House of Commons

Thursday 10th March 2011 Commons Chamber

Thursday 10 March 2011

The House met at half-past Ten o’clock

Prayers

Thursday 10th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker in the Chair]

Oral Answers to Questions

Thursday 10th March 2011 Commons Chamber

The Secretary of State was asked—

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

1. What recent representations he has received on the sustainability criteria in the renewable energy directive related to transport fuels; and if he will make a statement.

[The Secretary of State for Transport (Mr Philip Hammond)]

I have received recent representations on the renewable energy directive biofuels sustainability criteria from a number of non-governmental organisations, including the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth. We share some of their concerns regarding the sustainability of some biofuels. For that reason, we propose to take a cautious approach, as set out in the consultation we have launched today on proposals to implement the transport elements of the directive and the associated fuel quality directive.

[Richard Graham]

I am grateful to the Secretary of State for his answer. This morning I spoke with the owner of the 160-year-old haulage company, Joseph Rice, in my constituency of Gloucester, which is going into receivership. He believes that others might follow before long. Does the Secretary of State agree that the Government should do what they can to help the sector, whether through incentives on biofuel or by reviewing things such as vehicle excise duty and road charges?

[Mr Hammond]

As my hon. Friend will know, matters relating to vehicle excise duty are for my right hon. Friend the Chancellor. We believe that the future of the road freight sector depends on being able to decarbonise it, and at the moment the only viable option for decarbonisation is biofuel. Therefore, we believe that it is important that we prioritise available sustainable feedstocks for biofuels for use in sectors where no alternative viable options are available.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

I welcome the fact that the Secretary of State has said that there will be a consultation, because there was concern that we would rush towards implementation of the directive without people being able to discuss the related issues—but I am slightly concerned that he says that there are no sustainable alternatives to biofuels. As part of the consultation, will he seek advice on other suggestions being made by people working in this field so that we can move away from using biofuels and the subsequent impact on food crops and deforestation?

[Mr Hammond]

Our concerns are twofold: our approach is, of course, technology-neutral, but if alternative and sustainable solutions are suggested, we will be happy to look at them, and our focus must be on ensuring that the European Union, in its enthusiasm for biofuels, does not lose sight of the negative carbon impacts that some approaches to biofuel can have. We want to look at the whole lifecycle carbon effects of biofuel use, particularly the indirect land use effects.

[Martin Horwood (Cheltenham) (LD)]

I am glad that the Secretary of State has mentioned indirect land use impacts, and I welcome the statement made this morning by the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Lewes (Norman Baker), which explicitly highlighted the risks of indirect land use change as a result of imported biofuels. I ask for a joined-up approach to biofuels across Government. What discussion has the Secretary of State or his Department had with other Departments, particularly the Department for Communities and Local Government?

[Mr Hammond]

We have very regular discussions with my right hon. Friends the Secretaries of State for Energy and Climate Change and for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

[Mike Freer (Finchley and Golders Green) (Con)]

2. What recent representations he has received on his proposals for reform of the blue badge scheme.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Norman Baker)]

I have held recent meetings on blue badge reform with the British Parking Association and representatives from a range of disability groups, including Mobilise, the Joint Committee on Mobility for Disabled People and the Disabled Persons Transport Advisory Committee. These groups have welcomed our plans to modernise the scheme.

[Mike Freer]

I thank the Minister for that answer. Blue badge fraud costs £46 million a year, so can he tell the House what more can be done to combat it?

[Norman Baker]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his question, and I agree that abuse of the scheme is a serious problem that prevents those who need to access disabled parking spaces from doing so, as a fifth of all badges are improperly used. I am pleased to be able to tell him that the steps I announced recently include steps to combat fraud, including a new badge design that will be harder to alter or forge, a new administration system that will enable local authorities to check details of new badges issued anywhere in England, and new powers for local authorities to cancel or seize badges.

[Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)]

If the Department for Work and Pensions is seeking a 20% reduction in the entitlement to the mobility component of disability living allowance in the switch to the personal independence payment, has the Minister any estimate for the consequent reduction in blue badge eligibility?

[Norman Baker]

We are not changing the eligibility criteria for blue badges as part of the reform package.

[Lorely Burt (Solihull) (LD)]

3. What recent progress he has made on implementation of the high-speed rail link between London and Birmingham; and if he will make a statement.

[The Secretary of State for Transport (Mr Philip Hammond)]

The Government believe that a national high-speed rail network would promote economic growth and the diversification of the UK economy. On 28 February I launched a major public consultation on the case for such a network and on the proposed route for an initial line. The consultation will run until 29 July, and following that consultation a decision will be taken by the end of this year.

[Lorely Burt]

I am grateful for that answer. We understand from the consultation that some businesses which will benefit from High Speed 2 might be asked to contribute towards the cost. That might be reasonable, but as the national exhibition centre and Birmingham airport will be asked to help with the cost of the proposed interchange station, will the Government be reasonable in giving assurances about west coast main line improvements and regional aviation policy, in order to enable them to achieve the visitor and passenger numbers that they will need?

[Mr Hammond]

Both Birmingham airport and the national exhibition centre are extremely supportive of the High Speed 2 proposals. The consultation is predicated on the entire line being built with public money, but it also says that we think there will be opportunities for private sector development-led funding of some of the station infrastructure, and that is what we will discuss with private sector partners such as the NEC and Birmingham airport.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

May I urge the Secretary of State to keep his nerve on this matter? I welcome the consultation, and our cities need high-speed links—certainly in Yorkshire and in the northern regions. May I urge him in addition to ignore some of the deniers—they are also climate change deniers—who have had letters published in the newspapers this morning?

[Mr Hammond]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that comment. Those who oppose the building of the line have clearly identified themselves and their direct interests in this matter. It is now for those who will stand to benefit the most, particularly in our great northern cities, to voice their support during the consultation period.

[Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)]

Has my right hon. Friend seen the letter today in The Daily Telegraph, signed by, among many, Lord Lawson of Blaby, who many of us felt during his time in the House was an outstanding Conservative Chancellor of the Exchequer?

[Mr Hammond]

Yes, I have seen it.

[Mr Speaker]

We are extremely grateful to the Secretary of State for that pithy reply.

[Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

4. What cost-benefit analysis his Department has undertaken of ultra-light rail.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Norman Baker)]

Last year I initiated a review of light rail to establish how construction and operational costs might be reduced. The terms of reference include ultra-light rail, and the report is due shortly.

[Tom Brake]

Will the Minister work with London’s Mayor and examine the viability of ultra-light rail systems, or indeed their big brother, tram systems, in connecting Croydon with Sutton?

[Norman Baker]

I am very keen to make light rail more economically sensible, and that is covered by the review, which will, I hope, lead to changes that enable light rail to be extended to other areas of the country. We have done so already with the Midland Metro system and in Nottingham, and I am very happy to talk to the Mayor about what might be helpful for London.

[Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)]

Is there not a stark contrast between the continent of Europe, where light rail and ultra-light rail schemes are going full speed ahead, and Britain, where we cannot seem to get them to work at all? Is not the full cost of digging up and replacing all the utilities under the road loaded on to the transport schemes? Those costs should be taken out of such schemes and paid for directly by the state.

[Norman Baker]

I understand that the construction costs per mile are much higher here than in other countries, and that is one reason why I initiated the review. Many representations have also been made to me about the precise matter that the hon. Gentleman raises—the cost associated with utilities—and that is a central part of the review I am undertaking.

[Amber Rudd (Hastings and Rye) (Con)]

5. What steps his Department is taking to improve rail transport in the south-east.

[The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Mrs Theresa Villiers)]

Despite the crisis in the public finances, the Government have secured investment of more than £18 billion in rail capital projects, including Thameslink and Crossrail, which will deliver major benefits to the south-east as well as to the national economy. To protect the interests of passengers, the Department for Transport also monitors the performance of train operators under their franchise contracts.

[Amber Rudd]

The issue in the south-east seems to be capacity, and we cannot continue to put ever more passengers on the same lines. Does the Minister agree that an upgrade of the Brighton to Ashford line might increase capacity and improve the quality of travel for passengers, and that it would be a great addition for all residents of the south-east?

[Mrs Villiers]

My hon. Friend has fought a long campaign on that issue, and I understand why she fights in that way for her constituents. However, the project would be expensive and, in the light of passenger usage, probably hard to justify in value-for-money terms—but I am always prepared to keep an open mind on it, as something to consider for the future. It is also the case, however, that significant capacity was introduced to the south-east in December 2009, and of course more will follow with the Crossrail and Thameslink projects.

[Heidi Alexander (Lewisham East) (Lab)]

May I ask the Minister for her Department’s thinking in respect of Southeastern’s application to vary its franchise commitment on exits and entrances to Lewisham station? Southeastern’s proposal to close the exit from platform 4 is opposed by the vast majority of my constituents who use the station, and I urge her to take their views into account when making a decision.

[Mrs Villiers]

I have to acknowledge to the hon. Lady that that is not an application to vary the franchise that I have yet received. Of course, when such decisions are taken it is very important for the views of local stakeholders—passengers—to be properly taken into account in terms of the outcome.

[Stephen Hammond (Wimbledon) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend was right to talk about the benefits of Thameslink, but many in south London will not enjoy the full benefits unless Network Rail timetables through trains from the Sutton loop. Will she ensure that Network Rail continues to keep that option open?

[Mrs Villiers]

I will certainly expect Network Rail to do all it can to minimise the disruption caused for passengers by the works under way on Thameslink and forthcoming works at major London termini. I will keep my hon. Friend’s proposal in mind, and I am happy to discuss it with Network Rail. I believe that he and I are meeting to discuss this soon.

[Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)]

Will the Minister of State rule out breaking up our national rail infrastructure and handing those vital assets to the private sector, creating in the south-east and across the country what has been described as a series of mini-Railtracks?

[Mrs Villiers]

The hon. Lady knows perfectly well that this Government have shown a major commitment to investment in our railways, but we expect the rail industry to rise to the challenge of reducing costs, which spiralled under her Government. For the sake of taxpayers and fare payers, the cost of running the railways needs to come down. We expect Sir Roy McNulty to come up with workable proposals for delivering that essential goal.

[Maria Eagle]

The whole House will have heard the Minister refuse to rule out a return to the days of Railtrack, with private profit, not safety in the interests of passengers, coming first. She is in danger of repeating the shambles of rail privatisation, so will she urge her right hon. Friend the Secretary of State to think again, step back from this ideologically driven plan to fracture our rail industry further, and abandon this recipe for disaster?

[Mrs Villiers]

The hon. Lady was a member of the Government who established the McNulty review to find out the answers to the very questions that she is asking, yet she wants me to rule out a range of options before Sir Roy McNulty has had a chance to report. This is a review that the Labour Government set up, and I think it makes sense to wait for Sir Roy’s report before making a decision.

[Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)]

6. What assessment he has made of the role of branch lines on the rail network in stimulating growth and employment.

[The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Mrs Theresa Villiers)]

The Government recognise the positive role that branch lines can play in supporting economic growth. Such lines receive substantial support from the taxpayer via the train operator subsidy and Network Rail grant. In addition, the DFT’s community rail strategy is aimed at making it easier for local communities to get involved in promoting and supporting local lines.

[Neil Carmichael]

With the big society in mind, will the Minister of State be sympathetic to a local community in my constituency who are interested in making use of the Berkeley line to develop tourism and links between communities and to stimulate economic growth?

[Mrs Villiers]

I am very impressed with the work being done by local volunteers and enthusiasts on that project. I know that they have applied for lottery funding. As for the logistics of getting such projects up and running, they would need to think about long-term sources of funding and discuss their plans with Network Rail and local train operators, as well as local authorities. I understand that they are considering both heritage tourist use and commuter use. It is often very difficult to combine the two, so they might want to keep their ambitions within a reasonable scope if they are to succeed.

[Mrs Louise Ellman (Liverpool, Riverside) (Lab/Co-op)]

In view of the McNulty report’s interim findings, will the Minister refuse to go ahead with a policy of saving money by a wholesale closure of branch lines, which would create a second Beeching?

[Mrs Villiers]

There is no suggestion of doing that. The point of the McNulty review is to find a way to deliver current services—and, one hopes, more services in the future—at a lower cost to the taxpayer. It is vital that Sir Roy comes up with good proposals for doing that if we are to relieve the burden on the taxpayer and the fare payer.

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

7. What recent steps he has taken to encourage cycling as a means of transport.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Mike Penning)]

We have announced a local sustainable transport fund of £560 million over four years, which we are committed to even in these difficult times. We are also committed to funding Bikeability cycle training for the remainder of this Parliament.

[Damian Hinds]

Will my hon. Friend join me in welcoming the opening this coming weekend of the first sections of east Hampshire’s super-scenic highway for cyclists, walkers and riders, Shipwrights way, which will link in with the rail network for commuters and recreational users of the new South Downs national park?

[Mike Penning]

We welcome that project, and I understand that there are proposals for an extension, for which I am sure that the local authority will bid to the local sustainable transport fund for funding.

[Mr Brian H. Donohoe (Central Ayrshire) (Lab)]

Of course, it is not possible for me to come here from my constituency on a bike—although many of my constituents believe that I should, on the basis of the recent exposure of expenses. One area of concern is the number of potholes on the roads. What is being done about potholes, because everybody knows that they are a major problem, given the recent climatic conditions?

[Mike Penning]

Local authorities are doing their best to deal with potholes. We will announce at least an additional £100 million to help local authorities to fill potholes.

[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)]

8. What criteria he proposes to use to determine his Department’s spending on local authority major transport schemes.

[The Secretary of State for Transport (Mr Philip Hammond)]

We will announce in due course the criteria for allocating the remaining funds to projects in the development pool. It is likely to be done on the basis of an appraisal of value for money, the proportion of non-Department for Transport funding, deliverability, strategic importance, and a consideration of the balance between modes and regions. It remains my objective to develop a system of capital funding allocation to sub-national areas so that in future spending review periods, priorities can be determined locally.

[Robert Halfon]

Harlow council and Essex county council are highly supportive of a new M11 junction near Harlow, and local housing development could help to pay for it. Will the Secretary of State look at plans for the new junction, given that the cost to the taxpayer could be minimal?

[Mr Hammond]

That is a matter for consideration in future local authority major scheme application rounds. As I have indicated, I hope that those will be carried out on a much more devolved basis—but I can say to my hon. Friend that any scheme that levers in private money to reduce the cost to the taxpayer, and thus improve the cost-benefit ratio that the taxpayer sees, is likely to have an advantage in any future competition.

[Joan Ruddock (Lewisham, Deptford) (Lab)]

In that context, will the Secretary of State consider the proposals for a Surrey Canal Road station in my constituency, on which I made representations to the Government last year? My local authority has put money into the design stage and the local developer, Renewal, is putting up a lot of money to ensure that the station can at least be started. I hope that the Government will support that vital piece of infrastructure.

[Mr Hammond]

I am happy to look at the matter, to discuss it again with the Mayor of London and to consider the points that the right hon. Lady has raised.

[Dr Julian Huppert (Cambridge) (LD)]

9. What recent representations he has received on the removal of bus service operators grant from free bus services.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Norman Baker)]

I have received one letter from the Passenger Transport Executive Group and my officials have had discussions with the Confederation of Passenger Transport about the eligibility of bus service operators grant for free bus services. My hon. Friend, too, has written to me about this matter, as he knows.

[Dr Huppert]

An example of an important free bus service is the Cambridge city centre circular route, which goes through the pedestrianised area and provides essential access for the elderly, the disabled and those who otherwise could not get around. The route is at risk not only from the change to the bus service operators grant, but from a rather mistaken county council policy. Will the Minister consider whether support can be given to that essential service, and encourage the county council to support it?

[Norman Baker]

My officials discovered last year that some bus services receiving bus service operators grant were not eligible under the regulations because they were free services. As a result, the grant had to stop being paid. My officials wrote to operators in November to tell them that, and I have subsequently received representations on the matter. I believe that there is a case for continuing to pay BSOG for at least some of those services, so I will explore whether we can change the powers in respect of free bus services. We will continue to allow the submission of bus subsidy claims for free services, pending a resolution of this matter. My officials have told Stagecoach and Cambridgeshire county council about this decision. I therefore hope that between them, they can reach an agreement to continue to run that important shuttle bus.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

Does the Minister not understand that although the cuts to bus fuel subsidy may not come in until next year, cuts to bus services are happening now, thanks to the massive front-loaded 28% cut in local transport funding? In the election campaign, the Prime Minister was very clear that he would not axe the national concessionary travel scheme—but does the Minister understand that for pensioners up and down the country, there is no point in having a free bus pass if there is no bus?

[Norman Baker]

Pensioners will, I hope, be pleased by the fact that the Government have guaranteed the concessionary fare scheme in its entirety as inherited from the last Government. I hope they will also be pleased that the 78% of services provided through support from the BSOG arrangements will not be affected in any way this year, and that the BSOG reduction is being phased in in a way that operators themselves say they hope will not lead to reductions in service or an increase in fares—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. We are intensely grateful to the Minister for his answer.

[Stephen Phillips (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)]

10. What recent representations he has received on consistency in the setting of speed limits in rural areas.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Mike Penning)]

I have not received any representations about consistency in the setting of speed limits in rural areas. The Department for Transport issues guidelines for local authorities, and it is for them to decide what speed limits are required in their area.

[Stephen Phillips]

There is a very considerable problem in Lincolnshire, with speed limits being set at inappropriate and inconsistent levels in accordance with policies set by the county council, which many feel do not take into account the guidance to which the Minister has referred. What can he do about that, and will he undertake to meet me, and local campaigners, to discuss the matter further?

[Mike Penning]

I will be more than happy to meet my hon. and learned Friend, his local authority and campaigners to discuss that issue. The guidance is there for local authorities to implement, and we will see what we can do to ensure that things are better in his area.

[Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)]

11. What recent progress he has made on plans to electrify the midland main line.

[The Secretary of State for Transport (Mr Philip Hammond)]

The Government’s policy is to support the progressive electrification of the railway. The Department for Transport will continue to consider the business case for the scheme that my hon. Friend mentions as part of the work to inform decisions in the next railway control period, beginning in 2014.

[Andrew Bridgen]

Does the Secretary of State agree that there would be huge benefits to the east midlands from the electrification of the line? Given the massive economic and housing growth predicted for the east midlands over the next few years, an early timetable for electrification of the line would be very helpful to business and planners.

[Mr Hammond]

My hon. Friend is right to note that there is a strong case, on the face of it, for the electrification of the midland main line. He will know that there are works currently under way on the line to improve line speeds, and I had the opportunity to view them from the cab of an East Midlands Trains service on Monday. When they are completed at the end of 2013, they will result in the journey time from London to Sheffield being reduced to less than two hours.

[Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)]

Does the Secretary of State accept that in the last assessment, the business case for the electrification of the midland main line was just as strong as that for the Great Western line? As he is not prepared at this stage to commit to the electrification of the line in one go, will he re-examine the possibility of introducing the new bi-modal trains on the line? On that basis there could be incremental electrification without the up-front costs coming all at once.

[Mr Hammond]

I understand the hon. Gentleman’s question, and I am aware of the proposal that East Midlands Trains is examining to introduce bi-modal running on the line. The difference between the midland main line and the Great Western main line is that the midland main line’s future function will be affected by the decision on High Speed 2. It is right that we consider the matter as one for the next control period, in the full light of the decision on HS2 that will be taken later this year.

[Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (PC)]

12. What recent representations he has received on the electrification of rail lines between Cardiff and Swansea and west of Swansea.

[The Secretary of State for Transport (Mr Philip Hammond)]

I have received representations calling for electrification of the Great Western main line to be extended as far west as Swansea. We have looked carefully at the arguments but I regret to tell the hon. Gentleman that there is not, at present, a viable business case for electrification of the main line between Cardiff and Swansea. I have given the House an undertaking that I and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales will keep the matter under review.

[Jonathan Edwards]

I regret to inform the Secretary of State that last week’s announcement went down like a lead balloon in the communities in west Wales that I represent. Later in the week, the Business Secretary made a speech saying that investment in high-speed rail and electrification was an example of how the UK Government were going to rebalance the economy. Is the message therefore that as far as the UK Government are concerned, the Welsh economy stops at Cardiff?

[Mr Hammond]

No, I will tell the hon. Gentleman what the message is. It is that my announcement last week will result in the journey time to Swansea being cut by 20 minutes, to two hours and 39 minutes, delivering to people in Swansea all the time-saving benefits that would be delivered were electrification to progress as far as Swansea. I am sorry to have to tell him this, but if he looks at the facts of the case, the costs to the taxpayer and the benefits to the people of Swansea, he will discover that at the present time our decision is the right one. As I have said, we will keep it under review.

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)]

I am sorry to return to this subject, but will my right hon. Friend tell the House what feasibility studies have been undertaken on how long the Severn rail tunnel will be closed when the electrification project is under way? Would alternative diversion routes, such as the Kemble to Swindon rail scheme, be useful additions when the scheme is constructed?

[Mr Hammond]

My hon. Friend is extremely diligent in pursuing the Swindon to Kemble rail scheme. Our proposals will require electrification through the Severn tunnel. I have not yet received a detailed proposal from Network Rail on how engineering work will be carried out, but we will be mindful of the potential for disruption.

[Mrs Siân C. James (Swansea East) (Lab)]

I shall not express my disappointment with the decision again, but I would like to know this: are you going to publish the information on how you reached the financial decision? People in Swansea ought to be told what that decision was based on.

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I am not publishing anything, but the Secretary of State might be.

[Mr Philip Hammond]

If the hon. Lady would like to see the business case analysis for electrification from Cardiff to Swansea, I am happy to make it available to her. I can tell her that it will not reinforce her case.

[Laura Sandys (South Thanet) (Con)]

13. What assessment he has made of the potential for satellite navigation systems to increase the proportion of journeys undertaken by haulage companies using major routes.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Mike Penning)]

No such assessment has been made by the Department. It is for hauliers to plan their routes and for satellite navigation system providers to provide the technology that ensures that hauliers use the appropriate routeing.

[Laura Sandys]

Last weekend I came bonnet to bonnet with a huge articulated lorry in the village of Wingham on a very small rural A road. What can we do through the sat-nav system to distinguish rural A roads from the dual carriageways that lorries should be using?

[Mike Penning]

I am very aware of that problem, because it happens in my constituency as well, but there are new satellite navigation systems specifically for hauliers, which include software to ensure that hauliers stay on their routes. There is no benefit to hauliers in going down side roads, and local authorities have the powers to make weight restrictions if necessary. I will look into the problem in my hon. Friend’s constituency.

[Jonathan Reynolds (Stalybridge and Hyde) (Lab/Co-op)]

Haulage companies that avoid the M62 by travelling between the M1 and Manchester via the Snake and Woodhead passes are one cause of severe congestion in the Longdendale area of my constituency. If the Minister cannot influence that through satellite navigation companies, will he bear in mind the need for some form of bypass in the Longdendale area?

[Mike Penning]

It might be easier to speak to manufacturers of satellite navigation systems than to build a bypass. As I said, software specifically for hauliers is now available, which should alleviate the problem as it rolls out.

[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

14. If he will carry out a risk assessment of his proposals for the reorganisation of the Marine and Coastguard Agency.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Mike Penning)]

The coastguard service is under consultation at the moment. A suite of documents published on 11 February are part of the consultation as we go forward. We have received more than 1,000 submissions, and it is important that the public should feel part of the consultation. We are coming towards the end of that consultation period, on 24 March, but further submissions will be allowed via a six-month extension, which I announced today.

[Bill Esterson]

Can the Minister explain how staff in Aberdeen or Southampton will make decisions on which search and rescue units should respond to emergencies? No matter how much training takes place at the new control centres, staff at existing centres, including Crosby, have decades of experience and know the local search and rescue staff personally, so will the Minister explain how the new control centres will improve safety?

[Mike Penning]

First, Mr Speaker, may I just correct myself? The extension of the consultation is for six weeks, not six months.

All the control centres that I have visited—I was in Belfast yesterday, and I have been to Crosby—accept that we must modernise the service and go forward. The robustness and resilience of the service is not there. We have had some fantastic submissions and people have engaged with the consultation. The submission made yesterday in Belfast accepted that we need to close stations and have a resilient system. As soon as we have that we will have a better service, but we will look at all the submissions as they are made.

[Sarah Newton (Truro and Falmouth) (Con)]

I welcome what the Minister has confirmed—that there will be an extension to the consultation process on the future of the coastguard service. Does the Minister agree that it is important for him to visit Falmouth coastguard during the extension period, to see at first hand the excellent work done there?

[Mike Penning]

It is an extension for the receipt of submissions on the consultation. The visits will be as they were, and we should visit most of the stations. I am conscious that I have had to cancel a meeting with my hon. Friend’s constituents and the working group there, so I shall do my level best to visit Falmouth as soon as I can.

[Katy Clark (North Ayrshire and Arran) (Lab)]

Does the Minister not accept that if we close more than half of the coastguard stations and lose 226 of the 600 current staff, local knowledge will be lost?

[Mike Penning]

Local knowledge is vital, but nearly every coastguard station I have visited accepts that we have to modernise the service and that coastguard stations will be closed. As long as we accept that, we can roll forward a modern service. However, we cannot just be nimbyist and say, “Our one is okay. Nothing must close.” All the stations have accepted the need for modernisation, and we will work with the excellent, professional coastguard service to provide a 21st-century service.

[Miss Anne McIntosh (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

[The Secretary of State for Transport (Mr Philip Hammond)]

Since the previous Transport questions, I have launched a consultation on our proposals for high-speed rail, given the go-ahead for the £4.5 billion inter-city express programme, announced further electrification of the Great Western main line as far as Cardiff, announced £100 million-plus of additional funding to local authorities for pothole repairs and confirmed funding for a further nine local major transport schemes.

[Miss McIntosh]

The Secretary of State will be aware that the European Aviation Safety Agency is currently consulting on flight time hours. I have been contacted by pilots living in my area who are keen that we export our high safety standards to the rest of Europe, and conclude that they will catch us up on fatigue and airline safety.

[Mr Hammond]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I have received, as I am sure other Members have, a great deal of correspondence on this issue. We are working with the Civil Aviation Authority to ensure that the European approach remains proportionate and appropriate. I assure her that we will not agree to anything that lessens safety levels in this country.

[John Woodcock (Barrow and Furness) (Lab/Co-op)]

At our previous exchange, I asked the Secretary of State about rising fuel prices, and he said:

“I am pleased to say that it is not my business to do anything about this”.—[Official Report, 27 January 2011; Vol. 522, c. 435.]

Up and down the country, motorists will think that it is precisely the business of the Transport Secretary—the clue is in the job title. We are calling on the Government to reverse the VAT hike and consider deferring the next duty rise. What has he done?

[Mr Hammond]

Perhaps in due course the hon. Gentleman will learn that the occasional piece of humour does not go amiss in the Chamber. It is not the responsibility of the Transport Secretary to manage world oil markets, and it is not the responsibility of the Transport Secretary to deal with VAT or fuel duty. The latter are matters for my right hon. Friend the Chancellor, who will no doubt allude to them in his Budget speech on 23 March.

[Margot James (Stourbridge) (Con)]

T3. I recognise the benefits that high-speed rail will bring to Birmingham and the northern cities it services, but will my right hon. Friend outline what benefits might be brought to the wider environs, such as the black country—a part of which I represent—and any towns along the route where it does not stop?

[Mr Hammond]

The benefits for my hon. Friend’s constituents of high-speed rail will be twofold. First, there are the benefits that will accrue to the west midlands region in general from the high-speed railway from London to Birmingham, and the benefits to the UK economy of enhanced productivity and competitiveness as a whole. Secondly, moving passengers on to the high-speed railway and creating large amounts of additional capacity will allow our existing railway to be used more innovatively, with new passenger and freight services for the future.

[Naomi Long (Belfast East) (Alliance)]

T2. As the Minister will be aware, passengers travelling from Northern Ireland to London will be hit by two increases—the air passenger duty increase and the passenger landing charges being proposed at Heathrow and Gatwick. What discussions will the Minister have with the Northern Ireland Executive and other colleagues in government to ensure that there is still good access between London and Northern Ireland for business commuters?

[The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Mrs Theresa Villiers)]

I refer to the comments of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State: taxation is a matter for the Chancellor. I am sure that he will bear in mind the impact of decisions on air passenger duty on regional connectivity. This Government fully recognise the importance of good regional connections between London and all parts of the United Kingdom.

[Claire Perry (Devizes) (Con)]

T5. One way to help hard-pressed rural motorists in my constituency would be to reverse some of the short-sighted Beeching decisions taken decades ago that ripped the heart out of our rural railway services. Will the Secretary of State undertake to look closely at one proposal on the table—that of the TransWilts railway, which would link Swindon, Salisbury and stops in between, and bring enormous economic benefits to the county of Wiltshire?

[Mrs Villiers]

I know that my hon. Friend has done great work on this issue, and that there is a lot of activity locally. She will appreciate that such projects, which have primarily local benefits, need to find funding locally. It is therefore important that she should engage with the local authorities, Network Rail and the train operators to see what might be logistically feasible in getting the project off the ground.

[Alun Michael (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

T4. The Secretary of State has today offered my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea East (Mrs James) sight of the business case for the decision in Swansea, but we were previously promised that the full facts and everything about the case would be placed in the Library. That has not happened yet. In view of the importance of what is a major European route, including its importance to the economy of west Wales, will the Secretary of State promise to put all the details in the Library without delay?

[Mr Hammond]

Yes, I am happy to do so, although I should tell the right hon. Gentleman that, despite what was said at the time, the previous Government did not conduct a business case analysis of the proposal for electrification from Cardiff to Swansea.

[Mr Speaker]

Nicky Morgan. Not here.

[Greg Mulholland (Leeds North West) (LD)]

I warmly welcome the Government’s clear commitment to take high-speed rail to Leeds, but will the Secretary of State give proper consideration in the consultation to the high-speed north proposal by Harrogate engineer Colin Elliff? The route would not go through the Chilterns, hence avoiding some of the environmental concerns there.

[Mr Hammond]

There will be a consultation on the line of route between Birmingham and Manchester, and between Birmingham and Leeds respectively, once line options have been developed by HS2. That consultation will take place early next year, and I look forward to my hon. Friend’s participation in it.

[Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)]

T6. Does the Minister intend his direction of travel to lead towards the inevitable break-up and privatisation of Network Rail, in order to appease the probably insatiable appetite of the rail operating companies?

[Mr Hammond]

As my right hon. Friend the Minister of State said earlier, Sir Roy McNulty is conducting a review of value for money in the rail industry. One of his preliminary findings is that we need better alignment of interests between train operators and the infrastructure operator. Network Rail has responded to those recommendations, unprompted, by announcing that it will give greater autonomy to its regional route managing directors. I think that is a step in the right direction.

[Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)]

On 23 March, the people of Dover will vote in a referendum on whether they want a people’s port big society change in Dover. If the people vote for the big society, will the Secretary of State help to implement it?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Mike Penning)]

My hon. Friend is tenacious in his work for the people of Dover. As he knows, the Minister of State is still looking at the proposals for Dover, and at this time it would be improper for me to say any more.

[Mr Dennis Skinner (Bolsover) (Lab)]

A few minutes ago the Secretary of State was asked a perfectly reasonable question about whether he was speaking up for motorists on the VAT increase. He was not asked whether he would implement it; he was asked for his view. Has he said anything to the Chancellor? Why does he not open his mouth about the massive rise in petrol prices? Come on, let’s hear what his view is!

[Mr Hammond]

How can I resist a suggestion from the hon. Gentleman to open one’s mouth? I can tell him this: I speak regularly to the Chancellor on a range of matters, and the content of those discussions will remain private.

[Nick de Bois (Enfield North) (Con)]

London has rightly invested in the necessary infrastructure to ensure that the Olympics are a success, so will the Secretary of State work with the Rugby Football Union, Network Rail and local authorities to ensure that the rugby world cup in 2015 is not overlooked, and that we can have a station that is fit for the home of rugby and can meet the demands?

[Mrs Villiers]

We will certainly be working with all those stakeholders on the preparations for the rugby world cup, and plans are already under way to lengthen platforms at Twickenham station. We are also in negotiations to add new carriages into Waterloo. We have not yet taken a decision on where they will go, but Twickenham might benefit from that. I know that there is an interesting local scheme to redevelop the station, which could generate significant local benefits, and that the local authorities and other stakeholders are working hard to try to take that forward.

[Mr Speaker]

I am grateful to the Minister. We are now much better informed.

[Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

At great expense, a station has been built on High Speed 1 that says “Stratford International” on the outside, even though no international trains stop there. When will this rather embarrassing state of affairs be resolved?

[Mr Hammond]

Operational matters on High Speed 1 are a matter for the concessionaire and for the companies operating the services. I can tell the House that Deutsche Bahn intends to start running services from Frankfurt to London in 2012, and I hope that other operators will start to run similar services. That will be good news for passengers in general, and probably good news for the right hon. Gentleman’s campaign. The more operators there are on the route, the more chance there is of getting additional services.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I am sorry to disappoint colleagues, but this topical questions session is always a rather shorter one, and demand has exceeded supply. We must now move on to questions to the Minister for Women and Equalities.

The Minister for Women and Equalities was asked—

[Stephen Phillips (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)]

1. What discussions she has had with ministerial colleagues on the support available to women trafficked to the UK.

[The Minister for Equalities (Lynne Featherstone)]

The Government are determined to ensure that all identified victims of this terrible crime receive the support to which they are entitled. Ministers work together, including through the interdepartmental group on human trafficking, to ensure that we achieve that objective.

[Stephen Phillips]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that answer. Support is absolutely critical for women who have been trafficked. Will she clarify whether the new Home Office policy on human trafficking will include at least a three-month period of support, as recommended by the European Union group of experts on trafficking in human beings in its opinion of 16 April 2004?

[Lynne Featherstone]

The Council of Europe convention, to which we have signed up, sets a minimum of 30 days. I am pleased to reassure my hon. and learned Friend, however, that in this country we have a minimum 45-day extendable recovery period for accommodation, counselling or reintegration if desired.

[Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)]

When will the Government publish their anti-trafficking strategy?

[Lynne Featherstone]

The strategy will be coming forward in the spring.

[Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

Why was it felt necessary to change the funding arrangements that apply to the support provided to women?

[Lynne Featherstone]

We found that using a single contractor was extremely inflexible and led to a lack of capacity. The lack of bed capacity meant that voluntary organisations were taking in trafficked women and, because they were going all over the place, it was impossible to have proper oversight of all those who needed help and support. For that reason, we have changed the procurement process.

[Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)]

Women are trafficked not only to the UK but within these islands. Will the Minister and her ministerial colleagues use the auspices of the British-Irish Council to improve support for women who have been trafficked throughout these islands, as well as to improve enforcement?

[Lynne Featherstone]

We are happy to work with all the nations on this serious issue to stop women being trafficked within and without these islands.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

Will the Minister tell us when spring starts and when it ends?

[Lynne Featherstone]

It is the parliamentary spring, and in this country it is quite difficult to tell, but it will happen in due course.

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

Since my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman) raised the European directive on human trafficking with the Prime Minister on 15 September, the issue has been raised at least 40 times in this Chamber alone. The final text of the directive was agreed by the European Parliament more than 12 weeks ago. How often do we need to ask the Minister about this? How long does she need before she decides that Britain will sign up to the directive?

[Lynne Featherstone]

We are undertaking proper consideration and discussion with the devolved Administrations, but I can assure the hon. Lady that it will not be that much longer.

[Mark Menzies (Fylde) (Con)]

2. What recent discussions she has had with the Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport on discrimination in sport on the grounds of sexual orientation.

[The Minister for Equalities (Lynne Featherstone)]

On 14 February, my right hon. Friend the Minister for Women and Equalities and I hosted a round table on homophobia and transphobia in sport with my hon. Friend the Minister for Sport and the Olympics. This was attended by the national governing bodies of football, rugby union, rugby league, tennis and cricket. The London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games and Pride Sports were also in attendance. We believe that everyone should be able to participate in sport and enjoy sport free from discrimination on account of their sexual orientation or gender identity.

[Mark Menzies]

We have recently seen positive role models coming out in rugby and cricket, to much support from the general public and the sports community. What steps is the Minister taking to encourage a similar welcoming atmosphere in football—the nation’s most popular sport?

[Lynne Featherstone]

I would like to put on record our congratulations to Steven Davies, the English cricketer, and Gareth Thomas, the Welsh rugby player on coming out. This is an important issue and we look forward to working with the Football Association to create an atmosphere and ambience in which footballers should feel free to come out as they wish—not just for the sake of the league and themselves, but for the sake of youngsters all over the country who should be able to play on any sports field free of any discrimination.

[Stephen Mosley (City of Chester) (Con)]

3. What recent discussions she has had with the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills on parental leave for maternity and paternity.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Maria Miller)]

The Government are committed to introducing a system of flexible parental leave that recognises the needs of businesses and parents, balancing work and family life. We will consult fully on this reform, particularly with small and medium-sized enterprises. An announcement will be made later in the spring.

[Stephen Mosley]

How does the Minister propose to ensure that the welcome result of more flexible and more family-friendly working will not adversely affect small business?

[Maria Miller]

I thank my hon. Friend for raising this issue, which I know is important to many hon. Members. The Government have a strong culture of regulatory restraint, but we need to make sure that regulations keep pace with family life and the realities of parents needing to balance their family life with work. We are already in discussions with employers about how to ensure that the proposals we put forward will benefit businesses and families. We will make sure that the consultation informs our decision.

[Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)]

The Minister will know that evidence shows that women on low incomes are less likely than those on higher incomes to take their full maternity leave because they struggle to afford it. She will also know that the impact of cutting the baby element of the tax credit, the Sure Start maternity allowance and other measures will take an estimated £1,200 from young families with small children. Will she assess the impact of those cuts on mothers’ ability to take maternity leave? Does she agree that this means more new mums will feel forced to go back to work earlier than they would choose because they cannot afford either the rent or the mortgage?

[Maria Miller]

I thank the right hon. Lady for her question. As we put forward a whole package of support for families, we will obviously do everything we can to make sure we support women on low incomes—or, indeed, parents on low incomes—to get back into work. I know that the proposals in the Welfare Reform Bill, which was debated yesterday—and particularly the way universal credit will deal with child care—will help people to be able properly to make those decisions.

[Simon Hughes (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (LD)]

4. What her latest estimate is of the gender pay gap.

[The Secretary of State for the Home Department and Minister for Women and Equalities (Mrs Theresa May)]

The Office for National Statistics estimates that the median gender pay gap for full-time work for men and women was 10.2% in 2010, and the median gap comparing all men and women was 19.8%. The Government are committed to promoting equal pay, including, for example, working with employers to help them publish equality data about their work force on a voluntary basis. We will also consult shortly on proposals to include flexibility at work.

[Simon Hughes]

I am grateful, and the Home Secretary’s commitment to this issue is well known. Men in this place and in the country feel as angry about the gender pay gap as do women. Given that this week is the 100th anniversary of the celebration of international women’s day, will the Home Secretary confirm that if we can deal effectively with the gender pay gap, it could have a huge effect on Britain’s growth and success economically? Will she set out that commitment to bring those two policies together?

[Mrs May]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend, who is absolutely right that where we see a gender pay gap it is often a reflection of the under-utilisation of women’s skills in the workplace, and the under-utilisation of women’s skills certainly has an impact on the economy. If we were able to ensure that women’s skills were being used at the appropriate level and that women were able to progress through to appropriate levels in companies, for example, it would indeed be positive for growth. That explains our commitment, working with Lord Davies, to see more women on company boards.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

What assessment has been made of the impact of legal aid cuts, in the context of employment law cases, on the ability of women to challenge gender pay inequality through our legal system?

[Mrs May]

As the hon. Lady may know, we have been looking into the whole question of employment tribunals and pay discrimination cases. We are considering the possibility of making things easier by enabling a single decision to apply to anyone in a company rather than requiring people to go to employment tribunals on an individual basis.

[Mr Speaker]

Robert Flello is not here. I call Esther McVey.

[Esther McVey (Wirral West) (Con)]

6. What recent representations she has received on the regulation of airbrushed images of women in the media.

[The Minister for Equalities (Lynne Featherstone)]

I have received representations from concerned members of the public, the advertising industry and other interested parties about the regulation of airbrushed images of women in the media. Last November I met a group of experts to discuss our shared concerns and the evidence that it had assembled on matters such as the way in which media representations of body shape can affect self-confidence and well-being. I am working with the group, with relevant industries and with the Advertising Standards Authority to identify non-legislative ways of tackling the issue.

[Esther McVey]

Is the Minister aware of the petition submitted by Girlguiding UK to the Prime Minister on 4 November that called for compulsory labelling to distinguish between airbrushed and natural images? What steps will she take to ensure that consumers, especially the young, know when images have been altered?

[Lynne Featherstone]

I am aware of the Girlguiding petition. It is an excellent petition, signed by thousands of young girls. It is true that the impression given to young girls by airbrushed images has a devastating effect. We are not considering legislative processes, but following my meeting with representatives of Media Smart, a not-for-profit organisation, Media Smart is developing as part of its programme a media literacy kit for youngsters at school that will help them to become more aware that what they see is not necessarily what is real.

[Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)]

What impact assessment has the Minister made of the impact of airbrushed pictures of the Prime Minister on the self-confidence—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I want to be helpful to the hon. Gentleman and the House. The question is about airbrushed images of women. The Prime Minister is not a woman. [Interruption.] Order. That is the end of the matter. We will leave it there.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

7. What plans she has to support women in balancing their caring responsibilities with work.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Maria Miller)]

One in seven working people has caring responsibilities, and many of those people are women. The Government want people to be able to balance work and family life, and the Government are committed to removing the barriers that can prevent that. We will introduce flexible parental leave, extend help with child care to the most disadvantaged, and extend the right to request flexible working.

[Barry Gardiner]

Does the Minister agree that £10,000 a year would go a long way towards helping women with their caring responsibilities? Would she care to look into the £10,000 per annum disparity between the starting salaries of parliamentary case workers, a disproportionate number of whom are women, and parliamentary assistants? The Independent Parliamentary Salaries Authority recently refused to respond to a question about that from my office, and I should be grateful if the Minister investigated.

[Maria Miller]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for raising that point. It is important for transparency to apply to all pay issues. I think that this is indeed a matter for IPSA to consider, and I suggest that the hon. Gentleman approach it again.

[Jo Swinson (East Dunbartonshire) (LD)]

One way of making it easier for women to balance care responsibilities with work would be to achieve a better balance between men and women in relation to who does the caring. Does the Minister think that shared parental leave, which the Government consider so important, might have the additional benefit of making employers in the mould of Lord Sugar less likely to discriminate against women of childbearing age in the recruitment process, because men and women alike might take parental leave?

[Maria Miller]

I could not agree more with my hon. Friend. Shared parental leave has an important role to play in the workplace, both in reflecting the realities of modern living and in helping to ensure that the gender inequalities that the House has worked so hard to reduce are reduced even further.

[Dame Anne Begg (Aberdeen South) (Lab)]

During yesterday’s debate on the Welfare Reform Bill, it became clear that no more money would go into child care and that the existing money would have to go much further, especially when the Government are placing new obligations on women to find work. What will the Government do about that?

[Maria Miller]

I thank the hon. Lady for her question. As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions made clear in yesterday’s debate, support for child care costs will be provided as an additional element as part of the universal credit, and we will invest at least the same amount in child care as under the current system. That is important at a time of fiscal restraint. We will go further, however, and make sure we target that money at people working fewer than 16 hours —who in the past perhaps have not received as much help as they need—thus getting more people closer to the labour market.

[Mr Andrew Turner (Isle of Wight) (Con)]

8. When she expects to publish plans to allow civil partnerships on religious premises.

[The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mrs Theresa May)]

On 17 February, we announced our intention to implement section 202 of the Equality Act 2010, which removes the ban in England and Wales on civil partnership registrations being held on religious premises. It is a permissive provision, which means that religious organisations that do not wish to host civil partnership registrations will not be required to do so. This is a positive step for lesbian, gay and bisexual rights and for religious freedom, and I hope Members on both sides of the House will welcome it.

[Mr Turner]

Will the Secretary of State confirm that there is no prospect whatever of the voluntary nature of these civil partnership registrations being turned, by the intervention of the courts, into a right, whereby the long-standing opposition from most churches, mosques and synagogues will be overridden?

[Mrs May]

I would make two points in response to my hon. Friend’s question. First, this provision was introduced as an amendment to the Equality Bill because religious organisations asked to be able to hold civil partnership ceremonies on their religious premises. It was introduced before the election and was widely supported, and we have decided to go ahead with it. To reassure my hon. Friend, however, I point out that section 202 says:

“For the avoidance of doubt, nothing in this Act places an obligation on religious organisations to host civil partnerships if they do not wish to do so.”

That is the legal background against which the provision will be introduced.

[Miss Anne McIntosh (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

9. When she expects Lord Davies to make recommendations on the removal of barriers to women serving on corporate boards.

[The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mrs Theresa May)]

Lord Davies reported, with his recommendations, on 24 February. The Government have welcomed the Davies report. We are engaging with business in considering his recommendations, and we encourage regulators, investors and executive search firms to take forward those recommendations that fall to them.

[Miss McIntosh]

In addition to the measures the Prime Minister outlined yesterday, does my right hon. Friend agree that we can learn a lot from the legislators of Denmark and Spain about smoothing the path of women on to boards and into other avenues of public life?

[Mrs May]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right that we must look at international experience; indeed, Lord Davies did that in putting together his report. I especially commend the Australian “If not, why not” model, which has been particularly successful in achieving a significant increase in the number of women on boards without resorting to quotas or increasing the burdens on business.

Business of the House

Thursday 10th March 2011 Commons Chamber

11:32

[Hilary Benn (Leeds Central) (Lab)]

Will the Leader of the House give us the business for next week?

[The Leader of the House of Commons (Sir George Young)]

The business for the week commencing 14 March will be:

Monday 14 March—Consideration in Committee of the Scotland Bill (Day 2).

Tuesday 15 March—Conclusion of consideration in Committee of the Scotland Bill (Day 3).

Wednesday 16 March—Opposition Day (13th allotted day). There will be a debate on an Opposition motion, subject to be announced, followed by a motion to approve a document relating to section 6 of the European Union (Amendment) Act 2008.

Thursday 17 March—General debate on north Africa and the middle east.

Friday 18 March—Private Members’ Bills.

The provisional business for the week commencing 21 March will include:

Monday 21 March—Remaining stages of the Budget Responsibility and National Audit Bill [Lords], followed by motion relating to Members’ salaries.

Tuesday 22 March—Remaining stages of the Scotland Bill.

Wednesday 23 March—My right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer will open his Budget statement.

Thursday 24 March—Continuation of the Budget debate.

I should also like to inform the House that the business in Westminster Hall for 24 March 2011 will be a debate on the future of the coastguard service.

[Hilary Benn]

I am grateful to the Leader of the House for that reply. Has he seen today’s news of the killing of civilians in Zawiyal and of the arrest and torture of three BBC journalists? Will he join me in condemning that action and in expressing support for those standing up against oppression and those who are bringing us the truth in their reports? These are voices that Colonel Gaddafi is desperate to silence.

When may we expect to have a statement on Lord Hutton’s pensions report? Why will the Report stage of the Scotland Bill be on 22 March, given that the Government have made it clear they will introduce a new clause, one that was not part of the Calman recommendations and on which consultation does not close until 13 May? Should not this House consider it first?

Last week, the role of prayers at the start of our proceedings was raised, and the Leader of the House will, of course, be familiar with Matthew, chapter 25, verse 35:

“For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in”.

While we reflect on helping those in need, may we have an urgent statement from the Communities Secretary, because it seems that his Department is supporting Westminster city council’s plan to make it an offence to feed homeless people in one part of central London? Under its proposed byelaw entitled, with an Orwellian lack of irony, “Good Rule and Government (No. 3)”, anyone found offering free refreshments—that is, soup, bread and water—to homeless people will be liable to a fine of up to £500. Westminster city council also wants to outlaw the act of lying down or sleeping in a public place. When this was first reported, many people refused point blank to believe that it was true, myself included. We thought, “This has to be a joke. Isn’t helping the homeless what the big society is meant to be all about?” But it is not a joke. It is, in fact, the shocking face of 21st-century Tories in the richest borough in the country, supported by the Communities Secretary. Their big society hides a big, nasty, spiteful stick. Does the Leader of the House agree that those who thought of this should be ashamed of themselves?

Last week, the Leader of the House was asked by the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) who would take over if the Prime Minister was incapacitated. I would be surprised if it was the Foreign Secretary, but we were all rather puzzled that the Leader of the House seemed so unwilling to answer. I have with me the Government list and it is pretty clear: listed under the Prime Minister’s name is that of the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr Clegg) as the Deputy Prime Minister. Surely if the Prime Minister cannot act, his deputy will take over. Yet, on reflection, and after recent events, I think that every one of us in the Chamber can sympathise with the Leader of the House’s evident reluctance to say that that is the case. Does he have an answer for us today by any chance?

Has the Deputy Prime Minister given the Leader of the House an indication that he is planning to make a statement about the size of the election deposit? I ask because concerns have been expressed in the past week that losing £500 might have a big financial effect on small parties that are finding it very difficult to attract votes, such as the Liberal Democrats. Before Conservative Members laugh, I should remind them that the Tories came behind the UK Independence party in the by-election.

Finally, may we expect a statement from the Transport Secretary on whether he thinks the cost of a return rail ticket from Sheffield to Barnsley is too expensive? I ask because presumably the difficulty in raising the considerable sum of £5.40 was the reason why the Deputy Prime Minister was unable to make the 15-mile journey to support his candidate in the by-election—not that it would have done any good. Or was it because the Lib Dem candidate spoke the truth last weekend when he said that

“in towns like Barnsley, where the Lib Dems once harvested votes as a party of protest, they now attract derision as a party of government”?

How true, and how like a Liberal Democrat to tell us what he really thinks only once the ballot box has closed.

[Sir George Young]

May I begin by agreeing with what the right hon. Gentleman said about the BBC journalists? I watched the BBC news last night, and what they went through was horrendous. We should never underestimate the risks that many people take in order to bring this country, and indeed the rest of the world, the truth about what is happening in countries such as Libya. I am sure that the whole House will agree with what the right hon. Gentleman said.

Lord Hutton’s report was published today and I suspect that something might be said about it in the Budget, which would be an appropriate time to respond.

The right hon. Gentleman may have seen the exchange of correspondence on the Scotland Bill between the Secretary of State for Scotland and the shadow Secretary of State, which says that in dealing with the Bill we are following a process that has been supported by the Labour, Liberal Democrat and Conservative party leaders in Holyrood. The motion that they have promoted states that they look

“forward to considering any amendments made to the Bill with a view to debating them in a further legislative consent motion before the Bill is passed for Royal Assent.”

As regards Westminster city council, it is 20 years since the rough sleeping initiative was started—in fact, I was Housing Minister at the time. Enormous progress has been made in reaching out to rough sleepers and I applaud the successor Government for what they did to roll out that initiative and apply it to other parts of the country. The debate is ongoing about whether those who generously supply food should be encouraged to do so in buildings, where people have access to help and support and to the housing and training they need, or whether they should continue to operate in a more unstructured way. The issue is slightly more complicated than the right hon. Gentleman has just implied, but I hope that Westminster city council will work with voluntary organisations and those who are trying to help the homeless in a way that not only reaches out to people but encourages them to abandon a lifestyle that is not in their best interests and to access those who can help them into training and jobs.

I thought the issue of succession might come up again. The practice is the same now as it has been under successive Administrations: the Prime Minister remains Prime Minister at all times but arrangements appropriate at the time will be put in place as necessary. That procedure has been adopted under successive Administrations.

Finally, let me turn to the subject of by-elections. The right hon. Gentleman may want to have a look at how well his party did in the Henley by-election before he and his colleagues draw too many conclusions about the loss of deposits. I welcome the new hon. Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis) and congratulate him on achieving a more respectable turnout than the shadow Leader of the House managed when he was first elected in 1999 on a turnout of 19.9%. The BBC dropped all pretence of impartiality and ran the story, “Benn limps in after dismal vote”.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. As usual, a large number of hon. and right hon. Members are seeking to catch my eye, but there are important debates to follow under the auspices of the Backbench Business Committee. If I am to accommodate the level of interest in this session, brevity from Back-Bench and Front-Bench Members alike is vital.

[Kwasi Kwarteng (Spelthorne) (Con)]

In the light of Sir Ronnie Flanagan’s remarks about the massive amount of paperwork heaped on the shoulders of the police, and given that in 2009 the previous Labour Government issued some 4,000 diktats and 6,500 pages of guidelines, may we have a debate on the Floor of the House about savings in the police force?

[Hon. Members]

Yes!

[Sir George Young]

I hear Opposition Members shouting yes. Of course, I have announced an Opposition day and if they want to debate police matters, we are ready to debate them next Wednesday. What has struck me—I am sure that it has struck my hon. Friend too—is the number of chief constables who have come forward and identified ways in which economies can be made by sharing back-office functions and opting for joint procurement without impacting on front-line policing. As my hon. Friend knows, only 11% of police are visible and available to the public. I hope that all police authorities will look for economies that preserve the effectiveness of front-line policing and that they will do so in the back-office areas, where I believe such economies can be secured.

[Fiona O'Donnell (East Lothian) (Lab)]

The Leader of the House will no doubt have scrutinised the Scotland Bill and will be aware that much of the success of that Bill relies on good, effective working relationships between this House and the Scottish Parliament. Can he not see that to proceed to consider the Bill further on 22 March, before the consultation period is over, sends the wrong message to the Scottish Parliament?

[Sir George Young]

The Scottish Parliament has been advised by its Scotland Bill Committee to welcome and support the Bill, and I hope that it will do so. The procedure I outlined a few moments ago has been agreed by the three parties in the Scottish Parliament, which have written to commend that procedure.

[Mr Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

Will the Leader of the House guarantee that if a no-fly zone is to be imposed, there will be a vote in the House of Commons? Such action would definitely be military action and not risk-free because of the established Libyan air defence systems, which might explain America’s reluctance. May we definitely have a vote before there is any military action?

[Sir George Young]

A convention has developed in the House that before troops are committed, the House should have an opportunity to debate the matter. We propose to observe that convention except when there is an emergency and such action would not be appropriate. As with the Iraq war and other events, we propose to give the House the opportunity to debate the matter before troops are committed.

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

May we have a debate as part of the consultation on the Government’s Green Paper on special educational needs and disabilities? There is widespread concern that the cuts imposed by the coalition on local authorities will reduce the money available to parents to control budgets. If there is no money in the budgets, there is no control for parents and that will be nothing but a con trick on them. We need to have a debate in the House so we can represent our constituents’ views.

[Sir George Young]

I welcome yesterday’s publication of the consultation document. The consultation will take place over four months. I emphasise that it is not a cost-cutting exercise; it is about having a much better regime for children who need support in schools and about giving parents more of a say. Crucially, it is about bringing together health, education and care in one package and, we hope, having a more user-friendly, streamlined approach than we have at the moment. I would welcome a debate on the SEN statement. That might be an appropriate issue for the Backbench Business Committee to consider or for debate in Westminster Hall. Yesterday’s announcement was warmly welcomed by those who take an interest in this issue and recognise the need for reform.

[Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)]

Could we have a debate on the wisdom of crowds or perhaps on the operation of the hive mind? At Tuesday’s Health questions, hon. Members managed to match the feat of 17 February in questions to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, when there were eight almost identical questions on the Order Paper. One can only wonder how many more “inspired” questions were submitted but not drawn for that day.

[Sir George Young]

This is interesting territory. I am not sure whether the hon. Gentleman has been in opposition in the House, but he will know that hon. Members are sometimes informally encouraged to table questions, which I understand is wholly within the proceedings of the House. However, I hope there might be a little more ingenuity in future in coming up with different questions, rather than the same ones.

[Tom Blenkinsop (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Lab)]

In my constituency, 90% of all bus routes are run by Arriva. As we now have five big bus companies dominating and running two thirds of UK bus routes, may we have a debate on the Floor of the House to call on the Office of Fair Trading to reconsider the concentration of bus company dominance?

[Sir George Young]

We have just had Transport questions. I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman had the opportunity to raise that issue then, but if he did not I will certainly raise it with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and ask him to write to the hon. Gentleman.

[Mr Greg Knight (East Yorkshire) (Con)]

Is the Leader of the House aware that many Members would like to debate our sitting hours? Does he agree, however, that such a debate would be premature while the Select Committee on Procedure is preparing a report on the matter? Will he urge all Members, including Ministers, to complete the questionnaire that the Committee recently circulated?

[Sir George Young]

I welcome the work of my right hon. Friend’s Committee. I completed my questionnaire yesterday and sent it back and I have today written to my ministerial colleagues urging them to fill it in so that a balanced response can be available to the Procedure Committee. I welcome the Committee’s work and I look forward to seeing the options that I hope will be put before the House later this year.

[Stewart Hosie (Dundee East) (SNP)]

The Leader of the House will know that a legislative consent motion on the Scotland Bill is being considered today in the Scottish Parliament. Of course, we will have to wait to see precisely what it says, but if the Government intend to bring forward amendments to match the LCM, they will be considered on Report and cannot therefore be tabled until after 10 pm next Tuesday. If those amendments are financial ones, they would go a very long way towards informing the technical debates we are likely to have on Monday and Tuesday. Does the Leader of the House have any power to have such Government amendments published, if not tabled, quickly so that we may have a proper, considered debate on Monday and Tuesday, knowing the Government’s intentions?

[Sir George Young]

We are determined to observe the conventions to make sure that the House has an opportunity, as the Bill passes through both Houses, to consider amendments necessary following the LCM. I will raise with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland the hon. Gentleman’s specific question on whether we can table amendments even if we may not be able to debate them.

[Mark Lancaster (Milton Keynes North) (Con)]

May we have a debate on health care? Despite a rising health care budget, in Milton Keynes there is growing local concern that the primary care trust seems determined to cut services while protecting its own administrative function. Is it right that an organisation that will soon play no part in health care is allowed to behave in such a way?

[Sir George Young]

As my hon. Friend knows, PCTs are due to be wound up, so I hope they will consider carefully whether any increased costs they may be planning are really necessary as they pass their responsibilities to GP-led commissioning organisations. I will raise the question with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health and ask him to write to my hon. Friend.

[Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

With every child in Kingston upon Hull losing £70 in the funding that has been allocated, compared with a child in Kingston upon Thames who will lose £30, may we have a debate on the coalition Government’s redistribution of moneys away from the most deprived communities, and also on the fact that Lib Dem-controlled Hull city council has not protected the early years? Nor has it protected children’s centres and Sure Start.

[Sir George Young]

We had a debate on local authority funding last month when we discussed the revenue support grant settlement. That was an opportunity to debate the issues. It is the contention of the coalition Government that the RSG settlement was redistributive in that it directed resources more to areas in need than to those in less need, so I reject the assertion on which the hon. Lady based her question.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

There are specific commitments in the coalition agreement to establish commissions to address the West Lothian question and the Bill of Rights. When might we have a statement in the House confirming that those commissions will be established, and when will we be given a date by which they have to report?

[Sir George Young]

My hon. Friend is quite right. There is a commitment in the coalition agreement to establishing a human rights commission, to see whether there are better ways to protect our rights and liberties in this country. I anticipate that an announcement will be made about that shortly. At the same time, we want to look at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, and when we have the chair of the appropriate Council in November we propose to make it a top priority to make sure that subsidiarity is at the heart of the Court’s functions.

On the West Lothian question, there is a commitment to look at issues arising from Scottish devolution. An announcement about that will follow the one I have just mentioned.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Leader of the House will, like me, acknowledge the importance of the university sector to our towns and cities and to the future of our country. Is he aware that since Lord Browne’s report on the funding of universities, and the Government’s response, there has been a breakdown of confidence in the university sector and a meltdown of confidence in what is happening in the higher education sector generally? May we have an early debate on what on earth the Government’s policy is and how it is working through the university sector?

[Sir George Young]

I reject the hon. Gentleman’s assertion that there has been a breakdown in confidence in the way he outlined. As he knows, earlier this week the director of the Office for Fair Access published new guidance and his expectations of what English universities will need to do if they want to charge more than £6,000 for their full-time courses. I am sure there is constructive dialogue between my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills and the universities, but I will share with my right hon. Friend the concern that the hon. Gentleman has just expressed.

[John Hemming (Birmingham, Yardley) (LD)]

In a secret hearing, Fred Goodwin has obtained a super-injunction preventing him from being identified as a banker. Will the Government hold a debate, or make a statement, on freedom of speech, and whether there is one law for the rich, such as Fred Goodwin, and another for the poor, such as Lee Gilliland who has had his mental capacity removed on the basis of a report from his GP that he is not allowed to see?

[Sir George Young]

I know that in a week’s time my hon. Friend will have a debate in Westminster Hall which may impinge on some of these issues. I will raise with the appropriate Minister the matter that he has just raised, but it seems to impinge on the responsibility of the courts and any Minister would be cautious about commenting on that.

[Mr John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)]

The Leader of the House indicated that the Government might respond to the Hutton report in the Budget debate. Could he ask the relevant Minister to take into consideration the grotesque paradox whereby the Hutton report recommends raising the retirement age for uniformed personnel, yet a local paper, the Sandwell Chronicle, reports that West Midlands police, under Home Office diktat, are forcibly retiring Chief Superintendent Steve Dugmore, a first-class crime fighter, because rule A19 allows them to sack people after 30 years’ service? Is that not absolutely absurd and don’t they need to get their act together?

[Sir George Young]

I am very happy to raise the right hon. Gentleman’s final point with the Home Secretary. On the first issue, the Hutton report made it clear that if we do not make changes we are heading for the rocks—another example of the difficulties that the coalition Government are having to deal with following the outgoing Labour Government.

[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)]

Will the Leader of the House find time for an urgent debate on links between middle eastern dictators and our universities, following my early-day motions 1562 and 1563?

[That this House believes that there should be a real financial incentive for British universities not to accept donations from foreign dictatorships, especially regimes in the Middle East with a poor record on human rights; and therefore calls on the Government to introduce a mechanism whereby for every £1 that a university receives in donations from a totalitarian or despotic regime, such a Libya, £1 shall be withdrawn from that university in public subsidy.]

As well as the London School of Economics case, it has emerged that Durham university has done deals with the Iranian regime and that the Muslim research centre at my former university, Exeter, was funded by the Muslim Brotherhood. Does my right hon. Friend agree that if a university takes blood money it should lose an equivalent amount of public subsidy?

[Sir George Young]

As I said to my hon. Friend last week, universities are autonomous organisations and accountable for what they do. I will draw his comments to the attention of my ministerial colleagues at BIS. As he knows, we will have a debate on the middle east at this time next week, when he may want to amplify his remarks.

[Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)]

May we have a statement on the impact of the Department of Health’s any willing provider policy on specialisms such as speech therapy? Such services transform lives, but they could be at risk in the new commissioning marketplace.

[Sir George Young]

The Health and Social Care Bill is in Committee and will be coming back to the Floor of the House for Report, which may be an appropriate time for the hon. Gentleman to table amendments and secure a debate.

[Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)]

May we please have a debate on how we can both reduce the cost and speed up the process of removing squatters, to help hard-working home owners who discover that their properties are being illegally occupied?

[Sir George Young]

We all recognise the distress that can be caused by squatters, and we understand the difficulties that many people find in regaining occupation of their own home. The Ministry of Justice is considering options for strengthening the criminal law, but is yet to reach firm conclusions.

[Mr Chuka Umunna (Streatham) (Lab)]

Knife and gun crime continue to blight inner-city communities such as mine. The trial is ongoing of those accused of murdering 15-year-old Zac Olumegbon in July last year, and just 14 days ago in my constituency, Solomon Sarfo was stabbed and murdered. Will the Home Secretary come to the House to give us an update on what the Government are doing to prevent that needless loss of life in our communities? I ask because I am particularly concerned that many of the third-sector organisations working to prevent such crimes are seeing their funding withdrawn.

[Sir George Young]

I very much regret the loss of life to which the hon. Gentleman refers, and I understand the deep feeling in his constituency. The coalition agreement makes it clear that we want to take a robust approach to those who carry knives, with appropriate penalties to deal with knife crime, but I will pass the hon. Gentleman’s request to the Home Secretary.

[Sajid Javid (Bromsgrove) (Con)]

In an effort to bring sanity back to our nation’s finances, Bromsgrove district council was told in December that its budget was to be cut by 28%. Since then, through shared services and other efficiencies, it has not only frozen council tax but announced that there will be no cut in any council services. Will my right hon. Friend join me in congratulating Bromsgrove district council, and may we have a debate on local government finance?

[Sir George Young]

I would welcome such a debate, and I very much hope that other local authorities will follow the example of Bromsgrove in dealing with the challenges of coping with a reduced grant without affecting front-line services. It is a model of what a local authority ought to be doing.

[Mr Dave Watts (St Helens North) (Lab)]

May we have a debate on why the Government are standing aside and allowing eight energy companies to rip off British gas and fuel customers? Is it not about time the Government got a grip and did something about the escalating costs of fuel in the UK?

[Sir George Young]

We are operating the regime we inherited from the Labour Government, which deals with energy prices by having a regulator who fixes the tariff, but I will of course share the hon. Gentleman’s concern with the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change.

[John Glen (Salisbury) (Con)]

May we have a statement from the Minister with responsibility for public health, my hon. Friend the Member for Guildford (Anne Milton), on the future of the Health Protection Agency at Porton Down in my constituency? When the Minister visited Porton Down on 12 October, she indicated that a decision would be made by the end of last year. I am concerned about when the decision will be made, and there is obviously concern in the constituency because jobs are involved.

[Sir George Young]

Many of my constituents, like those of my hon. Friend, who is my parliamentary neighbour, work at Porton Down, where they do vital work developing vaccines and other medicines. We make no apology for taking time to get that decision right, because it is a major programme that requires in-depth analysis and due diligence. The way forward will be decided soon and an announcement will be made at the appropriate time.

[Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)]

In Swansea, the Libyan community will be gathering on Saturday in support of a no-fly zone over Libya to stop the wholesale massacre of unarmed civilians. They also want us to consider the idea of an Arab-led ground force under the United Nations flag. When will we have an opportunity to debate these important issues, which are particularly important for those who have loved ones in Libya who are currently being killed?

[Sir George Young]

The hon. Gentleman will know that I have announced a debate for next Thursday on north Africa and the middle east. NATO is considering a range of options, including the establishment of a no-fly zone, and in the UN Security Council we are working closely with partners, on a contingency basis, on elements of a resolution on a no-fly zone.

[David Mowat (Warrington South) (Con)]

Subsequent to the demise of the regional development agencies, there is now a £1 million shortfall in the funding for the rugby league world cup. We are having some difficulty establishing whether that is a matter for the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills or the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. Can we have a statement from the Government on that?

[Sir George Young]

There was a clear commitment in the Conservative party manifesto and the coalition agreement to supporting the rugby league world cup. I understand that colleagues in DCMS are talking with the Rugby Football League about support for the event and working with UK support. We are committed to fair treatment for this important event.

[Jim Sheridan (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (Lab)]

Unfortunately, Mr Speaker, I failed to catch your eye this morning during Transport questions, so may I ask the Leader of the House to use his good offices to encourage the Secretary of State for Transport to seek clarity from so-called British Airways on its long-term plans for UK routes? There is genuine concern about British Midland’s recent decision to withdraw its Glasgow-to-Heathrow service, which will have a serious impact on the travelling public and serious consequences for the economy of western Scotland. There is real concern that the Glasgow service will not be the last to go.

[Sir George Young]

The hon. Gentleman takes me back 15 years to the time when I was Transport Secretary and had the answers to such questions. As he recognises, the question is a matter for the Secretary of State for Transport, to whom I will pass on his concern.

[Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)]

Will consideration be given to having a debate on the future of the gift aid tax initiative, with a view to having an opt-out rather than an opt-in to aid greater charitable donations?

[Sir George Young]

That is a matter for the Chancellor of the Exchequer in his Budget statement. I very much support my hon. Friend’s intention, but he must roll the pitch a little if he wants to develop the argument for an opt-out system for CAF giving. It would mean that everyone would have to give a certain amount, presumably fixed by the Chancellor, which would be deducted from their pay packet. I wholly support giving, but the proposal would transform what is currently a predominantly voluntary system to one that people would have to opt out of. I think it requires a little more thought.

[Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)]

The very beneficial reform of Members having to declare all outside interests is now under threat from a European decision that will allow Members to conceal income from farm subsidies, which it is alleged come up to £60,000 and £2 million for two Ministers in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. So is it not right that we look at which is supreme: European rules or the rules of this House?

[Sir George Young]

The hon. Gentleman will know that we have an independent Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards who is responsible for the register. It is for him to decide what does and does not need to go in it.

[Greg Mulholland (Leeds North West) (LD)]

The report of the recent review on children’s heart units in England contained factual errors about the excellent Leeds unit that the hospital trust was not allowed to correct. Considering the huge importance of that wonderful unit to nearly 14 million people, may we have an urgent statement from the Secretary of State for Health on the credibility of the options that have been put forward on the basis of flawed information?

[Sir George Young]

I think that I am right in saying that there was an Adjournment debate on the matter a few days ago, in which my hon. Friend might have had an opportunity to share his concern with the Minister. He is referring to the “Safe and Sustainable” review, which was undertaken after the difficulties in Bristol. Children’s heart surgery is a complex area of clinical care and has been the subject of concern for some 15 years. The review is not about cost cutting, but about high-quality outcomes and service sustainability. No decisions will be taken until the results of the consultation are known later this year. I am sure that he has taken part in the formal consultation process, which closes on 1 July.

[Gregg McClymont (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (Lab)]

May we have a debate on the crippling impact of the VAT rise, particularly on fuel prices? Many of my constituents have contacted me about the rise in fuel prices and pointed to VAT as an important contributor.

[Sir George Young]

We will be having a substantial debate on matters relating to the Budget after my right hon. Friend the Chancellor’s statement. The hon. Gentleman will know that his party was unable to give any commitment that VAT would not go up and that Tony Blair advocated an increase in VAT as part of the solution to the country’s difficulties.

[Alun Cairns (Vale of Glamorgan) (Con)]

I welcome the comments made by the Leader of the House in response to the question by the hon. Member for Eltham (Clive Efford) on the special educational needs Green Paper. I remind my right hon. Friend that the current system has been described as not fit for purpose. The Green Paper has been broadly welcomed, but will he make time available for the House to consider it, as it is by its nature a Green Paper and deserves full consultation?

[Sir George Young]

I think that there is an appetite in the House for a debate on the Government’s proposals. There is widespread recognition that we need to change the system, and many Members on both sides of the House will have tried to help parents through the rather complicated process, which seems to take an infinity as meetings are cancelled and local authorities sometimes play for time. There is an appetite for a better system. I suggest that my hon. Friend goes to the Backbench Business Committee on a Tuesday morning and bids for a debate on the subject. I think that he will find that he has a lot of support on both sides of the House.

[Mr Andrew Love (Edmonton) (Lab/Co-op)]

I welcome the Hutton report’s avoidance of a race to the bottom on public pensions, but it is a package of measures that is not to be cherry-picked. The Government already seem to have pre-empted some of its decisions, so it is not good enough to subsume it within a much more general debate on Budget issues. We have to have a debate on the whole package. Will the right hon. Gentleman make Government time available for such a debate?

[Sir George Young]

I recognise the importance of the Hutton report. It would be appropriate to discuss it during the Budget debate. Lord Hutton has looked not only at the entitlements of those entitled to public sector pensions, but at the obligations on taxpayers. He made it quite clear that the present situation was simply unsustainable. I hope that there will be an opportunity during the three or four days of debate on the Budget for some debate on pensions.

[Brandon Lewis (Great Yarmouth) (Con)]

I am sure that the Leader of the House will have seen the recent report from the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy, which highlights how some councils, such as Great Yarmouth borough council, have been able to freeze council tax while protecting front-line services, which has happened across the country, giving savings of up to almost £300, in contrast to the doubling of council tax under the previous Labour Government. May we have a debate on CIPFA’s report on the Floor of the House?

[Sir George Young]

My hon. Friend reminds the House that for the first time in 18 years there will be a real-terms reduction in the liability to pay council tax, which will be warmly welcomed by council tax payers up and down the country. I pay tribute to the work of those local authorities that have been able to freeze council tax and at the same time protect front-line services.

[Ian Mearns (Gateshead) (Lab)]

Will the Leader of the House try to find out what is happening in the Department for Education, as there are currently 563 unanswered written parliamentary questions to the Department, eight of which are in my name? It is well known that the Secretary of State for Education is a poor driver, but he also seems to have lost his way.

[Sir George Young]

The hon. Gentleman might like to see the report, published yesterday by the Procedure Committee, on parliamentary questions. I shall certainly draw to the attention of my right hon. Friend the Education Secretary, who is diligent in attending to his parliamentary duties, the issue of the outstanding parliamentary questions, particularly the eight in the hon. Gentleman’s name, and see whether we can get some prompt responses.

[Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)]

In the context of next Thursday’s foreign affairs debate, will my right hon. Friend table a motion that clearly sets out our obligations under international law to intervene where appropriate to prevent war crimes and crimes against humanity? Surely, when the Foreign Secretary and others approach those matters in the UN Security Council, they are entitled to know that they have the unequivocal and total support of this House in ensuring that the UK upholds the best principles of international law; and, so that we do not have any confusion or ambiguity about that, please could the House have an opportunity to make clear our voice by way of a motion, a debate and a vote?

[Sir George Young]

I take note of what my hon. Friend says. The current proposal is to have a general debate, as we have had on previous occasions, on the situation in north Africa and the middle east, but I will certainly pass on to my ministerial colleagues his suggestion that we go a bit further than that and include a substantive motion.

[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

Will the Leader of the House ensure that the Secretary of State for Transport comes to the House to make a statement on his extraordinary announcement today about the extension of the consultation on the future of the coastguard service, especially given the interest of Members from every single party in the House? There has not been another opportunity to discuss the matter on the Floor of the House, so will the Leader of the House ensure that there is a statement when Members can have that discussion?

[Sir George Young]

There will be a debate in Westminster Hall on 24 March, when there will be an opportunity for the hon. Gentleman to share his concerns. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State was at the Dispatch Box earlier, and there was a question about the coastguards.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

The Prime Minister has quite rightly made tackling human trafficking a key priority of his Government, and I say these next words with some trepidation. I urge the Government to opt into the European directive on human trafficking. That would show real leadership to the rest of Europe on trafficking.

[Sir George Young]

I welcome the work that my hon. Friend is doing in that area, taking on the mantle of Anthony Steen, our colleague in the former Parliament. As my hon. Friend knows, last June the Government decided not to opt in at that stage to the directive. We have reserved the right to opt in, now that the directive has been finalised, and he might have heard my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary deal with that on an earlier occasion. We hope to come to a decision quite soon on whether to opt in.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

Before budgetary purdah kicks in, will the Leader of the House intervene to ensure the publication of the national ecosystems assessment? He will appreciate that, before the Budget, it is important that we know the clear state of play as to the natural wealth of the country and the environmental resources available to us.

[Sir George Young]

I hear what the hon. Gentleman says, and I will pass his request on to the appropriate Minister in either the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs or the Department for Energy and Climate Change.

[Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)]

With Professor Alison Wolf’s report on vocational training and with the forthcoming budget for growth in mind, may we have a debate about the importance of apprenticeships in order, I hope, to stimulate the appropriate supply of places for apprentices to hold?

[Sir George Young]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who will know that we have found resources for 75,000 more apprenticeships, and I will certainly pass on his suggestion to my right hon. Friend the Chancellor as he puts the finishing touches to his Budget.

[Katy Clark (North Ayrshire and Arran) (Lab)]

The Leader of the House will accept that Back Benchers want to see proper scrutiny of the Scotland Bill. I understand that when any amendments are published, there will be a consultation with the legal establishment in Scotland, as well as procedure in the Scottish Parliament, which will need to pass another motion. What is the rush? Surely, we should not proceed with Report on 22 March.

[Sir George Young]

There is not a rush, and we have allocated adequate time. We will have had three days, plus Report, to deal with the Bill, which has the support of the Scottish Parliament, and there will be an opportunity, as the Bill goes through both Houses, to consider amendments from the Scottish Parliament.

[Jonathan Reynolds (Stalybridge and Hyde) (Lab/Co-op)]

This week I had the pleasure of attending the Statutory Instrument Committee on mayoral elections, which will correct the drafting anomaly whereby those people wishing to stand for the Labour and Co-operative parties cannot have a party logo on the ballot paper. Correcting that anomaly for candidates to this House will require primary legislation, but the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, the hon. Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper) was able to make the commitment that that correction would be forthcoming. Is the Leader of the House willing to reiterate that commitment and, in doing so, earn himself the enduring gratitude of the 28 Labour and Co-operative MPs for upholding this fine socialist tradition?

[Sir George Young]

I am glad the hon. Gentleman enjoyed his time on a Statutory Instrument Committee. The Whips might have taken notice of his enthusiasm, and he could find that the pleasure is repeated on many future occasions. I will raise with the Deputy Prime Minister, who has responsibility for electoral matters, the request that the hon. Gentleman has just made.

[Mr Speaker]

I am extremely grateful to the Leader of the House and to colleagues, whose pithiness has enabled us a speedy transition to the next business— indeed, to the main business: Back-Bench business, 22nd day.

Backbench Business

Thursday 10th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[22nd Allotted Day]

Publication Administration Committee Report (Smaller Government)

Thursday 10th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Before I call Mr Bernard Jenkin to move the motion on his Committee’s report, I should remind the House that the Backbench Business Committee has recommended that this item take no longer than 15 minutes. We will then move on to the next debate, on UN Women.

12:15

[Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House notes the publication of the Seventh Report from the Select Committee on Public Administration on Smaller Government: What do Ministers do?, HC530.

This procedure, involving a motion, is in place of what we hope one day will be an arrangement to make a statement. I will make some remarks and then invite right hon. and hon. Friends to intervene.

Our Committee decided to inquire into the role of Ministers following the Government’s decision to reduce the number of right hon. and hon. Members by 50 without a corresponding reduction in the number of Ministers. The Prime Minister made it clear before the election that the public wanted us to

“cut the cost of politics. Everyone is having to do more for less”.

He therefore asked if it was not time that

“politicians and ministers did a bit more for a bit less”.

He was absolutely clear that he intended that statement to apply to Ministers as well as to MPs.

The UK is notable among similar western nations. We have more Ministers than France, Italy, Spain and Germany.

[Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that we could make do with fewer Ministers in the UK if we did not receive as many edicts and directives from the European Union?

[Mr Jenkin]

I am most interested that my hon. Friend should ask that question, because my Committee is considering the possibility of an inquiry into the impact on Departments of our relationship with the EU and looking for an academic who might support us in that work and help us to construct a cartography of the relationship between EU institutions and Whitehall Departments.

The total number of Ministers has grown steadily since 1900. Our report examines whether revising the role of Ministers could provide a way of reducing their numbers. We took evidence from current and former Ministers, as well as from academics and senior civil servants, and we were left in no doubt that Ministers have a very heavy work load. Lord Smith of Finsbury, a former Culture Secretary, said that the amount of paperwork he had to contend with was “plainly ludicrous” and

“no way to run a life let alone a country”.

It is less clear whether all that Ministers do has to be done by a Minister of the Crown. Chris Mullin, in his autobiography, noted his role as “a glorified correspondence clerk” and lamented:

“So much ministerial activity is entirely contrived and pointless.”

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making a wonderful statement, and I agree entirely with his comments. Is this not just “Yes Minister” reinventing itself, like in that wonderful episode, where it is explained: “When you get a new Minister, what you do is fill his diary and give him plenty of paperwork so he never makes a decision on anything”?

[Mr Jenkin]

We asked Sir David Normington, who was still permanent secretary at the Home Office when he gave evidence, whether he had ever had to create work to keep a Minister busy, and he diplomatically answered, “Not in recent times”.

[Mr Greg Knight (East Yorkshire) (Con)]

One suggestion to my hon. Friend’s Committee was that Ministers should do less media work, and that the role should be taken over by paid civil servants. Does he agree that such a suggestion should be roundly dismissed? If Ministers are democratically accountable, which they are, they should also be seen to be democratically accountable.

[Mr Jenkin]

There is no question but that Ministers should be accountable for decisions that they take. However, can my right hon. Friend put his hand on his heart and say that on no occasion has he seen a Minister promoting a political or personal agenda on a television screen, as opposed to something that is absolutely in the public interest for a Minister to do? In this world of 24/7 media, the amount of media that a Minister could do is almost limitless, and we have to keep a check on the priorities that take up his time.

Lord Rooker thought that many Ministers were under the misapprehension that they were there to manage their Departments. Lord Norton told us that Ministers should

“focus on what is strategically important, rather that just getting through the paperwork”.

So, to echo the title of our report, what should Ministers do? The consensus is that they should set policy priorities, provide leadership to their Departments, represent their Departments across Government and outside, and answer to Parliament. They should focus on their core job and less on what one might call “announceables”. Lord Rooker pointed out how they had to operate in this way in the old Northern Ireland Office before devolution, where there were only four Ministers covering a broad range of portfolios. He added that officials were forced to

“fillet out the key strategic decisions that as a minister you really had to do. So you didn’t get all the minutiae that you get in Westminster Red Boxes.”

This strongly suggests that having fewer Ministers would itself bring about new ways of working. It is also obvious that if Ministers were reshuffled less often and specialists were more encouraged, they would be more effective as Ministers.

[Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)]

rose—

[Mr Jenkin]

I give way to the hon. Gentleman, who is a member of the Committee.

[Kelvin Hopkins]

I am pleased to have signed this report as a member of the hon. Gentleman’s Committee. Does he agree that reducing the number of Ministers and reducing the payroll vote would also improve the operation of our democracy by making Back-Bench Members concentrate more on holding the Government to account and less on lusting after office?

[Mr Jenkin]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. We need to remember that right hon. and hon. Members are paid, first and foremost, to be Members of Parliament. I will come to the whole role of the payroll vote in a moment.

[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Mr Jenkin]

I give way to my hon. Friend, who is also a member of the Committee.

[Robert Halfon]

I congratulate my hon. Friend, having served on his Committee on this report. Does he agree that the big society is all about transferring state power to people power—power to the people—and that we can therefore reduce the number of Ministers because the state will be smaller?

[Mr Jenkin]

I certainly think that that is an opportunity, and I will come to it later in my remarks.

We must acknowledge that Ministers are busier than ever in Parliament, with more Select Committees, Westminster Hall and other new procedures that bring them before us. However, we believe that Parliament must stop holding Ministers accountable for matters which no longer fall within the remit of Whitehall Departments or, indeed, have never fallen within their remit. The habit of grilling Ministers on every local detail militates against devolution, decentralisation and localism. On the big society, which my hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon) mentioned, we ask what the post-bureaucratic age will mean for Whitehall Departments and ministerial responsibilities. Presumably, Ministers will become less directly responsible and have fewer decisions to make about things that happen in this country.

By how much could the number of Ministers be cut? Numbers are currently limited by two statutes: the House of Commons Disqualification Act 1975, which limits to 95 the number of Ministers who can sit and vote in the House of Commons; and the Ministerial and other Salaries Act 1975, which constrains to 109 the number of ministerial salaries that can be paid.

[Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)]

It is a privilege to be a member of my hon. Friend’s Committee. Does he agree that there is a case to consider for combining the Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland Offices into a Department of the nations?

[Mr Jenkin]

One of our recommendations is that that should be given serious consideration. I have to say that it is a relatively minor part of the report, and I would not want those particular proposals to overshadow the important points that we make elsewhere.

[Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Jenkin]

I give way to the hon. Gentleman, who is also a member of the Committee.

[Paul Flynn]

It was irresistible to conclude in this document that there should be a serious look at the position of Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. However, if this recommendation were to be accepted, there would be the possible consequence of having no representative of Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland in the Cabinet, so should we not then look at their changed situation?

[Mr Jenkin]

Obviously any change in this regard would have to be ameliorated by other arrangements—perhaps a more open and direct negotiation between First Ministers and the Whitehall Government and other means of representation of these interests within Government. As well as the ministerial cadre, the Cabinet is attended by 28 people and it, too, is clearly too large.

Currently, a total of 141 MPs are on the payroll vote as Ministers or Parliamentary Private Secretaries. If this number remains static at the same time as the number of MPs is cut by 8%, the payroll vote as a proportion of MPs will increase from an already staggering 22% to 23.5%.

[Adam Afriyie (Windsor) (Con)]

It seems to me, and I think there is common consensus, that the country is over-governed. Surely reducing the level of over-government means increasing the proportion of representatives in the House of Commons relative to those numbers. I therefore welcome this report, which makes that point absolutely clear.

[Mr Jenkin]

I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s endorsement.

The Government say that they want to see Parliament strengthened, but this increase in the percentage of the payroll vote as a proportion of the House of Commons would further strengthen the Executive at the expense of Parliament; that seems to be unanswerable. PASC urges three steps on the Government to reduce this power of patronage. First, the current legal cap on the number of paid Ministers should be the absolute limit on the number of Ministers. The increasing number of unpaid Ministers has been described as an abuse by one of our witnesses, the right hon. Peter Riddell. Secondly, the legal limit on the number of Ministers in the Commons should be cut by eight, at the very least, in line with the reduction in the number of MPs just enacted. This is, in fact, a very modest reduction.

Thirdly, the number of PPSs should be limited to one per Department. When he gave evidence to the PASC in the last Parliament, Sir John Major described the size of the payroll vote as a “constitutional outrage”. His view was that only Cabinet Ministers should be entitled to PPSs. That suggestion was endorsed by Lord Norton and others, who argued that doing so would make the post more meaningful. This would lead to 26 fewer Members being on the payroll vote.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

I commend my hon. Friend for the report and for his recommendation on PPSs. I am conscious that I am sitting in front of a distinguished Member of this House who is a PPS. Nevertheless, the report says that, with a few notable exceptions, departmental PPSs

“perform few functions of real value…the Ministerial Code”

should

“be amended to limit PPSs to one for each department.”

My constituents would applaud that, as, I think, would many Members of this House.

[Mr Jenkin]

I am most grateful to my hon. Friend for reading out that part of the report. The important point is that PPSs are not paid by the Crown to be Ministers, but they are hijacked by the Executive to prevent them from doing the job for which they are paid, which is to be Members of Parliament. We need to be mindful of the fundamental duty of a Member if they are not a Minister of the Crown.

[Greg Mulholland (Leeds North West) (LD)]

I, too, am proud of this report and of serving on the Committee. Does my hon. Friend think that as part of this process we also need to formalise the role of PPSs, which we all agree has been over-extended and abused, and not only to restrict them to one per Department?

[Mr Jenkin]

We looked at that suggestion, but it is rather difficult because there is no legal definition of a PPS. However, they are referred to in the ministerial code. I wonder whether something procedural could be done under Standing Orders to formalise the arrangement, or whether they could be given statutory status. However, that is a step further than our report went.

[Mr Bone]

Is not one of the problems that we have at the moment that very good Members of Parliament get elected to Select Committees, and then as soon as they are offered a job as a PPS, they disappear from the Select Committee where they are carrying out scrutiny and become a bag carrier?

[Mr Jenkin]

I am most grateful to my hon. Friend for that point, because the large number of PPSs does rob Select Committees of the talent that they need to function effectively. Very often, the most able Members are selected as PPSs and taken away from Select Committees.

To conclude, the academics who appeared before us agreed for the longer term with the suggestion made by Lord Hurd in the previous Parliament that the abolition of

“20 Ministerial posts at different levels would not only be popular but would be followed immediately by an adjustment of workload.”

We therefore repeat the recommendation made in our original report that, over the course of this Parliament, the total number of Ministers should be reduced to 80, shared between the Commons and the Lords. We welcome the fact that the Government’s thinking seems to be moving in that direction. The Deputy Leader of the House said last year that

“it is likely that at some stage in the future we will reduce the number of Ministers.”—[Official Report, 25 October 2010; Vol. 517, c. 129.]

I welcome that. I hope that the report will encourage the Government to move in that direction faster, and to review the number and functions of Ministers in a way that strengthens Parliament and delivers a better quality of government.

Question put and agreed to.

UN Women

Thursday 10th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I explain for the benefit of the House that I have selected the amendment in the name of the hon. Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart). I pass on the recommendation of the Backbench Business Committee that the Member opening this debate, the hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mrs Laing), whom I shall call in a moment, should speak for no more than 15 minutes.

12:31

[Mrs Eleanor Laing (Epping Forest) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House recognises that around the world women continue to suffer discrimination and injustice simply because of their gender; notes that underlying inequality between men and women is the driving force that results in 70 per cent. of the world’s poor being female; recognises that empowering women will drive progress towards all the Millennium Development Goals; welcomes the launch of UN Women, the UN Agency for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women, on 1 January 2011; recognises that the agency is an example of UN reform to improve efficiency and co-ordination; and calls on the Government to provide support to the new agency to ensure it has the resources required to end the discrimination that keeps millions of women in poverty.

May I begin by thanking the Backbench Business Committee, and in particular its Chair, the hon. Member for North East Derbyshire (Natascha Engel), for choosing to hold this debate in the week in which we celebrate not only international women’s day, but the centenary of the first international women’s day? Some Members of this House and people further afield have questioned the need for this debate, and have suggested that there is not much interest in the subject. The fact that you, Mr Speaker, have put a time limit of eight minutes on speeches, and the number of Members I see in the Chamber prove simply and beyond doubt that those people are wrong. We need this debate. I am the first to say that we will not change the world by having a debate in the House of Commons, but it is our duty to ensure that the issues before us are kept high on the political agenda in the United Kingdom and across the world. That is what I hope this debate will achieve.

In 1911, on the first international women’s day, women in Britain were still fighting for basic rights, including the right to vote, as we all know. I like to think that if I were 100 years older, I would have been an ardent suffragette, although I am pretty sure that I would not have been an ardent socialist suffragette. I would have needed my own movement to separate the two. I am sure that every Member in the Chamber this afternoon, and not just the women, would have supported the suffragist movement.

I was privileged in New York three years ago to be one of the UK Parliament’s representatives to the UN Commission on the Status of Women. When I met and listened to the presentations of women from all over the world, it struck me forcefully that the problems that our great-grandmothers struggled with at the time of the first international women’s day a century ago are still faced by most—not some, but most—women across the world today. As the motion states,

“around the world women continue to suffer discrimination and injustice simply because of their gender”.

I welcome the setting up of UN Women, which is properly called the UN Agency for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women. I congratulate our Government on their support, particularly through transitional funding, for the new organisation. We all know that the United Nations has not always been the most efficient of organisations, but we must recognise that the new agency is an example of UN reform and is intended to improve efficiency and co-ordination. I welcome the Government’s approach to that aspect of the UN. The agency will not be just a talking shop. It is through empowering women that we, as an international community, will drive progress on all the millennium development goals, which everyone in this House supports.

I applaud the appointment of Michelle Bachelet, the former President of Chile, as the first executive director of UN Women. Most Members will agree with what she said when the agency was launched:

“Think of how much more we can do once women are fully empowered as active agents of change and progress within their societies”.

She said:

“My own experience has taught me that there is no limit to what women can do.”

[Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”] I heard a little, “Hear, hear.” [Hon. Members: “Hear! Hear!”] Thank you very much. Every woman, and indeed most men, in this House will agree with that statement—there is no limit to what women can do. To put joking aside, I never say that women can do everything that men can do.

I will be careful in my remarks, Mr Deputy Speaker, to respect the rules on parliamentary language. As I heard Jenni Murray, the excellent presenter of “Woman’s Hour” on the BBC, say earlier this week, “I will be very sparing in my use of the F-word. I will try very hard not to mention feminism.” [Interruption.] I am being goaded into mentioning feminism. I will mention it and I will also mention equality. However, although the concepts of feminism and equality are good to talk about, they are not what this debate, the motion and our aims are really about. I prefer to talk about empowerment. The point of empowering women, rather than just helping them or saying that they ought to be equal, is that doing so and giving them the practical skills that they need can make a difference in the societies in which they live and operate. It may come as a surprise to know that women earn only 10% of the world’s income, even though they work two thirds of the world’s working hours—and I bet that does not include looking after the children. Evidence shows that when women earn and manage their own money, they are more likely than men to spend it on educating and feeding their children.

I am not being narrow-minded and concentrating on feminism, and I do not argue that men have got everything wrong and that women can put it all right, but I do argue that wasting the potential skills and abilities of half the world’s population because of discrimination is simply appalling. If we really want to help developing nations, as well as continuing to help our nation, Europe and the western world, we must recognise the role of women.

I do not have time to develop all the details of the work that has to be done, but the House knows them well and many speakers will develop these points this afternoon. We have to tackle violence against women in all its forms, here in our own country and especially across the world and the horror of such violence in war zones. We have to tackle trafficking, forced labour, the fact that women are deprived of education, the fact that women need to control their own fertility to have any chance of empowerment or being able to contribute to their society, and the fact that women’s health is ignored in so many parts of the world. There is also, of course, the continued fight for democratic representation. I look forward to hearing what many colleagues will say on those and other subjects this afternoon.

I have been talking about women across the world, but let us not pretend that we have conquered the problems here in Britain. We can look around us, because 22% of MPs are women. I am sure other Members will agree that when we meet people at UN meetings and other international gatherings, they are astounded to hear that in Britain, just over a fifth of Members of our precious and much-respected House of Commons are women.

[Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is sounding a bit like a vicar we used to have when I was a child, who constantly used to blame those who were in church for those who were not.

My experience, having sat on a selection committee, is that some of the people who are hardest about not selecting women candidates for Parliament are, perversely, women on selection committees.

[Mrs Laing]

Absolutely right; my hon. Friend is totally correct. We have all been through it, and I have seen it. I know that it happens in our party, and I hear anecdotally that it does in other parties, too. He is also right to say that those in church are blamed for those who are not there. We need more women to come forward to be part of the democratic process, but we need to make it possible for them to do so. If I were to cover the points that I have made many times before on that subject, I would take far more than the five minutes still left to me, but I hope that other Members will address it this afternoon.

We have a long way to go, but I also say to the House—and I mean it—that the percentage of women in the House is not what really matters. What matters is making our voices heard when we are here. What matters is punching above our weight, and let us face it, our weight is generally much lower than that of our male colleagues. There is now a critical mass of women in this place that there was not when I first came here 14 years ago, and it is up to us to make our voices heard. That is exactly what we are doing this afternoon.

[Naomi Long (Belfast East) (Alliance)]

Does the hon. Lady agree that there is an important, subtle difference between working in an environment that is predominantly male and working in one that is male-dominated?

[Mrs Laing]

The hon. Lady puts it very well. The environment in which we work is both predominantly male and male-dominated, but we might not be able to change the former as quickly as we can change the latter by making our voices heard. I am pleased to see that so many women and men are here to do so this afternoon.

If our democratic deficit is bad, the deficit is even worse in the business world. I draw the attention of the House to Lord Davies’s excellent recent report, which identifies the loss to our economy because so few women are on the boards of UK companies. Once again, we cannot insist on their being there, but we can create the conditions that make it possible for them to live up to their aspirations and the aspirations that we as a society have for women.

At the same time, two thirds of low-paid workers in Britain today are women, and across the country, two women die every week as a result of domestic violence. Throughout the work force, women still earn an average of 16% less than men. It is not by changing the law that we can change those things and the others that are wrong, but by changing the attitudes of society. That is why it is important that we talk about these matters in the Chamber.

The great tragedy of the lack of women’s representation, the lack of women in top places in industry and the lack of women doing the jobs that they could be doing is that it is a waste to our economy and our society. The pursuit of equality is not just a philosophical end. If we take the empowerment of women seriously, then across the world, and especially in developing countries where it is so desperately needed, we must give women the chance of good health and good education, to develop skills and contribute to the work force, and to give their children the health and education that will strengthen future generations. If we empower women, we will let them teach their children that co-operating, living together in peace and respecting other people is a more worthy ideal than the old-fashioned way of fighting for territory and proving oneself the stronger man.

By empowering women, we will be able to instil in future generations the idea that the most important goal is respect for fellow human beings and basic human rights. We have come a long way on basic human rights. We believe—let us take this message to developing countries, too—that people should respect their fellow human beings and accord them the same rights that they would wish to have themselves. No matter what a person’s colour, what country they come from, what their religion is, what they look like or what they sound like, we would wish to accord them equality.

As we celebrate international women’s day, and as we ensure that we keep all those issues high on the political agenda, what chance do we have as a society, and further afield across the world, of according basic human rights and human dignity to the world’s minorities if we cannot start by according those rights and that basic dignity to half the world’s population who happen to be women?

I am pleased that we are able to have this debate, and I look forward to Members examining in greater detail the issues that I have raised. I thank the House for coming together this afternoon to ensure that those of us who are privileged women in a developed society can speak up for our sisters across the world who need our help.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. As has already been indicated, there will be an eight-minute limit on speeches.

12:48

[Joan Ruddock (Lewisham, Deptford) (Lab)]

I can honestly say that it is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mrs Laing), whom I congratulate on securing the debate. I wish to speak about two issues: the suggestion in the amendment in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart) that a women and equalities audit Committee should be established in the House, and what is happening to women in Egypt.

The common thread is CEDAW, the UN convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women. Its custodian is UN Women, the new body led, as the hon. Member for Epping Forest said, by the remarkable woman who was the President of Chile, Michelle Bachelet. CEDAW is a legally binding international agreement, and by ratifying it, states commit themselves to reporting to the CEDAW committee on a periodic basis.

When my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman) and I were appointed as Labour’s first Ministers for Women in 1997, we found the CEDAW agenda had become invisible. However, over the years, Labour Ministers for Women and women Back Benchers ensured that progress was made, culminating in the Equality Act 2010, which was achieved through the dogged determination of Labour’s deputy leader.

The UK’s last periodic report to CEDAW runs to 164 pages, detailing the groundbreaking changes made by the Labour Government to advance women’s equality, yet we always knew that it was not enough to have progressive ideas and Ministers for Women driving forward legislation. We always argued that all Government Departments must pass the women and equalities test of whether they were discriminating. In the Equality Act 2006, we introduced the gender equality duty on all British public authorities, but there was no specific role for Parliament. It is time that Parliament is given the power to scrutinise the Government on women and equalities.

The current Government’s reckless economic policies deserve particular scrutiny. The Treasury attempted to produce an equalities impact assessment of its spending decisions, but the Women’s Budget Group says:

“The Treasury provides almost no quantitative data on how men and women will be affected…and excludes most aspects of the Spending Review from its analysis”.

The WBG’s analysis finds that the Government’s programmes represent

“an immense reduction in the standard of living and financial independence of millions of women, and a reversal in progress made towards gender equality.”

Most damningly of all, the WBG argues that

“the Coalition is happy to restore an outdated ‘male breadwinner, dependent female carer’ model of family life”.

Surely no women Members came to the House to promote such a return to the 1950s, yet Parliament does not have the tools and resources to test those claims. Only a new Select Committee, in the form of an audit Committee, could hold this and later Governments to account on women and equalities. I hope the House seriously considers this proposal.

Let me turn to events abroad. So often, women are the victims of wars that they never started, and too often excluded from the peace they helped to win. After 9/11, I worked with Afghan women and went to Kabul on two occasions. I have never met braver women, and their struggle is far from over. That same struggle now faces the women of the middle east. In Tunisia and Egypt, they have had a phenomenal victory, but they know that it is only the beginning. All too soon, the usual male patterns are emerging. Sharon Otterman, reporting on Egypt in the International Herald Tribune, stated:

“The panel of eight legal experts appointed by the military authorities to review the constitution did not include a single woman.”

I saw that again and again in Afghanistan—at every stage efforts were made to exclude women, and to explain that now was not the time for women to demand their rights. However, rights postponed are rights denied.

[Jo Swinson (East Dunbartonshire) (LD)]

I share the right hon. Lady’s concern at the lack of women’s voices in the creation of the new structures in Egypt and at the fact that there are no female experts on the constitutional committee. More worryingly, the new draft rules on who can lead the country assume that the President will always be male, by saying that Presidents must not be married to a foreign wife.

[Joan Ruddock]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right—that is a shocking indictment of what is happening, and as I said, it is all too typical.

The good thing is that women in Egypt are fighting back. A coalition of no fewer than 63 women’s groups started a petition to include a female lawyer on that constitutional review. In the past few days I have been in touch with women activists in Cairo. Mozn Hassan, who runs Nazra, told me that women, especially young women, from all classes and political ideologies were involved in the revolution. Breaking out of their traditional roles, they protested, led human rights groups, helped injured people and protected checkpoints. They succeeded in creating public space for women and a dialogue between women and men.

Nazra is very clear about its future direction. It sees its task as a group of women activists to ensure that its advocacy and grass-roots work is political, and part of the political demands being made in Egypt. Social mobilisation is one of its main tasks, and it is working hard to ensure women’s rights are a priority in the transition. Guaranteeing gender mainstreaming in the constitution, to which the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire (Jo Swinson) referred, is one of its immediate demands.

I want to give the last word today to Nawal El Saadawi, the world renowned writer and feminist, whom I had the pleasure of meeting in the 1980s. Nawal has inspired generations of Egyptians. In 1972 she lost her job in the Egyptian Ministry of Health because of her book, “Women and Sex”, which argued against female genital mutilation. She was later imprisoned and put on trial several times. She spearheaded changes to the law on children and the banning of female genital mutilation in 2008.

Nawal was part of the coalition that organised the women’s protest on international women’s day, and I heard from her that evening. She appealed for our support for global and local solidarity for women and men against all types of injustices and inequalities in the world—between countries, races, classes, sexes and religions. She told me that

“Almost half of Egyptians, mainly women, live in extreme poverty”.

Nawal knows better than most of the colonial exploitation and military aggression against women and men in the countries of the middle east. After five decades of personal struggle she is still determined to fight for equality and democracy in Egypt. I hope the House pays tribute to her and all women of the middle east, and indeed the world, who still campaign, on the 100th anniversary of international women’s day, for equality, justice and democracy.

12:57

[Jo Swinson (East Dunbartonshire) (LD)]

I echo the thanks to the Backbench Business Committee for ensuring time in the Chamber for this debate, and particularly thank its Chair, the hon. Member for North East Derbyshire (Natascha Engel), and the other hon. Lady on the Committee, the hon. Member for Battersea (Jane Ellison). I understand that the decision to hold this debate today is seen by some as somewhat controversial, but the decision is nevertheless the right one. I shall speak about the international context, including the new UN agency, UN Women, and the role of women in conflict and foreign affairs, and briefly about the amendment.

The arrival of UN Women represents an historic opportunity to transform the lives of women and girls across the world, who are too often affected by discrimination and injustice. The aims—rightly—are far reaching, ambitious and unprecedented. Transforming attitudes at the highest levels of government that exclude women from the top global decision-making tables is perhaps one of its biggest challenges, and indeed one of the most important. By addressing the previous gaps and inadequacies of the UN system, UN Women has the potential to facilitate much stronger and more systematic engagement with women’s rights. The creation of UN Women is a recognition that gender is as important as any other development issue, and represents a promise to drive progress.

I am pleased that the Government and the Opposition have supported the agency from its inception, because Britain can in that way present a united case internationally. However, it is important that that support is matched with appropriate levels of financial support and practical help. Funding is a huge challenge—it cannot be overestimated—for UN Women: $500 million is needed to run the programme in the first year alone, followed by at least $1 billion a year after that to enable it to have an operational presence on the ground. The Department for International Development’s review of multilateral aid published just last week recognised that UNIFEM had failed owing to constrained resources. With only 230 staff, UN Women has inherited UNIFEM’s under-resourced infrastructure. We do not want to set up an organisation to fail from the start, so ensuring that this issue is addressed is vital.

The UK’s response is very important. Many other countries are deferring their announcements and pledges until the UK has said what we will do.

[Naomi Long]

Although on the face of it the UK Government’s position—to defer a decision until the action and strategic plan have been confirmed—seems reasonable, is there not a concern that in order to show leadership, we have to give stronger commitments ahead of that strategic plan to allow this to be developed more coherently?

[Jo Swinson]

We need to do both. We need to make clear our commitment and offer every possible assistance in the swift development of the strategic plan. One of the challenges facing UN Women is to create a range of indicators that can monitor properly what progress is being made on women, peace and security goals. Under the current structure, that will take two years, but that is too long. I know that DFID Ministers have agreed with that, so anything that the Government can do to assist in driving this forward more quickly would be helpful. This is money well spent. Last year’s World Economic Forum global gender report draws a clear correlation: countries with greater gender equality have more competitive economies that grow faster. We need to be very robust about that.

We have moved away from a situation in which war and conflict were about engagement between two sets of armed forces fighting on a particular location. Wars today are characterised by violence directed against citizens and innocent people, particularly women and girls, who get caught up in fighting and unrest. It is important to recognise the role of women not only as victims within conflict, but in reaching across battle lines to call for peace. Africa’s first female head of state, Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, commented:

“Women’s contribution to the search for durable peace is remarkable, unparalleled, but most often overlooked”.

In the past 25 years, only one in 40 peace agreement signatories was a woman. UN Security Council resolution 1325, in 2000, captured the essence of women’s contribution to peace. It calls on the international community to live up to its responsibility to include women in conflict prevention, peacebuilding and reconstruction, while protecting human rights during conflict and preventing gender-based violence. As a result of its sister resolution, 1888, we welcome the appointment of the first special representative on sexual violence in armed conflict, Margot Wallstrom, and I understand that she was recently in Parliament and that many Members were able to meet her. She is now leading the investigation into the shocking sexual violence that took place in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Widespread violence against women and girls continues to fuel conflict and insecurity. It is often framed as unrelated to gender-based violence during peacetime, as if war happens and suddenly this violence erupts. Actually, however, the only difference is the degree to which perpetrators can act with impunity during war owing to the absence of the rule of law. All too often, this violence has been bubbling under the surface during the apparent peace. A shocking statistic is that 87% of Afghan women experience domestic violence and live with that constant insecurity. That only extends the cycle of conflict, violence and marginalisation, so it is important to deal with violence against women not only in conflict, but in apparent peacetime.

The UK was one of the first countries to develop a national action plan on implementing resolution 1325, but we still need to ensure that we have a coherent national plan and policy looking at the issues of women, peace and security.

[Mr Denis MacShane (Rotherham) (Lab)]

I am in full agreement with everything that the hon. Lady says. Does she agree that one of the worst forms of violence against women is trafficking, the majority of victims of which are women being trafficked into sex slavery? Does she think that it would be a good idea to sign the EU directive against trafficking?

[Jo Swinson]

There was an exchange about that during Women and Equalities questions. When in opposition, I was one of those arguing strongly for the previous Government to sign the directive, so I would welcome it if this Government could do so, and I look forward to their announcement on the matter with great interest.

Trafficking is clearly a very important issue. However, I would not say that it is one of the worst examples of violence against women. I think that day-to-day violence against women, particularly by partners and husbands, which affects women not just internationally but in this country, is often ignored or swept under the carpet, so I welcome the Government’s plan to raise, and campaign on, sexual consent issues in order to deal with those problems, particularly among teenagers. The role of the education system cannot be overestimated. In particular, I know that there is a move within the Government not to require schools to adopt as mandatory any parts of the curriculum that are not absolutely necessary. I would argue that sex and relationships education, particularly emphasising the importance of sexual consent, is vital and should be in the education system.

[Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)]

The hon. Lady is highlighting the significant issues in our country. Between 2009 and 2010, 74,000 cases of domestic violence in this country were prosecuted by the Crown Prosecution Service. We need to ensure, therefore, that we change people’s attitudes towards prevention, rather than simply looking at the final outcome.

[Jo Swinson]

I agree wholeheartedly with what my hon. Friend says.

I have heard expressed the view that women’s rights are an add-on or a luxury—something to consider when we have dealt with everything else—and that they are a bit fluffy and a bit like motherhood and apple pie, but that they might not always be possible. I hear that frequently in discussions in the House on issues such as Afghanistan. People say, “Well, we didn’t go in there to sort out equality for women.” I do not think this is a luxury only possible in developed and western societies, however, and I disagree that it is paternalistic or imperialist to impose the UK’s value system on countries with different cultures. It is pragmatic and practical—and, in my view, it also happens to be morally right. However, it is right even if we look only at the pragmatics.

On economics, if a country does not educate half its population, it will lose out on talent and will not have as much economic development. Women are an integral part of building a lasting peace. I welcome what Hillary Clinton has been doing on this as Secretary of State by unashamedly putting women and girls back on the foreign policy agenda as a matter of urgent priority, rather than a sideline issue. In her first five months in office, the word “woman” was mentioned 450 times in her speeches. It is refreshing to hear that at such a high level. I know, from speaking to Ministers in this country, of their clear commitment to the issue, and I urge them to continue in that, despite some of the voices trying to suggest that this is a fringe issue. Whether in Afghanistan, Egypt—as we have discussed—Iraq or Tunisia, involving and empowering women is part of creating successful, stable and economically prosperous societies.

I do not have time to deal with the amendment in detail. However, I believe that a women and equalities audit committee would enable us to question Ministers on exactly those things, and produce reports to ensure that the issue is high on the agenda.

13:08

[Jim Fitzpatrick (Poplar and Limehouse) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire (Jo Swinson), with whom I agree about resourcing UN Women. I met recently representatives of Voluntary Service Overseas who discussed UN Women with me. They emphasised how the new agency was created in response to a concern that the UN system was failing women.

Very little is being asked of the UK Government in global economic terms. The UK, which was crucial in establishing the agency, is being asked to commit £21 million in annual core funding—just 0.2% of the UK’s overseas aid budget—to UN Women. UN Women is now in a most precarious and parlous position. The Government have stated that one of the Department for International Development’s six priorities is to lead international action to improve the lives of women and girls. As my friends in VSO say, therefore, the Government should step up to the mark and commit the funds. Without even the most minimal of financial input to keep it going, UN Women will continue to lack not only the staff, but the presence necessary to reach out to, and work with, women across the globe.

We know that many other countries are looking to the UK for leadership on UN Women, owing to our pivotal role in setting it up. In this case, why not make that a cause of great pride, by turning our commitment to gender equality into something concrete? I look forward to hearing the latest from the Minister on that, and I commend the Government on their support for the agency.

When I discussed international women’s day with my senior parliamentary assistant Debbie Fenn recently, she referred me to a book written in the early 1980s, “The Triple Struggle”, a compilation of the experiences of Latin American peasant women in their own words, put together by Audrey Bronstein. The “triple struggle” referred to the three major ways in which those women experienced hardship: they were women in a society dominated by men; they were peasants, and as such lived in a state of collective poverty; and they were inhabitants of the third or developing world. Although the book was written in 1982, the themes remain. It is of paramount importance to record and highlight the ways in which those at the sharp end—those facing the worst oppression and subjugation—battle, learn, develop and refuse to be victims.

Stemming from the Bangladeshi aspect of my constituency of Poplar and Limehouse, it is Bangladesh that I know best when it comes to aid issues, charitable activities and, in particular, women’s development. I have now visited the country on a number of occasions, including on a VSO placement with my wife Dr Sheila Fitzpatrick. I strongly commend the VSO’s parliamentary scheme, in which a number of colleagues have also participated. Sheila and I have developed a close and ongoing link with Shishu Polli Plus, known as Sreepur Village. I would like to say a few words about how the place has affected me, showing me how our efforts and actions in the UK can translate into something significant and meaningful when we work with others—and in particular with women—in one of the world’s poorest countries.

Part of the theme of this year’s international women’s day is about providing a pathway to decent work for women. This aim or objective is very much what Sreepur is all about. I should declare an interest, in that I am a patron of the charity and my wife Sheila is a trustee. Three of the nine trustees are MBEs, which says a lot about the charity: Rubina Porter from Merseyside, who was most recently honoured; Trisha Silvester, the chair of the charity who runs the UK headquarters; and Pat Kerr, the founder and inspiration behind the village. Pat was a British Airways cabin crew member and set up the orphanage over 21 years ago with the help of friends and colleagues. To its credit, BA has assisted over the years, and Derek Palmer, Pat’s husband, is also a trustee. Colleagues of my generation may remember the Desmond Wilcox documentaries on the BBC that gave publicity to what is a great institution.

Sreepur Village provides a loving environment, food, clothing, education and vocational training for destitute women and their children. Thousands have benefited over the years. Sreepur Village also runs an outreach programme in the local community. Details are available on the Sreepur website. Sreepur Village is quite a place. Words such as “awe-inspiring”—or, more commonly these days, the Americanised “awesome”—are often bandied about without meaning much. However, some places really are awe-inspiring, or simply inspiring, and Sreepur is one of them. I should also mention Khadija Sultana, the executive director in Bangladesh, and Maureen Fox, the administrator here in the UK. Colleagues have probably got the idea that I am talking about a lot of amazing women who are the core movers of the charity.

VSO has also started the Godmothers campaign. What marks out VSO is its core belief. It does not lift people out of poverty; it gives them the tools to climb out of it themselves. What is impressive and moving about the Godmothers campaign is the notion of a group of people watching over UN Women—and, in my view, watching over not just the organisation of that name, but flesh-and-blood women in the world who need our solidarity and support. The aim of the Godmothers campaign is to see UN Women properly funded. The organisation was given that name because it was originally anticipated that it would be women who would wish to watch over UN Women, but there are men, too. There is also an understanding of what has hampered previous UN women’s agencies, and there is a determination that the new agency should not be thwarted in similar ways.

Together, “u” and “n” are two big letters; “un-” is a small but deadly prefix. Words such as “unworkable”, “unproductive” and “untenable” are all pretty miserable terms. Worst of all, in terms of being of tangible assistance to the women of the world, is “unsuccessful”, because if this kind of work is unsuccessful, it means a failure not only to improve quality of life, but to save lives. The stakes could not be higher. That is not what the Godmothers want to see; they want, and I want—and, I am sure, the whole House wants—UN Women to work to its fullest potential.

The sentiments expressed in the motion and the amendment from my hon. Friend the Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart), which I also support, are laudable. I would probably choose to speak more of nurturing, supporting and encouraging the self-empowerment of women than of “empowering women”, as the motion suggests, but the basic premise is that women in our one, big world matter. There is no point talking about the big society if one half of it is not heard, not reached and not included. I look forward to other contributions to this debate.

13:15

[Mrs Helen Grant (Maidstone and The Weald) (Con)]

Ending violence against women is a priority for UN Women, and it is this issue that I would like to speak about today. My first experience of domestic violence came when I was about 10 years old. My mother had been inspired by Erin Pizzey and, with some other women, helped to set up the very first women’s refuge in Carlisle, where we lived at the time. I remember going to the refuge with my mother sometimes. I would sit at a big old brown table, pretending to be getting on with my homework, but really I was watching her work. I would see her surrounded by people who were truly in need.

Before becoming an MP, I was a practising solicitor for 23 years. I should declare an interest, in that my firm looked after around 13,000 clients in the south London, Surrey and west Kent area, many of them needy and vulnerable victims or children. Every year we sought hundreds of non-molestation orders and occupation orders under the Family Law Act 1996. I remain very proud of the work that my staff still do and of the contribution that the practice makes to community safety in the area.

For me, domestic violence is a scourge. It does not discriminate; it permeates age, race, class and gender, although 75% of victims are women. The youngest person for whom I had to obtain an order was a little baby; the oldest person was a 90-year-old woman who was being abused by her alcoholic son. I have had many multi-millionaires in my office seeking protection. I have also had many young girls who had literally nothing to call their own.

Domestic violence crushes self-confidence and self-esteem, which are the prerequisites for aspiration, motivation, success and the ultimate goal of social mobility. One of the most disturbing statistics—one that continues to haunt me, and one that my hon. Friend the Member for Epping Forest (Mrs Laing) also mentioned—is that two women in this country die every week because of domestic violence. From a zero tolerance point of view, I think that things are better now than they were in the ’70s. There is a wide range of laws and support organisations in this country to protect victims, but there are still some major problems: problems with implementing our laws and with eligibility for legal aid; no recourse to public funds; not enough done on prevention; and ongoing scepticism greeting women and children when they report violence.

Scepticism in our society is the reason we still hear comments such as “Why didn’t she leave him?”, or “She probably wound him up.” Such comments reveal an underlying suspicion that somehow the woman is to blame or is responsible for the violence inflicted on her. We know that there is no excuse for violence, but society desperately needs to understand that message too. The message needs to start at schools, with our young people. We need to talk to them about respecting themselves and respecting others, and about gender equality and empowerment.

Recent NSPCC research found that one in four girls, some as young as 13, had been hit and slapped by their boyfriends. That is absolutely terrible. It is awful because it is creating a breeding ground for abusers and for the abused. Domestic violence is abhorrent and inexcusable. Every time I hear about a bad incident, it makes me wonder what sort of world we are living in, and how we can improve it. A big part of the answer is that we need a seismic change in attitudes and behaviour, as well as an acceptance that our rules, laws and regulations are not going to fix the problem on their own. I hope that UN Women, with its ability to mobilise, advocate, co-ordinate and champion, will be a global catalyst for much-needed change.

13:20

[Margaret Curran (Glasgow East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Mrs Grant). Her powerful speech provided evidence of why we need debates such as these. I know that we can create parliamentary consensus around such profound issues, and that we all share many of the views she expressed.

I also echo the comments of the hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mrs Laing)—this job does wonders for my geography—and congratulate the members of the Backbench Business Committee on securing the debate. The hon. Lady said that international women’s day gives us a real opportunity to celebrate the achievements of the past and recognise the hard work that many women have put into them. It also gives us pause for thought as we remember the many difficulties that remain and the efforts that we still need to galvanise around as we seek to improve the lot of women. She pointed out that this is a particularly special international women’s day, as it is its 100th anniversary. I am delighted to be the first ever woman to represent the east end of Glasgow in this Chamber and that the city of Glasgow has two women representing it at the same time. That is a great achievement, but I shall keep working until we have more than that.

Of course we want to reflect on international issues on international women’s day, and the choice of UN Women as our subject is particularly helpful. I should like to reflect on the work of the UN in Palestine, and to focus on the issues relating to women there. I undertook a recent visit to Palestine that was sponsored by the Council for Arab-British Understanding. We have discussed on many occasions the ways in which to create a peaceful solution in the middle east, and I appreciate that there are different views and perspectives on how we should pursue that agenda. Sometimes I think that, in the grand sweep of the political narrative, women’s voices are not heard and their experiences not understood. Therefore, by definition, a complete political understanding cannot be reached, and complete solutions cannot be reached if we have only a partial understanding of the situation. In our debates on the middle east, the experiences of women, the pressures they face, the desperation they feel and the daily grind of their day-to-day lives have not featured strongly enough.

On my visit to the occupied Palestinian territories, I saw that women’s access to educational institutions, to places of employment and to health care clinics had been severely limited by the restrictions on Palestinian freedom of movement. Obviously those issues affect men and women, but my conclusion, following my visit and the reading that I have done since, is that those factors have a disproportionate and particular impact on women. That is what I would like to talk about this afternoon.

The annexation wall, which has been built across 85% of Palestinian land, appropriates land, disconnects communities and restricts access to medical care and workplaces. I saw particular evidence of how the day-to-day management of life has been affected by it. Routes to school have had to be changed, for example, making it difficult for women to get their children safely to and from school. There is evidence of women having had to give birth at checkpoints because they could not get through them in time to get to hospital. There were no guarantees that anyone could get to their medical appointments. Furthermore, young women in particular are now finding it difficult to get to universities. Their families are nervous, rightly or wrongly, about what women might experience going through the checkpoints.

I visited an area just outside Bethlehem called al-Walaja, where I met a mother of young children who was living in very difficult circumstances. Access to the land was severely restricted, as was the family’s income as a result. She was living with the stresses and strains of her family situation, with young children to manage, and with that huge wall right outside her front window. We need to reflect on the daily grind of those people’s lives. The wall restricts freedom of movement, and time and costs are greatly multiplied by its presence. There is a permit regime associated with it, and 500 other obstacles, including road blocks and checkpoints, are now imposed on the day-to-day lives of Palestinian women and their families.

There is a range of other issues involved. Permit regulations have an impact on family life. Couples and families are often effectively prohibited from living together. Many families are separated, particularly when the father is unable to work near his family. That has an enormous social and economic impact. We must also remember the military detention of children, often for throwing stones. Families might not know the location of their child, who can be held for up to eight days without access to the family or a lawyer. These are huge issues that are themselves worthy of a debate.

I want to focus on the impact of all these factors on women. During my visit to the west bank, I was overwhelmed by the unbearable pressure that they face, particularly mothers, who might not participate in the political sphere but who have to try to manage the day-to-day consequences of the presence of the wall, the demolitions, the hostility of the settlers, the necessity to manage the permits, the identification rules that do not permit people to live with their families and, most overwhelmingly of all, the poverty and lack of economic opportunity.

I know that Palestinian women are demonstrating on international women’s day, and campaigning to have their interests represented in their own political movements and representative organisations. They have had some success. Recently, a national plan to combat domestic violence has been adopted in the Palestinian territories. I think that it is the first Arab territory to adopt such a plan. I hope that we, as women in this Parliament, can use our influence here, in the United Nations and through other avenues to draw attention to the issues that Palestinian women face. We must show our solidarity with and support for women who are struggling in their own communities and whose day-to-day issues need political attention. I hope that international women’s day will give us the opportunity to focus on not only our own experiences but those of women internationally, especially those living in such desperate circumstances who have rarely been heard.

13:28

[Amber Rudd (Hastings and Rye) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Glasgow East (Margaret Curran), with her powerful advocacy for the women of the middle east and her description of the very difficult lives that they are living out there.

I welcome UN Women’s ambitious and wide-ranging plans for women. Talking about the differences and similarities between men and women can be tricky, but does it counter the strong, rational argument for equality to raise the clear differences that exist? For instance, if we say that women are more likely to fight for peace, do we make it less likely that they will be taken seriously in a military scenario? Can we discuss differences without falling into the trap of stereotyping men and women into caricatures of themselves—the pink team and the blue team? It might be tricky, but it is dishonest to ignore the clear differences between men and women—the positive differences that create better outcomes.

There have been several references this week to the report from Lord Davies on women in the boardroom. I should like to draw the House’s attention to a report that came out this week from the City law firm Eversheds, which carried out a study of 234 listed companies. It showed that corporate governance issues had absolutely no effect on the share price, except in one area. The fact that there were more women on the board of a company had a positive influence on the share price. Let us hope that fund managers will pick up this important news and perhaps make it obligatory for the businesses they invest in to take on this particular aspect of corporate governance.

I am not here to raise the issue of equality on my own behalf or for women like me, as I recognise that I have had many privileges, but the issue is vital for less developed countries. As my hon. Friend the Member for Epping Forest (Mrs Laing) pointed out, it is perhaps our duty, particularly on international women’s day, to raise this issue for other women. It is because of the differences and the vital but different contributions women can make that we need to fight for their opportunities and influence those outcomes when we can.

[Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the fact that so many women in needy countries are taking out micro-finance loans to provide for their children shows how the role of women is absolutely essential to feeding so many children in less developed parts of the world?

[Amber Rudd]

I thank my hon. Friend for her contribution; in fact, I am about to talk about a similar situation. As she implies, the difference women can make to managing their families in the developed world can create an opportunity for non-governmental organisations and perhaps UN Women to focus on women as providers in their own communities.

The human rights case for equality is, I believe, glaringly simple. Girls and women should not be disadvantaged because of their gender, and where that is the case, we need to remove the barriers in their lives. We know what a lot of those barriers are: they are to do with education, health, and taking action against violence, and the UN Women initiative will focus on those. I feel sure that few would disagree with that.

[Naomi Long]

As a former civil engineer, one of my passions is the delivery of clean water and sanitation, which is also a gendered issue. Does the hon. Lady agree that if we are to liberate women from the long haul of bringing water to their families, which inhibits their ability to access education and other health services, it is important to deliver clean water to their communities, giving them some free time to spend on other issues?

[Amber Rudd]

I wholly endorse what the hon. Lady says: clean water is indeed essential for communities and we should work with women to bring it about.

I believe that the differences I mentioned can be seen at two ends of the society—first, in small communities through women’s commitment to their families; and secondly, in government through women gaining significant representation. I do not underestimate the commitment of men to their families; it is just that they often show it in a different way. Let me illustrate that with the example of the Barefoot college at Rajasthan in India.

As some colleagues may know, the Barefoot college is a non-governmental organisation founded in 1972. It is a solar-powered school that teaches illiterate women from impoverished villages to become, among other professions, solar engineers. The college takes women from the poorest villages and teaches them the necessary professional skills without requiring them to read or write. For the past five years, it has focused on women who have come over from Africa in order to take the skills back to their native countries.

The point about focusing on women is that, as this NGO’s experience shows, they go home again and take their skills to their families and communities. The Barefoot college chooses to train for this particular solar energy course only women aged 35 to 60 who will want to keep the skills and the benefits in their community. I am afraid that the college describes the men as “untrainable”! The women, it says, are less likely to use the training as a means to move into a city or build up skills to take away from home. A certificate is not required at the end of it. The founders deliberately focus on women to make sure that the skills go home with the trainee.

The college trains women to build, install, maintain and repair solar electrification systems for off-grid electrification. Training takes six months. Once the course is completed, the equipment, along with the women who built it, is sent back to the villages where it is used to electrify the houses and schools. After five years of solar training since 2006, 97 villages in Africa have been electrified by their own trained women—a fantastic result. This initiative provides women with employment, confidence and purpose and it deliberately focuses on women as the natural supporters of their families.

[Tony Baldry]

I do not know about untrainable men, but my hon. Friend is making a really important point—that countries that fail to invest in the education of girls and women are denying themselves 50%, or half, of their own natural resource. It seems to me crazy that countries such as Afghanistan are not willing to invest more in women’s education. It is just self-defeating for the country as a nation.

[Amber Rudd]

I thank my hon. Friend for that contribution and I thoroughly agree with him. A similar point was made by our colleague, the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire (Jo Swinson), who argued that this is not a trivial issue to be put at the bottom of the list, but one that should be at the top for the benefit of the whole of society, for the economy and, above all perhaps, for peace.

Trained, empowered women—illiterate or not—are more likely to have the confidence to raise their voices, and getting more women to participate in government is essential. Women such as those I have described at the Barefoot college will have the confidence to make an important contribution and perhaps get into local politics and eventually, we hope, national politics. There are many routes to getting more women involved in the business of government—education, mentoring, and, yes, even quotas—but it is essential to remove the barriers that stop their involvement.

Women may have some different priorities, views and interests from men. As we know, women are more than half the population and they need to be represented in Governments internationally. I welcome the UN Women initiative to promote that. It is essential to achieve it not just for equality as a human rights issue, but to get the best outcomes for everyone and particularly for women. In some countries, if women are not included in the conversation, they can be ignored or worse. As one east African woman politician succinctly put it to me: “We worked out early on that if you’re not at the table, you’re on the menu.”

13:37

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

I beg to move, at end add

‘and that in order to promote equality of women, democratic governments should ensure they have effective mechanisms for parliaments to scrutinise policy and performance in tackling inequality and injustice; and to that end calls for a women and equalities audit committee in this House.’.

I want to thank Members of all parties who have at some point signified support for my amendment. Its aim is to ensure that we in the UK have effective scrutiny of the Government on issues that affect women and other groups protected under the Equality Act 2010.

I was privileged recently to attend the United Nations for the 55th session of the Commission on the Status of Women, and I listened directly to Madame Bachelet setting out her priorities for UN Women. The first was the representation of women, expanding women’s voice, their leadership and participation. I believe that this amendment goes directly to that issue.

The second priority was tackling violence against women. Let me say that at a time when, according to the UN, more than 1,000 women a month are being raped in the Congo, I am deeply shocked that my Government have proposed amendments to the draft Council of Europe convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence, which would mean that it would not take effect in circumstances of armed conflict. I hope that Ministers listening to this debate will think again about that.

The third of Madame Bachelet’s priorities is peace building, and I would like to echo the remarks of my right hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Joan Ruddock) about the important role women can play in building peace. The fourth is enhancing women’s contribution to the economy. The fifth is that gender equality should be central to all planning and budgets. As Madame Bachelet put it:

“Having been a minister and a president, I know that heads of state and heads of government have so many different challenges… Usually women’s issues are not relevant for them…they think that…other ministries…are…dealing with women. But that doesn’t happen. It has to be mainstreamed, pushed in a very specific way. We need to work on showing more clearly—with stronger arguments—how important women are as an economic actor, as a political actor, as a social actor, so that presidents and prime ministers can see how they cannot lose the important contribution that women are in the community.”

We know that we have not achieved that here. Frankly, if we had, we would not have endured a situation in which in recent tax and benefit changes men lost £4.20 a week, whereas women, who are paid less and have less wealth, lost £8.80 a week.

I propose having an audit committee so that we can look specifically at every Department—not just those whose Ministers have a particular responsibility for women’s issues—and ensure that progress is made. We know that, for example, the Home Affairs Committee already does a good job in dealing with issues of inequality relating to race in home affairs, but we need an organisation that can get down to auditing, and we have a model in the Environmental Audit Committee. I spoke to the Chair of the Committee, who recalled a 2006 report that it produced on DFID’s programmes and climate change. At that time it had no way of assessing the impact of those programmes on climate change, but now it has a proper mechanism, and I believe that we could achieve the same in relation to the gender impact of Government policies.

A research report on the Environmental Audit Committee, produced by Turnpenny, Russel and Rayner, states:

“We find that some of EAC’s recommendations, particularly in relation to making the prospective environmental impacts of the Budget more explicit, have been incrementally absorbed into government thinking and processes. In some cases, the Committee has been highly effective in drawing together evidence to criticise powerfully the government’s performance…A cross-cutting perspective can provide a distinctive take on problems, or help challenge established ‘world views’ of departmental… Committees.”

The EAC provides a powerful model, and we know that many other countries have similar parliamentary committees. Of the 27 European Union states, 10 have specific committees, and other countries such as Australia, Canada, Russia and India have them as well. They represent an important part of Parliament’s role in holding Government to account.

Madame Bachelet’s priorities must be implemented through elected women as well as women in civil society. I believe that as elected representatives we have a particular responsibility to make our Government accountable in this regard. I have a feeling that we may have taken our eye off the ball a little during the Speaker’s Conference on equal representation. It worked like a Select Committee and produced an effective and unanimous report, but we were concentrating on women’s representation in this place rather than the way in which Government policies affected women’s lives beyond it.

[Claire Perry (Devizes) (Con)]

I should be interested to know whether the hon. Lady proposed the establishment of such a committee during the last Government’s time in office and, if so, what response she received. I think that many of the points that she is making are extremely sensible.

[Fiona Mactaggart]

The hon. Lady is right to ask why I did not do that. I think that the Speaker’s Conference took up energy that could properly have been directed towards a broader equality impact assessment. I was proud to be a member of the Conference—which, as I have said, worked rather like a Select Committee—but its focus was relatively narrow, and it was not able to give wider consideration to the impact of Government policies on women’s lives.

The committee that I propose could serve as a useful tool for all of us. I know that achieving our aim will be difficult—for instance, Select Committees have limited budgets and we may need to start small—but I believe that the committee could prevent some of the mistakes that Departments currently make because they do not think fully about the impact of all their policies on, for example, women.

I referred earlier to rape in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. I was privileged to hear Eve Ensler, author of “The Vagina Monologues”, talk about her work in the DRC helping women who had been victims of rape. She said:

“I think of Beatrice, shot in her vagina, who now has tubes instead of organs. Honorata, raped by gangs as she was tied upside down to a wheel. Noella, who is in my heart—an 8-year-old girl who was held for 2 weeks as groups of grown men raped her over and over. Now she has a fistula, causing her to urinate and defecate on herself. Now she lives in humiliation.”

I do not believe that the Foreign Affairs Committee or the Defence Committee discuss matters of that kind—they have plenty of important things to think about—but an audit committee of women might be able to persuade them to do so. I know that many Members find such issues hard to talk about in Parliament, and I am glad that there are now more women on both sides of the House than there used to be, because we find it easier to discuss them than men do. We know how much cruelty is involved.

As Eve Ensler pointed out, when rape was used as a weapon of war in Bosnia we intervened and stopped it, but rape is still being used as a weapon of war elsewhere. Our Government need to intervene, and UN Women needs to intervene. That is one of the reasons why it is UN Women’s second highest priority. I believe that the committee I have proposed could enable every Department to ensure that the needs of women and girls are not overlooked, as they so frequently are. I am prepared to admit that they may be overlooked by accident, but that is not a sufficient excuse. We need to ensure that the needs of women and girls cannot be overlooked, even accidentally.

13:45

[Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)]

The United Nations special war tribunal in Sierra Leone has established that the use of rape as a weapon of war is a war crime, as is the enlisting of child soldiers. I can tell the hon. Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart)—who made a powerful speech—that Select Committees do discuss these issues, and that over the years the International Development Committee, among others, has pressed for a recognition of the emerging norm of responsibility to protect and to ensure that the international community bears down on those who commit war crimes and crimes against humanity. The challenge for Governments and, indeed, for the House of Commons is often how and when to intervene effectively, and I suspect that that challenge will detain the House over the coming weeks in the context of Libya. Tragically, as the hon. Member for Glasgow East (Margaret Curran) pointed out, one of the longest-living UN agencies is the agency for displaced Palestinians. We need to have regard to all these issues.

Those of us who have been privileged to make visits overseas will recall being humbled by the sight of women involving themselves in projects. Listening to the hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick), I was reminded of a visit that I made to Bangladesh. Women had taken over the central reservation of a highway—public land—and planted mahogany trees. They would have to look after the trees for 20 years before they could harvest them, but they were confident that between them they could make the project work, and that it would give them a community asset. All of us, wherever we have been in the world, have seen projects like that, in which women have taken on the burden of looking after communities and leading initiatives at the same time. Whether the projects are agricultural or involve looking after HIV/AIDS orphans or community bakeries, women are often at the forefront.

The hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse made all the comments that I wanted to make about UN Women and the need for the Government to support it, so I shall not repeat them. During the most recent session of International Development questions, the Secretary of State said that Ministers wanted UN Women to do for women what UNICEF has done so successfully for children, and it would be fantastic if it could indeed do that. We all recognise that DFID’s budget is finite, but I hope that it can find some resources for UN Women.

I echo what the hon. Gentleman said about the work of Voluntary Service Overseas. I too have had the privilege of working with VSO in Nepal, and helping Dalit women to draft amendments to the Nepalese constitution. Dalits are at the bottom of the pile and Dalit women even further down than that, but VSO enabled them to help and empower themselves, which I think is very important. This year, I am due to go to the Thailand-Burma border to help and support some women’s projects there. The Voluntary Service Overseas Volpol scheme is a brilliant initiative, and I urge any Members who have not yet had the opportunity to avail themselves of the opportunity to investigate it, as we learn an enormous amount from such experiences.

Because of the general election, the Conservative Party Human Rights Commission’s report of last year did not get the coverage it perhaps deserved. Although I was chair of the commission at the time, the report team was chaired by Fiona Hodgson and its members included my hon. Friends the Members for Oxford West and Abingdon (Nicola Blackwood) and for South Thanet (Laura Sandys). The full report can be found at conservativehumanrights.com. The evidence to the commission about women human rights defenders yielded numerous examples of women who were abducted, tortured, and sexually and physically abused, and whose families had been brutally attacked and threatened. There were also examples of such women being labelled as whores and witches and having been ostracised from, and stigmatised within, their families and communities because they wanted to advance human rights not just for women and children but for the community as a whole.

As Amnesty International has observed, while many human rights defenders endure risks across a spectrum of gravity, because of women human rights defenders’ gender and the particular rights they defend, they confront additional risks that can carry the gravest of consequences. As my hon. Friend the Member for Epping Forest (Mrs Laing) made clear in what was an excellent opening to the debate, women make up two thirds of the world’s 1 billion illiterate population, half a million women a year die from pregnancy complications, women make up 70% of the world’s poor and perform 66% of the world’s work, but have 10% of the world’s income and own only 1% of the world’s property.

The commission made 22 recommendations and I will not detain the House by going through them all, but I encourage Members and others who are interested in these issues to visit the website and take a look at them. We suggested that the Government should seek to raise public awareness of the work of human rights defenders and the specific dangers faced by women who fight for human rights, including gender-based violence, family reprisals, cultural stigmatisation, and loss of property rights. There are a number of positive and constructive recommendations, including that the Government should honour and implement the commitments made under international treaties and conventions on the protection and promotion of women’s rights, including those in the universal declaration of human rights, the millennium development goals, the Beijing platform for action and the convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women. We also wanted support to be given to the work of the UN special rapporteur and promoting the new UN agency for women.

13:53

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

I am grateful to have the opportunity to speak in this debate, and I apologise in advance for being unable to be present in the Chamber for all of it, as it coincides with a Westminster Hall debate on the Government’s response to the Select Committee on Work and Pensions report into housing benefit reform. As a member of that Committee, I am also keen to spend some time in that debate.

I agree with those Members who have said how pleased they are that the Backbench Business Committee has made time for this debate this afternoon. I and other Members who were present at some of the Committee’s sittings know how hard its Chair and some Committee members, including the hon. Member for Battersea (Jane Ellison), have worked to achieve that.

It is appropriate that this debate coincides not only with the centenary of international women’s day, but also Fairtrade fortnight and the week of the Second Reading of the Welfare Reform Bill. Each of those individual events speaks to the issue of women’s economic independence, which is what I want to address this afternoon.

As has been pointed out, women constitute a little over half the world’s population, but we are still the poorer by far. As the hon. Member for Banbury (Tony Baldry) has just pointed out, 70% of the world’s poor citizens are women. Here in the UK, too, women face a greater risk of poverty as a result of a gender pay gap that still stands at 19.9%, and which is much higher if we look only at part-time work. Men’s median pay is 52% higher than women’s, and only 12% of the occupants of our boardrooms are women. Therefore, when we are asked—this question was raised at the Backbench Business Committee—why a specific debate on women’s issues is necessary, I say that the numbers speak for themselves.

This problem is not inevitable; it is not just the way things are. It is not a reflection of innate gender differences; it is a problem of societal structures, and it requires structural solutions. It matters too: it matters not only for women’s own economic independence, but also because when women prosper economically so too do children. When women have money, they spend it on their kids. Because that spending benefits the wider economy and the community, it promotes general economic and social justice.

It is especially appropriate that international women’s day and Fairtrade fortnight should coincide with the date of our discussion, because the changing economic structures of international trade could serve to offer a model of how economic justice can work for women and, by promoting the position of women, can work on a broader frame. Fairtrade products that empower women economically are important for the environment and for the communities and economies in which they are established, and are an important route both for economic growth and social justice.

[Mr MacShane]

I am following my hon. Friend’s argument closely. This is not just about fair trade. Some 30 years ago, I was working in Malaysia and visited the factories of multinationals including Bosch and Motorola, all of which were full of women making products such as car radios. Actually, those women were being liberated from the patriarchal oppression of village peasant existence, but many of the liberal and left community around the world say, “Oh no, they’re being exploited.” Does my hon. Friend agree with Joan Robinson of the London School of Economics, who said there’s only one thing worse for a woman than being exploited by a multinational, and that is not being exploited by a multinational?

[Kate Green]

I am sure my right hon. Friend would not wish to suggest that there is a continuum of exploitation and a point on that continuum at which women—or, indeed, men—ought to be satisfied to find themselves located. He raises an important issue about the relative roles women perform in paid work and the domestic sphere.

The economic justice questions that we are discussing are not just challenges for developing economies; they are a challenge for us here in the UK too. As we know, here in the UK women struggle to balance caring responsibilities with paid employment. The majority of child care is still undertaken by women, and although many men fulfil caring roles, it is women who are most likely to drop out of paid employment when they start to have caring responsibilities. Many male carers perform their caring responsibility alongside paid work however, and as a result do not suffer the same degree of economic disadvantage.

In recent years, the debate about the appropriate balance and recognition we should give to paid work, domestic responsibilities and caring responsibilities has become distorted, and we need to revisit that. That is not in order to trap women back in the domestic sphere, but to open up a debate about the value we should give to the caring role, and to make sure our societal structures properly recognise that role and offer both women and men a genuine choice about participating in paid work and wanting, and needing, to take time to fulfil domestic responsibilities. That is not an argument that, when I was as a young feminist in the 1980s, I would have believed I would have heard myself making. However, as I have watched that choice for women squeezed out by successive male-led Governments of both the left and the right, I have to say that a gender issue is a choice issue, and choice and economic independence go hand in hand.

[Nicola Blackwood (Oxford West and Abingdon) (Con)]

Does the hon. Lady agree that carers play a central and vital role in our society and that without their playing that role our social care system in this country would entirely collapse?

[Kate Green]

I certainly do and, together with the hon. Member for South Thanet (Laura Sandys), I am very proud to be a parliamentary ambassador for carers week this year. I hope that we will have the opportunity to highlight exactly the sort of contribution that carers make and to which the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Nicola Blackwood) refers.

I wish to take a moment to talk specifically about the position of lone parents, which was the subject of hot political debate 10 or 15 years ago. It has rather dropped off the political radar but, regrettably, that is not because their battle is entirely won. It is still the case that more than 90% of lone parents are women—lone mothers—but it is very important to recognise that very few women have set out to bring up their children alone. None the less, one in four children in this country will spend some time in a lone parent family, and those children and families face an exceptionally high risk of poverty. Of course it is right that we should do all we can to sustain sustainable relationships, but it is not the mark of a civilised society that we allow those who are growing up in households where relationships have ended to find that they do so in poverty.

[Mrs Laing]

May I thank the hon. Lady for her support in obtaining this debate with the Backbench Business Committee and say that she was most eloquent? Would she like to emphasise the need to break the myth that women who are bringing up children alone have been teenage mothers—the vast majority of these women are not? As she said, they do not choose to be in that position and, of course, all women and men in that position deserve our support.

[Kate Green]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right, because the average age of lone mothers is now 35 and just 3% of them are teenagers. There is a very wide gap between myth and reality, as she rightly said.

In conclusion, we need and must have a debate now on the way in which we secure and sustain the economic independence of women throughout their life course, whatever their family circumstances. That is why I am particularly pleased to support the amendment tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart). Women’s lives have changed dramatically, even in my lifetime. However, despite the progress that women such as me—well-educated, professional women in well-paid employment—have enjoyed over the past five decades, it is still women who bear the brunt of poverty in this country. Inequality on pay and, importantly, on pension protection reflects the fact that there is still too much segregated employment, and that we still have a social security system that fails to provide adequate support and an education system that still too often squeezes down girls’ aspirations. This is still the fifth largest economy in the world, and we cannot tolerate a situation in which women continue to live in poverty. It is unnecessary, wasteful and unjust. It is a scandal and we need to ensure that every one of our economic and social policies thinks women and thinks how it can address that injustice. So in this UK Parliament, which is aptly, if sometimes incorrectly, characterised as the “mother of Parliaments”, I say that we must establish the scrutiny body that the amendment proposes. In the week that marks the centenary of international women’s day, I hope that parliamentarians in this House will commit themselves to doing just that.

14:00

[Nicola Blackwood (Oxford West and Abingdon) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to contribute to today’s debate and to follow Members who have covered so many important gender equality issues. My hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Mrs Grant) in particular spoke powerfully on the issue of domestic abuse.

I wish to focus on issues affecting women in conflict zones. As chair of the all-party group on women, peace and security, I, like the hon. Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart), visited New York in February. I did so not only to celebrate the launch of UN Women, but to try to understand the impact that the new agency will have on women, peace and security policy and to find out where it will fit in the now bewildering architecture of the UN.

Major-General Cammaert, the former UN peacekeeping commander in the Democratic Republic of the Congo said the following in 2008:

“It is now more dangerous to be a woman than to be a soldier in modern conflict.”

That reflects the exponential growth of conflicts that target civilians, especially women and girls, as a means of intimidation and ethnic cleansing. Last year, 14,591 new cases of sexual violence were reported in the DRC, many of which were described so eloquently by the hon. Lady. The abuses that these women are subjected to are among the most horrific ever imagined. As if the international community’s failure to protect them is not bad enough, these women are then routinely denied justice or any engagement in the peace and reconciliation negotiations that follow.

As most hearing this debate will know, Security Council resolution 1325 finally recognised, in 2000, that sexual and gender-based violence in conflict, and women’s participation in peacebuilding, were the responsibility of the UN Security Council and a security priority. Since then, there has been no shortage of supportive language reaffirming the Security Council’s commitment to the cause. Governments and civil society alike have welcomed this progress, but beneath the rhetorical gloss, cracks in the masonry of international commitment are easy to find.

Although the UK has a good record in this area—it is considered the unofficial Security Council lead on resolution 1325—there are those, both here in the UK, as well as in the international community, who disagree that resolution 1325 is a security issue at all. Others accept that sexual violence should be addressed as a security issue alongside other protection of civilian issues, but believe that women’s participation in peacebuilding is a development issue which can be left until after the peace has been made.

The impact of that inconsistency can be seen in the recent emphasis that has been put on tackling sexual violence as a 1325 priority. Security Council resolutions 1820, 1888 and 1960, and the appointment of the Secretary-General’s special representative, Margot Wallstrom, all represent significant and vital progress on tackling sexual violence, but they also show that in the current geopolitical climate it is easier to get action on the protection of women than on participation of women. The impact on the ground is clear. The DRC has seen the groundbreaking conviction by a mobile court of the senior commander, Lieutenant Colonel Kibibi, and eight other soldiers for their role in a mass rape in the eastern DRC. That is a huge step in ending the impunity of perpetrators of sexual violence, but the DRC is still one of 31 current armed conflicts arising from failed peace processes and not a single one of those peace processes included women at the negotiations. Despite all the vocal support for resolution 1325, there has so far been negligible improvement in women’s participation in peacebuilding.

[Fiona Mactaggart]

The hon. Lady is making a powerful and important case. Does she share my anxiety that if what is happening in Afghanistan at the moment leads to a non-military next stage, unless women are really involved, negotiations with the Taliban could mean that the country reverts to some of the horrors that we have seen there before?

[Nicola Blackwood]

I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention and I share her deep concern that women’s rights in Afghanistan may be seen as a cost that can be taken on board in order to achieve peace. I also share her belief that such peace would be unsustainable and would lead to a descent back into conflict.

Everything I have been describing means that the fact that the new head of UN Women, Michelle Bachelet, has named women, peace and security as one of her focus areas is highly significant. UNIFEM never had the status or the budget to keep the issue effectively on the UN agenda. The role that Michelle Bachelet manages to carve out for UN Women will, therefore, make or break the future of women’s participation in peacebuilding. The challenges she faces are manifold: she has to attract sufficient funding; she must navigate her way through the impenetrable UN bureaucracy; she must negotiate the web of inter-agency allegiances and territorial claims; and, perhaps most importantly, she must prove herself, through sheer force of personality, as a leader to be reckoned with in the constellation of UN actors.

[Mr MacShane]

Is the hon. Lady aware that, according to a parliamentary answer I received this morning, we will give more than £1 billion to India in the next four years under our development aid heading, despite India having more millionaires and billionaires than we have? I am not against India in any way, but it is rather odd that our allocation of money for international work has so far excluded any UK funding for the very agency that the hon. Lady is so rightly praising.

[Nicola Blackwood]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his intervention, and I shall move on to funding issues soon.

If Under-Secretary-General Bachelet and UN Women cannot achieve the formation of the role that is needed for the organisation, and cannot do so quickly, they will have no hope of beginning to challenge the entrenched gender inequalities that are so prevalent in conflict and post-conflict scenarios. Women’s participation in countries that are now hanging in the balance, such as Afghanistan, Egypt, Libya and Tunisia—to name an obvious few—will fall back off the agenda at the Security Council and elsewhere. UN Women will have proved to be a useful panacea—a rhetorical device that represents the form of action without the power or the outcomes. On the other hand, if UN Women achieves the formation of that role—there is every hope that it will do so—that might prove to be a turning point and a crucial advance in the argument that peacebuilding and conflict-prevention policies that do not involve women at all levels are fatally weakened and undermine the progress on global stability objectives.

As a historical leader on women, peace and security issues on the international stage, the UK is of course pivotal in whether UN Women sinks or swims. I am glad to see that the coalition Government have signalled in action as well as words their continuing commitment to the resolution 1325 agenda. Central to that commitment are the appointment of the Minister for Equalities as a 1325 champion and the Government’s national action plan to implement 1325, published in November. That plan is a significantly more sophisticated document than its predecessor and includes a robust monitoring mechanism that includes a formal process for reporting to Parliament. That is welcome. I look forward to playing my part in the all-party group in holding the Government to account on their delivery of that plan and its adaptation to developing international situations.

The UK has further opportunities to offer the international leadership necessary to ensure that UN Women lives up to its potential. I shall mention just two. First, the Government’s building stability overseas strategy is being formulated by the FCO and DFID and is intended to set out the Government’s plans for addressing overseas conflict in the future. Given events in Libya, I would say that it is becoming ever more urgent that women, peace and security perspectives should be embedded in that plan, not as an afterthought or box-ticking exercise but as an integral part of the Government’s approach to conflict prevention and resolution.

Secondly, in order for UN Women to achieve its stated aims, which dovetail perfectly with UK foreign and international development policy, it needs UK funding. It is reasonable to wait for the strategic results plan in June before committing a specific amount, but I would like to make a couple of general points on that. My right hon. Friend the Minister of State, Department for International Development, has said that DFID requires

“a strategic plan that sets out a clear results framework outlining targets and expected impact.”—[Official Report, 3 March 2011; Vol. 524, c. 596W.]

Will the Minister tell me whether DFID is working with the team that is developing the strategic results plan at UN Women to ensure that it is aware of DFID’s priorities and the criteria for funding?

The amount needs to be appropriate to UN Women’s remit. The United Nations Development Programme’s 2010 budget was $5 billion; UNICEF’s was $3 billion. To play in that ballpark, UN Women needs a budget of at least $1 billion. This is not just about status, although that does matter in setting UN-wide priorities; it is about capacity. DFID’s review of multilateral aid, published last week, stated explicitly that UNIFEM had failed adequately to address gender inequality issues specifically due to “constrained resources”. If UN Women is to have the impact necessary to challenge entrenched gender abuses and inequalities, it needs a reach similar to that of UNICEF.

The UN has set a minimum funding target of $500 million for UN Women, but so far only $55 million has been pledged. The UK has the opportunity to lead the way in funding UN Women. Given the exact correlation between the coalition Government’s stated foreign and international development policy goals and the strategy set out so far by Under-Secretary-General Bachelet, that seems to me like a win-win situation.

In the words of the Nigerian permanent representative to the UN and president of the UN Women executive board,

“no one can run fast on one foot.”

A security agenda that thinks it can do without women’s participation has been a limping beast. Let us hope that UN Women can start being part of the remedy. Let us hope that we can begin to meet our commitments on protection and participation of women in conflict. Let us agree once and for all that these women are far from simply passive victims. They are in fact powerful agents of change and no less than the missing link in our peacekeeping policy.

14:15

[Mr Denis MacShane (Rotherham) (Lab)]

Three or four years ago, I was at a NATO parliamentary conference where they had the usual list of speakers. The Foreign Minister from Georgia made a Government speech that was fairly moderate and not very exciting or controversial. The next speaker was the leader of the Russian delegation, who said, “In my country, we have a saying that there are two things you cannot have a discussion or a debate with: a woman and a radio set.” That kind of approach might still be prevalent. In this debate, if I may say so—this is in no way meant to be patronising—the quality of the speeches from all the new Members who were elected in May and who sit on both sides of the House has been absolutely outstanding. I hope that those speeches are career-enhancing interventions, urging former bosses to spend a little more on UN Women’s work. I wish well all the hon. Members who have spoken.

I want to comment briefly on one issue of women’s rights: the question of trafficking. We have focused a lot on what the UN should do and what we might do in Afghanistan and the Congo, and I support all that, but supporting women can also begin at home. There is a major trafficking problem in this country, as there is internationally.

The figures are difficult to get hold of at times. I got into terrible trouble a year or so ago, because in a debate during the last Session I quoted the Daily Mirror, which in turn was quoting a Home Office research study, saying that up to 25,000 women had been trafficked into the UK. That was pounced on by those great defenders of women’s rights, the BBC’s “Newsnight” programme and The Guardian. Articles were run and there were debate sessions on “Newsnight” in which Jeremy Paxman attacked me as if I were some wretched Government Minister, and it was said that all those figures were invented and that there was no problem with trafficked women. A lady from the English Collective of Prostitutes said that all prostituted women were happily working without any obligation. That kind of blind refusal by the liberal left of our community is matched by the fact that too many of our officials—it was as bad under the previous Government as it is under the coalition Government—refuse to accept the need for effective policing and intervention on the issue of trafficking.

[Sheila Gilmore (Edinburgh East) (Lab)]

In the light of some of the earlier discussion about domestic violence, does my right hon. Friend agree about the importance of using law and enforcement in trafficking, as we have done in domestic violence? That provides clarity about what is right and wrong. When I was first involved in work on domestic violence, I found that people did not treat it as a crime, so there were not many prosecutions.

[Mr MacShane]

I entirely agree. There was a very good three-part series on trafficking on Channel 4 last autumn, narrated by Helen Mirren. It was interesting to see that not a single male using the services of trafficked sex slaves was held, questioned or even put in front of some minor magistrate’s court by the police. As was the case with domestic violence, we need the moral exemplary publicity provided by convictions or court cases. Until men have to face their responsibilities for the use of trafficked women, we will not make real progress.

[Naomi Long]

I take heed of the right hon. Gentleman’s warning about statistics, but the Home Office currently estimates that about 4,000 women have been trafficked into the UK and the sex industry. We have talked about wanting the Government to sign up to the EU directive on human trafficking and I add my voice to that call. Does he agree that it would help if the Government, when dealing with the sexual enslavement of women, were willing to tackle demand by criminalising the purchase of sexual services, which would protect trafficked women and others?

[Mr MacShane]

I agree with the hon. Lady. That figure of 4,000 was produced by one report last autumn and has been fairly comprehensively rubbished by many experts in the field. We do not know the figures. Our former colleague, Anthony Steen, the chairman of the Human Trafficking Centre, has said that he has spoken to senior police officers who know of 2,300 brothels in London. He said:

“They reckoned that 80 per cent of those working there were from abroad, and they estimated that 4,000 were trafficked. And that was just in London. My view is that the national figure is probably in excess of 10,000.”

After a long campaign for which I pay tribute to a collection of women Ministers, including the then Home Secretary and Attorney-General, some of whom are still with us and some of whom are now outside the House, the previous Government made a small amendment to criminal legislation saying that it is a crime to pay for sex with a woman who has been trafficked or coerced. To my knowledge, however, there has not been a single prosecution for that crime so far. We have been able to curtail kerb crawling by taking photographs of kerb crawlers’ cars, publishing their registration numbers and in some cases putting them in front of magistrates. That is the only language that abusers of sex slave trafficked women understand.

Some of our newspapers have adverts in the back for massage parlours and brothels.

[Mrs Grant]

rose—

[Mr MacShane]

I was not going to take another intervention because of this funny rule we have, but the hon. Lady made such a wonderful speech, so how could I refuse?

[Mrs Grant]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman and will keep my intervention short. Will he say a little more about the fact that many of those who are trafficked are very young children and that young women leaving the care system are also involved—not just immigrants?

[Mr MacShane]

Had I more time, I would love to go into those issues. The official body in charge of these issues has noted that a large number of Asian girls and, sadly, a surge of Vietnamese girls are being trafficked into the UK, and that several dozen leave and disappear from care, particularly local authority care. That is one of the themes that I shall be pursuing in my parliamentary work this Session.

I earnestly appeal to Ministers—we have two outstanding Ministers on the Front Bench, who really care about this issue—to send us some hope and allow a little ray of sunshine to penetrate the gloomy clouds of South Yorkshire, whence I must return shortly, and to shine upon the Liberal Democrats’ conference in Sheffield, so that their leader can rise to his feet and say from the platform tomorrow, “I may be known locally as the Sheffield fraudmaster, but I persuaded the Prime Minister to change our policy on the EU trafficking directive and I can announce that Britain will be signing it.” Then some of us might be prepared to forgive the Liberal Democrats for many of their current sins.

I should like to quote the Archbishop of York. In a powerful intervention late last year, he said:

“Sex trafficking is nothing more than modern-day slavery. This is women being exploited, degraded and subjected to horrific risks solely for the gratification and economic greed of others. I am therefore stunned to learn that the Government are opting out of an EU directive designed to tackle sex trafficking.”

I get down on my knees to the Archbishop of York.

In considering the treatment of women around the world, there is a big problem with whether we are prepared to be brave enough to say that some of the classic religions of the world and their political expressions are deeply inimical to women’s rights. I shall put it no more strongly than that, but I refer to practices such as forced marriage and the fact that we have just had a terrible riot in Egypt in which a Christian Coptic church was burned down. Why? It was because a Christian boy fell in love with a Muslim girl, whose parents felt that her honour had been abused and so they had the right to go and kill someone. Then they were killed and the reaction was to burn down a church that had been there for hundreds of years and insist that a mosque be built in its place. Unless we say, within our communities to our Muslim friends in Britain, that we have to consider the role of religion today in oppressing women, we will not make much progress.

Finally, I want us to look again at the degradation of women, their commodification into sex objects and the fact that men and young boys now think it quite normal to fly to Baltic states or to east Europe for a weekend of going from one sex parlour to another. The situation has changed utterly and this kind of new approach from young men has arrived in recent years. There is a notion that legalising prostitution would somehow make things better, but where that exists in Nevada, university students say that one cannot rape a prostitute. These are difficult areas that go to the heart of masculine and male concepts of women and their rights. Unless we are prepared to tackle those concepts—and I strongly welcome the tone of the contributions to the debate—I fear that in three or four years’ time we will not have made the progress that the House wishes to make.

14:26

[Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)]

It is always a real pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr MacShane), and that is particularly true following the vital points he made about human trafficking. It is a huge privilege to speak in this debate, on this historic day, on this key issue about equality and empowering women. On such an historic day, we need to look at what more has to be done to put women on a par with men in equality terms. Equally, we need to mark today as a celebration of great things that great women have achieved around the world.

I am fortunate and privileged to have worked, before entering Parliament, as a special adviser to such a great international stateswomen as Benazir Bhutto, the twice former Prime Minister of Pakistan, who led with conviction in empowering people and who paid the ultimate price in her fight for democracy and empowering women and citizens in her society. She became the first woman to be elected the Head of an Islamic State in 1988. As Prime Minister, she became a role model for women around the developing world in male-dominated societies. They saw that they too could be future leaders of their country. She had 86,000 primary and secondary schools built in her term because she saw education as a means of empowering citizens in her country, particularly women. Under her government, 100,000 female health workers fanned out across the country, bringing health care, nutrition and pre and post-natal care to millions of the poorest citizens. Under her Government, women were given the basic right to participate in international sports, women’s police departments were established to help women who suffered from domestic violence and women’s banks were established to give micro-loans to women to start small businesses.

Today, we pay tribute to women such as Benazir Bhutto who are great role models for women around the world, and Aung San Suu Kyi, another of the courageous women who fight for democracy. In Brazil, it is great to see another female leader, Dilma Rousseff, as president of her state. However, much more needs to be done to ensure that there are more women in the Parliaments of developing countries.

In Burma, women make up only 4% of the membership of its lower House. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, only 8% of MPs are women. The figure is the same for Ghana. In Kenya, the figure is 9%; it is 7% in Nigeria, 6% in Somalia and in Yemen it is 0.3%. That is completely unacceptable. On that basis, I welcome DFID’s commitment to link international aid to programmes that empower women.

[Claire Perry]

My hon. Friend described how a female president of Pakistan made such a difference for women locally. Given that example, does he agree that for countries that are not fortunate enough to have women representatives in their political system, the formation of organisations such as UN Women will ensure that women’s issues are not forgotten on the political stage?

[Rehman Chishti]

My hon. Friend makes a vital point. In 2008, Benazir Bhutto was one of the seven women awarded the UN human rights prize, and as my hon. Friend says, we need to highlight such things.

Nearly all the countries in the world have signed up to the UN international convention on civil and political rights, but the key issue is implementation. We must ensure that women have the rights enshrined in such conventions.

[Nicola Blackwood]

Does my hon. Friend agree that one of the crucial reforms to ensure that women achieve those rights is reform of the security and justice sector? If that does not happen, women will never have the opportunity in some countries to enforce their rights.

[Rehman Chishti]

My hon. Friend makes an absolutely vital point. We must ensure that there is security and justice. Those elements are enshrined in agreements such as the universal declaration of human rights and the UN conventions on civil and political rights; the problem is that they are not implemented. It is great that countries sign up to conventions, but unless we put them into practice, nothing will change. It is important that they are implemented.

With more women in boardrooms, greater equality in legislative rights, and an increased critical mass through women’s visibility as impressive role models in every aspect of life, one might think that women had gained true equality. The unfortunate fact is that women are still not paid equally compared with their male counterparts. Women are still not present in equal numbers in business or politics. Globally, women’s education and health are worse than that of men, and there is greater violence against them.

I very much welcome the fact that international women’s day has been marked as an official holiday in 27 countries, such as Afghanistan, China, Moldova, Mongolia and Cuba. I hope in due course that we can move to that position as well.

[Caroline Dinenage (Gosport) (Con)]

My hon. Friend mentioned women’s education. Does he agree that it is the key to everything we are discussing? Unless women are educated, they will never become political leaders, surgeons or lawyers and be all that we want them to be. It pains me to think that there could be women who have the potential to cure diseases or to solve world problems, yet that will not happen because those women will never be educated.

[Rehman Chishti]

I thank my hon. Friend for that point. She is right. If we want to empower people, we have to give them skills, and the basic skill is education. That is why under DFID’s commitment to developing countries, a large part of the money is going to education. My hon. Friend is right; without education, people cannot be master of their own destiny.

Gender equality is not simply a basic human right; its achievement has enormous socio-economic ramifications. Empowering women fuels thriving economies, spurring productivity and growth.

I conclude with a quote from Martin Luther King:

“The time is always right to do the right thing.”

It is always the right time to fight for women’s rights and equality.

14:33

[Sheila Gilmore (Edinburgh East) (Lab)]

As one of those who made the pitch to the Backbench Business Committee for this debate, I am grateful to the Committee for agreeing to hold it in the Chamber. The fact that there was some resistance to the proposal reminds us that we have to be ever-vigilant and ever alert in fighting for women’s equality. We should not take things for granted. We have won a great deal. Compared with our grandmothers and great-grandmothers, our lives have been transformed. Nevertheless, we need to be careful; we should not sit back and assume that everything will carry on smoothly.

The hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mrs Laing) spoke of the need to encourage women to take up representative roles. It is not always enough simply to set up mechanisms.

[Mr MacShane]

Is my hon. Friend aware that two weeks ago my hon. Friend the Member for Bethnal Green and Bow (Rushanara Ali) spoke at the Newcastle university international development conference, where the majority of participants were women? There were fabulous workshops on how we can help women overseas and I am glad to report that all the members of the organising committee were women—I must confess an interest; one of them was my daughter.

[Sheila Gilmore]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his intervention. Women have obviously proved that they can organise things and be very effective.

The party organisation in my city recently held a training event for people it wanted to encourage to stand as council candidates. Those who came, both men and women, were given information on what being a councillor involves. At the end of the meeting, a number of women came up to the organiser and said how daunted they were and that they doubted whether they would be able to do the job, but virtually all the men went away thinking that they could do the job easily.

[Claire Perry]

It is like DIY.

[Sheila Gilmore]

How true.

Those responses demonstrate that even after all we have won, there is still a need to put in the extra effort to encourage women, give them confidence and bring them forward. It is important that we make every effort to work across the Chamber on many of these issues, and I am heartened by much of what I have heard in the debate. Like the hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Mrs Grant), who made a powerful contribution, much of my early work before being elected to this House related to family law, so I know the difficulties women face.

It is sometimes easier to reach out across the House when talking about things that are not happening in this country, because it is perhaps easier to agree on what needs to happen in places abroad. It is slightly harder when talking about matters closer to home, but what I want to say relates to the UK. That is not intended to detract from the powerful speeches that have been made on the position of women in the developing world and the important work that needs to be done. In fact, it has been very humbling to hear some of the stories that Members have told, which we must always remember, but just because we are privileged as women to live in these times, as has been said, that does not mean that we should not fight for further improvements.

I want to speak to the amendment and about why I think it is important to have a committee that can look across the piece and see how things join up. The example I will give is that of the recent changes that have been proposed, are about to be made or have been made that affect the position of women who are separating or divorcing. When looked at departmentally, those changes might seem quite small, but when joined up, they are quite significant. That can be a traumatic time for both men and women, but women, who are often financially weaker in that position, are most affected. All the research still shows that after separation women end up poorer. Slightly oddly, many men end up either no poorer, or richer.

What has been happening that will change women’s experience? One change is the proposed loss of eligibility for legal aid, which in my view will affect women’s ability to get a fair financial settlement. The law can enhance and protect women’s rights, but if it is not there to fight for them, it might not be able to do so. The second change relates to the Welfare Reform Bill. The time that I had to speak on the Bill was reduced to two minutes yesterday, so I did not have the chance to discuss its child maintenance proposals, but they are linked to what I want to say now. More emphasis is to be placed on people reaching their own solutions, but putting up obstacles and charging will make it more difficult for women to try to enforce maintenance.

[Claire Perry]

I am sure that the hon. Lady has much more experience of these matters than I do, but does she not agree that one key problem, which we see in our surgeries and postbags, is the absolute failure of the Child Support Agency to deliver a fair and equitable solution for both men and women? The welfare reforms could help to make a difference and ensure that women who, as she rightly says are often disadvantaged by separation, get their fair share.

[Sheila Gilmore]

I am certainly not going to suggest that the CSA, in its long history, has been so wonderful. Indeed, the initial legislation for it was an example of not taking account of the views and opinions of people who know about an issue.

In my experience, it was always hard to enforce maintenance. We could get orders and agreements as solicitors, but enforcement was extremely difficult, especially in respect of those who were quite willing to swap jobs and to evade payment. The self-employed were always particularly difficult to reach, but we could have told the then Government about that. If the views of the experts had been better integrated, we might have had better legislation and better enforcement, and I do not see how putting obstacles in the way of people exercising such powers is going to be helpful.

When there is a power differential between people, many women are wary—even as it is—of pursuing claims in case that rebounds upon them or their children. We can and will, I hope, debate those proposals further. My aim is not necessarily to win support for that point of view at this time, but to say that, when we link up what is happening on legal aid and on child maintenance, we see that there is a cumulative effect, and it is important to look at that across the piece.

There will also be a more limited choice of housing for women who are separated. Those who deal with housing and homelessness know that one of the biggest reasons why people present as homeless is that their relationship has broken down: two into one house does not go. It does not just happen to women, but women are often given priority for re-housing in the homelessness system because they have to care for children, and the suggested changes in homelessness provision will make it more difficult for women and their children to obtain settled and secure accommodation. It is not right to suggest that short-term private lets are the solution to homelessness. People may want to choose that solution, but it should not be forced upon them.

There are pending changes, which we do not know the details of, to mortgage interest payments for people who currently claim income support and will in future claim the new universal credit. When I worked as a solicitor, I could sometimes obtain for women an ability to stay in the former matrimonial home if we were able to secure an arrangement whereby the mortgage was paid, particularly in the transitional period. They hoped to get employment and to be self-supporting, but at that point they were not, and mortgage interest payments were often an important part of the package, so we need to know what is happening with them. Changes to tax credits will make it more difficult for women after separation and divorce to work, as will changes to how child care is funded.

If we have all those measures, and cumulatively they have an effect that each one might not seem to have in itself, it is important that we audit them. Therefore, I urge people to support the amendment and to put just such an audit committee in place.

14:45

[Jane Ellison (Battersea) (Con)]

I very much welcome the fact that we are having this debate. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Epping Forest (Mrs Laing) and others on their tenacity in pressing the case for it with the Backbench Business Committee.

I should like to focus my remarks on one specific aspect of the violence and injustice done to women in our world—I am afraid that it is not a comfortable one for the House—which is the terrible practice of female genital mutilation. This is a practice that the United Nations has stated it wishes to end within a generation. I am sure that UN Women will be taking the lead on this work, but it is a mighty task that Ms Bachelet and her team will take on. The World Health Organisation estimates that between 100 million and 140 million girls and women worldwide have been subjected to such mutilation. The practice is most prevalent in western, eastern and north-eastern regions of Africa, some countries in Asia and the middle east. The cutting is often practised on girls as young as 12 or 13, often precipitating their dropping out of school and not carrying on with their education. Education, as we have all agreed throughout this debate, is one of the essential keys to greater equality, dignity and progress for women.

I am grateful to VSO for its briefing on this issue and for drawing my attention to the Orchid Project, which is run by a former VSO volunteer, Julia Lalla-Maharajh. That organisation has a simple vision—a world free from female genital cutting. Interestingly, one of its key findings has been that, difficult though it is, trying to avoid judgment and blame when working alongside communities in the developing world has been more helpful for them in trying to effect change from the grass roots up. Whatever laws are passed against FGM in some countries, in reality they are unenforceable if it is culturally embedded locally and supported by civic and religious leaders. There is a vital need to work from the bottom up. I understand that the Department for International Development has found that this is consistently true locally.

[Mrs Grant]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the lack of prosecutions under the Female Genital Mutilation Act 2003 is a major and very worrying problem?

[Jane Ellison]

I certainly do agree, because this is happening not only in the developing world but here in our country—in this city and in my constituency.

In the developing world, trying to ensure that girls are able to take educational and economic opportunities is absolutely vital, and challenging social norms by having locally led solutions is proving more effective. One of the findings has been that more educated and less poor girls will grow up to be women who are less likely to subject their own daughters to this procedure.

My hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Mrs Grant) drew our attention to the fact that this terrible practice is a problem not just in the developing world, but that it is also a problem for many countries in the developed world. Here in London, the number of reported cases of FGM has risen in recent years. These awful procedures are happening in this city, and in other UK cities as well. A clinic at a major London teaching hospital sees about 350 such women and girls a year, often with horrible complications. The Metropolitan police have intervened in more than 120 cases since 2008, but despite this practice having been illegal for many years, as we have heard, there has been not one prosecution. The police often put this down to the problems of trying to get people to give evidence in very difficult situations and not being sure that they can secure such a prosecution if they bring it to court.

While refraining from judgment may be more likely to effect change in the developing world, we cannot refrain from judgment when such mutilation is happening in our own country. We have to be clear and robust in saying that it is a crime in our country, and that no excuses can be offered. The Met have been very clear about this.

[Mr MacShane]

May I put it to the hon. Lady, first, that the police are sincere in these investigations, but are hampered by other priorities and other areas where they feel they have to work? Secondly, if the police, the authorities and the doctors know that this crime is happening, perhaps we need to look at the court and evidence system, which prevents any sanction or any message going out into the community, at least in Britain, to say: “You should not be doing this.” I am thinking of a version for sexual crimes, including rape, of the Diplock courts that we set up in Northern Ireland. That may sound illiberal, but we really need to tackle this with convictions that can then be publicised in the newspapers, sending a signal to these communities that it has got to stop.

[Jane Ellison]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that intervention, and I think that we should consider all those things. That the number of cases is rising, not falling away to nothing, tells us that there is a growing problem, not a diminishing one. We should therefore be considering all possible solutions.

I have a good degree of confidence that the police, certainly in London, are taking this matter seriously. Senior local police officers contacted me ahead of this debate to say that if there was an opportunity to raise this issue, they would be grateful. I am convinced that it is on the agenda, although I am sad in a way that it has to be on the agenda of police working in my area and across London. It is part of their strategy to prevent violence against women and girls. The message from the police is clear to all those in positions of trust, whether they be teachers, lecturers, social workers or religious leaders: it is their duty to report these things when they find out that they are going on, and they should know that the police will take them seriously. The consequences of not reporting such abuse are terrible. If abuse against the oldest girl in a family is reported, it might prevent all the younger siblings from suffering the same thing. It is therefore important to tackle it.

There is a big challenge for police and health practitioners in exploring what information they can legitimately share within the bounds of medical confidentiality. That perhaps goes back to the point made by the right hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr MacShane) about looking at fresh approaches. Obviously, midwifery services and certain screening services pick up on this abuse more than other parts of the health service do.

I hope that Members across the House can send a signal from this debate that culture is no excuse for violence and the mutilation of girls and women in Britain. It must stop now. I hope that UN Women will take up the cause of ending female genital mutilation within a generation. I hope with all my heart that it is successful, and I hope that it gets generous support from the UK Government.

14:52

[Mr Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)]

We are having a good and informed debate, which follows a similar debate last week in the House of Lords. I encourage Members to read the Hansard from that debate, which is very interesting. Among the notable contributions is that of the Lord Bishop of Bath and Wells.

The hon. Member for Glasgow East (Margaret Curran) raised her eyebrows when I arrived in the Chamber today. She asked whether I was hoping to speak in the debate and I confirmed that indeed I was. I therefore feel that I should, at the outset, lay out my qualifications to speak. I feel qualified to speak because, after painstaking research, it has been revealed to me that exactly 50% of my ancestors are women. That pattern, believe it or not, has been repeated generation after generation. It is not just through the past that I have an interest, but through the future: I can inform the House that, so far, 100% of my descendants are female.

In this debate, we are really talking about the interconnectivity of people across family, society and nations. We all have an interest in ensuring that all of humanity is empowered, has rights that are respected and is allowed to capitalise on opportunities. The hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mrs Laing) told us that women earn 10% of the world’s income. I did not know that and was genuinely surprised and shocked that it was so low. Unfortunately, too often the chances for a good section of humanity are blighted because of the two similar chromosomes, XX.

Much of the Arab world, specifically across north Africa, is in flux. That situation needs help now, and will need help when it settles. UN Women should be there to give a lead when the opportunity and the need arise. We should commit our £21 million to UN Women now. The fund has a target of $500 million, although I understand that it should have had a target of $1 billion. As it stands, it has only $55 million. There is much energy and enthusiasm behind UN Women. A new world order could be approaching with the changes in the middle east. Surely UN Women should be able to hit the ground running and help societies that are reforming and changing, and where help is wanted and needed.

Baroness Gould said in the other place last week:

“Human rights and equality are two sides of the same coin”.—[Official Report, House of Lords, 3 March 2011; Vol. 725, c. 1181.]

I think she was right. The five aims that have been set out for UN Women are expanding women’s voice, leadership and participation; ending violence against women; strengthening women’s full participation in conflict resolution and peace processes; enhancing women’s economic empowerment; and ensuring that gender priorities are reflected in national plans and budgets. All are equally laudable, but the fourth aim strikes me especially strongly, particularly because evidence shows that the benefits to children are immense. Research from Asia, Africa and Latin America, which has been touched upon, has found that improvements to food security and nutrition are associated with women’s access to income and their role in household decisions and expenditure.

Thinking back to my own childhood, I remember that my late mother, who was a strong woman and in charge of the household budget, put herself last in the queue for everything. Her strength was her selflessness. I suppose I should point out that research unfortunately shows that when men are in charge, there is a greater propensity for alcohol and tobacco spending. I shall move swiftly on from that point.

[Eric Joyce (Falkirk) (Lab)]

Actually, that is a really important point. We often talk about the creation of jobs in developing countries through inward investment and say that it helps families, but in fact, where those jobs are to do with minerals and mainly men are employed, most of the money that those guys earn is spent on the mine sites themselves. The role of women in employment and how money gets passed into families is fundamental.

[Mr MacNeil]

The hon. Gentleman makes a very good point, which I had not actually thought of. We can think back to periods in our own highland history. When men were away working together in such jobs and operations, the propensity for alcohol spending on the site was exactly as he points out.

Like other Members, I have had the opportunity to go abroad. I went to Cambodia with VSO’s political volunteering programme in September 2008, and from that experience I can see exactly the benefits of an organisation such as UN Women. I commend VSO for that scheme. The learning curve was steep for me on a multitude of issues, and I am still learning, of course. I should like it to consider expanding the scheme to other sectors outside politics, because it was very useful. Those who control levers in society could engage with the professional bodies in this country that are needed in developing countries.

[Claire Perry]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that one of the most depressing things for parents of daughters, as we both are, is the lack of understanding of some of our young women about opportunities in the global perspective? One of the saddest statistics that I know, which I read recently, is that whereas 32% of teenage girls want to be models, only 4% want to be engineers. That is a deep indictment of our society, and initiatives such as he mentions will help to raise the profile of opportunities for women globally.

[Mr MacNeil]

I thank the hon. Lady for that valuable contribution. I have not had a conversation with any of my daughters about modelling or engineering, but my second daughter keeps telling me that she wants to look after the sheep when I go. I do not know whether that is a model profession.

There is an opportunity for us to engage with professional bodies whose work is needed in countries across the world, which can do something very important. Perhaps we even need to engage with the much derided financial institutions in this country and with individuals of high net worth, who could be shown the needs that exist and ways to help practically. They could simply have their hearts touched.

I was recently in Rwanda with an organisation called Results UK, which I am grateful to for taking me there. Rwanda is one of Africa’s most progressive and impressive societies. Its economy is growing by 6% year on year, health indicators are going the right way, HIV is down to less than 2%, tuberculosis is really falling owing to being treated along with HIV, participation in education is growing and agricultural techniques are improving. The country is ambitious and has a “Vision 2020” for changes and improvements that will hopefully be brought about in the next nine years.

Rwandans are returning home, and I met a very impressive young woman, Dr Angelique, who had returned from Boston to drive Government training of health professionals. Her drop in salary was matched only by the size of her commitment. I thought she was impressive enough, but she then took me to a meeting, along with the hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Cathy Jamieson), chaired by a formidable woman, Dr Agnes. Her view was that 2020 was just around the corner. In that particular meeting, data corrections were required from various bodies for the health training plan, and she told those bodies that she wanted the improvements within three days.

[Margaret Curran]

May I offer the hon. Gentleman an apology? I have known him for many years, but have not realised that he is a key ally in the women’s agenda. I am glad to stand corrected. I will quote him endlessly in Scotland as a supporter of our agenda.

On a serious note, the hon. Gentleman and I share a commitment to Scotland. Women in Rwanda have achieved very significant levels of representation, but likewise, the Scottish Parliament has significant representation. Does he agree, first, that there is a key link between women’s representation in a given institution and the promotion of a women’s agenda, and secondly, that it would be disappointing if the Scottish Parliament went back on that? We need to do something about that.

[Mr MacNeil]

The hon. Lady makes a very good point and perhaps anticipates what I was going to say.

The Health Minister of Rwanda told me that the nation’s wealth was its human capital and that Rwanda hopes to maximise that in the years come, and contrasted that position with countries that think their wealth is in resources. The people in Rwanda feel that they are all important. Needless to say, Rwanda has pulled itself up by the boot strings in the last few years and, as the hon. Lady just said, it has the highest rate of women in Parliament in the world. Doubtless that is an example of using all the people and all the talents to the benefit of the country. A Senator in Rwanda asked me to spread the good news about his country if I were ever given the opportunity. I have such an opportunity now. His phrase was, “It has a great climate for investment in a good climate.” I hope that Rwanda goes from strength to strength in the years to come.

That is part of the story in Rwanda, but bringing about change, as I saw in Rwanda, is often not complicated—it is not rocket science; it just takes will and intent. As the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire (Jo Swinson) said earlier, it is not a luxury to move forward with the women’s agenda, which benefits everybody.

Can the UK Government ensure that a group with five aims in that direction hits the ground running? Let us not wait to commit again to something that we intended to commit to anyway. Let us instead signal and lead that. By committing money, we can encourage others to do likewise, and give women a better chance and greater hope for the future. That will also help men in future, because helping women today helps the children of today, who are the men and women of the future. Can we commit our £21 million annually of core funding to the UN Women’s fund?

15:00

[Dr Sarah Wollaston (Totnes) (Con)]

I should like to take this opportunity to raise the issue of women’s rights in Saudi Arabia, and to pay tribute to Wajeha al-Huwaider, a remarkable woman—an author, journalist and human rights campaigner—who has done so much at great personal cost to raise the profile of women’s rights in Saudi Arabia.

Women in Saudi have the status of perpetual minors and are denied the most basic human rights. Those abuses stem from the male guardianship system and the strict gender segregation in Saudi. A 2008 Human Rights Watch report spells out what that means in practice. Every Saudi woman must have a male guardian—normally a father or husband—who is tasked with making the most basic decisions on her behalf. An adult woman will sometimes have her son appointed as a guardian.

Fully competent adult women are treated as legal minors, with little or no authority over their lives, bodies or well-being. Every Saudi woman is affected, regardless of her economic or social status. Adult women must obtain permission from their guardian to study, work or travel, and many are denied the right to make even the most basic decisions on behalf of their children. All hon. Members know that whenever women are hidden away, with few rights, the risk of domestic violence is increased, but the male guardianship system makes it almost impossible for those women to gain access to justice even when they are subject to violence.

Officials may—and frequently do—demand a guardian’s consent even when no law or guideline requires it. Many women have been asked to produce written consent from a male guardian for medical treatment. The Saudi authorities insist that the rules are being relaxed, but in practice, I am afraid that they are not. In theory, a woman—only over 45, mind you—may travel without permission. In practice, however, many women without written permission from their guardian are turned away at airports.

Wajeha al-Huwaider first came to international attention on international women’s day in 2008, when—rather shockingly—she drove her car on her own. Subsequently many Saudi women tried to follow her lead, and one woman was seriously injured after being forced off the road. Following that, women were so ostracised for such actions that they ceased.

This was not always the case. Wajeha al-Huwaider described how in her grandmother’s day women had much greater freedoms: they were allowed to work in markets, travel freely and go abroad without permission; there were not the same dress restrictions; and they could divorce and remarry easily without being ostracised. I am afraid, however, that that is no longer the case in Saudi Arabia.

As women in this country and across the world look forward to the Olympics, women in Saudi Arabia are banned from the Olympic team, and have no access to public sport at all. Not only is it impossible for a Saudi woman to participate in a football match, for example, but she is banned from attending one as a spectator. That is truly shocking. From a letter of support from both sides of the House to Wajeha al-Huwaider last year and subsequent correspondence, we know that she is not seeking to westernise Saudi society; she is seeking fundamental human rights. Women must be free to travel, study and access medical care, and to escape from violent and abusive relationships without the consent of a male guardian.

Saudi Arabia has vast wealth and vast opportunities to spread that wealth, but half its population are among the most deprived people in the world. As we move towards the Olympics, I ask the Minister to use this opportunity to highlight the fundamental right of women to take exercise—a right denied to Saudi women. Will she join me in calling for all countries participating in the Olympics to allow women not just to sit in the spectators’ gallery, but to take their rightful place on the starting line?

15:07

[Claire Perry (Devizes) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes (Dr Wollaston), who took this good opportunity to highlight one of the great injustices in the international world. I believe that by talking about these things and working across the House, we can bring appropriate pressure to bear on such repressive regimes. I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for Epping Forest (Mrs Laing) for working so hard to secure this debate, and also the hon. Member for North East Derbyshire (Natascha Engel) and my hon. Friend the Member for Battersea (Jane Ellison), who battled against the forces not of evil, but perhaps of darkness to get this debate on the books. It is greatly appreciated.

I want to speak on the question of what women want. In my view, they want nothing that Mel Gibson has ever been able to offer, but the same things that men want: in this country, they want strong communities, not streets scarred by crime, violence and fear; they want a world-class NHS, not a country in which the chances of surviving breast cancer are worse than they are 20 miles away in France; they want excellent schools for our children where teachers are free to teach, motivate and drive our young people to achieve all that they can; and they want a dynamic economy that creates jobs, generates taxes and means that we can afford strong, robust and sustainable public services. I think that the Government are delivering all those things. For Opposition Members to say that we are ideologically targeting women by cleaning up the messy economic legacy we have been left is frankly absurd and does not do those hon. Members, for whom I have great respect, any favours.

Women and men also want an end to discrimination and injustice in this country and globally, which is why I strongly support the launch of the UN Women initiative, which will work collectively to address some of the problems we have heard about today—for instance, the fact that 70% of the world’s poorest people are women, and that women generate only 10% of the world’s gross domestic product.

I want to use something that has been happening locally in my constituency for almost three decades as an illustration—a microcosm, as it were—of what can happen when the knowledge, resources and commitment of the global north are exchanged with the global south. The Marlborough Brandt Group, which was set up in the wake of the Brandt report, has worked to build exchanges, linkages and transfers between leafy Marlborough and a Muslim community called the Gunjur in south-east Gambia. One of the interesting and unexpected results of those linkages has been the enormous solidarity that has built up between the young women of both communities. The head of the organisation, Dr Nick Morris, e-mailed me to say:

“When I first went to Gunjur 25 years ago village meetings were held under a mango tree and only men were present. Now, 25 years later,”

meetings are still held

“under the same mango tree,”

and women are not only present, but are

“in the front row and are leading the”

programme. He continued:

“A…literacy programme run by women for women in Gunjur and surrounding villages”—

a programme funded by DFID since 1995—

“has empowered women to make choices.”

He quoted the case of Fatou Gibba, who

“went on to study to be a teacher and…now runs the main pre-school in Gunjur where over 2,000 children,”

in what is a small community,

“have had a headstart before attending the Government primary school.”

[Nicola Blackwood]

Given the example that my hon. Friend has just described, does she not agree that the crucial thing that women want is the opportunity to take part in decision making and to choose what is best for their communities, and that where they are involved in these processes, they are stronger and produce the more resilient communities that she mentioned at the beginning of her speech?

[Claire Perry]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. Involvement in formal and informal decision-making processes is the key to achieving many of the objectives that we all share.

The idea of focusing resources on issues of inequality has enormous local and global benefits. As the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire (Jo Swinson) said earlier, it is insane to miss out on the opportunity to educate over half the world’s population. Indeed, that is one of the reasons that frequently comes up when I am justifying our laudable commitment to maintain DFID spending. I say, “Look, surely we are all better off if we develop and invest in the world’s poorest populations,” and in this case in the world’s very poorest people.

[Mary Macleod (Brentford and Isleworth) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend think that we can do more through international collaboration to ensure that we help businesses, education and people right round the world?

[Claire Perry]

I absolutely do, and that is why we both support the valuable launch of this UN agency and our Government’s commitment to provide it with funding and support.

If this afternoon’s debate comes to a vote, I shall of course be supporting this excellent motion. I would also—if we got to this point—vote in support of the amendment. As the hon. Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart) and I have discussed on several occasions, having worked together on a number of all-party groups, such organisations would provide a powerful cross-party focus for some of the things that actually matter. When we make tough spending decisions, we of course have to think about what they look like in the round. One of the unintended consequences has affected funding for citizens advice bureaux. I am happy to say that in my constituency and county of Wiltshire we have maintained CAB funding. However, as a Government—we know that Ministers share this view—it is important that we should maintain funding in the round for such important organisations.

I will finish with the example of my campaign to provide the option of having an opt-in system for internet porn, which the hon. Lady also supported—indeed, she was involved in the debate. This issue provides a fascinating example of how men and women can come at something from very different points of view. The idea has been on the table several times, but when we first had the debate, the industry said, “No thank you—far too difficult to implement and regulate.” However, we then funded some research that showed that although only 73% of men thought it a problem that our children were watching extreme internet porn, 93% of women thought that it was a significant problem. The majority of women said that they would like an opt-in system, which would give them the option of not having this stuff piped into their homes. That was an interesting example of how such committees can look at policy in the round and put a different focus on some of the recommendations.

15:14

[Lorely Burt (Solihull) (LD)]

It is an honour to participate in this debate today. I cannot think of a time in this Chamber when I have heard a higher number of excellent contributions from both sides of the House. My short speech will concentrate on the UK, and it will be somewhat lighter than some of the serious and sometimes harrowing contributions that we have heard.

I shall start with an anecdote. When I was very young—this was shortly after the Equal Pay Act 1970 had been introduced; it is that long ago—I was elected as a student governor at Dudley technical college, where I was doing my A-levels. I remember to this day the first time I piped up on an issue, only to be told by an elderly matriarch, “That’s it, my dear! Throw your brassiere over the windmill!” In my political life, I have been told to do some very strange things, some of which would have been physically impossible, but that one sticks in my mind. At least I got the point that speaking up is a very good thing for a girl to do.

In the 40 years that I have been conscious of equality issues, however, I have been deeply disappointed at how short a distance we have come. I strongly support the main motion today, as well as the excellent amendment tabled by the hon. Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart) and other colleagues. She made a fantastic case for the creation of an equalities audit committee. Unless we audit these issues and measure how well we are doing, we will always be fobbed off with a long line of patronising excuses for why we cannot do certain things. After 100 years, we are still so far away from achieving equality, and we really need that extra strength. I hope that the Government will seriously consider the possibility of introducing such a committee.

Colleagues have talked about many topics today but, in the short time available, I should like to concentrate on women in the workplace in Britain. Work is key to dignity, self-worth and independence, in whatever country we are talking about—or at least, it should be. Too often, women are undervalued, patronised and, occasionally, worse. We sometimes reach positions of influence, however. A Conservative colleague told me a joke the other day that just about sums up our situation. Let us picture a cartoon of a boardroom. The board members sitting round the table are all men, with the exception of one woman. The chairman says, “Yes, that is an excellent suggestion, Miss Carruthers. Now, would one of the men like to propose it?”

Lord Davies recently published his excellent report, “Women on boards”, but he stopped short of recommending quotas for boards. He said:

“Many other people told us that quotas would not be their preferred option”.

Well, of course they would not! Those people are locked into a syndrome of appointing “people like us”—not only white middle class men, but white middle class men who went to the same school and probably belong to the same club.

[Amber Rudd]

Does the hon. Lady agree that it is also important to make the point to companies that it is in their own interest, as well as that of the women, to appoint women to their boards? It has recently been proved that the share price of a company is much more likely to go up when there are women on the board.

[Lorely Burt]

The hon. Lady makes an excellent point. In fact, I was about to say that, if only those people would take a look, they would see a wealth of talent that is not like them, but that has different, fresh perspectives and can bring wealth to the business because it can see different angles and opportunities. The gauntlet has nevertheless been thrown down for those companies, and Britain’s 100 biggest companies have five years to double the proportion of women on their boards from the current average level of one in eight to one in four—or else they will face mandatory quotas.

[Claire Perry]

Does the hon. Lady agree that one of the great impediments to achieving that number on the boards is that many of us often hit our career strides just as we hit our reproductive peak—and it is a ghastly problem, as many of us know, managing children and careers at the same time? Support for more flexible working and more co-parental leave is critical to achieving the sort of targets to which we both aspire.

[Lorely Burt]

I totally agree, and I am wondering whether the hon. Lady has read my speech, as I was just about to come on to that. I hope that the threat of quotas will speed up the process of appointing far more women to company boards. In fairness, I know my description was a bit of a caricature, as there are some good measures in place to convince boards of the economic benefits that would follow and that the hon. Member for Hastings and Rye (Amber Rudd) mentioned.

The coalition Government are delivering some good things for equality. As the hon. Member for Devizes (Claire Perry) just mentioned, the right to flexible working for all will be a great equaliser. Employees without children will potentially benefit from greater flexibility, too, which is great for our well-being agenda. Research demonstrates that people who have a balanced life and are able to work flexibly are more productive, more loyal, absent less and suffer less stress within the work environment. Everybody wins from that situation.

The division of maternity leave between parents is another important step towards introducing the concept of equality in the home as well as in the workplace. Men usually want to play a more important role in caring for their children, although our friends in the press have yet to understand that, as the Deputy Prime Minister was vilified for having the temerity to want to take a share of the child care with his working wife. These measures will help, although we still have a long way to go towards a time when workplace culture measures an individual by the contribution they make, not by the number of hours they are physically present.

[Nicola Blackwood]

Does the hon. Lady agree that one area where we have the opportunity to make up one of the most disproportionate representations is in the area of STEM—science, technology, engineering and maths—subjects? We have a Government who are happily committed to enhancing the low-carbon, high-tech economy, so does the hon. Lady agree that we could make a lot of progress in this area in a very short time?

[Lorely Burt]

I totally agree with the hon. Lady and I could talk about it all afternoon; unfortunately, I have only two minutes left.

On the continuing vexatious issue of pay, the gender gap is still more than 15%. I am disappointed that we did not enforce section 78 of the Equality Act 2010, which required companies with more than 250 employees to introduce pay reporting. If companies are not held accountable for the inequalities they perpetrate, what incentive is there for them to change? They remain able to sweep the figures under the proverbial carpet and carry on paying women less than men.

That is why I have today tabled early-day motion 1571 on the gender pay gap, which urges the Government to look again at the issue in 2013 and legislate to introduce pay reporting if a marked improvement is not seen in the next 18 months. I hope that hon. Members from both sides of the House will be minded to sign this early-day motion. If this threat stays over the heads of the unwilling, we can hope for ongoing improvement. This is one area where we can make all the difference. As to all the other grave issues that other colleagues have raised today, we must all keep fighting to use our relatively privileged position to do all we can to assist.

15:24

[Mary Macleod (Brentford and Isleworth) (Con)]

I thank the Chair of the Backbench Business Committee, the hon. Member for North East Derbyshire (Natascha Engel), who was determined not to back down and who received considerable support from my hon. Friend the Member for Battersea (Jane Ellison). That proves that women should not take whatever is thrown at them, but should stand up and be counted—which is what they both did, and I thank them for it. I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for Epping Forest (Mrs Laing), who tabled the motion and who produced an excellent summary of women’s issues both nationally and internationally.

It strikes me that we may have made history today. Probably for the first time in a debate such as this, more Conservative Members than members of all the other parties combined were present at the start. That is a step forward for our party. I also applaud the men who are present for the debate. As was pointed out by the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire (Jo Swinson), this is not a luxury or fringe issue but one that involves the suffering of human beings and economies, which affects us all. It is therefore important for us all to be here.

Let me begin on a positive note. Women have made significant contributions to society over the centuries. We need only consider Boadicea, the British Celtic warrior queen who led a revolt against the Roman occupation; Joan of Arc; Queen Victoria, who presided over one of the largest empires ever seen; Florence Nightingale; Emmeline Pankhurst; Marie Curie; Mother Teresa of Calcutta; and of course, last but not least, an incredibly talented woman and amazing role model—our former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, the first female Prime Minister in Europe. Evidence suggests, however, that women are being held back from making a full contribution. Internationally, women in all parts of the world still suffer violence and discrimination. Across Europe the average gender pay gap is 17.5%, and in the United Kingdom, despite the Equal Pay Act 1970, men still earn more than women in most job categories.

There are many ways in which we can tackle those issues. I want to focus on two key areas: empowering women and addressing violence against them. There is no doubt that empowering women in the world will be good for the global economy, not to mention the overall security of the world. The United Nations has argued that the empowerment of women is perhaps fundamental to the achievement of many other millennium development goals, given the multifaceted role typically played by women as mothers, leaders, students, decision makers, workers and voters.

[Nicola Blackwood]

Does my hon. Friend share my concern that although women make up 70% of the world’s poor, UNIFEM’s budget in 2009 was just 1% of the total UN budget?

[Mary Macleod]

I agree. Much more needs to be done.

I welcome the launch of UN Women and the comments of Ban Ki-Moon, the leader of the United Nations, who said:

“UN Women is a recognition of a simple truth: equality for women and girls is… a basic human right… a social and economic imperative.”

As we have already heard today, schemes to empower women have led to very positive results in developing countries. MicroLoan Foundation, a charity in Chiswick in my constituency, has demonstrated that working on a micro scale often delivers significant benefits. The foundation provides small loans for women in rural parts of Africa to enable them to set up their own self-sustaining businesses. Those who receive the loans—about 20,000 women so far—are treated as business people rather than recipients of charity. They are expected to pay the money back when their businesses are up and running, and an amazing 99% do pay it back. The money is then lent to a new group of women, and a virtuous circle of investment is thus created.

Education is another key part of empowerment, and we still have much to do internationally in that regard. In sub-Saharan Africa, north Africa and south and west Asia, women do not have easy access to education beyond primary level, as was mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Tony Baldry). It is therefore incredibly important for us to continue our education work.

Closer to home, much remains to be done to achieve the goal of empowering women, first by putting women on company boards. With the celebration of international women’s day this week and the publication of the Lord Davies report last month, much has been said recently about the need for more women at senior levels in UK companies. The evidence is now clear: companies that have more women at senior levels perform better, with stronger stock market growth, higher returns on sales, capital invested and equity, improved decision making and better corporate governance. Yet only 7.8% of the directors of FTSE 250 companies are women, and more than half of those companies have no women at all on the board. I welcome the publication of the Lord Davies report, and his call for our largest companies to aim for a 25% minimum proportion of women board members. However, I also want to challenge the chief executives of the FTSE 250 companies to include diversity in the performance objectives of senior executives, so that they are measured on that and remunerated accordingly.

[Amber Rudd]

Is my hon. Friend aware that an organisation called the 30% Club has been set up in the City by a number of chief executives, in order for them to work together to achieve higher representation of women on their boards?

[Mary Macleod]

Yes, that is an excellent initiative. There is another scheme under which the chairmen and chief executives of various boards mentor the next level of senior women in the City, which is working extremely well.

The second area I want to address is women’s entrepreneurship. Again, there is a lot we need to do. The Federation of Small Businesses published a report suggesting that women in the UK could make a much more significant contribution to the economy. Currently, women constitute only 29% of the self-employed population in the UK, despite making up 46% of the active working economy.

[Sarah Newton (Truro and Falmouth) (Con)]

In respect of both that point and the issue of women’s representation in larger organisations, does my hon. Friend agree that there are two types of discrimination at play: an ageist attitude as well as an attitude against women? Does she also agree that, given that from now on women will be working for much longer and flexible working will be far more widely available, women will be more able to fulfil their desire to have both a family and a career?

[Mary Macleod]

My hon. Friend is entirely right. We must have flexible working in order to make progress. We need more examples like Cath Kidston in Chiswick in my constituency. She has set up her shops from scratch and has been incredibly successful. In the UK, 150,000 start-ups would be created per year if women started businesses at the same rate as men.

The third area I want to talk about is very dear to my heart: women in politics. The hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Mr MacNeil) talked about Rwanda and how well it has done politically. We currently have the highest number ever of female representatives in the House of Commons and the Lords, but it is still low; it is still just 22% in the House of Commons, and more needs to be done. That is why I have set up the all-party group for women in Parliament to look at how we can take the issue forward and work together across the House to make sure that we keep delivering change and give women the opportunity to get into politics. The key is for women to work together, act as role models, and reach out and mentor the next generation of women in politics. We must also break down the barriers that undoubtedly still exist.

[Mrs Grant]

Does my hon. Friend agree that better and more affordable child care is also part of the process, in that it enables women to get out of the home and back into the work force as wealth creators, entrepreneurs and taxpayers?

[Mary Macleod]

I agree entirely; that is a very good point.

In conclusion, I want to talk about violence against women—another subject that is extremely close to my heart, first, because it is a major issue for me in Hounslow in my constituency and, secondly, because Refuge was set up in Chiswick in my constituency. My hon. Friends the Members for Epping Forest and for Maidstone and The Weald (Mrs Grant) have discussed this subject very well and have laid out some of the major issues that we face. There have been more than 1 million female victims of domestic abuse in England and Wales in the last year. That is a huge figure. We need to talk about the problem more, and to try to speak to the next generation in schools and elsewhere to convey that domestic violence is completely unacceptable.

[Fiona Mactaggart]

rose—

[Mary Macleod]

I am almost finished, so I shall not give way.

The Home Secretary has spoken firmly on the issue of violence against women and girls, saying that our

“ambition is nothing less than ending all forms of violence against women and girls.”—[Official Report, 25 November 2010; Vol. 519, c. 52WS.]

I also congratulate the Mayor of London on what he has done to quadruple the number of rape crisis centres in London. We have a duty to keep talking about what women have achieved across the globe and about the challenges and issues that still exist. That is why this debate is so important. By collaborating and working together we can achieve so much more and deliver a real change across the world.

15:35

[Roberta Blackman-Woods (City of Durham) (Lab)]

First, may I apologise to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and to the House for not being here at the beginning of this debate? I am very pleased to be able to participate in it.

It seems appropriate, as we celebrate the 100th anniversary of international women’s day, to be welcoming the formation of UN Women. I welcome not only its formation, but the fact that it has set itself some challenging tasks. It seeks not only to be a global champion for women and girls, but to eliminate discrimination against women and girls, to empower women and to ensure that they achieve equality as beneficiaries of development aid, human rights, humanitarian action and peace and security.

UN Women is very much to be welcomed, but we might wish to reflect for just a moment on why it is essential to have such an organisation. Some of us who have pressed for UN reform for many years are very glad to see it and think that its setting up is not before time. One of my arguments for a global body examining what is happening to women’s rights was the failure to deliver on the millennium development goals. We know from a series of recent reports that little progress is being made on wiping out poverty in the world’s poorest countries, and the situation is being made worse by the global recession. Although aid to developing countries is at an all-time high, it is still £13 billion short on commitments for this year.

The progress has been particularly slow for women, who bear the brunt of poverty and its effects. According to research by the children’s development organisation, Plan International, girls are still far more likely to die before their fifth birthday than boys, and mostly from diseases that can be prevented, such as malaria and tuberculosis. Many rich nations that pledged aid are reneging on their promises, which is having a knock-on effect across the range of MDG targets. The overall level of donations in 2010 was estimated at about £108 billion, but that represents an £18 billion shortfall on commitments. The situation is having a disproportionate effect on women, because the least progress has been made on achieving the targets set for MDGs 4 and 5, on reducing maternal and child mortality, and helping women access reproductive health care.

That means that a huge task has been set for UN Women, and I want to discuss that in the context of a country that I know very well—Afghanistan. A number of us will know that women in Afghanistan suffer dreadfully from the impact of poverty and a lack of rights. The situation is improving, and we should note that, but there is still a lot to be done. We believe that about 87% of women in Afghanistan suffer some form of domestic abuse, and that about 60% to 80% are forced into marriage. There is a very low level of participation in education there, too. Again, the situation is improving, and many more girls have entered education, particularly primary school, since 2002, but a low level of participation in higher levels of education remains. Life expectancy is very low, at only 44.

It would be totally wrong to present women in Afghanistan as victims. The many women whom I have met, including parliamentarians, are extremely strong and resilient and they want to play a more active role in their society, not only at a social level and in governance but in the economy. I was pleased to see that DFID recently put an additional £85 million of funding into micro-finance initiatives. I have seen some of those initiatives in Afghanistan. They give women a lifeline in a number of ways. Not only do they give them a job and the means of earning a living, but, because women are seen to contribute on the economic front, their status in their family and wider kinship group changes. We hope that that can be built on for the future.

We also know that a lot of our aid money is helping women to play a much greater role, and not only in governance. We must remember that 25% of the Parliament in Afghanistan is made up of women, although they need a lot more encouragement and support to find their voice. Through the UN, many women in Afghanistan are being encouraged to play an active part in their security and police forces. There is now a commitment to try to ensure that 30% of the police force is made up of women.

[Fiona Mactaggart]

Like my hon. Friend, I have been impressed by the women of Afghanistan. Is she confident that the voices of those women will be heard in any negotiations about the future of Afghanistan in which forces from the US and the UK might talk about withdrawal, leaving them to whatever is left behind?

[Roberta Blackman-Woods]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. By being vigilant, we must ensure when we withdraw on the military front that strong support structures are left in place, so that the many gains made by women in Afghanistan remain and are built on. We need to support the women parliamentarians—they will be the people who will be there and who will be able to put the monitoring systems in place.

The UN has funded a number of referral centres that are giving women in Afghanistan a safe haven and have been established in the 34 Afghan provinces. If such improvements are to continue and to be further developed, it is essential that UN Women gets the resources that it needs. Some of the preliminary figures are worrying—at the moment, only about 10% of the $500 million target is in place. We all need to press for additional resources.

We have all spoken about the women who are in Parliament in Afghanistan and we know that if things are to improve for women we need more women in politics and in decision-making structures. The Commonwealth Parliamentary Association and other networks helpfully enable us to share our experiences and to learn from women in different parliamentary contexts. If we are to continue to do that, we must be careful about the messages that we send from this country about women’s potential and what we do to support women. I am hesitant about introducing some party political conflict into the debate, but I am concerned about the impact that the cuts are having on women in my community. Not only are jobs being lost. Cuts are being made to child care and the public services on which women rely, changes are being made to the Child Support Agency and there is a lack of opportunities in housing. Our universities and colleges might even become less open to women in the future, if women are concerned about debt. I hope that the Government will consider that point and adopt the amendment tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart) to implement a gender audit. I shall support the amendment and the main motion today.

15:45

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

I was not going to speak at all, but I have listened to the debate and thought I would try, so I hope that hon. Members will forgive me if it comes out rather badly. I want to talk about the courage of women, especially the courage that I have witnessed. First, I remember watching a woman walking out of Srebrenica holding a baby, in 1993, when we arrived there. She held her head high. We were tired and hungry, but we looked at this woman who had lost everything and we were inspired: here was someone very special. A few days later, I saw a woman who was going to be shot. She was holding a baby and in what were apparently the last few moments of her life she sheltered the baby. She was not shot—we avoided that—but that shook me to the core.

I know that my mother learned to parachute at the age of 22 at Ringway airport, when she joined the Special Operations Executive, and I remember seeing my wife, Claire, in Bosnia, in 1993. I was sitting in my tank watching an artillery barrage in the valley below when I saw a person walking down the road in the middle of the barrage. I put my magnification on and saw that it was a woman; more than that, it was an International Committee of the Red Cross delegate whom I knew—now my wife, Claire. I drove down there, opened the hatch of my vehicle and asked, “What the heck do you think you’re doing?” [Laughter.] Please do not laugh, because it happened. She said, “Would you please go away? You’re bringing fire on to my position.” I said, “What are you doing?” and she replied, “I’m going to the front lines to register prisoners.” “Would you like me to escort you?” I asked. “Certainly not!” she said, “We don’t want soldiers around us when we do that sort of thing.”

My view is that women not only civilise war situations but calm them. It is absolutely crucial that women are involved in any peace process because they are at the core of our society. In my experience, they are the only people who stay looking after the children when the men depart. They never give up their responsibility to children. That makes them not only equal but very special. I fully endorse the idea that women are equal in all senses, but I also think that they are more than that: they are very special because they do things that men do not—sometimes. Of course, they are impossible in some respects. My wife is French and I have been trying to make sure that her English is perfect, but, my goodness, does she ever learn, “I’m sorry, it’s my fault”? No, she does not. Seriously though, I fully believe that women are terribly important in the peace process. On that note, I think I will sit down because I have caused enough suffering.

15:49

[Rushanara Ali (Bethnal Green and Bow) (Lab)]

I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) for an excellent contribution.

It is a great pleasure and honour for me as a new MP to speak for Labour from the Front Bench. In government and opposition, and throughout its history, the Labour party has fought relentlessly for women both in Britain and internationally.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mrs Laing) and members of the Backbench Business Committee on securing today’s debate on UN Women, in the week of the centenary of international women’s day. It is disappointing that, unlike past years, Government time was not found for this important debate. Let us hope it does not symbolise a lack of commitment to women by this Government.

As we recognise and celebrate 100 years of women’s advancement, it is clear from the debate how much more there is still to do in our own country and around the world. Members on both sides of the House spoke movingly of the importance of UN Women and its potential contribution in the coming years.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Joan Ruddock) spoke of the importance of the convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women and of the Equality Act 2010. My hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick) talked about his VSO work in Bangladesh. My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow East (Margaret Curran) spoke movingly about the plight of women in the Palestinian territories. My hon. Friend the Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart) spoke powerfully about the experience of women who face sexual violence and rape in many conflict zones.

My hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) talked about the pay gap between men and women in this country and elsewhere. My right hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Mr Macshane) told us of the plight of women faced with trafficking and prostitution, and many other powerful contributions were made by Members on the Opposition Benches.

The hon. Member for Epping Forest spoke of the importance of this once in a lifetime opportunity for us to back UN Women, to fight for women’s interests around the globe. The hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire (Jo Swinson) also referred to the importance of providing women with support, especially to ensure that they can play a strong role in peace and security initiatives. There were many powerful contributions from both sides of the House, often based on direct experience in countries around the world as well as in the UK.

I turn to the substance of the debate: why UN Women is such an important agency and why it provides such a unique opportunity for our generation to tackle the challenges facing women around the world. Only 19% of the world’s parliamentarians are women. That is not good enough. We must do more to empower women in political life. Many Members spoke about that issue. We must do more to ensure that our political institutions hold their Governments to account on policies affecting women, as the amendment proposed by my hon. Friend the Member for Slough powerfully highlights.

A third of the world’s female population have been beaten, abused or coerced into sex. Women have the right to live free from violence, and the world must do more. As we know, women’s rights and interests are often an afterthought in matters of war and peace. We must do more to strengthen women’s participation in peace processes and conflict resolution, as was highlighted in the debate. We must do more to empower women in terms of their life chances.

I am proud that in the UK my party did a huge amount to improve women’s representation in Parliament. Other parties have followed suit, but only 20% of MPs are women and in this Government only four Cabinet Ministers are women. I hope that we will see many more women on the Government Front Bench in years to come.

As much as I enjoy debating with the Under-Secretary, I am sure that the irony is not lost on him that the Government’s International Development and Foreign Affairs teams are both male-dominated. I hope that in future we will see women in those teams speaking up for women in this country and around the world.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for International Development (Mr Stephen O'Brien)]

To ensure that the hon. Lady’s last point does not deflect from the most substantive parts of the debate, I think it is helpful to note that our spokesman in the other place is Baroness Verma and that our coalition partner’s spokesman is Baroness Northover. I would be most grateful if the hon. Lady would let us know the names and gender of all members of Labour’s International Development team at the time of the previous Government’s departure.

[Rushanara Ali]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. Under Labour, there were many women in Cabinet posts, but not enough. I hope that we can work across the parties to ensure even greater representation of women in positions of power in this country, because we are a symbol of progress around the globe and have a responsibility to ensure that more women are in positions of power.

Let me move on to the issue of violence against women. Women still bear the brunt far too often in conflicts around the world, facing sexual and domestic violence as well as human trafficking. Whether in Haiti, Congo, Afghanistan or Darfur, women have been exposed to brutal attacks, often as deliberate tools of political and ethnic violence. Mass rape is used as a weapon of war. I am only too aware of just what that means, as someone who was born in Bangladesh, a country that gained its independence 40 years ago in a war that cost 3 million lives. To this day, that society remains haunted by stories of rape and brutalisation. In other countries, such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo, women are far more likely than soldiers to be victims of violence. In south Kivu in the DRC, around 40 women are raped every day.

Women most need protection against sexual violence in times of war and conflict, yet the Government are watering down the European convention to combat violence against women—an international agreement that would protect women against domestic and sexual violence—arguing that it should apply only in peacetime, not in conflict situations. They are refusing to treat violence against women as a violation of human rights. As we have heard, the Government failed to sign up to the EU directive on human trafficking. Those policies, if supported, would save lives and protect millions of women around the world.

On economic empowerment, we will not unlock development and economic growth in developing countries unless we ensure that women have the same rights as men to access finance, the workplace and education, and have the same property rights. We will not meet the third millennium development goal without tackling gender inequality. Women do two thirds of the world’s work and yet receive only 10% of the world’s income. Here in the UK, as has been mentioned, women are bearing the brunt of the cuts. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) has shown so powerfully in her campaign for the Fawcett Society, women are being hit by the cuts much more than men are.

There is also a political and moral side to development. It is why we fought and won the argument about landmines, and it is why we believe that democracy, civil society and empowerment are essential to development. For women, globally, it means that we need an organisation, such as UN Women, not just to champion poverty reduction, but to improve the status of women. That is why we need to fund UN Women.

Britain has been a leader in international development, and if we delay support, we risk holding others back, so I repeat our calls to unlock the core funding that is so desperately needed for UN Women. Ministers repeatedly assured us that, on the conclusion of the multilateral aid review, a decision would be made on funding UN Women, yet no decision was made, and now we are told that a decision will not be made until June. I therefore ask the Minister: are we going to see any movement on transitional funding between now and June? We have heard talk of between £1 million and £10 million being released. Can we have an assurance that, if it is released, it will not represent the total allocation? We also call on the Government to support fully the European convention on combating violence against women, and to sign up to the EU directive on human trafficking.

The motion before us rightly places tackling international gender inequality at the heart of our support for UN Women, and I hope that this House will give its wholehearted support to that and to UN Women. I hope, too, that Treasury Ministers see the strength of feeling in the House in this debate and unlock that badly needed funding for UN Women. I also hope that by the time we celebrate international women’s day next year, we will see a flourishing UN Women, working with the UK Government to empower women throughout the world.

16:01

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for International Development (Mr Stephen O'Brien)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to follow the hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Bow (Rushanara Ali), because she demonstrates that there is genuine, sincerely felt and broad unanimity across the House about the importance and dynamism of the agenda, and about the cause to which we all adhere.

It is a genuine pleasure to be here on the centenary of international women’s day to celebrate the achievements of women past and present. Great strides have been made in the recognition and promotion of women’s rights, but it is important to recognise that, whatever strides have been made, there is much more that needs to be done.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Epping Forest (Mrs Laing). Her opening speech was so excellent that I hope it will become a candidate for one of the greatest parliamentary speeches of the 2010s, because, along with others to whom I pay tribute, she not only battled to have this debate at all, and in the way in which we are having it, but absolutely nailed the universality of the cause, the importance of it here in the UK and internationally, hence a DFID Minister is answering today, and how important it is not to lose sight of the absolute core argument, which is about empowering women wherever, however, at all times and without any let-up.

I was deeply impressed by my hon. Friend’s speech, and she put her finger on something very important: if we are to have any chance of achieving the millennium development goals, we have to focus not only on women and girls, who are central, but on adolescent girls, because they are the key to stopping poverty and, above all, inequality surviving from generation to generation. She made a very powerful point about optimising the world’s interest by removing all discrimination, above all, against women, and it is by that means that the greatest amount of peace, respect and security can be secured for our world.

We have had a series of outstanding speeches. Many people have contributed, and I will try to do justice to the contributions in the time available. The hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire (Jo Swinson) made a very powerful series of points about the need for, and indeed evidence on, consensus and leadership, and the need for the UK to demonstrate leadership in the drive forward. I will come to the answers prompted by the questions put by the hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Bow, who spoke for the Opposition, but I did note that it is very important to agree on how much the national action plan becomes a core focus of what we can do to move things forward.

My hon. Friend the Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Nicola Blackwood) made a powerful and well-researched speech. She said that peace and security in Afghanistan should not be at the expense of women having to revert, or even approximately revert, to anything like the terrible conditions and cultural impacts that they have had to suffer in times past. We should all get right behind that. She described the importance of Ms Bachelet embedding the role of women in security and peacebuilding, as much as anything else, at the core of her agenda. I note that she was pleased to make mention of the importance of UN resolution 1325 as regards the equalities agenda in Nepal.

[Joan Ruddock]

Has the Minister made any inquiries about the shelter programme in Kabul? There has been great controversy about the Afghan Government trying to take over the shelters that are being run by NGOs, and women there feel very strongly that they could be in real difficulty were that to happen.

[Mr O’Brien]

I am aware of that problem. We are talking to a series of international partners very urgently; indeed, one of my ministerial colleagues is not far from the region at the moment, and I know that he is seized of the issue. As the right hon. Lady has intervened, I add that I thought her comments on the position of women and girls in Egypt were very powerful. She talked about working through partners throughout the middle east and north Africa, as well as the importance of constitutionality in underpinning rights. Her reference to the testimony of Nawal El Saadawi made a deep impact on the House.

Speaking of impacts on the House, I turn now to the tremendous speech by my hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Mrs Grant). It was truly moving. I think we all felt that she not only fully understands domestic violence but is able to try to see round the corner as to how we can truly tackle it in all its abhorrence and inexcusability. In the course of her inspiring speech, I was particularly touched by her reference to the first women’s refuge being set up in Carlisle. By complete coincidence, I am familiar with that because my own mother has had an involvement in helping and assisting it through the nursing profession. I pay tribute to that wonderful institution, which my hon. Friend’s mother was so instrumental in founding.

My hon. Friend was right to show how important it is to understand the connection with education in affecting the attitudes and behaviours of boys and girls alike in being able to make progress. I felt—as, I am sure, did the whole House—that in speaking about women and girls in the United Kingdom, she spoke for girls and women around the world.

My hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Tony Baldry) and the hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick) spoke with a background in VSO, which has been terribly instrumental for many people who have had the opportunity to work abroad. They made some important points about leadership and ensuring that we allow testimony to inform policy and follow recommendations, whether from the Conservative Human Rights Commission or the Godmothers campaign.

The hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Bow said that she had been born abroad. I share that experience, having also been born abroad. These things give one an insight, whatever the circumstances, into some of the issues that take us a long way from our own setting and our own experience, and that can only be useful, we hope. I will of course return to the resourcing of UN Women, which has been a feature of many of the speeches.

The hon. Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart) made a very powerful and deeply passionate and committed speech. I respect her for her views and her experience in raising these issues. She talked about the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and about her wish to see how we can drive forward this agenda—how we hold people’s feet to the fire and really influence things. That is what lay behind her amendment. I promise to cover that properly when I get to the substance of my prepared remarks.

The hon. Member for Glasgow East (Margaret Curran) made an important point about access to education, which is so restricted at the moment in the occupied Palestinian territories.

The hon. Member for Solihull (Lorely Burt) illuminated the issue with an enjoyable, anecdotal speech. Above all, she made the significant point that girls must be encouraged to have the confidence, as early as possible, to speak up. That will so often carry them through in later years to break through many of the ceilings and barriers that have been put in their way, and further the cause.

The right hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr MacShane) made an important contribution on trafficking and made a number of interventions. Above all, he asked how we can monitor the progress of the new law to ensure that it has the desired effect. He said that there is some evidence that the very nature of prosecution could lead to some people not presenting the problem in the first place. That evidence is still very uncertain, which is why it is important that we keep a close eye on how it can be monitored. However, the cause is unarguable.

The testimony of the hon. Member for Edinburgh East (Sheila Gilmore) made it clear that when women are given a full chance, they surface everywhere on merit. It is vital to recognise above all that it is only false barriers and discrimination that keep people back.

The hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) drew the important conclusion that we should be vigilant in ensuring not only that people have access to paid work, but that the caring role has a value, particularly in relation to children. That point was picked up by my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) in his passionate speech and his testimony of what he saw on the front line as a soldier. It is vital that the role of carers and lone parents is central in this argument.

My hon. Friend the Member for Battersea (Jane Ellison) touched on an issue that is always difficult to raise in this House, but that it is vital we give a proper hearing to, and that is the absolute abomination of female genital mutilation. I witnessed this issue last year when I visited the hospital in Bo in Sierra Leone. About 82% of the women in Sierra Leone have suffered genital mutilation. It is important to find champions in the older generation of women to help to ensure that younger girls are not subjected to it and to break the cultural expectation, which is driven by the totality of the family, rather than just the men. There are also serious cases of women dying of fistula, which is part of the problem. Going to the fistula clinic in Bo is obviously harrowing, but equally, it is an inspiration for all who are passionate about making the right decisions for development and about driving for results that will make a difference.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Devizes (Claire Perry) for raising the work of the Marlborough Brandt Group in Gunjur in south-eastern Gambia. Although she credited the Department for International Development with funding it, I had yet to become familiar with it. She said it was important to root our efforts to empower women in the recognition that we must focus on women and young girls.

The next in this series of outstanding speeches that I will react to is that of my hon. Friend the Member for Hastings and Rye (Amber Rudd), who gave a balanced speech, despite saying at one point that men were untrainable. She talked about the Barefoot college, which trains women in solar electrification systems that can supply villages with electricity off-grid, and said that 97 villages had trained their own women. I must confess that solar electrification is an area in which I am certainly an untrainable man. That said, it was a powerful example of precisely how we should be thinking.

My hon. Friend the Member for Totnes (Dr Wollaston) raised the difficult but important issue of how it can be acceptable for the Olympic games to have a culture whereby women from Saudi Arabia are not eligible to take part. I undertake to have discussions with the Minister for Sport and the Olympics and to ensure that we come back with a considered response on that important issue, which is about the fundamental right of women not only to enjoy and participate in sport, but to be able to participate in all competitions.

My hon. Friend the Member for Gillingham and Rainham (Rehman Chishti) encouraged us to sign up wholeheartedly to all the UN initiatives and to what UN Women is doing, and he rightly encouraged us to have more women in Parliament. He also focused on how to deliver results, which is totally consonant with the approach that DFID has taken in the reviews of our bilateral and multilateral programmes. The results of Lord Ashdown’s humanitarian and emergency response review will be announced shortly, when he has concluded it.

We also heard from the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Mr MacNeil)—I think I have pronounced that more or less correctly. I had to go on holiday to South Uist last summer to ensure that I had mastered the constituency’s name.

[Mr MacShane]

Say it again.

[Mr O'Brien]

Na h-Eileanan an Iar, I think it is. I will have to take a sip after that.

[Mr MacShane]

I hope that’s water.

[Mr O'Brien]

Unfortunately it is not Budget day, and I am not the Chancellor.

The hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar made the call for immediate funding, and I promise that I shall come on to that. He talked about the need to strengthen women’s participation in conflict resolution, which was a theme of a number of the important contributions today. We in DFID are examining the centrality of women and girls in delivering all aspects of development, which is necessary partly because of their deep adherence to peace and security. As my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham said, we need to enable them to carry out the added role on which they will never let up even if there is total equality—ensuring that children have the very best safety and the best context in which to be raised and thrive. That was an important part of the debate.

The hon. Member for City of Durham (Roberta Blackman-Woods), who spoke at the end of the debate, made a powerful addition to it. She centred her remarks on the fact that our own experience here in the UK is informative for programmes that we design to be effective and drive through results in some of the poorest countries. Those programmes reach some of the most wretched people, above all women, who, as has been said many times, make up 70% to 80% of those affected.

I listened with great care to my hon. Friend the Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Mary Macleod), as she happens to be my sister’s MP. She talked about a range of matters, and she introduced the important point that we must challenge people at all levels. It is right to challenge FTSE 250 companies and recognise that there are as many brilliant business women as there have ever been business men. We need to ensure that they are given exactly the same levels of responsibility for entrepreneurship and management, and that they feel there is always the possibility of progression and never a glass ceiling.

Despite many advances, we are still faced with enormous challenges, particularly in the poorest countries, although I do not in any way want to decry the serious challenges that still exist in our own society. Every year, more than a third of a million women die completely avoidable deaths in pregnancy and childbirth. It is vital that we take steps that will be transformational. We know that women own less than 10% of the world’s property and that, globally, 10 million more girls than boys are out of school. As many as 41 million girls worldwide are still denied a primary education. In some countries, as many as 60% of women say that they have been physically or sexually abused by their intimate partners. That puts in context some of the points about female genital mutilation, important though they are.

Women and girls continue to bear a greatly disproportionate burden of global poverty. We know that gender inequality lies behind the slow progress—very slow in certain places—towards the off-track millennium development goals, particularly MDG 5 on maternal health. Progress is also lagging on most targets under MDG 3 on gender equality, including those on secondary education, political participation and access to paid employment.

An important point was made earlier about water and sanitation, and the fact that it is vital to recognise that if we want to make it likely that girls will stay on into secondary education, we have to provide latrines and fresh water in schools so that they do not feel the embarrassment of the onset of puberty and menstruation. That is often one of the reasons why they leave school for ever and are subjected to an early marriage, which it would have been possible to avoid.

If we are to be transformative, UK support must make a difference, as it is doing. For instance, we supported the Ghana Government to remove health service fees for pregnant women, which led to a 50% increase in the uptake of maternal health services. Since May, the coalition Government have put girls and women at the very heart of development—they are front and centre of all our programmes; a stream running through everything that the Department does—and we are making strong progress. The Prime Minister has appointed my hon. Friend the Minister for Equalities, whom I am pleased to see in the Chamber today, as ministerial champion to lead our efforts to tackle violence against girls and women overseas. She is helping to ensure that we implement our important action plan.

Our work with multilateral partners is vital in helping us to achieve results for girls and women. The UK has played an integral, leadership role in the successful establishment of UN Women, which is why we have a place on the executive board. Let it be said that my right hon. Friend the International Development Secretary and the Conservative party have given full, unequivocal support, not only in opposition, but in government, to accelerating initiatives and leading as champions.

I was asked about the Secretary of State. He met the head of the agency, the former Chilean President Michelle Bachelet the day after her appointment in September and again at Davos in January. Baroness Verma attended the official launch of the agency in New York on 24 February, and everyone is actively encouraging donor support for it. We are in very close contact with the UN Women transition team and are offering at this point $1 million of transitional funding in the current financial year, a high level secondment and any other support that is asked of us, so that we can help to ensure that the agency gets off to the strongest possible start, which answers some of the questions that I was asked in the debate.

As was agreed with Miss Bachelet—the letter was handed over by Baroness Verma on 24 February—the core funding will be announced after the strategic plan, which will be available in June, to ensure that its priorities and the results that it will deliver are detailed. Members on both sides of the House have asked us to ensure that that funding is in place, as is right and reasonable. I hope that no one in the House regards spending UK taxpayers’ money as necessary until there is a clear plan of the results that we seek to achieve for women and girls worldwide. In the meantime, as I said, the transitional funding of $1 million can be accessed, which will ensure fast progress, which is important.

On international women’s day, DFID published its new strategic vision for girls and women—the various documents are on the website—setting out what the UK will do to achieve transformative changes in their lives, which includes saving the lives of at least 50,000 women in pregnancy and childbirth and 250,000 new-born babies; giving at least 10 million women access to modern methods of family planning; getting 9 million children into primary education, at least half of whom will be girls, and 700,000 girls into secondary education; working in at least 15 countries to prevent violence against girls and women; and getting about 2.3 million women access to jobs and 18 million women access to financial services.

It is right that the amendment was selected—I can see the hon. Member for Slough poised to intervene—but it is a matter for the House and not the Government to decide on Select Committee formulation and so forth, as I think she recognises. Therefore, considering how to take such a proposal forward is a matter not for the Government, but for House officials, who will no doubt canvass opinion. If I may give her some encouragement, the key to sustainable, transformational improvement for women and girls here and internationally is chasing those results, and to ensure that we drive for effectiveness. I fully recognise that audits can be a very useful spur for action—soundings will need to be taken on that—but one must recognise that audit processes look backwards. The question that we have been debating today, and on which there has been unanimity across the House, is about how we ensure that we are rooted for the future. Wherever we are on the spectrum, we need to ensure that the improvement is transformational, urgent and accelerated, and UN Women is probably one of the best ways of championing that across the world in all different countries’ circumstances and cultures.

[Fiona Mactaggart]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his generous remarks, and I have been heartened by the support from across the House for my proposal. However, I accept that it is a matter for the House and that we need to engage other people in these discussions, so I intend to withdraw my amendment to ensure that we can finish the debate in the tone in which we have conducted it—absolutely unanimously.

[Mr O'Brien]

I am deeply grateful to the hon. Lady, because she has taken the sense of the House in how the debate has been conducted. We have heard not just excellent speeches, but a great sense of determination to make this new step work in a much more transformational way than before. Without question, Government policy, DFID and other Departments recognise that to achieve the results in empowering girls and women here and across the world, we have to increase the opportunity for girls and women to make informed choices and control the decisions that affect them. We need the laws to protect their rights, and we need to increase the value placed on them by society and the boys and men around them. We will know that we have succeeded only when women and girls themselves tell all of us—that is women and men—with confidence that their lives have improved sustainably and will continue to improve. I fully endorse the motion on the Order Paper.

16:26

[Mrs Laing]

I thank the Minister sincerely on behalf of the whole House—that is an unusual thing to happen—for his support for today’s motion, for his and the Government’s support for the new UN Women agency, and for how he has assiduously taken onboard all of today’s points and made reference to them. No doubt he will take them on board in the future. That means that this has been a useful and constructive debate. I mention in passing that he deserves congratulation on what he has done not as a Minister—well, as a Minister as well—but long before that in setting up the excellent charity, the Malaria Consortium, which does a wonderful job in combating malaria, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. We should bear in mind that it is mostly women and children who die of malaria. On behalf of the House, I praise him for the work he has done.

We have heard this afternoon many speeches in a serious debate on a serious motion that actually means something. For the sake of time, I will not refer to any speeches in particular, except for that from my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart). It is important that we tell him that he is absolutely right; it is true that women are impossible, and it is entirely deliberate. We are also determined and never give up. [Interruption.] I think that was a “Hear, hear” from my hon. Friend.

I am sorry that I cannot support the amendment in the name of the hon. Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart). However, I agree entirely with the intention of the amendment, and she is right to put it before the House. She has drawn attention to the fact that it is up to all of us, as Members of Parliament, in every area in which we are working, and in every Department, to hold the Government to account in tackling inequality and injustice. The House has delivered a strong message this afternoon that this Parliament is determined to fulfil its international duties in driving forward the millennium development goals, by empowering women for the greater good not just of women, but of the societies everywhere in the world in which they live and where they can have influence.

Here at home, new Members of the House will not appreciate that in recent years we have made enormous breakthroughs. I pay tribute to some of the hon. Ladies in the Chamber this afternoon for their work in ensuring that gender equality is taken seriously in this place. It is not so long ago that it was not taken seriously. Some of us have had to fight very hard to get to where we are now. That does not mean that we have won—we have a long way to go—but now most Members of Parliament, if not all, see the point of marking international women’s day, and that equality is worth it not just for its own sake, but for the sake of utilising the talents and abilities of the whole population of our country, not just half of it. The message is simple: where women are oppressed, society suffers; where women are set free, society prospers.

[Fiona Mactaggart]

I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House recognises that around the world women continue to suffer discrimination and injustice simply because of their gender; notes that underlying inequality between men and women is the driving force that results in 70 per cent. of the world’s poor being female; recognises that empowering women will drive progress towards all the Millennium Development Goals; welcomes the launch of UN Women, the UN Agency for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women, on 1 January 2011; recognises that the agency is an example of UN reform to improve efficiency and co-ordination; and calls on the Government to provide support to the new agency to ensure it has the resources required to end the discrimination that keeps millions of women in poverty.

Inter-Parliamentary Scrutiny (EU Foreign, Defence and Security Policy)

Thursday 10th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

I should inform the House that the amendment in the name of the hon. Member for North Dorset (Mr Walter) has not been selected.

16:32

[Richard Ottaway (Croydon South) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House pays tribute to the work of the European Security and Defence Assembly and the members of the UK Delegation; notes the continuing need for coordinated scrutiny by national parliaments of intergovernmental activities under the EU’s foreign, defence and security policies; welcomes the report of the Foreign Affairs Committee, Future inter-parliamentary scrutiny of EU foreign, defence and security policy, HC 697; and approves its approach to delivering that scrutiny.

Having just listened to the passionate speech by my good friend the hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mrs Laing), I feel a bit of a spoilsport in bringing on such a dry subject, but that is democracy. Anyway, I congratulate her on her speech.

The Select Committee on Foreign Affairs report that we are debating today puts forward a proposal for intergovernmental scrutiny of the EU common foreign and security policy, including the common security and defence policy, following the demise of the Western European Union, including its parliamentary assembly, in mid-2011. Along with other national Parliaments, this House finds itself having to have this debate today because it was left somewhat in the lurch by the decision of national Governments to dissolve the Western European Union. The WEU has carried out active and serious international parliamentary oversight of the EU’s common security and defence policy for many years. I would like to take this opportunity to pay tribute to the work of the assembly and the UK delegation to it. In particular, I would mention my hon. Friend the Member for North Dorset (Mr Walter), as the president of the assembly and leader of the UK delegation.

Following the decision to dissolve the WEU, member state Governments, including in the UK, have encouraged national Parliaments to come up with successor arrangements to the WEU assembly, to provide continuing inter-parliamentary scrutiny. In response, an ad hoc committee was formed comprising me, as Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr Cash), as Chairman of the European Scrutiny Committee, my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Hampshire (Mr Arbuthnot), as Chairman of the Select Committee on Defence, my hon. Friend the Member for North Dorset, and Lords Roper and Teverson, as Chairs of the House of Lords Select Committee on European Union and its Sub-Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Development Policy. We met and decided to refer the matter to the Speaker and invite him to make an appointment to chair an ad hoc committee to address the issue.

Somewhat to our surprise, the Speaker declined to get involved in this debate. As a result, the ad hoc committee met again and considered what proposals to put forward. A proposal, which subsequently became the basis of the report that we are debating today, was agreed by the Members present and endorsed by their Committees. Unfortunately, due to an administrative cock-up, my hon. Friend the Member for North Dorset was not present, but his evidence was taken into account as, fortunately, he had given us written evidence. We decided that the best way to proceed would be for the two Houses to adopt a formal public position on the arrangements for the WEU Assembly’s successor, and for a relevant proposal to be presented to each House in the form of a Select Committee report.

The House is today being asked to endorse an approach to this issue which is not the Foreign Affairs Committee’s alone; our deliberations form the basis of the report, but it has been endorsed by three Select Committees: the FAC, the European Scrutiny Committee and the Defence Committee. I am grateful to those Committees, their Chairmen and their members for their co-operation. The House should also be made aware that the proposal being put forward in the FAC report has also been put forward by the House of Lords European Union Committee in a report of its own. That Committee will ask the full House of Lords to endorse its report, but it is waiting for the Commons to reach a decision and to act.

[Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)]

I have been looking at the formal minutes of 12 January of the decisions to which my hon. Friend has referred. Can he explain why an amendment proposing that this matter should be decided on a free vote was turned down by the Committee on his casting vote? Surely, if ever anything was free vote business, it is the question of whether Parliament supports the line being taken by the Select Committee.

[Richard Ottaway]

I just took the view that a free vote was not appropriate. It was a simple subjective judgment; it was as straightforward as that.

The key objective of the report and of the motion before the House today is to ensure that the WEU Assembly has a successor. We want scrutiny of intergovernmental activity to continue with national Parliaments in the lead. I say to the House, however, that if national Parliaments do not get their act together, there is a risk that inter-parliamentary scrutiny will wither and that the European Parliament will, by default, take over the main role in this field. There is therefore a responsibility on national Parliaments in this respect.

[Mr James Clappison (Hertsmere) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making an important point. Does he agree that, like it or not, there is going to be much more to scrutinise, owing to the provisions of the treaty of Lisbon, the advent of the European External Action Service and the new clause in the Lisbon treaty that provides for additional measures in the field of common European defence?

[Richard Ottaway]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I shall allude obliquely to the point that he has made. While he was making his intervention, I had the opportunity to consider further the intervention of my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope). I can inform him that I decided that the report should remain silent, rather than making any recommendation on whipping.

The point that I was about to make is that we want co-operation with the European Parliament, and, in our proposals, it would be a full member of the proposed conference. Like it or not, the Lisbon treaty has made the European Parliament a more powerful actor in certain areas of EU external relations. Whatever our views on the European Parliament, it would be in everyone’s interests for national Parliaments and the European Parliament to work together in this context, but—and it is an important “but”—decision making in the common foreign and security policy remains intergovernmental, and inter-parliamentary scrutiny of that decision making must reflect that. That is the basis of the proposal put forward in the report. National Parliaments would remain clearly in the lead, with the Parliaments of the rotating EU Council presidency countries chairing the proposed conference and taking organisational responsibilities.

[Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)]

It is all very well having scrutiny, but if it does not lead to action, it is fairly pointless. Will my hon. Friend note that, on 19 February 2009, the European Parliament decided, by resolution, to have something called Synchronised Armed Forces Europe, which would introduce something that looks remarkably like a military covenant that has been codified? This links into the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Hertsmere (Mr Clappison). As we debate these subjects in the House, and as we do so even more in the future, our debates could be eclipsed by what is going on in Europe, yet the House has not, to my knowledge, debated the decision of 19 February 2009.

[Richard Ottaway]

I think I follow my hon. Friend’s point. My point is that unless we get our act together so that Parliaments across Europe adopt the proposals, there will be no counterweight to what is coming from the European Parliament, to which he just referred.

[Mr Robert Walter (North Dorset) (Con)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way; I might be able to help him. Early in 2009, the European Parliament passed a resolution, paragraph 74 of which

“Recalls that the European Parliament is the only supranational institution with a legitimate claim to exercise democratic supervision over the EU’s security and defence policy”.

[Richard Ottaway]

I am sorry, but I missed the beginning of my hon. Friend’s intervention. Will he clarify who made that point?

[Mr Walter]

It was made in a motion to the European Parliament, which was then passed.

[Richard Ottaway]

The European Parliament is free to pass all the motions it likes. The truth of the matter is that the Lisbon treaty invites national Parliaments to exercise a scrutiny function over European foreign, defence and security policy. What we are doing is putting forward a proposal. If we cannot agree on it, we cannot influence the debate—going on in Belgium, not in Brussels—and we will not have a seat at the table. What I hope will happen today is that the UK Parliament will come up with a proposal to lead the charge in providing a counterweight to the European Parliament.

[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)]

The hon. Gentleman is aware that these discussions have gone on for quite a long time. In fact, they pre-date the re-establishment of the Foreign Affairs Committee after the last election. I was involved in discussions in late 2009 and early 2010. I would like to stress that this is a very important statement of intent by our national Parliament to say to certain people in the European Parliament who have certain aspirations, “Get your tanks off our lawn; national Parliaments are in the lead on this matter, and we are going to remain in the lead on it. We are working with you, but you are not going to get away with the claim that the European Parliament is the sole democratic institution.”

[Richard Ottaway]

The hon. Gentleman makes his point eloquently. It is an important subject. Perhaps 10 years ago, this debate would have taken place in a packed Chamber, which illustrates how the world has moved on in considering some of these issues.

[Dr Murrison]

In support of the point made by the hon. Member for Ilford South (Mike Gapes), I note that Guido Westerwelle said at the Munich security conference in February last year:

“The long-term goal is the establishment of a European army under full parliamentary control.”

I share the dismay that today’s Chamber is not full with Members concerned about such remarks being made by very senior politicians in Europe, and particularly in Germany.

[Richard Ottaway]

My hon. Friend makes his point well and I rather share the sentiments behind it. For the benefit of those who bring up illustrations of the weight that the European Parliament places on these issues, however, may I draw attention to some of the details of the Foreign Affairs Committee’s report?

[Mr Wayne David (Caerphilly) (Lab)]

Before the hon. Gentleman moves on from consideration of the European Parliament I must say that I take the points that a number of Members have raised about it. I find the recommendation before us somewhat surprising in its suggestion that the European Parliament should be involved in the new body, which should be for national Parliaments primarily. Would it not be better simply to acknowledge that the European Parliament has its own distinct mode, but that national Parliaments have theirs as well?

[Richard Ottaway]

It was felt that the European Parliament has some expertise in this area, but the hon. Gentleman leads me neatly on to the details of our proposals that I was about to set out. The European Parliament would have the same sized delegation to the proposed conference as all other Parliaments, which is six members. With the 20-plus members of the EU each having six members, and only six from the European Parliament, it is clear that the European Parliament will not be in a dominant position. I will come back to the rival proposal in a few moments.

What is proposed is that, as set out in the Lisbon treaty, we establish an EU inter-parliamentary conference on foreign affairs, defence and security, to be known as COFADS, which would meet twice a year. Its members would be the EU national Parliaments and the European Parliament; the Parliaments of the EU candidate countries—Croatia, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Iceland, Montenegro and Turkey—would be invited to attend as observers. The conference would be able, but not obliged, to adopt conclusions by consensus, which would not be binding on participants or their Parliaments. It would replace the current informal conferences of Foreign Affairs Committee Chairs and Defence Committee Chairs, known respectively as COFACC and CODCC.

The urgency of today’s debate is connected with the fact that the Assembly of the Western European Union has already held its last regular plenary session and will hold an extraordinary final session in May. The forum that is trying to establish agreement on a future inter-parliamentary scrutiny committee is the EU Speakers’ conference, which will meet on 4 and 5 April. It will consider a proposal presented by the Belgian presidency, on which comments are invited. They must be submitted by 14 March, hence the need for the debate to be held today.

The Speakers’ conference is already aware of the Foreign Affairs Committee report and the parallel report from the House of Lords. If the House of Commons approves the Foreign Affairs Committee report today, we will of course make that known to the conference, and the Speaker or his representative at the conference will be able to refer to the motion. Given the United Kingdom’s importance in relation to European foreign, defence and security issues, the express view of the Westminster Parliament could be expected to carry considerable weight.

The Belgian presidency proposal—the rival proposal—would put the European Parliament in a stronger position than the proposal in the FAC report. Under the Belgian proposal, the European Parliament would be able to send up to a third of the participants in the new conference. It would co-chair the rotating presidency country Parliament, and it would provide the secretariat. In my judgment, that is not the kind of national Parliament-led forum that we want. It is not in keeping with the intergovernmental nature of the common foreign and security policy. Today’s debate, and the motion, constitute a key part of the effort to get that message across to the Speakers’ conference.

The FAC report has been widely circulated, and efforts are under way to seek support actively. I am able to report, with pleasure, that either through the passage of resolutions or through correspondence, the French, Swedish, Czech and Portuguese Parliaments, or committees thereof, have already indicated their support for the model proposed in the FAC report rather than the proposal from the Belgian presidency. It would therefore be a matter of some international difficulty, not to mention embarrassment, if the House were to decline to endorse the approach that we have taken.

[Mr Chope]

Is not the problem with the approach being taken by my hon. Friend and his Committee that it excludes parliamentarians from non-EU European NATO countries, whose inclusion was a specific requirement laid down by the Minister for Europe when he first responded to this process?

[Richard Ottaway]

My hon. Friend has made a good point. The candidate countries will, of course, be invited to attend as observers and to participate fully. Given that there will be no votes in the committee, they would in practice be fully engaged.

[Mr Chope]

I think that my hon. Friend has missed the point. We are not talking only about candidate countries; we are also talking about non-EU members of NATO, such as Norway. I am not aware that Norway has any aspiration to join the EU.

[Richard Ottaway]

My hon. Friend is quite right. There is also the question of Albania, which is to be resolved but which is one of the issues that the Speakers’ conference will have to address.

I leave it to the Minister to set out the Government’s position, but I will say that the Minister for Europe participated in several of the meetings that I have held with my colleagues on this issue. I thank him for his co-operation, and thank his officials for their help.

When national Governments disbanded the WEU, they also effectively withdrew their funding and left Parliaments responsible for finding the resources that would enable them to continue their inter-parliamentary scrutiny. In formulating our proposals for a successor, we have had our eye very much on the international budgetary situation, and the need to have scrutiny while setting that against considerations of cost and the risk of being seen to be establishing a new EU talking shop. Keeping costs to a minimum has been a guiding principle of our proposals, and that underpins our wish to see as much as possible done through existing institutions, the national Parliaments and the COSAC secretariat.

That is the approach that the Foreign Affairs Committee considers appropriate, and I urge the House to support the motion.

16:50

[Mr Denis MacShane (Rotherham) (Lab)]

This really is a pretty shoddy second-rate shambles. We are going to betray the Norwegians, our closest allies and friends, we are reducing the Turks, the biggest single military contributor to NATO in terms of personnel, to observer status—I suppose they can bring in the coffee—and we have not got support from one major EU country. The Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee rattled off a few—

[Mike Gapes]

Is France not a major country?

[Mr MacShane]

France has only just rejoined NATO. It does not have quite the same weight in NATO councils as ourselves, Germany and Italy. We have a real problem.

We could have been a lot more robust about preserving the Western European Union. The idea was put to me when I was a Minister, but it was one of those topics that just get put back in the box in the hope that it dies. The last Labour Government and their Foreign and Commonwealth Office team should not be awfully proud of that. The WEU was not the greatest organisation in the world, but it did bring together serious, real-life parliamentarians from countries that were directly involved in military activities. Instead, we have now got an absolute disaster of a sequence of proposals, of which I worry most about the proposal from the presidency of the EU, which is currently held by Belgium. I do not know where that proposal comes from because Belgium does not have a Government to put a proposal forward.

We heard some interesting comments in this week’s debate on the EU referendum Bill from the hon. Member for Stone (Mr Cash), the Chairman of the European Scrutiny Committee. He started animadverting on something called a non-paper and treated the concept with immense scorn, but a non-paper or aide memoire is quite a common bit of diplomatic terminology. However, this is the first time that the current House of Commons has had to deal with a very major proposal relegating its importance, and coming from a non-Government.

I hope we can be robust on this issue, because let us be quite clear: the Belgian presidency proposal sets up a new committee of which six members will come from the Westminster Parliament—both Houses—and 54 from the European Parliament, so it will have nine times more representatives on the committee. Having spent some time in the couloirs of European Union decision making, let me assure Members that a proposal put forward by the country holding the EU presidency carries a lot more weight than a resolution of any particular committee of any particular national Parliament, much as we all respect, love and admire our own Foreign Affairs Committee.

[Mr Chope]

The situation is even worse than the right hon. Gentleman describes, because the Belgian presidency proposal is that each Parliament would have four representatives, while the European Parliament would have 54.

[Mr MacShane]

There we are. I never get to eat as many Belgian chocolates as I would wish, and the amount is going down minute by minute. I thought the figure was six, but now it is four, which amounts to 13 or 14 times less representation than that of the European Parliament.

The Foreign Affairs Committee report is what the French would call a nombriliste discussion, which is to say a lot of navel gazing. It is a discussion about different bits of the axis between your Chair, Madam Deputy Speaker, and the Woolsack. There is some reference to the Speaker not appointing a Chair. I am very interested in what the constitutional and parliamentary reasons for, or implications of, that are, but this is about what we say to each other in three Select Committees in this House and two in the other place. What is not on the record is what we should have been doing. We are utterly incapable of doing this, although we actually did start debating the matter a bit on Tuesday. I am talking about working out how we connect this House to other national Parliaments and parliamentarians in order to discuss EU business.

It is no use just sitting on endless piles of the Daily Mail and The Daily Telegraph in London or telling each other across the Chamber about these wretched things called the European Union and the European Parliament, which some hon. Members do not like. We need to reorganise how we link up with many like-minded members of national Parliaments to put in place a more effective national parliamentary network to look at how the affairs of the European Union can better mesh and integrate with the work of national Parliaments. That is because, in essence, a huge transfer of authority is taking place away from the now defunct WEU to the European Union and the European Parliament. We do, however, have the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, which is a very worthwhile outfit, to which many of the member states that will now be excluded can come and others can come by invitation.

We are seeing that Europe is completely unable to respond to the Libyan crisis in the southern Mediterranean with a degree of muscular soft power or slightly less than full military hard power. In our debates, we find that the new structure being proposed is expected to provide the European parliamentary supervision of exactly the decisions that are or are not being taken on Libya and the other north African countries in revolt. A Heads of Government meeting will take place tomorrow, and I wish the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary and his team well in coming up with a policy that can connect, but it will have to have some parliamentary oversight. We are already being told no to war. We are being told that NATO must not intervene. We can sense a protest building out there, whereby if this country were to be involved in some kind of decision, with or without UN sanctions, that might produce a public opinion backlash. Again, we have given up adequate parliamentary supervision and discussion of these issues. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for North Dorset (Mr Walter), who valiantly tried to keep the WEU alive, made all sorts of concessions and worked with colleagues, but was steamrollered by Whitehall.

[Mr Walter]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his kind words. This relates to the point about responding to a crisis such as the one in Libya. Let us suppose that we were to follow the Foreign Affairs Committee’s recommendation, to which I shall refer in a moment, if I catch your eye, Madam Deputy Speaker. If that Committee had met three weeks ago, it would be another six months before it could express any opinion on our collective response to the Libyan crisis.

[Mr MacShane]

I accept that fully and it is true of all inter-parliamentary oversight committees. We are, willy-nilly, increasingly having to discuss how, collectively, at European level, we express our common foreign policy goals when we decide what they are. Yesterday, the Prime Minister slapped down the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) when he called for an in/out EU referendum. The Prime Minister said, “We are staying in the EU and that is it.” I am glad that he said that after five years of encouraging the hopes of Eurosceptics, but if it is the case, this House has to work out how best to take part in debates and decisions on what Europe is going to do—we cannot wish it away.

I am not criticising the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee or the officials who have worked on this report, because it is probably the best they could manage of a bad job, but it is exactly a reflection of our House’s inability to network and create alternative sources of democratic parliamentary legitimacy and oversight for what is done at European level.

[Mr Clappison]

rose—

[Mr MacShane]

I am trying to finish my remarks, but I shall give way one last time.

[Mr Clappison]

I am listening with great interest to the right hon. Gentleman. I agree with his analysis that more decisions are being taken at European level. Does he think that that process enjoys the democratic consent of the British people?

[Mr MacShane]

Until such time as we elect a Government—coalition or majority—who decide to withdraw from the European Union, I have to say yes. That is what the Prime Minister said yesterday: we are in the EU, we have to make it work and that is the end of the matter. We are in NATO, the World Trade Organisation, the convention on the law of the sea and lots of different treaty organisations that take decisions that impact on us and we have to make them work.

I am worried. One cannot call the WEU back into being but I am extremely worried that we are sending a signal to our friends, particularly in Turkey, about the reduction of their status on European defence matters, all the more so as the Mediterranean boils up, if I may use that metaphor. I resent deeply the message we are sending to Norway. Frankly, Albania needs to sort out its own parliamentary incoherence and misbehaviours before I am willing to pat it on the back, fond as I am of the Albanian people in that country and in Kosovo.

Twice in one week, with a small number attending—a worrying point—we have seen the absolutely wrong and incoherent way that this House of Commons deals with the European question. Until we have a proper debate and rethink our structures, we will always be running after the event and will have to try to persuade a non-Government not to push forward with a new structure that will reduce the Commons to bag-carriers for a much greater number of colleagues in the European Parliament.

17:00

[Mr Robert Walter (North Dorset) (Con)]

May I start by thanking my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon South (Richard Ottaway) and the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs for the work that they have done on this subject? As hon. Members will gather in a moment, I do not entirely agree with their conclusions, which are very similar to the work of Lord Roper and his Select Committee on the European Union in the House of Lords. May I also express a slight concern that a number of my colleagues who are members of the WEU Assembly, representing this Parliament, might have been here had it not been for the fact that we had only 48 hours’ notice? I and my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) were involved in other meetings and have had to return to take part in this debate. Let us move on, however.

I shall briefly give the background. In December 2009, I was telephoned by the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), the then Minister for Europe, who told me that he wanted to save €2.3 million, which was the United Kingdom’s contribution to the WEU—to the whole organisation, not just the Assembly. The Assembly’s cost to the United Kingdom was considerably less than that. The UK was therefore seeking to renounce the Brussels treaty.

[Mr Clappison]

Cost is a very important factor and we all need to consider carefully the costs of what we do. Has my hon. Friend seen the reports that the European External Action Service and the High Representative are taking on additional public relations consultants at a cost of €10 billion? Has my hon. Friend done any maths to see whether the cost to which he has just referred might be much less than the cost of some additional spin doctors for the EEAS?

[Mr Walter]

I can tell my hon. Friend that the entire global cost of the WEU organisation—the body located in Brussels as well as the Assembly in Paris—was considerably less than the figure he mentions for PR staff for the EEAS. In fact, the total bill to the United Kingdom Parliament for the Parliamentary Assembly was about €1 million.

[Mr MacShane]

Not even a banker’s bonus!

[Mr Walter]

Indeed.

The WEU’s history goes back to 1948 and the Brussels treaty. The treaty was amended in 1954, which is when the Assembly came into effect. One very good thing about the treaty is its article 5—a common defence pact that, as it is not in any way replicated in the Lisbon treaty, we will lose as a result of the WEU and Brussels treaty ending in June. The Assembly, which was part of the treaty, has evolved over the years and has been known as the European Security and Defence Assembly for some time. It has brought together parliamentarians from all 27 European Union member states as well as non-EU NATO members in Europe, which have had associate status within the body. As such, they have been able to speak and vote but have not contributed to the budget. Eventually, as a result of the discussions I have mentioned, on 30 March 2010—the very last day before the general election on which business could be introduced in the House—a written ministerial statement from the then Foreign Secretary indicated that the United Kingdom intended to withdraw from the Brussels treaty. I think the other signatories to the treaty must have had some notice of that because the following day all 10 of them indicated that they too would cease operations before the end of June 2011.

Those statements and a statement that the EU Foreign Affairs Council made a month later all paid tribute to the Assembly and said that its work should be continued by another inter-parliamentary body and that it should involve the non-EU NATO members in that parliamentary scrutiny. We all believed that was a way forward but, sadly, not much has happened since then. It has been a considerable frustration to me and my colleagues from all Parliaments across Europe that nobody has given any guidance on what we should do next. The EU Speakers Conference decided to take an initiative and ask its Belgian presidency to report on what the way forward should be. It was to report next month but, as we are all aware, Belgium had an election just after our election and although it took us five days to form a coalition, the Belgians are still working on it. As a result, there has been little action in Belgium on this matter.

However, our Select Committee on Foreign Affairs has produced a report, under the chairmanship of my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon South, and has—quite rightly, because it needs democratic legitimacy—put it before the House. In the report, my hon. Friend repeats an error to which I have just referred. Paragraph 3, on termination of the WEU, points out that

“the then Government announced that it intended to withdraw…from the WEU”

and

“commented that the WEU was ‘no longer relevant to today’s European security architecture’”.

[Richard Ottaway]

That is a quote.

[Mr Walter]

It is an absolute quote and I am not sure that I agree with it. Although it is factually correct, I am not sure that the WEU was no longer relevant to today’s European security architecture. We have just entered a number of agreements with France on defence, which are a form of what the Lisbon treaty calls “structured co-operation”. But that is another matter.

The report notes that

“the role being played by the Assembly did not justify its cost to the UK of over €2 million per year.”

As I pointed out just now, the Assembly costs were not €2 million a year; they were barely €1 million to the UK.

[The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Mr Jeremy Browne)]

May I inform the House about the costs as I understand them? Annual membership of the Western European Union costs the British taxpayer €2.3 million, so after withdrawal the United Kingdom will no longer have to pay the full €2.3 million subscription, although it will continue to be liable for a share of the cost of WEU staff pensions. We will recoup some money from the sale of the WEU building in Paris, which the UK part-owns with other member states.

[Mr Walter]

I am grateful to the Minister for making those points. My point was that the €2.3 million is the cost of the WEU organisation, not the cost of the Parliamentary Assembly of the WEU, which is half that. I am delighted by the Minister’s assumption that the United Kingdom will gain from the sale of the building in Paris, because there had been rumours that it was to be gifted to the French Government. As holder of the presidency of the Assembly, we took the precaution of having an independent valuation of the building; it is worth at least €50 million, so the UK should benefit somewhat from its sale.

The Foreign Affairs Committee has been diligent in looking at the structures. Paragraph 5 of the European Union Committee report refers to some of the existing structures:

“We backed a ‘conference of committees’-type institution to replace the WEU Assembly, comprising a combined and enlarged version of the current informal Conference of Foreign Affairs Committee Chairpersons (COFACC) and Conference of Defence Committee Chairpersons (CODCC).”

The only problem with that is that, to my knowledge, the Conference of Defence Committee Chairpersons has not met for at least the past two years, so we are not actually replacing an effective body.

[Kate Hoey (Vauxhall) (Lab)]

It was interesting to hear that list of terminology. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the only way forward for dealing with the European Union is to put the matter to the British people in a referendum, so that we can have a debate in this country and decide whether we want to stay in that hugely bureaucratic organisation, or leave it and become an independent country again?

[Mr Walter]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her intervention, although I think it goes a little beyond the scope of the motion. However, we and the Assembly of which I have the honour to be president are dealing with what are almost entirely intergovernmental structures consisting of European Union member states and other states in Europe such as Turkey, which has been mentioned several times, Norway or Iceland. We come together as willing partners in collective defence and security operations. Community institutions are not in any way relevant to our debate today; we are debating intergovernmental functions that are entered into freely.

My final point on the Foreign Affairs Committee report relates to the reference to the EU Speakers’ Conference, which will take place in April. The Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee has already referred to the Belgian text—Belgium holds the EU presidency—which proposes an inter-parliamentary conference for common foreign and security policy and common security and defence policy, composed of delegations of the national Parliaments of EU member states. Paragraph 2 of that text suggests:

“Each national parliamentary delegation shall consist of four members.”

Paragraph 3 requests that

“The total number of delegates from the European Parliament shall not exceed one third of the members of the Conference.”

Therefore, if there are 108 members from national Parliaments, there will be 54 from the European Parliament.

On a reasonably rough approximation the UK and France together contribute around 60% of Europe’s defence budget, and we will have eight votes between us. However, the European Parliament, which makes absolutely no contribution to Europe’s defence budget, has no troops at its disposal, does not buy any aircraft carriers or other warships, aircraft or fighters, and has no troops deployed anywhere in the world, will have 54 votes. Is that the right proportion in terms of democratic accountability? I hasten to suggest that it is probably an imbalance. I am not averse to the European Parliament having some role and that its voice should be heard, but the presumption that its voice should somehow be considerably greater than that of the United Kingdom, France and others that contribute to Europe’s defence is nonsense.

The Belgian text goes on to suggest:

“The Conference shall have its seat in the European Parliament in Brussels. Meetings shall be organized twice a year in Brussels or in the country holding the rotating Council Presidency…The meetings shall jointly be presided over by the national Parliament of the Member State holding the rotating Council Presidency and the European Parliament.”

That means that responsibility is now to be divided 50:50. Paragraph 9 proposes:

“The secretariat of the Conference shall be provided by the European Parliament.”

The agenda will be set by the European Parliament, the conference will meet in the European Parliament and one third of the conference’s members will be Members of the European Parliament. My view is that that body will simply be an extraordinary meeting of the European Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee: twice a year, it will invite Members of national Parliaments to come along to Brussels to hear what it has been doing. It will not be exercising genuine parliamentary scrutiny.

[Mr Chope]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. Does he accept that what is proposed is inconsistent with article 10 of protocol 1 of the treaty on the European Union, which mentions a conference of parliamentary committees submitting contributions for the attention of the European Parliament? That is completely different from what is being proposed by the Belgian presidency.

[Mr Walter]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I do not want to become too legalistic, but I will refer to a number of principles that I and colleagues have laid down that suggest we should have a much stronger inter-parliamentary standing conference. The principles on which we based that suggestion are all entirely consistent with the Lisbon treaty, which I know my hon. Friend and others were not enthusiasts for; none the less it is where we are.

Article 12 of the Lisbon treaty states:

“National Parliaments contribute actively to the good functioning of the Union.”

Article 10 of protocol states:

“A conference”—

which my hon. Friend has just referred to—

“of Parliamentary Committees for Union affairs may…organise interparliamentary conferences on specific topics, in particular to debate matters of common foreign and security policy, including common security and defence policy.”

The most important words in the treaty are in declaration 14, which states:

“The Conference also notes that the provisions covering the Common Foreign and Security Policy do not…increase the role of the European Parliament.”

In fact, the European Parliament has therefore no new competence as a result of the Lisbon treaty, but if we read the Parliament’s documents we find that it assumes that it does have that new role. Even if it does not, it is jolly well going to grab it and take it, because national Parliaments are doing nothing about it. That is why we need a strong functioning body. Madam Deputy Speaker, I know that you do not propose to call my amendment, but the spirit of my proposal was that we should have a much stronger body than that which the Foreign Affairs Committee proposes.

We propose a standing conference of inter-parliamentary representatives, which would carry on the work of the European Security and Defence Assembly, the Assembly of the Western European Union, enabling us to have effective inter-parliamentary scrutiny that would embrace at least the ground that it covered and include the five non-EU European NATO members, who provide considerable support to the work of the European Union and, collectively, to European defence.

We believe that that inter-parliamentary standing conference could be based in Brussels. It could have been based in Paris, but the Minister tells us that we are going to sell the building, so it cannot. The conference’s prime role would be to engage on European foreign affairs and defence issues with the Council of the European Union, its supporting and executive agencies, member Governments and Parliaments as appropriate. Recommendations and opinions would be made, but they would not necessarily bind national Parliaments.

The Council of the European Union, and especially the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, would make regular reports to that standing conference.

[Mr Clappison]

My hon. Friend has made some very powerful points throughout his speech, and the last two have been the most powerful of all. Is there not a danger that, if there is no such body as he describes, there will be a gap into which the European Parliament will be unable to resist the temptation to move?

[Mr Walter]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, because the alternative, which is before us today, is a body that would meet for one-and-a-half days every six months. The security and defence sub-committee of the European Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee meets approximately every fortnight, and it has a large secretariat and research staff working for it. It will easily work its way in to provide such scrutiny and, because it is located in Brussels, summon the High Representative or the director-general of the EU military staff, who until recently was a British general and who has now been, I am pleased to say, promoted to the office of Black Rod in the other place. That alternative would be an absolute negation of what we believe to be parliamentary scrutiny, in that the European Parliament would take on that role.

Before I sit down, I want to deal with the question of funding, because that is the one argument against our having such a standing conference, which would have a small secretariat and perhaps two committees as opposed to the existing Assembly’s six. Staff at the existing Assembly have worked out the following figure in detail, however, and the feeling is that we could run an entire inter-parliamentary body, based in Brussels with a small specialist secretariat, for about €1.5 million. That would mean, spread out among the 27 member states, that the contribution of the United Kingdom would probably be about €100,000 at the most. Let me tell the House that in the 2011 Budget, this Parliament’s contribution to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly—of which I have no criticism—was €465,845, and that was just towards its administration. The contribution to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe for this current year is €267,035. The contribution towards our proposed standing conference—a body to scrutinise areas of activity where our armed forces are putting their lives at risk—would have been barely €100,000, or considerably less than £100,000. I therefore do not believe that cost should be the determining factor in this.

We should have a strong inter-parliamentary conference that involves Members of national Parliaments who have an interest in defence matters, drawn from our national foreign affairs and defence committees, among others. None of the members of the current Assembly, bar two or three, are members of their national committees, but that does not mean that they do not have expertise in these areas. The acknowledged need for continued inter-parliamentary scrutiny of common security and defence policy involving the 27 member states, plus the five non-EU members, is beyond question. As the Foreign Affairs Committee has indicated, there are different ways of approaching this question, but we need a much stronger framework within which to work.

17:27

[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)]

I have some sympathy with the hon. Member for North Dorset (Mr Walter), who obviously feels passionately about the organisation that he has been chairing, which is about to go out of existence. I can understand his frustration. I appreciate many of the points that he made, particularly his attack on those in the European Parliament whose view of their organisation is that it is somehow superior to national Parliaments and should be the body that scrutinises defence, security and foreign policy matters to the minimisation, or potential exclusion, of national Parliaments. That is something that we have to confront.

This debate is really about how we put into practice the Lisbon treaty requirement that there be a mechanism within the European Union based on national parliamentary committees coming together and co-operating to deal with matters that are dealt with on a national co-operative basis, not a communautaire basis. There is a deep philosophical difference in the views of those Members of the European Parliament. The Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee and I were in discussion with them when we visited Brussels in September. Some of them have a view, and a model, that goes even further than the paper produced by the Belgian Council presidency—a federalist view that says that the European Parliament is the supreme democratic body on all matters to do with the European Union.

We need to be very clear about this. There will be a negotiation, and the position that our Parliament and other national Parliaments put forward will probably not be its final outcome. It is therefore important that we lay down some principles about where we are starting from. The work that the Foreign Affairs Committee has done in this Parliament began in the previous Parliament when I was discussing this with the then Chairman of the European Scrutiny Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Michael Connarty), just before the general election. We had been presented with this situation, and we were trying to find a way to secure some accountability and a mechanism, knowing that Parliament was going to be dissolved and that it would be some months before new Committees were established. We were trying at that point to get some initiatives based on the successful work over several years of the Conference of Foreign Affairs Committee Chairpersons, or COFACC, and the Conference of Community and European Affairs Committees of Parliaments of the European Union, or COSAC, which are the two bodies that bring together the representatives of Foreign Affairs Committees and European Scrutiny Committees periodically to discuss common concerns. That is not a perfect model and it probably needs some beefing up and development.

We must be aware of the danger that there are people in the European Parliament who want a permanent, well-funded secretariat based in the European Parliament, serviced by people who serve its Committee on Foreign Affairs. Those people have an ideological dispensation towards a certain approach to foreign, security and defence policy matters. We need to find a mechanism that takes account of the clear point in the Lisbon treaty that the body should be based not on the European Parliament, but on bringing together the national Parliaments. After it is established, the national Parliaments might decide to co-opt or bring in representatives who attended the meetings of the assembly of the Western European Union. They might also decide, in time, to establish a secretariat of their own to assist the rotating troika model that we have put forward in the report. Basing the mechanism on the rotation may well not be perfect. From time to time, there is a presidency country that has more resources and a greater ability to host such meetings.

From my experience of attending COFACC meetings over five years, that is a very good model. We did not have interminable discussions over the entrails of commas and full stops in meaningless resolutions that would never go anywhere, but had a real exchange of views. People such as Mr Solana, Cathy Ashton, and the Foreign Minister or Prime Minister of the country that had the Council presidency came before us, answered questions and were accountable to the spectrum of opinion from the 27 member states.

Today, we frankly either have to agree to this report or have no position. If we have no position, we are effectively undermining our friends in like-minded countries. I had discussions with the Speaker of the Portuguese Parliament in January last year when the Foreign Affairs Committee visited Lisbon and when this idea was first developed. Concerns have been expressed in like-minded European Union countries about the aggrandisement, or even quasi-megalomania, of some in the European Parliament in relation to how these matters should go forward post the Lisbon treaty. If we have no position, we will undermine the work of our partner countries that are on the same wavelength as us, to which the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee referred. I intervened on my right hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Mr MacShane), who is not present at the moment, to point out that France is not an insignificant country in the European Union. We have friends in a diverse group of countries, including Finland and Portugal, who hold similar views about how defence, security and foreign policy should be scrutinised and how accountability should be dealt with.

We have not reached the final position, because there will have to be negotiation and there will probably be an almighty row. People in the European Parliament who do not like the suggested model will clearly resist it. Some countries, such as Belgium, will do so—I could make a joke about chocolate soldiers, but I will not, because it is an old joke from a previous decade. The Belgians are not alone—there are people in Germany, Italy and other European countries who have a similar attitude to the European Parliament and its aspirations. We need to come to a view today that helps the debate and clarifies it for the future.

[Mr Chope]

We do not need to come to a view today in adopting the Committee’s report. At the beginning of April, Mr Deputy Speaker, the hon. Member for Ribble Valley (Mr Evans), will represent Mr Speaker at the conference. I am sure that he will faithfully reflect the balance of opinion in today’s debate when he represents this Parliament at that conference. It will not be suggested that we are not doing anything, because we are achieving a lot through today’s debate.

[Mike Gapes]

I would rather we had a clear position to guide our representatives when they take part in those negotiations. Of course, a negotiation ultimately leads to some movement and compromise. From the thrust of the remarks of the hon. Member for North Dorset, I believe that although he is not entirely happy with the report, he is more happy with it than the approach that came from the Belgian Council presidency.

We have a choice today. I have to declare an interest as a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee who was involved in the discussions on the matter in the early days, before the report was agreed. Nevertheless, I am very pleased that the Committee’s members from three parties have reached a consensus view, which also reflects the view expressed by the Committee in the last Parliament.

We have had experience of attending seminars organised by the European Parliament from time to time. National parliamentarians are sat at the end of the row, then some man who has been elected with about 3% of the popular vote in his country proceeds to denounce the views of a whole delegation of national parliamentarians, who collectively might represent 95% of the popular vote in their country. That is the nature of the debates in the European Parliament on these matters.

We, as national parliamentarians, have to take the political heat on the doorstep when matters of life and death are involved. We have to debate issues such as Afghanistan, whether we should establish no-fly zones, humanitarian interventions and the responsibility to protect people in north Africa. The people who have to be held democratically accountable for those matters are not the Members of the European Parliament but the members of the national Parliaments.

I am pleased that my right hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham has rejoined us. One thing I agree with him about—he will be able to read what I said earlier about where I disagree with him—is that we in this House do not scrutinise European matters adequately. We need to get our act together rapidly, because those issues become more and more important. The report is at least an attempt, with co-ordination between different Select Committees and our colleagues in the other place, to get a common British view to put into the important international process. I therefore hope that the House will endorse the report today.

17:38

[Mr Wayne David (Caerphilly) (Lab)]

I begin on a lighter note. Earlier today I was talking to my good friend and colleague, my hon. Friend the Member for Newport West (Paul Flynn), and he told me that Lord Tomlinson, when he was a Foreign and Commonwealth Office Minister in 1978, had the pleasure of speaking to the WEU Assembly. There was a point of disagreement, and he shouted out that it should be wound up. The chant came, “Never, never, never!” Some 33 years later, Lord Tomlinson has apparently had his wish.

I am a big advocate for, and supporter of, parliamentary scrutiny of international, and particularly European, affairs. The European Scrutiny Committee does excellent work, which we saw very clearly on Third Reading of the European Union Bill, and the Foreign Affairs Committee does an excellent job. I was a member of the ESC for a number of years, so I can vouch for its excellent work.

As a member of the ESC, I was also a member of COSAC. The role of national Parliaments was enhanced by the Lisbon treaty, and it is important to stress that there are opportunities for Parliament to increase its role and effectiveness in European affairs. Parliament has a lot still to do—it needs to get its act together—but a step forward has been taken. However, although scrutiny of European legislation in national Parliaments is important, it is not enough. We need to co-ordinate and co-operate with the Parliaments of other member states. I am pleased that that is beginning to happen through COSAC, which has become more effective over the past few years.

With the end of the WEU and its parliamentary Assembly, it is important that the good work that COSAC has established is built on and extended. That is why the Opposition warmly support the proposal for the EU inter-parliamentary conference on foreign affairs, defence and security to meet twice a year and to work closely with COSAC.

The Opposition also agree entirely with the three fundamental points set out in the report: that the role of national Parliaments should be explicitly recognised and that they should have meaningful oversight of EU foreign, defence and security policies; that value should be added to the individual work of national Parliaments; and that the arrangements should be inter-parliamentary. The last of those points recognises, as hon. Members have said, that common foreign and security policy, and common security and defence policy, essentially involve intergovernmental co-operation at European level. It therefore makes sense for national Parliaments to take the lead role in scrutiny and oversight.

I have a couple of points in response to the debate, and perhaps the hon. Member for Croydon South (Richard Ottaway) will respond to them when he concludes. First, as a former Member of the European Parliament, I am not against its involvement, but I take on board the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford South (Mike Gapes). Unfortunately, there is a tendency inside the European Parliament to push for more influence all the time, irrespective of the subject area. That is certainly true of defence and foreign affairs. I am not saying that the European Parliament should be unable to express an opinion and through its Members exert influence, but questioning whether it is appropriate for the Parliament to send its Members to COFADS.

The justification for that could be that the Parliament is involved in COSAC, but we are talking about intergovernmental co-operation. Therefore, the emphasis in COFADS should be entirely on national Parliaments coming together. Will the hon. Member for Croydon South comment on that when he concludes, because it is important to bear that in mind?

The Opposition entirely agree that observers from national Parliaments should attend COFADS when it meets twice a year. I also welcome the fact that applicant member states of the European Union should send observers. However, I point out that although countries such as Croatia, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Iceland, Montenegro and Turkey have the facility to send observers, for some strange reason Norway and Albania will be formally excluded from sending representatives. It is unfair and unreasonable not to have a bit more flexibility, because they are, after all, European members of NATO. I ask for that to be looked at once again.

In conclusion, by and large we are strongly in favour of the proposals put forward. I certainly take the point that what we have before us is far better than the suggestion from the Belgian presidency, which I view with concern. We believe that the administrative proposals set out are sensible and appropriate, and that the costs are being kept to a minimum. That is appropriate and correct. Equally, it is important to recognise the good work done by COSAC, and we want to ensure that the proposal from the House seeks to build on that.

17:46

[The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Mr Jeremy Browne)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for giving me an opportunity to respond to today’s important debate. I notice on the Order Paper that this afternoon the House had the opportunity to consider the question, “What do Ministers do?” The House might find it helpful, therefore, to know that the Minister for Europe, at this very moment, is meeting the Danish State Secretary and other parliamentarians in Copenhagen to discuss the Danish presidency of the European Union in 2012, and other EU and NATO issues. That is why, despite not having specific departmental responsibilities for Europe, I have the opportunity to speak on behalf of the Foreign Office this afternoon.

I thank and pay tribute, in particular, to the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon South (Richard Ottaway), for all his work, and to other Members who have contributed this afternoon, including the right hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr MacShane), the hon. Member for North Dorset (Mr Walter) and the former Chairman of the Select Committee, the hon. Member for Ilford South (Mike Gapes). I am grateful to them all for their insights into the future workings of, and arrangements for, scrutiny of defence matters across Europe, and their experiences of how it has functioned in the past.

In getting to this point, I welcome the positive dialogue that the Government have enjoyed over the past year with interested MPs and peers on this issue. I know that the Minister for Europe is grateful for the close engagement and leadership of the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee and the Chairman of the European Union Select Committee in the other place. Since its formation after the second world war, the Western European Union Assembly has served to promote consultation and co-operation on defence and security matters in western Europe. I pay tribute to the efforts of Members here and in the other place, both past and present, who have played an important role in pursuing United Kingdom and European interests through the Assembly.

The closure of the WEU and its Assembly does not mean that member states do not recognise the value and importance of parliamentarians taking part in debate with their peers on European defence. The Government attach importance to parliamentary scrutiny of the EU’s common security and defence policy, and want to ensure that the cross-European parliamentary debate on European defence issues currently performed by the WEU Assembly continues. Inter-parliamentary discussion serves to enhance and enlighten the national scrutiny work of Parliaments and complements the breadth of knowledge that already exists in the House. That is a good thing, so we wish this overall endeavour well.

Let me be clear about the Government’s role in the process. In March last year, Governments across Europe decided to close the WEU, the bulk of its functions having already been transferred to the European Union. In doing so, we recognise the value of continuing inter-parliamentary debate on European defence and security policy. To ensure that a future forum could be established to facilitate that, we have worked to help discussions with interested parliamentarians on how this might be taken forward. During those discussions we set out the Government’s preferences. Ultimately, however, it is for national European parliamentarians to decide what form that future inter-parliamentary scrutiny arrangement should take. It is not for Governments to dictate to parliamentarians how they should scrutinise the functions of those Governments.

The UK Government have clear priorities. We believe in the primacy of national parliamentary scrutiny of the EU’s common foreign and security policy—a point that was raised on many occasions in this debate. That reflects the intergovernmental nature of the policy, and within it the common security and defence policy. Given the role played by national Parliaments, there is no need for any new arrangements involving an expansion of the European Parliament’s competences to scrutinise the CFSP. The European Parliament has a role—as acknowledged and recognised in the report—but an inter-parliamentary body better reflects the intergovernmental nature of the CFSP. The question was asked whether the European Parliament would take over the WEU’s role. The answer is no, that is not the case. European defence is an intergovernmental issue, and national parliamentarians must remain at the heart of scrutinising it, as proposed in the report that we are considering this afternoon. The Lisbon treaty provides for the European Parliament to be consulted on the CFSP, and therefore it will have a role in the new body, but operational EU security and defence decisions will remain for sovereign Governments only, as at present.

[Mr Chope]

Does the Minister accept that the proposals from the Belgian presidency which are to be put to the Speakers’ conference in April are wholly inconsistent with the Government’s objectives?

[Mr Browne]

We wish to ensure that there is a suitable body that can scrutinise co-operation between individual member states. That should be done by the Parliaments of member states, working in concert with the European Union in a way that is appropriate. That is the balance that we are trying to achieve and which we believe the report also tries to achieve. We also believe that any new arrangements should be better suited to supporting and informing the national scrutiny process. They should capitalise on the expertise of relevant parliamentarians in this policy area and allow for a free and open exchange of information among European states.

The new arrangements also need to demonstrate value for money for the taxpayer. Given the current financial pressures facing Europe, we support the proposal in the Foreign Affairs Committee report that any future mechanism for inter-parliamentary dialogue on the common security and defence policy should operate with the minimum of cost and bureaucracy. The UK’s current annual subscription payment to the WEU is €2.3 million. Although the WEU Assembly played a useful role in engaging views from across Europe, we and other WEU Council members believe this inter-parliamentary debating function can be delivered much more efficiently outside WEU structures. The new body will operate at a fraction of the current cost, as envisaged in the Foreign Affairs Committee report, and, more appropriately, be paid for by national Parliaments rather than Governments. Any move to create another standing body to manage future arrangements—as envisaged in the amendment, which was not selected for debate this afternoon—is contrary to UK and WEU members’ goals. One of the prime drivers behind the decision by the UK and WEU member states to wind up the WEU was its poor cost-effectiveness.

Finally, the Government believe that the new arrangement should include third states outside the 27 members of the EU. One of the major strengths of the CSDP is its ability to draw on support from outside the EU. The report acknowledges this and we welcome the extension of a standing invitation to EU candidate countries, but we remain convinced that non-EU European NATO members such as Norway should receive a standing invitation. European defence policy and NATO share common political and security interests. Norway in particular has provided valuable contributions to EU operations and is currently an associate member of the WEU. We see no reason why its inclusion in future arrangements should be anything other than permanent.

To sum up, in this policy area, the Government see real value in inter-parliamentary collective debate that informs the national scrutiny process of EU member states. The Foreign Affairs Select Committee report represents an important step towards developing practical, low-cost, inclusive arrangements that will benefit parliamentarians across Europe, and I urge hon. Members to give the report their support this afternoon.

17:55

[Priti Patel (Witham) (Con)]

I want to make a short contribution to the debate. As a new Member of Parliament, I almost feel like an intruder, talking about the Western European Union. I want to thank my hon. Friends the Members for Croydon South (Richard Ottaway) and for North Dorset (Mr Walter) for setting the context of the debate and providing the necessary factual information.

My contribution is about the role of parliamentary scrutiny. I feel strongly that, whatever changes are made, it is vital that the sovereignty of the House should be preserved in relation to defence, foreign and security policy. I urge those involved in the decision-making process to take into account the fact that our electorate, the British public, feel aggrieved that there is not enough debate in the House on those policy areas. The public never had a referendum on the Lisbon treaty, and they now look to us to raise those issues here, and to preserve their democratic rights in regard to parliamentary sovereignty and the scrutiny of all those matters. Whatever the successor body does, the inter-parliamentary scrutiny that relates to the British people should feed back primarily to this Parliament and, of course, defend British interests.

17:57

[Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)]

I have served as a member of the WEU Parliamentary Assembly for several years, and I was recently given the honour of serving as leader of the Federated Group, which comprises like-minded parliamentary representatives from a whole range of countries, including non-EU countries that have the opportunity to participate in the Assembly.

I am very concerned that, in our debate today, there has been a conflict between the point of view put forward so ably by the president of the parliamentary assembly, my hon. Friend the Member for North Dorset (Mr Walter) and others who have direct experience of serving on the Assembly, and those led by the Chairman of the Select Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon South (Richard Ottaway), who have had no such experience.

I hope that when Mr Deputy Speaker, my hon. Friend the Member for Ribble Valley (Mr Evans), goes to the Speakers’ conference in April, he will reflect on the fact that great credence should be given to the points of view of those who have been serving in the WEU parliamentary assembly. Parliament will be assisted by the fact that he has served with distinction as a member of the Assembly, and as chairman of one of its technical committees dealing with aerospace and defence—

Mr Ottaway claimed to move the closure (Standing Order No. 36).

Question put forthwith, That the Question be now put.

17:59

Division 221

Ayes: 118

---

Conservative: 88
Liberal Democrat: 16
Labour: 13
Plaid Cymru: 1

Noes: 4

---

Conservative: 3
Labour: 1

Main Question accordingly put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House pays tribute to the work of the European Security and Defence Assembly and the members of the UK Delegation; notes the continuing need for co-ordinated scrutiny by national parliaments of intergovernmental activities under the EU’s foreign, defence and security policies; welcomes the report of the Foreign Affairs Committee, Future inter-parliamentary scrutiny of EU foreign, defence and security policy, HC 697; and approves its approach to delivering that scrutiny.

Mobile Communications (Interception)

Thursday 10th March 2011 Commons Chamber

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

18:12

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

I believe that, in accordance with Parliament-speak, this Adjournment debate has been entitled something like “The Interception of Mobile Telephony”, but in case anybody is in any doubt, it is about phone hacking. [Interruption.] That term covers a multitude of sins: tapping a telephone call or line; hacking into a phone’s operating system to access e-mails, text messages, contact details or— [Interruption.]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

Order. I am very sorry to interrupt the hon. Gentleman. The Adjournment debate is now taking place. If Members wish to have private conversations, they can do so in the Lobby. I would be very grateful if they would not do so in the Chamber.

[Chris Bryant]

You are very naughty boys.

As I was saying, the term phone hacking includes hacking into a phone’s operating system to access e-mails, text messages, contact details or a record of mobile internet searches, and the interception of mobile phone messages either before or after the person for whom they were intended has accessed them. These are not just sins, of course; they are offences under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000, the Data Protection Act 1998 and the Computer Misuse Act 1990.

There are other dark arts: ringing an office and pretending to have to deliver a parcel to someone’s home address and thereby fraudulently getting the home address; ringing a phone call centre and pretending to be a client so as to get a personal identification number to be able later to listen to, or change, somebody’s messages; and blagging a doctor’s receptionist into giving highly personal information about an appointment or medication or other treatment. Interestingly, one expert concluded only two days ago that roughly 60% of doctors’ surgeries in England are completely incapable of protecting patients’ privacy in this kind of situation.

All those dark arts were part of the systematic modus operandi of the News of the World for a sustained period. Evidence already in the public domain shows that that period extended at least from 2003 to 2006, when Andy Coulson was the editor of the newspaper. Recent evidence also suggests that it continued long after Coulson had left, and that between June 2009 and March 2010 a News of the World journalist called Dan Evans was accessing or attempting to access the phone messages of Kelly Hoppen. I believe that the practice started earlier than 2003; I believe it started in 2002, under the editorship of the then Rebekah Wade, now Rebekah Brooks, and I believe that evidence will very soon prove that to be the case. I find it absolutely extraordinary that Rebekah Brooks has, thus far, refused point blank to appear before the Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport. I very much hope that in future deliberations that Committee will insist, if necessary by a motion of this House, that she be forced to appear before it.

This activity was not confined to the News of the World alone. I understand that there is now clear evidence that at least one journalist at The Sunday Times was also involved. For a long time, though, News International tried to maintain that just one rogue reporter at the News of the World was involved: Clive Goodman, the royal correspondent. News International could not explain why a royal correspondent would have been interested in the messages of the right hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes) or Sienna Miller, as they are not notable members of the royal family, but it was assisted in its argument by the Metropolitan police. Assistant Commissioner Andy Hayman, who was formerly in charge of the investigation, said that there were “perhaps a handful” of hacking victims, and his successor, John Yates, maintained time and again that there were very few victims. Indeed, as late as late last year several possible victims were told directly by the Metropolitan police that there was “little or no” evidence of hacking in their case.

Of course we now know that to be completely and utterly untrue. Indeed, the head of the new investigation, appointed this January, Deputy Assistant Commissioner Sue Akers, has said explicitly that

“this has now proved to be false, and represents an important and immediate new line of inquiry.”

The allegation that there were only “perhaps a handful” of hacking victims is countered by the fact that I could name—I am not going to do so today—at least eight Members of the House of Commons who have been informed directly by the Metropolitan police that not only were they a person of interest to Mr Mulcaire, but there may have been interception of their messages.

There are very serious issues here. On the face of it, at least, the relationship between the Metropolitan police and the News of the World is remarkably and, I would argue, dangerously close. The former editor of The Sun and the News of the World, Rebekah Brooks, has openly confessed that she has paid police officers for information—in other words, bribed the police—and there has been no investigation whatever. Andy Hayman, who once led the News of the World investigation at the Metropolitan police, has ended up on the News International payroll. The Metropolitan Police Commissioner and other senior Met officers dined with senior executives at the News of the World both while the investigation was ongoing and when there were calls that the investigation be reopened. Indeed, Sir Paul Stephenson met Neil Wallis of the News of the World in September 2006, only a month after counter-terrorism officers arrested Mulcaire and Goodman. There were 12 other private dinners and social engagements, including an invitation for Sir Paul to attend the News Corporation summer party. And in 2009, Deputy Commissioner John Yates had dinner with the editor of the News of the World, Colin Myler, just when he was refusing calls for the investigation to be reopened. That was at best ill-advised; at worst, fairly or unfairly, it smacks of collusion.

One day there will have to be a full investigation into why the Met’s original investigation was so cursory. Was it laziness that meant people simply could not be bothered to wade through the material gathered from Glenn Mulcaire in 2006? Was it because of the closeness of senior officers to the newspaper? Was it just too ready an acceptance of News International’s word, or did the News of the World have something on some of the people involved in the investigation? Or was it a mistaken understanding of the law, deliberate or accidental?

That takes me to the evidence that John Yates gave to the Select Committee on Home Affairs in September 2010, in which he said that

“hacking is defined in a very prescriptive way by the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act and it’s very, very prescriptive and it’s very difficult to prove…There are very few offences that we are able to actually prove that have been hacked. That is, intercepting the voicemail prior to the owner of that voicemail intercepting it him or herself.”

That point at the end is very important:

“intercepting the voicemail prior to the owner of that voicemail intercepting it him or herself.”

On that basis—and only on that basis—Yates asserted that there were really only eight to 12 victims.

It has now emerged, however, that never at any stage during the prosecution of Goodman and Mulcaire did anybody from the Crown Prosecution Service advise the Metropolitan police that the law should be interpreted in such a way, and never at any stage in the prosecution was that interpretation relied on. Indeed, the Director of Public Prosecutions said in his evidence:

“First, the prosecution did not in its charges or presentation of the facts attach any legal significance to the distinction between messages which had been listened to and messages which had not. Secondly, the prosecution not having made the distinction, the defence did not raise any legal arguments in respect of the issue, and pleaded guilty.”

Furthermore, I understand that on 1 October last year a team from the CPS held a meeting with a team from the Metropolitan police and formally warned them it was wrong to claim such an interpretation. Scotland Yard, therefore, has known for more than five months that the evidence given by Yates to the two Select Committees was misleading—not on a minor point, but on the most substantial point of all, as it is directly linked to the question of how many victims there are in the affair and whether there should or should not be a further investigation or a reopening of the investigation. Indeed, that was the very reason—and the only reason—why the Metropolitan police refused point blank to reopen the case until January of this year.

Let me be clear. I am delighted that the Met has reopened the investigation. I am glad that additional information has now been gathered from other sources, but what still astounds and infuriates me is that in many cases the Met already had all the information it needed—reams and reams of notes taken by Mr Mulcaire with 91 personal identification numbers, copious invoices, pages devoted to individual targets with thousands of linked phone numbers, many of them garnered illicitly, and quite often the name of a commissioning journalist or executive. Indeed, some of us have been shown the material that was gathered from Mr Mulcaire in 2006, which has been sitting in the Metropolitan police’s vaults ever since, that relates directly to us.

In other words, the Met had many of the dots—it just failed or refused to join them up. Let us take one example. On 2 September 2009, Mike Hall, former MP for Weaver Vale, directly asked Mr Yates,

“was John Prescott’s phone actually tapped or not?”

Yates answered:

“No. As I said on the day, there is no evidence it was.’

Yates also told the Home Affairs Committee on 7 September 2010—just a few months ago—that Lord Prescott

“has never been hacked to my knowledge and there is no evidence that he has.”

Yet now Lord Prescott has been told that that evidence exists and always has existed. We now know that the evidence given to the Committee was completely disingenuous.

Yates misled the Committee, whether deliberately or inadvertently. He used an argument that had never been relied on by the CPS or by his own officers so as to suggest that the number of victims was minuscule, whereas in fact we know and he knew that the number of potential victims is and was substantial. What was lacking was not possible avenues of investigation, but the will to pursue them.

What is depressing is how closely all that accords with the line spun by News International. When the Chairman of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport Committee asked Les Hinton:

“You carried out a full, rigorous internal inquiry, and you are absolutely convinced that Clive Goodman was the only person who knew what was going on?”,

Les Hinton replied:

“Yes, we have and I believe he was the only person”.

There simply has not been a full or rigorous investigation. I do not know why, although I could speculate, but I hope that one day we shall all know.

There is also the matter of the mobile phone companies, each of which has operated a slightly different system regarding mobile phone messages. There is clear evidence that in some cases rogue staff members sold information to investigators and reporters. In other cases, companies spotted that a client’s phone had been compromised but failed to notify the client. Indeed, one Select Committee report noted that Vodafone sometimes notified people, O2 mostly notified people but Orange never did. When I asked Orange yesterday whether it would notify a client if their phone was hacked into now, it said it did not know. However, I understand that today it believes that in certain circumstances it might notify a client. I believe that in every such circumstance the client should be notified when there has been a problem. All that suggests a rather slapdash approach towards the security of mobile telephony.

This has been a many layered scandal, but at the heart of the issue is the rationale behind the whole modus operandi at the News of the World and other newspapers. As one police officer put it to me, the newspapers involved deliberately sought to harass, intimidate and bully people for their own commercial interests. In the pursuit of their victims they were reckless about the innocent bystanders whose personal messages were intercepted, transcribed and relayed to others.

Almost as bad as the original illegal activity—only the tip of which we have yet seen—has been the cover-up. Other Members and former Members of the House have said they were warned off pushing the issue in the House and in Select Committees. When I raised the question of parliamentary privilege in the House last September, my friends were told by a senior figure allied to Rupert Murdoch and a former executive of News International to warn me that it would not be forgotten. What is truly shameful is the fact that the full extent of all this is coming to light now only because individuals have taken private civil actions, often at great expense, against the News of the World, News International or the Metropolitan police.

I praise the investigation that has now begun and I trust that the deputy assistant commissioner will follow where the evidence leads. I only wish that her predecessor had done the same. I suspect that even hardened cynics will be shocked when they know the full extent of the operation that went on, but I praise those who have taken courageous action in the courts, especially Sienna Miller and Kelly Hoppen.

There are many unanswered questions. Why was it left to the News of the World to do its own internal investigation and, in particular, why did the News of the World rather than the Metropolitan police impound Ian Edmondson’s computer? How did e-mails relating to Ian Edmondson that were not available a year ago suddenly become available once he was implicated in Mulcaire’s papers relating to Siena Miller, which the Met had had in its possession for at least four years? Why were key figures at the News of the World, including Neville Thurlbeck, not interviewed by the police? Why did the Met choose a narrow, false interpretation of the law on interception? How many journalists commissioned Glenn Mulcaire’s illegal activity? How many senior executives at News International were aware of what was going on on their watch? Were Rebekah Brooks, Andy Coulson, Les Hinton and Neil Wallis aware? For four years now, the argument from the Met and the News of the World has been consistent: there was just one rogue reporter, there were very few victims, it is very difficult to prove anything and every avenue of investigation was pursued. Every shred of that argument is now in tatters.

I fully understand that there will be people who think none of this matters, and that it is just a storm in a metropolitan teacup, but the freedom of the press is far too important and was won too hard to be sullied by such illegal activity. Investigative journalism is so important in uncovering malfeasance that it is vital readers know that the stories they read are properly, reliably and legally sourced.

In the end this is about who runs Britain. Are the press above the law or subject to it? Is the law there to protect the press or to pursue every avenue of investigation? In time, I suspect we shall see that this has been a full-blown, copper-bottomed scandal.

18:30

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (James Brokenshire)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) on securing the debate. He has a keen personal interest in the issues raised, as he has highlighted; indeed, I am aware that many Members share that interest.

The issue of phone hacking is undoubtedly one that Members on both sides of the House regard as extremely important. As well as the original investigation by the Metropolitan police, which resulted in the prosecution and conviction of Clive Goodman, the royal editor of the News of the World, and a private investigator, Glenn Mulcaire, there has been a separate review by the Metropolitan police, the Director of Public Prosecutions and the Crown Prosecution Service. The matter has previously been the subject of consideration by the Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport. It is also the subject of current inquiries by both the Home Affairs Committee and the Committee on Standards and Privileges.

Such a degree of interest is understandable. The Government fully agree that the prospect of journalists, or anyone else, unlawfully hacking into and listening to people’s private conversations is an extremely serious matter that needs to be treated accordingly. In its plainest terms phone hacking is unlawful and should not occur. Any interception of communications is a very serious invasion of privacy. No activity of that nature would ever be taken lightly by the state itself.

Interception is of course a potentially powerful tool for combating terrorism and serious crime, but the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000, which governs lawful interception and its oversight, allows only a very small number of intelligence and law enforcement agencies to apply for warrants to undertake such steps. The warrants can be issued only by the Secretary of State and for very limited purposes, including preventing or detecting serious crime and the interests of national security.

The checks and balances that have been established underline how serious a step it is to contemplate interfering with private communications, even when such action is designed to protect the public and prevent harm or detect wrongdoing. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary devotes a great deal of her time to scrutinising warrant applications under RIPA for the security services and police to interfere with the communications of serious criminals and terrorists.

There is no place for indiscriminate and unauthorised interception. Such activity, which includes the so-called hacking of voice messages, is an offence under RIPA and carries a penalty of two years’ imprisonment. In addition, and of growing relevance as technology advances, the Computer Misuse Act 1990 created other offences relating to the unauthorised accessing of data. They include unauthorised access to a computer to look at information, for which the penalty is up to two years’ imprisonment, and accessing a computer in order to commit other crimes, such as stealing data, for which the penalty is up to five years’ imprisonment.

Personal data are also protected under the provisions of the Data Protection Act 1998, and unlawfully obtaining personal data is also an offence under that Act. There can thus be no doubt that the intention of Parliament is that an individual’s personal and private data should be properly protected.

When there is reason to suspect that any of the provisions protecting personal data may have been breached, it is quite rightly a matter for the police to consider and investigate. Police investigations are operational matters, and it is for the relevant police force to decide whether and how best to approach any such investigation, in consultation as necessary with the Crown Prosecution Service.

It has been suggested that the original investigation by the Metropolitan police was inadequate, but I remind the House that the investigation did result in the prosecution and conviction of two individuals. In dealing with that investigation, the police worked closely with the Crown Prosecution Service to determine the best approach to the case and prosecution. Those decisions were subsequently reviewed. The police made it clear that the investigation was technical and complex. They also undertook to consider any fresh information and evidence that might shed any new light on the case. As the Director of Public Prosecutions made clear in December 2010, for a prosecution to be taken forward it is necessary for there to be credible evidence and individuals prepared to testify to it.

Fresh information has recently been made available to the police and a new investigation is under way, as the House is well aware. It is important that that investigation be allowed to proceed without hindrance. It would not be appropriate for me to speculate or comment on the details at this stage, but the Metropolitan police have made it clear that it is to be a thorough and most robust investigation. It is being carried out by a fresh team within the Metropolitan police. The officer in charge, Deputy Assistant Commissioner Sue Akers, released a statement on 9 February, to which the hon. Gentleman referred, in which she made it clear that the Metropolitan police were

“determined to ensure that we conduct a robust and thorough investigation which will follow the evidence trail to its conclusion.”

[Chris Bryant]

I have full confidence in Sue Akers because everything I have seen shows that she is doing the job that should have been done previously, and I do not underestimate the difficulty of that job. The Minister said—it is an argument that has been adduced by others, and Mr Yates in particular—that new evidence has been provided, but that is not actually true. The only reason there was new evidence in relation to Ian Edmondson is that the papers relating to Sienna Miller, which mentioned Mr Edmondson, were finally wrested from the hands of the police by Sienna Miller in a civil court case. That is the scandal.

[James Brokenshire]

All those issues relating to the investigation will undoubtedly be examined by Sue Akers and the Metropolitan police as part of their ongoing investigation. As the hon. Gentleman will be aware, the Director of Public Prosecutions has also instigated an independent review of all the original evidence held by the Metropolitan police, including that not originally given to the Crown Prosecution Service in connection with the original case.

That review will consider whether there is any material that could form evidence in any future criminal prosecution. It is important that the police are able to focus fully on this new investigation and pursue any new avenues of inquiry as necessary. The most appropriate course is therefore to await the outcome of the investigation, rather than speculating further at this stage on particular aspects.

I am sure that the whole House will agree that a free press is a fundamental hallmark of our democracy, but that does not mean that the media are above the law—they are bound by it in precisely the same way as any other individual. Any breaches of that law are punishable through the courts in the normal way. With freedom comes responsibility. The press have their own set of guidelines set out in the press code of practice, which contains a clause forbidding the acquisition and publication of material by intercepting private or mobile telephone calls, messages or e-mails. The media must adhere to those standards of conduct. I would also say that the defence of activity being in the public interest is not the same as what may interest the public.

The media’s conduct in relation to the code of practice is overseen and enforced by the Press Complaints Commission. The commission is independent from the newspaper industry, with commission members appointed by an independent appointments commission and with an in-built majority of lay members. It is also, rightly, independent of the Government. We of course recognise that these arrangements and the industry’s system of self-regulation are not perfect and are sometimes breached. However, overall we believe that the PCC acts as an effective check on the industry and in reinforcing the standards expected.

The PCC recently announced that it has set up a working group to look at new evidence as it becomes known, and it is examining its own role and actions in relation to the issue as it has unfolded. The committee will comprise the two lay commissioners who joined most recently, in 2010, both of whom are experts in relevant legal fields: Ian Walden, professor of information and communications law at Queen Mary, university of London; and Julie Spence, a former chief constable of Cambridgeshire police. There will be one editorial commissioner, John McLellan, the editor of The Scotsman.

Despite some undoubted lapses in the standards that we expect of the media according to the principles of its own code, overall we believe that further regulation of the industry is neither necessary nor appropriate. We will, however, continue to keep the issue under review.

On the hon. Gentleman’s comments about the mobile phone companies, mobile network operators offer a range of advice and services on keeping personal details secure at all times. Some send an automatic message if a PIN number is incorrectly entered, or they may suspend services until the legitimate owner of the account authenticates their identity. The Information Commissioner has been working with service providers to consider the safeguards available, and he will include advice on that in his next set of guidance.

As I said at the outset, I recognise that the matter continues to command a great deal of interest. That is why it is already under detailed scrutiny. In addition to the current police investigation, the Director of Public Prosecutions has instigated a review by Alison Levitt, QC, of all available evidence—not just that passed to the Crown Prosecution Service in connection with the original prosecutions. She has been asked to take a robust approach to assessing the evidence, advising whether the Metropolitan Police Service should carry out any further investigation or whether any prosecutions can be brought. She will also advise on the new investigation.

The Home Affairs Committee is conducting an inquiry into phone hacking, as is the Standards and Privileges Committee, and, as I have said, the Press Complaints Commission has announced its own review of the emerging information. As the hon. Gentleman noted, other cases are being brought by individuals who believe that they might have been subject to hacking, and they are currently before the courts. Each process has its own proper procedures for looking into the detail of the allegations and its own course to run.

The Government and the whole country take the issue of phone hacking extremely seriously: the intrusion of privacy, the attempt illegally to use private conversations for financial gain and the compromising of individual rights—we consider all those abhorrent. Although two individuals have already been convicted and jailed in relation to the case, it is possible that as a result of the new police investigation others will be prosecuted.

I remind the House that the Government have no involvement in decisions to charge or to prosecute individuals, and I am sure the whole House will agree that, in a free society, that is entirely right and proper. The right course of action for the Government is to await the outcome of the new police investigation, and that is exactly what we will do.

Question put and agreed to.

18:43

House adjourned.

Westminster Hall

Thursday 10th March 2011 Westminster Hall

Thursday 10 March 2011

[Jim Sheridan in the Chair]

Housing Benefit

Thursday 10th March 2011 Westminster Hall

[Relevant documents: Second Report from the Work and Pensions Committee, Session 2010-11, HC 469, and the Government response, HC 845.]

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

14:30

[Dame Anne Begg (Aberdeen South) (Lab)]

On behalf of the Work and Pensions Committee, it is a pleasure to open the first debate that we have held in Westminster Hall. We have published two full reports up to this point in time. One is “Youth Unemployment and the Future Jobs Fund” and the other is the report that we are discussing today, “Changes to Housing Benefit announced in the June 2010 Budget”.

We had hoped that the Government response would have been with us a bit earlier, but it arrived a bit close to the wire. We were able to agree it in our Committee meeting yesterday morning, just after we had grilled the Minister, who is here today, on his pensions policy and thrown him out. The members of the Committee now have copies of the Government response. Obviously, part of the reason for the debate today is to discuss the report in general and the Government response.

I will give a bit of history about the genesis of the report that we are debating today. We decided that it was important to produce the report after the announcement about housing benefit in the Budget last June. However, as soon as we announced the inquiry and published our terms of reference, the debate about housing benefit and local housing allowance moved on. So this report is quite narrow, in that it looks almost exclusively at the LHA and the situation in the private rented sector. That is because at the time that the report was produced, it had not been recognised that there might be implications for the public rented sector, and particularly for local councils, due to the changes to housing benefit. That became clearer as we carried out our inquiry, but by that time we were already tied in to the terms of reference that we had sought evidence on, and we were not in a position to change those terms of reference. However, I am fairly sure that the debate about housing benefit and the LHA will continue, and hopefully this afternoon we can tease out some of the additional issues that we were unable to cover in the report.

We need to begin with the items in the Government response that we welcome. We made a number of recommendations in our report about the need for robust data and robust independent research. That was because when we took evidence, we found that charities working in the homeless sector often said that the changes to housing benefit would lead to mass homelessness and were unlikely to lead to private landlords reducing their rent, whereas the Government said, “No, they won’t. There might be a bit of homelessness, but not really that much, and yes, the whole point of this policy is to force private landlords to reduce their rent.” Until the policy is in place and has been working, it is impossible to test which of those two diametrically opposed views is the right one. That is why we are pleased that the Government have recognised the need for good, solid, independent research, because that will be the only way in which we can tell whether the policy has had the intended consequences and ensure that it does what it says on the tin.

I do not know whether this was a success for our Select Committee, but many people were delighted that the Government decided to drop the 10% sanction on housing benefit for people who have been on jobseeker’s allowance for more than a year. That proposal caused a huge amount of angst among a large number of the people from whom we took evidence, and the issue was raised on the Floor of the House and in debates in Westminster Hall. It seemed grossly unfair, and it certainly would not have done what the Government alleged it would do, which was to act as a work incentive—if anything, it would have acted as a work disincentive.

That proposal woke up the public rented sector—particularly the housing associations—to the full implications of some of the proposals that the Government were coming up with, because a large number of housing association residents are on JSA. The housing associations faced the prospect of losing 10% of their income at a stroke as their residents were sanctioned. The residents might have done everything that the Government asked them but have been unable to get a job, because the labour market in their area was such that they could not find one, yet they would still lose 10% of their housing benefit. It seemed strange to us that housing benefit would be sanctioned for actions in relation to a completely different benefit. I am pleased that the Government have seen fit to drop that proposal, which is incredibly important.

Much of the debate about housing benefit has focused on the caps or on the situation in London, which has helped to obscure what could happen elsewhere in the country, and some of the knock-on effects for the public rented sector. That was because it was much easier for the tabloid newspapers to latch on to stories about “£1,000-a-week housing benefit claims”, when in fact such claims were a small minority of all claims. It is often the case that it is not good practice to introduce policy based on the few rogue examples rather than on the position that most people find themselves in.

Despite that, and despite the fact that the LHA was increasing and in general covered rents, there were already shortfalls for some residents. Many claimants were already making up the shortfall between what they qualified for with regard to what they could get in the broad rental market area and what their actual rent was. As part of our inquiry, we visited a citizens advice bureau where we met an elderly gentleman who was already having to supplement his housing benefit to the tune of about 10% of his very limited pension. He was a prime example of someone who had found it very difficult to get a tenancy in the private rented sector, because as soon as landlords heard that he was on housing benefit they turned him away. “Lying” might not be quite the right word to use, but he “failed to inform” his landlord that he was actually an LHA recipient when he signed the lease on the accommodation that he was in at that time. He knows that he probably would not have been able to get that lease if he had told his landlord that he was an LHA recipient.

That is one likely problem with the Government’s approach. The assumption is that people will be able to move and that they will be able to find accommodation within the bands that they can claim for, but that is not necessarily the case. Although the Government response says that landlords will reduce rents in many areas, it is definitely the case that in large numbers of areas—my area, for example—demand already outstrips supply, and landlords will quite easily be able to get tenants who are not dependent on housing benefit to live in their properties. Therefore, the choices of those who are dependent on housing benefit will be squeezed and become ever narrower. They do not have the choice to go into the public rented sector, because there is already a shortage of supply there.

The Government’s response is a bit complacent in saying that landlords will reduce their rents. Even if they do so in one or two areas, I suspect that in the majority of the UK they will not, and it will be very difficult for people to find anything to rent. In places where there is very little choice anyway, such as rural areas, choice will be further narrowed, and it might be impossible for people who are on housing benefit or local housing allowance to get anything with a rental price anywhere near what they can claim in benefit.

[Glenda Jackson (Hampstead and Kilburn) (Lab)]

I have received a briefing from the Residential Landlords Association on that precise point. It says that in relation to a survey it conducted:

“71% of respondents said that they would not decrease their rents. A recent study for the British Property Federation put this figure at 88%. Although the Government’s whole case is based on the assumption that this will happen our survey evidence (along with that carried out by the Local Government Association in London) contradicts this.”

[Dame Anne Begg]

That is why it is important that the research is carried out. In his evidence to the Committee, the Minister, the noble Lord Freud, said:

“They would say that, wouldn’t they?”

It is not until the proposal is market-tested that we will know whether what we are talking about will be the case.

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that we can already market-test to some degree? In my borough of Trafford, for example, we already know that two-bedroom properties in the private rented sector are heavily oversubscribed. The market is unlikely to reduce rents when it can readily let to people who are not in receipt of local housing allowance.

[Dame Anne Begg]

Indeed, and there is the same situation in my constituency, where there is a housing shortage. Even people who work in the oil industry—a fluid population that comes temporarily to work in the offshore sector—have great difficulty in finding housing. There are jobs in certain areas and people flock to them, but those people often cannot take up the employment, because they cannot find accommodation. Those people are in the private rented sector and can afford fairly high rents, and their situation probably has more to do with rent inflation in Aberdeen than with anything that has happened as a result of local housing allowance. The Government have sometimes given the existence of the local housing allowance as a reason for rent inflation in the private rented sector, but in certain areas it has nothing to do with the allowance, simply because there are not enough LHA claimants to have that kind of market effect.

One aspect of the housing benefit reforms that we congratulated the Government on is the fact that disabled people who need a non-familial person to stay overnight will be able to claim housing benefit to cover the extra room required for that carer, which is, in itself, a good measure. It was a recommendation made by the Select Committee in the previous Parliament, and I have to say that the then Labour Government did not agree to implement it. However—there is often an “however” in all this—as a Committee we realised that even if the person looking after a disabled person is a relative who does not need space in the house, there might, for example, be a need for more space for wheelchairs, or an extra room for dialysis machinery. Disabled people need large houses, for which they would not qualify on the basis of their family size, for all sorts of reasons.

I was disappointed by the Government’s response on that issue:

“Housing Benefit is not designed to meet every individual circumstance and it would be complex to introduce different rules for the situations such as those described by the Committee”.

That is poor, because council tax benefit and the tax itself can take account of people who need extra room. If someone can prove that they are in a bigger house than they would otherwise occupy because they need extra room for a wheelchair, the local authority places the house in a lower council tax band. That is quite simple and straightforward, and it is not particularly difficult. I am disappointed that the Government have not recognised that such extra space might be imperative for disabled people. It is doubly imperative that the Government recognise that, because the proposals also introduce an under-occupancy rule, of which disabled people could fall foul simply because they occupy a house that is bigger than the one that they would need on the basis of the number of people in their family.

The Government also completely miss the point of the Committee’s recommendations regarding the possibility that someone with a disability who has had their house adapted has to move because they do not qualify for a house of that size, or because the house is too expensive. Their house, whether in the private rented or social rented sector, will no longer be covered by housing benefit. The Government’s response is, “Well, we’ve got the nine-month transitional protection,” or “There might be something in the discretionary housing payment that can be used.” The Government’s response suggests that disabled people will be able to move just like everyone else. Well, the answer is, “No they will not.” It is incredibly difficult, as it is, to get accommodation; it is almost impossible to get accommodation that is already adapted; and it is very difficult to get accommodation that can easily be adapted. For someone who has already spent a lot of money—out of their own pocket or through facilities grants—not only on making their home accessible, but on adapting the bathroom and kitchen and doing all the other things that need to be done, the Government are saying that it will somehow be okay, because if housing benefit is changed such people will be able to move and replicate those facilities somewhere else, but only in a smaller house or a cheaper area. That is not possible, and a lot of disabled people will be distressed by what I see as complacency by the Government.

I know that the Government say that all that will be covered by the discretionary housing payment. In fact, their response to our report seems to say that the payment will be a panacea. I came across mentions of the payment so often that I counted them, and it appears 20 times in a relatively short document. The discretionary housing payment will be the solution 20 times—it is mentioned three times on page 11 alone. So, £190 million is going to go an awfully long way and do an awful lot, and I am fairly sure that the Minister himself recognises that it is not elastic and will not cover all that the response says that it will.

[Kate Green]

I, too, noted the many references to the discretionary housing payment as the solution to the hardship and risk of homelessness identified in our report. Does my hon. Friend agree that it is not only about whether that payment can possibly be adequate, which looks unlikely, but about the fact that it is discretionary? That introduces further uncertainty for families and households about the stability of their home.

[Dame Anne Begg]

That is the problem. As well as the discretionary element, council tax benefit will be devolved to local authorities, although only 90% of it, and that as well will be discretionary to the local authority. The discretionary element must cover not only older people but disabled people, young people, large families and multi-generational families, perhaps from ethnic minorities, yet it will be up to the local authority to decide who receives it. I suspect that most local authorities will have a pecking order of groups that they think are worthy of support, leaving the groups that they do not think are worthy of support at the bottom of the heap.

[Glenda Jackson]

There is another dimension to the problem that my local authority has raised with me. This is a period in which local authorities are strapped for cash and reducing staff, yet the changes will place greater burdens on them, which might extend the length of time required to make the discretionary decisions, making the people waiting for those decisions even more anxious and concerned.

[Dame Anne Begg]

Governments and local authorities are often accused of making people suffer a postcode lottery. The fact that yet another matter will be open to the discretion of local authorities with tight budgets could create a strong postcode lottery dependent on area, not just in different parts of the country but in neighbouring areas. That will lead to uncertainty among claimants, who will not know when they sign a lease whether they will receive discretionary housing payment or not. There will be new claimants, and those sitting in houses in the hope of receiving discretionary housing benefit might have months of worry—perhaps will have even started to look for other housing—before knowing whether they will be covered by their council’s discretion and receive the money.

I suspect that in many areas, because the money will not go far enough, the discretionary housing payment might cover some but not all of the gap between people’s rent and their housing benefit and local housing allowance, so the anxiety about whether they will have to move will continue even after they are awarded the discretionary housing payment.

The other panaceas that the Government seem to think will solve a lot are the nine months’ transitional protection, which was mentioned only four times in their response rather than 20, and the independent review, which is mentioned throughout the document, although I did not count how many times. Phrases such as “the independent review will be comprehensive” and “it will cover” crop up throughout the report, as though we will have to wait for the review before some of the questions are answered. That is particularly worrying.

Another issue that we considered was the shared room rate, which the Government say in their response will be renamed the shared accommodation rate. It is meant for younger people, who are expected not necessarily to have single tenancy of a complete property but to share with others. It is proposed to raise the age limit for the shared accommodation rate from 25 to 35.

I am not sure that the Government have thought through the implications. I held a housing summit in Aberdeen to which a lot of people from the public rented sector came along, particularly from housing associations, and they were greatly exercised. Do the Government know how many houses in multiple occupation exist? Is there enough accommodation for that group of people? In my area, there are virtually no HMOs, because it is quite complicated and bureaucratic to register as one. A number of people who fall into the category will not be able to access a room in shared accommodation. Have the Government considered changing the rules to make it easier to share? It is illegal for tenants on housing benefit to sub-let, and there are all sorts of other barriers in the rules that make it difficult for people on housing benefit to share housing.

Have the Government considered the divorced or separated dad who is 34 years old and has access to his children at the weekend? What will it mean to bring children into a house in which other people live? Have the Government considered the child protection issues involved? Will the single room rate apply to the divorced father under 35 who looks after his children one or two nights a week?

What research have the Government done to ensure that accommodation for that group exists at all? In some rural areas, there are no HMOs. Will young people all be expected to flock into cities and more populated areas if the accommodation for which they qualify does not exist in their area?

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

Does the hon. Lady agree that it is particularly unreasonable to require expectant mothers to share accommodation up until they give birth? The last thing I can imagine wanting to do, having just given birth, is suddenly to find somewhere new to live and move house. That is completely unacceptable.

[Dame Anne Begg]

Indeed. I know from the homelessness legislation that that problem already exists. Lots of young pregnant women come to my constituency surgery who are living in mum’s spare bedroom or on her couch, but the homeless section will not see or deal with them until the day the baby is born. Usually the homeless section is sympathetic and will try to find them somewhere, but I suspect that that might happen only in Aberdeen, where there is not as much pressure on the social rented sector as in London. Such young women are often in a state of anxiety because they do not know what they will be taking their baby home to. They worry that it might be a damp room in a shared house somewhere.

[Glenda Jackson]

My hon. Friend lays her finger precisely on a constituency case that I had. The mother involved gave birth to her baby in the local hospital, the baby was ill and my constituent’s medical team would not allow her to take the baby back to where she had come from, as it was overcrowded, seriously damp and totally unsuited to a sick child. As a result, additional costs were laid on the national health service due to the complete unacceptability of her living arrangements at the time.

[Dame Anne Begg]

I suspect that most hon. Members will have similar examples in their constituency.

The Government’s response lists the various groups to which the shared accommodation rate—I have got so used to calling it the single room rate that I am finding it difficult to change—will not apply, but it is not clear how all the housing benefit changes will affect those living in supported accommodation, especially those who receive a mixture of Supporting People money and housing benefits, which is often a complex package of benefits, to allow them to live with support in their own home or shared accommodation. Will the Minister say a bit more about that?

Our report also considered work incentives, which were the main rationale for the Government’s changes—well, I suppose that the main rationale was to save on the housing benefit budget, but the second was to improve work incentives to ensure that work always pays.

[Jonathan Lord (Woking) (Con)]

I congratulate the Select Committee on its excellent work, and the hon. Lady on a very good exposition of some of the worries and potential issues with regard to the reforms.

As a non-member of the Select Committee, I would be interested to know where the Opposition parties are coming from on the overall thrust of the reforms. The Labour manifesto in the 2010 election said:

“Housing Benefit will be reformed to ensure that we do not subsidise people to live in the private sector on rents that other ordinary working families could not afford.”

It is my understanding that that is a major thrust in the thinking behind some of the reforms. Does the hon. Lady agree with the manifesto of 2010? I would find that helpful to know, as background to the more detailed debate.

[Dame Anne Begg]

As we are speaking, perhaps the hon. Gentleman could read the report, where he will discover that the Select Committee recognised that housing benefit needed to be changed, and that the costs of housing benefit should be under control and affordable. There is no dissent from that. In terms of the Government’s response, the Government agree with the Committee, even within the ambit of the importance of getting the right amount of money to the right person to ensure that those who are on housing benefit are not experiencing a luxurious lifestyle, though I have to say they are not. That is where much of the problem in the debate came: the often overblown claims in some of the tabloid papers. One must remember that local housing allowance was set at broad rental market area level. Although the overall cap is £400, in a lot of areas it was already not possible to get that level of housing benefit or local housing allowance anyway.

[Kate Green]

If the hon. Member for Woking (Jonathan Lord) has now had the opportunity to consider the Government’s response, I wonder whether he was as struck as I was by the recognition that, after the introduction of local housing allowance, it was found that most low-income working households do pay a rent slightly lower than the local housing allowance rate for the property they occupy. It was only slightly lower—that rent was usually 90% or more of the local housing allowance rate. The differential between those who were in work and those not, in terms of rent paid, was relatively low. The make-up of the two groups often accounted for quite a lot of that difference. Those who were in work and having to pay rent were often young professionals, for whom occupying rented property would be a transitional step through to property ownership.

[Dame Anne Begg]

Very often, partly because of the publicity and the tabloid headlines, the assumption is that people on housing benefit are always out of work, when that is certainly not the case. In fact, in London it is particularly important that if low-paid people are to get work and to have work incentives, housing benefit must be set at the right level. The danger is that the gap between what they can get in housing benefit and what they can afford is too great; they end up not being able to get accommodation in the area in which they are working, which is even more important.

[Jenny Willott (Cardiff Central) (LD)]

Is one of the problems not the fact that local housing allowances have driven up rents for everybody in the private rented sector, including people who are working? That has had a knock-on impact on both those who are receiving the LHA and on those paying all their rent. Even where the difference between those who are not receiving LHA and are paying the rent themselves is 90% of LHA rates, that is higher than it would have been had the rents not been driven up in the first place. It has a much broader knock-on impact across society.

[Dame Anne Begg]

Earlier in my contribution, I said that I do not believe that is the case in Aberdeen. Wherever the housing supply is less than the housing demand, it is the lack of supply and the ability of those in work to pay higher rents that drives up rents, not the level set for the local housing allowance. It is a chicken and egg situation. Why was the local housing allowance set at that level for that broad rental market area? It was because of the average house rental price in that area.

The hon. Member for Cardiff Central (Jenny Willott) will have constituents in the private rented sector who will already, without any changes, be supplementing the local housing allowance out of their other benefits, in order to be able to afford the house. If rents were being driven up to local housing allowance levels, we would have seen a much smoother curve in the cost of all housing. All housing would cost the local housing allowance, but very often it still costs a lot more. That has been the problem that many are facing. It may be true in some areas, but that is what one hopes the research will find: that in the odd area a large number of people in the private rented sector are also on housing benefit. I understand that Blackpool is one of those areas. In such areas it may be the case that private rents have gone up to the LHA.

However, I do not believe that would be the case in more affluent areas. Unfortunately, in areas where that has happened, unless landlords reduce rents, we are still in a cycle of people not being able to afford the housing or to get other housing that they can afford, because of the changes. I have not said anything about the changes from the 50th to the 30th percentile: that also comes into play in a different area.

I was going to say something about the importance of housing benefit to work incentives. Perhaps that is something the Minister could answer. We know that housing benefit is to be in the universal credit, but we do not know the details of how it will be treated. One fear is that if housing benefit comes in as a flat level rather than the actual cost of the housing occupied, there might be a disconnect between what someone has to pay out and the effective withdrawal rates, so universal credit would not operate as it is meant to and ensure that works pays in all cases.

I am coming to the end of my comments, and I appreciate that I have not covered everything in the document. I mentioned that I held a housing summit—predominantly for housing associations but including those in the social rented sector in my constituency. The reason for that was that it became apparent that not only were there knock-on effects from the private rented sector that would result in higher demand for their properties, but there are also Government proposals that would affect them directly.

The biggest one that worried housing associations and the social rented sector is the under-occupancy rule, as it will affect all social rented housing as well as the private rented sector. The fear is that there will not be enough accommodation of the appropriate size for people to move. Consider the case of parents in their late-50s occupying a three-bedroom house, because it was the family home in which the family grew up before leaving. They have fallen out of work, which might be exacerbated by the increase in the state retirement age to 66. In their late 50s or early 60s, for the first time in their lives, they are now dependent on housing benefit in order to pay the rent, but they will only get housing benefit for a one-bedroom property, because that is all they will qualify for. Can the Minister say how the amount they get will be calculated? It could be, in an area such as Aberdeen, that what they pay for their three-bedroom council house is less than they would get in local housing allowance, even after the changes, for a one-bedroom flat in the private rented sector. There is a false economy if they are being forced to move into something more expensive, which they will get because it is in the private rented sector.

I could be flippant and say that there will be plenty of one-bedroom flats available because all the 25 to 35-year-olds will have had to move out of them to go into shared accommodation. However, I do not think that the 60-year-old mum and dad are going to move into the equivalent of a one-bedroom student flat, which a younger person has moved out of. This will cause great anxiety and worry. A lot of people will probably stay where they are, but they will be very short on the rent.

I know that the Minister is particularly concerned about pensioner poverty, but a large group of people who have fallen out of work towards the end of their working lives and who cannot get their state pensions until they are 66 will get caught up in this issue; it will not affect people who are over pension age, but it will affect those who are just below it, whose last years before they get the state pension will be spent living in poverty. They could become the group with the highest levels of poverty. The issue really must be considered. The social rented sector is particularly worried, because a lot of those people are already in the sector, and there is simply not enough stock to allow people to be moved around and housed according to the new occupancy rules.

When Labour was in government, many Opposition Members said it would be unfair for older people to have to sell their houses to pay for their care. They also said that it would be unreasonable for them to have to sell their houses because the council tax was too expensive. However, the Conservative coalition Government are saying that it is perfectly acceptable for those living in the social rented sector to have to move at a time in their lives when they should be settling down and moving towards retirement. The issue is a great concern, and people are very exercised by it. In rural areas, of course, there may not be houses of the appropriate size because they do not exist. People will therefore face an enormous shortfall between their rent and what they can get under the occupancy rules because of where they live.

I could say a lot more, but I am conscious that I have taken up a lot of time.

[Jonathan Lord]

On under-occupancy, my local council has a terrific record on providing social and affordable housing. Like other hon. Members, however, I have many constituents who need larger houses. Sometimes, they are on a waiting list for years to get one. Across the country—I have asked about this on the Floor of the House—hundreds of thousands of people are taking up space that they no longer need. Does it really make sense to have all those people waiting for appropriately sized accommodation, while others are being subsidised in the social and affordable sector and sitting on properties that are far too large for their current needs?

[Dame Anne Begg]

I hazard a guess that the group of constituents the hon. Gentleman is talking about—we all have them—are not sitting in one-bedroom properties, but two-bedroom properties, and they will be looking for three or four-bedroom properties as their families grow. However, the people who are over-occupying will qualify only for a one-bedroom property, and in places such as Glasgow, there are simply not enough one-bedroom properties in the social rented sector to cover the number of people who qualify only for a single-bedroom property.

[Glenda Jackson]

On that very point, I have a briefing from the National Housing Federation, which states:

“There is a very limited supply of one bed properties into which people will be able to move. In 2009, just 38,700 one bed housing association properties were let to people of all ages in England. By contrast, the DWP’s impact assessment identifies 240,000 households who fit the size criteria…Most of these people will see a cut in their benefit with no prospect of being able to move to a smaller social home.”

[Dame Anne Begg]

That gives some of the figures. The problem is the mismatch between what people will now get housing benefit for and the actual housing supply. We also have to remember that housing associations and councils are no longer building houses. In fact, the housing summit that I hosted made it clear that housing associations, in particular, are afraid that they might not be in a position to build any more new houses. At the moment, banks regard them as a fairly low investment risk, because they know that housing associations will be paid housing benefit directly for residents who are on it. Under the move to universal credit, housing benefit will no longer be paid directly to the landlord, which will undermine housing associations’ ability to borrow, because they will no longer be seen as low risk.

Alternatively, housing associations might have a large number of tenants in properties that are over-occupied, so they will see a shortfall in housing benefit. On a number of different fronts, therefore, housing associations could see arrears build up, because people can no longer afford rents as a result of the changes to housing benefit. If housing associations are then seen as no longer being a safe investment bet, they will not be in a position to build the new houses that are required. Some housing associations have gone down the route of shared equity and all sorts of other things, but all that is under threat because of the housing benefit changes. That was outwith the scope of the Committee’s report, but it certainly needs to be considered, and I hope that we will return to it at some time in the future.

I know that I have not covered everything and that I have covered only bits and pieces, but I have talked for a long time, so I hope that hon. Members will have a flavour of some of the issues. Yes, we welcome some of the things the Government have said, but we are generally quite disappointed by their response and by their view that £190 million of discretionary housing benefit will somehow magic away a lot of the problems resulting from the changes. I hope that the Government are listening and that the Minister can answer at least some of our questions—if he cannot do so, I am sure that he can write to us.

15:17

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

I warmly welcome the report of the Work and Pensions Committee. I congratulate its Chair and her team on such an excellent piece of work.

The report and the evidence given to the Committee show that the Government are prepared to attack the most vulnerable in our society in pursuit of their blinkered cuts agenda. The so-called reforms to housing benefit demonstrate, sadly, that the nasty party is alive and kicking—and kicking the poor especially hard.

The Government response, which was published today, does not adequately address the concerns raised by the Committee’s report and by the expert witnesses. It is a shame, and perhaps rather telling, that the Government chose to publish their response on the morning of the debate, giving little time for proper scrutiny of it.

As the Committee notes in its conclusions, it was told that a few highly publicised cases of large families in high-rent properties in central London have been used to distort public perception of the scale of the problem. With the assistance of the right-wing press, the coalition tries to justify the housing benefit cuts by presenting housing benefit as an area of waste.

[Jonathan Lord]

I accept, as hon. Members have said, that these isolated cases are anomalous and are not the norm. However, does the hon. Lady really think it right, especially in a time of economic hardship, that hard-working families see other families living in properties, perhaps in central London, worth £1.2 million, when they could never possibly aspire to live in such houses on their salaries and wages? Does she agree with the cap that the Government still intend to introduce?

[Caroline Lucas]

A tiny number of high-profile cases have completely distorted the whole debate. Yes, there will be a few cases that cannot be justified, but I do not think that they should be allowed to dictate a policy that will be so punitive towards the poorest and most vulnerable.

[Glenda Jackson]

On precisely that point, I, too, was somewhat disturbed by the Prime Minister’s absolute adumbration that such cases were the norm for people who claim housing benefit, so I tabled questions. We are talking about precisely 90 families, who are all in central London. They are all large families, usually from ethnic minority communities, who have come to this country because we offered them asylum.

[Caroline Lucas]

I am enormously grateful for that information, which clearly sets out what we are dealing with. We are not dealing with the manufactured scenario in which hard-working families support the housing costs of huge numbers of workshy people who are wasting taxpayers’ money, which is the story being put about. The evidence given to the Committee shows plainly that that approach is inaccurate and irresponsible.

Let us remember that only one in eight of all housing benefit claimants is formally classified as unemployed. The rest include people on low incomes, pensioners, carers, and people with disabilities who are unable to work. We must challenge the myth of the workshy.

[Jonathan Lord]

We had a thoughtful exposition from the Chair of the Select Committee, and I now hear a diatribe about the nasty party. First, I remind the hon. Lady that the Government are a coalition, as is evidenced today, and secondly the characterisation is totally wrong. I used to be the housing chairman in a London local authority and am now the Member of Parliament for Woking. There are many hard-working people in Woking, including the ethnic minority communities, who would love large houses in the centre of London, but it is just not tenable.

[Jim Sheridan (in the Chair)]

Order. Interventions are becoming a bit long. Does the hon. Gentleman have a question he wants to ask?

[Jonathan Lord]

Thank you, Mr Sheridan. My question is whether the hon. Lady will withdraw her uncharacteristically barbed remarks, when she can see from the Government’s response that we are trying to get the housing benefit system back into kilter. At a time of economic difficulty, there is a need for a fairness test. I bring her attention back to those hard-working families who see others living in ridiculously large houses.

[Caroline Lucas]

I should be delighted for the housing benefit changes to be challenged under a fairness test, because any sensible fairness test on what is proposed shows that it fails a fairness test over and over. I am not delivering a diatribe. I am making a point. The media coverage and the language used, from the Prime Minister downwards, give the impression that there are many people who are simply workshy. To begin to challenge some of the stereotypes, it is important to state that only one in eight of all housing benefit claimants is formally classified as unemployed. I should love to withdraw the remarks I made about the nasty party, but on the basis of the information I have I cannot. The fact that the Lib Dems have now joined the nasty party does not make things better. It makes two nasty parties instead of one.

However, I should like to get on to the serious points. Many people who depend on housing benefit to get by in Brighton and Hove are in work. To be exact, 31% of people who receive LHA are in employment. They rely on housing benefit but they fear they will be forced to move away from the higher-rent areas where they work, such as my constituency of Brighton, Pavilion. As part of the June 2010 Budget the Government announced an intention to uprate LHA rates by the consumer prices index from April 2013. That measure, which is now in the Welfare Reform Bill, will make rents increasingly unaffordable for local housing allowance claimants throughout the country as the rates are linked to inflation rather than the real cost of rents.

Without access to adequate temporary support with housing costs, people who lose their jobs may be forced to uproot their families and move to a new area, undermining their efforts to find employment and get back on their feet. That is graphically demonstrated by new research by Shelter and the Chartered Institute of Housing, which shows that by 2025 nine out of 10 homes will be unaffordable to local housing allowance claimants in Brighton and Hove. The research found that in Brighton the areas with the most locations of employment were quickest to become very unaffordable, with the more remote rural areas and the eastern coastal area, which has relatively high unemployment, remaining relatively affordable. For many, therefore, the cuts to LHA will force them to move and make it difficult to retain their jobs, because it will be too impractical or costly to commute from the cheaper areas they will be forced to go to.

Once the cap on rail fare increases is raised to 3% above inflation from 2012, and the arrears caused by the shortfalls in housing benefit have really started to pile up, the Government’s housing benefit cuts will mean that many will find themselves in a new benefits trap, removed from their communities and newly unemployed. When working parents in receipt of LHA are forced to give up their home and move to a cheaper area, they will struggle to afford the astronomical child care costs they need to pay so that they can work, because they will no longer live near friends or family members who might have helped with child care in the past.

The proposal for LHA to be set at the 30th percentile of market rents—down from the 50th percentile or median rate—and the proposal to link LHA increases to the CPI will have a hugely negative impact on my constituency. Brighton and Hove has one of the largest private rented sectors in the country, comprising 28,000 homes—almost a quarter of all the city’s housing at 23%. My surgeries are already full of people who are struggling to pay rent and to find alternatives to cramped, overcrowded and overpriced accommodation. The Government’s plans can only make their situation worse. The increase in housing benefit bills over recent years is not, as the Government would have us believe, the result of an epidemic of scroungers. As the evidence to the Committee makes clear it is due to considerable growth in the number of people who are being forced into the private rented sector. In Brighton, Pavilion, for example, someone would have to earn more than £50,000 a year to buy an averagely priced house. No wonder that 11,000 households are on the waiting list for affordable housing in the Brighton and Hove area. At current rates, that list will take more than eight years to clear.

Brighton and Hove city council acknowledged to the Committee in written evidence that the housing benefit changes could increase homelessness applications. Indeed, the Committee reports the fears of numerous expert witnesses that evictions and increased homelessness will be the results of the policies. The Committee concludes that large families, young people, older people and disabled people may be particularly affected. It is plain from the evidence given by Brighton and Hove city council that the reality of those changes for people who are already struggling in my constituency will be even greater shortfalls between benefits and rents than already exist.

Perhaps I may give the House a few figures. In the city council’s evidence to the Committee, it acknowledges that a total of 721 pensioners will not be able to meet their rent, while 250 pensioners who could previously meet their rent will have an average weekly shortfall of £7, and a shocking 471 pensioners will have a new average shortfall of £31.76 a week. Some 2,500 working families will not be able to meet their rent, and more than 1,400 of those families will have a new average weekly shortfall of £33.70. There are 2,386 families with children who will not be able to meet their rent, with 1,122 of those families facing a huge new average weekly shortfall of £41.94—about £175 a month. I could go on, but the House gets my drift.

It is not okay to sit back and wait to see whether landlords will drop their rents. The Government are being far too complacent in their response. Landlords are under no obligation to reduce rents. Some may do so, but many may not, and it will be the vulnerable people, including pensioners, children and people with disabilities who will suffer the most. The way landlords respond to the cuts will vary depending on their local private rented sector market, as well as on their own financial circumstances. Many landlords will shift to the non-LHA market and LHA claimants are likely to be ghettoised in lower-rent areas, living in poorly maintained houses in multiple occupation. It is not good enough simply to hope that the cuts to LHA will lead to a fall in rent levels, when people’s homes are at stake.

What of young people—another group identified in the Committee’s report as particularly affected? It is clear that young people will be very hard hit by the shared room rate announced as a follow-up to the June Budget proposals, as part of the October spending review. Now consideration is being given to extending that rate to include people up to the age of 35, and that will have a hugely negative impact. The paltry shared room rate already results in single claimants experiencing unsustainable shortfalls between their rent levels and housing benefit entitlement. Those shortfalls are more acute for younger claimants. Given that it is already extremely difficult for young people to find accommodation at the pitiful shared room rate, the proposal to extend the age group of those who must try to survive on it in the housing market will make it even harder for young people to get accommodation. I fear it is very likely that the proposal will lead to an increase in youth homelessness.

The Government like to present the shared room rate proposal as an extension of the idea of a group of young friends living together as their children might after university. That is a seductive argument, but only because it is so simplistic. There is a variety of reasons why shared accommodation is not always a suitable option for claimants. People with behavioural or dependency problems, and people who pose a risk often need to live on their own. As I said earlier, under the policy even expectant mothers will be expected to share until they give birth. Even if sharing is not a problem for an individual in principle, where is the accommodation to be found? It is wholly unacceptable for the Government to take the approach of implementing the policies before they have assessed what the likely outcomes will be. In answer to a parliamentary question, the Government stated that

“the increase in the age threshold for the shared room rate announced in the spending review will affect around 88,000 claimants.”—[Official Report, 1 November 2010; Vol. 517, c. 538W.]

However, the Department for Work and Pensions has not yet published an equality impact assessment on the shared room rate proposal. That is expected to be published with draft regulations. How can we have confidence in a Department that is prepared to make such a proposal, which is likely to lead to massive inequality and hardship—particularly for young people—without doing the equality impact assessment first?

The Government’s agreement, in response to the Committee’s report, to undertake a review of the housing benefit cuts taking effect this year is welcome as far as it goes. Such reviews will be essential if these damaging proposals go ahead. However, it is clear from the expert witnesses who gave evidence to the Committee and, indeed, from my constituents that the cuts being implemented will lead to hardship for many vulnerable people. Reviews are one thing, but the fact is that there is more than enough strong evidence of widespread concern over the likely effects of these measures to show that they ought to be dropped, and dropped now.

Not only are these cuts socially devastating, they make no economic sense. It is clear from the Committee’s report and the number of times that it suggests in its conclusions and recommendations that money will be needed to address the negative consequences of these proposals, that the funding announced for discretionary housing payments is not enough. As the Committee rather gently puts it, the money is

“intended to provide a solution to a very wide range of identified areas of concern”.

That is very true. Even if we put fairness aside and look solely at the money, it is clear that the short-term budget savings from housing benefit cuts are highly likely to be eclipsed by a mounting bill to the taxpayer, as the knock-on consequences of homelessness, job losses and overcrowding impact on people’s health and employment prospects.

Instead of attacks on housing benefits and cuts to other schemes that help people in housing difficulty, such as the support for mortgage interest schemes, we need a major investment in new affordable housing and measures to bring empty properties back into use. We need simple measures, such as a reduction in VAT on repairs, to encourage people to put older properties to better use, and we need proposals to support housing co-ops and other forms of affordable housing, not measures that drive up social housing rents to 80% of market rent. The Committee’s report and the evidence it received makes it clear that if we are to reduce the housing benefit bill in the long term, we should build more affordable housing. Of course, that should be green, decent and fuel-efficient housing.

In conclusion, the proposed reforms are nothing less than brutal. The Government’s U-turn on the punitive proposal to punish people who are on jobseeker’s allowance for more than a year by cutting their benefit by 10% shows that the Government are on the back foot over their nasty housing benefit cuts. Thousands of people are losing their jobs and they do not want that safety net left in tatters. The coalition seems to want us to ignore the fact that we do not all start out with equal life chances and opportunities. A fair society redistributes wealth from the rich to the poor, not the other way around. The coalition’s plans are punitive, destructive and costly, and people deserve better.

15:32

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

I am pleased to have an opportunity to contribute to the debate. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen South (Dame Anne Begg) who chairs the Committee. This is the Committee’s first report and she has led us well to some excellent conclusions. I will concentrate my comments on evictions and homelessness, which I believe will affect many people in my Stockton North constituency, as well as across the north-east of England and beyond. The Government’s proposed cuts will, of course, have that result.

It is worth remembering some of the things that we heard while taking evidence. The Committee took extensive evidence from many organisations and interested parties on the subject. We took much evidence from Shelter, which—among other things—told us that 147,000 families with 250,000 children and 20,000 households with people over 60 would be put in serious difficulty by the proposals, and that is not just financially. The Mayor of London estimated that there would be a 50% increase in homelessness in London, costing £78 million for the 5,000 households in the city that could be placed in temporary accommodation.

There is more—much more. Nearly 3,000 people in the small borough of Stockton-on-Tees will lose out by at least £7 a week thanks to the changes. Most of those people are in my Stockton North constituency rather than in Stockton South, which is represented by a Conservative Member. To some people, £7 is not a lot of money. However, that can represent food on the table for a family for two or three days. Large families are particularly vulnerable to the changes proposed by the Government and could face temporary homelessness, especially in central London. There will also potentially be an increase in poverty, including child poverty.

I make no apology for referring time and again to Shelter, which is one of the most credible organisations that I know. It, along with other organisations, has expressed concern that the number of households living in overcrowded properties will increase as a consequence of the reforms. According to Shelter’s written evidence, 1 million children are living in overcrowded conditions across the country, which is not only a problem for large families. Shelter also estimates that 72,000 families with 129,000 children may be forced to move out of their existing homes and that children will be uprooted from schools, which impacts on their education and social development.

It is likely that the reforms will lead to a significant movement of local housing allowance claimants from higher to lower rent areas. Those areas are likely to be relatively deprived and lacking in job or training opportunities, transport links, good schools and so on. The reforms have other wide-reaching effects, which can only add to the considerable burden on already stretched local authorities and on resources such as schools and doctors at a time when local authority spending is being decimated by the Tory-led Government. In the Stockton borough, there is a 28% cut in grant over the next two or three years, most of which is front-loaded.

My hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) mentioned that it is important we do not detach housing benefit from the broader issue of affordable housing provision and the difficulties for first-time buyers, especially in London and the south-east—although it is a problem across the country. The Government say that they will build 150,000 new affordable homes over the next five years, but that is less than a third of what the country actually needs. I recognise that Labour could have done much more in government to secure more adequate provision of social housing, but it is important to recall that, when we came to power in 1997, we were left with a £19 billion maintenance backlog by the previous Tory Government. I often wonder what the picture would be today if we had been able to spend that £19 billion on building new homes.

The Tory failure to fund the upkeep of social housing meant that hundreds of thousands of families were living in substandard and even dangerous conditions. Through our decent homes programme, council-owned homes have been fitted with more than 700,000 new kitchens, more than 500,000 new bathrooms and more than 1 million new central heating systems. More than £33 billion—£21 billion of it from central Government—has been invested in social housing, and we have reduced the number of non-decent social homes by 1.5 million. Yes, that created tens of thousands of jobs, but those jobs have now gone, forcing more people out of work and making them dependent on the kind of allowances we are debating today.

The Committee made a series of recommendations around the issues aimed at getting a balanced approach to change, and the Government responded just over 24 hours ago. Apart from the stark statement that the Government consider the estimates made by witnesses to have been exaggerated and that, in any event, the extra £190 million of funding will meet the challenges, however great, the response offers limited consolation to the people who will be most affected by the changes. Like others, I am not sure that the £190 million will go anywhere near to meeting the transition costs and other challenges. Paragraph 30 of the response states:

“If landlords reduced rents by £10 a week there would be a significant reduction in the number of customers in receipt of Housing Benefit under the Local Housing Allowance Scheme that would face a shortfall.”

There are two problems with that. First, I remain to be convinced that the claimed downward pressure on rents will happen, regardless of the number of people in receipt of that benefit. Secondly, why should families and individuals who have so little to start with have to face cuts in their weekly income for some politically motivated reason that I fail to understand?

Yes, I have heard the arguments, such as those made by the hon. Member for Woking (Jonathan Lord), who has left the Chamber, about it being unfair for people on benefits to live in the same or even better homes as people in employment. However, we surely do not accept the Daily Mail-type rhetoric that suggests the bulk of families on benefits are wasters and scroungers. They are not, and it is time we saw evidence of the care that the Government claim to have for our most needy. The Daily Mail line is disproved best by Shelter’s evidence that 0.01% of the entire local housing allowance caseload is represented by households claiming the maximum rent available.

Apart from the welcome decision to see sense and abandon the punishment of people on jobseeker’s allowance by fining them 10% of their housing benefit for being unable to find a job within 12 months, I am disappointed by the Government’s response to the report, which contains a set of recommendations put forward with the full agreement of the Select Committee. We have had a very thin response, indeed. As the Government’s programme is rolled out and the experts who gave us evidence are proven to have had well founded fears, I hope that the Government will take corrective action quickly and not allow a new underclass to be left deeper in poverty and struggling to find a home.

[Dame Anne Begg]

I wonder whether, with my hon. Friend’s experience as a local councillor, he has been able to quantify how much extra it may cost local councils to deal with the homelessness that will arise as a result of the Government’s proposals, and, indeed, the increase—perhaps return—of the bed and breakfast, which will be the only alternative that many people will have, as a result of being forced out of their homes?

[Alex Cunningham]

I do not currently have the specific details relating to Stockton-on-Tees, but I know that there are anxieties about everything, from how the council will deal with housing benefit in the future, to how it will deal with the people who are going to lose their jobs, as its responsibility is removed. It expects a considerable influx of people into the housing department seeking accommodation and further help. Whether that will be available, I do not know, and that is all the more reason why, as the Government have been proved to have been wrong on this issue, they will need to take quick action and correct it.

15:41

[Jenny Willott (Cardiff Central) (LD)]

A number of hon. Members have mentioned that the Government’s proposals have been driven by the portrayal, in the right-wing media, of scroungers and so on. While I agree with hon. Members who say that that media portrayal is inaccurate and unfair, we should also make it clear that the Government’s proposals are not driven by that portrayal.

Today, the Liberal Democrats have been called the nasty party. Although the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) was not a Member of this place prior to the general election, the principle was established in the previous Parliament that there should be a cap on housing benefit on local housing allowance. The hon. Member for Aberdeen South (Dame Anne Begg) will remember, when we were both members of the Work and Pensions Committee in the previous Parliament, that the principle that nobody should be entitled to a house of more than five bedrooms was introduced by the previous Government on the basis that it was not fair that people should have an endless capacity to have houses that were costing taxpayers a significant amount of money. We can therefore argue about where the cap should be set, but the principle was set, and hon. Members in all parts of the House agreed that there should be a cap of some sort to ensure that there is fairness for those working on low incomes and to ensure that they do not feel at a disadvantage in their communities in comparison with those who are not working and are receiving LHA.

As I have said, I was a member of the Work and Pensions Committee in the previous Parliament. One recommendation that the Committee made, in one of the final reports that we published in the previous Parliament, was that there should be additional rooms available on LHA for people who need carers. I would like to put on record that I am really glad that the Government have now introduced that. When we took evidence prior to the election, that situation seemed to be very unfair, and the evidence we took included some upsetting stories about how that had affected people’s lives. I am glad, therefore, that that has been put right.

I want to flag up a number of issues about which I have concerns, and I would be grateful if the Minister were to respond to them in his summation. One concern relates to the broad rental market areas, which have been an issue for a period of time. The Committee looked at that issue in the previous Parliament and raised it as a concern. However, the Government are proposing to change the centile, so that LHA will be based on the 30th centile. Whether the BRMAs are working effectively becomes an even more important issue, because it has an even more noticeable impact on the amount of LHA that claimants can receive as a maximum.

Some BRMAs have serious internal problems within an area, which then create barriers to the labour market. The most often quoted example is the city of Cambridge. The area covered by the BRMA includes the city centre, which has very expensive properties, and a significant rural hinterland, where the properties are very cheap. That means that the centile is skewed by the large rural areas. If people then end up living in those areas, the jobs are not there and it makes it difficult for people to access the labour market. The opposite effect, as the hon. Member for Aberdeen South has said, has been seen in Blackpool, where the cheap areas are in the town centre and the rents there have been driven up by a significant amount. That has effectively priced working families on low incomes out of the town centre and made it difficult, particularly in a job market that is heavily reliant on seasonal work, for people to keep their accommodation.

As well as the well-known examples of Cambridge, Blackpool and others, there is a significant problem in London, where the BRMAs are enormous. People moving from one area of a BRMA to another are not moving within a small area. It may be that there are entire boroughs within a BRMA where there is almost no affordable accommodation for people receiving LHA. I know that a number of London MPs are concerned about how exactly that might work. The principle, therefore, of changing the centile from the 50th to the 30th, if the BRMAs work properly and effectively, might not be too problematic. Where BRMAs are not working, however, where they are too big or where they have internal problems, those issues will be exacerbated by the move from the 50th to the 30th centile. I hope that the review of the housing benefit proposals, which was mentioned in the other place by Lord Freud, the Minister with responsibility for housing benefit, will look at BRMAs, which have not been examined properly, have been a problem for a number of years and have not been taken seriously.

In Wales, BRMAs are coterminous with local authorities, which seems to be more effective because it tends to involve a smaller area. People tend to have their community, and, as the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion has said, their support network—their friends and family—that they need to be able to stay in work, and they tend to be in the same local authority area. By reducing BRMAs to a more practical size, we may be able to overcome a lot of problems that might otherwise arise with the change to the centiles.

On the shared accommodation rate—I shall probably call it the wrong thing as well in this debate—I share the concerns raised by other hon. Members. I completely understand the rationale behind it of ensuring that people who are receiving LHA are not at an advantage over people who are working and not receiving benefit. My personal view, however, is that it seems to be based on a London-centric view of the world. In London, a lot of young people under the age of 35 live in shared accommodation. For those working in London, it is difficult to afford a one-bedroom property. Outside London and outside of the expensive parts of the UK, in a lot of areas young working people under the age of 35 are perfectly able to rent a one-bedroom flat. That is certainly the case in my city, Cardiff. We may find that we are putting young people up to the age of 35—I would like to think that that is young—at a potential disadvantage, in comparison with other people.

[Dame Anne Begg]

I agree wholeheartedly with what the hon. Lady is saying, but it is actually much harder for those who are dependent on housing benefit to lead the kind of shared life that I think the Government envisage. Students sharing flats are not dependent on housing benefit and are therefore not hidebound by the rules of housing benefit and what can be rented as a result of housing benefit, and neither are groups of young professionals who might be sharing a house or a flat. They are not hidebound by the rules of tenancy agreements and what is legal and what is not illegal. Part of the problem is the lack of houses in multiple occupancy to which people on housing benefit can have access.

[Jenny Willott]

The hon. Lady makes a valid point. In areas of my constituency, a large number of students live in shared accommodation. If they are in a house in multiple occupancy, most students are not going to want to share with somebody who is on housing benefit, partly because it makes it difficult for council tax exemption and things like that. As soon as there are different people with different exemptions and different rules, as the hon. Lady has said, the financial arrangements for a household may become complicated.

Finally, the other issue about which I have some concerns is the move to uprating rents in line with the consumer prices index, rather than with average rents. The issue is a difficult one to resolve, and I completely understand why the Government have decided to propose the change. Increasing the local housing allowance in line with rents has, in large parts of the country, driven up rents significantly. As the hon. Lady has mentioned, if we set the LHA at the median rent, and if all the landlords currently charging less than that bring their rent up to the median, then the median rises. Rents inevitably go on an upward bend, which has happened in significant parts of the country.

I appreciate that the Government are tackling that issue to ensure that it does not happen and that people have a fair crack of the whip. No only are there implications for the vast amount of money that the Government are spending through the LHA, but there is a knock-on impact on those who are not receiving the LHA in a local area and are renting privately. It can make it even more difficult for those on low incomes to afford appropriate accommodation.

I have some concerns, however, about uprating rents in line with the CPI. The index reflects inflationary increases, but it is not designed to reflect changes in the housing market. I am glad that the Government will be reviewing the decision in a couple of years—2014, I think—after seeing the impact. If the LHA is not keeping track with what is happening in the rental market, we could end up with a big gap separating those on the housing allowance and those paying rent. That might have a serious impact on those people’s ability to get into work, as well as all the other positive things the Government are driving forward.

A number of hon. Members have mentioned that the whole situation is driven by our not having enough social housing in the UK. It is crucial that we build more social housing, if we are to tackle any of the issues.

To get in my party political pop for the afternoon, both the previous Labour and Tory Governments sold off more than they built, which is why we are in such a mess in the first place. After the Thatcher-Major Government, by 1997 there were 1.1 million fewer social homes, which is a huge number. Then, after 13 years of Labour in power in this country, there was still a drop of another 250,000 in social housing. By the time Labour left power last year, there were 1.7 million families on housing waiting lists, which is such a vast number that it will take much greater changes than those to the housing benefit rules if we are to do anything about it.

I am glad that the Lib-Dems in government are ensuring that something will happen. The Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, my hon. Friend the Member for Hazel Grove (Andrew Stunell), announced that more than 150,000 affordable homes will be built over the next four years. That is a start, although clearly not enough when we have such a massive deficit of social housing in this country. At least it is progress in the right direction, rather than going backwards. I hope that, whatever we think about the changes, people will fall in behind the building programme to ensure that it happens, so that we can make some progress and people can afford homes to live in.

15:53

[Glenda Jackson (Hampstead and Kilburn) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen South (Dame Anne Begg), who chairs the Select Committee on Work and Pensions, and other hon. Members who have contributed to the debate this afternoon.

I must say to the Minister that the Government response to the Select Committee report adds insult to injury. The insult was the Government’s failure to give the House their response to the report earlier than this morning. Committee members were in a privileged position: we got our less-than-glossy copies yesterday morning, I believe at about 9.25. What was injurious was that the Government seemed not to have read the report.

I freely expect the Government not to listen to anything that the Opposition have to say about proposals, but I am stunned that they ignore what a Select Committee puts before them, given that the Committee’s findings are based not on our own experience as constituency MPs, but on a great deal of informed experience and evidence given to us by organisations whose only reason for being is attempting to prevent people becoming homeless or dependent on housing benefit. I have with me about a third of the briefings that I—in common with every other Member of the House, presumably—have received from such organisations. Almost without exception, the recurring theme coming through from such reports is the failure of the Government to listen to what they are being told or to take on board the dangers inherent in their housing benefit policy for the most vulnerable in our society.

We can all quote chapter and verse from our own constituencies about what the danger and damage will be. The hon. Member for Cardiff Central (Jenny Willott) spoke of the Government’s policies being London-centric. Would that they were, because it seems to me that the Government totally ignore any of the individual situations that can be found up and down the country, that people are in and will remain in, even though they are in work. Many of the most low-paid in this country are utterly dependent on housing benefit, and they are certainly not pulling in rents that would keep in fine fettle a house worth more than £1 million.

The contribution of London Councils stated:

“Housing costs are over 50% higher than the national average…child care costs are around 25% higher than the national average…Transport in London costs on average £10 per week more…than…in other metropolitan areas.”

We are told that the whole thrust behind the Government’s policy is not simply to cut money out of housing benefit or to fill up that big black hole of national debt, but to encourage people to get back into work. However, according to London Councils:

“Added to this, Londoners face extra difficulties in moving into employment, with greater competition for entry level jobs. Many of these entry level jobs do not include a London weighting to reflect the higher in-work costs in the capital…The impact on jobseekers in London has been highlighted in research carried out by Reed in Partnership”—

presumably more evidence the Government know nothing about—

“where the move into work costs on average £639.40 over the first month (including childcare), over £150.00 more than for the rest of the UK.”

Other briefings also pointed out a genuine and well-based fear that the Government’s proposals will inevitably lead to greater levels of homelessness, which would mean a greater need for local authorities to house, unless the Government propose removing the statutory obligation on them to put a roof over a child’s head. Anything is possible with this Government—they might be intending that, but they have not said it yet. However, if the statutory requirement remains, local authorities will have to house children.

Without any question, every single piece of evidence presented to us shows that the people who will be most affected by the Government’s proposals are the most vulnerable. Such people tend to be single parents with children, or families on very low pay with children. We are looking at a situation in which we might go back to the dreadful days, which I remember well, when families were existing—certainly not living—in ghastly bed-and-breakfast hostels.

Crisis, in its briefing to the Select Committee, said that at the moment the cost of a room in a bed-and-breakfast hostel could be £60 a day. How will the Government save money if that is indeed the future for many families, not only in London but throughout the country, if the proposals go through without any consideration?

As my hon. Friend commented on the Government response to the arguments put forward, not exclusively by the Select Committee, we are not inventing these things, which come not only from direct constituency experience, but from organisations that are expert in the field. They say, for example, that if people with a disabled child need an extra room, or space for a wheelchair or a dialysis machine, the Government’s response is, “Oh well, we can’t be expected to meet the requirements of every single individual in this country.” Why? I thought that one of the first responsibilities of Government is to protect the citizens of this country. Surely protecting children, the disabled and the elderly is a vital part of any Government’s job.

In their response to the Select Committee’s report, the Government have failed markedly. There is lack of attention to detail. As most hon. Members who have spoken have said, the Government apparently believe that the additional £190 million that they have managed to find will cover all the additional costs on local authorities, for people who cannot meet their rents, and that that will be the panacea and remove everyone’s problems. We all know that that is ridiculous, because it will not. There will be a nine-month transition. Really! Nine months’ transition will do nothing except exacerbate the justifiable anxieties of people who know that they are being threatened and may have to move home.

When the noble Lord Freud gave evidence to the Select Committee, he was very sanguine about people who may have to move from central London boroughs to outer London boroughs. He could not give any fine detail of what properties could be affordable and available in outer London boroughs. He rested his contribution on the statement that there is a 40% churn annually of people moving house. He could not tell us what sort of families that 40% churn represented, and I think it highly unlikely that it included people with disabilities. I am pretty sure that it did not include families with children, because the monstrous aspect of the Government’s proposals is not only that people will lose their homes—they will—but that children will lose their place in school. They will then have to try to find another place in another school. The evidence from Lord Freud’s officials on school place vacancies bore no relationship to any figures that I have heard. There are two London boroughs in my constituency, and a desperate shortage of school places not only in junior schools, but in secondary schools. Yet according to the Government, the rest of London is awash with empty school places. I would be interested to know where they are, as would many of my constituents.

Another issue that Lord Freud completely discounted in his evidence about people having to be moved from central London boroughs to outer London boroughs was of people having to look for work. Again, he was remarkably sanguine about the cost of travelling. I had three constituency cases only this morning. In one of those, parents with three children aged nine to three are forced to live with their in-laws: six adults and three children are living in a four-bedroom house. The house is owned by the in-laws, but it is extremely difficult for the local authority to find anywhere for that unit with three children to live other than in the private sector.

Despite the Government’s pronouncement that landlords will be only too happy to lower their rents when housing benefit goes down, there is a marked reluctance on the part of private landlords to accept tenants who receive housing benefit. In my constituency, almost without exception, there is a gap between what landlords charge and what housing benefit pays. That gap will only increase because of the Government’s proposals.

Another issue that I find bemusing is the Government’s argument that the proposal is not just about saving money, but is a real plus and an incentive for people to find work. The majority of people I know who are on housing benefit in my constituency, setting aside the fact that they may be disabled, work. They are in low- paid work, but they are expected to move somewhere else to find jobs, so central London will be bereft of all those jobs on which higher earners are dependent to be able to do their jobs. Quite how that will be a big plus in revitalising our economy is beyond my comprehension.

I have always had a rule, Mr Sheridan, that if one cannot say what one needs to say in 10 minutes or less, one should not rise to one’s feet. As I am in grave danger of breaking my own rule, I had better draw my comments to a conclusion.

When the evidence in a Select Committee report is so irrefutable and it is of such importance to so many individuals and families that the Government get it right, it is absolutely scandalous that the Government response should be so flabby and patronising. The Government patted the Select Committee on the head, but they examined none of the real issues. Given the huge wider changes that they are introducing throughout the welfare benefits system, it is to be hoped that they will begin to do a little more research and take seriously the evidence that is out there.

16:06

[Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab)]

As others have done, I congratulate the Select Committee, on producing such a comprehensive report into the Government’s proposals in the June Budget. I also congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen South (Dame Anne Begg) on her thoughtful, balanced and comprehensive introduction to the debate. It is a great credit to the Select Committee that the report sought to be so balanced, and that the Committee so rigorously examined the proposals. It is striking and a tribute to the generosity of my hon. Friend’s character that the report ended up being just a touch more generous to the Government than to itself in terms of the Government’s impact assessment, which warned of the danger of increases in the number of households facing rent arrears, eviction or presenting as homeless, and of rising crime, increased pressure on the legal aid budget, increased overcrowding, disruption to children’s education and lower educational attainment.

The Social Security Advisory Committee also comprehensively rubbished the proposals, and warned of unintended and perverse consequences of the changes, which will in many cases lead not only to hardship, but to additional expenditure in other areas of Government service.

[The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Steve Webb)]

Just for the record, will the hon. Lady confirm that the SSAC produced its report before the nine-month transition period, before the October and April changes were brought together and before the 10% housing benefit change was reversed?

[Ms Buck]

I certainly confirm that. I am happy to commend the Government on their decision to withdraw the proposal to reduce housing benefit by 10% for people who have been on jobseeker’s allowance for more than a year. I also accept entirely that there has been a phasing in of the cap on housing benefit, which particularly affects central London. As the Minister knows, that was more than compensated for in cash terms by bringing forward the reduction to the 30th percentile for housing benefit for local housing allowance claims, which affects the rest of the country for new claims.

We have heard a range of contributions this afternoon. My hon. Friend the Member for Hampstead and Kilburn (Glenda Jackson) was highly critical of the proposals, and she raised concerns about their impact particularly on families with children. She made it clear that one of the areas that has not been properly addressed by the Government and many commentators on this agenda is the variance between London housing costs and those in the rest of the country.

The hon. Member for Cardiff Central (Jenny Willott) raised a number of thoughtful and important points about the structure of the broad market rental areas and the complex lives of real individuals who will be affected by the move to the single-room accommodation rate. She made an important point, which I accept entirely, when she said that one reason why we have a dilemma about how to pay for low-income households and housing is due to a 30-year-long reduction in the availability of social housing. I do not want to divert too far from the central topic—I know you will not allow me to, Mr Sheridan—but in 1997 the Labour Government inherited social housing stock in such a poor condition that huge investment had to go into improving the physical conditions of council housing through the decent homes initiative. I have gone on the record extensively over the years to say that I, too, regret that we did not build more social housing. We would still, however, have had a significant number of low-income households in the private rented sector, and we would still be facing some of the same problems.

My hon. Friend the Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham) drew attention to the risks of homelessness and eviction in another part of the country. This debate has so often focused on London, and it is good and right for us to recognise that it is not only a London problem. The hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) spoke powerfully about the experience of a city with a large private rental market, where the changes will have a profound impact in terms of squeezing out low-income households on local housing allowance across the city.

Since the cuts were introduced by the Government, the debate has concentrated largely on London and a few individual cases. It was good to hear many speakers emphasise that such cases involve a tiny minority of larger households living almost in very high-value properties, something none of us would defend. As the Select Committee report reflected, depending on which figures one uses, the few thousand cases that are at the significantly higher end of the cost market are an issue that the Government could have tackled, if they had wanted to. They could have confined themselves to that, but instead we have almost 1 million—936,000—households that will lose by an average of £12 a week over the course of a full year, once housing benefit changes to the local housing allowance are introduced. It is important that the public understand the sheer scale and spread of the changes, and there will be a nasty shock starting in April with the new cases calculated on the 30th percentile and the other changes phased in later.

[Steve Webb]

It is important that those who listen to our debates understand whether the hon. Lady opposes all the changes. She has mentioned 1 million losers. Does she accept that roughly 500,000 households would have lost in any case through the abolition of the £15 excess, which the previous Government were going to implement but put off until after the election? Does she support those losses affecting 500,000 households, or does she oppose them?

[Ms Buck]

It is right that the Labour Government intended to remove the £15 excess. However, the Minister will accept that the sheer number of people who will lose as a consequence of these changes far exceeds the small number of high-profile cases to which people on his side of the argument usually confine the debate.

We have rehearsed this argument before, so I do not want to spend too much time on it. None the less, the argument was made again during yesterday’s debate on the Welfare Reform Bill that housing benefit is out of control. We know that expenditure on housing benefit increased from £11.5 billion to £21.5 billion over the decade, and only half of that is down to inflation. Social housing rents have risen significantly as a consequence of rent restructuring, and above all—this is the key factor and the reason behind so much concern in the Labour party—case loads have risen. Case load increase has been the main driver of increased expenditure on housing benefit. In the two years since the local housing allowance was fully extended across the country, 87% of the rise in that allowance was driven by case load. During those years of recession, almost half that case load involved either people in work, or those on jobseeker’s allowance who were therefore connected with the labour market and seeking to get back into work.

It is also worth emphasising that local authorities have been making far greater use of the private rented sector in order to place homeless households. That is not a party political point, because the previous Government did that as well, reflecting the shortfall in social housing. In the past year, 60,000 households were placed in the private rented sector at far higher unit cost than if they had been in social housing. Many of those high profile individuals who found their stories in the Daily Mail and the Daily Express were placed in that accommodation by a local authority, because it had no other place in which to put them.

Professor Wilcox was, I believe, an adviser to the Select Committee and has worked extensively for the Department for Work and Pensions. Writing in the new UK Housing Review, he refuted the central Government claim that the local housing allowance was the main driver of inflation in costs:

“The Government have argued that increased rents charged to clients reflect exploitation of the housing benefit regime by private landlords and that this has also been a substantial factor accounting for rising programme costs. The evidence for these claims is not robust. Even if it is assumed that all the above-inflation rise in private rents is attributable to landlord action, this would account for only 10% of the total cash increase in Housing Benefit over the decade.”

We therefore have a rising case load, including a rising case load of those in work, of people who are at risk of losing a substantial share of their income either from April or during the 9 months afterwards. There will be new claims, and many of those people will be forced to move.

We already know that 47% of all local housing allowance tenants have a shortfall between their current rents and the allowance—I stand to be corrected if that is wrong. Therefore, the ability of tenants to absorb an additional shortfall is already small. We know that a substantial number will need to move to a reduced and continually decreasing pool of available property. The National Housing Federation has stated that in London alone, 160,000 claimants will need to fit into 46,000 homes.

There will be a major movement of people. The hon. Member for Woking (Jonathan Lord) made the case that his constituents find it hard to justify people living in high rental areas, and that they want to see costs come down and fewer people living in expensive areas, which may well be true. I understand that concern and that members of the public, particularly outside London, find it a struggle to justify those rents. There is less of a clamour, however, among the communities that seek to accommodate all those who will be required to move, whether that is further out into Brighton, to the edges of London or outside London.

It is worth reflecting on the response given by the London borough of Barking and Dagenham to the housing benefit cuts. Barking and Dagenham is one of the cheapest areas in the south-east, and it is likely to receive a large number of out-movers. I will quote its report:

“Given that Barking and Dagenham has the lowest private rent levels in London…it would be logical to expect that displaced households might…of their own choice look for private rentals here,”

or they might be placed there by other local authorities.

“Such an influx would place additional pressures on waiting lists, social, educational and welfare provision as well as greater demands for support in preventing debt and homelessness.”

It has been estimated that at least 3,000 households will seek to move to Barking and Dagenham. The report goes on to say:

“If rental demand does decrease and housing benefit claimants do migrate to the borough, this may have a significant impact upon the Council’s ability to move its own residents from waiting lists”

into local accommodation. That would lead to increased tension between Barking and Dagenham residents and in-movers—as we know, Barking and Dagenham is a community where we do not want to increase tension between in-movers, many of whom will be black and minority ethnic, and the resident population.

The areas that will be expected to accommodate out-movers are not prepared for it financially: they do not have the resources; they do not have the school places; they do not have the social capacity; and many of them are seeing their grants cut as well. The move to using the consumer prices index will further ratchet down the availability of accommodation until, as the Cambridge centre for housing and planning research has shown, 34% of all local authorities will, within a decade, be unaffordable to everyone on the local housing allowance.

The Minister will say that discretionary housing payments will meet the shortfall and take the strain. It is welcome that additional money has been put into the discretionary housing payment pot and into the homelessness prevention fund for local authorities. However, it is estimated that that money will assist only about 60,000 of the total pool of households. Conveniently, 60,000 is also the figure for the households placed by local authorities in the private rented sector. It will therefore go no further than merely meeting the shortfall of local authorities’ placements of their own homeless households. If it is asked to stretch further, it will not meet the shortfall at all. Therefore, as welcome as the money is, it will go only a very short way towards offsetting the disadvantage.

The measures will mean homelessness, hardship and all the risks set out in the Select Committee report, the Social Security Advisory Committee report and the Government’s own assessment. They will mean, as we have heard, that huge numbers of people who are currently in work—including 1,000 local housing allowance claimants in my borough alone—will lose and lose big. Those people have jobs, and they will be forced a long way out of inner London. They will, of course, face commuting costs that make it extremely difficult for them to make work pay in the new environment.

I want to say a few words about the measures on social housing under-occupation, which so far have not received the attention that they deserve, because they are being phased in a little later than those relating to the private sector local housing allowance. We have seen the equality impact assessment released yesterday by the Department, and we know that the introduction of the size criteria for social housing will affect an estimated 670,000 people throughout the country. That number will rise as the pension age rises. It is 32%—almost one in three—of all housing benefit claimants in the social rented sector.

Most extraordinarily—I think this astonishing—the equality impact assessment states that the number of people with disabilities who will be affected by the change is twice as high as the number of people without disabilities. The Government are seeking to require, in two years’ time, 450,000 households with a disabled recipient of housing benefit to move to an alternative property. That is what the impact assessment says—450,000. The figure is 670,000 people in total. If those people do not move, they will face a shortfall of £13 a week between their rent and their housing benefit. Not only is that a disproportionate and extraordinary impact on older and disabled people, but one wonders how on earth the whole policy of downsizing in relation to the under-occupation rule will work. The total number of households that moved in the social rented sector in the last year for which figures are available was less than 200,000. In 24 months’ time, the Government will expect 670,000 people to try to avoid a penalty on their housing benefit by moving to smaller accommodation. That is three times more than the total number of people who get moved in the social rented sector every year.

Housing authorities, housing associations and councils simply will not be able to meet the demand for downsizing. The position is even worse, because there is a huge regional disparity, with by far the highest level of under-occupation in the north-west of England and by far the highest level of overcrowding and pressure on housing in London and the south-east. Local authorities will not necessarily be able to meet even the demand in their own local authority area. They will be seeking to obtain accommodation from other local authorities in other areas at the very moment when local authorities are tightening their criteria for housing allocations. Westminster council—my local authority—has just announced a 10-year residency qualification for people seeking to move into the area. It will not be offering any of its accommodation to people outside the area who are seeking to downsize.

The sheer mismatch between the legal duties on local authorities and housing associations, their own lettings criteria, their homelessness duties and reasonable preference requirements and what the Department for Work and Pensions expects to happen is extraordinary. I asked the Minister parliamentary questions to try to find out, before we got to the Welfare Reform Bill, what the practical implications of the measures would be. Of course, the reply that I get is that the Minister and the Department are still working on what the practical implications will be.

The scale of the problem is far greater than the Government have admitted, including in their response to the Select Committee. There will be huge practical difficulties in implementing the policies, which I suspect will end up in many cases either not saving any money or being completely impossible to implement, leading to greater responsibilities and homelessness costs in relation to other authorities. That is before we get into the extraordinary situation in which the new affordable housing delivery programme—150,000 new homes—welcomed by the hon. Member for Cardiff Central, will involve higher levels of housing benefit than most properties currently in the private rented sector, thereby pushing up the housing benefit bill at the same time.

A great deal of work needs to be done by the Government to see whether any of the proposals are workable, let alone able to accommodate the sheer hardship and social stress that will be caused by them. It would be nice to be able to house people who are on low incomes and in need for nothing, but that is not a possibility. We have to work with the resources that we have. What the Government are proposing will potentially create a perfect storm of housing need and difficulty with implications going far beyond the housing sector.

16:28

[The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Steve Webb)]

Let me begin, quite properly, by congratulating the Select Committee on its thorough and detailed report and by thanking members of the Committee and other hon. Members for their contributions to the debate. Members of the Committee and other hon. Members who have spoken have a lot of expertise on the benefits system in general and on housing and housing benefit in particular, and we have all benefited from that expertise today.

It would have been nice if the Government response to the Committee had been available slightly earlier than the day before the debate, but it was in the hands of the Committee yesterday, ahead of the debate, as I was keen for it to be. Rather than my standing up here and giving the Government response and then everyone going away and deciding what they thought about it, the Government response was already in the hands of the Committee and, as we have seen, members of the Committee have been able to read it, form a view and give further feedback, which has enabled us to have a useful dialogue this afternoon as part of the conversation. From that point of view, this has already been a worthwhile afternoon and a valuable process.

I thank the Chair of the Select Committee, the hon. Member for Aberdeen South (Dame Anne Begg), for acknowledging some of the important steps forward that have been made since the Committee’s report was tabled. There was some suggestion that we had paid no attention to it, but in her opening remarks, the hon. Lady graciously flagged two particular areas in which there has been significant progress since the Committee’s report was produced. One was on research into the impact of the changes. The other, which was the subject of several paragraphs of recommendations from the Committee, was on the previously proposed 10% cut in housing benefit after a year on jobseeker’s allowance.

It is tempting to say that Government responses to Select Committee reports should be judged by action, not words. If a Select Committee recommends a specific change in policy, and a change in policy subsequently takes place, it is a little ungenerous of members of the Committee to say, “Ah, yes, but the wording of the response was not good enough,” or something similar, especially if it were done at significant cost to the Exchequer. The hon. Lady, of course, was characteristically gracious.

It may help if I update hon. Members on where we are on monitoring the impact of the changes. The Committee issued a press release to accompany the report three days before Christmas—it is good to see that they were working right up to the deadline. In it, the hon. Lady said that

“it is too early to determine if this will happen in reality, which is why it is hard to say exactly what the impact of these changes will be.”

There is an element of uncertainty, which is why we always intended to commission research and to monitor the impact of the changes. Discussions with their lordships prompted a fuller discussion of the form that it would take.

The research that we undertake will be independent. It will include comprehensive primary research on the effect of the changes on different types of households in a range of areas. The debate has shown that the impact of housing benefit in Blackpool is different from that in Cambridge or central London. We accept that, which is why the research will cover the whole of England, Scotland and Wales. It will be done over the next two years, due to a factor that was given insufficient attention in our debate. With a nine-month transition period, and with no change happening until the anniversary of claims, some people will not be affected by the change until December 2012.

That is the roll-out period, which is significant. Rather than there being a day when everyone’s housing benefit is reassessed, with everyone competing for the same properties, new tenancies will be dealt with under the new rules, which is precisely the point of the exercise. We did not want people to be locked into new tenancies at above the new limit, day after day and month after month, only for us to say, “Oh, no, we’ve cut the limits, so the decision that you made three months ago is not valid.” Instead, from April new tenancies will come under the new rules, so people starting new tenancies will face the constraints that anyone else will face, as we discussed earlier, rather than having a more generous system. It is right to make new tenancies under the new rules and to give existing households more time to adjust.

[Ms Buck]

Does the Minister mean new tenancies or claims, or changes of circumstance that affect existing claimants?

[Steve Webb]

That is a helpful question. We are talking about what happens after April. For people who are working but who become unemployed post-April, it will clearly be a new claim, and it will be dealt with under the new rules. The fact that they happen to be living in the same house as before will not affect the claim. However, as their circumstances change, they will face the new regime. They will have to decide whether to take the new rules—the new regime—and stay where they are. For example, if someone becomes temporarily unemployed but has a pretty good chance of getting a new job—many folk who become unemployed are typically back at work within three to six months—a short-term period on a tighter housing benefit regime can be accommodated before moving back to work.

The hon. Lady asked about the existing case load and the protection that we give those cases. The majority of relatively minor changes in circumstance will not affect ongoing entitlement.

[Ms Buck]

I am grateful to the Minister for allowing me to interrupt him again. In many parts of the country, the shortfall will be relatively manageable, which would accommodate his point about people being temporarily out of work. In London and some other high-cost areas, however, the difference could be £5,000 or more over three months. In those areas, the shortfall will be such that people who lose their jobs will also lose their homes.

[Steve Webb]

The phrase “lose their homes” is rather evocative and misleading. When people say that they have lost their home, they are usually describing repossession—their home; their loss. What the hon. Lady describes is someone who has presumably managed to sustain a very high rent—if the shortfall is £5,000 in three months, the rent must be enormous.

The suggestion that the taxpayer should keep paying a vast rent while the claimant decides whether to stay in the property brings me back to my fundamental concern about the tone of the debate, which relates to balancing the responsibilities of the individual and of the Government. It was evident to some extent in the remarks made by the hon. Member for Aberdeen South, and particularly in other contributions, that almost every combination of circumstances, every possible need and every possible variation was deemed to be responsibility of the Government.

The hon. Member for Hampstead and Kilburn (Glenda Jackson) mentioned our response to the Committee’s report and some specific needs. For instance, she said that people living in a larger house might need somewhere to put a wheelchair and questioned whether it should be included in statute. The implication of what Committee members were saying is that they did not want it decided on a discretionary basis, but wanted it written into law. The point about our allowing an extra bedroom for carers is that we have legislated for it; after deciding on a category of clearly identified people and clearly specified needs, we wrote it into legislation, and it has become a right. However, there is a dividing line between identifiable, clearly categorised groups with particular needs and the much broader group listed in the Committee’s recommendations that may need a room for a wheelchair or something else.

The question is not, “Do we give a damn?”—I am sorry; I mean, “Do we care?” The hon. Lady implied that the Government do not care and that we are telling people to get lost. No; as my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff Central (Jenny Willott) said, the Government believe that some needs should be written into statute, which we have done in cases where previous Governments did not act. However, other needs are so diverse that we should have the local flexibility to respond when the need arises. That is better than sitting down in Whitehall, trying to think of all possible circumstances and writing primary legislation to deal with them, which is not a sensible way to proceed.

[Dame Anne Begg]

That is not what I or others were asking for. In other areas, we use proxies or other measures to help passport people into getting greater help. For instance, there is a good chance that someone on the highest rate of the disability living allowance care element will need extra housing. That factor would give them the right to apply for more housing benefit. It works with the council tax system, under which those who need more space as a result of a disability can get the council tax reduced to a lower band. It is straightforward and simple. The problem with discretionary payments is that not everyone gets them, because they can be refused.

[Steve Webb]

The hon. Lady has said that proxies can be used, which means that we can identify categories of people to whom additional concessions should be made. That is what we did with the extra bedroom for the carer. The report specifically mentions people who need an extra room for a wheelchair. People on certain rates of disability benefit will almost certainly have a wheelchair but live in a house that can accommodate it; others will live in houses that need another room for the wheelchair. Rather than trying to categorise everyone in the same way, the flexibility of the discretionary system allows us to cater for those differences.

I was pleased to hear the hon. Member for Westminster North say that we have to work within our resources. That was a heartening comment, because every pound spent on another recipient or on further delays and concessions—on everything that has been asked for today—comes either from someone else covered by the housing benefit system or from our contribution to tackling the deficit, which is one reason for the reforms.

The hon. Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham) said that it is a difficult time for local government, implying that the Government just fancied cutting council budgets by 25% because of what he called an evil Tory-led, or Liberal Democrat-Conservative coalition plot. We all knew that this would happen, because substantial cuts in local government were coming down the track anyway. It is important to acknowledge that that is the backdrop against which we are operating. This is not an environment in which there is money kicking around. It is not as if we can resolve all these problems and delay tackling the remorseless rise in the housing benefit budget. Every £1 billion that goes on housing benefit every year is £1 billion that the low-paid, hard-working taxpayers, who are our constituents, will have to find.

[Alex Cunningham]

There would have been cuts under a Labour Government as well, but they would have been spread over a longer period of time. Does the Minister not accept that the pressure on local authorities today in dealing with all the inquiries from people who are worried about the Government proposals is just adding to the strain that they are under at a time when they are losing staff and more people are coming through their doors?

[Steve Webb]

As the hon. Gentleman has said, local authorities are making plans to reduce staff over the coming years. Some local authorities have chosen to frontload more than is necessary—more than is proportionate to the cuts that they have had—for their own political reasons. Nobody disputes that this is a difficult financial environment for local government; it is. Part of the problem is that spending has been allowed to get so out of control that we have had to rein it in rather rapidly.

[Ms Buck]

rose—

[Glenda Jackson]

rose—

[Steve Webb]

I will give way to the hon. Member for Westminster North in a second. One of the reasons why deficit reduction is so vital is that so many items of spending have become too large. Some of the concessions that we have talked about would be £100 million here or £500 million there. Very soon they add up to serious money.

[Ms Buck]

Let me make one thing clear. Of course the financial context is important. When I used the word resources, I was not only talking about money, but making an important point. With the social housing stock, we only have so many units into which we can pack people on lower incomes. We know that many people—we know how many—need to be accommodated in the private rented sector, and we know the geographical distribution of those properties. One of my big concerns is that we are attempting to do something with that that cannot be done.

[Steve Webb]

That is where I fundamentally disagree with the hon. Lady. The flaw in her analysis is this static view of the world: housing stock and the private sector is as it is and nothing can ever change. The figures that she quoted from the impact assessment assume that nothing changes. The losses she quoted assume nothing changes. Nobody can find somewhere cheaper to live; they just stay where they are and lose the money. Rents do not go down; they stay exactly as they are. The impact assessment from which she quoted is the worst-case scenario.

However, what actually happens is different. Let me give an example. If we were able to reduce rents by £10, that would wipe out nearly 500,000 people with shortfalls. One of the questions that was asked in the debate was: how will landlords respond? Guess what? When landlords were surveyed, they said, “Oh, we won’t cut our rent.” Well, there is a shock. Of course they would. They do not want these cuts because they are the ones who will be most affected. I was very surprised by the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) for whom I have a lot of respect—sadly, her contribution was 90% polemic and 10% substance—because she seemed to be defending private landlords. They are the people who get this money. They are the people who have got the £21 billion that used to be £11 billion 10 years ago. I did not know that they were her best friends. That is where the money is going.

The question is: if we go to direct payment in cases in which it will secure a tenancy, will landlords bite? We have 1 million private sector tenants on housing benefit. We have all seen adverts that say, “No housing benefit” but there are also 1 million people with private sector landlords getting housing benefit. Therefore, someone out there is renting to people on housing benefit. If a private sector landlord is renting to someone whose housing benefit gets squeezed and they or the council says to them, “You can have a guaranteed rental stream straight into your bank account month after month if you will reduce your rent to a level that will enable the tenancy to carry on” that is hugely attractive. It is turning a tenant into a triple A credit-rated tenant rather than someone who may or may not pass on the rent.

[Dame Anne Begg]

rose—

[Glenda Jackson]

rose—

[Steve Webb]

I will give way in a moment. Landlords are quite clear that that is hugely attractive to them. It is worth shaving the rent for, and that is often all that it would take.

[Dame Anne Begg]

It is actually possible to accept the Minister’s argument. The problem is the Government are about to introduce universal credit, which will make direct payments impossible, unless he has a different idea.

[Steve Webb]

We are focusing specifically on the roll-out of these changes over the next two years. Over that period, before universal credit comes in, this mechanism will be in place. Clearly, there is plenty of time to work out ways of underwriting the rent to the landlords combined with the universal credit. The crucial point is that this is a transitional issue, although there are longer-term aspects as well. It is in this transition—the crucial period in which the housing market adjusts—that the mechanism will be most effective.

[Dame Anne Begg]

May I make a suggestion to the Minister? It is that very point that concerns the housing associations, which already have direct payments. They are terrified that under universal credit, there will be no direct payment, which could undermine their whole ability to get us out of this mess by building more houses because they are not able to borrow the money. That is a serious concern.

[Steve Webb]

Indeed. In co-operation with our colleagues at the Department for Communities and Local Government, we are working through the way in which we can ensure that these affordable rent tenancies—80% of market rent tenancies—have a guaranteed revenue stream that will enable the investment to take place and those discussions are ongoing.

[Angie Bray (Ealing Central and Acton) (Con)]

I apologise for coming in so late. I absolutely agree with the Minister when he says that landlords will inevitably adjust. That is what the private sector does. When the benefit changes, there will be so many tenancies affected that there will be a sizeable effect on the market. The Opposition sometimes forget that this is about not just cost-cutting but fairness and balance. We must remember the taxpayer in all of this. In Acton, we had that amazing example—some called it grotesque—in which a family was plonked into a house that was worth well over £1 million. Very few people in Acton can afford to live in a house of that value. There are some really unfair things that must be addressed.

[Steve Webb]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for setting that context. During the course of this debate, one or two hon. Members have said that this is all about chasing the headlines in the red tops—the tabloids—and it is that that is shaping policy. Clearly, this is not a policy about a small number of extreme cases. The hon. Member for Hampstead and Kilburn says there are about 90 cases, but let me give one example. The top 5,000 cases of people to whom we pay housing benefit cost us £100 million a year. For 5,000 people to live in properties—

[Glenda Jackson]

It is not 5,000 people; it is 5,000 families.

[Steve Webb]

The hon. Lady can have 5,000 families, but she is, I think, losing sight of zeros. For someone in the Department for Work and Pensions, £100 million does not seem such a big figure, but it is a colossal amount of money that is not providing value for the hard-pressed, low-paid taxpayer, who often does not live in brilliant accommodation. It is not a good use of £100 million.

[Ms Buck]

I will try to make this my last intervention. Given that the Minister says it is a colossal amount of money, does he agree that introducing affordable rents in the social rented programme, which will add £200 million to the cost of housing benefit, is also not a good example of joined-up government?

[Steve Webb]

As the hon. Lady knows, a lot depends on who takes those tenancies. If they are people who would have been in lower-rent social tenancies, the housing benefit costs will be higher, but if they are people who would have been renting in the free-market private sector, the costs could end up being lower. The numbers that she quotes are spurious.

[Glenda Jackson]

I want to know the Minister’s evidence for believing that landlords in the private rented sector will lower their rents. That certainly was not the finding of the National Landlords Association, which I mentioned earlier in the debate. Surely it is dependent on whether there is an excessive amount of empty properties, which, in a constituency such as mine, or any in central London, is an absurd premise. For all the properties concerned, there are many more people who are willing to take them on.

[Steve Webb]

I have a number of observations to make. First, the hon. Lady cited “evidence” that was not evidence at all, of course. It was a survey of the people who stand to lose from the policy, who mysteriously wanted to undermine the policy. When we talk to landlords’ groups—as we do—it is absolutely clear that direct payment is a prize for them. I hope that she does not argue with that statement. It is self-evident, blindingly obvious and common sense.

[Glenda Jackson]

Will the Minister give way?

[Steve Webb]

Can I just respond to the hon. Lady’s points before giving way to her again? [Interruption.]

[Jim Sheridan (in the Chair)]

Order.

[Steve Webb]

I hope that I can just respond to the points that the hon. Lady has made.

[Glenda Jackson]

I did not make that point.

[Steve Webb]

Landlords clearly value direct payment. There is no doubt about that. It is common sense and stands to reason. I do not know if the hon. Lady accepts things that stand to reason, but it is patently obvious that landlords value direct payment. There is an economic value to direct payment. It offers certainty as opposed to uncertainty. That can translate into lower rent. If landlords have a choice between the rent that they previously charged with uncertainty about whether they get the money, and a slightly lower rent with certainty of getting the money, landlords will go for certainty every time. That is common sense.

[Glenda Jackson]

Will the Minister give way?

[Steve Webb]

In a moment. The hon. Lady also said, “Where are all these properties? There is this massive, pent-up demand and these landlords will just go somewhere else.” If there is that massive, pent-up demand, why have landlords not already gone somewhere else? Why have they not already increased their rents beyond what housing benefit covers today? Why are they not already renting to non-housing benefit tenants? There is a reason why they rent to housing benefit tenants: they get the money, particularly with direct payments.

[Glenda Jackson]

Oh, I am most grateful to the Minister for giving way. The words “direct payment” never passed my lips and as I said in an earlier intervention, I would be grateful if the Minister could try to answer the questions that I put to him. Then there is the issue of why landlords are not renting to others outside the housing benefit sector. As I have pointed out, there is a growing trend that private landlords will not accept tenants whose rent is paid by housing benefit. In my constituency and contiguous constituencies, I do not see a massive increase in signs showing places to let.

[Steve Webb]

I hesitate to bring facts into the debate, but the number of properties in the private rented sector with tenants on housing benefit, which the hon. Lady says is falling and indeed she also says that such properties are hard to find, has risen since November 2008—

[Glenda Jackson]

Where?

[Steve Webb]

Across the country. It has risen since November 2008 by 440,000. To listen to the hon. Lady talk, one would imagine that tenants on housing benefit cannot find anywhere to live. There are 1 million tenants on housing benefit in the private rented sector. To listen to her, one would think that those people do not exist. Unfortunately for her, I am afraid that what she describes is at variance with the facts.

[Ms Buck]

Will the Minister give way?

[Steve Webb]

As such a wide range of issues were raised during the debate and a number of hon. Members have contributed to it, I will make a bit more headway and then I will be happy to give way again.

I was about to describe the evaluation and assessments that we will be carrying out, because a lot of the points that were raised during the debate were about particular groups of people. I want to identify the facets of the research that we will be undertaking.

To ensure that we gather the evidence required on key areas of concern, such as the behavioural and market responses of claimants, landlords and external organisations, we will commission primary fieldwork that will cover a number of issues, which I will now take the House through. They are: homelessness and moves; the single shared accommodation rent, which I will come back to later because there were a lot of misconceptions about that during the debate; the impact on Greater London, which is explicitly in the terms of reference for the research; the impact on rural communities, which I think has been mentioned in the debate; the impact on black and minority ethnic households, which has been mentioned; large families, family life and children’s education, and schools, for example, were mentioned in the debate; older people, who were mentioned in the debate; people with disabilities; working claimants; landlords, and housing and labour markets. There will be comprehensive evaluation that will start imminently and that will run over a two-year period. We will be watching—very carefully—what goes on and we will be reforming the system, with measures such as the allocation of discretionary housing payments.

Discretionary housing payments are quite important. Although the allocation of those payments for 2011-12 has been determined, the allocation has not been determined beyond that time. The total budget has been determined and it will treble. This year, it will be £20 million and then it will be £60 million a year for the next three years. We will treble the total budget. However, where the money goes will be informed by the early roll-out and by the research. We will base the policy on the evidence about the impact on the ground. If there are particular areas—hot spots—where there is particular pressure, we will be able to gear the discretionary housing payments money to those areas.

I enjoyed the observations of the hon. Member for Aberdeen South, who is the chair of the Work and Pensions Committee, about how often we refer to discretionary housing payments. I take her point. I read the Government response myself and I noticed the same thing. However, there is a reason for it. It is that the Select Committee’s report quite properly identified specific sets of circumstances that need to be addressed and they will be addressed by a response that is tailored to the local situation. If there are particular geographical areas where there are particular local pressures—we heard about a number of such areas during the debate—the DHP system will be tailored to those areas. It is almost a circular argument. That is the reason why the DHP system is our answer to most of the questions put to us, because it is the best way to respond to different but equally significant local issues of the type that have been raised during the debate.

I now come to the issue of the shared accommodation rate. Technically, I know that the title of the Committee’s report is, “Changes to Housing Benefit announced in the June 2010 Budget”, but as the shared accommodation rate was covered in the report I will address it.

The question is, “Why do we pay a shared accommodation rate to the under-25s only, because many young people are sharing and is it fair”—to come back to the point about fairness made by my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing Central and Acton (Angie Bray)—“that someone in their early 20s on housing benefit can, in principle, get a flat to themselves but someone in their early 20s who is in work and beyond the reach of the housing benefit system has to share, because they cannot afford a flat of their own?” That is the thinking and in fact that was why the shared accommodation rate was introduced. I think that it was introduced about 15 years ago, if I remember correctly. It has certainly been a feature of the system for many years.

When we have looked at the 25 to 35 age group, we have found it striking that a very high proportion of individuals who are not on housing benefit in that age group are also sharing accommodation. The number of people sharing accommodation does not tail off dramatically at the age of 25. More than 40% of non-students—single people—in this age range are sharing accommodation in a range of situations.

Various questions were asked about shared accommodation during the debate. For example, “Is any of this sort of accommodation available?” One of the notable things is that about 50% of those being paid the shared accommodation rate now are over 25. We have to think about that for a moment. The shared accommodation rate is only imposed on the under-25s, but if someone applies for housing benefit from shared accommodation and they are over 25 they receive the shared accommodation rate, even though they could receive housing benefit for a one-bedroom flat. There is a set of people over the age of 25, therefore, who could receive housing benefit for a one-bedroom flat but who are living in shared accommodation. That suggests, first, that some of those people have chosen to do so and, secondly, that the properties of that type exist. That helps to counter the suggestion that those properties simply do not exist.

Of course, there will be local variations. I accept that point and I will come back later to the point about houses in multiple occupation. However, I think that the hon. Member for Aberdeen South, the Chair of the Select Committee, wants to intervene.

[Dame Anne Begg]

Again, I suspect that the group of people that the Minister is talking about were already in that shared accommodation, which illustrates that people do not like to move house because of the upheaval involved. It also illustrates that not everybody is out to milk the system and receive the maximum amount of housing benefit. It does not illustrate at all what the Minister said it illustrated.

[Steve Webb]

I do not think that I have ever said that everybody is out to milk the system. Moreover, the hon. Lady is guessing what the figures tell us. Clearly, the information demonstrates that such properties exist. It was asserted during the debate that, “You just can’t find these properties”.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Steve Webb]

Let me just explain what I mean by that. The hon. Lady and others said that we are expecting young people to live in HMOs and that those HMOs may not be there. However, to qualify under the shared accommodation rate, someone does not have to be in an HMO. For example, someone could be a lodger. Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs already runs the rent-a-room scheme, whereby owner-occupiers can receive several thousand pounds a year in tax-free rent simply by renting out a room. Someone renting in those circumstances would qualify for the shared accommodation rate. There are statistics about HMOs, licensing and all the rest of it. However, if we think that things will be a bit tight and that some people might face unemployment and therefore will need some extra income, we might find that more owner-occupiers in a particular area are renting out spare rooms. That might be a very rational thing to do and that will increase supply. But of course the entire debate that we have had today has been based on the assumption that nothing changes. What we are saying is that this change will create a new demand for these shared rooms and spare rooms, and the market will to some extent adjust. That is part of the story.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Steve Webb]

I will give way to the hon. Member for Aberdeen South, the Chair of the Committee, and then I will give way to the hon. Member for Hampstead and Kilburn.

[Dame Anne Begg]

I am sorry, but I have now forgotten what my point was.

[Steve Webb]

Okay, I shall give way to the other hon. Lady.

[Glenda Jackson]

I just wondered whether the Minister had the shared accommodation figures, and why hard-working taxpayers are not offended by HMRC allowing people to have tax breaks when they let a room.

[Steve Webb]

I have a feeling that it might have been the previous Government, in whom the hon. Lady was a Minister, who introduced the rent-a-room rate. The point about the rent-a-room scheme is to try to make better use of the housing stock. I will not dwell on the social housing overcrowding measures—they are in the Welfare Reform Bill and are not the subject of this report—but I will say that much of what the Government are trying to do is about recognising the limitations of the existing social housing, private rented and owner-occupied stock, and making better use of it.

We have here a classic example. Rather than pay a 29-year-old single person the full housing benefit for a flat of their own, we could pay them housing benefit that enables them to live in a spare room in someone’s house, which would be good news for the person who owned that house, would free up the one-bedroom flat and would save the taxpayer money. I have no idea why the hon. Lady opposes that idea, unless it is on the grounds that it is better value for money. [Interruption.] I am sorry, but I have not given way. I am trying to manage my time, because we have covered a very wide range of topics.

I have covered the fact that accommodation does not need to involve HMOs, and I have raised the rent-a-room scheme. As soon as I talk about, “living with family”, everyone will throw their hands up in horror and say, “You can’t possibly expect people to do that,” but there are diverse circumstances. For example, there is a set of people in their late twenties who live at home with their parents—I think they are called the boomerang generation. For them, it is a rational thing to do, and it enables them perhaps to save up for a deposit on a house. There is also a set of people who live close to family and have a good relationship with them—there are lots of caveats to that—to whom we pay housing benefit for the full rent on a one-bedroom flat just for themselves, when they have family down the road who could accommodate them at no cost to the taxpayer. At a time when money is tight, asking them to consider that option seems entirely rational and a sensible way to use the existing housing stock.

The hon. Member for Aberdeen South spoke about the housing market in her own constituency. I do not think that anyone is saying that all housing rent inflation is about the LHA. I do not think that I have ever said that, and I am not aware that any of my ministerial colleagues have either. I do not dispute for a second that in Aberdeen and other places local market factors drive up rents. However, it is clear that rising real rents are part of the story. In response to Professor Steve Wilcox, whom I know well because I have written papers with him, our breakdown of the growth in housing benefit between different factors suggests a significant role for rent growth. Let me just take Members through how we get to that.

In the past decade, between 2000-01 and 2010-11, the cash increase in spending on housing benefit was £10.5 billion. It is worth reflecting on that £10.5 billion increase over 10 years, and there is no sign of that increase easing off. With another billion, another billion and another billion, doing something does not seem particularly deplorable. Out of that amount, £5 billion is straight inflation—what we would have expected on the strength of inflation—£2 billion is real terms social rent growth, £2 billion is real terms private rent growth, £2 billion, right at the end of the period, as the hon. Member for Westminster North said, is case load growth, and about £500 million is the child benefit disregard. Real rent growth, therefore, is not only about the LHA, but it is a significant contributor to the growth in spending.

The challenge for us, as a Government, is whether to just sit back and take it, letting private landlords go on increasing rents above inflation year after year, and saying, “Yep, that’s fine, we’ll pay that,” without trying to put a brake on it. That is where CPI comes in. I have seen the projections. If CPI is done for decades, it of course has the sorts of effects that were described in the Shelter research mentioned by the hon. Member for Stockton North and, I think, the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion, who has now left us. CPI is not for ever. We have said that CPI on the LHA rates will be introduced in 2013, and will be reviewed at the end of the comprehensive spending review period in 2014-15. At that point, we will look at the impact, but what CPI will do is put a brake on the expenditure. Housing benefit expenditure is like a runaway train—nothing seems able to stop it—and we have to try to get the housing market to structure itself differently, rather than keep feeding the runaway train.

[Alex Cunningham]

If, as the Government say, CPI is the only fair way to determine increases in the future, is the Minister suggesting that they will go back to an unfair system at some point?

[Steve Webb]

No. The hon. Gentleman, possibly with my help, might be confused. We have already had lengthy debates on CPI as a measure of inflation for uprating benefits, and our judgment is that it is the most appropriate measure of inflation. What I am talking about here is what we do to the LHA rates in 2013. We will put a brake on them rising faster than inflation for two years, and at that point we will look at the impact. That is all I am saying. We are putting in place a mechanism that will cause a pause in that remorseless rise, and I have heard almost nothing in this debate about how we will tackle the growth, apart from building more houses, which is vital—in the past year, we have had the lowest rate of private house building on record, or certainly for a very long time. The argument appears to be, “Lie back and take it,” but that is not the action of a responsible Government.

My hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff Central raised the issue of broad rental market areas, which is relevant in the CPI context. If LHA rates are to be subject to CPI, ideally the broad rental market areas should not move around because the base figure subject to CPI would not be clear. The broad rental market areas must be frozen at the point at which one goes to CPI, and the question is what they would be at that point. My hon. Friends the Members for Cardiff Central and for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) have properly highlighted the problems with the city of Cambridge and the wider area of Cambridgeshire, and although there have been changes to the BRMAs around that area, the idea is that they will be fixed in 2013. My hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff Central mentioned coterminosity with local authorities, in relation to Wales, and that is one of the options being considered. It is an option that has a number of attractions. In London, it would mean that the BRMAs were smaller, and the affordability figures would therefore be within a tighter geographic area. We would be unlikely to make significant changes this side of 2013, partly because every time the rules are redrawn, another set of gainers and another set of losers are created. So, we would rather do that at the point of moving to CPI in 2013.

Local authority boundaries are not without their own problems. Many of my Liberal Democrat colleagues represent seats in Cornwall. Cornwall is now a unitary authority and the whole of Cornwall would be one BRMA—I think that BRMAs can be smaller than that. My colleague who represents Land’s End, my hon. Friend the Member for St Ives (Andrew George), and my hon. Friend the Member for North Cornwall (Dan Rogerson) might have views about the interchangability of their two areas. There is no simple solution, but we are certainly looking at local authority boundaries in response to the points that my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff Central has raised.

Universal credit has been mentioned, and it was asked whether housing benefit would go in at a flat rate. The details of that will be discussed more in the Welfare Reform Bill Committee, but my certain understanding is that the intention is not simply to have a “so much for housing” number in the universal credit. I think that the approach will be much more tailored, but I am sure it will be discussed much more fully in the Committee.

On the under-occupation rules, it was asked whether people would be moving from three-bedroom houses to one-bedroom flats. The data show that about three quarters of the under-occupation in the social rented sector is by only one bedroom, so the move from three bedrooms to one bedroom would represent perhaps a quarter of the change. The impact might not be quite as great as I think the hon. Member for Westminster North suggested, but we have just published some more data on that.

[Ms Buck]

I am grateful to the Minister for giving way again; he is being generous. We will be addressing this issue in the Committee on the Welfare Reform Bill, so we must think about it.

In my contribution, I mentioned that the total number of transfers in social housing stock in one year was only one fifth of the total number of people who will need to move to avoid the under-occupation penalty after its introduction. Has the Minister thought about that and discussed it with the Department for Communities and Local Government? Surely any penalty applying to people in the social security system must be avoidable. The question is whether the capacity in housing stock makes the under-occupation penalty avoidable.

[Steve Webb]

It is important to remember that we are discussing a change that will not be introduced for more than two years. The fact that local authorities and housing associations know that the change is coming two years down the track will affect tenancy decisions and allocations now, so it will be part of the mix. Putting someone into a property that they are under-occupying, knowing that in a few years’ time they will not be covered by housing benefit, would raise issues. The situation will be ameliorated partly by forward planning. However, these are issues in the Welfare Reform Bill rather than the report. I fully accept that they are important issues and will need to be managed.

I propose to allow the Chair of the Select Committee to respond at the end of the debate, if she would like to do so, so I will leave some time for that, but first I will consider some of the main themes that have emerged during the course of this debate. The dropping of the 10% cut after a year was an important theme of the report, and we have heard several hon. Members discuss their quite proper concerns about that. We took the view that the measure was not necessary after 12 months on benefit, given the introduction of the Work programme, which will support people, and the universal credit. We took account, obviously, of what the Select Committee and others who made representations had to say. Naturally, I was pleased that the proposal was withdrawn. It is another example of how we have responded to the proper concerns raised by the Select Committee.

Since the proposals were first published, they have been considerably improved. On the nine-month transition, the changes will start to have an impact from April, but rather than a cluster of people chasing after the same properties, we will see the rental market start to adjust. Landlords will adjust their rent-setting behaviour; we will see whether the mechanism that we have implemented—direct payment, where that enables a tenancy to happen—is working; and we will be able to refine it over the next nine months before almost nobody with an existing claim starts to be affected. I stress that people will not be affected until the anniversary of their claim. For some people, that will be 18 months or more. The process will be gradual, giving us a chance to monitor what is going on and to consider the allocation of discretionary housing payments as we go, which improves the proposition considerably.

To draw the threads together, one thing that strikes me about this debate is that it is clear that whoever was running the country at this point would have done a number of the things that we have done and are now being criticised for. We have heard figures quoted on the losers: 500,000 people will lose an average of more than a tenner a week from the abolition of the £15 excess. The previous Government decided to delay that change by a year, because there was an election coming, but we are going to do it, yet the figures for losses have all included that. It would be unfortunate if anyone gained the impression that we are making new policy and new decisions. This would have happened anyway and was part of what was planned.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff Central said, the previous Government applied bedroom caps. They drew the line at five, and we draw the line at four, but the principle is identical. The outgoing Administration stood on a platform of restricting housing benefit to what somebody in work could afford. What does that imply? The 30th percentile. Using the 30th percentile, getting rid of the excess and applying bedroom caps is virtually there. I hesitate to say this, but almost everything that we are doing is Labour party policy, yet the Opposition suggest that this is some sort of evil right-wing plot to attack the poor.

The idea is that the housing market is not static. It is influenced by what the Government do. We cannot spend £21 billion a year subsidising rents without influencing the housing market. Does anyone think that if we abolished housing benefit tomorrow, it would not have a massive effect on the rental market? It would have a huge effect. We are players in the market, and we have a huge effect.

Our challenge is to ensure that the system is fair. In most rental market areas, 30% of properties will be affordable. There will be a transition to the new system of at least nine months for existing tenants and up to a year after that to ensure that in difficult local situations treble the amount of discretionary housing payment will be forthcoming. The fact that the budget is £20 million this year and will be £60 million in two years’ time, repeated over a three-year period, indicates that we accept that there will be difficult individual cases in which adjustments must be made, which is why we have provided the money.

I do not apologise for tackling something that has gone untackled for too long. The budget was growing remorselessly by billions year after year. We must ensure that taxpayers’ hard-earned money is well spent, and we believe that the housing benefit changes will make that difference.

17:15

[Dame Anne Begg]

With the leave of this Chamber, I will make a few closing remarks. We have heard that only one in four housing benefit claimants is unemployed. The proposed changes will therefore affect many people who are working hard to make ends meet, and they could force many of them further into poverty. At the extreme end, we could return to homeless hostels and large numbers of families living in bed and breakfast accommodation. That would be a tragedy after the previous Labour Government’s success in almost eliminating such accommodation and dramatically reducing the number of rough sleepers.

Even if we accept the Government’s intention that people should not be over-housed or living in accommodation that they cannot afford, the proposals will force many people and families to move house. We know that moving house can be very stressful: indeed, it is said to be the most stressful event in a person’s life after the death of a loved one and divorce. Even if we accept the Government’s assurances that people will not be made homeless and will be able to find accommodation of the right size at an affordable rent, all of which is questionable, large numbers of people will be unable to avoid the stress of moving house as a result of the proposals.

I am glad to have had the chance to debate this important issue. I am sure that hon. Members will want to return to it on many occasions in the coming months as the proposals are rolled out and begin to affect all our constituents.

Question put and agreed to.

17:17

Sitting adjourned.

Written Ministerial Statements

Thursday 10th March 2011 Written Statements

Thursday 10 March 2011

ECOFIN (15 March 2011)

Thursday 10th March 2011 Written Statements

[The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr George Osborne)]

The Economic and Financial Affairs Council will be held in Brussels on 15 March 2011. The following items are on the agenda:

Economic Governance

Ministers will be asked to reach agreement on a package of legislative measures intended to strengthen economic governance in the EU, particularly the euro area, to address the challenges of the sovereign debt crisis, while fully respecting the provisions in the UK’s protocol to the treaty.

Climate Finance

Ministers will adopt Council conclusions on climate finance. The conclusions welcome and reaffirm the commitments on climate finance agreed at the UN negotiations in December 2010. The Government support these conclusions.

Stability and Growth Pact Implementation

Ministers will exchange views on the latest fiscal plans provided by Hungary and Poland in the context of their excessive deficit procedures (EDP). No formal conclusions are foreseen on this item.

Office of Tax Simplification

Thursday 10th March 2011 Written Statements

[The Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury (Mr David Gauke)]

The Government launched the Office of Tax Simplification (OTS) in July 2010 to provide independent advice on simplifying the tax system.

The Chancellor tasked the OTS with identifying areas of the tax system that cause the most day-to-day complexity for small businesses, recommend priority areas for simplification and consider the impact of these recommendations on different business sectors.

The OTS was also asked to identify the complexities surrounding the intermediaries legislation widely known as IR35 and to consider simpler approaches that ensure that any income that is effectively employment income is fairly taxed.

Today the OTS has published its interim report in which they identify structural complexities in the tax system and put forward their provisional recommendations on ways the Government might be able to pursue their simplification. The OTS also presents evidence on complexity caused by IR35 and options for the Chancellor to consider.

The Government will respond to this report at Budget on 23 March 2011. A copy of the report has been deposited in the Library of the House.

Independent Public Service Pensions Commission (Final Report)

Thursday 10th March 2011 Written Statements

[The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr George Osborne)]

Lord Hutton has today published the final report of the Independent Public Service Pensions Commission.

I invited Lord Hutton to undertake a fundamental structural review of public service pensions and make recommendations on future public service pension provision. The Government are grateful for the work of Lord Hutton and the staff of the commission and will now give careful consideration to his recommendations. The Government are also committed to continuing to engage with people working in the public sector, trade unions and others in taking forward the implementation of any future reforms.

The Government stand by their commitment given at spending review that there is no race to the bottom of the pension provision, that public service pensions should remain a gold standard and that public service pensions should continue to provide some form of defined benefit.

The report is available in the Vote Office and the Printed Paper Office and it has been deposited in the Libraries of both Houses. The report is also available on the Commission’s website at: http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/indreview_johnhutton_pensions.htm.

The Planning Inspectorate and Major Infrastructure Planning

Thursday 10th March 2011 Written Statements

[The Minister of State, Department for Communities and Local Government (Greg Clark)]

I am announcing further detail on the Government’s plans to replace the Infrastructure Planning Commission (IPC) with a Major Infrastructure Planning Unit within the Planning Inspectorate. This unit will examine and make recommendations to Ministers on all major infrastructure applications on transport networks, ports, energy, hazardous waste and water.

Leadership of the Planning Inspectorate

The leadership of the Planning Inspectorate will change from 1 April 2011. The current chief executive, Katrine Sporle, is due to retire at the end of March. Katrine has made a significant contribution to the Planning Inspectorate and was awarded a CBE for outstanding public service earlier this year. I would like to record my thanks to her for her role in building the Planning Inspectorate’s reputation and for its successful track record during her tenure.

I am pleased to announce that Sir Michael Pitt, chair of the IPC, has agreed to increase his working hours and take on the additional role of chief executive of the Planning Inspectorate from 1 April 2011. Sir Michael Pitt is an experienced chief executive and I am confident that he will approach his new role with the energy and commitment required to make the transition a success.

Following Royal Assent of the Localism Bill and the closure of the IPC, Sir Michael Pitt will remain chief executive of the Planning Inspectorate. He will oversee the changes to the infrastructure planning regime and ensure that the new integrated Planning Inspectorate delivers an excellent service across its range of responsibilities.

Transitional arrangements for applications in the system

I would like to confirm my intention to retain the current cadre of commissioners appointed to examine major infrastructure applications until September 2014. This will ensure continuity and stability through the transition. They will form part of a single group of professionals that will work across the whole range of applications and appeal casework that the Planning Inspectorate will consider.

By retaining the skills of commissioners, I can confirm that major infrastructure applications in progress at the point of transition will be handled by the same individuals and that they will not be subject to any delay. Moreover, applicants should be reassured that ministerial decisions will be made in line with the existing statutory time scale of 12 months.

These arrangements will offer the strong leadership and valuable stability which will provide applicants with the confidence they need to bring forward applications.

Our continued commitment to the major infrastructure planning regime

The new major infrastructure planning regime is still in its early stages with the first applications under the Planning Act 2008 having only recently been accepted for examination. The Government’s commitment to create a Major Infrastructure Planning Unit with all decisions taken by Ministers will restore democratic accountability to the system while retaining the existing approach, expertise and statutory timetables of the current major infrastructure planning system. On this basis we now have the right model to meet the Government’s objectives to promote infrastructure growth and security, facilitate investment for the UK economy and ensure that the decisions we make on these large projects have the stamp of legitimacy. This is the right arrangement for a major infrastructure planning system in the 21st century.

The regime will be:

a front-loaded regime with clear opportunities for local communities to engage throughout the process;

a regime where the policy is clearly set out in national policy statements providing certainty and predictability;

a speedy and efficient regime, with in-built statutory timetables, which delivers robust results; and

a democratically accountable regime which allows Parliament to approve national policy statements and Ministers to determine all infrastructure applications of national importance.

This model will ensure high-quality applications come forward that can be examined and determined quickly in line with set timetables. The Government recognise however, that the 2008 Planning Act regime is new and substantially different from the multiple and overlapping regimes it replaced. We are therefore listening to industry, representative groups and others using the system for the first time and will be exploring opportunities for improvement to ensure the system has the right mix of certainty, flexibility and efficiency.

Review of Coalfield Regeneration (Government Response)

Thursday 10th March 2011 Written Statements

[The Minister for Housing and Local Government (Grant Shapps)]

In 2010 the previous Government initiated a review of coalfields regeneration to help inform future policy in this area and the review chaired by Michael Clapham was completed in September last year. This response sets out the coalition Government’s commitment to provide continuing support to communities in these areas and to make locally led regeneration the central feature of the new approach, driving growth and helping local leaders to strengthen their economic potential and support communities.

The Clapham review found that some communities were still in need of specific intervention in tackling the key continuing inequalities of the coalfield areas. They had a need for continued provision of targeted coalfields funding and for that funding to be more effectively co-ordinated. The review also suggested that local authorities should have a central role to play in the next phase of coalfields regeneration, and that a small grants or loans scheme was needed to help businesses struggling to access funding in the current economic climate.

Government welcome the review and accept the strong case it makes for targeted support to help the most challenged coalfield areas achieve a basis on which they can go forward as self sustaining communities. The Government are committed to helping local communities in overcoming health and skills inequalities and in developing the leadership to drive forward their own plans for economic growth and community renewal. The overriding need to reduce expenditure nationally to help tackle the fiscal deficit means that funding will be less than in the past. It will need to be closely targeted at the most deprived areas and in helping communities to develop plans which are not reliant on public subsidy in the future. Government will invest in realistic plans for locally led growth intended over time to bring coalfield areas up to the levels of economic activity in the adjoining areas.

The response sets out measures in four key areas:

Funding for the coalfields regeneration trust, with a total of £30 million over two years and potential for further funding in years three and four as part of transition to a self-funded body. This will enable it to lead a new partnership programme for coalfield areas to focus on key issues including health inequalities and community support and to continue to support small projects in individual communities;

Funding of around £150 million to complete over time remaining investment projects in the HCA coalfields programme which are commercially realistic and in line with local priorities;

Giving local authorities greater flexibilities and a key role in determining priorities for local HCA investment and advising on asset transfers;

Creating a new small business start up fund as part of the coalfield regeneration trust programme working with enterprise fund and other coalfields partners to provide small loans to business start ups in the most challenged areas.

The report has been placed in the Library of the House.

Renewable Heat Incentive

Thursday 10th March 2011 Written Statements

[The Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change (Chris Huhne)]

I am announcing today the publication of the policy document which sets out details of the renewable heat incentive (RHI) to support technologies including biomass, ground source and water source heat pumps, solar thermal and biomethane. Heating accounts for 47% of total UK final energy consumption and 46% of our carbon emissions. We already have the renewables obligation and feed-in tariffs schemes to help drive an increase in renewable electricity, evidenced by the recent expansion in wind farms and domestic solar panels. Similarly we have the renewable transport fuel obligation, to help transform our transport fuel use. The introduction of the RHI will for the first time provide long-term guaranteed financial support for renewable heat installations.

Under the RHI, organisations using renewable heat will receive quarterly payments for 20 years from the date they enter the scheme. In addition to support for new installations, organisations which installed eligible renewable heat equipment since 15 July 2009 will also qualify for support under the RHI.

The scheme will be introduced in two phases. In the first phase, long-term tariff support will be targeted in the non-domestic sectors, at the big heat users—the industrial, business and public sector—which contribute 38% of the UK’s carbon emissions. Under this phase there will also be support of around £15 million for households through the renewable heat premium payment. The second phase of the RHI scheme will see households moved to long-term tariff support similar to that offered to the non-domestic sector in the first phase. This transition will be timed to align with the green deal which is intended to be introduced in October 2012.

The household technologies supported under the first phase of this scheme will be monitored to enable Government, manufacturers, installers and individuals to better understand how to get maximum performance from them in real-life situations in people’s homes. Given the current economic climate it is more important than ever that this scheme delivers value for money and ensures there is a fair spread of technologies across a range of property types. That is what the renewable heat premium payments will provide; they ensure that before we commit to long-term payments in a sector where it is particularly difficult to predict levels of take-up—and levels of performance—of different heat technologies, we manage their roll-out and learn more about them, as well as controlling the budget and ensuring the money goes where it is intended. Domestic equipment installed during this period will be eligible for the RHI tariff payments when they are introduced in 2012. At this point we will also consider introducing support for a number of other technologies and fuels which are not supported from the outset. The RHI represents a serious investment in our future and offers significant benefits:

it supports emerging technologies and businesses in the UK;

strengthens security of supply through increased diversification of heating fuels and reducing dependence on one or two fuels only;

reduces carbon emissions and contributes to our legally binding renewables target; and

contributes to the Government’s commitment to introduce measures to promote a huge increase in energy from waste through anaerobic digestion.

Further details of the scheme can be found in the RHI policy document, which is available in the Libraries of both Houses.

We are also today publishing text for the draft regulations that will underpin the tariff scheme. These are a working draft and will be subject to change before they are laid in Parliament. We will consider comments from stakeholders on their practical application. We are looking to seek parliamentary approval of the regulations in July 2011 and will introduce the tariff scheme thereafter. The scheme which provides premium payments for the domestic sector will start in July. Details about this phase will be published in around two months time.

Overseas Territories

Thursday 10th March 2011 Written Statements

[The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr William Hague)]

Our overall vision is for our territories to be vibrant and flourishing communities, proudly retaining aspects of their British identity and generating wider opportunities for their people. We want to cherish the rich environmental assets for which, together, we are responsible.

We will continue vigorously to uphold the principle of self-determination and to ensure the continued security of all the overseas territories. We set this commitment out clearly in the strategic defence and security review. We want to help the territories plan their future in a competitive and unpredictable world. We will help territories that are struggling economically to avoid unnecessary financial dependence on the UK. We will help territories that now rely on UK financial support to reduce their dependence and pursue the path towards economic sustainability. We will ensure a sustained and robust British presence in our uninhabited territories to protect them for future generations.

We are determined that the situation we have found in the Turks and Caicos Islands is not repeated, there or elsewhere. We therefore want to work with territories to make sure the right controls are in place to ensure good governance and sound management of public finances.

I am clear that, as well as seeking greater engagement with the territories from all Government Departments, the FCO must increase the resources allocated to this important work. Despite our challenging spending review settlement I have ensured that this is so. As I informed Parliament on 1 February, I have decided to increase the overseas territories programme fund to £7 million per year. I have ensured the resources available to run the overseas territories network are maintained at a level that will permit the upgrading of a number of governorships which were downgraded in recent years. This will help ensure that we are able to recruit governors with the skills and experience to do these unusual and challenging jobs.

In addition, I have reallocated resources in the current financial year to help rectify some of the budgetary weaknesses that have emerged in some territories in recent years.

Most importantly, and mindful of the recommendations of the Foreign Affairs Committee, I have approved a discretionary grant of £6.6 million to the Turks and Caicos Islands Government to reimburse the costs incurred in the past year pursuing corruption and violent crime. This is for the special investigation and prosecution team; related civil recovery work; and the Royal Turks and Caicos Islands police. My officials have co-ordinated this carefully with DFID’s work to underpin the territory’s public finances.

This is an exceptional case. Our basic principle remains that it is an integral part of good governance for a territory Government to ensure that the criminal justice system is properly funded. Territories should not look to the UK to fund criminal investigations or prosecutions that they are reluctant to pursue themselves. But the burden in this case has been exceptional. The fiscal rescue package put in place by DFID should enable future costs to be met from the Turks and Caicos Islands Government public purse in the normal way.

I have also approved the following smaller grants.

£1 million to the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT) Administration to strengthen the territory’s reserves. This is necessary in the face of rising costs of operating the BIOT patrol vessel. These funds will also enable the Administration to support new measures to help Chagossians visit the territory for humanitarian purposes and to contribute to environmental work in the territory. In this context, I would also like to inform the Committee that the BIOT Administration has concluded an agreement with the Blue Foundation and the Bertorelli Foundation by which the Bertorelli Foundation will donate £3.5 million over the next five years to offset the loss of fisheries revenue that has flowed from the establishment of a full no-take marine protected area. I am most grateful to these foundations for their generous support.

£1 million to the Government of South Georgia and South Sandwich Islands to strengthen their reserves in the face of recent reductions in fisheries revenue.

£100,000 to the Government of the British Antarctic Territory to enable them to grant a similar amount to the Antarctic Heritage Trust. This grant will be used to support the trust’s work repairing and maintaining heritage sites in the British Antarctic Territory, as we prepare to mark the many forthcoming centenaries of the heroic age of exploration. Maintaining British heritage sites is part and parcel of demonstrating UK sovereignty in Antarctica.

£1 million in capital grant to the Ascension Island Government to enable them to replace the harbour crane—a critical piece of infrastructure. This grant will facilitate the restructuring of AIG’s public finances which is necessary to put them on a sustainable footing for the future.

I also plan to bring all aspects of the Government’s policies on the overseas territories together in a new White Paper in the course of the year ahead. We will want to consult widely on this. I am working with relevant Departments on a new strategy to underpin this Government’s approach to the territories. I intend to seek agreement to this strategy across Government through the National Security Council and will update the House further once this is complete.

I will inform Parliament of the outcome of discussions in the NSC in due course.

Private Military and Security Company Industry

Thursday 10th March 2011 Written Statements

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr Henry Bellingham)]

On 16 September 2010 the Foreign Secretary confirmed that the Government would be taking forward work to promote high standards in the Private Military and Security Company (PMSC) industry on three tracks: introducing robust regulation in the UK through a trade association based on a voluntary code of conduct agreed with and monitored by the Government; using the Government’s leverage as a key buyer of PMSC services to promote compliance with the code; and, seeking an international agreement on standards consistent with the UK code covering all aspects of PMSC organisation and operation worldwide.

Since then, we have made significant progress on the international strand. We have been leading work with the United States and Swiss Governments to develop international standards for the industry. On 9 November 2010 an international code of conduct for PMSCs was signed in Geneva by 58 major international PMSCs. This code is based on principles of human rights and international humanitarian law, and sets out broad guidelines for the organisation and operations of the industry worldwide. Since then, an additional 13 companies have signed up to the code. We are now working with the Swiss and US Governments, the PMSC industry and NGO community to establish an international mechanism to monitor compliance with the code. The Government are also now working to update its guidance for shipping companies who use PMSC services at sea, to protect their vessels against piracy.

We have also made progress to identify a representative from industry to work with us to establish a code of conduct setting out national standards derived from the international code, and to monitor and audit compliance of UK based PMSCs. We received proposals from two organisations, which we assessed in detail, and I can confirm that we will be entering further discussions with Aerospace Defence and Security (ADS) to determine next steps for ensuring the implementation of a robust code and monitoring regime in the UK.

Worker Registration Scheme

Thursday 10th March 2011 Written Statements

[The Minister for Immigration (Damian Green)]

My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary is today laying before Parliament regulations which will have the effect of closing, on 30 April 2011, the worker registration scheme for workers from those member states from eastern Europe that joined the EU on 1 May 2004. This means that after 30 April 2011 nationals of those countries will no longer be subject to a requirement to register their employment as a condition of working legally in the United Kingdom and will be able to work and reside in the United Kingdom on the same basis as nationals from other EU member states.

The worker registration scheme is being closed because the terms of the treaty of accession mean that the United Kingdom cannot apply restrictions on access to the labour market to nationals of those member states for more than seven years from the date of accession. Those other EU member states—that is, Germany and Austria—that have maintained such restrictions to date will also be required to lift them.

The Government intend to apply transitional controls on labour market access, in accordance with the relevant accession treaty, to nationals of any country joining the EU in the future. This is part of the Government’s commitment to reducing net migration to the tens of thousands, alongside the steps that the Government are taking to reduce immigration from outside the EU, including new limits on numbers of workers admitted under tiers 1 and 2 of the points-based system and reforms to other routes of entry including students, families and marriage. Economic migration routes will remain closed to lower-skilled migrants from outside the EU while UK and EU labour continues to be available to meet labour needs at this level.

The UK Border Agency will be publishing guidance on its website for workers from the relevant accession member states and for employers, clarifying their responsibilities in relation to compliance with the worker registration scheme until its closure on 30 April.

2012 London Olympic and Paralympic Games (Security Preparations)

Thursday 10th March 2011 Written Statements

[The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mrs Theresa May)]

The 2012 London Olympic and Paralympic games will be a once-in-a-lifetime sporting event. The Home Office and police are leading planning and operations to ensure that the games will be safe and secure—and in keeping with the wider Olympic and Paralympic culture and experience.

I am today announcing the Government’s intention to increase the maximum penalty for touting of Olympic and Paralympic tickets from £5,000 to £20,000. The change will ensure that there is a more substantial deterrent to serious and organised criminal groups, who may otherwise target Olympic tickets.

No conduct that is currently legal will be criminalised. The London 2012 Organising Committee (LOCOG) will be operating an exchange system for those who wish to sell unwanted tickets legitimately; and it also will remain possible privately to sell-on unwanted tickets at face value to family members or friends.

In addition, the Olympic and Paralympic safety and security strategy has been updated and the Home Office is publishing an unclassified version of this strategy today.

Publishing an unclassified version of the updated strategy builds on this Government’s intention to make public as much information about games safety and security as it can, without disclosing sensitive material.

The strategy has been produced in consultation with all key partners who are involved in Olympic and Paralympic safety and security planning.

Copies of this document will be placed in the House Libraries and in the Vote Office.

Restraint in Juvenile Secure Settings

Thursday 10th March 2011 Written Statements

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Crispin Blunt)]

Today is the publication of the “Report on implementing the Independent Review of Restraint in Juvenile Secure Settings”.

This publication is the work of the two independent monitors, Mr Andrew Williamson and Mr Peter Smallridge, who were asked to monitor the implementation of their original report from 2008—“Independent Review of Restraint in Juvenile Secure Settings”. I welcome their report and the conclusion that Government, secure establishments and other agencies have made good progress on implementing an ambitious programme of change in the way restraint is used in the youth secure estate.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank both Mr Williamson and Mr Smallridge for their contribution to this important area of work. Copies of their original report and the Government response from 2008 can be found on the Department’s website at: www.justice.gov.uk

Departmental Expenditure Limit (2010-11)

Thursday 10th March 2011 Written Statements

[The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Mr Owen Paterson)]

I regret to inform the House that there were inaccuracies in my written ministerial statement printed on 14 February 2011, Official Report, column 62WS. The corrected statement now reads:

Subject to parliamentary approval of any supplementary estimate, the Northern Ireland Office (NIO) total DEL will increase by £13,685,000 from £34,158,000 to £47,843,000. Within the total DEL change, the impact on resources and capital is set out in the following table:

Renewable Energy and Fuel Quality Directives

Thursday 10th March 2011 Written Statements

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Norman Baker)]

Biofuels have an important role to play in efforts to tackle climate change, particularly where there is no viable alternative fuel on the horizon, as is the case with aviation and HGVs. In addition, they also have a role to play in promoting the security of energy supply. But we firmly believe that the potential carbon benefits of biofuels can only be realised if they are produced in a sustainable way.

My Department recognises that there are legitimate concerns about the sustainability of some biofuels. Biofuels are a continually developing technology and there is still scientific uncertainty about the sustainability of biofuels and their wider socio-economic impacts.

Much work is under way to better understand indirect sustainability effects. It is crucial that we establish strong sustainability criteria and a robust lifecycle carbon analysis to ensure first that biofuels deliver real greenhouse gas reductions and second, do not cause unacceptable environmental side effects in the process.

In particular, my Department takes the issue of indirect land use change seriously. We have recently published research on the scale of indirect land use change impacts and we are continuing to lead work on how to tackle these. The European Commission is in the process of assessing a range of options to address the issue of indirect land use change and I have written to the EU Energy, Environment and Climate Commissioners to impress on them the need for an adequate and robust solution.

Given the uncertainties, I believe it is right that this Government have taken additional time to review the subject carefully. There have been shifts in biofuels policy in the past so we need to ensure that policy decisions going forward are robust and stable, which will also give confidence to business to invest.

In addition to concerns regarding the sustainability of biofuels, we must also consider where biofuels would be best deployed across the transport sector. It may be best to focus use of what may well be limited supplies of sustainably sourced biofuel in transport modes where no other low-carbon energy source is likely to be viable.

In April 2010, my Department commissioned work to determine how best biofuels should be deployed across all transport modes. In addition, the Government tasked the Committee on Climate Change to review the level of ambition for renewable energy. These pieces of work are due to conclude over the coming months. The evidence we gather about the best use of biofuels across modes will inform our view of likely levels of uptake.

Given that biofuels policy has wide implications, I will continue to engage with ministerial colleagues across Whitehall to ensure that Government policy on biofuels is aligned going forward.

Today, I am publishing separate consultations on proposals to implement the European renewable energy and fuel quality directives. Both of these directives contain requirements related to the use of biofuels.

The renewable energy directive requires the UK, by 2020, to source 15% of its overall energy, and 10% of energy used in transport, from renewable sources. The related fuel quality directive requires fuel and energy suppliers (principally those providing fuel and energy for land-based transport) to reduce the lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions of the fuel/energy that they supply by 6% per unit of energy by 2020.

Given the need to consider our developing evidence base, I do not propose to make any changes to the current biofuel supply trajectory that is set out in the Renewable Transport Fuel Obligations Order 2007. However, there will be a legal obligation on the Secretary of State to keep this issue under review and to consider what additional measures will be required to ensure that the UK delivers the requirements of the EU renewable energy and fuel quality directives in the period 2014 to 2020. This approach should enable us to establish a stable biofuel policy that will allow industry to robustly plan for the period 2014 to 2020.

The two consultation documents set out proposals to implement the transport requirements of the renewable energy directive through amendment of the UK’s renewable transport fuel obligation (RTFO) and proposals to implement the fuel quality directive through the amended RTFO and the proposed motor fuel greenhouse gas saving regulations. Our implementation proposals involve making new provisions for biofuels to meet the EU biofuel sustainability criteria and introducing double certification for biofuels produced from wastes (such as used cooking oil) and other feedstocks that do not compete with food production or contribute to indirect land use change. In addition, we propose to put in place a 6% lifecycle greenhouse gas reduction obligation for 2020 and introduce requirements for the relevant fuel/energy suppliers to report on the lifecycle greenhouse gas performance of their fuels in the meantime.

The consultation period will run from today until 2 June and we aim to introduce and bring into force the relevant legislation completing the implementation of the transport elements of both directives by the end of this year.