.
International development is not just about cash and “percentage of GDP” commitments; it is also about leading by example and setting global standards. The developing world does not have time to wait for Europe to catch up. A genuinely sustainable and cost-effective approach to international development demands that the UK Government act now.
Question put and agreed to.
Ordered,
That Anas Sarwar, Tony Baldry, Fiona Bruce, Malcolm Bruce, Richard Burden, Mr Tom Clarke, Mr Tobias Ellwood, John Glen, Eric Joyce, Jeremy Lefroy, Catherine McKinnell and John Thurso present the Bill.
Anas Sarwar accordingly presented the Bill.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 17 June, and to be printed (Bill 156).
Protection of Freedoms Bill
(13 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mrs Theresa May)
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
Today we have a rare opportunity. The Bill gives us a chance to roll back the creeping intrusion of the state into our everyday lives, and to return individual freedoms to the heart of our legislation. Under the last Government, we saw a steady erosion of traditional British liberties and a slow march towards authoritarian government. They presented us with a false choice between our future security and our historic liberties, disregarding any notion of balance between the two.
The House rejected that choice on many noble occasions, notably when an extraordinary attempt was made to increase the period of pre-charge detention of terrorist suspects to 90 days. On other occasions, illiberal laws were passed, and on yet others, well-intentioned schemes were left open to abuse. The Bill gives us an opportunity to redress the balance and to right some of those wrongs, although it is not the only such opportunity. We have already repealed some measures, and we will repeal others.
Mr William Cash (Stone) (Con)
Will my right hon. Friend be kind enough to give way?
Mr Cash
I note that my right hon. Friend did not actually say that she would be happy to do so.
Does my right hon. Friend accept that however good the intentions may be, one of the great problems with the Bill is that it serially adopts, endorses and puts into British legislation European Court rulings, and that that in itself runs counter to the sentiments expressed only a few weeks ago when the House voted against a ruling by the European Court of Human Rights by 222 votes to 15?
Mrs May
My hon. Friend is right, I am afraid; but I almost said I was happy to give way to him. I am not going to rehearse all the arguments we have had on the issue he raises. I am well aware of the vote in the House on the Backbench Business Committee motion on prisoner votes, and the Government have made it absolutely clear that we are not happy about having to give prisoners votes and we will be looking to do so in the most minimal way possible.
The first issue the Bill addresses is DNA. The police national DNA database, established in 1995, has led to a great many criminals being convicted who otherwise would not have been caught, and I am sure all sensible people support it, but in a democracy there must be limits to any such form of police power, and we simply do not accept that innocent people’s DNA should be kept for ever on a database, as the last Government seemed to think was appropriate. Storing indefinitely the DNA and fingerprints of more than 1 million innocent people undermines public trust in policing and goes against any sense of natural justice, so we will be taking innocent people off the DNA database and putting guilty people on.
The Bill introduces a new regime, whereby retention periods depend on a number of different factors, including the age of the individual concerned, the seriousness of the offence or alleged offence, whether they have been convicted, and, for under-18s, whether it is a first conviction. So in future, as now, an adult who is convicted or cautioned will have their fingerprints and DNA profile retained indefinitely, and we will take steps to plug the inexcusable gaps in the DNA database where the profiles of those who have previously been convicted of a serious offence are not currently included on the database.
David T. C. Davies (Monmouth) (Con)
Although I recognise the Home Secretary’s concerns about privacy, does she accept that these moves will inevitably mean—this should be stated—that some people who have committed crimes will not be caught and convicted?
Mrs May
No I do not agree, and my hon. Friend will see that that will not be the case if he looks at the many provisions in the Bill setting out the circumstances in which people’s DNA can be retained. I come back to the fundamental issue, which is whether we think it is right for the DNA profile of innocent people to be retained on the database. Before and since the election, both the Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties have consistently taken the view that it is not right for the DNA of innocent people to be retained on the database, but that it is right for guilty people’s DNA to be retained. The last Labour Government did not do that.
Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)
Will the Home Secretary confirm that under her proposals the DNA of innocent people will be kept on the database? She is not removing from the database the DNA of everyone who has not been convicted.
Mrs May
Indeed, the police will be able to apply for the DNA of some people who are arrested but not charged to be retained. I would expect that application to be made in certain circumstances, such as when the victim has been vulnerable, which may mean there is very good evidence that the individual concerned has committed a crime but the victim is not able or not willing to come forward and see that case through.
I also say this to the right hon. Lady: the last Government wanted the DNA of all innocent people to be retained on the database indefinitely. We do not think that is a proportionate response, and what we are introducing today is a proportionate response. We would expect the DNA of the majority of the 1 million innocent people on the database would now to be removed from it.
An adult who is charged with, but not convicted of, a serious offence will have their fingerprints and DNA profile retained for three years, with the option of a single extension for two years with the approval of a district judge in the magistrates court, and an adult who is arrested for a minor offence but not convicted will have their fingerprints and DNA profile destroyed as soon as possible once a decision has been taken not to charge them or once they have been found not guilty by the courts. Different arrangements will apply for under-18s who are convicted of a first minor offence, and there will be special provisions for DNA and fingerprints to be retained for national security purposes. If the police believe there are sufficient public protection grounds to justify the retention of material following an arrest for a qualifying offence that does not lead to a charge, the Bill allows them to apply to the new commissioner for the retention and use of biometric material, who will decide whether retention of the DNA profile and fingerprints of the arrested person is justified.
We must protect the most vulnerable in society, so when the victim of the alleged offence is under 18, vulnerable or in a close personal relationship with the arrested person the expectation is that the police will apply to the commissioner for retention. I believe that these rules give the police the tools they need without putting the DNA of a large number of innocent people on the database. In all cases, the DNA profile and fingerprints of any person arrested for a recordable offence will be subjected to a speculative search against the national databases. That means that those who have committed crimes in the past and have left their DNA or fingerprints at the scene will not escape justice.
The Bill also fulfils our coalition agreement commitment to outlaw the fingerprinting of children at school without parental permission. I must say that I found it amazing that any school ever thought it appropriate to fingerprint schoolchildren without their parents’ permission. The Bill will contain a double lock, whereby a school or college must obtain the consent of the parents and the child before processing their biometric data. If either opts out, the school or college must ensure that reasonable arrangements are in place to enable the child to access the full range of school services.
I shall deal now with surveillance. As with DNA, it is clear that CCTV can act as a deterrent to criminals, can help to convict the guilty and is warmly welcomed by many communities. This Government wholeheartedly support the use of CCTV and DNA to fight crime.
Mr Tobias Ellwood (Bournemouth East) (Con)
On this sensitive issue of surveillance, does my right hon. Friend agree that it is being abused by local authorities which have taken it upon themselves to film such things as dog fouling and littering? Were the measures not introduced to deal with far graver issues?
Mrs May
I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. I will be referring specifically to the abuse of powers by local authorities, so if he could be a little patient, I will deal with that point. On the specific issue of CCTV, it is not right that surveillance cameras are being used without a proper regulatory framework. That is why the Bill will place a duty on the Secretary of State to prepare and publish a code of practice, which will contain guidance on surveillance camera systems. I have today launched the consultation on what that code of practice should contain. Local authorities and chief officers of police will be required to have regard to the code and, over time, we will consider extending this duty to other operators of CCTV and automatic number plate recognition systems. The Bill will also allow for the appointment of a surveillance camera commissioner responsible for encouraging compliance with the code of practice, reviewing its operation and providing advice on it, including on any changes that might be necessary. This sensible and measured approach will help to ensure that CCTV is used proportionately and best serves the purpose for which it was designed: tackling crime.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood) mentioned local authorities. I think that the public have been disturbed by the many stories of councils using intrusive techniques, under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000, to deal with trivial offences. Breaching school catchment area rules and dog fouling are not offences that warrant being subject to surveillance. These tactics are more appropriately used for tackling serious crime and terrorism, and it was irresponsible of the Labour Government not to put in place stronger safeguards for their use. That is why the coalition agreement contained a commitment to ban the use of these powers by councils unless they are signed off by a magistrate and are required to stop serious crime. The Bill enacts that commitment because it will require local authorities’ use of the powers to be subject to approval by a magistrate. In parallel with the passage of this Bill, an order will be made to introduce a seriousness threshold for the use of the most controversial power: directed surveillance. Local authorities will be authorised to use directed surveillance only for offences that carry a maximum custodial sentence of at least six months. Subject to limited exemptions relating to the under-age sale of alcohol and tobacco, this measure will restrict local authorities’ use of surveillance to serious cases.
As we restrict state powers of surveillance to serious offences, we should also ensure that state powers of entry into people’s homes or business premises are reasonable and proportionate. There has been a huge increase in the number of powers of entry in recent years, and there are now some 1,200 separate powers of entry. That means there are 1,200 reasons why state agencies or other bodies can invade people’s privacy. We need to protect the privacy of home owners, so we will remove unjustified powers and ensure that the remainder are subject to appropriate safeguards.
Mr John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)
This is all wonderful news and I am a strong supporter of the Bill. Given that there are 1,200 such powers, will my right hon. Friend make sure that her Cabinet colleagues are assiduous in rooting out dozens or hundreds of them, not just a handful, so that we make a real impact on this disgrace?
Mrs May
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for his intervention and I absolutely agree with him. We will provide three order-making powers in the Bill to allow the repeal of unnecessary powers of entry, the addition of safeguards and the rewriting of powers of entry with a view to consolidating a number of powers in a similar area coupled with the inclusion of extra safeguards. Within two years of Royal Assent, the Government will be required to carry out a review of all existing powers of entry and to report the findings to Parliament. Provision will also be made for a code of practice for powers of entry, adding further protections for home owners.
Mr Cash
Will my right hon. Friend note that the Library research paper on the Bill indicates that a third of all powers of entry are based on EU requirements? Will she explain why and how she is going to repeal the provisions that are entrenched in our legislation through the European Communities Act 1972? What formula will she use—will it be the “notwithstanding” formula?
Mrs May
When I gave way to my hon. Friend, I almost said I had a deep suspicion that I knew what he was going to say, and I was absolutely right. Of course we will not be able to get rid of all powers of entry, nor would that be appropriate. It will be appropriate to keep some, and with others we will need to look at the implementation of a request or desire to gain entry in relation to what is at stake, what is the most appropriate use of power and how that power should be used. The process will take some time, but it is essential that the Government are committed to reducing the number of powers of entry, whereas the previous Government oversaw a significant increase in that number.
Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)
Will my right hon. Friend reassure the House that at the end of this process the number of powers will be sufficiently small and simple that home owners will be able to determine for themselves whether someone who knocks on the door has a right to enter?
Robert Flello (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Lab)
Has the Home Secretary had discussions with Ministers and the Justice Secretary about the overlap with issues relating to bailiffs and credit enforcement agencies and their rights of entry?
Mrs May
I have been in touch with colleagues across Departments about powers of entry, because they are found in all sorts of places. All Departments will be required to review powers of entry, and duplication is exactly the sort of issue we will be looking at.
We know that powers of entry are of great concern to the public, and another issue of great concern is wheel-clamping. The Bill will protect motorists from cowboy clampers, making it a criminal offence to immobilise, move or restrict the movement of a vehicle without lawful authority. For too long, motorists have fallen victim to extortion and abuse from rogue clamping companies. We have heard stories of drivers being frogmarched to cash points late at night or left stranded by rogue operators who have towed their vehicle away. Clearly that is unacceptable.
Gavin Shuker (Luton South) (Lab/Co-op)
There will be support from across the House for measures to restrict the efforts of cowboy clampers, but what would the Home Secretary say to my constituent Mary Harrison, who has concerns about her residential area being overrun with cars because the existing structures to enforce parking restrictions are not sufficient?
Mrs May
Other powers will be available to control parking, such as barriers and ticketing. I suggest that the hon. Gentleman point out to his constituent the experience in Scotland, where such clamping was banned in 1992, I think. No problems have arisen from that change, so that is a good example for him to consider.
Mr Tom Watson (West Bromwich East) (Lab)
I just want to say that this part of the Bill is fantastic and that the Home Secretary has my full support for it. [Hon. Members: “Where’s the barb?”] There is none—I just want to be nice. The thousands of people who signed my cowboy clampers petition will thank her for finally listening to the people of West Bromwich.
Mrs May
I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman for those remarks. It is good to have cross-party support on such issues as this one, which affects many MPs whose constituents have suffered from cowboy clampers. By criminalising clamping and towing without lawful authority, the Government are committing rogue clampers to history and putting an end to intimidation and excessive charges once and for all.
Gavin Barwell (Croydon Central) (Con)
Further to my right hon. Friend’s answer to the hon. Member for Luton South (Gavin Shuker), will she confirm that local authorities will continue to have the power to clamp on the public highway? Will residents in private developments be able to contract with their local authority to clamp on private developments? I have been contacted by a large number of people in my constituency who have tried ticketing and barriers but found that they do not work close to the town centre and public transport hubs. Could local authorities continue to clamp on private land?
Mrs May
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising that point. Local authorities already have the ability to take a controlling interest and to run parking on private land, subject to the agreement and request of the landowner, although that facility has not been much used.
To ensure continued access to key buildings, existing powers for the police to remove vehicles that are illegally, dangerously or obstructively parked on roads will be extended to other land. The registered keeper of a vehicle will also be made liable, in certain circumstances, for charges incurred as a result of parking on private land.
Let me address the counter-terrorism measures in the Bill, starting with pre-charge detention. Both coalition parties and many Opposition Members are clear that in the area of counter-terrorism legislation the previous Government went too far. I have already announced to the House the outcome of our review of counter-terrorism and security powers, and the Bill puts many of those changes into practice. I announced that we would not renew current legislation on the 28-day pre-charge detention period, which means that the sunset clause inserted by the previous Government has now brought the maximum period of pre-charge detention down to 14 days. The Bill will finally repeal the power to increase the maximum period of pre-charge detention to 28 days by means of secondary legislation. As I said to the House in January, police, prosecutors and the Government are clear that the normal maximum period of pre-charge detention should be 14 days, but we recognise that in exceptional circumstances that might need to be temporarily increased to 28 days. I have therefore published draft legislation that could be introduced to Parliament only in such circumstances. The draft Detention of Terrorist Suspects (Temporary Extension) Bills will be subject to pre-legislative scrutiny, the arrangements for which will be discussed through the usual channels.
Mr David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)
This has been asked before, but what will happen during parliamentary recesses? What if the right hon. Lady was seeking that extension on 30 July when Parliament was in recess? Will she expect to recall Parliament?
Mr Jack Straw (Blackburn) (Lab)
My question follows that of my right hon. Friend the Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson). I had to propose a recall of Parliament, to which the Prime Minister and the Speaker agreed, to introduce emergency legislation following the Omagh bombing. The bombing took place on 15 August 1998, but with the very best will in the world we were not able to get a recall for almost three weeks, so Parliament was not recalled until 3 September, as the right hon. Lady might remember. That was a three-week period. If the prosecutors have a suspect whom they wish to continue to question, how in practice will the Home Secretary be able to shorten that time? The right hon. Lady shakes her head. I promise her that we were seeking the shortest possible time, and it is very complicated. How far has she thought about that?
Mrs May
I understand the point that the right hon. Gentleman is making about his experience in relation to the Omagh bombing. I believe that it is possible to shorten that period to ensure that we can recall Parliament in such exceptional circumstances if that is needed. It would be wrong for hon. Members to expect that the only circumstances in which that would be required would be towards the end of a 14-day period of pre-charge detention. The period that would be available for the recall and for the new measures to be put through might be a little longer than the right hon. Gentleman is considering.
I want to move on to stop and search, which is the other aspect of counter-terrorism legislation that we will deal with in the Bill. As well as scaling back the excessive counter-terrorism legislation of the past, we need to stop the misuse of these laws. The extensive and disproportionate use of stop-and-search powers under section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000 is one example of that misuse. It has eroded public trust and dented public confidence. But the evidence, particularly in Northern Ireland, has demonstrated that when there is a credible threat of an imminent terrorist attack, the absence of such powers might create a gap in the ability of the police to protect the public.
The Bill therefore repeals section 44 and replaces it with a tightly defined power which would allow a senior police officer to make a targeted authorisation of much more limited scope and duration for no-suspicion stop-and-search powers. These would be authorised to prevent a terrorist attack only when there is a specific threat. The new power to search a person or vehicle would be subject to a number of additional safeguards, including a requirement that a senior police officer should reasonably suspect that an act of terrorism would take place and that the use of these powers was necessary to prevent the act of terrorism. The duration of any authorisation must now be no longer and no greater than is necessary to prevent the act of terrorism.
The purposes for which an officer may search a person or vehicle will be limited to looking for evidence that the individual is a terrorist or that a vehicle is being used for the purposes of terrorism. The Secretary of State would have the option of amending the authorisation, rather than only accepting or refusing it, as previously. Finally, the Secretary of State will be required to prepare a code of practice containing guidance on the use of the powers. These changes will provide the police with the powers that they need to deal with terrorist threats, while also ensuring that the public are not needlessly stopped and searched. The measures will also prevent the misuse of stop-and-search powers against photographers, which I know was a significant concern with the previous regime.
As recommended by the counter-terrorism powers review, I have considered whether the police need these revised powers more quickly than the Bill would allow. Given the current threat environment, I have concluded that they do. The most appropriate way of meeting the legal and operational requirements is to make an urgent remedial order under section 10 of the Human Rights Act 1998 to make immediate changes to the legislation. I will be doing this shortly. This is only an interim solution. The proposed new powers will remain in the Bill to ensure full scrutiny of the provisions.
Another important area where we will roll back the state’s power to common-sense levels is in the vetting and barring and criminal records regimes. The previous Government created the vetting and barring scheme with reasonable intentions, but, as with much that they did, their implementation was disproportionate and over-reliant on the state. There is no doubt that a small minority pose a risk to vulnerable people, including children, but requiring more than 9 million people to register and be monitored is not an appropriate response. We should be encouraging volunteers, not treating them like criminals.
The Bill will therefore introduce a new regime, whereby employers will be given a much more central role in ensuring safe recruitment practices, supported by a proportionate central barring scheme. We will retain the sensible features of the vetting and barring scheme, but will not require registration or monitoring, which means that there will no longer be an intrusive state-run database containing the details of 9.3 million people. The scheme will cover only those who have regular or close contact with vulnerable groups. This will create a more convenient and proportionate system for both employers and voluntary organisations and the people seeking to work or volunteer with children or vulnerable adults.
On the criminal records regime specifically, the Bill will enable criminal records disclosures to become portable, through a system which allows for continuous updating. This would enable an employer to establish whether new information had been recorded since the certificate was issued. It will also remove the provision requiring a copy of a certificate to be sent directly to an employer. This will allow an applicant legitimately to dispute the information released on the certificate, without this information already having been seen by the employer.
To administer the new scheme, the Criminal Records Bureau and the Independent Safeguarding Authority will be merged into a single, new organisation. These changes will ensure the continued protection of vulnerable people and children, while at the same time allowing those who want to volunteer to do so without fear or suspicion. It will end the unnecessary state scrutiny of law-abiding people.
As well as dealing with recent illiberal laws, today’s Bill rights historic wrongs. Consensual sex between men over the age of consent was decriminalised in 1967, yet more than 40 years on, gay men can still be penalised and discriminated against because of convictions for conduct which is now perfectly lawful. It is right that we should change the law and wipe the slate clean. The Bill establishes a scheme whereby an individual with a conviction that would today not be considered an offence would be able to apply to the Home Office to have the conviction and caution disregarded. If an application were approved, details of the conviction or caution would be removed from police records and the individual would be able legally to conceal their previous conviction in any circumstances. It would also no longer appear on a criminal record disclosure.
Greater transparency is at the heart of our commitment to open up government to greater scrutiny and to allow public authorities to be held to account, so the Bill makes a number of changes to the Freedom of Information Act to extend its provisions. We will consult the House authorities on these provisions before the Committee stage to ensure that parliamentary copyright is properly safeguarded. The Bill also makes changes to the Freedom of Information Act and to the Data Protection Act to enhance the independence of the Information Commissioner.
Mr David Blunkett (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)
The Home Secretary will be surprised to hear that I agree with quite a lot of the Bill, but on data protection, will she consider a constituent of mine who is extremely worried about the amount of information being collected about him and retained? For privacy reasons, I will not give his name, but let us call him Mr N Clegg. He is worried that in the next four weeks information will be gathered from him which he does not wish to give and which he does not wish the Government to retain. It is called the census. What advice would the right hon. Lady give to my constituent in such circumstances?
Mrs May
I was waiting for the dénouement of the right hon. Gentleman’s question. There is a requirement for people to fill in the census. It is an extremely useful tool for Government. Previous Governments wanted a census because it informs Government in the production of policy. What I would say to the right hon. Gentleman’s constituent is that the census can provide useful information better to inform Government to produce better policy.
David T. C. Davies
I am grateful to the Home Secretary. I was waiting for her to be specific about surveillance cameras. I understand that it will be much harder for the police and local authorities to use them. Will newspaper editors be subject to the same restrictions?
Mrs May
I always wait with interest and occasionally trepidation for the points that my hon. Friend makes. [Interruption] I could make a response to the sedentary comment by the hon. Member for Eltham (Clive Efford), but it would probably be better not to do so in the context of the Chamber of the House.
On the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Monmouth (David T. C. Davies), the Bill contains a great number of significant measures that will be to the benefit of the people of this country and will ensure that surveillance cameras are used for the proper purposes for which they were introduced.
Mr Watson
The Home Secretary is indeed being incredibly generous. What will be her approach in Committee to the Information Commissioner’s powers? The relevant clause seems rather weak. Part of it mentions hearings for the appointment, but it does not really free the commissioner from a Department. The commissioner is currently under the yoke of the Ministry of Justice, but previous Select Committees have recommended that the commissioner be answerable to Parliament, not a Department. Will she take a generous approach in Committee to helpful amendments on those provisions?
Mrs May
The hon. Gentleman’s previous intervention was extremely helpful in supporting parts of the Bill. Members might wish to discuss that issue in Committee. It has been suggested that the Information Commissioner should be responsible to Parliament. The role goes rather wider than Parliament, however, which is why it has been placed where it has. We intend to increase the commissioner’s independence, so I am sure that the issue will be debated and discussed in Committee.
Finally, the Bill protects one of the most historic freedoms and liberties enjoyed by the British people: the right to trial by jury. The Bill repeals section 43 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003, which allows the prosecution to apply for a serious or complex fraud trial to proceed in the absence of a jury. We sacrifice the cornerstones of our justice system at our peril.
I have told the House today that the Bill contains a number of provisions that put into effect commitments contained in the coalition agreement, but that does not mean that it should fail to gain support from across the House. Indeed, a number of positive statements have been made by hon. and right hon. Opposition Members.
Any Government and any Parliament must seek to protect not only the security of the British public but the freedoms that we hold dear. The Bill achieves those aims. All those who believe in liberty and the rights of the individual should support the Bill, and I commend it to the House.
Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)
I suggest to the Home Secretary that some of the rhetoric in her speech was perhaps unwise. She is probably still thinking too much like an Opposition politician three months before an election, and not enough like a Home Secretary less than a year into a Parliament who will have to live with the consequences of her decisions and the laws that she changes.
There are difficult balances to be struck between protecting people’s freedoms from police or Government interference and protecting their freedom not to become victims of interference or violence by criminals and terrorists. Those balances should be guided by the evidence, not by the political rhetoric that she has used today about the march to authoritarianism or the ending of British liberties. Although some of the measures that she is introducing are perfectly sensible—we will support many of the sensible measures and arrangements—they are not, as the Deputy Prime Minister has tried to claim, a fundamental rolling back of the powers of the state. There are other areas where we think she has got the balance wrong.
Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)
Will the right hon. Lady tell Members what evidence there was for 90-day pre-charge detention?
Yvette Cooper
As I have said before, I do not think that it was right to go for 90-day detention and it was not justified by the evidence. There will always be areas where Governments need to be cautious in getting the balance right. Equally, however, they must be cautious not to over-hype the rhetoric and inappropriately claim that problems will somehow be easily solved. There is always a difficult balance to be struck.
I hope that the right hon. Lady, in her tenure as Home Secretary, will not have to deal with some of the extremely difficult and dangerous terrorist incidents that her Labour predecessors had to cope with, such as the Omagh bombing, to which my right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) referred, and the London 7/7 bombings, that led to many of the stronger counter-terrorism measures that her predecessors introduced. I also hope that she will rarely have to deal with some of the deeply disturbing and serious crimes, such as the Soham case, which led to the new procedures on vetting and barring.
The Home Secretary will know that when in the Home Office one can never predict what is coming around the corner, what problems might be uncovered or how one might need to respond in order to protect people’s freedom not to become victims of crime or terrorist threats. In those circumstances, it is wise to build consensus, rather than engaging in the kind of over-simplified political rhetoric that will make it more difficult to strike the right balance in future.
Michael Ellis (Northampton North) (Con)
Does the shadow Home Secretary think it right that the details of 1 million innocent people should be on the DNA database, which is exactly what the 2009 report stated? Can that possibly be right?
Michael Ellis
Is that not a damning indictment of Labour’s record on civil liberties?
Mr Speaker
Order. May I say from an advisory point of view that Members normally make one intervention at a time? They cannot suddenly pop up again when they remember a point that momentarily eluded them.
Yvette Cooper
I will discuss the DNA database later. It is important to have safeguards, but it is equally important to ensure that proper processes are in place to protect people against crime.
Mr Blunkett
I want to reassure my right hon. Friend that my DNA is on the database, and I have never been arrested or convicted of anything. I was proud to do that because I thought that it was an example that would encourage people not to see the database as something that should be feared, but as a safeguard and a real asset to policing and security.
Yvette Cooper
My right hon. Friend makes an interesting point. In many cases, the DNA database is also a way of protecting the innocent by ensuring that they are not wrongfully convicted of crimes. DNA evidence will ensure that the person who is guilty of the crime is convicted.
Let me cover some of the areas of the Bill where we agree with the Government. We agree wholeheartedly with removing old convictions for gay sex, which is now legal. We think that it is right to remove them, just as we thought that it was right to abolish section 28 and introduce civil partnerships. We also agree that we should remove the restrictions on when people can get married or become civil partners. If people want to get married at 2 o’clock in the morning and can find someone nocturnal enough to conduct the ceremony, Parliament should not prevent them from doing so.
We support sensible extensions to the Freedom of Information Act 2000. As the party that introduced that Act, we believe that it is a vital way of ensuring proper transparency and accountability. In passing, I would appreciate it if the Home Secretary would have a word with the Chancellor and ask him to stop blocking my freedom of information requests on the impact of his changes on women.
We agree that action was needed against rogue car clampers. In fact, the Opposition Chief Whip, my right hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster Central (Ms Winterton), has run some fantastic campaigns against wheel-clamping bullies. Some action had been taken to legislate for new licensing measures, but we are ready to support alternatives that work and will discuss those in Committee.
We also agree with tighter restrictions on stop-and- search powers, which were being used more widely than originally intended under the legislation. The Home Secretary will be aware that her predecessor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Alan Johnson), had already taken some action in that area and that the provisional data had shown a significant drop in stop-and-search cases in 2009-10, but we are ready to support sensible changes that bring the legislation more closely in line with the original intention. As I have said to the Home Secretary before, I am still worried about the implications in Northern Ireland. I hope that she will be able to reassure me, and the shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, about the measures that she is taking in those areas.
For all those reasons, we will not oppose the Bill on Second Reading, although we have serious concerns about some elements and believe that significant amendments will be needed in Committee.
I also agree that in some cases the implementation of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 has gone beyond Parliament’s original intention and that further safeguards are needed. Again, we will scrutinise the detail, as it is important that the new procedures are not so bureaucratic that they prevent councils from doing a sensible job. We believe that communities across the country will be concerned if they find that a new code of practice makes it harder to get the CCTV they have been campaigning for, because they know it is critical to preventing crime and antisocial behaviour in their areas.
There is a massive contradiction in the Government’s approach to councils’ powers and abilities. In the Bill before us, the Home Secretary wants to make it harder for councils to gather information or to use surveillance. Yet, in her other Home Office Bill, the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill, which is also going through the House at the moment, she wants to give local councils extra powers to seize people’s property if byelaws are breached. So she does not want council officers watching people, but she does not seem to mind them taking people’s property away.
The Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill states that byelaws will be able to
“include provision for or in connection with the seizure and retention of any property in connection with any contravention of the byelaw”.
Local councils have byelaws on things such as dog fouling, mud falling on roads, music outside churches or, in the case of Westminster, giving out free refreshment, all of which could be covered by future byelaw seizure powers. The Bill before us contains an entire clause entitled “Protection of Property from Disproportionate Enforcement Action”, but at the very same time disproportionate enforcement action is being actively encouraged in the other Bill. Imagine: a council cannot monitor the noise from a nuisance neighbour, but it can, if a child is playing a tune in the church square, seize the recorder; it cannot check if any dog fouling is taking place, but, if an officer happens to pass by at the critical moment, they can confiscate the dog.
So what on earth are the Government up to? We are used to chaos and confusion in this Government, but that is usually because the Deputy Prime Minister says one thing while the Home Secretary does another: he abolishes control orders; she renames them; he abolishes antisocial behaviour orders; she introduces criminal behaviour orders. We know that she does not agree with lots of what the Deputy Prime Minister says and does, but now it seems that she does not even agree with herself. Such chaos and confusion is absurd when it comes to council byelaws, but it is rather more worrying when it comes to counter-terrorism, because the process has been chaotic from beginning to end.
We can agree to support limiting pre-charge detention to 14 rather than 28 days, on the basis of the evidence from experts, but we also take very seriously the conclusion of the Home Secretary’s own counter-terrorism review, which states that the Government must provide for the possibility of needing to hold someone for longer in exceptional circumstances.
The right hon. Lady’s original plan was to allow the old limit of 28 days to lapse without even showing us the review or telling us the Government’s plans. Then, the Immigration Minister told the House that the draft emergency legislation would be put directly in the Library. Then, the Home Secretary said that it would not and the order-making power to increase detention to 28 days would suffice. Then, we learned that the Government’s own review stated that the order-making power would not be fast enough. Then, the Home Secretary said that she would consult the Opposition on the emergency legislation so that it could be agreed as soon as possible. We are still waiting on that one. The legislation has finally been published, but, while the draft Bill refers to three months, the explanatory notes refer to six months, and the Government’s intention is still not clear.
Mr Ellwood
The right hon. Lady has rattled on a bit, but I wonder whether I can take her back to 90 days, because she did not really answer the question about the evidence on which that limit was based. I have taken a personal interest in the matter and in the issue of 14 and 28 days. When there is a case for more than 14 days but there are difficulties in recalling Parliament, officers can choose to put forward a lesser charge that can result in a conviction, thus allowing the person to be detained. The police say that that is easy to do, rather than having to go for the super-charge that would result in the major conviction. It is a simple solution to an easy problem.
Yvette Cooper
That might be possible in some cases, and officers might be able to use it, but there is an issue, because, although it is right to make 14 days the norm, it is also right to have the provision to move to 28 days if needed. Doing so through emergency legislation, as the Government propose, however, raises some significant difficulties.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn has raised the question of what happens if Parliament is not sitting, and whether it will be possible in those circumstances to move fast enough. The Home Secretary says, “Well, it’ll be all right because we’ll find out on day one whether we might need longer,” but we might not. We might not find out until day 10 of an interrogation that, in fact, a longer period is required.
Let us suppose, for example, that the police have a serious case, including credible intelligence on an imminent terrorist attack or some extreme situation. After 10 days it becomes clear that they need more time before they can charge, but they are afraid of releasing the suspect because they might abscond abroad or even trigger the attack. What happens in those circumstances? The Home Secretary will come to Parliament and say, “We need emergency legislation,” but neither she nor anyone else in the House will be able to discuss why we need it, for fear of prejudicing an investigation or a possible trial. Parliamentary scrutiny will be very difficult, so, given how difficult and risky it might prove, I urge her to look again at options such as special bail conditions, which could reduce the need for emergency legislation.
Mr David Winnick (Walsall North) (Lab)
I have listened to my right hon. Friend’s reservations, which I share: I am very much in favour of a reduction from 28 to 14 days; that goes without saying. Leaving aside whether the House is to be recalled, and assuming that it is sitting, what details will be given to us about those whom it is felt should be held for longer than 14 days? If we cannot have the relevant information because it will prejudice any proceedings that will take place if the person is charged, what are we supposed to do? Are we just supposed to nod our approval? If we are not, and the details are given out, it will be argued in any later court proceedings that the House has prejudiced the case.
Yvette Cooper
My hon. Friend makes a really important point that goes to the heart of the problem. The reason for emergency legislation through primary legislation to change those powers is, in theory, to give Parliament the chance to scrutinise, debate and decide whether the action is reasonable. In practice, however, it is very hard to see how Parliament will be able to discuss the detail at all without being at serious risk of prejudicing a potentially dangerous investigation and important case, which we would all want to see go properly through the courts, with the proper judicial process followed.
That is why I say to the Home Secretary that it seems sensible to explore whether there are alternatives, such as bail conditions and other procedures with a judicial process, that might be used in such extreme circumstances. We all hope that the circumstances do not arise, but those alternatives would reduce our need to use emergency legislation.
Mr Cash
Has it occurred to the right hon. Lady or, indeed, to those on the Government Front Bench that we have habeas corpus, and that in such conditions it is the first duty of any judge to give effect to that provision? It does not matter what statute says; habeas corpus comes first, unless it has been expressly excluded by statute.
Yvette Cooper
The hon. Gentleman has considerable legal expertise, and I shall not attempt to get into a detailed debate about that point, but the critical issue is the complicated interaction between not only the work of the police and the role of Parliament, but the necessary role of the judiciary, and the alternatives merit more thoughtful debate, so that we do not prejudice individual cases or put the House in a difficult position.
Yvette Cooper
Legislation is not the right way to respond in such extreme circumstances. In the end, it might be the backstop that the right hon. Lady needs, but she should do more to avoid the situation arising. She is not even looking at what the appropriate special bail conditions might be, for example, or at other measures that could prevent her from ever needing to use emergency legislation in the middle of an extreme situation. She should look at the possible alternatives.
Part 5 makes significant changes to the vetting and barring regime, which works to protect children from abuse. As the Home Secretary knows, the Labour Government said that changes were needed to the system to ensure the right balance between protecting children and vulnerable adults without being unnecessarily burdensome. Indeed, Sir Roger Singleton recommended removing a series of unnecessary checks, and we welcome the recent technological developments that will enable portable Criminal Records Bureau checks and substantially simplify the system.
Some practical issues have been raised, and we will want to pursue those further in Committee.
We think that this is an important development. However, the Home Secretary’s proposals go too far. She is creating a series of loopholes in child protection that parents will rightly be very worried about. The evidence from the NSPCC makes that clear. It says that her proposals leave
“a disturbing gap in the planned legislation that could put children at harm.”
Under these plans, it will be possible for people to spend long hours in positions of authority and in regular intensive contact with children without being covered by the barring arrangements because someone else is in a supervisory role. For example, voluntary teaching assistants may well not be covered. As the NSPCC points out,
“supervised employees and volunteers are still able to develop and exploit relationships with children…A volunteer part time teaching assistant in a classroom of 30 children with only light touch supervision by the classroom teacher has plenty of opportunity to develop inappropriate relationships and groom children.”
Mrs May
Perhaps I can help the right hon. Lady and the House. This afternoon, the Minister for Equalities, my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Lynne Featherstone), who is responsible for criminal information matters, had a meeting with a number of children’s charities, including the NSPCC, and was able to reassure them on that precise point. The employer will be able to get an enhanced CRB check for an individual who is volunteering in a capacity such as a teaching assistant, which will contain the same information that has been available in making the decision on the barring of that individual. The employer will therefore be able to make a decision based on exactly the same information as that on which the decision on barring was taken.
Yvette Cooper
If the Home Secretary is changing her policy, perhaps she will take the opportunity to intervene again to clarify this point. Will somebody in these circumstances—
Yvette Cooper
Let me ask the question. Will somebody in these circumstances be able to find out whether the Independent Safeguarding Authority has made the judgment that somebody should be barred?
Mrs May
I am very happy to intervene again on the right hon. Lady, but may I just correct her on one thing? I have not changed the policy. The policy remains exactly as it was, and the Bill remains exactly as it was. A misinterpretation of what was in the Bill has led to the comments from the NSPCC, which, as I said, is one of the children’s charities to which my hon. Friend the Minister has been speaking today. In the circumstances that the right hon. Lady outlines, the fact of the barring will not be available to the employer, but the information that led to the decision on the barring will be available to the employer. We take a slightly different position from that of the right hon. Lady and her party—that the employer must then take some responsibility for making a decision as to who it is appropriate to have potentially dealing with children in the classroom.
Yvette Cooper
This is really weird. It means that somebody—a teacher, for example—who has been working with children and has been barred for grooming a child, may then apply for a job, perhaps a voluntary post as a teaching assistant, and the school will not be told whether they are barred, but the Home Secretary thinks that that is okay because the school may be able to get some of the information that led to the barring in the first place if it is summarised on the CRB check. Why not give the school the information about the fact that someone has been previously barred?
The Home Office guidance says:
“Some people who may previously have been barred…may be able to gain posts in other areas where they are able to work less closely with children or adults. It will be up to employers to weigh up the risks involved”,
but let us think of the position in which that puts employers. They will not even know if they have got the full information; nor will they have the judgment of the experts at the safeguarding authority who have made a decision, based on their professional experience and expertise, that the person should be barred. The guidance also says that
“employers will not be able to find out the barred status of people who are not working in regulated activity roles.”
A lot of parents will find this puzzling and worrying. Why should they not be able to find out whether someone has previously been barred for working with children if they are going to be working with children again in a similar way?
Let us consider the other consequences. If a voluntary teaching assistant is caught grooming a child, then as long as they have never been a teacher, worked in regulated activity, or expressed a desire to do so in future, they will not even be added to the barred list. So two years later they can apply for teacher training and no one will know that they were kicked out of another school for deeply inappropriate behaviour. Future employers may be able to get a criminal records check but, as the NSPCC has made clear,
“This is highly concerning as most people who pose a risk to children are not prosecuted, and thus future employers may not be alerted to the risks they pose.”
I have to say to the Home Secretary that most parents will not just think that it is “highly concerning”—they will think, like me, that it is wrong.
Mr Watson
My right hon. Friend is right that this is a complex and puzzling piece of the Bill, and the devil will be in the detail when it comes before the Committee. I hope that the Home Secretary is in no doubt, though, that what is very clear is that if a child is harmed as a result of this deregulatory measure, she will carry the responsibility for it.
Yvette Cooper
The Home Secretary needs to think again about this matter and take responsibility for the changes that she is making. As parents, we want to be sure that someone who has a history of inappropriate behaviour towards children will not end up as a voluntary teaching assistant in our child’s class. The Deputy Prime Minister has described the proposed new arrangements as common sense. I am afraid that the truth is that they look, at best, naive and confused, and at worst, extremely irresponsible. I urge the Home Secretary to change this proposal and not to put political rhetoric above the safety of children.
Mr Nigel Dodds (Belfast North) (DUP)
Although there are many excellent things in the Bill that I welcome, the right hon. Lady is absolutely right on this point. When it comes to the protection of children and to giving confidence to parents, is it not right always to err on the side of caution?
Yvette Cooper
The right hon. Gentleman is right. This is a difficult area. People will raise concerns if they feel that there are inappropriate burdens in reporting arrangements, and of course it is right to try to reduce those and to prevent inappropriate checks or bureaucracy, but it is also right to put safeguards for our children at the heart of the measures that we set out, and not to do things that feel inappropriate given the potential risks, given the evidence, and given the security that parents want for their children.
Robert Flello
My right hon. Friend is talking about the incredibly important issue of safeguarding our children. Given what we have seen in the media over the past week about the risks to vulnerable adults, would she care to comment on the fact that, although those of us who are parents are deeply concerned about children, including other people’s children, there are serious implications for vulnerable adults too?
Yvette Cooper
My hon. Friend is right. Some cases of very distressing abuse have taken place involving vulnerable adults, and it is important that they, too, should have protection against that. The key is to ensure that if one authority or organisation knows that somebody has a history of abuse, that person should not be allowed to work again in a position where they may put vulnerable adults or children at risk in a way that other authorities, or the families, were not aware of, and which might lead to harm.
I want finally to turn to DNA, which is another area where we believe that the Government are going too far. My right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle had already legislated for safeguards on DNA use, including a six-year limit on retention for those who were not convicted. He based those safeguards on analysis of reoffending rates and the benefits in terms of preventing and solving crimes. The Government have decided to reject those safeguards and to go much further in restricting the use of DNA, but not on the basis of evidence. Some people object, as a matter of principle, to DNA being held at all if the person has not been convicted. I do not agree with that, but neither does the Home Secretary. She claimed that nobody’s DNA should be kept at all if they were innocent, but that is not what the proposals in her Bill achieve. Rightly, she recognises that there must be a balance that supports the needs to prevent crime and to ensure that crimes are solved. A balance needs to be struck, but she is not striking the right one. The changes go too far in restricting the use of DNA and will make it harder for the police to solve and prevent serious crimes.
This is a particular problem in rape cases. As the Home Secretary knows, rape cases not only have a notoriously low conviction rate, but a notoriously low charge rate. That is because the trauma for the victim is so great and because of problems with evidence. Many perpetrators of serious sexual crimes are not brought to justice for their first offence. In about 70% of cases in which a rape suspect is arrested, there is no charge. According to Home Office papers, in cases where there is no charge, DNA will be kept only in very limited circumstances, so in most of these cases the DNA will be destroyed, even though it might be critical in catching a repeat offender for a nasty and violent sexual offence.
The Home Secretary will know that a considerable number of cases have been solved because of DNA. Kensley Larrier was arrested in 2002 for the possession of an offensive weapon. The case never reached court, but two years later he raped someone and was found because of a DNA match. Lee and Stephen Ainsby raped and kidnapped a 17-year-old girl in Barnsley. A match with Lee Ainsby’s DNA was found years later in a case review. It had been taken because he had been arrested for being drunk and disorderly. Under the Home Secretary’s system, his DNA would not have been kept. Without that DNA, those two men would still be free, and justice for that young girl would not have been done. Abdul Azad was arrested for violent disorder in Birmingham in February 2005, but released without charge, according to the Forensic Science Service. In July 2005, he raped somebody in Stafford and was identified only because the police had his DNA. The senior investigating officer for the case said:
“We would never have caught him had his DNA not already been on the database—he didn’t even live locally so we had no intelligence leads either.”
Case after case would have been much harder for the police to solve under the Home Secretary’s new rules. Yes, she has an obligation to ensure that individuals are protected from unjustified interference, but she also has an obligation to protect people from crime and to deliver justice for the victims of horrific crimes.
Mr Cash
I am sure that the right hon. Lady will appreciate, given the importance of this debate, that many of the points that she has made about those cases derive from European rulings and the European convention on human rights. The problem with almost everything she has said is that it was her Government who were responsible for bringing in and endorsing many of these provisions, including through the Human Rights Act 1998. Does she not accept that there is a dilemma, which has to be resolved in Committee, about whether we should go down the human rights route and follow article 8 or legislate in this House to ensure that we achieve justice for the people concerned?
Yvette Cooper
The Crime and Security Act 2010, which was passed before the election, addressed many of those issues and concerns. A wider discussion, which we will not stray into, is about whether one of the benefits of the Human Rights Act is that it refers issues back to Parliament and allows it to respond.
Mr Hanson
Is my right hon. Friend aware that when my hon. Friend the Member for Tynemouth (Mr Campbell) and I took the DNA provisions through this House at the beginning of last year, the then Opposition did not oppose the six-year retention period? That was because they recognised that many murderers, rapists, sexual offenders and others were caught after committing crimes because of DNA profiles, meaning that other victims were not created. Does she agree that the proposals threaten to create more victims?
Yvette Cooper
My right hon. Friend is right about the importance of protecting victims, as well as protecting other people. It is a shame that the Government, having supported the measures in the 2010 Act and allowed it to go through, have not chosen to implement it. The revised measures will take much longer to put in place.
Mr Watson
I was not aware of the cases that my right hon. Friend raised. Before we decide where we stand on this matter, I think that the people of Stafford, Birmingham and Barnsley deserve an explanation from the Home Secretary about why these measures would have allowed serious criminals to remain free.
Yvette Cooper
My hon. Friend raises an important point. If these restrictions go through and make it harder for the police to solve serious crimes, the Home Secretary will have to explain to the victims of crime and those who are worried about serious crimes and offences why she has chosen to draw the line where she has, and to strike the balance in a way that will mean that more victims will not get the justice that they deserve and that we have a responsibility to pursue on their behalf.
Protecting freedom means getting the balance right. It means protecting the freedom of victims as well as protecting everyone else from unnecessary suspicion or interference. It means making sure that there are safeguards, checks and balances that protect people’s freedoms and protect the innocent. It also means making sure that the police have the tools they need to fight and prevent crime that hurts innocent people.
In reality, what are the Home Secretary and her Government doing? Their record on protecting freedoms and ensuring checks and balances is a mass of confusion and contradiction that makes a mockery of their rhetoric: new powers of confiscation for local councils; restrictions on protest in Parliament square and powers for non-warranted officers to move people on physically; substantial powers over the police concentrated in the hands of a single politician—the police commissioner; and a populist assault on the courts and the Human Rights Act, which play an important role in preventing arbitrary state power. The Government are not putting in place checks and balances or protecting freedoms. At the same time, they are making it harder, not easier, for the police to fight crime and bring offenders to justice—through restrictions on DNA, loopholes in child protection, weakening the sex offenders register, ending antisocial behaviour orders, weakening control orders and by having more than 10,000 fewer police officers thanks to the 20% front-loaded cuts. That is not a good list.
The Bill does not do what it says on the tin. It does not deliver a fundamental change in the protection of freedom for the innocent, and it does not protect the freedom of victims. The Home Secretary has given in to the rhetoric of the Deputy Prime Minister and she will be judged by the reality of her decisions today. She is getting some of those decisions wrong.
Mr Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
I welcome the Bill. How could one not support clamping down on the wheel clampers? Some of my constituents have had terrible experiences at their hands.
Although I listened carefully to the shadow Home Secretary’s arguments, and although she made some fair points about DNA, one cannot, on civil liberties grounds, oppose removing the DNA of innocent people from the DNA database. It is a fundamental principle of British law that when people are found innocent by the courts, they are innocent.
My speech will be rather like the speeches that we used to have at Conservative party conferences, which said that the motion was fine, but did not go nearly far enough. Much of the Bill is, frankly, pretty unexceptional. Compared with the Deputy Prime Minister’s rhetoric last year about bringing in a Bill to
“protect our hard won liberties”
much of it is a bit tame. What happened, I wonder, to the 14,000 ideas that were suggested by members of the public via the “Your Freedom” consultation? It is like a scene from “Yes Minister”. An enthusiastic new Minister says, “I want to have a Freedom Bill,” and 14,000 replies come in. One can imagine Sir Humphrey, in his most mellifluous tone, advising the Minister that freedom can be a very incendiary device when it comes to Government.
I suggest that the Bill should go further, and I hope that I will get support not only from those on the Government Benches, but from Opposition Members. The Leader of the Opposition has admitted that Labour was
“too draconian on aspects of our civil liberties”.
Where can we go further? I am particularly worried about freedom of speech. I believe that political speech and debate, even in this place, are becoming very bland. There is a chilling effect on free speech, because people are discouraged from expressing unpopular opinions that do not fit with the winds of political fashion. Did not George Orwell once say:
“Freedom is the right to tell people what they do not want to hear”?
I would add that the right to speak against received wisdom is the only way to make social progress, as I hope many Opposition Members would agree. We have to protect the ability to express widely differing opinions in strong terms in the public square.
One reason why I was worried about the Phil Woolas case, as I said at the time on the Floor of the House, is that if someone has a British National party candidate standing against them, for example, they have to be able to denounce them for what they are without fearing legal sanctions. We have a more and more active and activist judiciary, not just in the Supreme Court and the lower courts but in the European Court of Human Rights. Again, that has a somewhat chilling effect. We should examine some of the debates that there used to be during general elections, certainly 100 years ago but even 50 or 40 years ago. They were a lot more robust than they are now.
With that in mind, and in the spirit of warm and cosy friendship with my Liberal Democrat friends, I wish to try to persuade the Home Secretary to give some thought to adopting a Liberal Democrat proposal for inclusion in the Bill. It was made by Dr Evan Harris, who at the time was the Member for Oxford West and Abingdon. May I say how much we all miss him? Although I disagreed with him on virtually everything, he was a kind of foil to some of my arguments. In March 2009, he tabled an interesting proposal to amend the Public Order Act 1986. He wanted to delete the word “insulting” from section 5, because he was concerned that that section was being used to trample on free speech. As I have said, I did not agree with a lot of what he said, but I did agree with that.
Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend remember the Hayes dictum, named after my hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr Hayes)? It was that if a Member was in the same Lobby as Dr Evan Harris, they were in the wrong Lobby.
Mr Leigh
That is enough about our friend, I think.
Section 5 of the 1986 Act outlaws
“threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour”
if they are likely to cause “harassment, alarm or distress”. The proposal that I wish to make, which I and the Liberals supported before, is the deletion of the lowest threshold of that offence, which is the word “insulting”. That would still leave the two higher thresholds of “threatening” and “abusive”.
The 1986 Act was brought in to replace the Public Order Act 1936, which had worked very well in dealing with the blackshirts and all that. The 1986 Act does not define the terms “threats” and “abuse”, but we all know them when we see them. The courts have often said that. Threat is obvious, is it not? It is when someone is in your face and there is a fear of violence, and abuse is when someone uses obscene language. Insult, however, is clearly something less serious and more subjective, and that is the problem. I believe that removing the word “insulting” would be enough to stop section 5 being misused and generating a chilling effect on free speech.
Mr Leigh
Good, I am very glad. That just shows that there is support for that from all over the House, and indeed from outside.
Section 5 of the 1986 Act is a classic example of a law that was brought in for a fair reason, to deal with a particular state of affairs long ago, but has been used in practice for something quite different. It was brought in to tackle hooliganism, but it is increasingly used by police to silence peaceful protestors and street preachers.
I shall give a couple of examples of how section 5 has been used, to show what has been going on. It has been used to prosecute a couple of hotel owners, Ben and Sharon Vogelenzang, who had a breakfast-table dispute with a Muslim guest. I do not comment one way or the other on their views, but they said that Mohammed was a warlord and that Islamic dress oppressed women. For that breakfast-table dispute, they were prosecuted. True, the judge threw the case out and apparently hinted that the police should have handled it differently, but the point is that for some reason, Merseyside police thought that section 5 applied to theological debates over breakfast. Even though the couple were acquitted, their business went to the wall. It is not enough to say, “Well, we don’t need to worry, because they were not convicted.” We should worry, because people are increasingly worried about expressing strong opinions.
There are other examples. In 2008, a 16-year-old protestor was issued a summons by police under section 5 of the 1986 Act for holding a placard outside a scientology centre that read, “Scientology is not a religion, it is a dangerous cult”, which is something that many people agree with. City of London police referred the allegation that the sign was abusive or insulting to the Crown Prosecution Service. I am glad to say that Liberty, which is supporting the campaign for the change, intervened and the case was finally dropped. However, it shows the problem that exists.
Then there were the animal rights protestors in Worcester, who were threatened with arrest and seizure of property under section 5 for protesting against seal culling using toy seals coloured with red dye. Police told them that the toys were deemed distressing by two members of the public and ordered them to move on.
The last and most ridiculous case is that of Kyle Little. After being warned by the police for using bad language, he was arrested and prosecuted under section 5 for a daft little growl and woof aimed towards two Labrador dogs. I have a dog, my own dearly beloved William, and I am sure he has never felt insulted by anything that I have ever said to him. But this poor Kyle Little, for growling at a dog, was detained for five hours, despite the dog owners not wanting any prosecution, at a cost of £8,000 to the taxpayer. Unbelievably, Newcastle Crown court finally had to acquit Little of the charge. We can see what is going on. [Hon. Members: “It’s barking!”] The right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) and others are right. We need to bring it to an end.
We should all worry about this. There is something wrong with a law when the police think that it requires them to regulate debate. As I have said, the 1986 Act was introduced to replace the 1936 Act during a period of football hooliganism, as people might remember. At the time, a White Paper identified the mischief at which the Act was aimed—hooligans on housing estates throwing things down stairs and banging on doors, and groups of youths persistently shouting abuse and obscenities. Section 5 was a fairly reasonable response to that. The then Home Secretary, Douglas Hurd, told the House that it would not undermine civil liberties, but 25 years later, we see a major difference between what was intended and what has happened since. We therefore need to examine the wording. I cannot act very easily, as a Back Bencher, but Ministers can do so very easily.
Liberty has argued that we should use the Bill to repeal section 5 of the 1986 Act in its entirety. That may be going too far for Ministers, and I do not follow Liberty as far as that, but in a classic triangulation exercise, why cannot we just remove the word “insulting” and leave the higher grades? I have support from our own Joint Committee on Human Rights, which heard evidence that section 5 was being used to suppress free speech and made representations to the previous Government, which were resisted. That Government rejected the advice of our own Committee on human rights.
I say to the Under-Secretary of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (James Brokenshire)—please will he listen for a moment, as the responsible Minister?—that it appears that civil servants at the Home Office are still using, almost verbatim in correspondence signed by him, the arguments used by the last Government against amending section 5. I wonder whether he knows that the letters that he is sending out use exactly the same language as was used by the Labour Government to resist what our own JCHR suggested.
In response to the JCHR recommendations, the previous Government said that they believed that problems with section 5 could be addressed by “guidance”, which is a classic cop-out for civil servants. It is true that the Association of Chief Police Officers recently produced new guidance on breach of the peace, which covers section 5. However, that still encourages police to pursue insulting words or behaviour, because of course, that is what the law tells them to do. If we tell the police that it is wrong for people to use insulting language, they will pursue them. It is up to us to make the law clear so that the police can operate in an entirely sensible fashion. Frankly, it is not good enough for Ministers to say, “We can solve this with guidance,” especially when there is a Protection of Freedoms Bill on the stocks. In any case, an issue as serious and significant as civil liberties should not be left to mere guidance. It is for MPs to make such decisions.
The previous Government used another argument that is still used by Ministers in correspondence. They say that if the word “insulting” is removed from section 5, the police will not have sufficient power to protect the public, but that is not the case. Neil Addison, a barrister who spent 10 years prosecuting cases in Newcastle, has suggested that the “threatening” and “abusive” limbs of section 5 will cover all genuine public order cases. He says:
“Looking back on the large number of s5 cases I have either prosecuted or defended over the years I cannot think of any ‘normal’ public order situation which could not be covered by the words ‘threatening and abusive’. Most cases under s5 involve people (often drunk) yelling aggressively and making frequent use of the ‘F’ word and that is the sort of situation that s5 and indeed the entire Public Order Act was supposed to deal with, it was never supposed to deal with the situation where individuals, whether street preachers or otherwise”,
including demonstrators or people we do not like,
“were expressing their personal opinions.”
We use other laws if we get complaints from distressed individuals. The Protection from Harassment Act 1997 criminalises any repeated harassment of an individual, which I support. Therefore, deleting the word “insulting” from the Public Order Act 1986 would not leave police and prosecutors without powers to deal with low-level public disorder.
One of the silliest arguments used to defend that part of section 5 is that removing the word “insulting” would mean that the courts would have to adjudicate on the difference between abuse, which is criminal, and insult, which is not—we see that argument in letters from Ministers both of the previous Government and of the current one. However, courts make such adjudications all the time. We could equally say that under section 5, the courts must adjudicate between insult, which is criminal, and incivility, which is not. Criminal courts decide whether an activity is criminal—it is their raison d’être. All the arguments put up by this and the previous Government on why “insulting” cannot be removed from section 5 fall to pieces.
I am sure we all agree that free speech is a bedrock of true democracy. It encompasses the freedom to disagree and to challenge received opinion. We might not like what someone says and we might take offence, but lively debate and a robust exchange of ideas are integral parts of a true democracy. Lord Justice Sedley, in his landmark ruling in the case of Richmond-Bate in 1999, put it better than anybody. He said:
“Free speech includes not only the inoffensive but the irritating, the contentious, the eccentric, the heretical, the unwelcome and the provocative provided it does not tend to provoke violence. Freedom only to speak inoffensively is not worth having.”
In my view, the criminal law does not exist to protect people from feeling insulted. I urge Ministers to think about addressing section 5 of the 1986 Act in the Bill. They and no one else have the power to do so.
The JCHR, Liberty, Justice, the Christian Institute and Dr Evan Harris are calling on us to do something about section 5. I note the Liberal Democrats specifically referred to reforming the 1986 Act on page 93 of their manifesto last year. It is a Lib Dem idea that we would be wise to adopt. I urge such a measure on the House in the name of that most precious commodity—freedom of speech.
Mr Jack Straw (Blackburn) (Lab)
I am delighted to follow the hon. Member for Gainsborough (Mr Leigh). This is the first time that I have ever heard him endorse anything Liberal Democrat.
I share the hon. Gentleman’s opinion of the Bill, which he described as pretty unimpressive. The content of the Bill does not remotely justify its extraordinary and wholly inaccurate title. We would expect a debate on a Bill to protect our freedoms to include a far more wide-ranging discussion by the Home Secretary of the nature of freedoms in this country and how they should be properly balanced. We would also see a description of such essential freedoms in the Bill. However, the Bill, parts of which are worthy and others downright dangerous, is no more than a standard criminal justice amendment Bill.
Mr Straw
I am glad that the hon. Gentleman endorses that view.
I am sorry that the Home Secretary has left the Chamber, although I understand the pressures on her. She made some extraordinarily hyperbolic remarks, and described the situation under the previous Government as the creeping intrusion of the state and a slow march to authoritarianism. As my right hon. Friend the shadow Home Secretary has accepted, the previous Government got some things wrong, and, in the light of experience, some things turned out not as intended. I will deal with those later, but on our record of balancing necessary security with the expansion of freedoms, I and the Labour party defer to no one.
Labour was the party that introduced the Human Rights Act 1998. I remind the Conservatives that they voted against it on Second Reading. I am glad that, following amendments to the Bill, which I sought to make to build the kind of consensus of which my right hon. Friend the shadow Home Secretary spoke today, the then Conservative Opposition supported it on Third Reading. The then shadow Attorney-General, the late Nicholas Lyell, said from the Opposition Dispatch Box that he wished the Bill well.
I also remind the hon. Member for Stone (Mr Cash) that the 1998 Act is about bringing British rights home, so that they can be adjudicated on by British courts. The Act does not create a sovereign Supreme Court. As my right hon. Friend pointed out, under section 4, even if the British Supreme Court declares that legislation made by this House is incompatible with the incorporated European convention on human rights articles—that happens rarely, and not in the cases of DNA or votes for prisoners—the legislation is not unenforceable: it stays in force unless and until this House decides otherwise.
The Labour Government introduced the Human Rights Act 1998, the title of which was never disputed, because it was indeed about human rights—we could have called it the “Human Rights and Freedom Act”. We also introduced the Freedom of Information Act. I am proud that I was the Home Secretary who produced those measures and a number of others. The previous Conservative Government opposed the freedom of information legislation at every stage for 18 years. They wanted only a non-statutory, unenforceable code. That is all they would have introduced.
David T. C. Davies
I wonder what the right hon. Gentleman made of the claim in Tony Blair’s book that one of the two worst things he did was to pass the Freedom of Information Act—the other one being to pass the Hunting Act 2004.
Mr Straw
I will pass lightly over the Hunting Act, if I may. I do not happen to agree with Tony Blair on that point. Although freedom of information requests can be irritating, especially if one is in government, I did not change how I operated as a Minister. It did not mean that I ceased to record my decisions or comments on submissions. As was brought out by the Dacre report, whichever party is in power there is a case for the proper protection of Cabinet discussions and collective responsibility—that issue might need to be reconsidered, because it has not worked out as intended—but I am in no doubt that overall the Freedom of Information Act has been a force for good.
In addition to those two Acts, we passed the Data Protection Act 1998. There had been no provision to protect people’s personal data before I introduced that Act in 1998. We also introduced extraordinarily important freedoms and protections for people who do not happen to have white skin, including in the Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000 following the Lawrence inquiry.
I am sorry that the Home Secretary is not here, but while we are on the subject of freedoms, I would draw to the House’s attention the extraordinary difficulty that we had in providing freedoms for gay men and women by reducing the age of consent—equalising it at 16. The first attempt, which was an amendment to the Crime and Disorder Act 1998, was defeated in the Lords so strongly that we lost the whole Bill. I then had to introduce a further Bill containing simply a reduction in the age of consent to 16. That, too, was defeated in the Lords, and it was not until we used the Parliament Act that it got through, against vehement Conservative opposition, including from some in this Chamber—to the shame of the Conservative party—and a huge amount in the other place. So let us hear no more nonsense from the Conservative party or the Liberal Democrats suggesting that we in the Labour party failed to balance liberty and order effectively and properly. Yes, we introduced a number of measures on the other side of that equation, but most of those—as far as I can recall, all of them during my period—were actively supported by the Conservative party in opposition.
Tom Brake
I do not think that any Government Member is saying that the previous Government achieved nothing in relation to civil liberties. However, does the right hon. Gentleman agree that on the other side of the balance, in terms of what the Government did, were the fiasco over 90 days’ detention, control orders, blanket stop-and-search powers and some very draconian measures that went to the heart of threatening our civil liberties?
Mr Straw
I will deal with each of those measures in turn, and then come to the contents of the Bill. I will run through them in the order they appear in my notes. On surveillance measures, the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 was introduced, again by me, to do what it says in the title—to regulate investigatory powers. My predecessor, now Lord Howard, had started that regulation. Before 1996, there was no regulation of those powers, and the most extraordinary situation obtained inside the police. They suited themselves whether to put microphones in walls. They had guidelines from the Association of Chief Police Officers, but there was no statutory supervision or proper regulation, and no account was taken of the equipment used. That was improved, to some extent, by my predecessor, and then comprehensively by RIPA. However, I accept that the provisions in RIPA have been used by local authorities, in respect of minor offences, in a way that was never intended, so I support the change proposed in the Bill.
I also support the change on wheel-clamping. I will have to look at some of the detail, but like my right hon. Friend the shadow Home Secretary I strongly celebrate the campaign by my right hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster Central (Ms Winterton), who has been promoted partly because of this and has now had to take Trappist vows as Opposition Chief Whip. I also strongly support a campaign that my right hon. Friend the Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown) began on the elimination of all convictions involving consensual relations with gay men.
The hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake) asked me about counter-terrorism powers. Although we did not get everything right, the introduction of those powers needs to be seen in context. The Terrorism Act 2000 was approved by the House—I cannot remember where the Liberal Democrats were, but I remember that the Conservatives supported it. However, section 44 was intended to be used in a much narrower way than has been the case, so I have no objection to its effective redefinition in the Bill.
We got it wrong on 90 days—I am perfectly happy to say that—but it must be seen in the context of what happened on 11 September 2001. People were terrified, and the first responsibility of any Government is to secure the most fundamental liberty—the right to life. Of course, we still needed to have a balance, and we sought one, but we did not quite get it right. I am perfectly happy to say that. I simply say to the hon. Gentleman, however, that although the prescription in the Bill of 14 days is fine as a standard, the contortions in the Bill and in draft legislation that would provide for a reserve power of 28 days will prove impractical. The reserve power, which we all agree ought to be there, has to be used in circumstances in which it is virtually impossible for the Home Secretary to disclose the details. The full-scale parliamentary legislative process that would follow a recall of Parliament—you can bet your life that that is how it would happen, because that is how terrorists operate—would be the most extraordinary and mocking ever seen: the Home Secretary would have to come to the House and say, “I want this legislation to double the period of maximum detention, but I can’t tell you why.” It would be far better, in those circumstances, to say, “Here is a power for the Secretary of State for which he or she will be accountable in due time.” Given that he or she is the only individual in possession of all the information that should trigger this power, the responsibility for triggering it should rest with the Secretary of State by way of a special order.
Mr Cash
Will the right hon. Gentleman, to whom I am listening carefully, seek, as a former Home Secretary, to answer the question I put to the shadow Home Secretary regarding habeas corpus? I also asked Charles Clarke, another former Home Secretary, whether habeas corpus would survive these provisions. I never got a satisfactory answer. Does the right hon. Gentleman accept that these provisions do affect habeas corpus, but that, as I insist in my Bill, which comes out tomorrow, habeas corpus is absolute and must apply in all terrorism cases?
Mr Straw
I do not want to get drawn too far down this road, but the hon. Gentleman will know that until the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 and the recommendations of the royal commission that preceded it, there was no statutory regulation of the length of time for which, or the circumstances in which, the police could hold a suspect. It is extraordinary, if we think about it. There were judges’ rules, which were non-statutory, and the only effective check on an arbitrary use of power—apart from practice—was habeas corpus. If somebody was locked up for too long, his solicitor or friends would threaten a writ of habeas corpus. That was how it worked, and I would refer those who think that those were halcyon days for criminal justice to the 2010 Judicial Studies Board lecture in which the current Lord Chief Justice, Lord Judge, reflected on his time as a junior at the Bar and on how that non-statutory system of regulation led—as I saw when I was a young barrister in the 1970s—to fitting up, to words being put into criminals’ mouths and sometimes to very substantial and totally unacceptable physical pressure and violence against suspects. Of course, one consequence was that confession statements were often successfully challenged. Habeas corpus is one part of the law, but where there is more recent statute, the courts will go to that first.
Let me turn now to other matters in the Bill about which I have some serious reservations. As the Member of Parliament for Blackburn, I have had many representations about closed circuit television. I do not know whether my experience is any different from that of anyone else in the Chamber, but all the representations I have received about closed circuit television have been requests from constituents to introduce more of it. In the whole of my 32 years in this House, I have never had a single representation seeking the removal of CCTV monitors. Not one. The demand is there because it makes people feel safe, and I bet that this experience is shared across the Chamber. I cannot remember an occasion as Home Secretary when I received any representations suggesting that the existing system, which we should bear in mind is subject to control under data protection and other measures, was unsatisfactory.
Steve Baker
Just on a point of information—as the right hon. Gentleman invites it—during the election campaign I received at least one request to reduce the amount of CCTV.
Mr Straw
I am grateful for that intervention, which makes my point, because that one representation is balanced by the large number that we receive the other way. I just wonder whether the Government are setting up significant and costly bureaucracy to solve a problem that does not exist.
On criminal record certificates, let me say this. I have been a governor of Blackburn college—a further and higher education college—for the last 20 years. Following the post-Soham measures, each member of the governing body had to fill in a lengthy form and produce their passport, as part of the application process for an enhanced CRB certificate, a process that I regarded as frankly rather tedious. I am pleased to say that it confirmed what I had already told the clerk to the governors, which was that I had no convictions since, as far as I knew, nothing adverse had been recorded by the police. At first blush I thought, “This is going a bit over the top.” I certainly accept that there ought to be a lighter regime for the generality of volunteers, but I would just offer this salutary point to the House.
Just before we were asked to fill in those CRB checks, there was an apparently entirely respectable man on the governing body who, to shorten the story, was convicted of very serious sexual offences against someone who was vulnerable—albeit an adult, and not at the college—and he went to prison. I cannot be certain about this, because I do not have access to the information, but I know enough about that man to know that there was information that could not have led to an earlier arrest but which was on the police database and would almost certainly have been included in a CRB check. I happen to believe that although it was tedious for me and everybody else on the governing body to apply for a CRB check, the balance in terms of public safety—and particularly the safety of young people and children—favours having such checks.
I just think—I know that my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) on the Front Bench believes this too—that this issue has to be examined with the greatest care. We forget too quickly the context in which the measures in question were put in place. The Soham murders were awful. Huntley, like many serious sexual offenders, was brilliant at deception. Indeed, there are no better deceivers—of themselves as well as everybody else—than serious sexually predatory men such as Huntley. If it means a bit more bureaucracy, but also that our children and grandchildren do not become the next victims, we should err on the side of safety.
Finally, let me come to DNA and the taking of other biometric data, including fingerprints. The hon. Member for Northampton North (Michael Ellis), who is no longer in his place, asked about the 1 million “innocent” people on the database. That prompts the question whether people who are “innocent” actually mind having their DNA on the database. Again, I do not believe that my constituents are significantly different in character or profile from those elsewhere, but plenty have had their DNA or fingerprints taken when either the case has not proceeded to charge or they have been acquitted, yet I cannot remember a single case of someone complaining to me about it. On two occasions in my life—this was before DNA was available—I have had my fingerprints taken. The first was at school when there was a burglary and it was necessary to eliminate a group of us as potential perpetrators, and I was happy enough to give my fingerprints.
As an adult, when I was a special adviser there was a criminal investigation into the leak of a limited circulation annexe to some Cabinet documents, and a Commander Habershon, with a sergeant who looked like Oddjob out of “Goldfinger”—I should tell the House this was before the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984—came to interview me. I was invited to give my fingerprints; and, looking at Oddjob, I decided that this was probably an invitation I should accept. I gave my fingerprints, not least in the belief—which turned out to be accurate—that doing so would be a means by which I would be eliminated from the police inquiries. They asked me, “What should we do if you are eliminated?”, and I said, “I really don’t mind if you hang on to these.”
As it happens, I have not given my DNA, unlike my right hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Mr Blunkett), but I would be perfectly happy to do so. Most people believe—I know that some Conservative Members also take this view—that that is sensible for two reasons. One is that, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford said from the Front Bench, doing so helps to protect the innocent. Since the introduction of DNA, not only have more guilty people been convicted of serious crimes, but a number of serious miscarriages of justice have at long been last ended, resulting in justice for the innocent person who had ended up in prison.
I would also remind the House why I introduced the change that meant that once there had been an arrest or charge, the samples should be retained indefinitely. There were two cases in 2000—one was called Weir, the other was called R v. B—one of which involved a murder, the other involving a rape. In both cases DNA samples had been taken in respect of offences for which the defendants had been subsequently acquitted, but the courts held that that DNA evidence could not be used to convict them later. In the case of R v. B, there was a rape—an awful rape—in 1997 of an elderly person where DNA swabs were subsequently taken from the victim. In 1998, this man B was arrested and charged with an unrelated burglary and his DNA was taken. He was subsequently acquitted of the burglary; meanwhile, the forensic examination of the DNA taken from the rape victim was proceeding. After that acquittal, that DNA and B’s DNA were matched and he was charged with rape.
The case went to trial, and the trial judge took a submission from the defence that the critical evidence—in fact, the only evidence; but as the trial judge himself said, it was compelling evidence—of the defendant’s guilt, namely the DNA, could not be adduced in evidence because it should have been destroyed.
The matter went to the Court of Appeal, which said that, on a construction of the Act, that was correct. I do not criticise the senior judiciary for that decision, because they have a job to do, and it is to construe the law, not to invent it. We should not criticise them in any circumstances. It was quite inappropriate for the Prime Minister to criticise the judiciary recently. Any decision that they make, including those made by the Supreme Court, can be overturned by this House. It is different in respect of the European Court of Justice and the European Court of Human Rights, but I shall not tread that particular path just now.
As a result of the Weir case and the R v. B case, someone who was unquestionably guilty of murder and a guilty rapist were found not guilty because of the inadmissibility of the evidence. They were both allowed to go free and, my guess is, to commit further crimes. I then introduced changes in what became the Criminal Justice and Police Act 2001, and my right hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough then amended the legislation further.
I mention those cases to remind the Home Secretary that, in talking about freedoms, we must strike a balance between the important rights of defendants charged with crimes—which have been strengthened quite profoundly, not least by the Human Rights Act 1998—and the rights of victims and the public. The Law Lords said in their judgment, when they reluctantly had to endorse part of the Court of Appeal’s decision, that there had to be a triangulation—their word, not mine—to balance the three sets of rights.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford spoke of the risks that the Home Secretary is taking by introducing these measures. It is a truth about being Home Secretary that something will go wrong, and that when one thing goes wrong, something else normally does as well. Indeed, when I was Home Secretary, there was one week in which I had to come to the House to make an emergency statement each day. That was exceeded only by the late Lord Whitelaw, who had to make two statements on one day about things that had gone wrong—sometimes very badly wrong.
It is possible that the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) will turn out to be the luckiest Home Secretary since 1782, when the post was created, and I wish her well. I do not think that she will be, however. She is the person proposing these dangerous measures that will put freedoms at risk for the vast majority of the British public, and she needs to have a care both for the British public and for her own future. In her speech, she denied that these changes would undermine the detection of crime or lead to fewer guilty criminals being convicted. She said that she would go on to explain how and why she was able to make that statement, but I noticed that the rest of her speech was completely silent on that point. I was not surprised. The changes are bound to lead to some people whom we all know to be guilty and dangerous being allowed to go free.
After the right to life, the next most important right and freedom is the right to security. We were the first Government since the war to preside over a year-by-year reduction in crimes of all kinds, as the Library paper makes clear. There was a 43% reduction, according to the British crime survey. That dramatic reduction made this country safer. I celebrate all the freedoms, including those mentioned by the hon. Member for Gainsborough, but I also celebrate the fact that, although we are a long way from perfection, this country is now safer for people living in their homes, for people out on the streets and for people driving their cars. Those are real freedoms, and some of the changes in the Bill will put them at grave risk.
Gareth Johnson (Dartford) (Con)
I am please to be able to contribute to the debate, and to be able to follow the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw), who made his points very forcefully. This is an important Bill as it builds on a fundamental principle of this Government—namely, the empowering of the individual. It will ensure that more power is vested in people and not in the state, and it trusts people to take control of their lives. In short, it will create a smaller state and bigger people.
Much of the Bill involves trying to strike a balance between two undesirable extremes. With DNA, for example, we need to strike a balance between everyone having their DNA taken and no one having it taken. With CCTV, the balance needs to be struck between having no limits at all on its usage and a total ban. With parking restrictions, we need to find a balance between allowing clampers to do just as they like and allowing anyone to park anywhere on private land. Similarly, with CRB checks, we must strike a balance between having no checks on people who work with children and treating everyone as though they were a paedophile.
Naomi Long (Belfast East) (Alliance)
I understand the hon. Gentleman’s point about balance. I am a voluntary youth worker with Girlguiding UK, and I would be slightly concerned if volunteers thought that there was an implication of guilt in their being asked to undergo checks. We need to be careful not to over-hype the language involved, because most of us who work with vulnerable young people are quite comfortable with being checked in order to protect them.
Gareth Johnson
The hon. Lady makes a good point. The intention of the Bill is not to put off volunteers. I have worked on the governing body of an organisation that assists young children. We all joined in September and submitted our CRB checks at that time, but we did not get the results back until the following June, which highlights the farcical nature of the system. The Bill is about trying to strike a balance; we need to protect children without putting off the volunteers who want to work with them. The Bill is all about trying to find that sensible balance, and I suspect that the debate will largely centre on that today. There will be as many opinions on where that balance should be struck as there are people voicing an opinion. I believe, however, that the Bill gets it about right in balancing our basic right to freedom with protecting us from those who abuse freedom.
The Bill covers many issues but I will concentrate on just three. The first is the retention of DNA. The right hon. Member for Blackburn told the House how he had allowed his fingerprints to be taken to eliminate him from suspicion of committing a crime. That, however, was a choice that he was able to make, as distinct from the circumstances envisaged by the Bill in which people have no choice. Even if he had to face Mr Oddjob when giving his fingerprints, he nevertheless had a choice about doing so for the purposes of elimination.
Gareth Johnson
Of course the difficulty at the moment is that unconvicted people remain on the list, but the Bill’s proposals will ensure that such unconvicted people will not have their DNA on a list for ever and a day. That is the fundamental change that the Bill brings about.
Before the general election, there was general agreement between all political parties that the laws surrounding DNA retention had to change. The arguments centred on where the line should be drawn. Few would want every man, woman and child to be on the register, while few would want to scrap the register in its entirety. Generally speaking, the DNA register has been very successful, but we must find a balance between the two extremes.
At present, the only safeguard an innocent person has after arrest is that DNA can be removed from the register by the police in exceptional circumstances—and that is it. Being not guilty does not necessarily constitute exceptional circumstances. That is the difficulty. It is unacceptable if a completely innocent person can be wrongly accused, entirely cleared of any wrongdoing and not charged with an offence, yet their DNA is never returned and instead remains on the register. An innocent man is not an exceptional man, so his DNA remains on the register for life, which cannot be right. Those who preach that “if you do no wrong, you have nothing to fear” embark on a very dangerous journey where the state is master and the individual is subservient to those in control.
The second issue is the proliferation of CCTV cameras, and I shall again pick up a point made by the right hon. Member for Blackburn. I agree that constituents only rarely contact us to ask for fewer CCTV cameras. Our constituents are more likely to contact us to ask for more of them or for mobile CCTV cameras to be moved to their particular estate or house so that an issue of concern can be monitored. My problem is not with the idea of having more CCTV cameras; it is their non-regulated basis that I object to.
When CCTV first came about and the boom took place, we all expected some sort of code of conduct to be drawn up to which councils or any other public bodies would have to adhere. That will now happen if the Bill is successful and becomes an Act, and, in my opinion, it is long overdue. We need protection from the small number of abuses that can take place. Public confidence in CCTV systems is essential and an unregulated system is unlikely to convey public confidence for much longer. Currently, only the Data Protection Act 1998 provides any safeguards, but that legislation was not designed to regulate CCTV, so it is far from satisfactory for that purpose. As I say, I do not object to CCTV cameras, but to their unregulated use, and I am pleased that this Bill mirrors that view.
Finally, let me deal with the number of powers of entry currently in force. So many powers of entry create a confusing and complex system that is open to abuse. Those who want to abuse their position and enter premises illegally can hide behind our present multi-faceted system. There are so many ways of entering premises that it is often too easy for a property owner to assume that somewhere out there is a power to do so, although that might not be the case. How can occupiers know their rights when there are so many powers of entry and an inconsistent approach to dealing with how those laws came about? It makes sense to have a simplified system that is clearer to understand for both the occupier and those seeking access.
In my experience, requests for warrants of entry by the police are rightly open to vigorous inquiry, yet warrants of entry by utility companies, for example, are almost rubber-stamped. That inconsistency has to change. There will be many occasions when it is correct to have a right of entry, but the combination of so many different powers under so many different pieces of legislation makes it almost impossible for people to know where they stand. Estimates have been made, and the Home Secretary mentioned 1,200 different powers. That is an estimate—just that. Nobody knows exactly how many different rights of entry there are, so how can anyone be certain whether a person is acting lawfully when entering a property against the occupier’s will? Again, we require a balance in which property can be entered to protect against crime, but clarity and certainty also exist so that people are aware of their rights and obligations. That cannot occur in a system as complicated as the present one.
In conclusion, freedoms are easy to lose, but very difficult to claw back. This Bill seeks to empower the individual and lessen the control of the state. I want to see less government, not more. I want power to be vested in the individual and not the state, and I support this Bill’s attempt to further that cause.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
It was Winston Churchill who said:
“All great things are simple, and many can be expressed in single words: freedom, justice, honour, duty, mercy, hope”.
It is under the banner of freedom and democracy that our troops fight on foreign fields, and it is freedom that we celebrate in Northern Ireland on 12 July each year.
I support much of what is put forward by the coalition Government in the Bill, but I have some concerns. The right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper), the shadow Home Secretary, clearly and eloquently outlined one of our main concerns: the relaxation of the vetting procedures. I am concerned to see that through their deliberations members of the Committee protect children. If that does not happen—I suspect that it will—we will take the opportunity to table amendments on Report.
On the subject of regulation of biometric data—we have all heard the comments about that—I am firmly opposed to any kind of nanny state, but I do not believe that freedom can or should be used as a licence to behave in any way with no consequence. In other words, people must be accountable for their actions and those who break the law must pay the price; they have, in my opinion, limited their own freedom by their choice of action. I firmly believe that, in accordance with section 63D of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, people’s DNA should be held on record if they are found guilty of any crime. I am somewhat perturbed, however, that section 63D(2)(a) allows for the destruction of DNA if
“the taking of the fingerprint or, in the case of a DNA profile, the taking of the sample from which the DNA profile was derived, was unlawful”.
That is clear, and I am concerned about it.
In my opinion, even if correct protocol has been followed and the sample has been taken lawfully, if the suspect is subsequently found innocent they should have their DNA record destroyed, as they have no criminal conviction. Is the Minister aware, and will she clarify it in her response, that as of 24 April 2009 almost 1 million unconvicted persons had records on the national DNA database? A very small minority of those people are still under investigation; the remainder will have been found innocent of any crime. During 2008-09, only 283 innocent individuals were successful in getting their records deleted under the “exceptional cases” provisions. That was touched on by the hon. Member for Dartford (Gareth Johnson) and many others in the debate. This issue must be specified clearly in the Bill, and we will seek to achieve that in Committee.
There are many other issues with biometric information, such as the collection and retention of schoolchildren’s DNA information, which caused upset of late in a school not far from my constituency. It became clear that parents must and should have a complete veto on the collection and storage of their children’s genetic make-up. Children have been particularly affected by the expansion of the DNA database, as there has been a significant increase in the number of young people arrested following minor crimes or even false accusations. Some offences have been as minor as pulling each other’s hair or damage to trees and fences. Labelling children as criminals at an early age can be counter-productive, and I hope that will be taken on board in Committee.
Under part 3, “Protection of property from disproportionate enforcement action”, I welcome the provision in clause 54 to make it unlawful for clampers to clamp on private land. I have heard the clamping by one firm described as legalised mugging, and although that brought a laugh, there is some truth in it. All Members have had examples of abuses by clampers brought to their attention.
Naomi Long
The hon. Gentleman will be aware that the matter is devolved to the Northern Ireland Assembly. Although the problem has not been as significant there as it has been elsewhere, I believe that a review of clamping regulations in Northern Ireland is to be undertaken.
Jim Shannon
Perhaps I have cornered the market in those who have problems with clampers, but I have heard plenty of concerns expressed. I have had complaints nearly every other week. It got to the stage where I was on first name terms with the people in the companies concerned, although I am not sure whether that was good for them or me.
In my area, a firm of clampers was brought in by residents, but the clampers began to clamp visitors to those residents along with everyone else, and it was realised that there was no regulation of clamping and that the clampers were a law unto themselves. We have all heard horror stories about clamping firms. I won a case in which a lady was clamped who had a disabled child and needed her vehicle for transportation and so paid the fine. Unbelievably, the clampers informed her after payment that the guys who unclamped vehicles were headed home for the weekend and she would have to wait until Monday. After a number of phone calls, I got them to come back and do the right thing by letting her drive away. It is abhorrent that such daylight robbery, though morally defunct, was legally acceptable. The Home Office estimates that 500,000 drivers every year are clamped on private land. The week before last, I read in a newspaper that a lady who worked in a taxi firm had come outside to find her car had been clamped. She contacted her firm, and the taxi drivers, like a wagon train, surrounded the clamping car until the impasse was sorted out.
It is estimated that the public pay out £55 million in clamping fees, which benefit nobody apart from the clamping companies. Towing away will also be outlawed, with private landowners still able to regulate parking by erecting a barrier to keep drivers out or charging regulated parking fees. The ban will apply only on private land and will not affect clamping and towing by lawful authorities such as the police, local authorities or Driver and Vehicle Licensing Northern Ireland. That means that those who do not pay appropriate tax or adhere to signage will be held accountable. That must be good news, and a system is in place to ensure that that happens. Councils will continue to have the power to tow away cars abandoned on private land. Police can also remove vehicles that are causing an obstruction or are dangerously parked, providing a redress for home and business owners. In relation to clause 56, however, I believe that a reasonable standardised fee should be introduced to regulate extortionate fees that may still be levied. I hope that the Minister will address that point, because the Bill provides the opportunity to clarify maximum fees.
In one of his plays, Shakespeare wrote, “Kill all lawyers,” which was a bit extreme, but some people have used similar terminology in relation to clamping companies. I tell them that that is just words and does not mean much, but I am hopeful that it will no longer be the quotation used in my constituency if the Bill is amended and tightened up.
Harking back to the need to control legislation, there was a great deal of concern some time ago about local councils spying on people through bugged litter bins. I hope that the Bill will provide protection in that regard. I would commend the use of CCTV, which is a kind of sleeping policeman that observes at a distance all that takes place. While one Member mentioned that he had only one complaint against CCTV, every person who comes to me tells me that they want more CCTV. In my opinion, CCTV is a weapon that we should use, as the coverage that such cameras record enables us to catch those involved in unlawful incidents. As someone who watches late-night television programmes such as “CSI”, I am always impressed by the number of policemen who come on to a crime scene outside a pub or restaurant or in the street, and I just wish that some cases in the past had had the same level of response.
I commend the Bill, although I have concerns that I hope will be addressed in Committee. If that is not the case, I put down a marker that we will address those matters on the Floor of the House when the opportunity arises.
Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), who made a sensible and measured contribution, as have other hon. Members. The right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) made a fair assessment of what the previous Government had done. They improved some aspects of civil liberties through the Freedom of Information Act, but he also recognised that some measures had been extremely counter-productive. In any scenario in which a Government, over the course of their lifetime, introduce an extra 3,500 offences, there will inevitably be problems with how the police interpret and apply the rules.
Let me give just one example of how some of the powers introduced by the previous Government have been used in an unfortunate way. The example was given to me by a very good friend of mine who now sits in the other place, and whose son-in-law, who is black and from America, has stopped coming to the UK with his son, because every time he went out in London, irrespective of where he was going, he was guaranteed to be stopped by the police under stop-and-search powers. He did not want to have to explain to his son why his dad was being stopped every time they went out.
Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)
Will the hon. Gentleman explain why the coalition has taken away the requirement on police officers to record the ethnicity of people whom they stop on the street?
Tom Brake
I am sure the hon. Gentleman will be aware that many police forces intend to continue to seize that information. It appears that they are exercising discretion in that respect. He should reflect on the fact that his Government introduced those stop-and-search powers, which were applied in a blanket way across London and allowed the action that I have described to take place.
Although I welcome the announcement by the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) that the Opposition will not vote against the Second Reading of the Bill, I think that the tone of her comments in relation to the Home Secretary were a touch patronising. I am sure that our Home Secretary fully appreciates the need to balance security with liberty and freedom. That is what the coalition Government are doing by presenting a Bill to restore personal freedoms that were threatened by the last Government, and to end excessive surveillance of individuals.
The right hon. Member for Blackburn seemed to acknowledge that some of the policies implemented by the last Government were—if not draconian—an infringement of the rights of the individual, expensive, and in many cases ineffective. The Deputy Prime Minister was right to describe the Bill as a rolling back of the state. However, although I will not over-hype it, because I trust that many of the measures referred to by the hon. Member for Gainsborough (Mr Leigh), who is no longer in the Chamber—[Interruption.] He is, in fact, present. I trust that many of the measures that he mentioned will be subject to a protection of freedoms (No. 2) Bill, because I do not see this as the endgame when it comes to protecting our freedoms. I believe that we cannot place too high a value on liberty and freedom.
The Bill has received support from a number of quarters. The Law Society, for instance, has described the destruction of DNA profiles of innocent people as “an improvement”, welcomes the reduction in the maximum pre-charge detention time, and believes that the new stop-and-search powers are “far more proportional”. It has listed a number of other proposals that it supports, including the changes in the vetting and barring system.
The Bill proposes regulation of biometric data, and I am pleased that we are adopting the protections of the Scottish model in regard to retention of DNA and fingerprints. Although the Bill will not ensure that all innocent people are removed from the DNA database, it will ensure that hundreds of thousands of those who are currently on it are removed from it. In Committee, those who have received a briefing from the Forensic Science Society will want to examine aspects of the deletion process to establish what deleting a DNA profile means and what constitutes the totality of such a profile.
Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)
As one who practised at the Bar before becoming a Member of Parliament, I know that the whole ethos of the DNA database was that the data of those found innocent of offences should no longer be on the record. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the system used to be administered in a shocking way? Half a million records on the database were completely wrong: names and details were false. Although the Bill contains much that is welcome, we must ensure that the database is fully and thoroughly managed.
Tom Brake
Of course we must. Whenever a massive database is introduced, there is significant potential for errors such as mismatches to be hidden in it. I hope that the Committee stage will provide scope for further examination of the details relating to the database. I am thinking particularly of the retention of children’s DNA. In its briefing, Liberty expressed concern about the fact that a child who was caught shoplifting at the age of 10 and again at the age of 12 would remain on the database for the rest of his or her life. If Liberty’s understanding is correct, that makes me extremely uncomfortable.
I am pleased that children will no longer be fingerprinted in schools. I am astonished that schools have never been required to seek permission for that from parents. As for the regulation of surveillance and CCTV, my experience is similar to that of the right hon. Member for Blackburn and others who have spoken today. The most frequent request that I have received as a Member of Parliament has been for additional CCTV systems, but many people have approached me expressing concern about, for instance, the fact that CCTV cameras were pointing straight through their front windows, or their bedroom windows, from premises opposite. I believe that better regulation could solve the problems that have been reported to me, and I therefore welcome the proposals in the Bill.
Jim Shannon
In my experience, when CCTV has been introduced in what might be described as hot spots where there is plenty of antisocial behaviour such as violence and robbery, there has been a marked reduction in the number of such incidents. Does the hon. Gentleman share that experience?
Tom Brake
I certainly think that CCTV deals partly with the fear of crime. However, I know from the results of an inquiry conducted by the Home Affairs Committee that its effectiveness in cutting crime is not so clear-cut. It obviously makes a difference in, for instance, car parks, but it is less obvious whether it makes a difference on a wider scale. The evidence may not be as strong as Members wish it to be.
I am pleased that we are considering the issue of automatic number plate recognition systems. I have raised with Ministers in the past the extent to which bailiffs and private contractors can use such systems, and have suggested that more regulation might be necessary. In Committee, we will doubtless wish to clarify the relationship between the Information Commissioner and the surveillance camera commissioner to ensure that there will be no overlap between them. The regulation that is being discussed at present clearly relates to CCTV in the public sector, involving local authorities and police, but that constitutes a relatively small proportion of the CCTV that is available. We may have to consider whether the boundaries specified in the Bill should be extended.
An issue that is closely related to the issues of CCTV and ANPR systems is that of the use of identification systems in pubs and clubs. Like, I suspect, a number of Members, I took up an offer a couple of weeks ago during special constables week, when we were encouraged to go out with our local special constables to observe their valuable and committed work. On Friday night I spent some time in Sutton high street, visiting pubs and clubs virtually all of which were using systems that captured people’s ID—typically, their driving licences. I know that there is significant concern among the police about the extent to which any of those systems comply with the relevant data protection legislation by ensuring that the data that they capture are secure and are handled in an appropriate manner. I realise that that may be beyond the scope of the Bill, but I think that the Government could usefully consider it.
As for counter-terrorism, Members will know from what I said earlier about stop-and-search powers that I am pleased that they will be much more tightly defined. I also welcome the reduction in the maximum period for pre-charge detention from 28 days to 14, although organisations such as the Law Society and Liberty want to push us much further and faster in that regard. I consider 14 days to be a good starting point, but I am happy to leave open the option of introducing a shorter period.
In relation to terrorism prevention and investigation measures, which are being dealt with separately to some extent, let me say as an aside that I hope we will be given more clarification of precisely what is being proposed. I do not want control orders to be replaced by something that looks very much like them. I should also like clarification of what will replace curfews, and I want to know that what we propose as a Government is a system that will focus on securing prosecutions rather than simply containing people.
On safeguarding vulnerable groups and criminal records, I welcome the fact that the vetting and barring scheme will be changed, and that 9 million people will be taken out of the scheme. Simply classifying and categorising people does not guarantee safety, and creating massive databases does not necessarily provide a solution to all the security and safety problems. We have to be more subtle and sophisticated than that.
I welcome the changes on consensual gay sex, and I am sure the Minister is aware of the concerns that, as far as possible, every single record that relates to that previously illegal activity should be deleted. I know there are challenges in terms of how to go beyond cleaning electronic data, but I hope that that can be dealt with comprehensively.
The freedom of information changes are very welcome, although not all aspects of the freedom of information ten-minute rule Bill that I have pressed on two separate occasions in the last three or four years will be picked up. I hope they will be, perhaps in the protection of freedoms (No. 2) Bill, when we get round to that in, I hope, the second half of this Parliament. I do not see any reason why very large private sector organisations that are, in effect, doing public sector work should not be subject to FOI in the same way as the public sector. If they are simply taking on what was previously done by the public sector, to which FOI legislation would have applied, it would be appropriate for it to apply to private sector organisations now doing that work.
I welcome the fact that we will preserve trial by jury and that we are restoring such rights.
In the past couple of weeks, we have watched with astonishment the courage, bravery and thirst for freedom of the Tunisians, Egyptians and Libyans, who have been desperate to embed some of the most basic freedoms in their societies. We have a more straightforward task. We have started the process of restoring some of our most cherished rights in the Protection of Freedoms Bill, and will, I hope, continue that process in the protection of freedoms (No. 2) Bill, which I hope will be introduced in the second half of this Parliament, and which I would expect to pick up on some of the issues raised—such as what the hon. Member for Gainsborough said about free speech, so that the concerns of Dr Evan Harris about removing the word “insulting” can be addressed.
We must maintain the momentum. With freedoms, we can never afford to stand still; we are always swimming against the current. This Bill demonstrates that the coalition is starting to reverse the tide, and that an unprecedentedly great rolling back of the state is under way.
Pamela Nash (Airdrie and Shotts) (Lab)
I want to highlight my concerns about the Government’s proposals, which seek to restrict the scope for using DNA to convict dangerous criminals. First however, I shall briefly touch on CCTV, which many of my colleagues have also mentioned this evening.
Although in doing so I run the risk of receiving an avalanche of e-mails by tomorrow morning, I want to take this opportunity to say that I have only once been approached by a constituent who was concerned about the level of CCTV coverage in my constituency. That speaks volumes when we take into account the fact that Airdrie was the first town in Scotland to have open-street CCTV, and that many lists indicate that its centre has a particularly high ratio of such cameras in comparison with other Scottish town centres. On the other hand, many constituents have requested the installation of CCTV on their streets, to protect them and their neighbours from crime, vandalism and other antisocial behaviour. In fact, we now seem to have an issue with crime being driven into areas that are not covered by CCTV. I therefore support the expansion of CCTV coverage in my constituency. Crime in Airdrie town centre fell by 24% in the first two years after the introduction of open-street CCTV. It continues to be supported locally, and is seen to be a great success in reducing crime and antisocial behaviour.
DNA evidence has proved to be a powerful tool in helping us bring to justice violent criminals and sexual offenders. Although I support many of the Bill’s proposals, I have serious concerns about any change that will make it much more difficult for the police to catch criminals and build cases against them. It was my hope that the Scottish law on DNA storage would move towards that currently in place in England and Wales. However, instead I find myself today criticising Government attempts to restrict the use of DNA, even though the way it is currently used has led to rapists and murderers being convicted when they otherwise might not even have been identified.
As Members may know, there is currently a different law on DNA retention in Scotland. North of the border, DNA that is taken as part of a police inquiry is automatically removed if the person concerned is not convicted, with the exception that in extreme cases someone charged with a violent or sexual offence but not found guilty can have their details stored for up to three years. In England and Wales there is currently much greater retention of DNA samples by police. At present, people charged with, but not convicted of, a crime will have their DNA samples held indefinitely. As a result, several serious crimes have been solved and many more criminals convicted than would otherwise have been the case. Violent and sexual offenders have been brought to justice by virtue of the fact that their DNA had been taken during inquiries into previous, unrelated and often minor offences and then matched up.
David T. C. Davies
Is the hon. Lady critical of both the Government here in Westminster and the Scottish Parliament for the changes they are making? The Government’s changes on DNA will bring them into line with what the Scottish Parliament are doing, so I presume she is critical of both institutions.
Pamela Nash
That is correct. As I have said, I would hope the Scottish Parliament would move more towards the current system in England and Wales, rather than have us go in the opposite direction as we are doing this evening.
Let us look at the crime figures for 2007-08. Some 17,614 crimes were detected in England and Wales where a DNA match was available. These included 83 murder and manslaughter cases, and 184 rape cases. Some of these cases have been very high profile. For example, Steve Wright, the so-called “Suffolk strangler”, convicted of murdering five prostitutes in Ipswich, and Mark Dixie, jailed for life for killing Sally Anne Bowman, were both identified through DNA samples taken in relation to other crimes. Without the DNA information held on these individuals, they might never have been caught and brought to justice for their horrendous crimes, and might have gone on to commit even more serious offences. I hope that in summing up the Minister will offer an explanation to their victims’ families of why it is acceptable to change a law to allow criminals such as these to escape justice. Equally, had they committed their crimes in Scotland, they might, because of the more restrictive rules on holding DNA samples, have got away with those crimes.
If the law on the storage of DNA samples were to change radically, I would have hoped it would happen in the Scottish Parliament. Police in Scotland have made it clear that a new regime that allowed more DNA samples to be retained would increase clear-up rates and make the public safer. The Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland has repeatedly called for the situation in England and Wales to be mirrored in the Scottish judicial system. Labour politicians in Scotland agree with them. Of course there should be safeguards in the system, but we believe police should be given effective tools to help bring rapists, murderers and other criminals to justice.
Labour MSPs recently proposed an amendment to the Scottish Government’s Criminal Justice and Licensing (Scotland) Bill to give police the power to retain for up to six years the DNA of those arrested for, but not convicted of, a crime. From my point of view and that of most Scots, who want the police to be able to catch criminals, it was unfortunate that the Scottish National party Government joined forces with the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats to stop this.
It is therefore deeply disappointing to stand here debating Government plans to restrict further the retention of DNA samples in England and Wales. In some cases retention will be restricted to three years, but in many cases, particularly those involving minor crimes, the police will be prevented from storing samples at all. We all know that the rate of charging and prosecuting suspected rapists is very low. The Government’s proposals in this Bill mean that someone arrested but not charged with rape—this is what happens in the vast majority of rape cases—may not have their DNA retained. Under these restrictions several high-profile crimes, including those I mentioned earlier, could have remained unsolved. It is difficult to understand the Government’s purpose in doing this. It is doubtless about pandering to the Deputy Prime Minister’s political rhetoric, but it is certainly not based on evidence about what works in the fight against crime, and it is certainly not about protecting the liberty of our country.
I am going to read out a quote and I will then tell hon. Members who said it:
“I have not yet been aware of any innocent person adversely affected by having their details on the DNA database. Actually, rather than impinge on freedoms, it enhances our freedoms. The rapists, murderers and other criminals brought to justice by DNA—these people being taken off the street enhances my freedom. Why on earth the Conservative Party would want to try to take people off the DNA database, Lord only knows.”
Those are not my words but those of the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies), who represents the Conservative party, and I could not agree with him more. I urge the Government to think again about these plans. We owe it to the victims of crime and their families to ensure that laws that work and that have brought serious criminals to justice continue to do so. If the Government push ahead with this proposal, they should not be surprised to find themselves labelled “soft on crime”. Their coalition partners have always been happy with such a label, but I am surprised that Conservative Members are allowing themselves to be dragged into this nonsense. Freedom for violent criminals is a sorry price to pay for staying in power. Our freedom is enhanced by violent criminals being taken off our streets. The Government should bear in mind the fact that being soft on crime achieves absolutely nothing for anybody’s civil liberties.
Nicola Blackwood (Oxford West and Abingdon) (Con)
My hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Mr Leigh) is no longer in his place, but I hope he will forgive me for being here in place of my predecessor, and perhaps the fact that I share his concerns about section 5 of the Public Order Act 1986 will act as some consolation.
It is a joy to have the opportunity to speak in this debate on another coalition move to try to redress the current imbalance between security and civil liberties. All Governments must, of course, be fully committed to public safety and protecting victims of crime, but under the previous Government far too many of our liberties were sacrificed in the name of apparent short-term securities. In too many cases, the previous Government acted before establishing a causal link between that sacrifice and the claimed “greater security”. In the absence of the necessary evidence or, in some cases, even public debate, actions including the indefinite retention of DNA of children never convicted, the creation of more than 500 new powers of entry and the careless scattering of a patchwork of surveillance powers across the statute book, not to mention the spectre of 90-day detention without trial, all left us wondering whether some members of the previous Government had had a “common sense-ectomy”. Even the Human Rights Act 1998 cannot make up for the disproportionate and draconian measures that they introduced.
In that context, I am pleased that the coalition Government are living up to their promise to cut back on the previous Government’s aberrations and to begin restoring the civil liberties that for so long defined British democracy. I apologise if that language seems hyperbolic, but let us think for a moment about the mother who finds herself being spied on by her local authority because she has said that she lives in a certain school catchment area; the child who needs an iris scan to borrow a library book; or the archbishop who finds himself the subject of five Criminal Records Bureau checks, not to mention the innocent man who suddenly finds himself without the right to a trial by jury. Given that the Labour party is so apparently committed to human rights, I find it inexplicable that that state of affairs should have ever arisen. Thankfully, we can always rely on the electorate to draw the line when their Government lose their grip, and I am greatly reassured that the coalition Government have been so prompt in introducing this Bill. As must be obvious by now, I support its intentions and I would have been voting for it today had the Opposition decided to push for a vote.
I would, however, like to take this opportunity to raise a few points of detail with the Minister. Nobody is questioning the fact that DNA can play an invaluable role in crime detection, but under Labour a new profile was added to the new DNA database every 45 seconds. Unsurprisingly, the Home Office had to admit that the database contained more than 500,000 false or wrongly recorded entries. The new biometric data retention regime proposed in part 1 seems to strike the right balance between greater proportionality and targeting, while still protecting the public from those who would commit heinous crimes. That is a great step forward and the regime seems likely to meet the requirements of the European Court of Human Rights ruling. However, I am unclear why the Government have not chosen to distinguish between an adult and a child who is charged but not convicted of a serious crime. In general, legislation does make the distinction between the adult and the child. Childhood convictions are considered spent in half the time of those of adults, childhood lawbreaking has not been found to be necessarily indicative of future behaviour, and the principles of restorative justice are now commonly associated with youth justice. It would be helpful if the Minister could clarify the decision-making process on that point.
Secondly, except in the specific case of an application for extended retention to be heard by the magistrates court with right of appeal for both sides to the Crown Court, I am unclear whether there is a right of appeal to a judicial or otherwise independent body for individuals who feel that their biometric data have been retained unlawfully or inappropriately. I have no doubt that many colleagues have had the same experience as I have of constituents whose data have been taken and retained in error. I even have one constituent who was inaccurately registered as a sex offender for 15 years owing to a clerical error. We cannot overestimate the damage that this sort of error can cause to a person’s life. It is vital that a clear route of appeal and system of remedies are available to innocent individuals who get accidentally caught up in the system.
I am also a little unclear where the new regime will sit in relation to the Association of Chief Police Officers guidelines. I am particularly concerned that there should be clarity about the role of the “exceptional case procedure” in the new system. As the Minister knows, the guidance states that an individual’s record will be retained until that person has attained 100 years of age but it may be removed before this date by way of the exceptional case procedure. The guidelines state:
“Chief Officers have the discretion to authorise the deletion of any specific data entry on the PNC ‘owned’ by them”
but only
“in exceptional cases.”
Those might include
“cases where the original arrest or sampling was found to be unlawful”
or cases
“where it is established beyond doubt that no offence existed”.
I believe it is helpful for chief officers to have some degree of discretion, especially in relation to scenarios outlined in the exceptional case procedure. I am anxious to learn how such circumstances are to be addressed under the new system.
Finally, on part 1 of the Bill, I welcome wholeheartedly the regulation of schools’ retention of biometric data, especially the requirement for the consent of the parents and the child before such data are recorded. I do not understand why schools need to retain these data and I was rather shocked by the Library’s estimates that 30% of secondary schools and 5% of primary schools already use such biometric systems. I would like to see official figures on this issue so that policy in this very sensitive area can be made on the basis of evidence. Is the Minister considering requiring schools to notify the Information Commissioner’s Office if they intend to hold such data, and if not, will he tell us why not?
The surveillance regulation proposals in part 2 are well overdue. No one challenges the value of well-located, targeted surveillance, which has undeniable importance for crime detection and public safety, but there has been an exponential growth of CCTV and automatic number plate recognition systems, which has for the most part taken place outside formal regulation. The UK now has an estimated 5 million to 6 million surveillance systems. The British Security Industry Association claims that state-owned CCTV accounts for less than 10% of these and that
“it is the privately owned surveillance systems that provide the majority of evidence in prosecutions.”
It would therefore be helpful if the Minister clarified how the new code of practice will apply to privately owned systems and whether the “relevant authorities” mentioned in clause 33 will include private owners whose surveillance systems cover public areas.
Nicola Blackwood
I cannot imagine why the Government’s understanding where surveillance systems are held and who holds them could in any way limit the improvement of justice in this country.
I also welcome the proposals in part 3 to insert judicial oversight in relation to the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000. This is an excellent start in reforming the confusing jumble of legislation dealing with access to communications data. However, we have some way to go before we have a system which tightly defines the reasons for which access can be granted—a particularly vague example of which is
“the economic well-being of the United Kingdom”—
and which offers a straightforward legislative framework so that not only the bodies that use surveillance powers but the citizens who may be subject to them can clearly understand their rights and responsibilities.
I could go on and welcome the permanent reduction of pre-charge detention to 14 days, the reinstatement of the right to trial by jury and the progressive proposals on stop and search without suspicion, but the point is clear. In large part, the Bill returns the state’s powers to common-sense levels and signals a significant step forward for the civil libertarians among us. The Bill is the answer to the calls of many in this country, including those who had felt, under the previous Government, that state abuse of power had reached a new low, that they had become guilty until proven innocent or that they were being forced to make a false choice between democracy and security. Of course there is a difficult balance to strike between liberty and security, and any adjustments need to be made with the utmost care, but there can be no doubt that in the past decade that balance had tilted much too far in the direction of security and away from civil liberties. That is why I support the Bill and hope that it will mark the end of the Government-sponsored fallacy that absolute security can be achieved by the unacceptable erosion of civil liberties.
Naomi Long (Belfast East) (Alliance)
Let me start by welcoming the broad thrust of the Bill, which has much to commend it. I believe that the protection of civil liberties, privacy and personal freedoms is incredibly important and is a fundamental building block of a democratic society, but it must be sensitively balanced against the need to provide security, safety and public confidence, which is where the debate hinges. As I said in an intervention, I am a volunteer with young people—an adult leader in Girlguiding—and I am particularly interested in the proposed changes to the vetting and barring scheme, on which I shall focus my remarks.
I agree entirely with the Home Secretary that we do not want to place unnecessary barriers in the way of people who wish to volunteer. Many youth organisations depend almost entirely on people who are willing to give freely of their time to benefit our young people, and those volunteers often find themselves caught up in an incredibly intrusive situation that can be a bureaucratic nightmare and incredibly off-putting. I hope that the Home Secretary agrees that our primary concern as we try to resolve those issues must be the safety and protection of young people and vulnerable adults. If there is a balance to be struck, the emphasis and greater weight must be on protecting the vulnerable; it is incredibly important that we do not lose sight of that. We must therefore proceed with a degree of caution as we try to change those protections and we should recall the context in which they were introduced. The earlier comments of the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) greatly assisted us in recalling some of the incidents that led to the introduction of the protections, their very serious nature and the public outcry that surrounded them when people felt that children were not being adequately protected from predatory adults.
Although no one would question the need to redress the balance, given that the pendulum has swung almost too far in one direction, we need to be careful not to take it too far in the other direction, but instead try to find some sensible balance. Most people would welcome simplification of the system—for example, a system of vetting and barring that would allow clearance in one role to be carried forward into other roles, rather than repeated checks being carried out on the same individual. However, if that is to happen, the detail of the Bill poses a challenge. People would still be checked only for the immediate role that they would be fulfilling and would not be able to carry those checks with them. That has not been addressed, but it is important to people who work with young children.
One of my concerns arising from reading the Bill is that if someone working in a non-regulated activity displays behaviour that would cause concern—behaviour which, were that activity regulated, could lead to their being barred—it is not clear that that would trigger a referral to the Independent Safeguarding Authority or to barring. My concern is that that individual could later move into a regulated activity, and young people would be left vulnerable.
A further area of concern to me is the treatment of 16 and 17-year-olds in the context of the Bill. The changes proposed appear to remove some of the protections afforded to 16 and 17-year-olds in matters of sport, faith and education. The young people with whom I work directly are aged 14 to 25 and therefore include that group. Despite the fact that they are entering adulthood, they are still young and vulnerable and they still require protection as children. They appear to fall into some kind of gap between regulated activity for children and the vulnerable adults provision in the Bill. I seek reassurance from the Home Secretary that that grey area will be clarified. We do not want children of 16 or 17 to become easier prey for predatory adults.
Finally, I want to examine the relationship between the Bill and what will happen in Northern Ireland. At present, with respect to vetting and barring schemes, England, Wales and Northern Ireland operate within a single framework. The reforms set out in the Bill are not proposed to be extended to Northern Ireland. The mix of responsibilities between the Department of Justice and the Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety would largely cover the areas encompassed by the vetting and barring scheme. It would be a matter for the Executive and the Assembly whether or not to extend that to Northern Ireland by a legislative consent motion or an Assembly Bill, if they choose to do it.
However, there is significant merit in the Home Office pursuing with the devolved Administration every opportunity to maintain the common approach that currently exists, as that is one way to maximise protection for young people throughout the country. We would not want to see the protection reduced, and the Assembly would have the right, if it considered that the Bill would reduce protection, to go its own way on these matters. During the Bill’s Committee stage and beyond, it is important for the Home Office to listen carefully to the concerns that are raised and to work closely with the devolved Administrations so that we can achieve a UK-wide consensus on this serious issue and maintain the common framework that has served us well.
John Glen (Salisbury) (Con)
One of the beliefs that unites Conservatives and Liberal Democrats is that the past 13 years of Labour Government saw a squeeze on civil liberties. The Leader of the Opposition admitted that the Labour Government were
“too draconian on aspects of our civil liberties”.
He is right. That is why the Bill is so welcome, trimming away, as it does, some of the vast undergrowth of legislation that has undermined our traditional liberties. DNA retention, CCTV, wheel clamping, vetting and barring have all become synonyms for the erosion of freedoms, and most people will be glad to see the Bill tackle them head on. However, there is something else that concerns a wide cross-section of the general public and, sadly, has not been addressed in the Bill: the way freedom of speech has been undermined by what we might call over-enthusiastic policing. It is often generated by the pressures of political correctness and causes officers to overreact to situations when no harm is being caused.
To voice one’s opinion without fear of punishment or censorship is a fundamental human right. Without it, political action and resistance to injustice and oppression are impossible. It is a precious right, and we must not allow it to be undermined. Several pieces of legislation have been suggested for amendments to improve free speech, but I want to focus, as did my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Mr Leigh), on section 5 of the Public Order Act 1986, which outlaws threatening, abusive or insulting words if they are likely to cause distress.
As we have heard, section 5 has been at the heart of several high-profile cases in recent years. Liberty wisely took up the cause of a 16-year-old protester who was given a court summons by police for holding a placard outside a Scientology centre stating, “Scientology is not a religion, it is a dangerous cult”. The boy claims that police told him that he could not use the word “cult”. City of London police gave him the court summons and confiscated his placard after he refused to take it down. They referred to the Crown Prosecution Service an allegation that the sign was “abusive or insulting”. When Liberty took up the issue, there was widespread criticism and the CPS dropped the case. As my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough has said, the defence of the existing law has been that guidance can be given to the police, but it did not work and has not worked in a number of cases.
Dale Mcalpine, a Christian street preacher, was arrested in Cumbria for answering a question from a police community support officer about his views on sexual ethics. He said that the Bible described homosexual conduct as a sin. He was arrested and detained by police for nearly eight hours. Even the president of the National Secular Society has said that the police response was ridiculous and over the top. I find myself in agreement with the renowned campaigner, Peter Tatchell, who said:
“If offending others is accepted as a basis for prosecution, most of the population of the UK would end up in court.”
He is quite right.
In a similar case, another street preacher, Anthony Rollins, was arrested, handcuffed and kept in a police cell for four hours after a passer-by was offended by him reciting a biblical list of those who would not inherit the kingdom of God. I am a Christian, and personally I might not agree with that method of evangelism, but the idea that someone can be arrested for reading from the Bible in public is very worrying. Once again, the guidance from the Association of Chief Police Officers did not work. Mr Rollins got help from a Christian campaign group, the charges against him were dropped and they helped him bring a legal action against the police. The court decided that Mr Rollins’ right to freedom of religion and freedom of speech had been breached, that he had been wrongfully arrested, had suffered assault and battery by being handcuffed and had been unlawfully detained. However, the police are appealing against that ruling. Despite everything, West Midlands police think that section 5 of the 1986 Act allows them to arrest street preachers for reciting the Bible. Clearly, the police have difficulty applying the law and the guidance that the Home Office says should deal with the problem.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough said, some cases are just plain ridiculous, and it is astonishing that the police waste time with them. In 2006, demonstrators in Worcester protested against seal culling by using toy seals coloured with red food dye—a harmless way of making a point. They were, however, threatened with arrest and the seizure of their property under section 5. The police told them that the toys were deemed distressing by two members of the public, and they ordered them to move on. Ridiculous.
As the grandson of a police officer, I feel sorry for the police. They have to make extremely tough decisions day in, day out, and often under the most extreme pressure. They are criticised by all sides for being too rough, too soft, insensitive or over-sensitive. They just cannot win, and the media rarely give them a break. I do not want to run down the police. I want to focus on what we as legislators can do to avoid putting them in the situation where they have to decide whether a complaint from someone who feels insulted should result in an arrest.
Mr David Burrowes (Enfield, Southgate) (Con)
My hon. Friend is making an important and strong case. Is he aware that, before he became a Member, whom we welcome, the House was occupied with debates about public order, particularly when dealing with cases of homophobic hatred? Many examples were cited and many concerns were expressed about application in that case. Such examples illustrate the problem with section 5 and its wide interpretation, and the need for us to take a proper, thorough look at it. This is an important opportunity to do so.
John Glen
I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s intervention. He makes a powerful point and underscores the fact that this Bill should take account of that anomaly. It is unfortunate that it does not.
We have to ask ourselves, “Should the law really criminalise insulting words?” Surely insult is in the eye of the beholder, so how can the police be expected to regulate that? Abusive behaviour is clear-cut: we all know it when we see it, and it is right that the law addresses it. Threatening behaviour is absolutely unacceptable, and we need laws to tackle it. But “insulting”? What would debate be like in this Chamber if an hon. Member could be silenced by an allegation from another hon. Member that he felt insulted by what was said?
In July last year my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister told us that this Bill would
“protect hard-won liberties and repeal unnecessary laws”.
The Government have made a good start, but they should seize the opportunity that the Bill presents to bolster freedom of expression by removing “insulting” from section 5 of the 1986 Act. There will be freedom from wheel clampers, but no freedom of speech. It does not make sense.
Priti Patel (Witham) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury (John Glen). I shall focus on certain aspects of the Bill, some of which have already been covered, but the pertinent point about freedom of speech has not been lost on the House or, no doubt, the Minister. My hon. Friend certainly made that point very well.
I welcome the Bill not only because of the measures that it introduces, but because it is another demonstration of the Government’s commitment to reversing the intrusiveness of Labour’s big-state, big-government approach to running the country. As right hon. and hon. Members know, the more the state does and the larger the state is, the more powers it inevitably takes away from individuals and the more control it exercises over the public. This legislation sits alongside other Government Bills in taking away powers and control from politicians and bureaucrats and restoring them to the people. I think that that is welcome. It is also a hallmark of a Government who trust people and respect the majority of the law-abiding public instead of automatically treating everyone with a degree of suspicion. By contrast, for 13 years the British people not only had to put up with the previous Government’s “nanny knows best” attitude but had to face the burdens of a Government who were prepared to ride roughshod over civil liberties.
Part 1 of the Bill deals with powers of entry. Despite their claims to support and promote human rights, the previous Government seemed to neglect the rights of individuals to enjoy a private life. It is obscene that the state can exercise some 1,200 different types of powers of entry, with an estimated 20,000—this is probably a conservative figure—unaccountable town hall officials having the right to enter private property without a warrant. There are powers to check anything from the height of hedges, to plant passports, to the energy ratings on people’s refrigerators, and even, bizarrely, households containing dancing bears without a permit. This system has been left unchecked for far too long and has expanded to erode people’s freedoms. I therefore welcome the new measures in the Bill to enable Ministers to review the powers of entry and then repeal those that are absolutely unnecessary or inappropriate, or to include the relevant safeguards. Having such powers on the statute book and open to abuse not only represents an attack on people’s privacy and freedoms but undermines the occasions when there may be a genuine need for powers of entry to be exercised.
Part 2 covers surveillance and CCTV. We hear about bin inspectors going through people’s rubbish, CCTV cameras pointing at people’s homes and being utterly intrusive, councils using powers designed to prevent terrorism to snoop on people, and other frivolous acts of espionage on the private lives of our constituents.
Bob Russell (Colchester) (LD)
Part of the hon. Lady’s constituency includes the borough of Colchester. Does she accept from me that there is a code of practice for the CCTV security cameras in Colchester town centre that prevents any of the intrusions that she is talking about? Only public areas and public buildings are covered, not private dwellings, which is particularly important where we have residences in town centres.
Priti Patel
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his comments. I absolutely agree. This shows not only the extent to which we need the Bill but the extent to which some of these powers have got out of control. CCTV must be focused on the correct areas and used in the right way. In relation to CCTV and many of the other areas covered in the Bill, the state has gone too far and has too many intrusive powers. It is shameful that the UK is now regarded as the only endemic surveillance society in Europe, placing us alongside China, Russia and Malaysia.
Although there will often be a fine line between the need, on one hand, to protect the freedom and privacy of individuals and, on the other, to curtail those protections for the benefit of the wider public interest, I welcome the new safeguards on liberty in the Bill, rebalancing the law in favour of our freedoms. It creates standards for the use of CCTV through a code of practice and a surveillance camera commissioner, and that provides more transparency and accountability, which is to be welcomed. I look forward to reading the commissioner’s report in due course and seeing where local authorities, in particular, and other organisations are in breach of the code and, in effect, wasting taxpayers’ money by being far too over-zealous in their surveillance activities.
However, I also believe that CCTV has a very important role to play in the fight against crime, and these measures have the potential to strengthen its effectiveness. Can the Minister therefore give an assurance that the code will also recognise the benefits of some key and vital uses of CCTV? Perhaps that can be done under clause 29(3)(a), which relates to the provisions in the code about
“whether to use surveillance camera systems”.
In the commissioner’s report, perhaps the details on best practice could include how CCTV is being used effectively to detect and prevent crime.
I also say to the Minister that my constituents obviously do not want to move away from the use of CCTV to the point of being overly cautious and fearful of using the technology. We have heard examples from the constituencies of many right hon. and hon. Members. I trust that, in drawing up the code, the Minister will take these points into account. On Friday, when I meet Witham Industrial Watch, a group of businesses that has come together to introduce CCTV across Witham’s various industrial estates, it will want an assurance on this matter. In particular, it will want to hear that we will not create unnecessary burdens on businesses or small shopkeepers who use CCTV in the right way to protect their business interests, staff and property from theft, damage and attack.
Finally, I congratulate the Government on the provisions to restore common sense to the vetting and barring system. We have heard a great deal about that aspect of the Bill in this debate. I am interested in this matter in relation to volunteering, engagement and participation in our communities. We have heard endlessly, for years and years, about the additional cost and bureaucracy of the system, and about how it prevents people from participating in our communities. In my view, that is a bad thing. Change is long overdue to bring back some common sense. I have heard the various views this evening and although we should never water down safeguards and protections, I think that the previous system—Labour’s system—had more to do with treating everybody with a degree of suspicion and almost like criminals than with protecting children and vulnerable groups.
Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising this issue, and I think there is another element to it. Too many employers seem to think that because CRB checks are made, they do not have to make checks themselves. We must be alert to that danger.
Priti Patel
I agree absolutely on that point. There is no doubt that this issue needs some rebalancing and some common sense. This system has had a devastating impact on people who have been wrongly referenced. There should be a more proportionate approach. Hopefully the mistakes will be reduced as well. I want to see measures that protect the vulnerable and our children. This Bill is a step in the right direction and it is a proportionate response in this area.
David T. C. Davies (Monmouth) (Con)
We have heard from many people on the Government and Opposition Benches for whom I have the utmost respect, including from my hon. Friend the Member for Witham (Priti Patel). However, I do not share the enthusiasm of all Government Members for all aspects of the Bill. There are many parts with which I heartily agree, and we have heard a few examples of areas where the current legislation has gone wrong.
Years ago, I was involved in a case in the Welsh Assembly in which a bus driver who worked for a company that undertook school bus runs was told that he might lose his job because 20 years previously he had incurred a minor conviction for shoplifting or a drink-related offence at the age of 19. For 20 years, he had lived a perfectly good life and suddenly he was about to lose his job over that minor offence. Clearly, such examples are totally and utterly disproportionate and I hope that we will do something about them.
I am less keen when I hear people talking about a police state. I declare an interest as a serving special constable in the British Transport police. I assure Members that when I go out it does not look like a police state. I have conducted many section 44 stop and searches, and I do not recognise the descriptions that have been given. I would challenge the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake), who is not currently in his place, to ask the gentleman who says that he was stopped and searched every time he stepped out on the streets of London to produce the written evidence. Written evidence there most definitely will be, because every stop and search of that nature required about 20 minutes of paperwork.
One problem with section 44 stop-and-searches was that they were carried out entirely at random and were never actually picking people up. The police officers themselves were not enthusiastic about doing them, because they knew that they would annoy a member of the public who was probably not doing anything at all, incur at least 20 minutes of paperwork and be most unlikely to get anyone for anything.
Section 44 is going, which is fine, but the Government ought to consider the fact that the other stop-and-search legislation is not adequate to catch people who are clearly breaking the law. For example, on many occasions— I assure Members that I mean many, many occasions—I have stopped people for committing offences that were never going to be arrestable. The first thing that a police officer does in that situation is to check whether the person in question is known to the police for anything and whether they have a previous record. Very often it turns out that they do, and that there are warning markers indicating that they regularly carry knives, guns, drugs or other illegal paraphernalia.
At that point, faced with somebody who has committed an offence that will not get them arrested—perhaps begging or abusive language—but who regularly carries guns, knives or drugs, one would think that the officer would have the power to search them, but they do not. Unless the police officer can actually see the knife or drugs sticking out of a pocket, there are no powers to search somebody. The officer cannot take account of a person’s previous record. If we are going to get rid of section 44 stop-and-search powers, which is absolutely fine, we should at the same time ensure that people who are likely to commit offences or carry illegal apparatus can be properly searched.
We need to let the police know that when they see people acting suspiciously, they will still the have the power to stop and search. A lot of police officers, myself included, having undergone courses such as the behaviour spotting one—it is called BASS, but I will not bore Members with the details of what that means. It is about spotting people behaving in a suspicious fashion. Many police officers I have spoken to still feel uneasy about simply going up to somebody to stop and search them, even if they have been displaying obvious signs of acting in a manner that is likely to mean they were about to commit an offence.
Members of the public might feel that the police are for ever stopping and searching them—every time they go out on the streets of London, according to one Member—but police officers actually feel very nervous about going up to people to stop and search them. They feel that they are likely to get complaints if they do so. I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will think about that. I have tabled amendments in the past suggesting that officers should be able to take account of somebody’s previous criminal record in deciding whether to conduct a stop and search, but I have not succeeded thus far. I do not know whether I have any more chance under the current Government than under the previous one—I suspect possibly not.
Tom Brake
The hon. Gentleman has referred to me both since I came back into the Chamber and, I understand, while I was not here. I would be very happy to introduce him to the baroness in question at the other end of the building, who will explain to him precisely what her son-in-law experienced. Then he will be able to make his own judgment.
David T. C. Davies
I would be delighted. I believe the hon. Gentleman said that every time that baroness’s son-in-law set foot on the streets of London, he was stopped and searched. The first thing that I would ask him would be, “Did you ask for the copies of the pink slips that have to be lodged every time you are stopped and searched?” If he was stopped and searched there will be a record of it, and we should be able to prove whether that happened every time he set foot on the streets of London. I look forward to pursuing the matter.
The issue of previous criminal records brings me to that of DNA, on which I have some sympathy with Opposition Members. I do not think that there was anything fundamentally wrong in collecting people’s DNA. I have done it myself, and I will be quite honest in saying that I am not sure that the Government have got it right. I asked the Home Secretary earlier whether she accepted that, as a result of the change, people who had committed crimes would be able to get away with it. She said that that was not true. I have the utmost respect for her, but I am very direct and I must say that I do not believe that and cannot accept it.
We see in the Bill that the Government have decided that anyone who is arrested for specific types of offences—terrorism, drugs, violence, rape and that sort of thing—will have their DNA kept indefinitely if they have a previous recorded offence. The Government recognise that keeping people’s DNA is useful when they have been arrested for offences such as murder, rape, violence or terrorism even if they are not convicted, which I welcome. However, it surely follows, therefore, that DNA can also be useful in respect of less serious offences, such as burglary or taking a vehicle without consent. We should make it clear to members of the public that we are increasing their rights and liberties, but that there is a cost—that is obvious, and we should be honest about it. One cost is that some burglars and car thieves will not be caught.
Anna Soubry (Broxtowe) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend agree that the Bill is about striking a balance between maintaining law and order and ensuring that crimes are properly investigated, and maintaining civil liberties and ensuring that we do not live in the sort of society in which people who are completely exonerated of the smallest misdemeanour find that their DNA is kept for ever or even for a considerable period? The previous Government got that balance wrong, and this one are putting it right.
David T. C. Davies
One’s DNA might be kept for a long time, but that would be irrelevant if one did not go out and commit another offence. If one did, one would be arrested.
I agree, however, with my hon. Friend’s general point on the balance. The previous Government may have got it wrong—they have accepted as much—but we should also look at the context in which they took some of their decisions. The terrible tube bombings in 2005 caused people to think long and hard about it, and perhaps it always changes. To be philosophical for a moment, would my hon. Friend rather live in a failed state where there is no police presence or law and order whatever, or in a rather unpleasant dictatorship of the sort that we currently see falling in north Africa? Although that is not an easy choice, most people would rather live under Mubarak in Egypt than under whatever passes for a Government in Somalia, because at the end of the day, security is one of the most important things that people have—without it, we have nothing.
The only general complaint that I have heard about CCTV and surveillance cameras is that there are not enough of them, but I accept that the police and some local authorities have recorded people inappropriately. The police have a great deal of paperwork to fill out before they can use surveillance cameras on people, but I am not sure about local authorities.
The stringent new rules will presumably stop the police targeting criminals and local authorities from targeting the ubiquitous karate instructor who claims disability benefits, but will they apply to newspaper editors? This is a serious point. As I said, men who have had consensual sexual relationships with other men will no longer have to declare that as an offence—and quite rightly; that is one of the many measures in the Bill with which I agree. However, what if a newspaper surreptitiously films people having consensual sex, and because they are in the public eye, publishes the details and puts the film on the internet? I suggest that if anyone else tried to do that in any capacity, they would quite rightly find that they had breached a law—yet newspapers get away with it. Will the Home Secretary assure us that, in future, newspapers will have to abide by the same codes and laws that are and will be applied to local authorities that are looking for benefit cheats or police officers who are looking for criminals? Benefits cheats and criminals should be targeted far more stringently than footballers who have slept with somebody to whom they are not married.
I have one final point on that. I notice that some sort of ombudsman or commissioner will be responsible for ensuring that the rules on surveillance cameras are applied, but they will have no powers. They will have the ability to say, “I think that that was wrong,” but they will not have the ability to do anything about it. However, they will have a salary of £250,000 a year. That is extraordinary, given that Members of Parliament have been told to change the law to ensure that we do not get any salary increase at all. We are being paid £65,000 a year, and if it is good enough for us, it should be good enough for whoever is put in charge of this rather toothless surveillance camera body. I would like an assurance from the Government that we are not putting through a Bill that will get rid of a lot of quangos only to create a job that will pay £250,000 a year. Mind you, there will be quite a few MPs looking for jobs in four years, so perhaps one of us will be the lucky one who gets the £250,000 salary.
Last but not least, a few people have got the wrong idea about the police. I know that you might think that I am a bit biased—not you, Madam Deputy Speaker; I forget the correct use of language or terminology. However, I am sure that most people will understand that the police have a very difficult job to do. One hon. Member went out with protesters during the G20 riots. I was out with the police the day before. I turned up for duty on the day, but spent most of my time sitting in a police station, drinking tea and watching the events unfold on Sky—such is the way when we sign up for these things. However, I went out the night before, and I was threatened by people. I knew that the police were outnumbered and felt very threatened. Police officers are human like everybody else. They get scared when confronted by people, when they are outnumbered 10 to one and when people are throwing iron bars and trying to attack them, and I think that we should show a little bit more understanding when we talk about a police state, and realise that the police are very often the victims of crime, yet also end up as the people about whom complaints are made. I hope that everybody in the House recognises the very difficult job that the vast majority of them do courageously and well.
Bob Russell (Colchester) (LD)
I shall support the Second Reading of the Protection of Freedoms Bill, although I hope that some of the reservations I am about to express will be taken note of in Committee. There are at least two unintended consequences in the Bill concerning not so much the protection of freedoms for the law-abiding, as making life so much better for two categories of antisocial people. The first are those who park illegally on other people’s property, and the second are those who cause undue misery with late-night parties and so on. I cannot believe that there is a single Member here who has not had casework from constituents complaining about late-night noise or antisocial noise on summer afternoons. If the Bill passes as proposed, with its subsections and so on, I regret to say that it will be an open invitation for the antisocial noise people to up their game in the confident knowledge that local authorities will have fewer powers at their disposal to deal with them.
I will, however, begin with the wheel-clamping provision, which has been added to the Bill because—I think—it was here to have things added to it. I am not here to defend the rogue firms of wheel-clampers. I do not think that anyone in the Chamber is prepared to speak up for those cowboys, although I always think that to describe them as that is an insult to cowboys. Nevertheless, there are companies and individuals who have abused the wheel clamp, which used correctly and in the right way is a tool that helps the law-abiding.
The Minister for Equalities started this debate on 17 August last year. I have raised the matter on the Floor of the House before and spoken to her, so I am not saying anything that will come as a surprise. She announced that the freedom Bill would provide for an outright ban on clamping on private land, where it is carried out by private companies. I can just about understand that if the private land is a commercial property, but I am not sure about the idea when applied to private land owned by individual householders. At the moment, the Bill proposes that if somebody parked in the Minister’s drive, he would be restricted in the action that he could take to deal with the problem.
I want to quote the case of the Balkerne Heights residential area, which is right next to a multi-storey car park on the edge of Colchester town centre. The communal parking for the area’s housing became a magnet for illegal parking by late-night revellers, weekend shoppers and so on. The notion that polite requests not to park in people’s private parking areas will be acceded to is a little optimistic. The people causing the problem generally responded with certain words, the second of which was “off”. The only way that those parking abuses were dealt with was through the introduction of the wheel clamp. I would say that the Minister’s front drive is exactly the same as the communal parking area of people living in flats or communal housing. It is their drive: it is where they park their cars.
Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)
Looking at the Bill, it is clear that people will be able to close their gates and stop somebody removing a car that way. There is implied consent to allowing a restriction under clause 54(3)(a), and if the case is broader than that, the people or the commercial organisation involved can apply to the council to come and do the clamping for them. I think the problem that my hon. Friend is worried about is covered.
Bob Russell
I hope that my hon. Friend is correct in his understanding, but that has to be spelt out in the Bill, because it is not my understanding. If he is right, no problem—but if I am right, there is a problem. That is exactly the sort of thing that needs to be fleshed out and firmly written down, because clause 54(3)(a) refers to cases where
“there is express or implied consent by the driver of the vehicle to restricting its movement by a fixed barrier”.
Whether the barrier is up or down is irrelevant. Currently, the local planning authority may well refuse an application to start erecting barriers in carefully designed new housing areas, with landscaped grounds and all the rest of it, but if the Bill goes ahead, they will have to erect barriers to meet the very point that has quite rightly been made. Those are the unintended consequences.
I would argue that if residents living on a private housing estate with their own private communal parking areas wish to put a wheel clamp on, why can they not do so? It is an extraordinary state of affairs when the coalition Government are putting forward a Bill with a clause that would give more rights to the illegal parker than the person who owns the land where the car is illegally parked. The notion that residents could run off to the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency or whoever else to get fines paid, and all the rest of it, is fanciful. Therefore, with the greatest of respect, what I would say is that more work needs to be done on that one.
The House of Commons Library has produced some excellent research—as ever, by the way—on the Bill. If Members who have the briefing would care to look at pages 26 through to 28, they will realise that the authors of the Bill need to dot a few i’s and cross a few t’s in Committee, because—I repeat—what we have at the moment is an opportunity for those who want to park illegally in other people’s private, communal, residential parking areas to do so almost with impunity. Under a heading entitled “The Bill’s provisions”, the research paper tells us:
“The Government had not previously indicated that there would be any parking-related measures in the Bill, or in fact that it was planning to make any changes to parking regulation at all.”
Therefore, those provisions have been bolted on. People who live in town centres have the advantages of the town centre, but sometimes one of the disadvantages is people coming into town, not parking where they should and abusing other people’s private parking areas. I ask the Minister to address that issue in Committee. I understand the need to tackle rogue wheel-clamping firms, but, with the greatest respect, I think that private home owners should have the right to use wheel clamps on vehicles parked on their private property, whether it is a private drive or a communal parking area.
The second unintended consequence of the Bill relates to those people whom we all love and who delight in causing problems for their neighbours by, among other things, having all-night parties. Chapter 2 of the Bill covers safeguards for certain surveillance under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000. I am grateful to the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health for drawing my attention to the serious consequences of these provisions. There cannot be a Member here tonight who has not been contacted by constituents as a result of noisy antisocial neighbours.
As an aside, I would like to make an important observation as the former chairman of the all-party parliamentary group on noise reduction. I wish that the coalition Government would introduce regulations to require greater noise insulation in new house building. A lot of attention is paid to heat retention in such buildings, but nothing is done about noise elimination. Perhaps another Government Department could pick that one up.
It has been suggested that the Bill has been prompted by claims in the popular press of unjustified snooping by local authorities, because it contains provisions to restrict the surveillance activities of those authorities by inserting additional tests into the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act. One such test would require authorisations given by senior local authority officers to be approved, in addition, by a magistrate. That would make the process of authorisation more time consuming, and it would make things harder for increasingly stretched authorities—not least at night, when most complaints of this nature are made. The likely outcome of the proposal is that many fewer noise complaints would be investigated.
Anna Soubry
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that such matters are not the domain of local authorities? The last Government made a big mistake when they mixed up the role of the police with the civil functions of local authorities. I suggest that problems of noisy neighbours holding late-night parties are the domain of the police, not the local authority.
Bob Russell
I do not think that I can agree with the hon. Lady on that. We are talking about authority in its broadest sense, whether it involves the police, the local authority or whoever. The public are entitled to live in peace, and if their peace is disrupted, the matter could be dealt with by the police or by the local authority. The two working in concert would be the best way; that has always been the way in which I have approached these issues.
The Bill proposes a further test that the crime that is to be prevented or detected should carry a minimum prison sentence. Noise offences do not, however, carry custodial sentences, and the effect of the provision would be to remove that ground for authorising surveillance. This matter needs to be thrashed out in Committee, because RIPA was never intended to deal with problems such as these. At a time when local authorities are shedding significant numbers of officers, they will need to become more efficient in order to maintain services. I have no argument with that, but barriers to achieving it will need to be removed, rather than new ones being erected. When there is no evidence that noise investigations are being carried out inappropriately, additional controls are neither justified nor in the public interest. I suggest that we should take the opportunity in Committee to remove them from the ambit of RIPA altogether.
I am sure that many of us will have read the letter in The Times yesterday from Mr Howard Price, the principal policy officer of the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health—[Interruption.] Well, Members are going to hear it now. It says:
“The Protection of Freedoms Bill is about to receive its second reading. It contains provisions to amend the Regulation of Investigatory Power Act…to limit the surveillance activity of local authorities by requiring authorisations made by senior officers to be approved in addition by magistrates. Hundreds of thousands of neighbour noise complaints are made to local authorities each year. Listening to such noise in the course of investigation amounts to ‘surveillance’ under the Act and arguably requires authorisation. The Bill will make that more time-consuming and harder for authorities to obtain, especially at night when most complaints are made. Complaints will go unanswered. RIPA was never intended to apply to this activity. It will be a further unintended consequence if this Bill protects the freedom of noise-makers over that of householders wanting only a peaceful night’s sleep. Noise investigations should be excluded”—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)
Order. The hon. Gentleman may provide us with a quotation, but I do not think we need him to read out the entire letter. He can make his point quite succinctly now, as we still have a few more speakers wanting to contribute.
Bob Russell
I am grateful, Madam Deputy Speaker. I accept what you have said and I shall now sit down as I had only 10 more words to go.
Mr William Cash (Stone) (Con)
I fear that the “Protection of Freedoms Bill” is not really what it says on the tin. People might think that the Bill protects freedom, but I am afraid to say that it does many things that are not apparent in its provisions. In particular, one of the greatest freedoms we need to protect is the right to decide our own laws and, indeed, to ensure that the judiciary complies with the will of Parliament. Unfortunately, on close examination, I found that the Bill’s content is to do with the upholding of European Court rulings. That is where the problem lies, and I fear that some hon. Members may have missed the wood for the trees. This is entitled the Protection of Freedoms Bill, but it would be far better to describe it as the “Subjection to European Rulings Bill”, as one case after another simply endorses decisions taken by the European Court. By that, I mean the European Court of Human Rights in particular.
We recently debated the rights of prisoners to vote, and the result of the Division on the motion was 222 to 15. Unfortunately, I could not be here. I am sorry to have to admit this, but I was working as Chairman of my Select Committee in Budapest. However, I thoroughly endorse what was said in the course of that debate on prisoners’ votes, but there is no reference to prisoners’ votes in the Bill. The Bill has skipped that one; it is waiting for another occasion. The reason is quite simple: the coalition Government know that idea of including prisoners’ votes as one of the freedoms in this Bill would be catastrophic for them. That is not to say that we should endorse the Bill’s reference to other European Court rulings contained in the provisions, but not set out in the Bill. Unless hon. Members have read much of the background material and case law, it is impossible for them to know exactly how much this Bill offends the principle endorsed by this House by 222 votes to 15.
Let me provide some examples. Given that we have only recently come back after a recess, I doubt whether people have had a chance to read the Home Office memorandum on the Bill, and some may be more interested in its detail than others. I find that detail often throws up one or two of the unfortunate aspects of the manner in which Governments—and the coalition Government in particular—operate. The memorandum says:
“This is a human rights enhancing Bill.”
No, it is not; it is a European Court of Human Rights enhancing Bill. I refer to cases such as the S. and Marper case which related to the retention of fingerprints and biometric data. I would like to see such matters properly dealt with in legislation, and the same applies to the stop-and-search provisions, to which the Gillan and Quinton case relates. Why can we not legislate on our terms in this House? Why must we subject the House to legislating to implement the rulings of the European Court of Human Rights, when we have no reason whatever for not legislating on our terms? Putting it in statute form means that the matter goes to our courts for an interpretation of that legislation. Then, in the interpretation of the legislation, our own courts, either at first instance or more likely in the Supreme Court, apply the European jurisprudence.
I remind the House of a point that I have tried to make in debates over a long period and of a speech by the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Judge, who said that we must beware of the manner in which our legislation is being subjugated to Strasbourg decisions. He warned the judges, “Brothers and sisters, beware of applying the decisions of the Strasbourg court.” [Laughter.] Brothers and sisters, comrades!
The manner in which the implementation will happen is a form of Trojan horse. I would want to see many of the problems that the Bill raises dealt with by legislation, to ensure that people were not unfairly stopped and searched or that children got the proper protection. However, it should not be done through this vehicle. By not eliminating the European convention on human rights and the Human Rights Act formula, we give ourselves over increasingly to the Europeanisation of our law-making and the judicial claims made in the Supreme Court at the expense of the House. Effectively, we are digging our own grave.
At the same time, I hear and read that the Government are becoming more “Eurosceptic”—I do not know what that word means; Eurorealist is much more to the point.
Ms Louise Bagshawe (Corby) (Con)
Is my hon. Friend not in danger slightly of over-egging the pudding? I share many of his concerns about European law, but does the Bill not attempt to address some domestic injustices, and should we not support such a step in the right direction?
Mr Cash
As I said, I am extremely glad that many of the provisions are being dealt with, as they needed to be dealt with—but not in this manner. Notwithstanding the Human Rights Act, if it was done as my Bill on terrorism will provide, for example, we could preserve habeas corpus and avoid all the difficulties that have arisen in relation to control orders and pre-charge detentions, on our terms. That is the way we should be going, but that is for another day.
The Bill takes us in the wrong direction. As I said in an intervention on the Home Secretary about powers of entry, the Library note states that
“around one third of these powers of entry derive from regulations made under the European Communities Act 1972.”
The Home Secretary said it was important for us to get rid of many of the 1,272 powers of entry, but, as I pointed out to her then, it is essential for us to get rid of the regulations made under the European Communities Act 1972 as well. I think she would have accepted that, had it not been for the existence of a rather considerable problem: we cannot get rid of the regulations made under the 1972 Act without expressly providing in the legislation that, notwithstanding the Act, we should act in that way. There is an element of what I would not describe as hypocrisy, but would certainly describe as contradiction, in the principle behind the Bill.
I could give many other instances of overlap with the European Court of Human Rights, but I shall merely observe that I think it extremely unfortunate that this is being sold as the Protection of Freedoms Bill when, for practical purposes, it is taking us further and deeper into European integration. I say that without really wanting to have to say it. It would be easy to step back and say, as my hon. Friend the Member for Corby (Ms Bagshawe) said just now, that it does some good. Indeed, I have heard many Members say that there is a great deal of good in it. However, as I said to the Home Secretary earlier, although there may be good intentions behind it, we must ask ourselves what kind of law we want in this country.
When the Supreme Court speaks of the rule of law, I ask yet again: which law, and who will enforce it? We already know that there are serious problems, but here is another one. In one of the cases in question, after the House of Lords had made its judgment the Supreme Court was brought in, and, because the European Court of Human Rights had made a decision in the meantime, decided to endorse that decision rather than the decision made by our own courts. Some very difficult questions arise. There seems to be an increasing tendency for the Supreme Court to assent to the manner in which the European Court of Human Rights makes its decisions, effectively moving into a new arena in which what Parliament may decide is overridden, and making decisions that are not necessarily what the electorate expected when they elected us as Members of Parliament.
Let me also mention, in parenthesis, the accession of the European Union to the European convention on human rights. As I discussed the issue during our debates on the European Union Bill, I shall not go over the territory again, save to say that it creates a great deal of uncertainty about which of the jurisdictions will prevail. I regret to say that I believe that what is happening in the Bill is not what was expected to happen. Some commentators may misunderstand it, but the truth is that if we do not get the principle right—the principle of who rules—we will find ourselves drawn increasingly into a web that is growing all the time, involving the sovereignty of the House and decision making.
I believe that this is entirely deliberate. I am absolutely certain that the Home Secretary has been properly briefed. I think that she knows exactly what is in her Bill. I think that she wants it, I think that she is determined to have it, and I think that the coalition is completely and utterly convinced of its merits. Indeed, the Home Secretary said the following in a statement on the judgment in the Gillan and Quinton case:
“The Government cannot appeal this judgment, although we would not have done so had we been able.”—[Official Report, 8 July 2010; Vol. 513, c. 540.]
This is therefore about an attitude of mind: it is about there being a determination to go down a certain route, irrespective of the consequences for how we in this House legislate. I therefore simply say that I think there are many good reasons for adapting some of the provisions that are currently on the statute book, but the key is how we do it. The crucial point is that if we do it the wrong way, all we will end up doing is reducing the right of this House to legislate for itself.
Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)
We have had a very lively debate, and I hope Members will forgive me if I cannot respond to every point that was made. We heard from the hon. Member for Gainsborough (Mr Leigh), my right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw), the hon. Members for Dartford (Gareth Johnson) and for Strangford (Jim Shannon), my hon. Friend the Member for Airdrie and Shotts (Pamela Nash), the hon. Members for Oxford West and Abingdon (Nicola Blackwood), for Belfast East (Naomi Long), for Salisbury (John Glen), for Witham (Priti Patel), for Monmouth (David T. C. Davies) and for Colchester (Bob Russell) and, last but not least, the hon. Member for Stone (Mr Cash). The question I ask myself, however, is: where is the Deputy Prime Minister? We were told that sweeping away all these measures was going to be his big achievement in government. Having heard all the rhetoric, I was expecting to see the right hon. Gentleman burst the doors open and ride into the Chamber on a trusty white steed, with his shield of truth and his sword of virtue, telling us he was going to lead us all to some promised land of freedom.
Sadly however, that was not to be the case. All we have had is a handful of Liberals in the Chamber all evening, but we would have thought they would be piling in to support this Bill since it is their key platform—it is the major plank of their contribution to the coalition Government. [Interruption.] Well, that is the source of the Bill. We support some aspects of it, as some of them are sensible, yet there are others on which we will want to ask questions and some on which we will challenge the Government position.
Throughout the debate, we have heard Members say that this is about balance, yet first and foremost, it is about balancing the coalition and appeasing Liberal Democrat Members. It is also about the need to hold together the coalition, and I wonder what some of the Tory Members, who are shuffling uncomfortably in their seats, will do when they are asked to vote for measures that in normal circumstances they would not support.
Over the past few decades, this House has been called on to act to protect people in the face of threats of many kinds, and to legislate on matters such as those addressed in this Bill. Public opinion has been strong on many of them, including the threat from international terrorists who have carried out atrocities on an unprecedented scale, increased concerns about public protection and the protection of children and vulnerable adults, the proliferation of closed circuit television, and freedom of information. At the same time however, new technology and advances in science have challenged us to legislate on, and regulate, their uses. We have faced demands for new scientific and surveillance techniques to be made available to those charged with the task of keeping the public safe.
This debate, like those that have gone before it, is about the balance that should be struck in respect of the civil rights of ordinary citizens to live without fear of harm or interference or becoming a victim of crime, and the need to protect the civil liberties of those individuals and hold back the state from intruding in their private lives. Events have led us to legislate on the issues we are debating today. We will be judged on our actions in respect of these events, the balance to be struck and the issues addressed in the Bill.
We have heard from Members on both sides of the clamping argument. The hon. Member for Colchester spoke very forcefully. The residents of one estate in my constituency are concerned because they live close to a railway station where commuters want to park and they fear that their estate will be turned into a car park. By contrast, a private road in my local town centre is policed by a cage fighter in a van who sits at the bottom of the road like a trapdoor spider waiting for anybody to park illegally on that private land. So a balance needs to be struck on this issue.
The same is true on the use of biometric information in schools. Labour Members accept that it is sensible for parents to be consulted and we welcome the proposal. However, on protecting individuals’ rights in schools, these powers have been used to protect young people who receive free school meals from being identified and stigmatised. So as much as we may want to see this sensible change made, we will want to see how far it goes in protecting the rights of those individuals too.
On the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000, CCTV and surveillance, councils have played a vital role in creating public areas that the public consider to be safe. Such measures have been used to tackle issues relating to speeding cars, town centres and antisocial behaviour. So our attempts to legislate to regulate the use of CCTV and surveillance must not limit the ability of local authorities to play their important role in ensuring community safety. I have never had anyone come to me asking for the removal of a CCTV camera, and many colleagues have said the same.
We all accept the principle that some individuals who are innocent will have their biometric details retained, and I hope that the Home Secretary accepts that. Tonight’s debate is not about all innocent people having their biometric details destroyed, as some have claimed; it is about where we set the balance. The Government have clearly come down on the side of reducing the amount of biometric information that we retain, but I suggest to Government Members that events will cause us to revisit this issue. Can any Government Member say that the changes to reduce the scope of biometric details that will be retained will not result in one of their constituents saying that had the changes not been made, their family member or friend would not have suffered a serious criminal assault? Nobody here tonight can say that so we must think carefully about what we are about to do. The media will make a great deal of the issue if those circumstances come about, and Government Members will have some serious questions to answer. How many children need to be attacked for it to be worth some people in our communities suffering the intrusion of having their biometric details retained on a DNA database?
I shall now discuss barring and vetting. The protection of children is one of the most important issues that can come before us on the Floor of the House. This is about setting the balance between the need for people to volunteer and for us to encourage people to play their part in their local communities, and the need to ensure that the right framework is in place to create a safe environment where parents can be sure that their children will come to no harm. This is not only about the risks from people who have unsupervised contact with children; it is also about the people who can come close to vulnerable children and groom them. Such people are among the most dangerous individuals in our communities and they go to great lengths to gain our trust in order to deceive the most vulnerable. So it is again important that we strike the right balance between the need to protect those individuals and the individual rights that the Home Secretary has said that she is seeking to protect.
We all want to protect children and vulnerable adults in our communities but it is important to get the balance right. The previous Government’s record was to leave crime down by 43% and satisfaction rates with the police at record levels. We now face cuts of 10,000 police officers and some will question why the Government have chosen to take away some of the most important tools the police have in their toolkit when they are also facing a reduction in resources.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (James Brokenshire)
This has been a good debate. The passion shown and the wide-ranging nature of the debate has underlined the fact that freedom of speech is very much alive and well in the House. I take heart from the broad support across the House for many, if not all, of the Bill’s provisions. There is a clear recognition from Members on the Government Benches—and, indeed, by a number of Opposition Members—that the previous Government’s approach during their 13 years in office eroded a number of freedoms and, importantly, failed to enhance our security. Freedom was not enhanced by the creation of a leviathan national identity register containing the personal details of every adult in the country. Civil liberties were not protected by creating a database holding the details of every child. The vulnerable were not safeguarded by requiring more than 9 million employees and volunteers to register with a Government agency. Justice was not served by including more than 1 million unconvicted individuals on the national DNA database, and community cohesion was not strengthened by the police stopping hundreds of thousands of people under anti-terrorism powers but making only a handful of arrests for terrorist offences.
I remind Opposition Members of the Leader of the Opposition’s words to the Labour party conference:
“But we must always remember that British liberties were hard fought and hard won over hundreds of years. We should always take the greatest care in protecting them. And too often we seemed casual about them.”
This Government will not be casual about liberty. That is why the Bill sets out a different approach that will protect our communities while defending personal freedoms.
This has been a good debate and I thank hon. Members on the Government side, including my hon. Friends the Members for Gainsborough (Mr Leigh) and for Dartford (Gareth Johnson), as well as my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Nicola Blackwood), whom I welcome as the successor to Evan Harris, although there have been some comments in support of the activities that Evan continues to do outside the House. I thank also my hon. Friends the Members for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake), for Salisbury (John Glen), for Witham (Priti Patel), for Monmouth (David T. C. Davies), for Colchester (Bob Russell) and for Stone (Mr Cash). In addition, I thank many Opposition Members for their contributions, including the light relief provided by the vision of his brush with Oddjob described by the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw), who did not specify whether his fingerprints were taken by Goldfinger. I know that the right hon. Member for Doncaster Central (Ms Winterton) would have liked to take part in the debate on wheel-clamping, and we appreciate her support for those measures.
I am conscious of time and I will do my best to cover as many as possible of the points that have been raised, but I apologise if I am not able to get through them all. On CCTV, I welcome the support of many hon. Members for the introduction of a statutory code of practice and the appointment of an independent surveillance commissioner. Those measures will help to maintain and strengthen public confidence in the use of CCTV systems and will ensure that the millions of pounds invested in such systems deliver value for money. Some hon. Members have commented on whether this trust and confidence is required, and I highlight the comments of Sara Thornton, the chief constable of Thames Valley police, in her review of Project Champion concerning CCTV usage in Birmingham. She said:
“As a consequence, the trust and confidence that they”—
in other words, the local people—
“have in the police has been significantly undermined.
There is a real opportunity to learn from Project Champion about the damage that can be done to police legitimacy when the police are seen to be acting in a way which prizes expediency over legitimacy.”
That is the context in which we should consider the provisions in the Bill relating to CCTV.
My hon. Friends the Members for Carshalton and Wallington and for Oxford West and Abingdon highlighted the application of the CCTV code of practice. The code is intended to benefit all system users. The specific requirement to have regard to the code is initially limited to the police and local authorities as the principal operators of public space CCTV systems, but the use of privately operated cameras in private or semi-public spaces is more complex. We wish to achieve a consensus on key issues before considering whether to extend the duty to have regard to the code of practice to other operators—for example, in shopping centres. I take on board the comments that were made. I can offer my hon. Friend the Member for Witham an assurance that we recognise the important role played by CCTV in detecting and deterring crime.
An issue that was raised which is not in the Bill was section 5 of the Public Order Act 1986. It is essential to consider in the round whether current laws strike the right balance on freedom of expression, freedom of assembly, freedom to manifest one’s religion and the need to protect the public. In its report, “Adapting to Protest”, Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary suggested that changing the law was not the answer. In many ways it was the constant changes to the Public Order Act that had led to operational confusion. The Government will continue to review the law throughout the course of this Parliament to ensure that it allows competing rights to be properly balanced.
Comments were made on the provisions for safeguarding vulnerable groups. Some Opposition Members expressed concern that reforms to the vetting and barring scheme would put children and vulnerable adults at greater risk. We do not consider that that will be the case. The remodelled scheme set out in the Bill will cover those who may have regular or close contact with children or vulnerable adults. It will provide for a more proportionate and efficient scheme in tandem with a refined criminal records disclosure service. The creation of a huge database to monitor millions of ordinary people created an artificial sense of security. We are moving back to a common-sense approach.
Yvette Cooper
Will the Minister confirm that if somebody applying for a post as a voluntary teaching assistant has been barred from work as a teacher owing to inappropriate contact or behaviour with children, the school will not be told that the independent experts at the ISA have barred that person?
James Brokenshire
As my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary made clear, the underlying information will be known. That is the key point. It is worth mentioning that the Under-Secretary of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Lynne Featherstone) met the NSPCC and other bodies, which said that they were assured by the explanations that they were given.
On DNA, we reject the allegations that we are being soft on crime. That is not the case. We recognise the importance of DNA and how it combats crime. Our approach is based on putting the guilty on the database to make a difference there, not putting on the database those who are innocent.
The Bill strikes the right balance between individual freedom and collective protection. It guards against the unnecessary and unregulated intrusion by Government into the lives of the many. It protects the fundamental values of liberty and freedom that mark this country out. I commend the Bill to the House.
Question put and agreed to.
Bill accordingly read a Second time.
protection of freedoms bill (programme)
Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 83A(7)),
That the following provisions shall apply to the Protection of Freedoms Bill:
Committal
1. The Bill shall be committed to a Public Bill Committee.
Proceedings in Public Bill Committee
2. Proceedings in the Public Bill Committee shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion on Tuesday 10 May.
3. The Public Bill Committee shall have leave to sit twice on the first day on which it meets.
Consideration and Third Reading
4. Proceedings on Consideration shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion one hour before the moment of interruption on the day on which those proceedings are commenced.
5. Proceedings on Third Reading shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion at the moment of interruption on that day.
6. Standing Order No. 83B (Programming committees) shall not apply to proceedings on Consideration and Third Reading.
Other proceedings
7. Any other proceedings on the Bill (including any proceedings on consideration of Lords Amendments or on any further messages from the Lords) may be programmed.—(Bill Wiggin.)
Question agreed to.
protection of freedoms bill (money)
Queen’s recommendation signified.
Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 52(1)(a)),
That, for the purposes of any Act resulting from the Protection of Freedoms Bill, it is expedient to authorise—
(1) the payment out of money provided by Parliament of—
(a) any expenditure incurred by a Minister of the Crown by virtue of this Act; and
(b) any increase attributable to this Act in the sums payable by virtue of any other Act out of money so provided, and
(2) the making of payments into the Consolidated Fund.—(Bill Wiggin.)
Question agreed to.
Business without Debate
Mr Speaker
Before calling Mr Laurence Robertson to speak on the Adjournment, I appeal to Members leaving the Chamber, who quite unaccountably do not wish to hear the speech about the Tote, to do so quickly and quietly so that we can listen attentively to Mr Laurence Robertson.
The Tote
Mr Laurence Robertson (Tewkesbury) (Con)
I, too, am surprised that so many Members do not want to hear this timely and important debate. I am pleased to have secured it and grateful to the Minister for staying behind to reply to it. I am also grateful for his genial and informed approach to all the horse racing issues that the Government have to deal with.
I wish to declare two non-declarable interests. I have the honour of being joint chair of the all-party group on racing and bloodstock industries, which is one of the most active, well-attended and important all-party groups in Parliament. I have the honour of being joint chair alongside the hon. Member for Mansfield (Mr Meale), whom I am pleased to see in the Chamber this evening. I also have the honour of representing the great race course at Cheltenham, which by a quirk of the boundaries falls within my constituency of Tewkesbury. It is looking forward to one of the greatest national hunt racing festivals in the world in a couple of weeks’ time.
The debate is timely because the Government have announced their intention to finalise the status of the Tote. It was set up in 1928 to benefit horse racing, and benefit horse racing it has done. Last year, it provided almost £19 million to horse racing through the statutory levy and sponsorship. The Tote sponsors the Cheltenham gold cup, one of the greatest steeplechase races in the world, which will take place in a couple of weeks’ time. It also pays a lot of money in rent to around 60 race courses across Great Britain, and that money is absolutely crucial to racing. The Tote is more than that, however; it is an institution, and it provides the friendly face of bookmaking.
It is 10 years since the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw), then Home Secretary, announced that the Government of the day would change the status of the Tote. At the time, it looked as though it would be transferred to a racing trust. Indeed, a shadow trust was set up with its own chairman, Lord Lipsey, but the transfer was never made. One of the big questions that we must ask before getting too far into the detail is this: who actually owns the Tote? That is not an easy question to answer. It was for that reason that in 2004 the then Government passed an Act of Parliament that nationalised the Tote, with a view to moving it on to the racing trust, but they never included that intention in the Bill, which was a problem. My submission is that, if the Government had to nationalise the Tote and obviously did not own it, they in some way had a responsibility to racing, so it would be wrong for them to do anything with the Tote that would deprive racing of its annual income from the Tote.
Lisa Nandy (Wigan) (Lab)
The hon. Gentleman will know that I have the privilege of representing Wigan, where the Tote has its headquarters, and the staff there have lived with uncertainty about their futures for a long time. Does he share my concerns about how their jobs and, in particular, their pensions will be protected, and would he welcome some clarity from the Minister on that?
Mr Robertson
I certainly do share the hon. Lady’s concerns. I shall come to that issue in a moment, but she makes a very important point.
Mr Dave Watts (St Helens North) (Lab)
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that, if the Government are going to assess any bids for the Tote, they should use only two criteria: first, the retention of jobs in the north-west; and secondly, the contribution to racing? Does he not think that those are the two overriding decisions that should determine who gets the Tote?
Mr Robertson
The hon. Gentleman makes a very good point. I have already mentioned the money going to racing, and the issue of jobs is important not just to the Tote. Many people are employed in racing, and, if it loses the Tote’s contribution, those jobs will be adversely affected, so he is absolutely right.
The Chancellor, in his Budget speech, mentioned the intention of moving the Tote on and changing its status, and more recently the Minister here tonight said that, when that happens, 50% of the proceeds of the sale will be returned to racing. That statement is generally welcome, and from a racing perspective it has to be good news, but it is not enough. There are various questions about that 50% figure. How much would it be worth after pension and debt liabilities have been taken into account? Who in racing would get the money? How much would it amount to? Would that 50% satisfy European Union state aid rules? Those questions need to be answered.
My central point—the most important point, which the hon. Gentleman touched on—is that the money that the Tote puts into racing each and every year is more important than 50% of the proceeds of any sale going to racing. As I have frequently said, that could turn out to be like selling one’s house and living off the proceeds: it is okay to do so for a while, perhaps five years, but at the end of that period the proceeds are all gone and then one is left without an asset. More important than that 50% is therefore the Tote’s year-on-year contribution to racing, and I cannot stress that enough.
Mr Alan Meale (Mansfield) (Lab)
May I remind the hon. Gentleman of the contents of early-day motion 1516, which members of the all-party racing and bloodstock industries group tabled? It talks about who represents racing per se, and the answer is organisations such as the Jockey Club and the British Horseracing Board, the owners, trainers, jockeys, stable staff and their representative organisations. They all support the Tote’s foundation, as he has been describing. The Minister knows that the Government have never given a penny to the Tote, never even acted as guarantor to it, but have gleaned millions from it, so should he not at least listen to the people who have actually made a business out of it?
Mr Robertson
The hon. Gentleman, the joint chairman of the all-party group, makes an important point, which I was going to come on to but shall dwell on now for a moment. The people who run horse racing are well known for falling out over every issue that there is to fall out over. It is almost a standing joke in the racing industry that they cannot agree on anything, but the hon. Gentleman is absolutely right, because on this issue racing speaks with one voice, and it is crucial that the Government listen to it.
I do not remember racing being as united on any issue as it is on this one. The central point that it is making is that whoever ends up running the Tote in a few months’ time should not only be able to pay this contribution to racing every year but guarantee to do so. In other words, the purpose of the existence of the Tote must be to contribute to horse racing, because that is what it was set up to do. If other bidders are considered—of course, the Government have to follow due process and consider other bidders—would the industry be able to ask for guarantees from those bidders that the Tote would continue to look after horse racing? That would provide some difficulty for those bidders because it would reduce the value of the Tote as a business—I understand that—but how on earth would they be able to give that guarantee? I do not think that they could.
When the Chancellor and the Minister further considered the status of the Tote, they said that they would look after racing’s interests and also look after the interests of the taxpayer. I return to what the hon. Member for Mansfield said. The taxpayer has never put a single penny into the Tote, and so, in my view, the taxpayer does not deserve a return from any sale of the Tote. This is very different from the millions upon millions that the taxpayer used to have to put into the old nationalised state industries. I want to see more fairness for taxpayers, and lower taxes. I am always on the side of the taxpayer; I come to this House to represent them. However, on this occasion they do not need any representing.
Mr Meale
While I commend the hon. Gentleman’s words about what contribution is made, I refer back to what my hon. Friend the Member for Wigan (Lisa Nandy) said about the taxpayers of Wigan and the north-west and the contribution that they have made. The fact is that there would be no business whatever were it not for the people who work for the Tote in Wigan, in Lancashire, and up and down the length and breadth of Britain’s high streets where Tote bookmakers operate. These women, in the main, work for the Tote, travel to race courses throughout the UK, and glean the many hundreds of millions of pounds that turn the profit that we are talking about.
Mr Robertson
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. It is the efforts of the staff, who have contributed so much towards the Tote as an organisation, that have allowed it to contribute so much money to horse racing.
Yvonne Fovargue (Makerfield) (Lab)
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that much of the value of the Tote lies in the loyal and mainly long-serving work force, who need to be protected? Their needs must be given proper weighting in the bidding process as a reward for their loyal and long service, which has helped the Tote to develop into what it is today.
Mr Robertson
I entirely agree with the hon. Lady. I will touch on that in a moment.
As I said, the taxpayer has never put any money into the Tote and therefore does not deserve any money out of the Tote. Having said that, I fully understand the difficulty that the Minister and his Department may face, because over the years we have seen the Treasury grow in strength, and it wants some money out of this process. However, a bid from a Tote foundation may qualify to be one of the best bids that it could take up, for some of the reasons that have been given. A Tote foundation would of course continue to employ staff, and therefore continue to have a pension liability. It would continue to be responsible for any debts that the Tote may have. All that has to be put into the melting pot. An undiscounted cash payment could be made. If the Tote is to continue as a foundation, or as the Tote organisation, and continue, year on year, to pay money to horse racing, there is no need for the 50% sum to be given back to horse racing because it would be getting something far more valuable—the ongoing amount each and every year. That is extremely important.
Matthew Hancock (West Suffolk) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this extremely important debate at this crucial time. As he well knows, in my constituency about 5,000 jobs in and around Newmarket are connected with the racing industry. Does he agree, especially given the history of this issue, that the crucial element is the contribution that is made to racing? I strongly agree with his view that an ongoing contribution to racing is vital in terms of the future of the Tote, and that whatever choice of bidders is made, an obligation for a contractual support of the future of racing is required.
Mr Robertson
My hon. Friend is absolutely right that that is the crucial element. If there is one message that I would like the Minister to receive tonight, it is that we have to be certain of the ongoing contribution. We cannot be certain of it if the highest bidder is simply accepted. Under certain circumstances, we would not even be sure that the Tote would continue to exist as an organisation, because bits of it could be sold off. It is only through this process that I have come to understand what is meant by embarrassment clauses. That is how the Government might ensure that once the Tote is sold or transferred to another organisation or company, it will not asset strip it, sell it the next day and make a massive profit, or cause it not to survive as an organisation.
Ian Swales (Redcar) (LD)
Does my hon. Friend agree that almost every country in the world that has a successful racing industry also has a state-owned pool betting system, and that in many cases that is the only form of legal betting?
Mr Robertson
My hon. Friend makes a good point. I do not want the Government to continue to own the Tote—not that they own it yet, but hon. Members know what I mean. I do not think that it is for Governments to own betting shops; that is not what they are there for. My hon. Friend is right that the model I am proposing, whereby racing gets all the benefit from the Tote, is not unusual, but exists in many parts of the world. Perhaps the system here differs because the Tote, if it continued as a foundation, would be competing with many other companies such as Ladbrokes, Coral and William Hill. However, his central point is absolutely right.
I am coming to the end of my speech, or certainly to the end of the time that I wanted to take, but I want to make one further point. In a debate two or three weeks ago initiated by my hon. Friend the Member for West Suffolk (Matthew Hancock), we discussed the future of the horserace betting levy. It was pretty well agreed that the present system is out of date and that it cannot carry on in its present form. It needs to be reformed or to be replaced completely. Racing will have to generate more commercial opportunities to get more money into horse racing, even if the levy continues as it is. If the Tote were transferred or sold to an organisation or foundation that was there purely to finance horse racing, it would be a move in that direction. Allowing the Tote foundation bid to succeed, for example, would be a step towards a solution with regard to the levy, and the two policies would go forward together.
I started by saying that the ownership of the Tote is uncertain, but one thing that is certain is that racing has a right to the money that comes from the Tote. I ask the Minister to ensure that that continues to be the case.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport (John Penrose)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Tewkesbury (Mr Robertson) on securing this important debate. A number of Members have made the point that this is a timely discussion and I am delighted to have the opportunity to respond to the excellent points and questions that my hon. Friend raised. I thank him for describing me as genial. I do not think I have been described as genial before. I shall tuck that away and tell my mum when this is all over. I also compliment him because, as he said, by a quirk of the boundaries his constituency includes the wonderful race course of Cheltenham. It is my hard lot in life to have to go to the Cheltenham festival for two days this year. That is a terribly tough part of my job, but I am rather looking forward to it.
I should point out that we are in the middle of an open market process in which a number of people are bidding for the Tote. I hope that my hon. Friend and the hon. Members who have intervened will understand that I am therefore limited in what I can say at this point. Some people who are bidding to take over the Tote have signed non-disclosure agreements with the Government and the Government have signed them in return. It would not be fair to individual bidders if I started disclosing details of one bid and not another. That would clearly not lead to a fair, safe and equitable disposal process, so I will have to watch my p’s and q’s. I am not trying to be deliberately obstructive or obscure, but I need to be careful
My hon. Friend began by asking a series of questions about the details of the 50% commitment. As he rightly pointed out, the Government have committed to ensuring that we honour the Labour Government’s original commitment that 50% of the proceeds of any disposal go to racing. I will come on to his points about whether that is a high enough proportion.
John Penrose
I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention because it leads me on to answering some of the points that he and his co-chairman of the all-party group on the racing and bloodstock industries, my hon. Friend the Member for Tewkesbury, asked. He is right: clearly, these will have to be net proceeds.
There is a series of questions to be answered about precisely how the transfer of the 50% of the proceeds will take place, and to whom it will be transferred. The answer to most of these questions is tightly bound by European law, because we have to ensure that we do not inadvertently trip over concerns about state aid, which have already derailed one or two earlier attempts to deal with the Tote under previous Administrations. There are things that we can and cannot do, and we are examining them and ensuring that everybody understands what they are. However, I would make the point that they apply equally to any of the potential bidders who are interested in taking over the Tote in due course, who will be bound by charity law and so on. It is most likely that the money will end up in some kind of trust that is governed by the requirements of European law, to ensure that it does not fall on the wrong side of the state aid rules. More details are being developed and worked out through the lawyers as we speak, and when the time comes we will obviously need to publish rather more detail.
John Penrose
I am happy to come on to the issue of Tote staff, but I actually meant to describe a slightly different type of trust, in that the money that is paid to racing will need to go into a carefully bounded trust that is constrained by EU state aid rules. That may or may not be helpful to the future of the staff, but it is a parallel and separate issue.
The principal point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Tewkesbury to which I wish to respond was that the value of the 50% share would almost certainly be less than the value of the ongoing income stream that there has been from the Tote to racing year on year. I completely understand the basic point that he was trying to make, which was that if someone is given a large lump of capital in year one and they fritter it away, or even spend it on terribly valuable and useful things, they will be left with nothing else unless they have a yearly income as well.
However, it is not necessarily true that the ongoing annual income is worth more than the value of the up-front capital. It rather depends on how much that ongoing annual income will be under the various potential future owners of the Tote. Without revealing details of all the different bidders—as I said earlier, I cannot do that—I can tell everybody that the various people who are bidding for the Tote are coming up with an interesting and rich variety of proposals for how to treat the level, structure and so on of that ongoing income stream. They are not all the same, and some are better for racing on an ongoing basis than others. However, we need to value the best and worst differentials alongside the value of the capital. It is not true that the value of the differential will always be bigger and more valuable than the up-front capital. In some cases, it could be that 50% of the proceeds properly invested could yield a very significant return. It is not a straightforward calculation, so I caution the hon. Member for Mansfield (Mr Meale) on how he makes that comparison.
John Penrose
I am afraid that if I answer that question, I will fall the wrong side of the line that I described earlier. The people who are bidding are making a variety of pledges and proposals on that, which must all be valued, addressed and compared. Some are notably better than others, and that is one factor that we will take into account.
Hon. Members on both sides of the House have said that 50% is not enough, and that 100% of the proceeds should go to racing. As Minister with responsibility for racing, nothing would give me greater pleasure than to sign up to that proposal, but that is not where this Government are, and nor was it where the previous Government were—they passed the legislation that allows us to dispose of the Tote by passing it into public ownership and eventually on to a bidder.
The Chancellor made a commitment in his Budget on 22 June, and used a phrase that is emblazoned on my heart—I suspect that it is well known to all hon. Members in the Chamber. He promised to
“resolve the future of the Tote in a way that secures value for the taxpayer while recognising the support the Tote currently provides the racing industry”.
Given the current state of the national finances, I am afraid that it will be extremely hard—or completely impossible, in my view—to argue that we should do more than a 50:50 split. I appreciate that there are deeply held views on both sides of that argument, but that is the situation that, to a large extent, we inherited. We have honoured the previous Government’s commitment to 50%, but I fear that it would be extremely difficult to go any further at this stage.
The Government are extremely pleased with the quality and quantity of the interest and bids that we have received for the future of the Tote. It is a matter of public record that the number of bids in the first round was in the high teens. We have whittled that down with an initial assessment and are now in phase 2, with a smaller selection of people, but we still have a pretty wide range.
John Penrose
I have a very short amount of time left. I will take the hon. Lady’s intervention because I have already taken one from the hon. Gentleman.
Lisa Nandy
Will the Minister at least tell us what relative weight he has given to the continuing employment of existing Tote staff?
John Penrose
I apologise. I did not mean to gloss over that and the hon. Lady is quite right to pick me up on it. I am afraid that I cannot quantify the relative weights, but the Government will apply three crucial criteria: return to the taxpayer; return to racing; and pledges on the future of staff, including those in Wigan. Those three factors will be crucial in our evaluation of the different bids. As I said, the structures of the bids are widely different, and we must calculate carefully if we are to make like-for-like comparisons.
To return to my point, we have a strong, wide and powerful range of people who are through to round 2. They are currently involved in due diligence, crawling through the books with a fine-toothed comb and ensuring that they understand all the issues. In due course, we will whittle the bidders down still further to a final smaller group, which we will endeavour to take through to completion.
The good news is that because we have such a strong field of runners and riders, we stand a very good chance—although one can never be sure of these things—of bringing this to a successful conclusion. All in our collection of bids are of high value in respect of all three of the main criteria that I just described. That is our best guarantee of a successful outcome. If we have a good choice between those three different values, we stand an excellent chance of success.
Ministerial Corrections
(13 years, 9 months ago)
Ministerial CorrectionsRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Energy and Climate Change
(13 years, 9 months ago)
Ministerial CorrectionsRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Neil Parish
I very much welcome the Minister’s comments on anaerobic digestion, because I think we can get a great deal more of it. Can he assure us that feed-in tariffs will be set at a fair rate? As we push up energy prices to the consumer, we push more people into fuel poverty. When he tapers the tariffs, will he ensure that hospitals and schools get a fair crack of the whip?
Gregory Barker
My hon. Friend makes some excellent points. We will endeavour to ensure that we are very fair in the review, and we certainly want to sustain investment in renewables in schools, hospitals and other community projects that fall above the 40 kW review level. We also need to ensure that we get value for money for consumers and that we do not offer what Labour did—an open cheque book approach to the industry.
[Official Report, 10 February 2011, Vol. 523, c. 464.]
Letter of correction from Mr Gregory Barker:
An error has been identified in the oral answer given on 10 February 2011. The answer made reference to community projects that fall above the 40 kW review level. It should have said above the 50 kW level.
The correct answer should have been:
Gregory Barker
My hon. Friend makes some excellent points. We will endeavour to ensure that we are very fair in the review, and we certainly want to sustain investment in renewables in schools, hospitals and other community projects that fall above the 50 kW review level. We also need to ensure that we get value for money for consumers and that we do not offer what Labour did—an open cheque book approach to the industry.
Communities and Local Government
(13 years, 9 months ago)
Ministerial CorrectionsRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Matthew Hancock
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government how much the Audit Commission spent on calls to (a) premium-rate telephone numbers, (b) directory enquiry services and (c) the speaking clock in the last 36 months for which figures are available.
[Official Report, 16 February 2011, Vol. 523, c. 831-32W.]
Letter of correction from Mr Robert Neill:
An error has been identified in the copy of the Audit Commission letter that was provided with the written answer given to my hon. Friend the Member for West Suffolk (Matthew Hancock) on 16 February 2011. In the table, the figures given for (b) directory inquiry services and (c) the speaking clock were transposed.
The full answer given was as follows:
Robert Neill
This is an operational matter for the Audit Commission and I have asked the chief executive of the Audit Commission to write to my hon. Friend direct.
Letter from Eugene Sullivan, dated 16 February 2011:
Your Parliamentary Question has been passed to me to reply.
The Commission routinely bars premium rate calls for fixed and mobile phones where technically possible. Some premium rate calls are required for targeted business purposes, the main one being for postal franking machines (£162 over the three years). The speaking clock is sometimes used to test lines externally where a guaranteed reply is needed.
For our main offices, all directory enquiry calls are routed to our main provider Cable & Wireless service as this provides the most effective rate. Mobile phone calls to directory enquiries and the speaking clock are barred.
The detail of the spending requested is provided in the table below. However, information for home workers and small office users is excluded, as the detail is not readily accessible from the service supplier for the total period.
£ | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
12 months to 31 January | ||||
2009 | 2010 | 2011 | Total | |
(a) Premium rate | 55 | 69 | 46 | 170 |
(b) Directory inquiry services | 5 | 1 | 1 | 7 |
(c) Speaking clock | 75 | 44 | 21 | 140 |
Total | 135 | 114 | 68 | 317 |
The correct answer should have been:
Robert Neill
This is an operational matter for the Audit Commission and I have asked the chief executive of the Audit Commission to write to my hon. Friend direct.
Letter from Eugene Sullivan, dated 16 February 2011:
Your Parliamentary Question has been passed to me to reply.
The Commission routinely bars premium rate calls for fixed and mobile phones where technically possible. Some premium rate calls are required for targeted business purposes, the main one being for postal franking machines (£162 over the three years). The speaking clock is sometimes used to test lines externally where a guaranteed reply is needed.
For our main offices, all directory enquiry calls are routed to our main provider Cable & Wireless service as this provides the most effective rate. Mobile phone calls to directory enquiries and the speaking clock are barred.
The detail of the spending requested is provided in the table below. However, information for home workers and small office users is excluded, as the detail is not readily accessible from the service supplier for the total period.
£ | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
12 months to 31 January | ||||
2009 | 2010 | 2011 | Total | |
(a) Premium rate | 55 | 69 | 46 | 170 |
(b) Directory inquiry services | 75 | 44 | 21 | 140 |
(c) Speaking clock | 5 | 1 | 1 | 7 |
Total | 135 | 114 | 68 | 317 |
Westminster Hall
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
Forestry Commission
(13 years, 9 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
Joan Ruddock (Lewisham, Deptford) (Lab)
I am very grateful for the opportunity to open this debate on the future of the Forestry Commission. When I applied for the debate the Government were, of course, intent on selling off up to 100% of our public forest estate, which by any standards was an outrageous proposal, especially given Ministers’ repeated boasts of their intention to be the greenest Government ever. The U-turn made by the Secretary of State on 17 February, heralded by the Prime Minister’s disowning of the policy the day before, has to be one of the most humiliating ever. Just like the U-turns on green individual savings accounts, housing benefit, rape anonymity, dissolution of Parliament, knife offences, school sports, Bookstart, free nursery milk and debt advice, the forestry U-turn was the result of a rushed and ill-conceived set of proposals, put forward by an ideologically driven Government.
Where did the policy come from? It certainly did not come from the people who carried out the Labour Government’s review of the public forest estate. I suggest that once again we see a Secretary of State out of touch with the community of interests relating to her Department, and I only hope that the 500,000 people who rose up in protest against the forest proposals will do so again to defeat another Secretary of State and his plans to restructure the NHS.
As a Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Minister, I had responsibility for the Forestry Commission for a short time, and was very impressed with how the custodians of our public forest estate were developing their mission. They had moved some considerable way from the overriding timber priorities of the past, to delivering multi-purpose sustainable forestry, embracing the need to combat climate change, to enhance both biodiversity and leisure pursuits, and to develop sources of renewable fuel. We, the Labour Government, wanted to build on that progress, alongside our Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 and the creation of two new national parks, and so in November 2008 we launched the review of the public forest estate, to which I referred earlier. That review was conducted by independent representatives from academia, the civil service, industry and nature conservation, and the research covered the economic, environmental and social costs and benefits of the public forest estate. It was accompanied by a public consultation, which received more than 4,000 responses. The review group’s final report was presented to the Forestry Commission in May 2010, and its findings offered a way forward that was very different from the wholesale sell-off proposed by the Minister.
Glyn Davies (Montgomeryshire) (Con)
The right hon. Lady has made a number of comments about the Labour proposals, but she has not mentioned that the Forestry Commission is both a big commercial operator in the forestry market and a regulator of everyone else—all its competition. Was that part of the Labour party’s consideration, and did it feature at all in its report?
Joan Ruddock
The report, which was of course independent, was never responded to by the Labour Government, for the obvious reason that there was an election. The report went to the Forestry Commission and there was no opportunity for us to respond, but I recommend it to the hon. Gentleman. It took a considerable amount of time—more than a year—and came up with a huge range of suggestions, and the underlying research, which was reported on, was very important. The issues that the hon. Gentleman mentions are in the report, and I will come on to say what I think was very important about the review.
Has the Minister read that report? I wonder whether he has read this:
“Public consultation and social research showed passionate engagement with the public forest estate…and most people saw it as relevant to their lives”,
or this, among the major recommendations:
“The public forest estate should remain large scale, widely distributed throughout England, have a flexible and varied cross-section of all types of woodland, be able to provide a significant volume of products, services, skills and experience, and remain under public control and accountability.”
I have to assume that the Minister did not read the report; otherwise, how could he and his colleagues have embarked on such a reckless policy of selling off the lot?
That brings me to future sales. I say immediately that some sales can be justified when holdings are small or distant from the main estate, and when they are degraded or appropriate for restoration to open land. Over the 13 years of Labour Government our policies resulted in the sale of 9,000 hectares and a consequent purchase of 5,000 hectares—a net change of 4,000 hectares over 13 years. The comprehensive spending review announced the sale of 10 times that amount—40,000 hectares over a mere four years—quite separate from the new legislation that had now been abandoned. This Tory-led Government have sold 1,748 hectares to date, but we have been told that no further sales will take place—awaiting new advice. Can the Minister tell us how the Government—not necessarily his Department—expect to find the £745 million that their forestry sales were expected to realise, or what percentage of the public forest estate he still expects to sell off over the next four years, albeit with his new potential safeguards?
The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mr James Paice)
Will the right hon. Lady give way?
Joan Ruddock
If the Minister wishes to answer now rather than in his summation, of course I will give way.
Mr Paice
I can assure the right hon. Lady that I have a number of points to make when I wind up the debate, but I am slightly puzzled about where she got the figure of £745 million—the supposed gain from the sales—from, given that during the debate on this issue in the Chamber, the Labour Front-Bench spokesperson, the hon. Member for Leicester South (Sir Peter Soulsby), said that there was nothing in it financially for the Government.
Joan Ruddock
I am simply citing the Government’s own ambitions, and there are substantial sums to be realised from sales. I cannot, off the top of my head, remember what the Government have raised from the 1,748 hectares sold off already, but it is certainly many millions. I would be delighted if the Minister answered my question in his response, and told us what was expected to be raised from the sales of the forestry lands—the 15%. Will he also indicate how the Government will make up that money if they do not go ahead with the sale of the 15%? They cannot have it both ways; either they plan to sell or they do not. If they plan to sell, I know—I have been a Minister myself—that the Minister will have a real estimate of the financial result of those sales.
I have another question for the Minister. In principle, does he rule in or rule out the sale of woodland in national parks, areas of outstanding natural beauty, community forests and sites of special scientific interest? Will he confirm that DEFRA still requires the Forestry Commission to cut its budget by 25% this year, with a potential loss of 400 jobs? Surely job losses of such magnitude undermine any recommendations that his new panel might make for the future of the Forestry Commission.
In the drafting of the terms and conditions of the independent panel, is any account being taken of the findings of Labour’s review of the public forest estate? The Minister frowns, but it was an independent review carried out by experts over 12 months and was available to his Government the moment they took office, and it appears that he did not even bother to read it before coming up with these madcap proposals. Referring to the review would be significant.
Critically, will the panel be allowed to consider continuing public ownership? The Minister frowns again, but the consultation that has just been cancelled prohibited continuing public ownership. The new panel’s terms of reference will be significant. The public believe that they have won a great battle now that the consultation and plans have been cancelled pending the findings of the independent review, but the panel’s terms of reference are critical to determining the future.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
Is the right hon. Lady aware that in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and in the area that I represent, public forests are retained for public use and are not to be sold? Does she feel that the decisions of other regions in the United Kingdom to retain public forests should be part of the panel’s review and its final decision making?
Joan Ruddock
Perhaps forests in the other part of the United Kingdom are safer left out of the Government’s review. I am not sure that I would trust this Government with any bit of the forest, whether in Scotland, Northern Ireland or Wales. History to date suggests that we in England have been poorly served by this Government and their proposals; perhaps other regions are on safer ground. However, it will be for the Minister to answer the hon. Gentleman’s question.
I have a list of questions for the Minister. I shall not speak at huge length, as I want to hear his answers and do not want him to run out of time. Will he guarantee that there will be a place on the panel for representatives of the Forestry Commission work force? How will the voices of those who campaigned to defeat his proposals be represented? Will the panel’s deliberations be held in public?
The public have shown overwhelming support for our public forests; I pay tribute to the campaign 38 Degrees. The Government would be well advised to harness that support. The public forest estate in England must be maintained as the national asset that it is, under a single management structure. Rather than being sold off, it should be extended.
I pay tribute to my constituents and those of other MPs who took the time not only to express their outrage at the Government’s proposals but to tell us what the forests mean to them. Annette Lewis from Brockley wrote to me:
“As I have always lived in cities, I know how important it is for city dwellers to access the countryside. I believe in the preservation of woodland in public ownership for future generations. I want my children and their children to be able to find the joy and relaxation I have found from a walk in the woods.”
Hazel Montgomery from Lewisham Central wrote that
“there are many places around south-east London and Kent which are woodland. They are fantastic because London is so overcrowded and children love to roam freely in safety with parents; this is so for all our national woodlands.”
Simon Brammer of Telegraph Hill, who works on climate change, wrote:
“How can we ask other countries much poorer than our own not to chop down forests, critical in regulating our climate and storing carbon, when we are prepared to sell our own for a song”?
Glyn Davies
The right hon. Lady refers to the chopping down of forests. Is she aware that forests can be cut down only if a licence is granted, and that in almost every instance new forest must be planted in its place?
Joan Ruddock
I am more than aware of that. I am expressing the passionately held views of my constituents. If people are concerned enough to write to their MPs in unprecedented numbers, it is important that we understand their concerns. Concerns about climate change and the future of this planet are dear to the hearts of many of our constituents.
Joan Ruddock
If the hon. Gentleman will calm down for a moment, I will be more than pleased to give way. I am dealing with a point already raised. The issues are important, and it is greatly to the credit of the public in this country that they can and do associate our precious forests with tackling climate change and have linked that issue to the fact that we should not only do what we must in the developed world but seek to influence those in the underdeveloped world who have custodianship of the most important forests in the world. That is important, and I resent the fact that Conservative Members should attempt to rubbish my constituents on an issue about which they are passionately and properly concerned.
Damian Hinds
I did not hear anybody rubbish anybody, but for the avoidance of doubt, although important issues are being discussed about the future of the Forestry Commission’s estate, will the right hon. Lady acknowledge that the subject is not in the slightest related to deforestation or the chopping down of forests?
Joan Ruddock
No, absolutely not. The hon. Gentleman is completely wrong. We have one of the smallest forest estates in Europe, so the extent of ours is important to people. I argue that if we keep the forest estate in public ownership, we are more likely to be able to deal with the diseases that are arising and manage it comprehensively and effectively, and less likely to encounter some of the problems that occur when forest estates are fragmented and people fear, maybe wrongly, that trees will be felled unnecessarily. He will know that over the years, the Forestry Commission has changed its culture and become very aware of the great issues of our time, such as the threat of climate change and the loss of biodiversity. People understand that. It is important that we as parliamentarians associate ourselves with those concerns and in no way criticise people when they want to bring them to our attention.
I was about to wind up, but gave way because there was such agitation opposite. I now come to my final point. I have read out only selected comments from the long e-mails that I received from three of the 392 constituents who contacted me, and they will now ask, as I do, what exactly is the future of the Forestry Commission?
Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)
One of the depressing things about this House is that, sometimes, hon. Members do not listen to what has been said. I am not sure whether the right hon. Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Joan Ruddock), who introduced this debate, was present in the main Chamber when the Secretary of State made her original statement when launching the original consultation document. The right hon. Lady has sought to suggest that the Government intended to “sell off” the forests, but I heard the Secretary of State clearly say two things. On commercial forest, she said that the Government had no intention of selling freehold interests, but that they would grant leaseholds for the specific reason of enhancing protections for access and other rights—for walkers, cyclists and so on—within those commercial lettings.
On heritage woodland, I heard the Secretary of State make it very clear that, if community, voluntary or other groups did not come forward to run community and heritage woodland, it would remain within public ownership. I invite the right hon. Lady to re-read what the Secretary of State said in her statement to the House, because her comments bear absolutely no relationship to the Government’s policy. Part of the problem with this whole debate is that the perception of the Government’s policy bears no relationship to what Ministers actually proposed.
Joan Ruddock
The hon. Gentleman has to take into account the many remarks that have been made, not least by the Minister, about the so-called sell-off and disposal of up to 100% of the forest estate. The hon. Gentleman criticises the term “sell-off,” but the fact is that disposals of whatever kind mean that the estate is totally fragmented. That is the big difference and that is why it is so significant.
Tony Baldry
I do not wish to pursue this point, but the right hon. Lady was a Minister in the previous Government and understands the concept of collective government, so she well understands that comments by a Secretary of State at the Dispatch Box represent the collective view of the Government. The Secretary of State could not have been clearer when she spoke at the Dispatch Box about what the Government intended to do.
I was fortunate to grow up in Burnham Beeches, which is a substantial area of woodland between Maidenhead and Slough that is owned and very well managed by the City of London corporation. It makes the point that much of our woodland in this country is owned by a diverse group of owners. I am a Church Commissioner and the Church Commissioners own a fair amount of woodland, much of it in our agricultural estate, and we lease woodland to the Forestry Commission. Having had the opportunity as a child to enjoy the benefits of Burnham Beeches, I am conscious of the importance of woodland. Moreover, as a representative of the county of Oxfordshire, which has very little woodland cover, I am conscious of how important it is to encourage woodland cover as a whole.
When I was fortunate enough to be a Minister in the Department of the Environment, I was proud to be part of a ministerial team that advanced initiatives on both the national forest and the community forest. At that time, Mr Gray, you were a distinguished special adviser to Ministers in the Department.
Mr James Gray (in the Chair)
Order. It is kind of the hon. Gentleman to remind me of that and to be so flattering, but for the sake of today’s debate, I cast aside all previous party political roles that I may have had. I am highly dispassionate about today’s debate.
Tony Baldry
I did not want you to think, Mr Gray, that I was trying to steal all the glory of those days under Lord Heseltine and others in the Department of the Environment, when we benefited from your advice. It is worth recalling that the Conservative party has a long tradition of seeking to enhance woodland cover in the UK. The national forest, which was an initiative by that Government, has been a great success story. Last year, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee reported:
“Fifteen years on from its inception, The National Forest is a success story. It is delivering tangible environmental, economic and social benefits out of a bold vision to transform a 200 square mile swathe of the Midlands—much of which was suffering economic and environmental decline—through planting trees to create new woods and forests. Its achievement is not so much in trebling the proportion of land with tree cover to 18%, but that, in so doing, it has helped to regenerate the local economy, open up the Forest to greater public use and improve the natural environment.”
On community forests, the Countryside Agency commissioned consultants a few years ago to assess their impact, and they concluded that, overall, the community forests programme
“has been successful in levering in high levels of private and voluntary sector support”,
and that
“over the period 1990-2003, the total amount levered”
into new woodland
“totalled £42.9 million.”
They also noted:
“Overall, the CFP is performing well in terms of increasing woodland cover and improving the environment.
The CFP is performing particularly well in terms of providing opportunities for informal recreation and opening up rights of way.”
I am proud to have been involved in initiatives such as the national forest that encourage the development of everything from community forests to local pocket parks, and which have enhanced community woodland.
It is sensible for the Secretary of State to establish an independent panel to consider forestry policy in England. It will report its findings to the Secretary of State in the autumn, and it will advise on the direction of forestry and woodland policy in England and on the role of the Forestry Commission and the public forest estate. I hope that the independent panel will be able to look at all the questions raised in the consultation paper—it was published by DEFRA, but subsequently withdrawn—on the future of the Forestry Commission. Part of the difficulty in this whole saga is that the clauses relating to the commission in the Public Bodies Bill had, by necessity, to be published before DEFRA was able to publish its consultation on the commission’s future. When their lordships considered a number of different issues in the Bill, they managed to get themselves confused and allow a considerable degree of speculation about what might have been happening when it was clearly not what was intended. I think that that was made clear by the Secretary of State’s statement to the House.
Sir Peter Soulsby (Leicester South) (Lab)
Could it not be that their lordships’ understanding of the proposals was based on what was said to them by the Minister? He said that
“we wish to proceed with…very substantial disposal of public forest estate, which could go to the extent of all of it.”
That sounds very clear and it is hardly surprising that their lordships took the Minister at his word.
Tony Baldry
That highlights a fundamental misunderstanding. The Forestry Commission has within its control two different types of woodland. It was brought into being at the time of the first world war to enable the country to have access to commercial forestry to provide timber for such things as pit props for the mines, and the vast majority of commercial forestry in this country—about 82%—is and has always been in private ownership. It would be very surprising if, at a time when we no longer expect the state to run airlines, own travel agencies, generate electricity or operate sewage treatment works, we thought that the state should be growing Christmas trees. Such a view is slightly bizarre.
The Forestry Commission also has heritage woodland within its ownership. I suspect that there has sometimes been a deliberate attempt by those wishing to create mischief to cause confusion between the Government’s policy on commercial forestry and on heritage woodland. The Secretary of State could not have been clearer about the matter when she spoke to the House when launching the consultation paper: the Government consider those matters to be two very different entities. The Secretary of State could not made it plainer to the House that if appropriate bodies do not come forward to manage heritage woodland properly, that woodland will remain within the public estate.
I am conscious that other hon. Members wish to speak. The other points I want to make are that we have heard a lot about the Forestry Commission during the past few weeks, but I hope that the independent panel will give regard to how we can increase woodland cover more generally in the UK, particularly in England. On commercial forestry, I hope that the panel will consider the effect and impact of the tax regime in England in comparison with regimes elsewhere in the world—for example, considerable tree planting is taking place in the United States. The trust funds of universities such as Harvard, Yale and others are investing considerable money in commercial forestry because, as they are charities, there are incentives for them to do so under US tax law.
On heritage woodland, I hope that the Minister will be able to tell us what will follow the environmental stewardship schemes that have formed part of the rural development programme for England for a considerable time. It is clear that the majority of agricultural land is almost entirely in private ownership and therefore planting for new broadleaf community woodlands will almost certainly take place on private land. What incentive or encouragement will there be for farmers, as landowners, to plant new community woodland?
When the independent panel concludes its work, I hope that there will be two coherent chapters on different policies. I hope that there is one chapter on the future of commercial forestry—how we can encourage more of it in the UK—and the Forestry Commission, and a second on how we enhance heritage woodland and encourage access and amenity in relation to community woodland, as we did with the national forest and community forests. It should be on the record that the Government have made it very clear that they wish to enhance and protect the rights of access. I suspect that the main concern of a large number of constituents who have understandably contacted us about the issue is that they should continue to have access to woodland. That is very important. The Government have made it clear throughout that they want to protect access to woodland. However, that needs to be stated and restated time and again.
Mr David Anderson (Blaydon) (Lab)
I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Joan Ruddock) for securing the debate. There are people who think that the issue has been resolved, but it clearly has not. This morning’s discussions have shown that.
The hon. Member for Banbury (Tony Baldry) started his speech by saying that we should listen. I have spent my life listening to what Conservative Ministers have said. I read what they say and, more importantly, I always read between the lines of what they say. I do not need faceless bureaucrats or Government Front Benchers, who perhaps want to extend their already big land ownings, to tell me about heritage. My heritage is the coal mine industry. The hon. Gentleman mentioned that when he talked about the shortage of pit props during the first world war. My grandfather was a miner during the first world war, as were some of my uncles. They were working in dangerous conditions that were made even more dangerous by the shortage of things such as pit props. People were basically failed by the private sector and the Forestry Commission was set to ensure that such a situation did not happen again.
The heritage of the forest is more than just the heritage of the nation; it is the heritage of individual areas. The area of the world that I am massively proud to represent includes a place called Chopwell. In that area is Chopwell wood, which is owned by the commission and has been classed as a heritage site. We did not need people to tell us that because we knew it was our heritage. We believed that that was our land and that we owned it as part and parcel of the work we put into it. Anyone—no matter what their background or wealth—should be entitled to enjoy that country.
People came together to defend their woods against these proposals, including the Friends of Chopwell Wood, the Chopwell Wood Horse Riding Association, the organisation representing Northumbria ramblers, of which I am proud to be the president, and the people who represent the Friends of Red Kites in the North East of England. I am a member of that organisation, which has been involved with the re-introduction of red kites in the north-east of England during the past six years within 3 miles of one of the biggest shopping centres in Europe. The fact that organisations worked together in relation to Chopwell wood and other such places meant that the re-introduction of red kites was so successful. The re-introduction of red kites has been one of the most positive of any such actions that have thankfully taken place in this country over the past two decades.
We should take stock and say, “Where exactly are we?” A lot of people think that this battle has been won and that the Government have seen sense and have agreed that the forest will stay in public hands, but that is not the position we are in today. Let us remind ourselves what the Secretary of State said. First, she said that she had ended the consultation. Secondly, she said that the Government are supporting the removal of the relevant clauses from the Public Bodies Bill. Thirdly, she said that she has set up the review. That is all she has done. She has not stopped the Forestry Commission from being looked at in respect of privatisation and she has not cut off the potential for the whole of the estate to end up in private hands. That might not happen immediately, but it could happen over time.
A great concern of many of the campaigners—I am talking about people who devote their lives to these woods—was that they may well have had to take control and ownership of certain areas of the woods. They were worried that they could not sustain that. They were also concerned that, when they had gone, their children might not have shown any interest in the woods or have been able to manage them. Ultimately, the woods would have gone into private hands. That is the real issue.
The truth is that people do not trust what the Government have said. That comes through time and again. I read the consultation thoroughly and listened very closely to what the Minister has said because people do not believe that the Government will stick to what they are saying. What people believe is based on the Conservative party’s history and the privatisation that people have seen under Tory Governments during the past two decades. Let us think about some of those things.
There was the deregulation of buses. If we had been in the House—some of us probably were—25 years ago, Ministers would have said, “Don’t worry; the public will have control. This will give a bus to every community in this country.” That has not been the case. Monopolies are running the buses and public service comes last. We could have had a discussion about the deregulation of the utilities. There was the “Tell Sid” campaign—tell Sid we are going to become a shareholding democracy. Now the big six utility companies are putting prices up by 9% when people have seen their pay frozen and their pensions held back.
Mr James Gray (in the Chair)
Order. The hon. Gentleman is ranging rather wide of the debate today, which is the future of the Forestry Commission. Perhaps he could bring himself back to that topic.
Mr Anderson
I accept entirely what the Chair says, but I am talking about the reality of why people have not got on board with what the Minister, the Secretary of State and the hon. Member for Banbury, for whom I have a lot of respect, have said. They have said that people are not listening. People are listening, but they are saying, “We don’t believe what we are hearing because we believe that what is happening is an attempt to dethrone us from where we were.” We have been here before. We were here in 1992, when the previous Tory Government set up a review when there was a rising up when Michael Heseltine, who was mentioned earlier, decided he was going to close 31 of the most technologically advanced coal mines in this country.
Mr James Gray (in the Chair)
Order. I am very sorry, but the hon. Gentleman really must confine himself to the future of the Forestry Commission, which is the topic under debate today—nothing else, just the future of the Forestry Commission.
Mr Anderson
Again, I take on board what the Chair says and I acknowledge that he may well not agree with where I am coming from, but the truth is—
Mr James Gray (in the Chair)
Order. It is not for the Chair to agree or disagree with where a particular hon. Member is “coming from,” as the hon. Gentleman puts it. It is my job to ensure that the debate is about the future of the Forestry Commission and nothing else. The hon. Gentleman will return to the subject of the debate; otherwise he will return to his seat.
Mr Anderson
I accept, again, what the Chair says and I hope that he will accept that we have a situation where people worry about what the future holds, because they do not trust what has happened in the past.
Another issue that people are unsure about is exactly where the Liberal Democrats are on this, because they will play a key part in deciding the debate about where this country is going. In the next period, what will they feed into the consultation? What is quite clear on the ground in Chopwell, is that the Liberal Democrats are nowhere to be seen, despite the fact that in part of that area Liberal Democrat councillors represent some of the people who live at the side of the woods. So people have the right to say, “Where are you?” We have been here before. In 1921, under a coalition Government of Tories and Liberals, there was an attempt to sell off Runnymede, of all places. That did not happen.
I come back to the statement made by the Secretary of State. She said:
“I am sorry, we got this one wrong”.
I think every one of us would admire the Secretary of State for saying that and accepting that, but she then said,
“we have listened to people’s concerns.” —[Official Report, 17 February 2011; Vol. 523, c. 1155.]
Well, I am very pleased about that, but if she has listened to people’s concerns, and if she has listened to the responses to the consultations, and if she has listened to the 500,000 people who signed up on the website, she will know that those concerns are saying one thing and one thing only: the Forestry Commission, and the 18% of forest lands that are in public ownership and control, must remain. If we end up, at the end of the review procedure, with anything other than that, then clearly she has not listened and has not responded to what the people of this country have said.
The truth is that the people of this country will be watching the Secretary of State, her ministerial team and the Government like a hawk for the next few months. They will be very concerned, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, Deptford said, about the make-up of the independent panel. If there are no work force representatives, or representatives from green groups, on the panel, it will fail before it starts. If the terms of reference do not allow the latitude for the Forestry Commission to continue with full control and ownership, it will have failed before it starts.
To the people outside—wake up. Do not pretend that this is all done and dusted and that we had a great victory two weeks ago. We had some success two weeks ago, and it was people power that did it, but we have been here before: reviews have been used to put things on the back burner in the hope that we will forget about it and that it will be slipped through in six months’ time. Do not fall for that one.
Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)
I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in this important debate. I congratulate the right hon. Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Joan Ruddock) on securing the debate.
The background to this situation is that the Forestry Commission has been running a deficit—a microcosm of the overall national position—for some years, with the gap being plugged by asset sales. There is a revenue funding gap, which is being plugged by capital sales. That is not a sustainable situation, because in time the asset base runs down. Sadly, those assets that have been sold off have, in many cases, gone with inadequate protections. The Government’s recent proposals clearly focused and magnified the great interest in our forests—in my own constituency, the much-loved Bushy Leaze, Chawton Park woods, Alice Holt forest and Queen Elizabeth country park. The correspondence that many of us received—we could all trade a considerable number of e-mails and letters—amplified how much, although we knew this already, people value the recreational benefits of those facilities, and want to protect biodiversity.
It is a little unhelpful to introduce things into the debate that are not directly relevant, such as climate change and the development of the countryside. As was pointed out, in this country, we cannot just fell large numbers of trees, raze them to the ground and build things. That is just not allowed, whoever owns the land, as I think the right hon. Lady knows. There are, however, a number of reasonable, legitimate and important questions, and people have some deep, understandable concerns about aspects of the proposals. One key point, with the distinction between heritage forests and other forests, is that the protections for the heritage forest are clear. However, people want additional comfort about forests that are not classified as heritage forests and, indeed, how they can appeal for a forest to be classed as a heritage forest. That is the case with some of the forests in my patch of East Hampshire.
I welcome the Government’s new independent panel. I hope that it will be an opportunity for us to improve forest cover, relative to the starting point. It is worth restating that the Forestry Commission is not the only owner of forest. I was at a forest planting last week as part of the Woodland Trust jubilee project, which is an excellent project. The next opportunity is not just to protect, but enhance access and amenity. This debate has helped to put into sharp focus some of the issues not just for walkers, but for cyclists and horse riders. I urge the Minister to say a little more on those matters, and what he hopes will come out of the independent panel, which I very much welcome.
Roger Williams (Brecon and Radnorshire) (LD)
Thank you, Mr Gray, for allowing me to speak in this debate. I will keep it short. I congratulate the right hon. Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Joan Ruddock) on securing the debate. I well remember her contribution as a Minister in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs in previous Parliaments.
I would like to declare an interest. I am a member of a partnership that is in receipt of a farm woodland grant from the Forestry Commission to promote both the management of woodlands under our responsibility and the public good through, for example, access and biodiversity. I will return to that—not that I am an example of a good forester, although I am an enthusiastic one—because it is not just the public estate that is important for access and biodiversity, but private woodland and private forestry too.
I have another small interest to declare. Some members of my family, although not immediate members, are involved in the sawmill industry, which is a commercial aspect of forestry that has not been mentioned today. Many jobs in my constituency are dependent on sawmills and on a consistent throughput of material, both in quality and quantity, to go into those sawmills. Sadly, only 10% of all timber used in this country for construction or for furniture manufacture originates in this country, but that is still an important part of the rural community.
Sadly, the House has not shown much interest in forestry until the past couple of months. In fact, in almost 10 years as an MP, we have had no debates in Government time on forestry. We have had one debate in Opposition time on forestry, and that was the recent debate. We have had two Adjournment debates on the New Forest. We have had two Westminster Hall debates, one sponsored by the hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) and, in 2005, one that I sponsored. Unfortunately, DEFRA did not manage to put up a Minister to reply to the debate, such was its interest in forestry, and the reply was made by a member of Her Majesty’s Treasury team—the former Whip, Nick Ainger, who is no longer a Member of the House. We had a good debate in this Chamber for 30 minutes.
That is the sum total of interest that the House has shown in forestry in the past 10 years, so I am pleased that we are now able to debate this issue more calmly than we did a fortnight ago—I am sure that the Minister is not very pleased that it has caused the interest that it has—because the future of forestry in this country is important. Some 20% of the forest cover in England is in the public estate, and 80% is privately held. Of that 80%, 40% is either undermanaged or not managed at all, and that is a real challenge for the Forestry Commission in the future. How can we better manage that woodland, not only in commercial terms but also in terms of access and biodiversity?
Jim Shannon
Is the hon. Gentleman aware of the sporting potential of forests, and therefore their economic benefits as well? Does he agree that perhaps that has been overlooked when it comes to any potential sales or otherwise of forests?
Roger Williams
The sporting potential of forests should be taken into account. One of the points that I would make if I had more time is about the great demand on our forests for different kinds of access. In my area, there are not only walkers, cyclists and horse riders, but people who go scrambling and rally driving as well. Rally driving and horse riding do not go together very well, so we have to manage the diverse demands on our forests.
Yes, the Forestry Commission was set up in response to the lack of timber for pit props, but its reputation has not always been as holy as it is now. Indeed, the contraceptive conifers that march up and down our woodlands were all planted by the Forestry Commission. The planting of the Flow country in Scotland, where we had the last of our native conifer woodland, was not to its glory, but, yes, it has improved; it has altered its terms of reference and its priorities.
When the panel meets—I hope that it will be called the wood panel, because everyone would then be able to recognise it—I hope it will take into consideration not only the public estate, which is managed by the Forestry Commission, but private woodland as well, which can make a huge contribution in this country. As someone said, we probably have less woodland cover than almost any other European country, so it is important that we take private woodland into account. The Forestry Commission is already making planting grants to the private estate, so that would be within the panel’s terms—at least, I hope that it is—because, in making those grants, we can ask for public good to be demonstrated. We can ask for access and improvements in biodiversity.
We should remember that conifer woods are not completely aseptic, or without any life at all. In fact, the red squirrel and the dormouse have been shown to use such habitats, so they are important. The Forestry Commission also has a big part to play in ensuring that there is a supply of timber to go through our sawmills, so I would ask the Minister whether there is any way in which all of that can be taken into consideration. In the enthusiasm to protect our public estate, we have forgotten about the contribution that private woodland makes as well.
Glyn Davies (Montgomeryshire) (Con)
I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in this debate. I have been inspired to speak by the previous contributions, particularly that of the right hon. Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Joan Ruddock). I congratulate her on providing this useful opportunity to have a considered discussion about an issue that is hugely important to me personally. I am enjoying the debate.
I agreed with much of what the right hon. Lady said about objectives. I love forests. As a farmer, I planted forests on my land, purely for my own pleasure—they are of limited commercial benefit. Like the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Roger Williams), I, too, should declare an interest, albeit a small one, in that I planted woodlands with the support of Forestry Commission grants, and my main farm is surrounded by Forestry Commission land.
Clearly, the objective has been to increase biodiversity. That is a stated objective of the Government as well as the Opposition. It is also hugely important that we increase and improve access. I must say that when I first saw reports on the coalition Government’s intention to change the ownership of woodland, I had personal concerns because of my huge interest.
When I was a young man, I spent much of my time on Forestry Commission land at Cwmystwyth in central Wales looking at red kites. I make this point because it is relevant to another contribution that we heard. There were probably no more than about a dozen red kites left in the whole of Britain. The only way we were able to reintroduce the red kite into central parts of England—people can now see them everywhere along the M40 as they drive into London—and the north-east is because many people in mid-Wales put in a lot of voluntary effort to retain the red kite when its very existence was threatened.
The one part of the right hon. Lady’s speech that caused me concern was the way in which she misinterpreted what the coalition Government intended to do. Like other Members, I have received letters and e-mails—I think there were 250, although the proposals did not even apply in Wales. Even before I heard the Secretary of State’s statement in the House, I thought that people had misunderstood what the Government were proposing. After the statement, I wrote to those 250 people and sent them a copy of what the Secretary of State actually said in the House. Much of the statement was drowned out—it was a noisy, highly emotional debate, and I do not think that people actually heard what was said. I have not had 250 e-mails back, but I have probably had 15, and people are saying, “We didn’t know that. We didn’t understand what the Government were actually planning to do.” They were much more supportive of the plans. However, I do not want to hark back too much to that, because we are now moving forward.
Joan Ruddock
Is it the hon. Gentleman’s understanding that the Government were proposing—and, therefore, could propose again in future—the disposal of anything up to the whole national forest estate? He has criticised use of the words “sell off”, but “disposal” would mean that the Forestry Commission and its comprehensive approach to the national forests would no longer exist. The situation would be very different.
Glyn Davies
No, that was not my understanding. Clearly, I had an interest, and I had concerns because of reports in the newspapers, but I must admit that I do not always believe everything I read in the newspapers. Sometimes interesting issues are raised, but that was not my understanding, which was why I said that I waited to hear exactly what the Government were proposing before making a judgment. I thought that the speech in the House during the last major debate was sensibly based.
However, I want to move on from that to an issue of concern that has not been addressed: the position of the Forestry Commission as both regulator and a major operator in the field. That is a real issue which, at some stage, the Government will have to address. It cannot be right that the body that is the main commercial operator in the field also regulates all its competitors. That matter will have to be dealt with. The one other aspect to which we must refer—this something which my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Tony Baldry) raised—is dealing with commercial property. I cannot see the sense in Government dealing with commercial forestry. Changing the ownership or management of forestry through lease is crucial. We have to get back to a position of maintaining or increasing access, increasing biodiversity wherever possible, and contributing to fighting climate change if that is part of the wider debate, as it should be. That can be better done through lease than sale, which is why I hugely welcomed the original debate.
I want to refer to Wales. I live in Wales, and a lot of people say that the Government there are taking a completely different line on the issue. The hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire made that point. What is proposed in Wales is that the estate should be retained, but there will be improved and more dynamic management, and there will occasionally be sales. That policy really is not very different from what we might propose. One does not know where we go from here, but a report is coming, and things will not be the same as before. To say that we will simply retain forestry in aspic in the other nations is not accurate. In all areas, where a large part of land is owned, there has to be a degree of flexibility and of management responding to conditions as they come along, and that will be what we will do. That is all I wish to say.
Sir Peter Soulsby (Leicester South) (Lab)
I join other hon. Members in congratulating my right hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Joan Ruddock) on securing the debate. It is clear from the contributions that Members have made that, despite the Government’s somewhat change of approach, this is still a current issue for us. As she reminds us, the context of her request for the debate was the threat to England’s woodlands and forests seeming immediate and imminent. Although there has been some change since then, that threat has not gone away, as she and my hon. Friend the Member for Blaydon (Mr Anderson) reminded us.
It is evident from the contributions to this debate and to the debate in the main Chamber on 2 February that our forests and woodlands are precious to us and to our constituents. The steward of those forests and woodlands—the body that has oversight of them on our behalf, which cares for, looks after and nurtures them—is the Forestry Commission. Its role in undertaking those tasks on our behalf is vital. It is vital for the land that it directly manages, for the oversight, regulation and advice that it provides to others, and, most particularly, for the example that it sets to others on how to manage the woodland under its control.
As the debate on England’s forests on 2 February highlighted, the Forestry Commission manages 258,000 hectares of land in England. As pointed out during the debate, that represents only 18% of all woodland in England. That 18% represents only 44% of the total woodland accessible for the public to enjoy and appreciate. Our debate today is not simply about the woodland in England, but about the Forestry Commission in general and its stewardship.
Roger Williams
The hon. Gentleman makes a good point about the public estate being only 44% of publicly accessible land and about how much public access is provided by the woodlands and forests in private ownership.
Sir Peter Soulsby
That is indeed the case. As I acknowledged, we very much welcome the fact that the Forestry Commission, in the exemplary way it manages its land—promoting biodiversity, providing education, interpretation and access—offers an example to others, which some follow.
Woodland managed in England is only about one third of the total woodland and forest managed by the Forestry Commission across Great Britain. It is estimated that that is more than 1.4 billion trees—although I do not think that anyone has actually counted them all.
The hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Roger Williams) spoke about how the Forestry Commission dramatically has changed its approach to management over the years and about how it has become an exemplary organisation. It is a major land manager that sets very high standards. It has one of the largest collections of sites of special scientific interest, with an excellent record of 99% being in favourable or recovering condition. It provides for a substantial number of visitors, and is estimated to have had more than 40 million visits last year. He put his finger on it when he mentioned previous debates—
Sir Peter Soulsby
Or the lack of debates on forestry in the House over recent years. That is interesting because I think that it points not to a lack of interest in forestry, but to a belief, up until now, that the forests were in safe hands and it was not a matter about which Members needed to concern themselves. That was why it was so distressing and surprising when we heard the Government’s proposals to sell 40,000 hectares immediately. The hon. Member for Daventry cannot get away from it and the hon. Member for Montgomeryshire (Glyn Davies) cannot suggest that we misinterpreted the Government’s intentions. As shown by the quotes earlier, the Government were clear about their intentions for the public forest estate. I quote the Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
“We wish to proceed with very substantial disposal of public forest estate, which could go to the extent of all of it.”
That is clear. People were not making it up. People did not misunderstand it. Those words meant what they—
Sir Peter Soulsby
They could mean nothing other than that. There could be a wholesale sell-off. The outcry was totally predictable to everybody other than the Minister and his colleagues. They tried to dismiss that as scaremongering, and in the run-up to the 2 February debate, they said that they were doing it for the money. Perhaps the Minister will explain some of the figures behind the proposals and say what he now believes the net proceeds would have been. They tried to justify the sale in that way, and when that fell apart, they tried to justify it in terms of the big society. But that fell apart and, as we heard again from Government Members, they invented the spurious explanation that it was about trying to resolve a conflict of interest within the organisation of the Forestry Commission. It was somehow inappropriate for the Forestry Commission to be both the operator and the regulator, and it was incapable of doing something that it has done successfully for many decades.
Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)
I did not really support the plans the Government introduced, but I thought that it was right to have a consultation period, for which I voted. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that we should think more about what the independent review might say and about how we might funnel our views and the views of our constituents towards it?
Sir Peter Soulsby
I will come to questions to the Minister about how independent the review will be and what its terms of reference will be in one moment. Before doing that, I will return to the concerns about the continuing threats to the Forestry Commission’s work expressed by my right hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, Deptford when she introduced the debate and later by my hon. Friend the Member for Blaydon. They pointed out that although it appears that there has been some pause in the Government’s headlong rush to dismantle the public forest estate, they are pressing ahead with requiring the Forestry Commission to make substantial cuts in its staff. Some 400 jobs—about a quarter of the total—are at risk immediately. That will inevitably reduce its capacity to undertake the excellent stewardship achieved over recent years. Its ability to manage the deer and wildlife will be reduced, learning and educational programmes will be cut, and there will inevitably be extended charges for services or the shutting of facilities. Elements of what the Forestry Commission manages directly and excellently at the moment will have to be passed over to others.
I have a number of questions for the Minister. My right hon. and hon. Friends have already mentioned some of them, but I will list the points again and allow the Minister plenty of time to respond. When will the Government bring forward details of who will sit on the new panel, and how will they guarantee the independence of that panel? Will the panel include public and local campaign groups that have been involved in the campaign to save the forests, and will it include members of the work force? Will the panel meet in public? Will all existing planned sales be halted pending the panel’s report?
Will the panel be able to recommend maintaining the land in public hands? The Minister muttered “Rubbish” from a sedentary position when this point was raised earlier, so perhaps he will take the opportunity to tell us if it is untrue. How can the Government deliver better woodland access and biodiversity when the Forestry Commission is cutting staff by a quarter over the next three months? Finally, will any future receipts from sales of land stay within the Forestry Commission so that they can be used for the enhancement of our public forest estate? That is what the previous Government did and, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, Deptford reminded us, it is something of which we are proud.
The public were appalled by what the Government proposed, and they understood clearly the full extent of what it might mean. Those who campaigned so effectively were aware of the threat to our precious woodlands and forests, but they must be reminded that the threat has not gone away, and we have had the opportunity to do that today. Conservative Members have been dismissive of those fears in the past, and we have heard such fears dismissed again today. Hon. Members from all sides must have heard the clear message during the run-up to the debate on 2 February, and it is still something that we need to hear. Our woods and forests are just that—they are our woods and our forests. They must be kept that way and properly managed by the Forestry Commission, an organisation that has an excellent record in the stewardship of those precious assets on our behalf.
Tony Baldry
On a point of order, Mr Gray, for the benefit of Hansard, I am the hon. Member for Banbury, not the hon. Member for Daventry.
The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mr James Paice)
I have attended many debates in Westminster Hall, which is normally a place for relatively non-controversial issues to be raised and discussed in a calm manner by hon. Members from all parties. I am afraid I cannot say that of today. The opening speech by the right hon. Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Joan Ruddock) repeated many of the myths and nonsenses that we have heard during previous discussions and questions about forestry. It was not the serious contribution to the future of the Forestry Commission that my hon. Friend the Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Roger Williams) referred to and urged upon us.
I will address some of the key issues and respond where I can to the questions raised. My hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Tony Baldry) rightly pointed out that part of the public concern arose from the Public Bodies Bill. One can look back and say that the cart was put before the horse, but because we believed that changes to the Forestry Commission were necessary and we were conscious of the constraints of the legislation, we decided to put the provision into what appeared to be a suitable vehicle to permit us to make those changes. I am the first to recognise that, together with the remarks I made to which the hon. Member for Leicester South (Sir Peter Soulsby) referred—I am not withdrawing those remarks, but they were back in October—that allowed people to become concerned. As it happened, that concern was unnecessary, but it allowed a number of myths to gain credence.
In the communication to which the hon. Gentleman referred, I used the word “disposal” carefully. I did not use the word “sale” because, as will be observed, the consultation document often implied disposal but not sale. Part of the absurd nonsense from the right hon. Lady included the figure of £745 million, which I suspect she took from the Forestry Commission’s annual report. That is actually the book value of all the public forestry estate, prior to any discounts for the preservation of access and other public interests. It includes the book value of the New Forest and the Forest of Dean, and we made it clear that for both of those the disposal was to be free—gratis—had it gone through. The right hon. Lady’s figures were absurd; the concept of disposal included a free handover to a charitable trust.
Joan Ruddock
I am more than happy to be corrected. Perhaps the Minister will let us know the estimate for the amount of money that would be raised by the disposals of which he speaks.
Mr Paice
As the right hon. Lady knows, the consultation document contained a lot of variability, particularly about what might be called the middle strata of woodlands and forests—not heritage but not the main commercial areas—where there was a range of options. The income from that is not easy to estimate, but we published an impact assessment as required, and the figures are in the public domain. I repeat: the primary objective of the proposition was not simply to raise cash. I will return in a moment to the issue of ongoing sales.
The right hon. Lady referred to the 0.5 million people who expressed concern about this matter. I cannot help but observe that she took a lot less notice of the 0.5 million people who opposed a ban on fox hunting and whom she treated with disdain.
Mr Paice
Quite. As we have said, and as the Secretary of State said in the House, we recognised that public concern was raised dramatically, and that it was a pointless exercise to continue with the consultation in that environment. Therefore, we have withdrawn it and I do not propose to waste more time discussing what was or was not in the consultation document. That would not be constructive.
The issue was raised of the ongoing sales, or the 15% of the Forestry Commission estate that is in the spending review for the next four years. It is estimated that we would have raised £100 million from the sale of up to 15% of the forestry estate in England. The hon. Member for Leicester South asked what is happening to that, and as the Secretary of State made clear, we have suspended that process. No parcels of land or forests will be offered for sale until the panel—to which I will refer later—has reported and made recommendations regarding the protection of public interests. At the moment, there is no direct financial consequence. The £100 million, although placed in our spending review, was not allocated to any heads of expenditure. Therefore, other than a short-term cash-flow issue, there are no direct consequences of deferring those sales. I hope that explanation has clarified the issue.
A point was made about sales by previous Governments. Again, that makes me doubt the right hon. Lady’s—the hon. Lady’s—
Mr Paice
My apologies. It makes me doubt the right hon. Lady’s commitment to the whole picture. On her website, she has been on about how much land the previous Conservative Government and the Forestry Commission sold. Of course, she omits to point out that most of that was in Scotland, because under that previous Government the Forestry Commission was one body, so in comparison with what happened under the Labour Government, who were selling only in England after devolution, the figures look dramatically different. She also omitted to mention, although one of my hon. Friends did mention it, that under the previous Government tree planting fell to an all-time low. The rate halved under the Government of whom she was so proud to be a member.
Much has been said about the fact that the public forest estate comprises just 18% of all woods and forests in England. We should not in any way ignore that statistic. It is clear that many people were confused about how much of the forestry in this country was owned or rented by the Forestry Commission. It is just 18%. Although the right hon. Member for Lewisham, Deptford and other hon. Members have been, by implication, quite damning of the 69% that is held in private hands—the rest is in other forms of public or community ownership—we do not see with that 69% all the disasters that we were told would befall public land if it went into the private sector. As my hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) rightly pointed out, people cannot fell trees in this country without a felling licence, and almost certainly they will have to replant. Indeed, since I have been the Minister responsible, I have had to intervene on a few occasions to enforce the replanting requirements to ensure that that happens. Therefore, suggestions of massive deforestation are completely absurd and take us away from the serious debate that others want to address.
Let me deal with some of the specific questions that I was asked. I will not disclose anything about the content of the panel, because the Secretary of State will announce in due course who will serve on the panel and what its terms of reference will be. I can emphasise, though, that the status quo—the hon. Member for Leicester South asked about this—is of course an option. If the panel recommends that, clearly it is entitled to do so. To rule it out would be nonsensical. If the panel recommends change, the issue of public consultation comes back into play, so there will be plenty of time. The hon. Member for Blaydon (Mr Anderson) said that if the panel concludes in favour of anything other than the status quo, we will not have listened to the public. I say to him that we will consult the public about any changes if the panel recommends them. I do not want to prejudge what the outcome of the panel will be.
The hon. Member for Leicester South asked how we would guarantee independence. The chairman will be appointed and will be completely independent; indeed, all the members will be. We are not filling the panel with civil servants or anything like that. It will be completely independent. It will be for the members to decide how they operate, but I cannot see why they should not have public meetings if that seems appropriate.
The hon. Gentleman asked about the 25% cut, and other hon. Members have raised that. All Opposition Members should be well aware that they managed to leave this country in desperate straits and we have had to take very tough decisions on public expenditure. All DEFRA’s arm’s length bodies have had to take a 25% cut, just as core DEFRA has had to. That is tough, and I feel for all the people who may find themselves losing jobs or not being able to get a job because the job has disappeared as a result. However, as my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has made clear, the deficit must come first—we must deal with it. I will not apologise—indeed, it should be for those on the Opposition Benches to apologise—for the fact that we have had to make those reductions. The details of how they will be made in this area are a matter for the Forestry Commission. It has made its proposals, which are out for consultation. It would be wrong of me to discuss them in public while that consultation is going on.
A number of other points were raised. I shall try to encapsulate some of them but, most importantly, I want to make the point that, contrary to the impression that the Opposition have tried to give, the Government feel very strongly about forestry. Perhaps I should have said, like other hon. Members, that I have the grand total of 1 hectare of woodland on my own little property. Like others, I planted it myself 20 years ago under a woodland grant scheme, although that has long since expired, and I am proud to spend a lot of time in it managing it. I passionately believe in the importance of forestry. What I do not believe is that the status quo is automatically always the best way forward. It is right that we should reconsider how the Forestry Commission operates, and the panel will advise us on whether there should be changes.
It is worth pointing out that the Forestry Commission’s commercial arm makes a margin of just £1 million on its commercial activities. That is substantially offset by the understandable costs of recreation, amenity, biodiversity and the other services that the commission provides, as a number of hon. Members rightly identified. That means that there is a massive overall cost to the taxpayer. As my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury said, in the past the commission has made that up by selling off assets on an annual basis, and it has been selling those assets without the protection for public access, rights of way and all the other things that Opposition Members now preach to us about. Those things were not protected, so Opposition Members are not in a good position to criticise us.
We hope that the panel will consider all aspects of the public forest estate. As I said, the Secretary of State will publish details of the proposed membership and the terms of reference of the panel shortly. We look forward to the conclusions that it comes to. I can assure the House that the present Government’s genuine commitment to forestry in this country—public, private and community—is real and as strong as it has ever been.
The truth of what I have just said is underlined by the fact that, as my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury said, the National Forest was brought in by a Conservative Government, who did a tremendous amount of work in developing forestry in the former coal mining areas of the midlands. That is a great place for everyone to visit. The real point to make, though, is that virtually none of it is on state-owned land. Planting has been incentivised on private and community-owned land, not public land bought by the Forestry Commission. Therefore, we can have a vibrant, strong forest in this country, with access and with all the necessary protection for biodiversity. Whether the state needs to be involved not only in owning it but in managing and running it is now a matter for the panel, the details of which we will announce shortly.
Sir Peter Soulsby
I understand the Minister’s reluctance to give the names of those who might serve on the panel, but surely he will accept that it is important that those who have spoken out so strongly on behalf of woodlands and forests have their voice heard on that panel. Will he at this stage agree to ensure that on that panel are members of the public and local campaign groups who have been speaking so vehemently on behalf of our forests?
Mr Paice
I am sorry, but I will not be drawn on the membership of the panel because once I give way on one aspect of who might be on the panel, I will be drawn into discussing everything. The Secretary of State will make the announcement shortly. I hope that we can then go forward with the seriousness of approach that my hon. Friend the Member for Brecon and Radnorshire mentioned so wisely in his contribution.
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Sir Alan Beith (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (LD)
I am grateful for the opportunity to raise this extremely important matter, which has exercised the House for some time. I have raised it on several occasions, and it is time that we looked in detail at what the future holds for the search and rescue service, on which we all depend.
The search and rescue service covers 1.25 million nautical miles of sea and 10,000 nautical miles of coastline, as well as the entire land area of the United Kingdom. It is a joint service, which is operated by the RAF, the Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm and Her Majesty’s coastguard. It uses more than 40 helicopters from 12 bases around the UK.
HM coastguard uses Westland AW139s and Sikorsky S-92s, which are under contract to the Maritime and Coastguard Agency. The RAF and the Royal Navy use Sea Kings. The Sea King has four crew members—the pilot, the co-pilot, the winchman and the radar operator, who is also the winch operator. There are two versions of the Sea King: the Mk 3, which entered service in 1977, and the Mk 3A, which is slightly newer. The age of the aircraft has been causing significant technical problems, and they require constant maintenance to keep flying—a point to which I will return.
The RAF bases are RAF Boulmer, which is the headquarters of A flight and 202 Squadron; RAF Lossiemouth, on the Moray firth; RAF Valley in Anglesey, where Prince William is based; Leconfield, near Hull; Chivenor, in Devon; and Wattisham, in Suffolk. The Royal Navy bases are Culdrose in Cornwall and Prestwick in the west of Scotland. HM coastguard operates from Lee on Solent, Portland, Stornoway and Sumburgh in the Shetland islands.
The RAF has just celebrated 70 years of involvement in the search and rescue service. It has 16 Sea King Mk 3 and 3A helicopters in service, which are divided between 22 Squadron and 202 Squadron. Each squadron maintains a 15-minute readiness state during daylight hours and a 45-minute readiness state during the hours of darkness. 22 Squadron operates out of Chivenor, Wattisham and Valley, while 202 Squadron operates out of Boulmer, Lossiemouth and Leconfield. The training unit operates out of RAF Valley with three Griffin HT1 helicopters.
In Boulmer, which is in my constituency, the RAF search and rescue service is a source of enormous local pride and satisfaction. It is hugely respected and very involved in the local community, and the RAF helicopter is often to be seen not only engaged in operations or training, but supporting local community events. That, of course, is good public relations for the RAF and adds to its excellent reputation in my area. Indeed, such activities are such a prominent feature of the RAF’s work that they tend to distract attention from the fact that the vast majority of the work done at RAF Boulmer is in the very different field of monitoring and guarding our skies and training people. None the less, it is the familiar yellow helicopters going about their rescue and training work that enjoy the greatest and most immediate public awareness.
Under the previous Labour Government, a private finance initiative contract proposal was developed under the name of search and rescue harmonisation. Commonality of function between the MCA and Ministry of Defence helicopter forces, and similar time frames for the potential introduction of new aircraft fleets, led Ministers in the MOD and the Department for Transport in May 2006 to announce a cross-Government approach to the acquisition of a harmonised UK SAR helicopter service. A joint project team from the two Departments was tasked with running the project, which was essentially a Labour privatisation project. I say that not as a criticism, but simply to set out the context, because if this Government contemplate privatising anything, the Opposition tend to say that they would never consider such a thing. However, the previous Government did devise a privatisation project, and that was because they thought that such a project was essential to ensure that new helicopters could be provided relatively quickly to replace the Sea Kings. The total project contracts were worth £6 billion.
During discussions on the project, a number of concerns arose and were subject to quite a lot of public discussion. What aircraft would be used to replace the Sea King? How long would it take to get them into service? Which personnel would be required to operate the new service? Would they be drawn from the military, civilian life or a mixture of the two? If there were to be a mixture of military and civilian personnel, how would that work in practice, given that the civilians would be covered by the European working time directive, while the military personnel would not? That has already caused issues at the coastguard-operated bases in the Hebrides and the Shetlands. Consideration would also need to be given to the equalisation of pay and other conditions.
What training would air crew receive? At the moment, there is a fairly heavy dependence on experienced personnel with RAF training moving into other areas of search and rescue and other helicopter services. Of course, it is true that RAF training is heavily drawn on in aviation more widely. Furthermore, what arrangements would be provided for SAR cover in the Falkland islands under the SAR helicopter scheme? SAR in the south Atlantic is currently provided by the RAF, using the same crews who man our stations in the UK. That is done on a six to seven-week rolling rotation, with two crews of four personnel based in the Falklands at any one time. A normal feature of a career spent in a search and rescue aircrew will therefore be time spent in the Falklands.
Where do the prospects of a new helicopter with faster flying speeds and a longer range leave the existing basing pattern? What changes would be feasible under SAR? Linked to that, would 24-hour cover be provided by each base? An early answer to that question made it clear that there were proposals to reduce the cover at a number of bases to 12 hours, after which time the area for which the base was responsible would be covered by the base in the adjoining area. That raised great concern. In the Lake district, for example, rescue operations are often mounted by the RAF Boulmer helicopter, and there was particular concern that the area could not easily be served from other bases. Those bases would, like Boulmer, have extensive responsibilities for the North sea and the east coast, and their helicopters could easily be on a rescue operation and be unable to respond. Bases would be covering two huge areas—their own area and the neighbouring area—so there was a lot of concern about the idea of 12-hour operation. Following a number of meetings with Ministers and others, it was decided that RAF Boulmer would continue to provide 24-hour cover, at least until new helicopters with greater range and the ability to reach other areas at greater speed were introduced.
In the course of the project, bidders were identified, although some did not stay the course until the end. On 9 February 2010, the Soteria consortium was identified as the preferred bidder. The consortium was made up of CHC Helicopter, which is the largest global supplier of civilian helicopter services and the current provider of the MCA’s interim SAR service; the Royal Bank of Scotland, as a PFI equity investor; Thales UK, the well known defence contractor, which has been involved in a number of PFI and partnership projects; and Sikorsky, which has long experience in the design and manufacture of military and commercial helicopters.
The consortium proposed a fleet of 24 Sikorsky S-92 aircraft, with a top speed of 190 mph and a cruising speed of 167 mph. The S-92 would have been fitted with an internal fuel tank, increasing the aircraft’s flying radius to 310 statute miles. The aircraft would also have been fitted with the latest high-speed twin hoist, providing for the possibility of single-hoist failure. It would also have had a 300-foot hoist cable and a lift capacity of up to 600 lb at 350 feet per minute. It is hard to envisage being raised on a winch at 350 feet per minute, but such things are necessary in certain situations—for example, on the moving deck of a ship in rough seas. The aircraft cabin would be fitted out to allow paramedic medical care to be administered to a casualty. The ramp at the rear of the aircraft would provide access for loading and unloading stretchers, incubators and medical equipment and access for rescue teams and their equipment. The other major bidding consortium went under the name of AirKnight, but two further consortia pulled out at a relatively early stage in the process.
At some stage—I must confess I now forget when it was—responsibility for the future operation was transferred from the Ministry of Defence to the Department for Transport, which is why the Minister with whom I deal with all sorts of other transport issues is replying to the debate. All that I have described of course preceded the dramatic events of the suspension of the SAR-H scheme and its subsequent abandonment. The first stage of that was just part of the process of the incoming Government reviewing the spending commitments left to them by the previous Government. In June the Chief Secretary to the Treasury announced that the Government had identified several projects, some of which were dropped, while others were to be reviewed. SAR was one of the reviewed projects.
Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)
I understand that on average over the past five years there have been between 80 and 120 mountain rescues in the United Kingdom. Does the right hon. Gentleman think that such rescues could adequately be carried out using non-military personnel and equipment, in a way similar to what happens in France and the United States; or should they remain in the hands of the military?
Sir Alan Beith
Some of the rescues are done in that way even now. Not all SAR services are provided by military crew, but a high degree of training is required, and there must be consistent co-operation with local organisations such as mountain rescue teams. That depends on consistent good working relations. The military operators such as RAF Boulmer and 202 Squadron have done that particularly well. In general I think that most people feel more confidence about military crew, because they know the high standards of training that are involved. However, it is quite an expensive way to provide the service, and other options probably should be considered. Some of the training and experience that the military has, and some of its operational practices, would need to be transferred if there were any wider civilianisation of the service. The hon. Gentleman is right to raise that as a matter of concern.
The review announced by the Chief Secretary was about cost-effectiveness, against the background of a huge deficiency in defence capital programme funding. It was not about the issues that finally brought down the contract. Indeed, Ministers were on the point of announcing the final decision on the contract. Various other things had been going on, however. There were rumours that as part of the comprehensive spending review the Government had proposed that the project should be rewritten, so that an entirely civilian work force would operate the service, rather than a mixture of civilian and military personnel. Of course, if the Government had done that, it would have created a big saving, because it would have taken about 66 higher-paid military personnel out of the project, and probably created up to an additional £100 million over the lifetime of the project in personnel costs for the contractor. It also sidestepped the problem of some personnel being subject to European working time directive rules, while others were not. That issue was rumbling in the background.
On 16 December a dramatic announcement was made—I think that it was the very day on which we were to have heard the final decision about the contractor. The Secretary of State for Defence announced that information had come to light about the preferred bid in the search and rescue competition, which required clarification. The preferred bidder had informed the Government of irregularities in the conduct of the bid team, which had only recently come to light. The irregularities included access by one of the consortium members, CHC Helicopter, to commercially sensitive information about the joint Ministry of Defence and Department for Transport 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 at the time.
I believe that a considerable time previously a letter went to the Ministry of Defence warning it of potential irregularities of that nature. One of the matters that I hope is being investigated is why that warning was not heeded. Of course many other matters are being investigated as well, not just by the Ministry of Defence but by the police. A former member of the MOD team, subsequently employed in the industry, is, I believe, the subject of investigation. I do not know to what extent others are as well.
On that basis, we were told that
“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.”
The statement continued:
“The Department for Transport and the Ministry of Defence will now consider the potential procurement options to meet future requirements for search and rescue helicopters in the United Kingdom, including options to maintain continuity of search and rescue helicopter cover until new longer-term arrangements can be put in place.
We will make a further announcement once a way forward has been agreed.”—[Official Report, 10 February 2011; Vol. 523, c. 17WS.]
That brings me to the focus of today’s debate, which is what progress has been made in reaching those decisions and when we are likely to get a proper announcement about it. Other factors could be at work. There is the potential for legal action involving contractors. An unsuccessful contractor might want to pursue the successful one over bid costs incurred. There might be legal action between the Government and a contractor. The Minister may be inhibited in what he can say about that, but it could be going on at the same time.
What will happen next? The Sea Kings were due to be withdrawn by 2016 or 2017. They are ageing and they continue to need substantial levels of maintenance to keep them operating. Those of us who keep in close touch with the search and rescue service know that there are many occasions when the Sea Kings are not available to fly. I have seen that for myself. I was flying in a Sea King that returned to base because the radio system failed. The other aircraft was on land having returned from necessary maintenance work, and was not yet tested and available to take over. At that point therefore neither was available. There have been moments when no helicopter has been available at Leconfield, Lossiemouth or Boulmer at the same time. That clearly is a situation we cannot allow to continue.
Mr David Laws (Yeovil) (LD)
I congratulate my right hon. Friend on securing an extremely important debate. I urge him to keep an open mind about whether a life extension to Sea King could be a short and medium-term option. Is he aware that in the United States, Germany and India the Sea King fleets, which are all older than ours, are having their lives extended, and that on the whole Sea King availability recently has been quite good?
Sir Alan Beith
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend who, from his constituency, knows well the work of Westland in that area. I have an open mind about whether a major refit of at least some of the Sea Kings could be carried out. It is one of the options to be considered. However, we cannot simply go on as we are with relatively short-term maintenance of the Sea Kings.
The personnel who work in search and rescue with the RAF and the Royal Navy are also in limbo. That is also true of the Maritime and Coastguard Agency personnel, although they already have a contract; but it expires within the year, I think, so they too are in a state of uncertainty. The Government need to get a grip on the situation and some people need to know pretty soon, for their careers, what will happen. Are they likely to have a future in search and rescue, whether on the military side or as contractors’ employees? What will happen?
We also need to bear in mind some of the warnings given during the contract process. My right hon. Friend the Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael), to whom I am sure the Minister will want to listen, as he is now the Government Deputy Chief Whip, said in February 2010:
“It is essential that this contract…is better negotiated and has fewer loopholes than the interim contract we had for the last few years”—
the MCA contract. He said that the contract must protect against situations like the one that arose in 2008. The back-up helicopter based at Sumburgh was off-station for a whole week, but the Department for Transport and the MCA were powerless to do anything about it. He also wanted to see the new service rooted properly in the communities that it serves rather than being dependent on a stream of temporary pilots and support officers constantly being shipped in and out.
What are the options? What are the Government considering? First are the short-term immediate continuity arrangements. The RAF will carry on, as it always does. It has the resilience and determination to cope in situations, whether created by Governments or world events, that would challenge many other organisations, and I have every confidence in its ability to do so. However, we need answers on how long it will be before a new scheme replaces the present arrangements. Personnel have careers to plan, and MCA helicopters are contracted only until next year. As I said earlier, the Sea Kings are now extremely difficult to keep airworthy. How long will this situation continue? What level of refit of the Sea King is possible? Would a major upgrade of the Sea King be a short-term option, or would it be too expensive? Should it therefore be considered as a longer-term measure?
What is being considered in the longer term? There are obviously several options. One is to retender a version of the contract. The Government clearly ruled out retendering the contract in its present form when they made their announcement, so they have obviously given it some consideration. There are several reasons why retendering is not the answer. There were too many flaws in the original contract, some of which I referred to earlier; once it became impossible to continue it, the questions that had arisen while it was being considered then needed to be considered again. At that stage in the contract process, it may have been too late to resolve those questions, but when the matter was reopened they needed to be reconsidered.
Another reason why it would have been difficult to retender was that experience has shown that the procurement process is not up to the job. To go back to the same process and risk another failure was not something that the Government could properly have done. We have seen many other weaknesses in the defence procurement process, which has led many to lack confidence in it.
In some respects the previous contract was not cost-effective, which is why it was under review. The reason why the Government did not stop it as a result of the Chief Secretary’s review, but were about to announce that it would go ahead, was that the contract had gone too far to be stopped and the gap would be undesirably long if the process had to be started again. However, events have now forced us into that very gap. The Government concluded during the cost review that it would be unwise to have such a gap, but they now have one. That puts a particular responsibility on Ministers to tell us how they intend to deal with a situation that they felt obliged to avoid until dropping the contract became inevitable because of the irregularities that were found. Simply retendering does not seem to be a proper option.
Another alternative would be to lease helicopters for use by existing RAF, Royal Navy and MCA-based crews. There are various options, but even in the short term it may be necessary to have short leasing contracts. What else is the MCA to do when its existing contract expires? What can the RAF do if it is found that a major refit of the Sea Kings will be too expensive to be considered as a short-term measure? Will aircraft have to be leased? The option of leasing of helicopters is clearly on the table, but will there be a new form of contract, involving both leasing aircraft and crew, with some of the features of the previous contract but rather better developed?
There is significant private sector interest in providing helicopters to the oil industry, the police and other services where they are essential. The market is not devoid of other operators, but as we heard earlier, the service requires a particularly high level of skill and training and it has to serve a wide range of functions. Rescues take place at sea, in dangerous coastal areas, in mountains, in fog—conditions that would defy many traditional commercial operators. It would be a pretty demanding contract, and the public are entitled to know that it will be carried out by people with the skills and equipment to do so.
Sarah Newton (Truro and Falmouth) (Con)
I congratulate my right hon. Friend on securing this debate. The Government have inherited a difficult situation, and I agree with what he says about the importance of introducing some certainty.
Many people in my constituency work at RNAS Culdrose, which plays an important role in our community. We are proud of its role in search and rescue, as it works closely with Falmouth coastguard. The Sea King helicopters provide what I would call a more inshore rescue service, but does my right hon. Friend agree that we must not lose sight of the important role of the Nimrod, and the necessity to have some replacement for the much more distant sea rescues, which are also part of the search and rescue service?
Sir Alan Beith
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for those comments. She obviously has similar experiences to mine in working with the RAF locally and being very aware that its work is respected by the community.
My hon. Friend spoke also about the Nimrod. That is a big problem for the Ministry of Defence, and it illustrates similarities to the subject of our debate, not least because it has been dragging on for a long time and we still do not have a proper solution. However, it is probably beyond the scope of today’s debate—and, I believe, beyond the responsibilities of the Minister answering it—but my hon. Friend was right to flag it up.
Much has been said in public recently about the relationship between the RAF and the coastguard. I simply make this comment. If its relationship with the coastguard were dependent on where the major control centres were situated, we would have got into difficulties years ago, when our major control centre moved from Tynemouth to Humberside. What makes the relationship work well is not only that the control centres operate efficiently, as they should, but that the RAF develops good close personal relationships with the coastguards—mostly volunteers in coastal communities up and down our coastline—as it does also with the lifeboat service. The building of those relationships, and therefore the desirability of having crew in place for reasonable periods, is essential to the success of the service.
I emphasise a few more points that I believe the Minister needs to consider. What about 24-hour cover? It raised great concern when the idea that two or even three search and rescue areas—a single area is huge—could be treated as one for 12 hours of the 24 became part of the proposal, and even more concern when it was suggested that it could be done with existing aircraft before the new contract came into being.
That concern remains. People want to know that there is 24-hour cover on no larger a scale than the existing areas, because if a neighbouring area is already on operational duty and carrying out a rescue, there will be no search and rescue helicopter within a reasonably manageable distance for 24 hours of the day. We need an answer on that. We also need clarification on what is going to happen to the Falklands support operation if the RAF is no longer to be involved in SAR there. We need to know about the potential impact of legal action, and whether it is likely to cause delay to the key decisions that are now being taken. I hope not.
Overall, it is an awful business. We will know fully when the investigations are completed, but it approaches what we could call a scandal. Courageous and skilled aircrew have been let down by the inadequacy of the Ministry of Defence procurement process and the way in which it was carried out. The challenge for the Department for Transport is to carry out the task rather better than the MOD, which has conspicuously failed. The time scale now is short and demanding. Can the Department do it? How will it do it, and what assurances can the Minister give to those employed in, or dependent on, search and rescue that they will have satisfactory continuity arrangements over a reasonably short time and that a new system will be put in place in which the public can have confidence?
Mr James Gray (in the Chair)
Order. Let me remind hon. Members that if they want to speak in a debate, it is helpful if they write to the Speaker. That applies both here and in the main Chamber.
Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)
I am extremely grateful for being called to speak, and I am pleased to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gray. I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith) on securing this important debate. He will be delighted to hear that I will speak relatively briefly.
In Cumbria, we rely heavily on search and rescue teams, particularly those at RAF Boulmer, which is our local base. They provide essential back-up to our mountain rescue teams in Ambleside, Langdale and Kendal and, as my right hon. Friend mentioned, to our search and rescue teams at Flookburgh on Morecambe bay. The mountain rescue teams across Cumbria rely on RAF Boulmer, and they regard it as essential to their work, which is voluntary in nature but professional in standard.
On behalf of the mountain rescue teams and the search and rescue teams in Cumbria, and south Cumbria in particular, I want to say how much we value the professionalism of the staff at RAF Boulmer and indeed of all of those involved in search and rescue. We value their responsiveness, their 24-hour cover and the fact that they work so well with our mountain rescue teams.
When the new contract, which has recently been cancelled, was first suggested, many of us across the country objected. There were objections in Cumbria largely because it would have made Boulmer a half-time base. We would only have obtained 12-hour cover, which is extremely dangerous. My right hon. Friend rightly referred to that towards the end of his speech. It is dangerous not to have 24-hour cover. My mountain rescue volunteer friends say that a typical time for a person to go missing, or to be reported missing, on the fells, in the Lake District or on the Yorkshire dales is when it gets dark. That is the time at which a person is deemed missing—the time that they have not returned home—and the emergency is activated. It is very dangerous for that critical time to be the point at which the source of the rescue craft moves further away. Reducing cover would also mean a reduction in responsiveness; there will be longer times from the call-out to the scrambling of the craft and its arrival in the Lake district. We are also deeply concerned about the reduction in capacity that the contract would bring. My right hon. Friend rightly talked about the possibility of a craft being occupied in one region when it is supposed to be serving another.
About 14 months ago, we had some dreadful flooding in Cumbria, particularly in the west of the county. There is no doubt that had the contract been in place then, there would have been insufficient air cover to rescue people from dangerous situations. Therefore, the contract that has been cancelled could have been dangerous in a number of areas. None the less, the cancellation is a matter of deep concern for those whose careers depend on an outcome to this process, for all those who work with the search and rescue teams, and for all of us because of what it means for the probity and efficacy of the process. Moreover, we were all terribly concerned about the irregularities that were uncovered.
Having said that, those of us who had deep concerns about the contract cannot help but think that we now have an opportunity to re-examine the situation. The Government have the chance to think again, but, as my right hon. Friend said, they should not do so for too long. A whole range of options exist. The Government might want to consider whether it is entirely wise to go down the private finance initiative route again. They might also consider the wisdom of refitting the Sea Kings, which was suggested by my right hon. Friend the Member for Yeovil (Mr Laws). That could be done with great operational effectiveness and would be relatively cost-effective, giving certainty and a medium-term future for all those involved.
Whatever the Government decide, they must do it relatively quickly to give us confidence and a sense of long-term stability, and ensure that it is in the interests of maximising safety across the country, particularly across Cumbria, the Lake district and the Yorkshire dales. The Lakes are England’s most mountainous region. It seemed barmy, therefore, to exercise a contract that would move the airborne rescue further away.
I urge the Minister to make a decision relatively quickly, maintain 24-hour cover from Boulmer and ensure that whatever decision is taken from this point on provides maximum support for mountain rescue teams and search and rescue teams on the ground and in the water and in the interests of all those people who may find themselves in peril on the fells.
Jim Fitzpatrick (Poplar and Limehouse) (Lab)
It is a great pleasure to see you in the Chair today, Mr Gray. I am delighted to follow the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) and I congratulate the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith) on securing this important and timely debate. Given that this whole policy began under the previous Administration, the right hon. Gentleman cautioned me about the scope of my remarks. I fully acknowledge that, so my remarks will be relatively brief.
Let me begin by adding my tribute, and a tribute from the Opposition, to the air sea rescue service and all those involved in search and rescue across the country. The Minister and I are former fire fighters, so we were part of that industry in a very big way, and we recognise the conspicuous role that these brave men and women play in all aspects of search and rescue across the country.
It would have been better if the Minister had opened this debate, because we could all have commented on what he said. The right hon. Gentleman could have stood up and just said, “What’s happening, Minister?” What we want to find out is where we go from here. There is a lot of interest and concern about that across the country, not least from the Palace. A few months ago, we heard in Prime Minister’s questions that there had been royal lobbying on the matter. I suspect that the Minister’s speech has been proofread not only by the lawyers but by officials at No.10 who will want to make sure that he is careful in his responses to us today.
The right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed outlined the history of this matter very effectively and explained why it is so important. The questions originally were about the split command structure and the fact that although this process is led by the Department for Transport, the Ministry of Defence has an important role to play. That is why there is duality and why the Minister, who is a Transport Minister, is in the driving seat. However, the Maritime and Coastguard Agency, the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force all make contributions. There are other issues: the life expectancy of helicopters; European regulations and terms of employment, and the PFI replacement programme for helicopters. All those factors have made it very complicated to try to unlock and disentangle the sector. With information emerging about irregularities in the tendering of the contract, the Government had no option but to stop the tendering process and review it. As the right hon. Gentleman logically said, we need answers as quickly as possible about where we go now.
The questions that I would have asked have already been asked. They included questions about the durability of the existing helicopter fleet—for example, how long that fleet will last and whether it will last until the new arrangements are put in place. The issue of 24-hour cover was raised by the right hon. Gentleman and the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale, who both spoke before me. There have also been questions in recent months about the use of armed forces pilots as part of the pilot provision for the search and rescue service, given that we must ensure that we have enough pilots for front-line services in Afghanistan and elsewhere. The right hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr Laws) also asked about the life expectancy of the Sea Kings and the upgrades that might happen.
Albert Owen (Ynys Môn) (Lab)
I thank my hon. Friend for giving way and I apologise for not being here for the start of the debate. I was unavoidably detained in Committee.
My hon. Friend has made a point about pilots. It is absolutely essential that there is clarity about that issue, because what we are seeing now is that RAF pilots, who have completed three quarters of their training and nearly finished it, are being withdrawn from service. The search and rescue service really needs the continuity that RAF bases, such as RAF Valley in my own constituency, provide. Those bases have an intake of pilots, who go elsewhere before coming back. The search and rescue service needs to know that the pilots at those bases will graduate. Does my hon. Friend agree that clarity about that issue must be provided now?
Jim Fitzpatrick
I agree with my hon. Friend that the issue of military pilots being used as part of the air-sea rescue service has been raised in recent months and that the loss of such pilots might impact on the ability of the MOD to perform front-line duties.
It is to the great credit of the control and management arrangements of the air-sea rescue service that although there are so many organisations involved—the RAF, the Royal Navy and the MCA—the service has worked so well. Obviously what we all want to see is whatever arrangements are put in place in future working equally well. However, given that the Government have been stopped in their tracks because of the irregularities in the tendering arrangements, questions are being asked by right hon. and hon. Members about where we go from here. Those questions are about how the Government intend to proceed in providing the service, including the new tendering arrangements, the use of the existing fleet, the potential upgrades and how long it might take the Minister and his colleagues to resolve these issues. Those are very big questions, but I know that the Minister has all the answers, as he usually has, and we are all waiting with bated breath to hear what they are.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Mike Penning)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gray, for the first time as a Minister of the Crown.
First, I want to say that a leak has taken place. It must have taken place last night, because the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith) has read out my summary of events, with great clarity and great accuracy. I praise him for his knowledge of the issues that he has raised in Westminster Hall today.
Having secured this debate, the right hon. Gentleman might have thought that there would be a few more Members here for it. The amount of correspondence that I have had on this issue is not reflected in the number of Back Benchers who are in Westminster Hall today. I hope that those who are not here will read the report in Hansard later, so that we can get some better knowledge out there around the country about what is happening.
The shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick), was quite right to say that I am somewhat tied by “legal eagles”. There are some things that I can talk about today and clearly there are some things that I cannot talk about. I will be as open and honest as possible, as I always am. As Members can imagine, there are officials from the Ministry of Defence who are keeping a very close eye on me as I stand here, as well as my own officials.
We are discussing a really serious issue today. I am not particularly happy about the position that I am in. As the hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse and other right hon. and hon. Members have said, we inherited the position that we are in and literally on the eve of our announcement information was brought forward that meant that the whole procurement process and the awarding of the contracts had to be halted. Indeed, they were not only halted but we had enough information at that time, as the police were brought in, to know that that procurement process and the awarding of the contracts would cease.
So, wherever I can be, I will be as open as I can, but I hope that Members will understand that I am speaking under legal constraints and I do not want to jeopardise any possible legal action or police inquiry by what I say during this debate.
Quite correctly, right hon. and hon. Members have paid tribute, and I join them in paying tribute, to the men and women who have served in the air-sea rescue service in the many roles that they have played in the many years—nearly 70 in total—that they have carried out this service on behalf of the British public.
What is interesting is that the public have a perception about who is flying those funny-coloured helicopters that have the word “Coastguard” written on their side. When I first became a Minister, I assumed that the crews involved were all military crews and I think that a lot of people make that assumption. They assume that when they are on the beach, or on the moorlands and lakelands of this country, or when they are waiting to be rescued from a cliff, that those pilots, navigators and loading guys in the back are military personnel. However, let us be perfectly honest. We know that many of them are not military personnel and that for some 27 years four of the bases—four of the air-sea rescue facilities—have been run under contract by the private sector. Have there been huge numbers of complaints about the ability, skill, dedication, commitment or professionalism of those private sector crews? To be truthful, no, there have not been—not at all. So, although I understand the concerns of areas where there are military bases, we must not undermine the work of the civilian crews who have done fantastic work for many years.
I acknowledge the concerns that exist about some of the contracts—not being responsible for them, I can say that. The contracts were there, we inherited them and we have moved forward with them.
There are obvious and understandable concerns about the future. However, the awarding of these contracts has been delayed for some time. I myself would probably have flown in some of these Sea King helicopters when I was in the armed forces and I joined as a boy soldier in 1974. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, I was in Sea Kings rather too often. I was also in Wessex helicopters. The Wessex is long gone, but Sea Kings are still fulfilling a fantastic role, here in the UK and on operations abroad. I have been lucky enough to be in Sea Kings on operations in Iraq and Afghanistan on my visits to those countries. We must pay tribute to the work that is being done by our armed forces, particularly because as we speak today they are doing a lot of work in the middle east as well as in Afghanistan.
To be polite, the Sea King is a very old lady. As the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed said, there are two versions. However, the older version—the 1977 version—is not a modern aircraft. It has nowhere near the sort of lift, capacity or range that modern helicopters offer. I am aware that other countries have looked seriously at their Sea Kings and upgraded them. Very often, they have done so for cost reasons as well as for other reasons, because if the life of a Sea King can be extended the difficult decisions that we have been trying to make can be avoided.
So, as we look at what we have inherited, we must look at what will happen in the short term—that is, now—because of what has happened with these contracts. We must consider how we can continue to have the cover available and my Department is doing that jointly with the MOD and the MCA. However, we must also look forward to consider what will come in to replace the existing service.
Perhaps I can say now that there will be no demise in cover at all in the short term or in the long term. We will look very carefully at the existing contracts—both the civilian contracts and the MOD contracts—and there will be provision of service while we look for a long-term solution. So I hope that I can alleviate any concerns that exist among the constituents of right hon. or hon. Members, including the hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse, or among the armed forces or in the MCA. We will ensure that we get this right. In the short term, we will ensure that there is cover and that the Sea Kings are available and operational.
I am really pleased that my right hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed was as honest as I was going to have to be about the Sea Kings’ current availability. They are very often off the run. I have been surprised by a couple of incidents that I have been involved in in my short time as Minister, when I have had to say, “Guarantee to me who is available.” Sometimes the Sea Kings are not there, but that is not because of a lack of will or because people are not professional in maintaining them, it is just because they are very old ladies. They need a lot of TLC, and sometimes we just cannot physically get them up there. Their range is restricted, compared with the civilian Bristows, especially the new ones we would like to bring in, and so there are big issues about who covers. Very often, as I am sure Members are aware, the civilian crews cover in areas where the military cannot, simply because they have the range. We will very consciously ensure our commitment to mountain rescue and sea rescue, and also cliff rescue, which has not been covered today. The skill involved in cliff rescue, with the down draughts, is unbelievable. In the short term, we will commit to those areas, and we are working very closely with the MOD.
In the long term—not too long a term, I hope, but we must get it right—we have a plain sheet of paper, and I hope that hon. Members appreciate that. We can say, “What do we need for air-sea rescue, to go forward in the 21st century?” The MOD will continue to be involved in the negotiations, deciding for itself to what extent; it is not for me as a Department for Transport Minister, even with my military background, to make decisions on behalf of the MOD. It is absolutely crucial that, because of the concerns that have been raised both today and in the press in the past few weeks, we come forward with proposals—although I am sure not everyone will be happy with them—for a service that is there to do the job and to provide the skills that we all want. There has, I think, been some misinformation in the press, which is understandable because not everyone realises how service air-sea rescue is already provided.
Jim Fitzpatrick
When the first review was under way and the consultation was taking place, it was difficult to deal with the different cultures in the Ministry of Defence and the Department for Transport. When the DFT and the Maritime and Coastguard Agency decided that we would consult on the local provision for the civilian stations, the culture was pretty much one of open politics but, with no disrespect or criticism, the MOD culture was much less open in its engagement with local MPs. If the Minister is looking to consult again, right hon. and hon. Members would obviously look for every assurance that the consultation or the exercise would be as open as possible, and as accessible as possible for Members, so that they could contribute to it.
Mike Penning
The shadow Minister is very knowledgeable in this area because he was around in the Department at the time, so I pay tribute to his knowledge of the problems that occurred during the consultation. It will always be difficult, because some of the stations are operational and so an operational capacity need has to be addressed as well as the secondary use, which is the air-sea rescue.
Mike Penning
If my right hon. Friend will bear with me, I want to answer on this point and will then gladly give way—we have plenty of time, to say the least.
The procurement will now be Department for Transport led, with MOD involvement. I say this in the presence of listening ears from the MOD: we certainly will be as open and honest as we can, and will provide as much access as possible both to colleagues throughout the House, and to local communities, because it is important that they feel part of what is going on. We are all about trying to do the right thing and developing a service that we can all be continually proud of—we are very proud of the current service, but we know that there are issues. I assure Members that we will do as much as possible as we lead on this in the new procurement programme, which is why I say that we have a plain piece of paper. We can learn from mistakes and from a lot of the issues that the shadow Minister has mentioned, but we will not necessarily take on everything. We have a blank piece of paper, and can ask, “What’s best for us?”
Sir Alan Beith
It would be helpful to know what machinery has been set up to make the decision, or to prepare the ground for Ministers ultimately making it. That cannot be a state secret. Is there a joint project board between the two Departments, or a working party? What stage is it at, and what mechanisms are in place for making this important proposal?
Mike Penning
As my right hon. Friend will realise, we are at a very early stage, not least because there are legal issues—he mentioned them in his speech—which are very difficult and technical. The police are fully involved and there is a full inquiry going on, so I am very restricted in how far I can go down that line. My right hon. Friend is absolutely right that others may decide to take action in the civil courts, and it is entirely down to them to decide that. We have to ensure that the existing contract is not affected in any shape or form by the private finance initiative contract. It is completely separate, but it has been lumped in with the existing one, certainly in the media. That contract is close to its end time, and we have to negotiate best value for the taxpayer as well as ensuring that we have the service provision. At this stage, I am not in a position to say, “This is the mechanism that we’re going to go forward with,” but we will announce it as soon as possible. This will be led by the Department for Transport, and that decision has been made.
Mike Penning
The PFI contract went way beyond the existing spending review period, and so we do not know how quickly we can get this going. It is crucial that we get it right, so that we do not get anywhere near this position ever again. The PFI was signed off for this spending review period, but it went way beyond it, as I am sure my right hon. Friend is aware. The key is that the interim measures, which must be in place, are what it says on the tin—“interim”—and that we then have a proper contract. We have not just gone to another re-bid, we have said, “Whoa, let’s look at this another way.” That will take longer than if we just said, “Okay, there’s a few mistakes here. Someone’s been naughty, and we’ll do it this way.” That would be the quick option, but it is right to say, “Let’s put this completely on hold and look fundamentally at the contract.”
[Mr Joe Benton in the Chair]
Sir Alan Beith
I would like to press the Minister a little further. It would be helpful to know whether there is one process, or two separate processes, with a team of people from the two Departments assessing the viability of the existing arrangements and what has to be done to keep them going for the time being, and a separate team considering the future options.
Mike Penning
There are two separate processes, which is why, when I began my speech, I stated that there is what we need to do now and what we need to do in the future. I have just been passed a note with some information that I did not know, which is that the Secretary of State for Defence has already been in contact with AgustaWestland—last month—to see if we could engage with the company to consider how to extend the life of the Sea Kings beyond 2016. That is because of the interim short-term situation, and how we go forward. It was mentioned earlier that perhaps the most cost-effective way of doing that would be a major refit, taking us a long way forward, or we could do a shorter-term refit. Two separate projects have to take place, although I am not saying that the same people will or will not be on the working groups. The key is to get on with this now, so that we have the provision in place and can then go forward.
As to when the announcement was made and the reason why it was not made to the House first, it was, obviously a significant market announcement, which is why it had to be made to the stock exchange at 7 am. I am always passionate in the belief that things should be announced to the House, and I have done so myself on many occasions, but an announcement involving such a large private finance initiative had market significance, which is why it needed to be made, and was made, at 7 am.
I know the Falklands rather well. Sadly, several of my friends are there in war graves. Luckily or unluckily, when the Falklands war began, I was with the Grenadiers on spearhead, who were not deployed, but my friends in the Welsh and Scots Guards were. As my right hon. Friend knows, one of my closest friends is Simon Weston, who was disfigured and scarred while he was there and has done much work for charity since he came back. The Falklands is not affected by the PFI. The MOD will continue to provide air-sea rescue in the Falklands and will decide its future. It was never part of existing search and rescue helicopter procurement. There are still a lot of MOD and service personnel in the Falklands. I have flown in a Sea King down there in recent years, although not during my time in the armed forces.
We have mentioned the effects of service personnel and knowing what they are doing. Service personnel work on tours of duty. The original time scales involved in the PFI meant that they would have been beyond their tour of duty—the Prince would have been away from Wales, serving in whatever other duties Her Majesty had in mind for him—long before the changes took place. The MOD will, obviously, continue with its own tour of duty process. That is a matter for the MOD, not for me as a Transport Minister. As we enter the interim period with cover, I am sure that tours of duty will be addressed in many ways.
The hon. Member for North Antrim (Ian Paisley), who has left the Chamber, mentioned the interim contract for the coastguard. The existing MCA contract is not interim; civilians have been doing that work for many years. We need to find out what the interim contract is now, but the existing contracts are not interim. We can also learn a lot from the concerns about the MCA contract as we go forward. There are concerns involving the working time directive; I assure hon. Members that it is one of the pains of my life as a Minister. In the past couple of days, I signed off on a document exempting the military from certain things such as driving time, tachographs and so on. At the same time, the MOD manages brilliantly to provide cover within existing restraints. All of that will be part of the documents as we go forward with the concerns.
I do not want to pontificate for another half-hour, as there is not much more that I can say. We are conscious that there are concerns, and we as a Government are concerned. In a perfect world, this would never have happened. But we do not live in a perfect world and, sadly, an anomaly has occurred with the procurement programme that has created real concerns and legal ramifications. A huge amount of taxpayers’ money has been expended on the procurement programme, and we will be looking to recoup it, as it is not the fault of taxpayers or the Department for Transport. To be fair, the MOD, which was criticised earlier, could not have predicted that the persons involved would do what they did. I know that there are concerns about the MOD’s procurement programme—that is for the MOD to address—but the criticism that the MOD is to blame for what happen might not be right. Individuals are responsible, rather than the MOD.
Albert Owen
The Minister was right to pay tribute to those who maintain Sea Kings. Maintenance crews must be considered as well. They are concerned that under the PFI contract, many of them will not be retrained for any new helicopters procured. Will the Minister assure me, on his blank piece of paper, that that will be considered and that, in the interim, those highly skilled people working on air bases, including RAF Valley in my constituency, will have the opportunity to retrain for any new craft?
Mike Penning
I cannot give the hon. Gentleman those assurances, as I am not an MOD Minister, but the MOD will have heard those concerns, and I will ask someone there to write to him about them. It is clearly not in my portfolio to deal with armed forces staff. I, too, pay tribute to maintenance crews, which I have always found to be unsung heroes when I have visited the military around the world. When I visited Helmand last year, I saw that they worked astonishing hours to keep Chinooks, in particular, in the air. We should all realise that it is not just the helicopter pilots—the gung-ho guys—who do all the work; often, it is the ground crew that get them up in the skies to start with.
Sharing knowledge and working together with other emergency services, particularly in the voluntary sector, is crucial—whatever will happen in the future—as is happening now on the four civilianised bases. I must admit that many of the crew members whom I have met are ex-military; I do not think that I have met a single search and rescue helicopter pilot who is not. We have a wonderful training programme for them, but it is crucial that training and working-together exercises continue in the short and long term.
I am conscious of what hon. Members, especially the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron), said about distance. It will always be an issue. We go out to sea some distances now to incidents, as in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Truro and Falmouth (Sarah Newton), but interestingly, civilian aircraft—the ones that we have now, let alone the ones that we were considering procuring—can go much further and cover greater distances.
Of course, they can do only one job at a time. The shadow Minister and I are both ex-firemen. I did operations with air-sea rescue on the Thames estuary when I was in the fire service. When we were tied up there, we were tied up. When something is tied up, I am concerned to know whether we will have cover from the other bases, especially if the Sea Kings are vulnerable, as we know they are at times.
I do not want to drag out this debate for the sake of it. I am disappointed, as I am sure is my right hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed, that more Members are not here for this 1.5 hour debate. As soon as we know more, we will say more, and we will be as open as we can throughout the procedure. However, at the end of the day, we are where we are. We will sort this mess out and ensure that the public are safe and that air-sea rescue is protected, as we all expect it to be, and cover is provided.
Sir Alan Beith
I thank the hon. Members who have taken part in this debate. There are, obviously, other hon. Members whom it would have been useful to have present to represent other areas. I am particularly grateful for the support shown by my hon. Friend the Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) for the work of RAF Boulmer in his constituency, of which air-sea rescue is a significant part. We have also heard interventions from my hon. Friend the Member for Truro and Falmouth (Sarah Newton), my right hon. Friend the Member for Yeovil (Mr Laws) and the hon. Member for Ynys Môn (Albert Owen), in whose constituency is located basic training for all RAF search and rescue pilots, a fact of which people might not have been widely aware until a royal prince became one of the aircrew there. Their interventions have been helpful.
In concluding, I will focus on what the Minister could and could not do today. Clearly, Ministers cannot comment on what has happened in any detail while investigations are taking place, and legal action—not just legal action arising directly from the investigations but civil legal action—is a possibility. He said that he had a blank piece of paper, but I remind him that it cannot stay blank for long, particularly in respect of the continuity arrangements, and that he does not have a blank chequebook with which to make extremely expensive temporary arrangements that might prejudice what is done in the long term. That is why I am so concerned to establish that there is a clear process at work. I am not sure whether we are entirely clear about that yet. The long-term alternatives have to be looked at in some detail, and I assume that a joint working party is doing that at the moment.
On the continuity arrangements, the centre of gravity has shifted back to the Ministry of Defence, which must affect the way this is being done. The Minister has a more direct responsibility for what is happening in relation to the Maritime and Coastguard Agency—it has a contract that will expire shortly—but the dependence on the continuing RAF and naval provision shifts the centre of gravity of the immediate decision-making process back towards the MOD.
It has never been clear whether the Department for Transport has become a purchasing Department with the relationship of a purchaser with the MOD that says, “This is what we want, even in the short term. How can you provide it for us?” or whether this is a traditional joint departmental process with a degree of fuzziness about who is really in charge. We cannot afford that in situations such as this, so I will continue to press Ministers in both the DFT and MOD to be clearer about how decisions will be taken in both the short and long term, and how the relationship between the two Departments can be operated in a way that ensures that decisions are made quickly on the things that have to be decided quickly. It is bad enough trying to get decisions out of the MOD alone, but when two Departments are involved, unless there is some sort of purchaser-provider split between the two, there is too much uncertainty about how decisions are taken. I am not even sure how confident the Minister is that we have a real grip on the issue and an effective process in operation.
The situation inherited by the Government is difficult, but difficult situations call for resolute action and I want to be sure that there is a process that can do that. Will the Minister, when he reflects upon this debate, write to me, in a letter that can be published, an explanation of the process? It would be helpful.
Mike Penning
I think that I have already said that. I am sure that there will be other debates on this subject—although I cannot predict what Mr Speaker will or will not select for debate—but we will do that in writing as things develop. I am conscious of two things. First, we have to make sure that we get it right. Secondly, at the end of the day, this was not the fault of the taxpayer so it is crucial that, wherever possible, the taxpayer will not pay for it. As we progress, I will be open and we will write, correspond and give as much information as possible. The MOD has a procurement skill that the DFT does not in this area, so we need to work closely together and we will continue to do so. It will be led by the Department for Transport.
Sir Alan Beith
That is a helpful intervention and I am grateful to the Minister for a number of points. Indeed, he said a number of things during that short intervention that had not been fully clear previously in the debate.
Jim Fitzpatrick
Will the right hon. Gentleman allow me to ask the Minister indirectly to deposit the correspondence to him in the Library, or to issue a written ministerial statement, so that all hon. and right hon. Members can share the updated information?
Sir Alan Beith
I am sure that the Minister will do that. It was implicit in my request, and it is desirable and necessary. In conclusion, I say to the Minister that he should not—quite clearly, he is not now going to—wait until the two Departments come up with their final plan before he keeps us informed. We need to know soon about the processes and the decisions being made about continuity arrangements—in a way that is as helpful as possible to those who have to operate the system—as well as about the processes in relation to devising an effective longer-term solution.
To revert to a point I made earlier, I believe that when the Government decided to announce that they were going ahead with the contract, they must have concluded that a period of delay, even with a contract that was not entirely to their satisfaction, was too much of a price to pay. That price now has to be paid, because it is clear that the contract cannot go ahead due to some of the things that went on during the procurement process. We are, therefore, paying a price in terms of certainty and decisions that ought not to be further delayed. I want to make sure that we have a process capable of dealing with that.
Mr Joe Benton (in the Chair)
Before I call the debate to a close, may I take this opportunity to say that it is not normal in a debate such as this for people to respond after a Minister has spoken to conclude it? As there was time, I made due allowance for that, but I do not want a precedent to be set. I hope that hon. and right hon. Members will remember that.
UK Military Basing Review
(13 years, 9 months ago)
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Angus Robertson (Moray) (SNP)
A happy St David’s day to you, Mr Benton. It may be worth noting at the start of the debate that Sky Television is reporting the details of military job losses. No written statement is in the Library, so Members of Parliament are only able to learn of those circumstances by watching the media. No doubt the Ministry of Defence and its officials will try to rectify that as a priority.
Like other Departments, the MOD is going through significant spending cuts and, with an outline of the main structural changes to the armed forces and their equipment in the strategic defence and security review, consideration is now being given to what that means for military basing. One major change in future years will see the return of UK service personnel from Germany. With a head count reduction in the Royal Air Force, as well as in its equipment, there will be fewer RAF operating stations. Changes are also in the pipeline for the Royal Navy, which will have a considerable impact on the three services and on the communities where they have been based, often for many decades.
With the most defence-dependent constituency in the UK, I have more reason than most MPs to watch developments closely, and the experience has not been a happy one. The MOD has already announced the closure of RAF Kinloss, with devastating local consequences in Moray, and the sword of Damocles is hanging over neighbouring RAF Lossiemouth. On the day of the SDSR in October, the Defence Secretary told me personally that the decision on RAF Lossiemouth would be taken before Christmas—Christmas 2010. Then, in November, he told me—again, personally—that the military recommendations would be made by the end of February, with a political decision within weeks. As we now know, that has not happened, and a decision and announcement have been delayed until the summer. Frankly, that is no way to run a military basing review, and no way to treat service families and the communities in which they live. The consequences of that dithering and delay has been economic stagnation and uncertainty. It is costing jobs and livelihoods, as well as causing unnecessary economic damage and undermining business confidence.
When the announcement to close RAF Kinloss was made in October, it came as a bolt out of the blue. The MOD decided at a stroke to cancel the new generation of Nimrod maritime reconnaissance aircraft, and with it, its home base at RAF Kinloss. Nearly £4 billion of taxpayer investment was binned and the planes have been cut up for landfill. Now, both the Republic of Ireland and Norway have a greater dedicated fixed-wing maritime patrol capability than the UK, and the UK is without a dedicated ISTAR combat platform to perform vital intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition and reconnaissance tasks. Imagine if there were suddenly geostrategic developments, let us say, in northern Africa. Imagine if it was vital to operate long-range flights, to sit off the coast for 8 hours and to monitor all nature of electromagnetic spectrum, while having the ability to image the coast. I guess we will never know how many lives that could have saved, or which operations we could have supported in, for example, Libya, because the UK decided to scrap Nimrod while spending up to £100 billion keeping Trident—a weapon system that can never be used.
Meanwhile, back in the most defence-dependent part of the country, local authorities and agencies have had to deal with the consequences of closing RAF Kinloss without any material support whatever from the UK Government. The impact on service families, the local economy and local public services has been devastating. Of course, the UK Government knew that this was going to happen. They knew that this was going to happen because information was provided to them in a detailed report by Highlands and Islands Enterprise. Despite that, support has still not been provided.
Moray is unique in the UK as it is the only part of the country that is facing the prospect of a double RAF base closure. In the first instance, that makes no defence or security sense whatever. RAF Lossiemouth was recently judged by the RAF to be the best base for the next generation of fast jets. Given the wish for better military co-operation by both the UK and Norway, it is worth reminding ourselves that RAF Lossiemouth is the closest base to Norway. Norway wants to maintain and operate the next generation of fast jets in co-operation with the UK, and RAF Lossiemouth is the designated UK base for the same aircraft. RAF Lossiemouth is adjacent to the best training areas, which is a significant consideration, given the cost of flying from bases further away. Given the double runway and facilities, it is also easily able to host different types of aircraft.
The defence case to retain the facility is unsurpassed, which is why it is supported by all political parties and political leaders in Scotland, as well by as the Scottish Government. Few will have missed the public reaction in support of the base. In a unique show of support in the UK, thousands of people marched through Lossiemouth last November. That support continues. Only a few days ago, thousands of people took to the streets of Elgin to welcome home personnel from operations, and I would like to thank all local campaigners, the Moray Task Force and The Northern Scot for their hard work and support.
Reports from within the MOD suggest that the Royal Air Force has already recommended that RAF Lossiemouth should remain. Ministers must listen to that recommendation. Ministers have to understand that closing RAF Lossiemouth is like losing 40,000 jobs in Glasgow, or 400,000 jobs in Greater London. The MOD needs to understand that a double RAF base closure in Moray would be the biggest single economic shock in the north of Scotland since the Highland clearances. RAF Kinloss and RAF Lossiemouth together support 5,710 full-time equivalent jobs in the local economy, which equates to 16% of all full-time employment in Moray. The two bases also generate £158 million a year for the local economy, while RAF households account for 7% of the total population of the region and 8% of its working age population. At least 15% of local NHS staff have partners connected to Moray RAF activity, while in areas such as midwifery, district nursing and cardiology, that figure increases to 25%. Some 30% of hotel business in Moray is RAF-related. Inactivity at RAF Kinloss amounts to the loss of £500,000 a week. Imagine the compounded impact of a double base closure.
Other parts of Scotland also have cause for concern, with a threat to RAF Leuchars in Fife, to 2nd Division Headquarters at Craigiehall and to Fort George near Inverness. Should Scotland see a reduction from three air force bases to only one, that would constitute a 70% cut in RAF personnel numbers and would leave 40 fewer aircraft. That stands in contrast to the Royal Norwegian air force, which operates more than 110 aircraft from seven air bases; the Royal Danish air force, which operates more than 111 aircraft from three air bases; and the Royal Swedish air force, which operates more than 187 aircraft from seven air bases.
It is widely expected that the MOD will close the operational Army headquarters outside Edinburgh and there are fears of a further reduction in historic battalions. In total, that would leave fewer service personnel in Scotland than there are in the armed forces of the Irish Republic. Unlike many other parts of the UK, Scotland has recently seen a significant defence contraction, with a multi-billion pound defence underspend, base closures and an amalgamation of historic military units.
At the time of the strategic defence review in 1997, there were 15,000 service personnel in Scotland. Under the previous Government, that was cut to 12,000 while, at the same time, manning rose in other parts of the UK. When adding civilian defence job losses to the equation, Scotland lost 10,500 jobs between the 1997 SDR and the 2010 SDSR. MOD statistics show that the defence underspend in Scotland totalled at least £5.6 billion in the same period. That underspend constitutes a 36% budget shortfall. At the same time, there has been an unprecedented concentration of defence spending, manpower and basing in the south of Britain. There are no prizes for guessing where the main training establishments, super-garrisons, command headquarters and largest operational bases are located. They are almost all in the southern half of England. Amazingly, no defence or security logic has ever been outlined by this or any previous Government as to why that should be the case.
This is not what happens in allied countries. To find out what the norm is elsewhere, I travelled to the United States in December to learn how it deals with the same challenges. There, the Department of Defence has clear responsibilities to maintain a defence footprint across the US, and a commitment to defence-dependent communities. The US has an independent Base Realignment and Closure Commission which makes final recommendations on basing that then go for congressional approval. There is also an Office of Economic Adjustment which supports local communities with technical and financial support.
Just in case the Minister wants to say in his reply that there are issues of national security, I would like to draw his attention to the full documentation published by the BRAC Commission and the OEA. In the US, the process seems to be managed well. In the UK, in contrast, military basing reviews are entirely opaque. I should point out that the main policy objective of the Department of Defence when dealing with base closures is to act expeditiously—that has not happened in the UK basing review. The statutory criteria of the commission’s work require it to conduct an assessment of the economic impact on existing communities in the vicinity of military installations, and an environmental impact assessment. The commissioners also have to assess whether the results of the closure or realignment process might leave insufficient strategic presence in some parts of the US.
Having gone through a non-partisan, transparent, fully costed analysis, the commission’s recommendations are approved or rejected in their entirety on Capitol Hill. There is full democratic oversight and approval. Where bases are to close, the OEA provides comprehensive support for communities, as its website highlights:
“In today’s economic climate, OEA and federal government support is essential to communities nationwide as they cope with Defense program changes.”
What a contrast with the UK, where the Ministry of Defence seems to take no responsibility whatsoever, where the basing review is an internal MOD exercise which is totally opaque, and where base reviews appear to be ad hoc, financially driven and, frankly, unstrategic.
The Minister now has 15 minutes to enlighten Parliament, the defence world, military families and defence-dependent communities about the UK military basing review. I hope that he will confirm that the MOD will publish all supporting documentation and the full balance of investment appraisals from the UK basing review. If the USA can publish full documentation without compromising security, so can the UK.
I want to leave the Minister and his colleagues with this quote from a recent editorial in Scotland’s biggest selling national daily newspaper:
“In election after election, Labour, the Lib Dems and the Tories have warned that the SNP would leave Scotland defenceless. But shutting RAF Lossiemouth will destroy that argument for good, leaving us with far weaker defences than other small European nations. Scotland has no tanks, no heavy artillery, no armoured vehicles, no self-propelled artillery, no armoured personnel carriers, only five helicopters and 12 Snatch Landrovers. If RAF Lossiemouth goes, we would have just one RAF base left.”
Given those circumstances, it is unsurprising that an ever-growing number of people in Scotland are now asking why Scotland does not make its own defence decisions like other normal countries. It is clear to most people that if we were to spend the tax revenue we currently contribute to the MOD, there would be more bases, more equipment, more service personnel and more jobs in Scotland. We would also be able to support conventional defence properly rather than waste money on nuclear weapons. The MOD needs to prove that it is worthy of support from Scottish taxpayers, voters and service personnel. Frankly, at present, it is not fit for purpose.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Mr Gerald Howarth)
I commend the hon. Member for Moray (Angus Robertson) on securing this important debate. He and I have been on trips together, we are both officers of the all-party Royal Air Force group—I have very much enjoyed his support in that group—and we have conferred many times in the past on these matters. I know that he takes a genuine interest in this subject, not least because, as he said, he has a defence-intense constituency. Of course, I am entirely in sympathy with him, because my constituency of Aldershot is also heavily defence-oriented. He will, of course, point out that it is in the south of England. We cannot move Aldershot—it is in the south of England.
There can be no doubt that this debate is important to those who take an interest in the future of Her Majesty’s armed forces, and to the constituencies of a number of Members in the House. I see that my hon. Friends the Members for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss) and for North Wiltshire (Mr Gray) are here. The hon. Member for Moray has therefore rightly set out several concerns which are, understandably, felt by many Members.
In today’s and previous debates, several RAF bases have been mentioned. I would like to put on record the Government’s gratitude for the exceptional work of all those who serve in the RAF. I was commissioned in the RAF volunteer reserve and would have joined the service—I nearly did—had I not had political aspirations. Our gratitude extends to the local communities which have, over the years, given such strong support to the bases from which the RAF operates—a point that the hon. Gentleman made forcefully.
However, given the context of this debate, I would like to focus for the moment on RAF Kinloss and its proud association with the Nimrod. The Nimrod force played a vital role in helping to keep this country secure during the cold war. More recently, it played a key role in support of operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, and some RAF Nimrods continue to do so. Kinloss has been the home of Nimrod and those who flew and supported them for nearly 40 years. I am an aviator, and I am acutely aware of the bond between RAF personnel and the aircraft that they service and fly. I understand the shock that was felt when the decision was announced. I know that there is a real sense of loss in the tightly-knit service community, and that seeing pictures of the Nimrods being broken up will have been extremely painful to all of them, as it was to me.
I did not come into government to take such decisions, nor did the Defence Secretary or the Prime Minister. Nor did I come into government to make communities fear for their future as we take difficult decisions on the fate of their bases. The decision to scrap the Nimrod MRA4 programme was one of the hardest we had to take. So how did we come to this situation? That decision must be viewed in the context of the previous Government’s dire economic mismanagement of the public finances. Under the stewardship of the former Chancellor, the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown), Labour doubled the national debt and left us with the biggest budget deficit in our peacetime history. Today, we are spending £120 million every single day just to pay the interest charge on Labour’s debt. That is Labour’s legacy.
Elizabeth Truss (South West Norfolk) (Con)
I thank the Minister for allowing me to intervene in this important debate. I understand the concerns expressed by the hon. Member for Moray about bases in his constituency. My concern, given our deficit, is that costs should be taken into account in the basing review. Given that in January the Minister for the Armed Forces said that it would be prohibitive to move engineering facilities away from RAF Marham, could I ask what is being considered in respect of the joint strike fighter maintenance facilities? We need a long-term decision that will reflect the costs and the expertise that has built up in RAF Marham, which employs more people than Kinloss and Lossiemouth put together.
Mr Howarth
I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I had the benefit of visiting Kinloss and Marham, so I am acutely aware of the assets of both bases. All I can say to her is that final decisions have not yet been made. I will come back to that point later on. Ministers will make the decisions based on military advice as well as detailed investment appraisals. I am afraid that that is as far as I can go to reassure her today.
I shall continue on the economic legacy we inherited. In defence, the consequences of 13 years of the catastrophic mismanagement I mentioned a moment ago are more severe than in any other area. Labour allowed a black hole of £38 billion to build up in the forward defence programme, over half of which was made up of equipment and support, with no plans in place to fund it. Restoring the nation’s finances is not only critical for the health of our economy and for the future funding of public services, but essential for national security, because a weak economy creates a national security risk.
Every Department has had to make its own contribution to reduce the staggering budget deficit we inherited, and the Ministry of Defence is required to shoulder its share of the burden. However, due to the priority we place on security, the defence budget is making a more modest contribution to deficit reduction than many other Departments. Even so, we are not immune from tough decisions. Some of the toughest decisions were about the Royal Air Force’s structure, not least the future of Nimrod.
There is no doubt that the Nimrod MRA4 would have performed an important role. It would have contributed to a wide range of military tasks. We have sought to mitigate the gap in capability through the use of other military assets such as frigates, helicopters, and C-130 Hercules aircraft. We will also request, where appropriate, assistance from allies and partners. However, it is important to remember that the country has been without Nimrod since March 2010. That was when the previous Government withdrew the Nimrod MR2 from service, so this was not a decision of this Government alone.
Why was that necessary? As the hon. Member for Moray knows only too well, the original plan conceived in 1996 was for 21 aircraft to be delivered in 2003—eight years ago. By the time the new Government took office in 2010, the programme had already been reduced to nine aircraft, was almost £800 million over budget and had seen the unit cost of each aircraft rise by 200% from £133 million to £455 million. At the time of the review, a number of design faults had been identified on the first MRA4 aircraft, which would have taken additional time and money to resolve. The headquarters of the contractor, BAE Systems, is in my constituency yet, as the hon. Member for Moray knows perfectly well, that has not stopped me being a vocal critic of its performance on this programme.
As we all know, the decision to scrap Nimrod was not the only difficult decision facing the RAF: the fast-jet fleet of Harrier and Tornado air defence was also affected. The RAF now plans to make a transition to a fast-jet force comprising the Typhoon and the joint strike fighter by 2021. Those were decisions about military capability and priorities. An inevitable consequence was that the RAF no longer requires RAF Kinloss and two other bases. I need to emphasise that—no longer required by the RAF. That does not mean that they are no longer required by defence. I will take the opportunity now to say again that we have not yet taken a decision about the long-term future of RAF Kinloss or any other air base as a result of the strategic defence and security review.
As Members will be aware, another major decision of the SDSR was to return to the UK 20,000 service personnel from Germany, with the intention of returning half by 2015 and the remaining personnel by 2020. Like all other parts of the public sector, defence is looking hard at its land holdings to ensure that we are using them as efficiently as possible. We have the cancellation of Nimrod, a rationalised fast-jet fleet, the return of large numbers of personnel from Germany, and a requirement to realise better value for money and efficiencies through broader estate rationalisation.
Thomas Docherty (Dunfermline and West Fife) (Lab)
I have tabled parliamentary questions on the issue of the returning personnel from Germany. I discovered from the Minister for the Armed Forces that there have been absolutely no discussions with Scottish Ministers or the Department of Education in England about the capacity of any of the RAF bases to take the 7,000 children coming back from Germany. Does the Minister not accept that it looks like this is a political decision, not a fact-based decision?
Mr Howarth
The hon. Gentleman makes a point that I am about to make, which is that all I have said adds up to an extremely complex piece of work. He is right. Where the children are to be educated and which base may be best suited to a land army operation are not decisions that can be made on the back of a fag packet. They clearly require considerable thought. I will come on to that again in a moment.
Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)
The Minister does not need reminding by me that RAF Lyneham and the neighbouring towns of Wootton Bassett and Lyneham provide all the schools, infrastructure and transport that could possibly be needed for returning troops from Germany, and it will be available to them later this year.
Mr Howarth
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for putting that on the record. It looks as though I could organise a competitive tender here, but I am not sure whether his parliamentary allowance could be used to bid to see who would offer the best value to the Ministry of Defence. Having visited Lyneham, I understand the facilities it offers. I reiterate my tribute to the people of Wootton Bassett in his constituency. I have been privileged to see the repatriations with him, and see how the town has been a credit to the whole kingdom for its dignity and the tributes it has paid to the fallen from Afghanistan. As we work our way through these issues, I assure hon. Members that we are well aware of the human dimension—the effect on our own people as they wait to hear how these decisions will affect them and their families.
Mr Howarth
I will give way, but the hon. Gentleman is taking time out of my winding-up speech.
Angus Robertson
I will be very quick. In the last three minutes, could the Minister, for the first time on behalf of the UK Government, explain the strategic logic behind the over-concentration of UK armed forces in the south of England?
Mr Howarth
I would like to answer the hon. Gentleman in my own way, because I want to come on to that issue in a moment.
Decisions will take into account the implications for Tornado personnel operating in Afghanistan and their families. The Army rebasing I mentioned will take account of all deployments to Afghanistan. We know what this means for local communities. Officials from the Scottish Office, the MOD and the Treasury have met the Moray Task Force and representatives from Fife council, so the idea that the local community has not had input is untrue. However, it is imperative that the defence footprint in the UK is determined by national, not regional, requirements.
It is worth stressing that the defence budget is used to buy the best equipment for the armed forces at the best value for money for the taxpayer. Where the companies are located is not the responsibility of the MOD. Defence is not an exercise in quotas for the regions and nations of the UK. Using the logic of the hon. Member for Moray, we could say that Dorset, Kent or Cornwall have not had their fair share among the English counties. He mentioned southern England, but what about northern England? Once we go down that line, we are on a hiding to nothing. The MOD has an interest in the defence footprint principally in so far as it enables our military functions to be better performed and the UK better defended.
We are the Conservative and Unionist party, so we recognise that all regions have a part to play in the defence of the UK. The hon. Gentleman did a good job in playing down the defence footprint in Scotland, but he is wrong to do so. The MOD has—and will continue to have—a considerable footprint in Scotland. It has a presence in nearly 400 locations and employs nearly 20,000 people. Even if his worst-case scenario came about, Scotland would still have one of three fast-jet main operating bases; one of three Royal Navy bases, which is the largest single-site employer in Scotland; a significant army presence; and a shipbuilding industry with thousands of jobs sustained by contracts for aircraft carriers and destroyers.
We must not forget that Scotland’s extraordinary contribution to the defence of the UK manifests itself today in the presence of the ultimate representation of Britain’s military prowess—her independent strategic nuclear deterrent, which the hon. Gentleman wishes to get rid of. He cannot claim to be a champion of defence jobs in Scotland while advocating that the UK abandon its nuclear deterrent. He claims to be acting in the interests of Scotland, but he knows as well as I do that his party’s policy would leave Scotland bereft of jobs in the defence industry, and vulnerable to nuclear blackmail or, even worse, attack.
Rail Services (South-East London)
(13 years, 9 months ago)
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Mr David Evennett (Bexleyheath and Crayford) (Con)
I am grateful for the opportunity to raise once again my concerns, and those of my constituents, about rail services in south-east London. The problems experienced by all rail users, whether daily commuters, pensioners, families or holidaymakers, remain frustrating and annoying for local people.
I am pleased that my right hon. Friend the Minister is present and I know that she will listen carefully to the points raised and respond sympathetically. I put on record my thanks for her responses to my letters and questions. She is always constructive on such matters and her letter to me of 31 January was particularly helpful. I am pleased that my hon. Friend the Member for Orpington (Joseph Johnson) is present, as is my neighbour the hon. Member for Erith and Thamesmead (Teresa Pearce). It shows that not only my constituents, but those in Erith and Thamesmead, Bromley and Orpington have had a tough time recently due to poor rail services in the area.
There are four stations in my constituency—Barnehurst, Bexleyheath, Crayford and Slade Green—and they are used to make nearly 5.5 million journeys every year. Some of my constituents also use Abbey Wood, Erith or Welling stations. Because there are no London underground or docklands light railway stations in Bexley, my constituents are more reliant on overground services than people in most other London boroughs. Therefore, when there is a problem with the trains, the only real alternative is to take a bus to a neighbouring borough to catch the tube or DLR.
I would like to make a short positive comment about the buses. Under the leadership of the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, bus services in our area have improved considerably and buses are more frequent, reliable and cleaner than in the past. With the introduction of safer transport teams, which I know the Mayor is keen on, there have also been considerable improvements in safety on the buses. Obviously, there are things that could be improved. I contacted the Mayor and Transport for London about diverting the route of the 96 bus to serve Darent Valley hospital directly. My constituents use that hospital more and more, and it would be helpful for patients and visitors if the buses could be slightly re-routed.
Joseph Johnson (Orpington) (Con)
I add my voice to my hon. Friend’s words of support for the Mayor’s bus policy generally and for the improvements to transport within London. There are small areas of criticism: the route of the 320 bus, the extension from Bromley North to Catford, has not worked. I urge TfL to revert to the old route of Biggin Hill to Bromley North, which was very successful.
Mr Evennett
I am sure that that will be noted and taken on board by the relevant authorities.
Rail services in south-east London are part of the integrated Kent franchise, and are currently operated by Southeastern railway. The present franchise agreement started on 1 April 2006 and initially runs until 2012. If Southeastern meets certain targets set out in the contract, the franchise may be extended for a further two years until 2014. At the time it was agreed that Southeastern would receive a huge public subsidy of £585 million over the lifetime of the franchise, and promises were definitely made about investment in facilities and improvements.
A written ministerial statement announced the franchise in November 2005. The then Secretary of State for Transport, the right hon. Member for Edinburgh South West (Mr Darling), claimed:
“I am satisfied that the competition for the franchise has resulted in a contract that represents very good value for taxpayer. It is a tough contract on which Govia will be expected to deliver.”—[Official Report, 30 November 2005; Vol. 440, c. 34WS.]
That has proven to be wrong. Commuters are paying significantly higher fares, performance is not up to the level passengers rightly expect, and communication is very poor, especially when something goes wrong.
Trains are busier. Since Connex lost the franchise, there are 800,000 more journeys from stations in my constituency every year. As a commuter on Southeastern, I understand the anger that my constituents feel about the service that they pay for. They expect—and deserve—better. The Govia website makes many promises about the improvements that it will bring to the franchise, claiming that trains will be less crowded, more punctual and cleaner, and that there will even be wi-fi access on some stations. However, some of those things have not been delivered, and the improvements that I have requested for local stations have often been difficult to obtain.
In September I held an Adjournment debate about the campaign I started in May 2009 for step-free access at Crayford station. Currently, only the London-bound platform 1 is fully accessible. Platform 2 can be accessed only by a footbridge, and is therefore difficult for those with mobility problems or those who have young children and have problems with the steps. During that debate, I highlighted the numerous problems that I experienced in getting Southeastern to open an existing gate on platform 2 to a pathway that already runs along the side to Station road. The cost of the scheme was minimal, and the only issues concerned the ownership of the land that the path goes through, and making the area safer. All I asked was for Southeastern to open the gate and install an Oyster card point, but initially it decided that it would not proceed with that scheme for financial reasons. After the Adjournment debate, however, and the helpful intervention of the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Lewes (Norman Baker), Southeastern agreed to install the Oyster machine and open the gate.
That was welcome progress and I would like to put that on the record. At this stage, we are waiting for the transfer of land from the owners, Sainsbury’s, to Bexley council to be completed. That has taken some time because issues such as resurfacing and lighting need to be resolved. Bexley Councillor Linda Bailey is responsible for ensuring that the scheme goes ahead, and I understand that she and the leader of the council will be looking to see what they can do in that area. I have every faith and hope that the matter will be brought to a successful conclusion. I had similar problems with Southeastern when campaigning for step-free access to Barnehurst station. That was easier to achieve, however, and it was much needed and welcomed by local commuters and residents.
Sometimes, issues with Southeastern are not easily resolved because the company does not take on board the seriousness of the problem. For example, at Barnehurst station—the station I use—the waiting room is open only for a couple of hours late in the afternoon. A similar situation exists at other stations. That is ridiculous because the majority of people do not travel at tea time, between 4.30 pm and 6.30 pm, and constituents have complained.
Southeastern needs to be more proactive in understanding what constituents and commuters want. It is also failing in other important areas and people are becoming increasingly vocal about their displeasure. One needs only to search for comments about Southeastern on Twitter to see what people really think about the services provided. Comments include:
“First train out of Victoria this morning....is filthy”
and there are complaints that the toilets are not clean, and that the service was late or cancelled. All aspects of the service are not up to the standard they should be.
Joseph Johnson
My hon. Friend is generous to let me intervene again. I support his point. There is an urgent need for Southeastern to show more responsiveness to the concerns of constituents. The lift at Orpington, which is so necessary for people with limited mobility, was out of action for eight weeks at the end of last year and the beginning of this year. It took the threat of a wheelchair demonstration by disabled people to get the lift back to working order.
Mr Evennett
It is disappointing that Southeastern is not more proactive when dealing with the problems faced by constituents, the fare-paying public, so as to help to improve facilities and services.
Of course, the main issue that we are discussing today—an issue that my hon. Friend the Member for Orpington and the hon. Member for Erith and Thamesmead are well aware of and have raised concerns about—is the period of bad weather that we had at the end of last year. Despite the snow being forecast, it seemed that Southeastern was not in any way prepared for it. Trains were cancelled at very short notice, and a reduced service operated. Some stations had no trains stopping at all for long periods. If trains did run, they were very congested and were running with fewer carriages. As a result, many people simply gave up on the trains and tried to find alternative routes to work.
There were also real problems with the information provided to customers. On some days, stations such as Crayford were not manned at all. If station staff were able to make it through the snow to the stations, they were not properly briefed by their managers on the services that were running and where the trains would be stopping. I commend the staff at my own station of Barnehurst. They do a fantastic job; they are friendly, efficient and really nice people. But during that period, when they were asked when there would be a train, they had not been told—they had no information coming through—and they were the first point of contact for people who came to the station to see what was going on.
The Southeastern website was also useless and at times misleading.
Teresa Pearce (Erith and Thamesmead) (Lab)
I thank the hon. Gentleman both for giving way and for obtaining the debate. On the point about the website, constituents came to me saying that the website said that their service was running when it was not and they had unsympathetic employers who said, “I don’t believe you couldn’t get to work because the website says there’s a service running.” Did the hon. Gentleman have the same experience with his constituents?
Mr Evennett
I agree; I had exactly the same experience with my constituents. The website was useless, giving wrong information, which of course fed through to other people, who said, “Well, the service seemed to be running because it said so on the website.” That is a fair point and I am grateful for the hon. Lady’s comment.
All that increased the pressure on station staff, and tempers flared in some circumstances. The communication was absolutely appalling. I cannot understand why that was allowed to happen and why someone from Southeastern was not briefing the local radio stations. I happen to listen to LBC and Magic in the mornings, and they are very good stations, but they had no information at all. Any good organisation would have passed the information to the media, so that they could update people who were getting ready to go to work. On one occasion, I had to drive up to Westminster because I could not guarantee that there would be a train to take me up and bring me back.
Recently, I was privileged to be at a meeting of Kent MPs with Southeastern, which was organised by my hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Mrs Grant). I was underwhelmed by the excuses offered by its managing director, Charles Horton, and his team. Although some of the blame of course lies with Network Rail, I do not believe that Southeastern has learned the lessons and I am worried about the consequences for passengers. I wrote to the Minister to ask questions about that and am grateful for her response.
However, the poor performance cannot be blamed only on the snow. I believe that the service has got worse since September. I receive regular e-mails and am regularly contacted by constituents on the matter—sometimes when I am travelling with them on our daily commute up to Westminster. The comments are universal. One person said:
“The service/performance is failing…The passengers’ charter is a list of meaningless words.”
I am told that the service is not any better; it is worse. Those are the words of constituents. I, too, have concerns and I share their views.
Some constituents say that the journey is taking longer and that the problem is affecting their job. Punctuality is a real issue. Despite the poor performance, Southeastern has been trying to avoid paying compensation and reducing the cost of season tickets. Regrettably, that is because of the low targets agreed with the previous Government. If punctuality falls below 82% during a 12-month period, Southeastern is supposed to cut season ticket prices by 5%. That means that nearly one in five trains can run late without incurring a penalty. That is poor service and it was a poor agreement at the time. Also, by running an emergency timetable during the period of bad weather, Southeastern was able to distort the statistics by not counting the trains that it should have run. Southeastern is therefore claiming that its punctuality was 82.04%—marginally above the season ticket discount threshold. That is a betrayal of commuters and it is unacceptable.
To support its case, Southeastern recently commissioned the university of Sheffield to audit the statistics. Predictably, it found the following:
“As judged against the present validation criteria, the source data, processing and public information for the Passenger’s Charter are satisfactorily accurate.”
I am sceptical about that and I understand from correspondence with the Minister that the rail industry’s national taskforce will be looking into the operation and performance of both Southeastern and Network Rail. I hope that the Minister will look closely into the validity of Southeastern’s figures and perhaps consider an independent audit, taking into account all the matters that I have raised.
Fares have gone up again dramatically because of the agreement that they could be increased by retail prices index inflation plus 3%. That has meant that many people in our area have been clobbered by high fare rises. Again, that seems unfair to me and to my constituents.
So what of the future? There are some welcome developments under way that should help to increase rail capacity and reduce overcrowding. I know that the Minister is working hard to improve the opportunities for travel in and around London and throughout the country. I am a big supporter of Crossrail and hope that it will be delivered on time. I believe that, when the time is right, it should be extended beyond Abbey Wood. We are very keen for that to be done. The hon. Member for Erith and Thamesmead has been an advocate for that as well. We are looking forward to having Crossrail at Abbey Wood. There will be more capacity then.
There is the redevelopment of London Bridge station, which should help to relieve some of the congestion problems caused by the bottlenecks. Again, we have to be patient and wait, but I do not want the improvements to be made in the long term—I would like improvements to be made now for our constituents and residents of Bexley and Bromley, so that they can get to work in a more satisfactory fashion.
Information is vital, but that has been the greatest failure of all. However, I am very happy with the approach that the Minister has taken. I hope that she will help me even more this afternoon in her response to the debate, because there is real concern in my area and that of my colleagues about the current operator, the current franchise agreement and the future bidding process. She is reasonable, understanding and usually pretty positive in her approach. I hope that she will look at the transport in south-east London and say that it is not acceptable at the moment and it must improve.
The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Mrs Theresa Villiers)
It is a pleasure to speak under your chairmanship, Mr Benton. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bexleyheath and Crayford (Mr Evennett) on securing the debate and on his passionate defence of his constituents, particularly his commuting constituents. He is a steadfast campaigner for his constituents. I am very much aware of the significant concern expressed about the quality of rail services in south-east London and Kent by my hon. Friend and a number of other MPs, stakeholders and passengers. It is good to see my hon. Friend the Member for Orpington (Joseph Johnson) and the hon. Member for Erith and Thamesmead (Teresa Pearce) here to take part in the debate as well.
I fully appreciate how important rail service provision is in the suburban constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Bexleyheath and Crayford, where so many people commute into London every day and which I have enjoyed visiting on a number of occasions during the past 10 years or so. As he set out, recent months have seen an overall decline in the reliability of services under the Southeastern franchise, culminating in the huge disruption that occurred during the cold weather episodes at the end of last year. He outlined some of the most troubling examples.
Ministers and officials were in constant contact with train operators and Network Rail throughout the severe weather. I think that we all accept that, unfortunately, some disruption is unavoidable when extreme weather conditions occur, but it is imperative to ensure that lessons are learned from the severe problems that passengers experienced in my hon. Friend’s constituency and elsewhere during the severe weather at the end of last year. That is why we asked David Quarmby to conduct an urgent audit of how our transport networks performed. We now expect the rail industry to act on the findings of that audit.
I have already had many discussions on the cold weather episode with senior representatives of the rail industry and will be meeting them again soon for an update on extending the trial of heated conductor rails, which could make a significant difference to resilience on the third rail networks; strengthening de-icing arrangements; dealing with stranded trains; and, crucially, improving passenger information generally and during times of disruption.
My hon. Friend rightly said that that was exposed as a severe problem during the recent poor weather. Like him, David Quarmby emphasised that electronic information on its own simply is not enough; train operators need to ensure that staff are properly briefed so that they can give passengers as much information as possible about which services are running and what they can expect despite the disruption.
It is imperative that reliability on the Southeastern network improves. It is imperative that the train operator becomes more responsive to its customers, as my hon. Friends the Members for Bexleyheath and Crayford and for Orpington emphasised. I will ensure that their comments on step-free access at Crayford, the waiting rooms at Barnehurst, toilet cleanliness and the lifts at Orpington are passed on to the train operator. The rail reforms that we are considering are designed to give train operators more opportunities to invest in improvements to such facilities, to make them more responsive to passengers and to give them the right incentives to perform reliably and well.
I have asked the rail industry’s national taskforce specifically to consider the performance of Southeastern and Network Rail in Kent. We need improved performance from the operator and Network Rail, as the infrastructure provider, if we are to make the progress that the constituents of my hon. Friend the Member for Bexleyheath and Crayford want. I say that because Network Rail is responsible for about 60% of delays and cancellations on the Southeastern network.
My officials monitor Southeastern’s performance on a four-weekly basis. I met Charles Horton, managing director of Southeastern, on 14 February and I asked him a series of searching questions based on the concerns raised with me by MPs and their constituents, many of which my hon. Friend has echoed. In the coming weeks, I will follow that up with a further meeting with Mr Horton and the Network Rail route director for Kent, and I will expect them to set out how they plan to improve their performance and to respond to the concerns that have been rightly raised in the debate. I will interrogate them on their response to the Quarmby audit and on the lessons to be learned from the cold weather disruption, although I should emphasise that there was already a significant problem before the snow arrived, as my hon. Friend said. I will urgently seek assurances from Network Rail and Southeastern on how they propose to improve overall performance.
Joseph Johnson
In those discussions with the management of Southeastern, will my right hon. Friend please ask when fast trains will stop at Orpington during peak hours? Orpington is a major commuter town, but we do not have fast trains during peak hours. My constituents are on their knees begging for such a service.
Mrs Villiers
I appreciate the importance of that issue. Although my discussions will focus on the reliability of the current service, I am happy to take on board my hon. Friend’s representations, and we will obviously take them very seriously as and when preparations are under way for timetabling changes.
It is important to mention some major capacity improvements, which will be delivered in the years to come. Despite the crisis in the public finances, the Chancellor has prioritised rail, and £18 billion will be invested in rail capital projects during the spending review period. Our ambitious programme will deliver real benefits for rail users across the country, including in south-east London and Kent.
Thameslink is going ahead in line with its original scope, albeit over a slightly longer time frame than originally envisaged. That will virtually double the number of north-south trains and deliver up to 1,200 new carriages. It is too early to say exactly how the programme’s benefits will be shared between different areas, because timetabling decisions are still some way off. However, even those communities that do not benefit directly from the new upgraded services could receive cascaded rolling stock to relieve overcrowding.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Bexleyheath and Crayford recognised, the coalition has secured the funding to ensure that Crossrail is delivered in its entirety, including the Abbey Wood branch, which was the subject of so many scare stories from our political opponents. The project will deliver a 10% uplift in rail capacity across London and much improved access to jobs for many people across the capital, including south-east London, and in the south-east. It will open up new journey opportunities to docklands, the City, central London and our major airports. Furthermore, the Secretary of State recently announced that negotiations had been successfully concluded to allow a station box to be constructed at Woolwich. The coalition’s plans for rail therefore offer real potential benefits for people in south-east London.
I very much recognise the concerns that my hon. Friend’s constituents have expressed about rail fares. The retail prices index plus 3% formula was included in the franchise when Labour let it in 2005. That was to reflect the more than £600 million spent on 618 new rolling stock vehicles and the £93 million of investment in power supply, stations, depots and related infrastructure. Much as I would like to see the RPI plus 3% formula abandoned, that is unfortunately not possible in the current fiscal climate. The deficit we inherited from the previous Government means that we face some difficult choices, including asking passengers to pay a little more to support the massive investment in rail that I have just outlined, although we expect significant elements of that programme to benefit people across south-east London. None the less, it is imperative that the cost of running the railways comes down, because it is too high. Sir Roy McNulty is running an in-depth review into why the cost is so high. For the sake of taxpayers and fare payers in my hon. Friend’s constituency and across the country, we are determined to find the right solutions to deliver a more sustainable financial future for the railways.
My hon. Friend talked about his long-running campaign to extend Crossrail to Ebbsfleet. The route to Ebbsfleet was safeguarded in 2009, and we expect that to remain the case. Safeguarding preserves that option for the future. Of course, our current priority is to press ahead with construction and to deliver the Crossrail project within budget and according to the new timetable. However, we do not rule out the option of extension in the future.
My hon. Friend also raised concerns about the compensation regime that applies to Southeastern. I have not seen evidence that the figures have been dealt with inappropriately, but if any were drawn to my attention, I would of course take action. I recognise the concerns raised by his constituents about the way the compensation regime operates, and we are certainly happy to consider a more robust regime for future franchises that perhaps gives passengers more effective protection.
Mr Evennett
I am grateful for that helpful answer, but Southeastern is so marginally over the figure that one can understand constituents being sceptical.
Mrs Villiers
I am aware that there is a lot of concern and scepticism about the figures, but, as I said, I can reach a judgment only on the basis of the facts that are presented to me. My hon. Friend will appreciate that Southeastern is legally required under the franchise to have its figures independently audited, so we have that safeguard of an independent check on the figures.
In conclusion, it is vital that Southeastern and Network Rail significantly improve their performance on the lines serving my hon. Friend’s constituency and the whole of south-east London, as well as on its routes in Kent. I will continue to press both on the issue, and I very much welcome the opportunity to debate it today.
Trident
(13 years, 9 months ago)
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Katy Clark (North Ayrshire and Arran) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair today, Mr Benton, and to secure the debate. Its focus is on the cost issues associated with Trident, and on issues of parliamentary scrutiny. Many other issues are associated with Britain’s possession of nuclear weapons, but I hope that in the short time we have today we shall focus on the aspects I have mentioned.
The background to the matter is of course that in March 2007 the House voted to support the decision taken by the then Government as set out in the White Paper “The Future of the United Kingdom’s Nuclear Deterrent” to take the steps necessary to maintain Britain’s nuclear weapons capacity after the Vanguard class submarines leave service in the mid-2020s. The motion that was passed also said that we should take steps towards meeting the UK’s disarmament responsibilities under the non-proliferation treaty. I voted against replacing Trident, but I believe the concerns I am raising today are shared by many hon. Members, and probably by Members on both sides of that debate.
After the vote in March 2007, the Ministry of Defence began the first stage of the process known as the concept stage, which was due to end with the initial gate decision point. That was one of the points of scrutiny of the project. The initial gate report was expected in September 2009, but it has still to be published. The decision whether to authorise the construction of the submarines is to be taken at the later main gate scrutiny stage, which was originally scheduled for 2012-14, but following the conclusion of the strategic defence and security review, that has been delayed until 2016, beyond the next general election.
The White Paper published at the end of 2006, which was voted on in 2007, estimated that the cost of the replacement of the system would be between £15 billion and £20 billion at 2006 prices. No updated estimate in current figures has been provided, and today I shall ask the Minister to ensure that one is provided to the House, particularly given that we know from the information that is in the public domain that spending so far is over-budget. Specifically, I understand that the current submarine programme for the Astute class is running 57 months late and £1.35 billion or 53% over budget. Expenditure on the concept phase has also significantly exceeded its budget—£309 million was originally set aside, but spending up to June 2010 exceeded that, with a figure of £570 million. That is an overspend of 84%. The House is right to be concerned, given that the information provided to this place and to the general public seems to show that spending to date has been far greater than originally projected.
The year 2010-11 has £330 million allocated for the Trident replacement programme. An estimated 15% of the submarine cost is due to be spent during the assessment phase prior to the main gate, based on the 2006 figures. That would amount to about £2 billion, using the MOD’s 2006 figure of a requirement of £11 billion to £14 billion for the submarine replacement plans. It is apparent from the concept phase that the cost of the programme is already increasing. The MOD has refused to provide annual budget figures for the assessment phase period up to 2016 until after the publication of the initial gate.
There also seems to be no intention to provide Parliament with regular reports of the progress of the programme until after the initial gate. Recent statements by the Secretary of State for Defence have confirmed that orders for major items required in the construction of submarines will be placed prior to main gate, and indeed a response to a recent freedom of information request revealed a plan to place more than £1 billion before the main gate approval in 2016, in relation to the various orders for submarines and matters associated with that work. That information was confirmed in answers to questions tabled by hon. Members. The answers to freedom of information requests, and recent answers to parliamentary questions, seem to show that a large proportion of the first boat will be ordered ahead of main gate, as well as the reactors for the second and third boat.
The 2010-11 budget for Trident replacement exceeds that of the planned budget for the whole of the concept phase from years 2006-08 to 2009-10, although we have yet to reach initial gate. I therefore think that the House is right to be concerned about the costs incurred to date, which seem to be well in excess of the projections and information provided to the House in 2007, when the decision was taken, but also about the lack of parliamentary scrutiny of the programme.
John Woodcock (Barrow and Furness) (Lab/Co-op)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate. Does she agree that in any decisions that are taken we do not want to add further to the cost of the programme, and that it would therefore be helpful for the Ministry of Defence to set out the change in the cost profile that has already been conferred by the delay in the main gate decision, and the totality of increased costs that could flow from that?
Katy Clark
I agree, and my contention is that it would be helpful if as much information as possible could be put before the House, so that this place takes the right decisions, and so that whatever decisions are taken in years to come will be based on the fullest information, made available not just to Members of the House but to the general public.
Michael Connarty (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (Lab)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate. Is it not about time that the Government published the value-for-money review that was undertaken in 2010? Throughout the defence budget we have cuts that seem to be completely driven by putting the cost down as low as possible; yet here we have a massive overspend. People want to know what value for money we are getting from this atrocious weapons of mass destruction programme.
Katy Clark
I agree with my hon. Friend’s points, and will ask the Minister to publish the value-for-money review that was undertaken in 2010. My hon. Friend has made powerful points: when we see other decisions made by the Ministry of Defence, including cancelled contracts and cuts, it seems that a different approach is taken to the project in question.
Dr Julian Huppert (Cambridge) (LD)
I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing this excellent debate, which is generating a lot of interest. Does she agree that a key issue is that the main gate decision in 2016 should be a proper decision? There is real concern that if too much money is spent before then, the next Parliament may not have a proper decision to make. It may be trapped, as the present Parliament has been over aircraft carriers.
Katy Clark
The hon. Gentleman is correct, and I am delighted that he is here today, and, indeed, about the cross-party support that has been raised. An early-day motion has been tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn), which highlights some of the issues and the concern that contracts are being made, perhaps, in a way that goes against the spirit of undertakings made in the 2007 debate. That may mean that the decision that Parliament will take later will be tied by the amount of money already spent on the project. That is one reason for some requests that I will make of the Minister today. The first is that we should, as has been mentioned, publish the value-for-money review undertaken in 2010. Equally importantly, we need to ensure that the House has a full debate on the initial gate report and that decisions are taken with its consent.
I urge the Minister to explain some of the figures that I have cited today, particularly why the 2010-11 budget for the Trident replacement has exceeded the planned budget for the whole of the concept phase, which ran from 2006 to 2010. I urge the Government to publish an up-to-date budget for work done during the assessment phase before the main gate decision, and to say how much they plan to spend on orders for construction before the scrutiny of main gate, in view of recent statements and information provided by the Ministry of Defence. Given the clear increase in costs, it is only fair that the Government should publish the estimated full project costs in current prices, as it is clear that the information provided to the House in 2007 will no longer be accurate. Finally, I ask for a full strategic review of the UK’s possession of nuclear weapons before the main gate decision is made and orders for construction begin, and to give MPs the opportunity to debate and vote on the continuation of the programme, based on up-to-date information.
I have consented to the vice-chair of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, my hon. Friend the Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn), making a short contribution to the debate, and I understand that the Minister, too, has consented. I hope, Mr Benton, that you have no objection to my hon. Friend making a short contribution.
Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)
I shall be brief, as it is a short debate and we wish to hear the Minister’s reply. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Katy Clark) on securing this debate and on her work for peace in general. I declare an interest. I am chair of the all-party CND group, and the national vice-chair of CND.
As my hon. Friend pointed out, I tabled early-day motion 1477, about the Government’s plans to order steel for the first new Trident replacement. It is important that the Minister has the opportunity to answer this point. We were told during an important parliamentary debate in 2007—it attracted a substantial dissident vote by Labour Members against the early replacement of the Trident nuclear missile system—that the initial gate decision would not be taken until this Parliament and that we therefore had nothing to worry about. With the assistance of the excellent CND national office, I recently tabled a large number of parliamentary questions. I shall not refer to them all, but they were answered on 16 February.
I asked the Secretary of State whether steel for the substantial construction of the hull structure of the first boat would be made as a long-lead purchase prior to main gate. The Minister answered:
“Yes. The specialist high strength steel needed for the hull structure for the first boat is included as a long-lead item in the Initial Gate Business Case for the programme.”
I also asked the Secretary of State how much his Department had allocated to the Trident replacement programme in each year between 2010-11 and 2015-16. Those are crucial dates, as that is when initial gate is supposed to happen. The Minister answered:
“Approximately £330 million was allocated to the programme to replace the Vanguard submarine.”—[Official Report, 16 February 2011; Vol. 523, c. 805-06W.]
It seems to me that the Ministry of Defence is running ahead of itself, and well ahead of authorisation by Parliament for spending such sums on preparation for the development of a new submarine and missile system before Parliament has had the opportunity to vote on it. In addition, it was discovered during the previous Parliament that large sums had been spent on upgrading the Atomic Weapons Establishment at Aldermaston in preparation for the development of the missile systems to go into those submarines.
Personally, I am completely opposed to nuclear weapons. I believe that they are immoral; they are weapons of mass destruction. The world would be a lot better off without them—and this country would be extremely well off without them. However, that is not the point of today’s debate. This debate is about the costs and the decision-making process, and about Parliament’s involvement in those matters.
Every three months, the Foreign Secretary and the Secretary of State for Defence commendably report to the House on progress or otherwise in Afghanistan, and we have the opportunity to question them. If the Ministry of Defence is so determined to spend such large sums, there should at the very least be an open debate in Parliament on the subject before those decisions are made. We signed a nuclear non-proliferation treaty many years ago that commits us to making long-term efforts on nuclear disarmament. As well as seeking to prevent other non-nuclear declared states from possessing nuclear weapons, I believe that we should fulfil our obligations under that treaty. I hope that the Minister will explain under what authority that money was spent, why it was spent ahead of a parliamentary decision, and when and if he will make a statement to the House on that expenditure and the purposes behind it.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Peter Luff)
I genuinely congratulate the hon. Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Katy Clark) on securing this debate.
In recent weeks, there has been quite a lot of commentary on the replacement submarine programme for Britain's independent nuclear deterrent system, often referred to as the Trident programme. Much of it was incorrect, so I welcome the opportunity to discuss the matter. I doubt whether I shall reassure the hon. Lady on every question, as there is disagreement between us on the principles involved, but I have some good news and some clarification.
Before dealing with the scrutiny of the successor systems to our current nuclear deterrent, and for the avoidance of any doubt—I answer also the points raised by the hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn)—let me be clear about the Government’s policy on the nuclear deterrent. The first duty of any Government is to ensure the security of the people. The nuclear deterrent provides the ultimate guarantee of our national security, and has done so for more than 50 years.
The argument is often made that, because there is no immediate threat to the UK, there is no need to replace the current deterrent system; however, if history has taught us anything it is that predicting future events is difficult. We do not know how the international environment will change over the next 50 years. For example, how many people predicted the current speed and the scale of change in north Africa?
Peter Luff
I shall not give way. I have some important points to answer, and I do not have time to take interventions—except, of course, from the hon. Lady.
We cannot be certain that no existential threat to the UK will ever emerge. As a result, we cannot unilaterally do away with this ultimate insurance policy. That is not to say that, when the time is right, we will not move away from nuclear weapons. Our long-term goal is to have a world without them, and we will do all that we can to counter proliferation, to make progress on multilateral disarmament, and to build trust and confidence across the globe.
In our strategic defence and security review, we went further than any previous Government in giving assurances to non-nuclear members of the non-proliferation treaty that we would not use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against them. As part of that confidence-building initiative, we announced that our overall nuclear warhead stockpile ceiling will reduce from not more than 225 to fewer than 180 by the mid 2020s. In addition, we announced that over the next few years we will cut the maximum number of nuclear warheads on board each deployed submarine from 48 to 40, that we will reduce our requirement for operationally available warheads from fewer than 160 to no more than 120, and that we will reduce the number of operational missiles carried to no more than eight. None the less, on 9 February, the Prime Minister said:
“I profoundly believe that we should maintain our independent nuclear deterrent. I have looked at all the alternatives over the years, and I am completely convinced that we need a submarine based alternative—a full replacement for Trident—in order to guarantee the ultimate insurance policy for this country. I am in favour of a full replacement for Trident, a continuous at-sea deterrent and making sure that we keep our guard up”—[Official Report, 9 February 2011; Vol. 523, c. 296.]
I take this opportunity on behalf of the House to pay tribute to the professionalism of all those Royal Navy and civilian personnel who answer this country’s call to operate and support this vital national capability on behalf of us all—seven days a week, 365 days a year. Last year, I visited HMS Vanguard and met some of our dedicated service personnel; I was truly impressed by their commitment. It is important that hon. Members should remember that, as we speak, those men are out there somewhere in the oceans at this very moment providing Britain’s and NATO’s ultimate security guarantee. They and their predecessors have so far provided a 42-year unbroken chain of continuous at-sea deterrence, keeping all of us and our allies safe. It is a fact of life that the current class of Vanguard submarines is ageing, yet while the nuclear threat remains we will maintain a nuclear deterrent. That is why we are continuing with a programme to replace the current deterrent.
One theme that has emerged—it emerged in the hon. Lady’s speech today—from those who do not see merit in this policy is that the Government are embarking on a programme of replacing the Trident system by stealth and that Parliament has not had the opportunity to consider the issue. That is simply not true. In 2006, the previous Administration published the White Paper “The Future of the United Kingdom’s Nuclear Deterrent,” which clearly set out why the UK needed to renew its deterrent system, what options were available and how much they were likely to cost. The conclusions of the White Paper remain as valid today as they were when they were first published. That paper was scrutinised by the House of Commons Defence Committee and was debated in full in July 2007. The House voted by a significant majority to
“take the steps necessary to maintain the UK's minimum strategic nuclear deterrent beyond the life of the existing system.”—[Official Report, 14 March 2007; Vol. 458, c. 298.]
That is exactly what we are doing.
Given the serious economic conditions that we inherited, we decided to commit ourselves to reviewing the Trident replacement programme to ensure that we were spending only the minimum necessary. That is why, in addition to the disarmament measures I have already mentioned, following the value for money review conducted last year, we announced a number of changes to the Trident replacement programme. For the submarine, this included deferring the delivery of the first boat to around 2028 and consequently deferring the main investment decision—or main gate—until 2016. I note the hon. Lady’s call for the publication of the value for money study, but I have to disappoint her. It contains a number of highly classified documents that are not suitable for release. However, all the important conclusions were published in full on page 38, paragraph 3.10 of the Strategic Defence and Security Review.
We were also able to announce our intention to work more closely with industry to improve efficiency in the programme. Since that announcement, we have taken huge steps with our three key suppliers—BAE Systems, Babcock and Rolls-Royce—to develop what we now call the submarine enterprise performance programme, which has three key aims: to retain and develop our world-class design, build and support skills, which are essential for delivering the nuclear programme; to realise significant savings by improving our approach to designing, building and supporting these submarines and, by way of example, through the rationalisation of facilities and sharing of resources; and, with industry, to improve our delivery performance. I saw that for myself a few weeks ago when I visited Barrow and Furness with the hon. Member for Barrow and Furness (John Woodcock), whom I am pleased to see in his place. I was hugely impressed with what I saw and with the dedication of the work force.
The Ministry of Defence, industry and the work force have risen to this challenge, and I have seen a step change in the way in which we are working with industry to ensure that our nuclear programme is delivered successfully. All in all, the decisions we took during the SDSR allowed us to save £1.2 billion and defer a further £2 billion of expenditure over the next 10 years. I can confirm to the hon. Lady that the figures for the total cost of the programme are as quoted in paragraph 3.10 in the SDSR.
“The review has concluded that the overall cost of the submarine and warhead replacement programmes and associated infrastructure”—
the three separate parts of the programme—
“ remains within the £20 billion cost estimate foreseen in 2006 at 2006 prices.”
Therefore, the cost estimate remains valid. However, we did not say that we would do nothing until 2016. As for the reference to the delay of the Astute programme, I have to say that we have learned our lesson the hard way—if one stops doing something it costs a lot to start doing it again. That is the root of the problem and a mistake that we must not make again with its successor.
Let me stress again that we did not say that we would do nothing until 2016. We must be clear about the scale and challenge of this project. A submarine designed to carry the nuclear deterrent ranks with the space shuttle as one of the most complex engineering feats in the world. The submarine has a nuclear reactor; nuclear weapons; steam systems; hydraulic systems; electrical and electronic systems; and computing systems, as well as tactical weapons and sensors. It needs to sustain its crew while remaining submerged and undetected for months on end. It is a tremendous challenge to bring those complex components together, and we have an enormous programme of work to complete if we are successfully to see the delivery of the first boat in around 2028. The first significant milestone in this process is the so called “initial gate” investment point.
At initial gate, we will agree the broad outline design of the submarine and some of the component designs, including the propulsion system, and set out the programme of work we need to complete so that we are ready to start building the first submarine in 2016. We will also agree the amount of material and parts—and for which boats—we will need to buy in advance of the main investment decision, and yes, that will include steel. However, we are not planning to procure any such items for the fourth boat at this point.
The precise value of the steel and the other long-lead items will depend on the final initial gate approval, but it is likely to amount to around £500 million, some way short of the £1 billion that the hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) has cited in the past. There is nothing unusual in that; it is normal practice for most large procurement programmes.
Jeremy Corbyn
The figure I cited was the one that the Minister gave himself, which is £330 million. I asked where the parliamentary authority came from for that expenditure.
Peter Luff
I am sorry if the hon. Gentleman’s figures have been misunderstood by the Department. I was told that he said a figure around £1 billion. The authority comes from the vote in the House of Commons in the previous Parliament, established custom and practice and all complex programmes. If he wants a historical precedent, I am told that we bought the oak for HMS Victory 15 years in advance of building it. This is par for the course in major procurement programmes; there is nothing unusual about it at all.
It is quite simply not true to say that large parts of the build programme will have been completed by main gate, nor is it true to say that we will be locked into contracts and that we will have spent so much that we will have to build the boats when we get to main gate. There is nothing in the current programme that will prevent us from making choices in 2016 about what deterrent capability we want or how many boats we might order. It is self-evident from the decisions that we took during the SDSR to refine the replacement deterrent programme, which allowed us to save and defer £3.2 billion over the next 10 years, that our intent is to pursue value for money rigorously and only commit to expenditure as and when it is required. As agreed in the coalition programme for Government, the Liberal Democrats will continue to make the case for alternatives to a like-for-like replacement. Yes, it is true that the concept phase was extended in January 2010, which involved some extra cost, but some costs will be transferred from the assessment phase to the concept phase as a result.
What of the calls for scrutiny of the initial gate business case? Parliament does not routinely review internal Ministry of Defence business cases and I have not yet heard a convincing argument that suggests that this programme should be any different. The initial gate business case is not a grand strategic assessment; that happened in 2006 with the White Paper and the vote in the House of Commons in 2007. The initial gate business case is a technical assessment that presents design choices and programme analysis that is reviewed and agreed by technical, financial and procurement experts in MOD, Treasury and Cabinet Office. What we have committed to do once the initial gate business case has been approved is publish a report setting out the key decisions that we have taken, update Parliament on the latest assessment of cost, and explain the steps that we will be taking in the run-up to the main procurement decision in 2016. I hope that that reassures the hon. Lady.
As this is one of the largest programmes in Government, it will be reviewed closely as we move towards main gate, both in the Ministry of Defence and more widely across Whitehall. As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence announced last week, the Government are doing more to tighten up the Ministry of Defence’s internal processes. The Secretary of State for Defence will chair the major projects review board, which by definition will include the replacement submarine programme, and will receive a quarterly report on our major projects to ensure that they are on time and within budget. Where projects are falling behind schedule or budget we will take immediate remedial measures. Those responsible will be brought to account in front of the project board. In addition, we will publish a list every quarter of the major project review board’s “projects of concern”. That way, Parliament, the public and the market can judge how well we and industry are doing in supporting our armed forces while offering value for money to the taxpayers.
Progress on the decisions we have taken during the SDSR, including those on the nuclear deterrent, will be reviewed by the National Security Council. The Government have also established a major projects authority within the Cabinet Office with a specific remit to oversee our portfolio of major projects and assess the health of programmes in it through a combination of quarterly reporting and more focused reviews. The major projects authority will produce an annual report through which Parliament and the public will be able to review our performance. On top of that scrutiny, the National Audit Office has published a report on the deterrent programme and, while it is not for me to task the NAO, I would not be surprised if it were to look again at this programme in the run-up to main gate, giving the Public Accounts Committee a chance to do the same thing.
It will be for the next Government to make decisions about scrutinising the main gate decision. For now, I am confident that we are striking the right balance between delivering the programme and ensuring that we are open about how we are performing. As this debate shows, if hon. Members wish to scrutinise the process, there are many avenues open to do that in our parliamentary democracy—many have already been explored by the Select Committee and many other options exist. Our democracy is more secure because of the Trident programme and our commitment to its successor.
Question put and agreed to.
Written Ministerial Statements
(13 years, 9 months ago)
Written StatementsRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Unpublished Research Reports: Immigration, the Economy and Regeneration
(13 years, 9 months ago)
Written StatementsRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
The Minister for Housing and Local Government (Grant Shapps)
Today the Government are publishing a further group of reports presenting the findings from research projects commissioned by the previous Administration. There is a significant backlog of unpublished reports that were produced by the previous Government and over the next few months we will be publishing further reports in groups themed on particular topics.
The reports and findings are of general policy interest, but do not relate to forthcoming policy announcements. We are publishing these documents in the interests of transparency and as part of our freedom of information commitment to publish the results of all commissioned research. For transparency, all concluded research work is being published, though some reports may not be as complete or in the format that DCLG would normally require.
The 10 reports published below represent the findings from research projects at a total cost to taxpayers of £219,597. These findings cover the topics of immigration, the economy and regeneration.
(i) Impact of economic downturn on migration.
This discussion paper by A.E. Green reviews the evidence on the likely impact of an economic downturn on both international migration and migration in different parts of the UK, with particular focus on migrants from the A8 countries (of the 2004 accession to the EU). It observes that for 83% of A8 migrants, the main motivation for coming to Britain was to work and earn money. This report was commissioned in 2008 at a cost of £3,400.
(ii) Immigration and rural economies.
This report by Heather Wells and Paula Lucci considers the impacts and contributions of international migration to rural economies in the UK. The paper finds that there was a substantial increase in the size of the migrant population in rural areas in the four years before the recession, which was driven by a strong demand for migrant labour from particular industries. Immigration has had a significant but small negative impact on the wages of UK workers at the bottom of the occupational distribution. Challenges from immigration include pressure on existing local services and integration within local communities. This report was commissioned in 2009 at a cost of £24,275.
(iii) Measuring international and internal migration from the National Pupil Database.
This report by Ludi Simpson, et al. considers the dispersion of migrant pupils in the UK. The paper finds the number of immigrant pupils in UK schools has increased significantly in the four-year period to 2007-08 and that pupils of African origin tend to be concentrated in inner London and other major metropolitan areas while eastern European and other European pupils arrived since 2003 tend to be found in the more remote rural areas. A table in annex 2 gives a breakdown by local authority. This report was commissioned in 2010 by the last Administration at a cost of £78,500.
(iv) Economic Rationale for Spatial Policies or Why Place Matters.
This paper by Patricia Rice outlines why there are differences between places, and advocates policy that takes this into account. It considers that variations in outcomes for different areas are a result of regional trade and factor mobility, but seeks to explain the underlying differences between areas. This report was commissioned in 2007 at a cost of £2,034.
(v) Addressing the problem of worklessness: The role of regeneration.
This paper by Anne Green, with its focus on worklessness and regeneration considers the complex and challenging real-world roles of mainstream policies and area-based programmes, including the roles of local government, the community and employers. It notes that the neighbourhood level is an appropriate level for outreach to disadvantaged residents, and the voluntary sector can play an important role in facilitating community participation. Partnerships have been costly to develop and support, and have not generated the critical mass of support for the neighbourhoods that it was envisaged. This report was commissioned in 2009 as part of a series of four papers which together cost £11,622.
(vi) Regeneration—What are the problems and what can we achieve in addressing them? Neighbourhood level perspectives from the new deal for communities programme.
This paper by Paul Lawless, with its focus on neighbourhood renewal, draws on evidence from the evaluation of the new deal for communities programme to review the problems faced in the partnership areas and consider both process and change outcomes that regeneration programmes should seek to achieve. This report was commissioned in 2009 as part of a series of four papers which together cost £11,622.
(vii) Regeneration—What are the problems and what can we achieve in addressing them?
This paper by Pete Tyler, with its focus on local economic activity and regeneration, reviews what lies behind the problems faced by deprived places and notes that although rooted in a general failure of supply and demand mechanisms, problems tend to be multi-dimension and persistent and likely to require substantial policy intervention to make an impact. It anticipated that constraints on public expenditure would inevitably mean that regeneration initiatives would be operating in a more difficult environment. This report was commissioned in 2009 as part of a series of four papers which together cost £11,622.
(viii) Regeneration—How should the problem be addressed?
This paper by Stephen Syrett, reviews the weaknesses of past approaches to regeneration, pointing out the over-dominance of centralised structures, the neglect of education and training in deprived areas, the need for greater clarity over the role and relevance of area-based initiatives. Local capacity will only develop if greater scope and freedom is given to local actors to make their own priorities. This report was commissioned in 2009 as part of a series of four papers which together cost £11,622.
(ix) Modelling and forecasting county court claims and orders for mortgage repossessions.
This report by Professor John Muellbauer and Janine Aron was commissioned jointly by the former National Housing and Planning Advice Unit and the UK Spatial Economic Centre. The study explores the determinants of mortgage possession court orders as well as forecasting court orders on a regional basis for England and Wales from 2011 to 2015. It observed that the recent house price and credit boom of 2006-08 had increased the proportion of households with overstretched budgets and over-extended debt relative to their assets. The most important determinant of court claims and orders was found to be the debt to income ratio. This report was commissioned in 2009 at a cost of £30,366.[Official Report, 4 April 2011, Vol. 526, c. 11MC.]
(x) Housing supply revisited: Evidence from international, national, regional, local and company data.
This report by Michael Ball, et al. considers the responsiveness of housing supply to changes in prices and the degree to which planning restrictions and other factors limit this responsiveness. If found that factors other than planning supply influence the responsiveness of housing supply. It suggests that different planning targets are required for each local authority, to reflect local decision making processes. This report was commissioned in 2009 at a cost of £69,400.
At a time when public budgets must be reduced, the new Government want to ensure their research delivers best possible value for money for the taxpayer and that sums expended are reasonable in relation to the public policy benefits obtained. My Department has rigorous scrutiny and challenge processes for commissioned research.
New projects will continue to be scrutinised to ensure the methodology is sound and that all options for funding are explored at an early stage. This includes using existing work from other organisations, joint funding projects with other Departments or organisations and taking work forward in-house.
These reports and findings are of general policy interest, but do not relate to forthcoming policy announcements and are not a reflection of the current Government’s policies and priorities. DCLG is publishing these reports in the interests of transparency.
Copies of these reports are available on the Department for Communities and Local Government website. Copies have been placed in the Library of the House.
Armed Forces Redundancy Process
(13 years, 9 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for Defence (Dr Liam Fox)
The strategic defence and security review (SDSR) set out in October 2010 long-term plans for our armed forces, based on a detailed analysis of the future risk and threats to our national security, but also recognising the dire fiscal situation inherited by this Government. That new 2020 force structure will be more agile and flexible, better able to respond to new threats such as cyber-warfare, terrorism and managing the consequences of failed or failing states. As the SDSR made clear, however, that force structure will require fewer people: the combined size of the Royal Navy, the Army and the Royal Air Force will fall by some 17,000 by 2015. These changes are about delivering the future force we need, not about today’s operational capabilities.
Some of this reduction will be achieved by slowing down recruitment—but the long-term health of the services requires that we maintain a steady influx of new recruits. And so we estimate that up to around 11,000 personnel will need to be made redundant. In formal terms, redundancy schemes for the armed forces are compulsory. But there will be scope for individuals to volunteer to be considered for redundancy and where possible we will meet our manpower target through volunteers. But some difficult choices are sadly inevitable.
The SDSR set out some changes to our long-term requirements for fast jets, multi-engine aircraft and helicopters. As a result, our future requirement for pilots has reduced. Some 514 individuals currently being trained are potentially affected by these changes. Starting today and over the next 10 days, those trainee pilots will be informed of their future in the RAF. Some 344 will continue with their pilot training. But I very much regret to inform the House that up to 170 will not. Some of those individuals will be offered alternative appointments. But sadly many will have to be made redundant.
Today, the RAF will also publish in some detail the specialist trades in which reductions in numbers need to be achieved, and in which it will be seeking volunteers for redundancy. Detailed information on the terms on offer, including the compensation package, will be made available online. Similar information will be published for the Army and Navy on 4 April 2011.
Once the deadline for response has passed, selection boards will sit for each of the three services to determine whether those who have volunteered should be released and which other individuals should also regrettably be made redundant to enable the manning targets to be achieved. We aim to inform all those individuals selected for redundancy of that decision in September 2011—on 1 September for the Army and RAF, and 30 September for the Navy. Those voluntarily leaving the armed forces will do so within six months, non-volunteers will do so within a year.
The Department will need to balance extremely carefully the needs of the individual with the needs of our armed forces. And I am determined that this very difficult process will be handled with the utmost sensitivity and professionalism. No one who is deployed on operations, recently returned from operations or is preparing to deploy on operations will be made redundant unless they have volunteered. Nor will those undergoing rehabilitation from injury be considered. But inevitably some incredibly difficult decisions will have to be made to ensure the long-term health and balance of our armed forces.
In Afghanistan, and as has been seen in recent days in Libya, our armed forces constantly perform great acts of heroism, selflessness and valour to keep us safe. As a country, we have an absolute responsibility to ensure that those who risk their lives in that way are properly looked after while they serve our country but equally importantly when they return to civilian life. For all those leaving the armed forces as a result of these changes, every effort will be made to assist in what can often be a difficult transition. A comprehensive package of support and advice on housing, finance and finding a job will be made available. Over the coming months. Ministers will scrutinise those plans in detail, working closely with domestic Departments, to ensure they are as good as can be achieved. Our people deserve nothing less.
Armed Forces Pay Review Body (Public Appointments)
(13 years, 9 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for Defence (Dr Liam Fox)
I am pleased to announce that I have appointed Mr Paul Kernaghan CBE QPM, Vice-Admiral Sir Richard Ibbotson KBE CB DSC and Professor Peter Dolton as members of the Armed Forces Pay Review Body, each for a three-year term of office commencing on 1 March 2011. The appointments have been made in accordance with the Office of the Commissioner for Public Appointments code of practice.
Written Parliamentary Question (Correction)
(13 years, 9 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Mr Andrew Robathan)
I regret to inform the House that there was an inaccuracy in my written answer (31219) given on 20 December 2010, Official Report, columns 987-88W.
The response said that that there were 265 civilian staff employed in London by the MOD currently not paid at a rate equivalent to or above the London living wage. I can confirm that excluding trading funds, there were no civilian staff employed in London by the MOD currently not paid at a rate equivalent to or above the London living wage.
British Citizenship (War Crimes Screening)
(13 years, 9 months ago)
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The Minister for Immigration (Damian Green)
I have made the Equality (War Crimes etc.) Arrangements 2011 and the Race Relations (Northern Ireland) (War Crimes etc.) Arrangements 2011 to enable the Secretary of State to subject applications from certain nationalities for British citizenship to more rigorous scrutiny than others for the purposes of determining whether the applicant has committed, been complicit in the commission of, or otherwise been associated with, the commission of war crimes, crimes against humanity or genocide.
The Equality (War Crimes etc.) Arrangements 2011 are made under paragraph (l)(l)(d) of schedule 23 to the Equality Act 2010, and replace the Race Relations (Nationality) (War Crimes etc.) Arrangements 2007, made under section 41 of the Race Relations Act 1976. The corresponding Race Relations (Northern Ireland) (War Crimes etc.) Arrangements 2011 are made under article 40 paragraph 2(c) Race Relations (Northern Ireland) Order 1997.
The condition for subjecting these applications to more rigorous scrutiny is that the applicant is a national of a state specified on a list approved personally by the Minister for the purpose of the arrangements.
I have now reviewed and approved this list. I am satisfied that the conditions set out in the arrangements are met in respect of the countries on the list.
The arrangements will remain in force until revoked. I will review the arrangements and the list on an annual basis.
I am placing copies of the arrangements in the Libraries of both Houses of Parliament.