House of Commons

Thursday 5th May 2011 Commons Chamber

Thursday 5 May 2011

The House met at half-past Ten o’clock

Prayers

Thursday 5th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker in the Chair]

Oral Answers to Questions

Thursday 5th May 2011 Commons Chamber

The Secretary of State was asked—

[Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)]

1. What assessment he has made of the effect on his Department's budget of repairs required to the M1 following the recent fire.

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

I want to praise the effective firefighting by Green Watch of the London fire brigade, particularly led by Mill Hill fire station, at the incident on the M1. I also want to praise the Highways Agency and Connect Plus for doing so much work underneath the bridge, which I saw myself.

That section of the M1 is under a managed contract agreement with Connect Plus. The contract indicates that there is a repair and insurance responsibility to the contractor, and no costs will be borne by the Department for Transport.

[Bob Blackman]

The incident occurred over the busiest weekend at Wembley stadium, where the FA cup semi-finals were taking place. It affected three of the teams quite severely—although it did not affect Manchester United fans from Surrey very much. [Laughter.] Members got it in the end. It also caused traffic congestion on the M40 and throughout my constituency. What action will the Minister take to ensure that across the country there is appropriate storage under motorways in future?

[Mike Penning]

For most of that weekend I was underneath the bridge once the fire was finished and while remedial work was done to install 250 tonnes of steel to secure the bridge so that it could be reopened. The Secretary of Sate has already announced a review of what works can be done and what can be stored under bridges. When that review reports in the next few weeks, we will look carefully at its findings.

[Mr Denis MacShane (Rotherham) (Lab)]

After 17 years of using the M1 between Rotherham and London, I know that it is always under repair on one stretch or another. Is part of the problem that the M1 is used as a suburban rat-run around the big conurbations? Might we not consider introducing a motorway vignette, so that people who use the motorways pay a little extra, we help reduce the deficit and we discourage the urban-dwellers around the M1 from using it as an ordinary road?

[Mike Penning]

In 13 years of a Labour Government, they rejected plans for doing that, and so have this Government. I do not think that the right hon. Gentleman can blame the M1 for a fire that was underneath it, which reached a temperature of up to 1,000 degrees and buckled the reinforcement bars. The Highways Agency and Connect Plus did a fantastic job. It is sad that there was so much disruption, but they did the work as fast as they could.

[Mr Matthew Offord (Hendon) (Con)]

I associate myself with the Minister's comments about the Mill Hill firefighters, who worked so hard at the location and in helping local residents. For many years, the councillor for the Hale ward on Barnet council, Councillor Hugh Rayner, has been supporting local residents on Ellesmere avenue in their calls for the scrapyard to be moved from its site under the M1. Does the Minister agree that while we should not act in a knee-jerk fashion and remove all businesses from under railways and motorway arches, we need to look carefully at what activities can be undertaken safely underneath motorways, and take action to ensure that inappropriate uses are eliminated?

[Mike Penning]

It was a pleasure to meet my hon. Friend at the incident and at the site and it was a real pleasure to see the councillor responsible as well as the representative of the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority. I also visited and praised Green Watch at the station.

It is important that the review looks carefully at what can and cannot be done under railway arches and roads. Different railway arches can have different structures. Once the review is forthcoming, we will look at it very carefully.

[Mr Speaker]

John Robertson is not here, so I call Lyn Brown.

[Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)]

3. What his most recent estimate is of the cost of the Crossrail project.

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

Crossrail is at a relatively early stage of construction and the cost will be finalised over time. However, at this stage, we expect that the project will cost no more than £14.5 billion.

[Lyn Brown]

I understand that the Government have cut £1 billion from the Crossrail project, which will mean that its opening will be delayed until 2018, and that only part of the route will be open. Will the Minister confirm for me today when the whole of the planned route will be open and which bits will not be open in 2018? When will I be able to travel from Stratford to Heathrow?

[Mrs Villiers]

There will be a phased opening of services from 2018. We have lengthened the delivery time following an engineering-led review, which did a great job in reducing the cost of the project while still enabling the full benefits to be delivered according to the original scope. We shall make an announcement in due course on the timetable for the phasing in of services from 2018.

[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)]

I declare an interest as the chair of the all-party Crossrail group. My constituents in Ilford will benefit enormously as a result of the improvements brought about because three stations in my constituency are on the Crossrail route. However, there is considerable disappointment on Redbridge council at the fact that, as a result of the cost-cutting exercise, the plans to remodel and rebuild Ilford station will not go ahead. The Minister has been invited to meet Redbridge council and visit the area. Is she likely to come to Redbridge in the near future to discuss that with my council?

[Mrs Villiers]

I pay tribute to the work that the hon. Gentleman has always done on Crossrail. The whole House will welcome confirmation that Crossrail has gone ahead; despite all the scare stories from Labour in opposition, the coalition is pressing ahead with it. We have made some savings on some stations. The plans for their redevelopment are less ambitious than they were, but they will still perform all the transport functions that were included in the plans’ original scope. Crossrail and the Department for Transport remain happy to work with local authorities to facilitate extra improvements that local authorities might want to fund and deliver to regenerate the surrounding area.

[Jackie Doyle-Price (Thurrock) (Con)]

4. When he plans to announce his consultation on the level of tolls on the Dartford-Thurrock crossing; and if he will make a statement.

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

I hope shortly to announce and publish the consultation which I know my hon. Friend is waiting for on the revision of the road user charging regime for the Dartford river crossing.

[Jackie Doyle-Price]

I thank the Minister for his reply. A few months ago, he announced his intention to remove the barriers at the Dartford crossing. My constituents would like the tolls removed altogether, of course, but we recognise the need to maintain revenue. The barrier removal will reduce congestion significantly. When he brings forward his proposals, will he include plans to make sure that foreign lorries are charged for using the crossing? Haulage is a big constituency interest for me, and my hauliers are at a competitive disadvantage compared with European suppliers.

[Mike Penning]

I fully understand the concern that if we go to free-flow tolling in Dartford, or any other part of the country, everybody who uses the road should pay, including foreign truckers and foreign vehicles. Some 20% of trucks that go through Dartford are foreign-registered, so we are very conscious of the issue and will make sure that we work on it.

[Penny Mordaunt (Portsmouth North) (Con)]

5. What plans he has for the reform of rail franchising; and if he will make a statement.

[Claire Perry (Devizes) (Con)]

6. What plans he has for the reform of rail franchising; and if he will make a statement.

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

The Government published “Reforming Rail Franchising: response to consultation and policy statement” on 19 January this year. In it we set out, among other things, our commitment to longer franchises, less prescriptive service requirements, and the transfer of stations to train operators. The Department is now considering, within the framework, the detailed invitation to tender for the intercity west coast franchise.

[Penny Mordaunt]

Since the Adjournment debate on South West Trains, I have received thousands of letters and e-mails from long-suffering passengers around the country who are having to put up with suburban trains on mainline routes. Is it not time that we had minimum standards of comfort set out in rail franchise agreements, and should not companies that ignore such concerns not have their franchises renewed?

[Mr Hammond]

I appreciate my hon. Friend’s campaign on that point, but the simple fact is that on many of our suburban railways, particularly those going into London, we have limited capacity. Trains are already at maximum length, and the number of train paths is already at the maximum capacity of the railway. Taking out seats to make them larger, which I think is my hon. Friend’s point, would simply mean more commuters standing, and those commuters who join the train closer to London are vehemently against that, so the Government have no plans at the moment to specify the size or configuration of seats in commuter trains.

[Claire Perry]

Will the Secretary of State expand for us on the benefits that he expects passengers to get from changed patterns of franchising? In particular, will they benefit passengers in Wiltshire, especially those who would like to travel on the proposed trans-Wilts railway, which would improve considerably our north-south travel patterns in the county?

[Mr Hammond]

As my hon. Friend will have anticipated, I specifically had passengers in Wiltshire in mind when we designed our franchising proposals. The key thing is to drive down the cost of our railways. We have to make them more efficient, and we have to close the productivity gap between them and competitive railways in Europe to relieve the pressure on both the taxpayer and the fare payer. The changed franchise specifications will give train operators incentives to drive down costs—something that, frankly, they have not been incentivised to do under the current system.

[Derek Twigg (Halton) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State made a point about less prescriptive service requirements, but will he give a guarantee that stations such as Runcorn mainline station and Widnes station in my constituency, which have seen a significant increase in passengers in the past five years, will not, as a result of his reform of franchising, have a reduction in the number of stopping trains?

[Mr Hammond]

I understand the hon. Gentleman’s point, and our intention is to maintain services while creating sufficient flexibility at the margin to allow franchisees to operate their businesses in a way that makes them more efficient. That is a complex balancing act. Nobody wants train services to be reduced as a consequence, but if we are absolutely prescriptive about the timetable, down to officials detailing the precise time of every train stop at every station, the scope for improving the efficiency of our railways will be severely limited. It is a balancing act, and we are determined to get it right.

[Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)]

Is not the point, certainly on intercity franchises, that the concentration is on improving journey times for long distances, which has an adverse effect on small commutes, for example from Chester-le-Street in my constituency to central Newcastle, which is only a 10-minute commute, but is a well-used service? As a result of the way in which franchises are structured, fewer trains are stopping to carry commuters on that vital route.

[Mr Hammond]

The hon. Gentleman is right. We need to get the balance right between long-distance intercity services, where stops disadvantage long-distance travellers, and short-range commuter services. In many cases, it is not appropriate for long-distance intercity trains to have a service pattern that is organised around the local commuter travelling pattern. We need local commuter trains to deliver that.

These are complex issues. Our view is that train operators are best placed to deliver services to their users in a system that incentivises them to deliver the services that passengers want. That system has not existed hitherto under the revenue-sharing arrangements in which the Government collect most of the additional revenue taken at the fare box by the train operator. Putting those incentives back in place will deliver better services and greater efficiency.

[Dr Julian Huppert (Cambridge) (LD)]

Will the new rail franchising arrangements enable the Secretary of State to take steps to ensure that fares do not rise at the huge rates that we have seen recently, but begin to level off? Will he also make sure that it is simpler and easier for people to understand what they ought to pay for a particular trip?

[Mr Hammond]

The hon. Gentleman makes two good points. First, the fare system is incredibly complex and, secondly, passengers face high fare levels—we fully appreciate that. The only way in which we can tackle high fare levels is to make the railway more efficient. We are determined to do so, and we will receive and publish shortly the report by Sir Roy McNulty on value for money on the railways, which will make proposals to achieve that objective.

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

I am glad that the issue of fares has come up, because on 9 March the Secretary of State attended a presentation on the findings of the rail value-for-money review, which he will publish later this month. I have a leaked copy, which includes a recommendation that in future rail franchises should have

“more freedom to set fares”.

Does he stand by what he told the House on 27 January, when he said that the objective of the review was

“to reduce the burden on both the taxpayer and the fare payer”?—[Official Report, 27 January 2011; Vol. 522, c. 426.]

[Mr Hammond]

Yes, absolutely—that is the key objective of the McNulty review. The hon. Lady will know, if she wants to look at this objectively, that we have severe crunch-points on our rail system, where the current pattern of fares is driving perverse behaviour. The 18.59 train north from Euston on a Friday evening is virtually empty, but the 19.01 train is packed, with people standing, and the police preventing others from joining the train for safety reasons, and that is because of the way in which the fare structure works. We must be able to use the pattern of fares to address crowding, and to avoid the perverse incentives that have been created.

[Maria Eagle]

Can the Secretary of State explain some quotes in the document that suggest that he will allow franchisees to do what they want with fares? For example, the document states that he needs

“to consider in letting future franchises: more freedom to set fares”

and should

“encourage TOCs to take a more commercial approach to fare setting”.

There are other such quotes in the document, which seems to suggest that he will allow train operating companies to charge whatever they want.

[Mr Hammond]

The hon. Lady is confusing herself. The document from which she has quoted is, I think, Sir Roy McNulty’s presentation to the seminar to which she referred. It is not a Government document.

[Sir Alan Haselhurst (Saffron Walden) (Con)]

Would my right hon. Friend explain why passengers in the Greater Anglia franchise area face the possibility of having three different train operators within 18 months, which is likely to cause confusion to them and to staff? The only beneficiaries would appear to be the companies that supply the paint to change the carriages.

[Mr Hammond]

The decision was taken to let a short management contract for the East Anglia franchise because it is our intention to let a longer-term contract and we wanted the opportunity to incorporate the findings of the McNulty review into the franchise specification before doing so.

[Greg Hands (Chelsea and Fulham) (Con)]

7. What improvements his Department is seeking to achieve in respect of the passenger experience at UK airports.

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

The south-east airports taskforce is looking at ways to improve efficiency, tackle queues and reduce delays at Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted. It is due to report in July.

[Greg Hands]

I commend the Secretary of State and the Minister for their active and robust campaign to improve the passenger experience. I think that it has improved in recent months, particularly at Heathrow, but I polled my constituents and many of them disagree. Greg Taylor said:

“Compared to Asian airports…Heathrow is a disgrace”,

and James Max complained about

“bad baggage reclaim…expensive food and parking…poor public transport”.

How can my constituents get more involved in the process of improving the experience at Heathrow and other airports?

[Mrs Villiers]

My hon. Friend is right to give credit to Heathrow for real improvements over recent years. Although terminal 5 started pretty badly, it is now a high-quality facility, and the airport will be investing in a major redevelopment of other terminals, hopefully to bring them up to the same standards. But more needs to be done, which is why we will modernise the airport regulatory framework to put passengers at the heart of the system, to give the Civil Aviation Authority the power to intervene where airports fail their passengers, and to incentivise the sort of investment in improvement, to baggage handling and terminals, for example, that his constituents clearly want. We are also introducing a new consumer panel at the CAA to improve passengers’ ability to influence the regulation of the airport.

[Mr Marcus Jones (Nuneaton) (Con)]

8. What steps he is taking to tackle uninsured driving.

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

The Government have already introduced the continuous insurance enforcement scheme that will come into force in late June, which says simply that everyone who intends to drive a vehicle on the road must be insured and that a vehicle must have a valid statutory off-road notification if there is no intent to drive.

[Mr Jones]

Uninsured drivers are the scourge of our roads, adding to the insurance premium of the law-abiding motorist. With a fixed-penalty sanction against uninsured drivers of £200 and an average motor insurance policy premium of £892, rising to £2,431 for young drivers, is it not time to consider increasing the fixed-penalty fine to ensure that it is proportionate to the cost of motor insurance, to incentivise those who think that it is right to drive uninsured?

[Mike Penning]

It is estimated that 1.5 million people drive without insurance, which is a huge cost burden to those who do insure, and there is strong evidence that those who are uninsured are likely to commit other driving and criminal offences. However, I assure my hon. Friend that we are looking closely at that.

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

One of the biggest incentives to drive illegally is the premium imposed by insurance companies. There are various schemes to try to reduce those costs, particularly for young drivers who are a problem in this regard. GPS can measure journey times, the hours of the day when people travel, and who else is in the car. Is the Department in negotiation with insurance companies to progress such schemes so that young people can afford insurance premiums and avoid driving without insurance?

[Mike Penning]

Yes, we have frequent discussions with the insurance industry, but I must stress that being insured is not a choice; it is a legal requirement. We are trying to drive down the cost, which is partly the result of uninsured drivers driving up the cost of those who are insured, creating a perverse incentive, and partly the result of fraud, which is a massive issue that the Select Committee considered and to which I gave evidence. We are working with the insurance industry on some of the measures referred to by the hon. Gentleman. It is also important when requesting an insurance quote to tell the truth, for example about the number of points on one’s driving record, so that the insurance is not invalid when a claim is made.

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

I am sure that the Minister will want to commend the automatic number plate recognition scheme, which the police use effectively in west Yorkshire to catch people driving without insurance. However, does he agree that their efforts are undermined by the courts which give derisory fines to people caught driving without insurance? The fines that they give mean that, for many people, crime does pay.

[Mike Penning]

ANPR is a huge move forward in how we catch more people who drive without insurance. As I said to my hon. Friend the Member for Nuneaton (Mr Jones), we are looking at the issue and working with other Departments to ensure that the punishment fits the crime.

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

Uninsured drivers contribute significantly to the number of crashes, deaths and serious injuries on the roads. When will we see the long-awaited road safety framework document, and will it address that issue? Does the Department intend to continue publishing targets for the reduction of deaths and serious injuries on our roads?

[Mike Penning]

The hon. Gentleman used to have the job that I have the honour of doing these days, and he knows full well that the Government will publish the road safety strategy as soon as we can; he will have to wait for what is in it. He made a point about targets. If we are not careful, if we set targets the easy option is always the way forward. We have the safest roads in the world and we intend to keep them that way, but we are not going to set arbitrary targets and just say, “We have met that target, so we can ignore the harder option.”

[Chris White (Warwick and Leamington) (Con)]

9. What recent progress has been made on his Department’s consultation on High Speed 2.

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

We are part-way through a programme of 30 public roadshows along the line of the proposed London to west midlands route, and we have held regional seminars across the country. The programme was suspended for the duration of the election purdah period, but will resume next week. The consultation process finishes on 29 July, and I expect to announce the Government’s response later this year.

[Chris White]

Today I will be heading back to my constituency for the final afternoon of campaigning, and many colleagues will be heading back to theirs. I will be travelling on the excellent Chiltern line service from Marylebone. However, many constituents are concerned that high-speed rail will lead to a loss of conventional rail services, as has been the experience in other countries with high-speed rail networks. What assurances can the Secretary of State give that the Department for Transport is taking those concerns seriously and what impact will there be on such highly popular local networks?

[Mr Hammond]

As I look around the Chamber, it seems to me that one or two Members may have travelled back for the final afternoon of canvassing and campaigning already.

My hon. Friend could not be more wrong. One of the huge benefits of building a new, dedicated high-speed line will be the released capacity on the existing conventional lines—the east coast main line, the west coast main line and the midlands main line. Those lines will be capable of being reconfigured to deliver better longer-distance and short-distance commuting services and more freight paths for freight trains, taking more freight off the road and getting it on to rail. That is one of the big wins of a dedicated high-speed line.

[Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

Does the Secretary of State agree that there needs to be a full high-speed interconnection between High Speed 1 and High Speed 2 from the start? What are his plans for those interconnections?

[Mr Hammond]

The right hon. Gentleman will know that the published plans include a link from Old Oak Common via a tunnel round to the north of St Pancras station, connecting directly to the High Speed 1 line. It will be possible to run trains from the midlands and the north of England, directly through that tunnel, to the High Speed 1 network and onwards to the channel tunnel.

[Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)]

10. What steps he is taking to assist local authorities to repair potholes.

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

On 24 March, we wrote to all local highway authorities informing them of their share of an additional £200 million, which we have made available for repairing damage to their road networks following the severe winter weather at the end of last year. The funding was paid to authorities on Monday 28 March this year.

[Fiona Bruce]

I thank the Minister for his reply and for the generous grant of £2 million recently received by my local authority of Cheshire East. However, the council has a £100 million shortfall in planned maintenance of its highways network, and it is unable to commit funding to upgrade junction 17 of the M6, which is in my constituency and frequently causes major traffic problems. Can the Minister offer any help to the local authority as it tries to address the problem with partner organisations?

[Norman Baker]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for her welcome for the extra funds made available. It is worth putting on record that we have committed £3 billion for highway maintenance over a four-year period in addition to the £200 million that was announced this year, so despite the difficult economic circumstances, we are prioritising moneys for highway maintenance. I am not aware of the particular junction, but if my hon. Friend writes to me with further details I will happily get a reply to her on the matter.

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

If the main excuse given by failing authorities is that they are short of resources, will the Minister consider instructing them to stop installing speed humps and to use the tarmac they save to fill in the potholes?

[Norman Baker]

That is a novel and interesting suggestion, but I do not think it is the job of Transport Ministers to direct local councils how to spend their money.

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)]

11. What consideration he has given to electrification of the Barking to Gospel Oak line.

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

We are committed to further electrification of the railways. However, electrifying Gospel Oak to Barking is not currently a strategic priority as a number of other schemes have stronger and more developed business cases.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

May I persuade the Minister that it is a priority and that the matter is of national as well as London importance? The Barking to Gospel Oak line is the only part of the London overground network that is not electrified, therefore running trains on it with diesel power is more expensive. Secondly, because the line is on a major freight route from the east coast, there has to be a change from electrified haulage to locomotive trains on that section. It would be of great benefit, both nationally and in London, if the line were electrified. Will the Minister look at it again and will she meet the secret group of Barking to Gospel Oak line MPs who would, I am sure, support the points I am making?

[Mrs Villiers]

I am happy to meet the group, as the hon. Gentleman asks. The problem is that electrification would be expensive, because tunnels, bridges and viaducts are close to habitation, and the passenger benefits would be quite limited because the route is already running brand-new diesel trains. The performance benefits—journey-time improvements—delivered by electrification would be limited. The combination of high cost and limited passenger benefits means that the scheme is well behind others, such as the midland main line, the Great Western line and the Wales valley lines in terms of best value for taxpayers’ money.

[Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)]

May I unveil myself as a member of the secret group of North London line supporters? I look forward to the Minister meeting us. I hope she will meet us on the line itself, so that she can experience some of the problems that my constituents face—we promise not to make her wear an invisibility cloak—and so that she can understand some of the challenges we face in London because the line is not electrified. Problems with the freight line affect homes in Waltham Forest and other parts of north-east London, so I hope she will accept our invitation. We look forward to showing her our patch of north-east London.

[Mrs Villiers]

Meeting on the line itself might be a little difficult.

On the freight points, the problem is that freight trains use many parts of the network that are not electrified, which is why the majority of freight trains are diesel. There is a real possibility that even if the line were electrified, the freight trains running over it would still mainly be diesel. I am afraid that the freight issues do not address the business case problems. We have limited funds; unfortunately, we have to make difficult decisions on priorities and although I am happy to listen to representations from the group, for the moment I continue to believe that other schemes have priority because they have a better business case.

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

12. What discussions he has had with the Mayor of London on the operation of the transport network in London during the London 2012 Olympics.

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

I have lead accountability within Government for transport preparations for the London 2012 Olympics. I am a member of the Cabinet sub-committee on the Olympics, which meets regularly and is also attended by the Mayor of London and representatives of the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games and the Olympic Delivery Authority.

My officials and I have regular discussions with the Mayor and his officials in the Greater London authority and Transport for London on transport during the Olympics. Transport for London works closely with the ODA, which has statutory responsibility for transport planning for the games.

[Mary Macleod]

As the Secretary of State mentioned, a number of organisations are involved in the planning and delivery of a successful transport network for the games—LOCOG, the ODA, the Mayor of London and Transport for London. Can my right hon. Friend tell me what efforts have been made to co-ordinate planning across those groups to ensure that we can manage the huge numbers of athletes and spectators? Does he feel that appropriate measures have been put in place to keep London moving during that critical time?

[Mr Hammond]

As I have already described, there is a mechanism for bringing all those groups together through the Cabinet Olympic sub-committee, which is very effective. During the games, the Transport for London control room in central London will be the main control room for managing the transport networks.

The required measures are being put in place, but my hon. Friend is right to say that it will be challenging to manage down background demand for travel in London to allow sufficient capacity for the games family—the athletes, spectators and sponsors—to travel around. That is a big challenge, which we will face in the next 12 months—I am under no illusions about the size of it.

[Greg Hands (Chelsea and Fulham) (Con)]

T2. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

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

Since the previous departmental questions, I have published a scoping document about our planned development of a sustainable aviation policy. I have allocated £200 million for pothole repairs to individual local authorities, and announced the allocation of 20 additional rail carriages for commuter routes serving the Leeds area. We have also announced the go-ahead for the long-awaited Swindon to Kemble track redoubling, and the Ordsall chord in Manchester, linking Victoria and Piccadilly stations.

[Greg Hands]

Will the Secretary of State join me in condemning as obscene and irresponsible the proposed six days of tube strikes by the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers next month over only two individual employees? Will he also condemn Labour’s candidate for London Mayor, who has signally failed to condemn the action, and, indeed, his deputy, who even appears at RMT protest meetings?

[Mr Hammond]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend that the series of strikes is highly irresponsible. As I said last night, no one in the Government is spoiling for a fight with the unions, but the unions appear to be spoiling for a fight with London. I say to the RMT and other unions that that sort of irresponsible strike action, when an alternative, proper remedy—an ongoing employment tribunal—is available, only strengthens the hand of those, including the Mayor, who call for tougher industrial relations laws.

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

As the Secretary of State will know, today marks the closing of the consultation on his plans to axe more than half the UK’s coastguard stations, leaving just three offering 24-hour cover. Yet, in a letter to me this week, the Maritime and Coastguard Agency stated that the consultation,

“will be reopened in the Summer”.

Will the right hon. Gentleman confirm that the consultation closes today, as the letter says, “for the first time”? Given that it is increasingly clear that the policy is a shambles, why does he not just abandon the ill-thought-through proposals, which will leave our coastline a more dangerous place?

[Mr Hammond]

What a wonderful piece of opportunism. I can confirm that the consultation closes today. Of course, the previous Administration originally made the proposals to modernise the coastguard. We have listened carefully to the representations, and some very sensible representations have been made about how the reconfiguration might be managed to protect more of the local location of services. Once the consultation is closed, we will publish a summary of the findings and make our response to it.

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

T4. Will the Minister meet me as soon as possible to discuss the reinstatement of the Maidstone East to City of London service?

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

I am happy to meet my hon. Friend to discuss the matter. I have given the issue careful consideration, but she will know that changes to the franchise, which require extra subsidy, would be difficult to approve in the current fiscal climate.

[Margaret Beckett (Derby South) (Lab)]

Does the Secretary of State recognise that there is strong cross-party support in the House, not only for British manufacturing in general, but in particular for the sole remaining British train maker, which eagerly awaits the award of the contract for the Thameslink line? What is the timing for that?

[Mrs Villiers]

We expect to make some announcements on that contract imminently. Towards the end the year, we expect to draw towards contractual close. We will make further announcements in due course.

[Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)]

T5. In Rugby, a significant number of vehicles on our roads have been brought into the country by foreign workers, and they remain registered in their home countries. When I raised the matter with the Minister, he advised me that such vehicles can be used for six months in a 12-month period, or until the visitor takes up residence. However, there is currently no database for tracking such vehicles as they enter and leave the UK. That means that the owners of many vehicles use UK roads without contributing to the costs of maintaining them. Will the Minister consider a review to rectify that?

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

I am well aware of this issue, and I thank my hon. Friend for raising it. I corresponded with him recently on the matter. All vehicles on all roads in the UK should be safe, whether they are UK-registered or foreign-registered, and if they are not, they will be clamped and removed from the road. However, a database is an issue and something we are considering.

[Helen Jones (Warrington North) (Lab)]

T3. Does the Secretary of State realise that his earlier answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Halton (Derek Twigg) will have raised deep concerns in parts of the north-west, not least in Warrington, which is hugely dependent on its transport links to boost and develop its economy? Is he prepared to give an assurance to the House that any new franchise arrangements will not reduce the number of intercity trains stopping at Warrington Bank Quay? Yes or no?

[Mr Philip Hammond]

I do not want to say, “Calm down”, but I would like to say that I am sorry if I have set a hare running. I was trying to say to the hon. Member for Halton that we are very much aware of the risk that making franchises less prescriptive could lead to reductions in train services, and we are not prepared to accept that, so I can assure the hon. Lady that under the new west coast franchise, the same number of station stops at Warrington Bank Quay will occur as under the present timetable.

[Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)]

I warmly welcome the creation of the sustainable local transport fund. I hope that the Minister is aware of the exciting trans-Wilts rail proposal, of which we heard earlier, developed by the community rail partnership, which has demonstrated the strong support of local businesses and MPs. Can he confirm that he would welcome a bid from Wiltshire council to that fund, and that it would be given serious consideration?

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

I am pleased with the number of bids we have received so far for the first tranche of the local sustainable transport fund. A number of imaginative bids have come in. There is a further bidding round, however, and I would welcome any suggestions that could improve the co-ordination of transport across modes.

[Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)]

Does the Minister agree that referral fees and the whole claims management industry drive up the cost of motor insurance? Will the Government be doing anything to regulate this industry?

[Mike Penning]

The Government have no plans to increase the regulation on the industry, which is already severely regulated. The Transport Select Committee has considered the matter carefully. Ambulance chasers, as I referred to them in the Select Committee—some parts of the industry did not like that—are a fact and are driving up costs. Claims must be proportionate. Everybody injured on the roads should be able to claim, if it was not their fault, but there should not be an industry out there trying to make disproportionate claims against other insurers.

[Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)]

Wycombe air park will be subject to various security requirements in connection with the Olympics. I learned this week that those arrangements will threaten the survival of Booker gliding club. Will the Minister meet me to try to find a way forward for that valued resource?

[Mrs Villiers]

I am happy to meet my hon. Friend to discuss this important issue. We are very much aware of concerns about the imposition of airspace restrictions in relation to the Olympics. We believe that restrictions are essential to maintain security for such an important event, but we are always prepared to consider refinements to see whether we can respond to concerns expressed.

[Grahame M. Morris (Easington) (Lab)]

Will the Secretary of State commit, as the previous Labour Government did, to legislate for a high-speed rail line all the way to the north, and in so doing convince the sceptics that the Government have a credible economic policy that would benefit all the regions?

[Mr Philip Hammond]

As I have said many times at the Dispatch Box, the Government’s programme is for a Y-shaped network that will take the high-speed railway all the way to Manchester and Leeds. I am aware of the scepticism among some Members and others outside the House about our commitment to that programme. I have discussed this matter with Members of all parties interested in securing this programme, and I have given a commitment to find a way of getting into the first hybrid Bill a commitment to the Y-shaped network sufficient to reassure those Members. However, it simply is not practical from a parliamentary point of view to have a single hybrid Bill dealing with the whole line, so it will have to be done as two hybrid Bills. We will ensure that the first Bill contains a commitment sufficient to satisfy the hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends.

[Gordon Henderson (Sittingbourne and Sheppey) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend give an assurance that a meaningful consultation will take place with rail user groups before any of the existing rail franchises are renewed? I am thinking in particular of Southeastern, which has just had its current franchise extended by two years, despite an appalling performance record on the north Kent coastal line and repeated customer complaints.

[Mrs Villiers]

When we issue new franchises, we carry out a detailed consultation process. We will be doing that when the current Southeastern franchise finishes. No consultation was carried out in relation to the continuation review, because this was a contractual term of the franchise that was agreed by the previous Government, which meant that an automatic extension was granted if targets were met by Southeastern. Those targets were met; we had no choice—the extension had to go ahead. In those circumstances, a consultation was not appropriate.

The Minister for Women and Equalities was asked—

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

1. What assessment she has made of recent trends in the number of hate crimes in London.

[The Minister for Equalities (Lynne Featherstone)]

Hate crime is an issue that the Government take extremely seriously. Until recently, many crimes were not recorded centrally, making it difficult to assess trends. That is why the coalition programme for government included a commitment to better recording of hate crime against disabled, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. Police forces started formally collecting the relevant data in April, and from the summer of 2012 we will have the complete picture of statistics, which will show the pattern of local trends in hate crime and help the police to target their resources more effectively.

[Tom Brake]

I thank the Minister for her comprehensive response. I wonder whether she could say what the Government intend to do about the under-reporting of hate crime, which is a big issue.

[Lynne Featherstone]

Yes, there is significant under-reporting. One of the actions that the Government have been taking is to work with key voluntary sector partners to encourage greater reporting. That includes, for example, the development of third-party reporting centres, because a great number of people do not report hate crime as they believe that it is not serious enough and they do not want to go directly to the police. Third-party centres will be able to pass reports on to the police.

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)]

On the Minister’s last point, I agree with her that there is a serious problem of under-reporting. Last year 11,000 racist or homophobic hate crimes were reported; I suspect that many thousands more were not. Will she talk to the Metropolitan police about increasing its resources specifically for an advertising campaign to report hate crime, so that young people in schools and in communities that do not normally associate with the police are made aware that they can get help, relief and justice for hate crimes committed in this city?

[Lynne Featherstone]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for highlighting the importance of getting that message out. I am happy to talk with the Metropolitan police, as there is indeed a great deal of under-reporting. There are certain sectors that lack knowledge or understanding of how or where to make reports. The police have set up a website called True Vision—just google “hate crime” and “how to report”—because the internet makes hate crime much easier to report where there is that lack of accessibility.

[Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)]

2. What recent steps she has taken to advance equality for people with disabilities; and if she will make a statement.

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

Most of the Equality Act 2010 came into force last October. It contains additional protections for disabled people, providing a strong framework for equality. However, this issue is not just about legislation; it is about improving attitudes too. We are addressing it through, for example, our work on the 2012 games legacy commitment, the introduction of the right to control and proposals for additional support for disabled people who want to take up elected office, as well as by removing the barriers that disabled people, including veterans, face in accessing the services and support that they need.

[Mr Jones]

The hon. Lady will therefore be aware of the disabilities faced by many veterans, both young and old. Can she tell the House what discussions she has had with the veterans Minister about ensuring that those brave men and women are not put at any disadvantage because of disabilities that are the result of their service to this country?

[Maria Miller]

I know that the hon. Gentleman has a long-standing interest in this issue, and he is not afraid to speak out on it. We recognise the problems that veterans and their families face. That is why we have set up a covenant taskforce to find innovative solutions to the problems facing former service personnel and their families. That, coupled with the existing benefits available for veterans—including the war pensions scheme and the armed forces compensation scheme, as well as those benefits that are available to the broader public—will help in recognising what he rightly says is the great debt of gratitude that we owe to that important group of people.

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

Is it not an absolute farce that the Equality and Human Rights Commission, which is given taxpayers’ money to go round lecturing the rest of the country about equal pay for people with disabilities, itself pays non-disabled people more than people with disabilities?

[Maria Miller]

My hon. Friend raises an important issue. It is vital that disabled people have a level playing field when it comes to pay and conditions, and I am sure that we will want to look into the point that he has raised.

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

The Minister will be aware that, next week, members of the hardest hit coalition will be lobbying their MPs. Richard Hawkes, the chief executive of the disability charity Scope, has said:

“The government has not delivered on its promise to support disabled people into work, penalising those on ESA and jobseekers’ allowance who have worked and paid national insurance in the past and who now cannot rely on getting the support they need when they need it, in an increasingly difficult employment market. Disabled people and their families do not have ‘broad shoulders’, so why are they bearing the brunt of these cuts?”

Does she think that cutting the support to help disabled people to find work will promote equality for disabled people?

[Maria Miller]

I think I need to take issue with the hon. Lady’s statement about the number of disabled people who are getting into work. More people now have access to schemes such as access to work, which provides invaluable support for disabled people to get into employment, and the Government have already launched the Work Choice programme, which gives specific support to severely disabled people. That, coupled with the work by the Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions, my right hon. Friend the Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling) on the Work programme, represents an admirable package of support for disabled people, although we will of course strive to do better.

[Stephen Gilbert (St Austell and Newquay) (LD)]

4. What recent progress she has made on the consultation on the future of civil partnerships.

[The Minister for Equalities (Lynne Featherstone)]

Earlier this year, we announced our intention to remove the ban in England and Wales on civil partnership registrations being held on religious premises. A consultation document seeking views on the practical changes needed to implement that provision was published on 31 March. We believe that this voluntary provision is a positive step forward for same-sex couples and for religious freedom.

[Stephen Gilbert]

Does the Minister agree that, when it comes to equality before the law, there can be no such thing as “almost equal”? Bearing that in mind, what further steps will the Government take to end the inequality in marriage and civil partnership rights between straight and homosexual couples?

[Lynne Featherstone]

Yes, I agree that “equal rights” means “equal rights”, not “similar rights” or “nearly but not quite as good” rights. Having listened to stakeholders, it is clear that there is a genuine desire among many of them to move forward to equality between marriage and civil partnerships. Over the summer we shall start a discussion with all those with an interest in the matter on how legislation can develop.

[Jane Ellison (Battersea) (Con)]

5. What plans she has for future support for women wishing to start new businesses.

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

The Government are committed to increasing the number of women and men setting up businesses. If women set up businesses at the same rate as men in the UK, we would have 150,000 new business start-ups each year. We are encouraging the establishment of small businesses through excellent initiatives such as the new enterprise allowance, which will provide mentors and financial support to help the unemployed to become self-employed.

[Jane Ellison]

A constituent of mine has told me that she has built up a successful small business, working round her caring responsibilities over a number of years, but that she found the step to taking on an employee very daunting, given the complexity of regulation and legislation involved. Is there more that we can do to help people in that situation?

[Mrs May]

My hon. Friend makes a valuable point about the benefits and flexibility for women of establishing a business or being self-employed. She also makes an important point about getting rid of red tape and bureaucracy, which are barriers to people who are either growing their businesses or setting them up in the first place. That is why the Government have launched the red tape website, which enables people to challenge regulations. The Equality Act 2010 appears on the website. It is not the Government’s intention to abolish the Equality Act. We are putting it in place, but we want to hear from businesses how we can do regulation better to ensure that they can improve their businesses and employ more people.

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

I know that the right hon. Lady shares my concern about the lack of women at the top of business. Will she do as Lord Davies recommended, and insist that companies disclose annually how many women are on their boards in senior executive positions, and how many women are employed throughout the whole organisation?

[Mrs May]

I am grateful to Lord Davies for his report and his excellent proposals. We are working with business to ensure that that will be done, particularly encouraging larger businesses to set the trend so that it can then cascade down to others. I have written to my right hon. Friend the Business Secretary to ask how we can get the same message out to private as well as public sector companies. I am pleased to say that the Home Office is setting a good example in that of the four non-executive directors on its supervisory board, two are female.

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

Does the Minister agree that better, bolder and more ambitious career advice for our girls when they are at school and university could help bring on more female entrepreneurs?

[Mrs May]

My hon. Friend makes an extremely important point. It is necessary to look at the career advice given to girls to ensure that they are aware of all the opportunities open to them. That will help to increase their ambition about the sort of careers they can go for, and it is also important in respect of equal pay to let them know the financial consequences of the career decisions they make.

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

The right hon. Lady will know that the regional development agencies did some excellent work across the country, helping women to support and start their own businesses, but those agencies are now being abolished. Women and small businesses are also being hit by the cuts to child care tax credits, cuts to Sure Start places and child benefit, while a Netmums survey found that one in five mums say they will have to give up work as a result of what is happening to the child care tax credits alone; many are extremely angry as a result. Women are also being hit twice as hard by the Government’s tax and benefit changes. Has she raised these concerns and this anger from women with the Prime Minister—or did he just tell her to “calm down, dear”, too?

[Mrs May]

On that last comment, I have no intention of suggesting that the right hon. Lady should calm down on this matter. She makes a point about what the Prime Minister said, but when I heard it, I immediately thought of Michael Winner. Sometimes I just think Opposition Members need to get a bit of a sense of humour. On the issue of women and the regional development agencies, we are abolishing the latter for extremely good reasons and putting in place local enterprise partnerships, which will ensure that opportunities are opened up for all businesses at local level. Through initiatives such as the desire to extend the right to flexible working and flexible parental leave, we are going a great deal further than the last Government in ensuring that there are opportunities for women in the workplace.

[Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)]

6. What steps she is taking to provide support for women wishing to enter employment.

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

The Government’s aim is to achieve lasting growth in employment by tackling the deficit that we inherited from the last Labour Government, improving the competitiveness of the economy and encouraging the growth of new business. We aim to ensure that women are well placed to take advantage of the jobs created by a successful economy through universal credit and the Work programme. We are also reforming the welfare system to ensure that work pays and that women are provided with the support they need to fulfil their potential.

[Lyn Brown]

Let us see whether we can get an answer to the question asked earlier by my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper). Does the Minister believe that cutting the child care element of the working tax credit will make it easier or harder for women to gain employment and stay at work?

[Maria Miller]

The hon. Lady will be aware of the decision by her Government to increase the child care element of the tax credit from 70% to 80% in April 2006. What is now clear to everybody is that that was a decision this country could not afford. We have already made it clear that with the universal credit, we have an opportunity to ensure that child care support gets to those who need it most. We will invest at least the same amount of money in child care as under the current system and we will aim to provide support for those making their first moves into work. I am sure that the hon. Lady, like me, wants to ensure that women who have taken time out to have a family can have access to child care to get back into work, if working fewer than 16 hours. I am sure she would like to support that.

[Margaret Beckett (Derby South) (Lab)]

Does the Minister recognise that decisions made by local councils such as the Tory one in Derby to close Sure Start projects is another example of where women are losing out and finding their opportunities for employment much diminished?

[Maria Miller]

Like the right hon. Lady, I am a huge supporter of Sure Start. The Minister of State, Department for Education, my hon. Friend the Member for Brent Central (Sarah Teather), has ensured that funds are available to maintain the network of Sure Start centres. That is certainly happening in my county of Hampshire, where savings are being made in the management structures behind the front-line services, and I urge all councils to take a similar approach.

[Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)]

8. What recent assessment she has made of the potential effect on women of the proposal to introduce a flat-rate state pension.

[Chris White (Warwick and Leamington) (Con)]

9. What recent assessment she has made of the potential effect on women of the proposal to introduce a flat-rate state pension.

[The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Steve Webb)]

We are consulting on two options for reform to make the state pension system simpler and fairer for those—including many women—who have historically experienced poor pension outcomes. We will publish a full assessment of impacts when more detailed proposals for reform are published.

[Fiona Bruce]

Many of my constituents, particularly female constituents, have raised concerns about the proposals. Will the Minister explain how the funding has been planned?

[Steve Webb]

We are spending the budget that was already planned for state pension expenditure in what we consider to be a better way. There will be a simpler system, which will reward saving and be fairer to women in particular. Some of those with the highest earnings who would have received higher earnings-related pensions will ultimately receive smaller pensions than they would have otherwise, but we think that the system will be fairer and simpler.

[Chris White]

I too have received correspondence from several constituents about the proposed changes in the state retirement age. What assurances can the Minister give that their concerns will be listened to, and that the Government will take all possible steps to ensure that women are not disadvantaged?

[Steve Webb]

We are already listening to representations. Although more rapid equalisation inevitably affects women more than men, it affects men as well through the impact on the state pension credit age. However, I can encourage the hon. Gentleman by telling him that the new single state pension, if we proceed with it, will be of particular benefit to women, including those affected by the change in the state pension age.

[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)]

Is it fair to accelerate the process and damage the prospects and incomes of 300,000 women?

[Steve Webb]

The hon. Gentleman is right to raise the question of fairness. However, people are living longer, and in a state pension system in which no money is put aside to pay for pensions, someone must find that money. We do not believe that it would be fair for all the cost to fall on today’s workers and today’s firms. There is a balance to be struck.

[Chris Heaton-Harris (Daventry) (Con)]

10. What discussions she has had with ministerial colleagues on the payment of pensions to gender-reassigned women.

[The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Steve Webb)]

In order to meet our obligations under European Union law, a specialist team is being set up to determine equal treatment claims in line with the Court of Appeal’s decision on the payment of pensions to gender-reassigned women.

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

The Minister will be well aware of the case of my constituent Bernadette Rogers, who, with the help of both her former and her current Member of Parliament, has been fighting the anomaly in the system for quite a long time. Will he agree to meet me, and her, to try to sort the problem out once and for all?

[Steve Webb]

My hon. Friend and his predecessor, Lord Boswell, have been very assiduous in taking up the case of Bernadette Rogers. I discussed her case with officials earlier this week.

I am always happy to meet hon. Friends, but we believe that we can resolve Ms Rogers’s case in the very near future. I will write to my hon. Friend shortly giving the final details of how that is done, and if he and Ms Rogers are not happy with that response, I shall be happy to meet him at that point.

Business of the House

Thursday 5th May 2011 Commons Chamber

11:33

[Hilary Benn (Leeds Central) (Lab)]

May I ask the Leader of the House to give us the forthcoming business?

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

Monday 9 May—Opposition Day (unallotted day—half day). There will be a half-day debate on the future of the NHS which will arise on an Opposition motion, followed by a motion to approve an instruction relating to the Welfare Reform Bill, followed by a motion to approve a European document relating to trafficking.

Tuesday 10 May—Second Reading of the Energy Bill [Lords].

Wednesday 11 May—Remaining stages of the Education Bill, followed by motion to approve a European document relating to the draft directive on common consolidated corporate tax base, followed by a motion to approve the charter for budget responsibility.

Thursday 12 May—Motion relating to the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority, followed by a motion relating to reform of the common fisheries policy.

The subjects of both debates were nominated by the Backbench Business Committee.

Friday 13 May—Private Members’ Bills.

The provisional business for the week commencing 16 May will include:

Monday 16 May—General debate on the middle east, north Africa, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Tuesday 17 May—Motion to approve a Ways and Means resolution relating to the Localism Bill, followed by remaining stages of the Localism Bill (day 1).

Wednesday 18 May—Remaining stages of the Localism Bill (day 2).

Thursday 19 May—Business nominated by the Backbench Business Committee.

I should also like to inform the House that the business in Westminster Hall will be:

Thursday 12 May—Debate on education performance.

[Hilary Benn]

I am grateful to the Leader of the House for that reply, and I welcome the further foreign affairs debate that we are going to have.

The House will be aware that heath and forest fires are affecting a number of parts of the UK so, as well as thanking those who are working so hard to contain them, does the Leader of the House anticipate a statement?

On the length of this Session, the right hon. Gentleman was uncharacteristically dismissive in responding to my question last week about when it will conclude. Previously the House has always had a pretty good idea when the next Queen’s Speech would be, so may I urge him again to let us know as soon as he has worked it out?

At business questions last week, my right hon. Friend the Member for Warley (Mr Spellar) asked about the comments made last autumn by Baroness Warsi about the general election. Let me remind the House that she said that there were

“At least three seats where we lost....based on electoral fraud.”

When asked to identify the seats, she replied:

“I think it would be wrong to start identifying them”.

The Leader of the House said that my right hon. Friend had received a “reply” to those allegations from the appropriate Minister. I have read the letter and it does not give one, and my right hon. Friend has now written to both that Minister and the Leader of the House to seek a proper response. However, given that a member of the Cabinet has made an accusation of electoral fraud, can the Leader of the House confirm for us today that Baroness Warsi has passed, either to the Electoral Commission or to the police, the information that she must have had to have made those very serious allegations in the first place?

May we have a statement on the role of OFFA—the Office for Fair Access—in respect of the setting of university fees? Last weekend its assistant director was very clear. He said:

“We are not a fee pricing regulator; that is not our role...we wouldn’t say to an institution we would only allow a fee of ‘X’ or ‘Y’”.

That statement completely contradicted what the Prime Minister told the House on 30 March, which was that

“the Office for Fair Access will decide whether universities can go to that £9,000 threshold.”—[Official Report, 30 March 2011; Vol. 526, c. 334.]

Now that this has come to light, when will the Prime Minister come to the House to apologise for giving Members incorrect information about the powers of OFFA?

May we have a debate on the breakdown of collective Cabinet responsibility? After his threat to sue ministerial colleagues last week, we read that the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change this week used the Cabinet meeting to launch a blistering personal attack on the Prime Minister over the content of the no campaign leaflets. He also said this over the weekend:

“To attack your political colleagues in a coalition...for accepting the compromises necessary to allow the Conservatives to implement some of its policies is...outrageous.”

Well, where exactly do we start on that? First, it makes it sound as if the Lib Dems are helpless victims, rather than willing participants. If, however, that is the case, can we have a list so that we know who to blame in future and for what? Secondly, a Cabinet Minister was openly criticising the man who appointed him and it appears that the occupant of No. 10 is completely powerless to do anything about it. I wonder whether the Prime Minister feels that the most annoying man in British politics is now, in fact, the Climate Change Secretary.

Thirdly, we now have no idea who speaks for the Government, so can we have statements on the following matters? Is the Health and Social Care Bill in suspension or not, and if so, for how long? Does the Prime Minister agree with the Deputy Prime Minister’s comment this week that piloting the idea of police commissioners would be “entirely rational”? What exactly is the Government’s policy on the outsourcing of public services? First we were told that that was the future; now we read in a leaked document this week that they are pulling back because it would be politically “unpalatable”. Who is right about internships and family friends? On Tuesday the Deputy Prime Minister told the “Today” programme that Government policy is to end informal internships, yet on the very same programme his boss, the Prime Minister, contradicted him, saying that he has his neighbour coming in for an internship.

As we approach the first anniversary of the coalition, is not the truth that it is already beginning to fray at the edges as both partners realise that a marriage of convenience is no substitute for voting for what you believe in? And on that subject, may I tell the Leader of the House that many people are looking forward to voting for a Labour alternative to this shabby coalition today?

[Sir George Young]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that response, which deserved a far wider audience on the Labour Benches than it received today. While the Leader of the Opposition still struggles to be identified by the “Today” programme, the shadow Leader of the House has at least managed to define himself in these sessions as a sort of Rory Bremner without the accents. The fact that he rarely turns his creative energies to the business before the House for the next week is, I think, a welcome acknowledgement that so far as the running of the business of the House is concerned, I enjoy his full confidence and support.

I welcome what the right hon. Gentleman said about the current affairs debate. It shows the value of business questions that when serious propositions are made by the right hon. Gentleman and Members from all parties, the Government can respond to the views of the House and in some cases find time for a debate.

On heathlands, the Government will want to keep the House in the picture, whether by written ministerial statement or otherwise, and I take on board the right hon. Gentleman’s suggestion.

As for the Easter recess and when the House might rise next year, the right hon. Gentleman is well ahead of the game. I think I first asked about last year’s Easter recess in October the year before. I went on asking and—I have had to refresh my memory on this point—it was 12 days before the Easter recess in 2010 that I actually got the date from the then Government. For him to ask some 11 months in advance is, I would gently suggest, a little premature.

On the matter of the correspondence between my right hon. Friend the Minister without Portfolio and the right hon. Member for Warley (Mr Spellar), as the shadow Leader of the House knows a reply was sent by the Minister responsible for constitutional reform. If a reply has been sent by the right hon. Member for Warley, it will of course get a proper response, which will include the specific questions that the shadow Leader of the House raised.

I have to tell the right hon. Gentleman that OFFA will decide whether a university can charge £9,000, so my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister was absolutely right. Universities can charge that figure only if OFFA is satisfied that the necessary arrangements have been made, for example, to secure access for those on lower incomes. There is no clash there.

Finally, on the whole business of collective responsibility, I am amazed that the right hon. Gentleman should seek to raise this when he is speaking for a party that since losing power has deluged high street bookshops with inside accounts from all the main players, giving us the grisly details of the spats, feuds and briefings within the then Cabinet. Things do not sound much better in the current shadow Cabinet, with one Brownite insider reported as saying that the Leader of the Opposition’s team is “terrified” of the shadow Chancellor and shadow Home Secretary because;

“They think they're going to come and try and kill him. And the reason they think that is because they will.”

The truth is that the tensions within one party that sits on the Opposition Benches are much more damaging than the understandable tensions between two parties during a referendum campaign and local elections. From next week we will be back in business, working together in the national interest to get the economy back on its feet. Our divisions will heal, but Labour’s never will.

[Mr Mark Field (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con)]

I am sure that the prospect of yet another Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority debate next Thursday fills the Leader of the House with the joys of spring. However, as he will be aware, there is one piece of unfinished business. Although there will be no determination of any salary until April 2013, will he ensure that he will trigger the mechanism that puts the power for setting salaries into the hands of IPSA, so that it can do its preparation work in advance of that deadline?

[Sir George Young]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that question. We have not seen the motion that we will debate next Thursday, although we have received a general indication of the subject. I hope that the House will stand behind the principle of independence and transparency that was agreed in the previous Parliament and to which I very much hope we can adhere. I can confirm that I shall trigger very shortly the transfer of responsibility for fixing MPs’ pay from where it rests at the moment to IPSA.

[Mr Chuka Umunna (Streatham) (Lab)]

The education maintenance allowance reduces poverty and promotes equal opportunities. We learn from the recent equality impact assessment on their replacement that the administration of the new bursaries could open up the possibility of unintended discrimination on the basis of disability, gender, ethnicity or the other characteristics against which discrimination is outlawed under equalities legislation. Will the Secretary of State for Education come to the House and make an urgent statement to tell us what he is going to do about that?

[Sir George Young]

As the hon. Gentleman will know, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education made a statement about the replacement regime for EMA a few weeks ago, and that statement was generally well received and the sum of money allocated was higher than many commentators had thought. It is no part of our agenda to discriminate in any way against the groups that the hon. Gentleman mentions. I will draw his comments to my right hon. Friend’s attention and invite him to respond appropriately.

[Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)]

May we have a debate in Government time on the Winsor review? Like many other hon. Members across the House, I have received letters from serving police officers, and such a debate would help to clarify the situation. I understand that all parties agreed that it was appropriate to consider police overtime and shift patterns.

[Sir George Young]

It would be helpful to hold a debate, possibly in Westminster Hall, on the Winsor review. It would be an opportunity for hon. Members on both sides of the House to clarify their position. I understand that an Opposition spokesman told the House in December that £500 million to £600 million of the £1 billion that the previous Government were planning to save in the police service was to come from changes in overtime and shift patterns, so I very much hope that there will not be widespread opposition to some of the proposals in the Winsor review.

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

May I draw the attention of the Leader of the House to column 305WH of yesterday’s Hansard? As he will see, the Minister of State, Department of Health, the right hon. Member for Chelmsford (Mr Burns) said that he had deliberately not asked his Department to produce documentation on the Government’s plans to privatise some of our hospitals. He has done that to avoid ministerial accountability. May we have an urgent debate on that issue?

[Sir George Young]

I have just announced a half-day Opposition day debate on the NHS, so I can accede to the hon. Gentleman’s request perhaps faster than he had expected.

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

Will the Leader of the House look favourably on any request to debate the successes of the coalition in its first year in government, particularly the pupil premium and the increase in the tax threshold, and give us the opportunity to debate the remainder of the Government’s programme and how we will address the poisonous legacy that was left to us by the previous Government?

[Sir George Young]

The Government would welcome with open arms any opportunity to debate the successes. My hon. Friend reminds the House that 1.1 million people have been taken right out of tax and that a number of other measures have been introduced—for example, to safeguard the interests of those who have retired with a triple lock on pensions, and the other measures announced in the Budget. We had an opportunity in the two days that we spent on the Finance (No. 3) Bill to talk about some of those issues, but if we can arrange it, I would welcome any opportunity to continue with that agenda. I remind the House that we are still paying £120 million a day in interest on the debt that we inherited from the outgoing Government.

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

Will we have a statement following the outcome of today’s referendum? Even before the polls have closed, the Deputy Prime Minister is under attack for breaking yet another pledge. He said that he would not get involved in the yes campaign, but when he saw it ahead in the polls he became involved, and it suffered from dead Clegg bounce—and now it looks as if it will not succeed today. So can we have a statement—and can it be made by the Deputy Prime Minister, because we really want to take in earnest whatever is said from the Dispatch Box?

[Sir George Young]

The best answer I can give the hon. Gentleman is that the Government have no plans to make a statement on the outcome of today’s elections.

[Claire Perry (Devizes) (Con)]

May we have a debate in Government time on the potential for further efficiency savings in local councils? Many councils, such as my local council in Wiltshire, are both cutting costs and investing in front-line services, and it is perverse that other councils—often Labour councils—are sitting on huge cash piles and making cuts for entirely political reasons.

[Sir George Young]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I would include in her category of well-performing councils Test Valley borough council and Basingstoke and Deane borough council, in which I have an interest and for which I hope to vote later today. She is right to contrast the performance of some councils that have decided to protect front-line services and other councils that are sitting on huge piles of reserves and have chosen instead to make cuts in front-line services. People have an opportunity today to choose which of those alternatives they prefer.

[Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)]

I do not know whether the Leader of the House has seen early-day motion 1585, in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Gateshead (Ian Mearns), which expresses deep concerns about the east coast main line decision to award a customer call centre contract, currently based in Newcastle, to Intelnet Global Services, with the possibility of transferring jobs to Mumbai.

[That this House is deeply concerned at the decision of the state-owned East Coast Mainline to award its customer call centre contract, currently based in Newcastle, to Intelnet Global Services and ATOS Origin, who have operations in Plymouth, Wolverhampton and Mumbai, India; is appalled that this loss of jobs, which is yet another blow to the economy and communities of the North East of England, will also see jobs exported overseas to India; believes it is completely unacceptable for a government company to transfer work abroad and calls on the Secretary of State for Transport to intervene to prevent this; further believes that this episode once again demonstrates the failure of fragmentation and sub-contracting in the rail industry; and calls for an urgent industry-wide assessment of the benefits to the passenger, taxpayer and economy of bringing all railway services in-house.]

A lot has changed in the past 12 months in terms of coalition policy, but is it now the Government’s policy to export British jobs to India?

[Sir George Young]

We want to generate as many jobs as we can within the UK. We have just had Transport questions, and I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman took the opportunity to ask that question—

[Mr Jones]

I tried to.

[Sir George Young]

If he did, he will have got a definitive answer.

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

Is my right hon. Friend aware that early last week potholes in Parliament square were filled in and areas of damaged tarmac in and around the square were resurfaced? Can we have a debate to see what we can do to encourage more royal weddings to take place, preferably around the country, including East Yorkshire, so that the rest of us can have an adequate road surface to drive on?

[Sir George Young]

I am sure that Buckingham palace will have taken note of my right hon. Friend’s question—and I believe that there is to be another royal wedding later in the summer. I heard with interest his question about potholes a few moments ago in Transport questions. As a cyclist who cycles around Parliament square, I welcome his interest in my welfare.

[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)]

Earlier this morning the Foreign and Commonwealth Office issued two written ministerial statements, one of which relates to the fact that in January it discovered a large number of documents relating to allegations concerning Kenya and the Mau Mau, and that it had appointed Anthony Cary, the high commissioner to Canada, to carry out an internal investigation. The written statement says that that report is available in the Library, but I have been to the Library and the Vote Office several times this morning and it is not available. This is not the first time that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office has made statements in the House saying that information is available when it is not. Indeed, I raised this in the House a few months ago. Will the Leader of the House have an urgent discussion with the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs about the fact that his Department is not treating Members of the House with the respect that they should?

[Sir George Young]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. I have the written ministerial statement in front of me, and as he rightly says, it states:

“I have today deposited in the Libraries of both Houses the findings of that investigation.”

If that is not the case, it will be drawn to the attention of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office within minutes, and I very much hope there will have been a response by the time business questions have ended.

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

May we have a debate on the operation of the construction industry scheme? At a time when many small and medium-sized enterprises still find it difficult to obtain credit from the banks, the scheme often results in businesses being thousands of pounds out of pocket for up to a year. That no doubt benefits the Treasury but it is putting real jobs at risk.

[Sir George Young]

I understand my hon. Friend’s concern. As a former Minister with responsibility for the construction industry, I am aware that that industry training board survived when many others were abolished. I will share his concern with my right hon. Friends the Secretaries of State for Communities and Local Government and for Business, Innovation and Skills, both of whom have responsibility for the construction industry, and I will ask them to reply to him.

[Mr Denis MacShane (Rotherham) (Lab)]

I do not know whether you, Mr Speaker, or the Leader of the House have received this extraordinarily impertinent letter from the Speaker of the Libyan Parliament, saying that there is a clear process of political reform and social development under Colonel Gaddafi and that we as MPs should all support it. That will be discussed in the foreign affairs debate, which I welcome, but will the motion be amendable, so that the House can consider seriously the views of those of us who think the time has come to put an end to the sacrifice of British soldiers in Afghanistan, particularly following the welcome disappearance of Osama bin Laden?

[Sir George Young]

The answer to the first part of the right hon. Gentleman’s question is no, I have not received that particular communication. The debate on Monday week is a general debate on the middle east, Libya, Afghanistan and Pakistan, so we plan not to table an amendable motion but to have a “take note” debate, which is in the tradition of debates that the House has held on foreign affairs issues.

[Jackie Doyle-Price (Thurrock) (Con)]

Further to the representations made by my hon. Friend the Member for West Worcestershire (Harriett Baldwin) about the Winsor review, may I ask for a debate on front-line policing? We have heard lots of rhetoric from the Opposition about so-called cuts, when the real issue that we should be considering is how to redirect resources from the back room to the front line.

[Sir George Young]

It is worth reminding the House that for every £8 we plan to save this year the Opposition were planning to save £7, so it is difficult to reconcile their criticism of our spending plans with their commitments. I would welcome such a debate on policing. When confronted on the “Andrew Marr Show” at the end of March, the shadow Chancellor said that they would have made cuts in policing. I think that a debate on policing would clarify what the real issues between the two parties are and, if the Opposition do plan to spend more on police, where they would find the necessary savings from other parts of the budget.

[Derek Twigg (Halton) (Lab)]

May I follow on from the question asked by my right hon. Friend the shadow Leader of the House about the disastrous Health and Social Care Bill, and ask the Leader of the House what discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for Health about what a “pause” means? Does it mean that there is a pause in the Bill’s progress through the House or in what the Bill proposes to do? That is still not clear. We find that the changes involving primary care trusts and consortia are still taking place, as we speak. For the benefit of the House, will the Leader of the House tell us what “pause” means in the Government’s language?

[Sir George Young]

The hon. Gentleman will know, looking ahead for the next two weeks, that I have not announced further consideration of the Health and Social Care Bill, and he will also know that a number of meetings have been arranged between Health Ministers and those in the medical profession to listen to concerns and inform the debate before the Government respond. When that process has been completed, we will have the remaining stages of the Bill. I remind the hon. Gentleman that when his party was in government, its Postal Services Bill disappeared completely off the radar; that is certainly not our intention for the Health and Social Care Bill.

[Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)]

May we have a debate on the hours that the House sits so that Members can determine the full cost, including necessary staff travel, when the House sits, as it did this week, past 4 o’clock in the morning, only to run out of steam early the following day?

[Sir George Young]

As my hon. Friend will know, the Procedure Committee has started an inquiry on our sitting hours, the sitting week, and indeed the whole Session. I very much hope that he will find time to respond to the questionnaire, if he has not already completed it, and perhaps to give evidence to the Committee chaired by my right hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire (Mr Knight). The House did indeed sit late on Wednesday morning, and if my hon. Friend looks at the time taken by Opposition spokesmen he will see that there were two speeches that lasted one hour each; having read them, I think they could usefully have been condensed. My view is that we could have completed half the consideration in Committee on Tuesday by 10 o’clock, and the other half on Wednesday by 7 o’clock, and I am sorry that, for whatever reason, the House was not able to agree a more sensible approach to the remaining stages of the Committee of the whole House on the Finance (No. 3) Bill. That is one of the factors that my right hon. Friend the Chairman of the Procedure Committee, who is in his place, will take on board in his report.

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

May we have a statement from the Secretary of State for International Development on the criteria used for giving overseas aid, so that we can tease out why we are still giving money to India despite the fact that it spends $35 billion a year on defence and $750 million a year on a space programme, and has its own overseas aid programme, and why we are giving money to Pakistan, which may well have been harbouring the world’s worst terrorist?

[Sir George Young]

Pakistan would be a perfectly appropriate subject to raise in the debate on Monday week. I remind my hon. Friend that some 17 million children do not go to school in Pakistan, that it has areas of real deprivation and poverty, and that it is in this country’s interests to have a strong, democratic, well-resourced Pakistan as an important ally in the fight against terrorism.

[Mr Matthew Offord (Hendon) (Con)]

I hope that you will bear with me for my question, Mr Speaker. There has been much public discussion about the increasing use of super-injunctions and the ability of judges, rather than elected parliamentarians, to decide policy. Is the Leader of the House aware of the anomaly this creates if, as has been rumoured, a Member of this place seeks a super-injunction to prevent discussion of their activities? May we therefore have a debate on the use of super-injunctions, and not leave the issue to the Joint Committee on the Draft Defamation Bill, which cannot address these concerns?

[Sir George Young]

My hon. Friend raises the very important question of how we balance, on the one hand, an individual’s right to privacy, and on the other hand, freedom of expression and transparency. The Master of the Rolls is currently conducting an inquiry into this very subject, particularly the use of super-injunctions and other issues relating to injunctions that bind the press. The Government will await the report from the Master of the Rolls’ committee before deciding what the next step should be. It may then be appropriate for the House to debate this important issue.

[Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)]

The Leader of the House will be aware that the issue that I am about to mention was raised at Transport questions but not really clarified. May we have a statement from the appropriate Minister on actions that the Government will take to minimise the disruption in London caused by the RMT tube strikes? Can we then have further measures from the Government at least to raise the bar to prevent small minorities from causing strikes, and if possible to outlaw them, in emergency services?

[Sir George Young]

I understand the anxiety that my hon. Friend expresses about the disruption to London and the loss of money to London as a result of the strikes called by the RMT, and I very much hope that they can be resolved through the usual channels—through ACAS. The Government are not seeking to pick a fight with the trade unions; we have no plans to introduce fresh legislation on employment laws, but we do keep the matter under review, and I very much hope that trade unions will not resort to strike action until every other opportunity has been examined. In this particular case, I am not convinced that they have done that.

[Chris Heaton-Harris (Daventry) (Con)]

The Leader of the House will be aware that the Special Olympics world games will start in Athens on June 25. I hope to be there for the opening. Is there a way in which we in the House can celebrate the achievements of the learning-disabled athletes whom Special Olympics Great Britain is sending to the games—before the games, so that we can send those athletes off to represent their country in the most appropriate of fashions?

[Sir George Young]

That is a welcome suggestion. I suggest that my hon. Friend apply to the Backbench Business Committee or Westminster Hall for a debate, before June 25, when he plans to attend that very important event. The pairing Whip has taken notice of his public request to be slipped.

[Greg Hands (Chelsea and Fulham) (Con)]

May we have a debate about the decorum of senior Members of the House participating in other elections? Did my right hon. Friend notice the extraordinary sight of the Leader of the Opposition appearing at a campaign rally with a Labour council candidate sporting a T-shirt in appallingly bad taste, which said:

“A generation of trade unionists will dance on Thatcher’s grave”?

[Sir George Young]

I believe the Leader of the Opposition has recognised that that was an unfortunate conjunction, and has expressed regret and said that in future those T-shirts should not be worn by anyone representing that political party. There is a message there for us all. We should be very careful who we are photographed next to, and take note of what they happen to be wearing at the time.

Backbench Business

Thursday 5th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[25th Allotted Day]

Social Housing in London

Thursday 5th May 2011 Commons Chamber

12:02

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the matter of social housing in London.

I thank the Backbench Business Committee for making it possible for this debate to be held. Social housing in London is obviously a crucial issue. I appreciate that Members outside London are busy with the elections in their communities and therefore cannot take part in the debate.

The points that I want to make are probably incredibly obvious ones about the desperate situation of many people facing housing issues in London. I imagine that any London MP of any party would confirm that housing is the biggest single issue that we all face. The vast majority of our constituency casework is housing-related in some way, and the wider implications for society in London are often housing-related as well.

Housing issues in London are not new. It is the capital city. It has been a very fast-growing city. It had an unenviable reputation in the 18th and 19th centuries of being the fastest-growing city in the world when huge quantities of very poor-quality buildings were thrown up. A whole industry developed of slum landlords. The great social reformers of this country often started their work in the east end of London. I think of Charles Booth, Angela Burdett-Coutts and so many others, who did so much to try to improve the levels of housing stock. In the 19th century, there were serious reforming moves. Housing charities were set up to improve conditions, but they were always in competition with the viciousness of the private sector market, in which excessive rents were charged, with the potential to make huge profits.

How did London’s housing stock ever improve? The answer is a combination of things. There were the campaigns of the great social reformers, there was a growing social consciousness but, above all, there was the development of council housing in the early 20th century. I get very angry when I read in some of the weekend intelligentsia-related newspapers that council housing is a thing of the past, or that council housing models are outdated. Council housing made it possible for millions of people in London and throughout the country to live in decent housing and bring up their children in a safe, secure, affordable environment—something that we all aspire to.

[Mr Mark Field (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con)]

I do not disagree with the hon. Gentleman, but does he recognise—I see it particularly in my constituency and other inner-London areas—the importance of what has been done by many philanthropists, the most obvious of which is the Peabody Trust, whose house building and flat building programmes have stood the test of time? They remain some of the most exciting and sought-after social housing in many of our constituencies, 120 or 130 years after they were first built.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

The hon. Gentleman is referring to George Peabody and the Peabody Trust, which has a very large number of properties in his constituency, that of my right hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Frank Dobson) and many others. The Peabody buildings were of very good standard—very high quality—and they have stood the test of time. It pains me to the quick when I see the Peabody Trust and others being forced, because of their financial situation, to rent at commercial rents or sell off properties that were built for people in desperate housing need. That is not what George Peabody or others wanted to do, and we should look at that.

[Frank Dobson (Holborn and St Pancras) (Lab)]

In my constituency there is a block called Parnell house, which was built in 1848, before George Peabody. The Peabody Trust took it over some years ago and has run it fairly well, but recently has started selling into the open market flats that have been social housing since 1848. That does not really help people in desperate housing need.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

It seems a sad reflection on the great revolutions of 1848 that we should expunge them on the altar of the housing market in 2011. I shall return to council housing in a moment.

There were consistent campaigns and demands for security of tenure for people beyond council housing. Council housing has traditionally provided the most secure form of affordable tenancy and has provided for effective, stable communities. I commend those councils—I choose Camden because my right hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras was leader of the council—which did a high level of building when they were able to. They also adopted a planning policy that has ensured that there are stable, mixed communities stretching right into the Camden part of central London—working-class communities alongside the business areas of central London. We should be proud of that record in this city, and I would like to see it reflected in all parts of London. The same does not apply in the case of Kensington and Chelsea and—I hesitate to say it with the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mr Field) present—in Westminster where the policies have been different. I think one should commend boroughs such as Camden.

[Mr Mark Field]

rose—

[Jeremy Corbyn]

I see a stirring.

[Mr Field]

While I accept that the policies are somewhat different, and I suspect that most of my residents in Westminster are rather glad of that, there is a more serious point to be made. The hon. Gentleman rightly refers to stable, mixed communities. Does he not recognise that the London market has become ever more polarised? London is not just a capital city but a global city. That polarisation means that, for want of a better phrase, the squeezed middle is an ever bigger group in London. There are those who simply cannot afford to get on the ladder even if they are earning multiples of the average weekly wage and there are those who are so impoverished that they can qualify for social housing. In my constituency the Peabody Trust is trying to create a mixed community, by ensuring that there are in those communities, for want of a better term, yuppies—relatively well-off people in their 20s—who may only be short-term tenants, for three or five years, until they are in a position to afford their own home.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

The hon. Gentleman touches on an important point. In my borough, there are 15,000 names on the list of people who have applied for, and need, council housing, but only 5,000 of those are on the list of those who are able to bid—in other words, to make an application. The number of those who are likely to be successful is probably very small indeed. Single people in London cannot, for the most part, even get on a housing list.

Some 30% of people in my constituency are in private rented accommodation. A large number of them are young, single people who pay extraordinarily high rents, although they are not necessarily particularly well paid; they are earning between £18,000 and the low twenty thousands a year. They are probably spending 60% or 70% of their take-home pay on housing. That is an extraordinary figure. I do not have the comparative figures for the rest of Europe, but having talked to friends and colleagues about the issue, London seems to be one of the most expensive places in the world to live, in relation to income levels.

If we do not address the whole problem of the cost and supply of housing, London will become a divided city, and the people who do all the vital jobs in the ambulance service, hospitals, the Post Office, gas, electricity, road maintenance, and street cleaning—the people in all those essential professions—simply will not be able to live in London. It is extraordinary how fast social changes are happening in London. I met a street-sweeper in the borough who commutes in on a 45-minute train journey because he cannot afford to get a place anywhere near the borough. I see Labour colleagues nodding. I suppose that we all support the principle of housing for special grades of workers—priorities for nursing, the police and so on. There is a point to all that, but the real point is the general question of the supply and affordability of housing.

[Mr Field]

rose—

[Jeremy Corbyn]

A stir again!

[Mr Field]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for being so generous in giving way. I would like to associate myself with what he just said, and I think many other Conservative MPs with London seats would, too; it is a problem that we all feel acutely. For some years, that stark divide in pockets of inner London has been part and parcel of our concerns on housing, but he is right to say that there has been phenomenally rapid demographic and other change. The phenomenon that he identifies now applies virtually throughout London, including in what might in the past have been regarded as the leafier suburbs of outer London.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

Absolutely. London is a rapidly changing city, and that is, in many ways, part of the joy and attraction of it, but it falls to local government—to boroughs, the Mayor, and the Greater London authority—and central Government to recognise that if we want London to remain a successful, cohesive, coherent city, we have to address the issue of the provision of social housing in London. Otherwise, we will be looking at a city moving into decline, with greater division. It is a very serious issue.

I think about exploitation, the apocryphal stories of what Rachman did in the 1950s and ’60s in Notting Hill, and what was done by various other appalling people who used the rapidly rising property prices to winkle out tenants so that they could resell the buildings. I am not saying that the problem has quite come back to those levels yet, but excessively expensive private rented accommodation that becomes unaffordable for poorer people leads to landlords not maintaining, supporting, improving or looking after properties, and virtually forcing people out of them so that they can rent them out at a much higher rent. Later, I shall make some points about the need for intervention in the private rented sector, because in many ways, in London there has always been a conflict between the social desires of many people to ensure good-quality, decent housing on the one hand, and the pernicious effect of the property market and rapidly rising property prices on many people across London on the other hand.

On inequality, my borough of Islington commendably established in May last year a fairness commission, which has been taking evidence at very well-attended public meetings in community centres, schools and so on across the borough over the past year. It had a very effective final meeting last week, in which a whole paper was put forward on how public policy issues can be addressed. I quote a short part of the section on housing:

“Ensuring that the allocation process for social housing is transparent and effective is essential for addressing fairness in housing. Islington has more than 12,000 people on the housing register but only 5,000 households whose level of need is sufficient for them to qualify for Choice Based Lettings.”

The paper goes on to make recommendations on improving efficiency, changing the allocation system and under-occupation. That underlines the point about the need for new house building.

There is also a problem about the number of people living in private rented accommodation who are in receipt of housing benefit in London. As I say, 30% of my constituents are in private rented accommodation, and the number is rising fast. The proportion of owner-occupiers is now below 30% and falling. Nationally, the figure is falling a bit; in London, it is falling faster, and in inner London it is falling very fast indeed. In the next five to 10 years, we will probably get to the point where 25% or even 20% of housing in inner-London constituencies will be owner-occupied. The majority of new tenancies are not social tenancies, but private rented tenancies.

People who receive or are entitled to housing benefit are suffering grievously because of the Government’s announcement on how they, in their infinite wisdom, will meet the problem of the increasing costs of housing benefit—and those costs are huge. I do not deny people’s right to apply for housing benefit, but there is a public duty to question the cost of that benefit. That duty should fall on the question of how much rent is paid to landlords, rather than result in the punishment of the tenants in the properties.

The London figures show that local housing allowance rates in my borough are £245 a week for one bedroom, £290 a week for two bedrooms, £340 a week for three bedrooms, and £400 a week for four bedrooms. To some people, that sounds an awful lot of money, and it is, but the reality is that many people in desperate housing need are living in private rented accommodation that is paid for by housing benefit. On the anniversary of their application, all those housing benefit payments will be reviewed and—there is not much discretion available to the local authority—housing benefit will be reduced, which causes a terrible problem for the people in receipt of it.

I shall give the example of a constituent whom I know well, but I will not give their name as that would be invidious and wrong. In November 2010, the local housing allowance for the four-bedroom property that they live in was £700 a week. That is to be reduced to £400 a week under the housing benefit changes. There is no way that that family can find the difference. They have lived in the property for a very long time. They have children in local schools, they are very much part of the local community and they have caring responsibilities and all the things that go with that. They will be forced to move, which is damaging to them, the children, and the local community.

[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)]

My hon. Friend makes some very important points. The knock-on consequence of those people being forced to move is that they will look to relatively cheaper private rented accommodation in outer-London boroughs, including Redbridge, where we have thousands of people on the housing list and almost no social housing. We have a lot of private rented properties, but in some cases they have appalling landlords and terrible letting agencies. The local authority has stopped using them, but inner-London boroughs will have to use them. They will send people out, and those people will need school places. Hundreds of young children in my borough cannot get a school place at the moment. This is the wrong policy at the wrong time, and it will have terrible consequences.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

I can only agree. If the problem were limited to housing benefit in the private rented sector, that would be bad enough. However, in parallel with the cut in housing benefit payments, the Government have refused to introduce rent controls or even countenance the idea of controlling private sector rents. I hope that we will deal with that when we return to government in 2015 as a new Labour Government—not “new Labour”, but a newly elected Labour Government; I do not want anyone to think that I have changed my ways.

[Frank Dobson]

Heritage Labour.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

Possibly, yes. I would like that Government to bite the bullet, just as Harold Wilson’s Government bit the bullet in the 1960s and 1970s, and were prepared to introduce rent controls and security of tenure in the private rented sector. That policy area needs to be developed.

Another important issue is the increase in the notional rent levels for local authorities and housing associations to 80% of market rates. That has had absolutely devastating effects on the affordability, or otherwise, of council properties in areas where councils choose to charge 80%. As my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford South (Mike Gapes) intervened on me, I shall cite the case of his borough. The average income in Redbridge of non-housing benefit tenants is £381 a week, and the average weekly rent is £102 a week. The median market rent of 80% of 2010 levels is £160 a week, so tenants in Redbridge are looking at a £60 a week rent increase, which is pretty bad, and I question the affordability of paying £160 a week on an average income of £381 a week.

Other boroughs are in a far worse situation. In Kensington and Chelsea, average income for non-housing benefit tenants is £370 a week, and current average rent is £113 a week, with 80% of market levels at £440 a week—in other words £110 a week more than such a tenant earns, so totally unaffordable. The borough with the lowest average income in London is Barking and Dagenham, where income levels in 2010 for non-HB tenants were £329 a week. Current average rent is £91 a week, and 80% of market rates is £148 a week. Even in Barking and Dagenham, which is regarded as “the most affordable place in London”, we are looking at 50% of pay going on rent alone in the public sector, never mind the private sector. The figures are available for every borough, and they make very grim reading indeed. The discretionary payments to London authorities to try to ameliorate the change to housing benefit should be much greater and more permanent, and the Government and the Select Committee on Communities and Local Government should look at rent controls and security of tenure in the private rented sector.

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

My hon. Friend is making a powerful case for the social housing policy that Opposition Members strongly support, and I know that some Government Members do, too.

In Tower Hamlets, one of the poorest boroughs in the country, 80% market rents around Canary Wharf, which sits right in the heart of my constituency, are astronomical for ordinary people. If local authorities and housing associations apply the 80% threshold, they will drive local people out of the area where their families have lived for generations. In the case of the Bangladeshi community, for example, that area constitutes their arrival point, so they will no longer be able to stay within the bounds of their own community.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

Absolutely, and I endorse what my hon. Friend said. The average for Tower Hamlets is £248, but if it is assessed on an extremely local level—housing around Canary Wharf or at the edge of the City of London around Spitalfields—rent will become astronomically expensive and there will be rapid social cleansing.

What happened with Lady Porter in Westminster some years ago was regarded as appalling and disgraceful, and was social cleansing. People are coming to me for advice—and I am sure this is true for all London MPs—in desperation, frightened after what has happened, scared of where they are going to go and worried about the disruption of their children’s lives as they are forced out of private rented accommodation. We cannot sit back and watch the private rented sector grow rapidly in London without a greater sense of responsibility and intervening to protect people living in that sector.

What is the solution? Clearly, it ought to be the building of more homes for rent. I remember the halcyon days when my hon. Friend the Member for Edmonton (Mr Love) and I were members of Haringey borough council, and we berated the council leadership—we did a lot of that; they probably deserved it—for not building more council housing. However, I take it all back and apologise. In 1979, Haringey council built 1,000 council house dwellings. Other boroughs did broadly the same. A lot of that building was very good; a lot of it was homes with gardens; a lot has become very nice properties which, because of right to buy, have been sold on and have become very desirable properties indeed. I do not have a problem with people living in desirable properties—I am glad that they do—but I want everyone to be able to do so, with some security, and I want children to grow up with enough space, preferably with a garden. The achievements by many London boroughs at that time are something that we should applaud and seek perhaps to repeat, because there is a desperate need in London.

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

My hon. Friend mentioned 1979, which has a resonance for many of us, because it was the year in which Mrs Thatcher was elected. If we look at the history books, we see that in 1980 she made massive cuts to housing investment programme capital funding. Does that have anything to do with the problems suggested by my hon. Friend?

[Jeremy Corbyn]

The cuts in the Budget are even greater than those made by Margaret Thatcher’s Government in the 1980s. I remember very well the points that my hon. Friend made, because at the time, I watched housing demand rise and new build virtually disappear. The only surviving new build for affordable rent was undertaken by housing associations. I was disappointed that the Government who came in in 1997, who invested a great deal in improvements to existing council stock and who did a lot about homelessness and housing rights, did not in the early days do anything like enough to invest in new house building. I hope that that is something that we will not repeat when we return to office in 2015, because I want to see a process of new build.

It is difficult for local authorities to undertake new building at present, but I want to pay tribute to Islington council and James Murray, the executive member for housing, as they have managed, despite all the difficulties, to squeeze £10 million a year out of the council budget to invest in new build for rents at existing levels—not the 80% level. I applaud them for doing so. I want other boroughs to do so, and I want the Mayor of London, whoever it is—this Mayor or, hopefully, Ken Livingstone in future—to use his powers to return to building for social housing need, which has a huge benefit for people across London.

[Mr Mark Field]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way again. He is making a thoughtful speech, and I hope that he will forgive me if I return to a point that he made earlier and the general thrust of his concern about the private rented sector. Does he share my worry that one of the difficulties in housing policy, going back to the institution of rent Acts in the first world war, is that too often it has just been an Elastoplast in trying to solve the most recent problem, which has been looked at in a small way? Does he have any thoughts about the huge explosion in the buy-to-let market, which is one reason why there has been an enormous increase in the private rented sector in his constituency? As London is a global capital, a huge amount of foreign money is coming in to buy up large blocks of flats and other properties. Do we need to look at that, and what suggestions can he make about the way forward?

[Jeremy Corbyn]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that extremely valuable point. In London, at one end of the scale, somewhere near Hyde park, there is the world’s most expensive apartment. I cannot remember the exact figure, but it was around £1.5 million for a very small apartment. I checked my own mortgage capability and I did not seem to get anywhere near to it. At the other end of the scale are former council flats or houses that have been bought under right to buy, sometimes with the assistance of fairly disreputable or dodgy people who offer money to help people undertake that, which are then rented out, on housing benefit, at levels 200% to 300% higher than the neighbouring council rent. That makes me extremely angry every time I come across it, because they were built by the taxpayer for people in housing need and now we are allowing someone to make a great deal of profit out of them.

There are a number of ways to try to deal with that. One, which seems worth considering, is that a sitting tenant who buys a former council property under right to buy should be allowed to rent it out only at council rent plus 10%, taking away the incentive to do that. There are other incentives to consider, but we must be serious about this. The new build that councils and housing associations want to undertake at the moment can be funded under the Government’s new regime by doing what Islington is doing, which is scraping around to find what is a modest amount of money compared with the need, but nevertheless welcome, or by raising rents to 80% of market rates and using that for investment in new build, which makes housing association or council places unaffordable for those who desperately need them. As a result, people who are offered a council place will be unable to accept it, particularly if they are in work, which is regrettable. Housing associations are being told to build for sale and for commercial rent, and if they have any money left, to build a bit for social renting.

I seem to remember housing associations being founded on the principle of self-help to provide secure, good-quality accommodation for people in housing need. I am now being told by their chief executives that they are in a bind, which I understand and which is not of their making, and have to go down the road of becoming essentially house-building companies, where there might be the equivalent of a section 106 add-on with a bit of social housing at the end of it. That will not solve London’s housing problems.

[Mr Mark Field]

The issue in London today is: what is housing need? I know it sounds absurd—the hon. Gentleman was one of the first to ridicule the current Mayor of London when he talked about people on £60,000 a year being in housing need—but this is part of the problem. Many people working in our constituencies simply cannot afford to live anywhere near, not even central London, but London as a whole, and have to commute long distances despite earning multiples of the average. They surely also have a housing need, and it is that housing need in the modern day that many of our social housing providers are trying to recognise in balancing their responsibilities to ensure that we have proper community cohesion within central London.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

Obviously people on what are seen as relatively high incomes do have housing needs and are paying, as I outlined earlier, incredibly high levels of rent in order to survive, as a result of which they cannot save and therefore, even if they wanted to get into the owner-occupied market, simply could not do so. A young couple or single person in London earning £25,000 a year and paying £500 a week for a flat has only a limited ability to save and so will stay in the private rented sector for a very long time, if not for ever. People who do buy into the owner-occupied market usually rely on modest levels of inheritance to put down the deposit to do so. We are making housing unattainable for people on relatively high incomes, as the hon. Gentleman points out.

[Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

The definition of “affordable” in Hammersmith and Fulham now goes up to £80,000 a year, and I am sorry but I do not accept that that is reasonable. Let us put one myth to bed today, and that is that Boris Johnson is in some way committed to affordable housing in London. His own figures show that there will be fewer than 2,000 affordable housing starts this year and none next year.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for the way in which he has represented his constituency and pointed out what the council in Hammersmith and Fulham is doing, and what he is trying to do to meet the needs of people who are in desperate housing need.

I come back to the issue of people on housing waiting lists. What is the route for a homeless family, or a concealed homeless or about-to-be-evicted homeless family, in an inner-London borough, or probably any other London borough? If they go to the council and present themselves as homeless, they will probably get a hostel place. Hostels are grim places and have a devastating effect on the psychology and well-being of children who go into them. If they are there for a long time, it is an awful experience. If they knew it was for one, two, three weeks or a month, and that at the end of that they would have a secure council flat, that would probably be bearable. But if they are there for six months or longer and are told that the only pathway out is to go into private rented accommodation, and they ask me as their MP whether to accept that, I have to say that they must, because if they do not the council will have absolved itself of its responsibility to them.

A member of that family will say, “But Jeremy, housing benefit will have to pay this huge rent, and that means I can’t get a job, otherwise I will lose the housing benefit.” They are moving into the most awful bind. Quite often they are placed in flats in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Edmonton—no reflection on him; quite the opposite—and they then come and tell me what the flat is like: slum landlord, inefficient heating, badly maintained, possibly vermin infested. They can get no redress from the landlord because the landlord knows for certain that there will be no problem in renting it again through an agency. We report the matter to the local authority but this can go on for years. They move from one private rented property to another until, perhaps five or 10 years down the line, they achieve the gold medal of a council flat. That is a lifetime for a child. They will move primary schools several times, lose their friends and social contacts, their youth club and their networks. That is what is happening to dozens and dozens of children and families all over the city at this time.

I ask the Government: please think through what is happening. Think of the desire for somewhere safe and secure to live. Think of the housing benefit that is being wasted in excessive rents to private landlords, and allow local authorities to do what the old London county council, the Greater London council, and lots of London boroughs of all political parties did, which was to invest in good-quality bricks and mortar of secure housing for people to live in, which they could call their own home and know is their own home. That is what brings about stability in communities. The alternative leads to underachievement, homelessness, crime and the misery of unsustainable communities.

I do not call such building a waste. I listen with interest when building workers tell me that they are being laid off because there is nothing for them to do. There is a housing crisis out there that can be solved by the building of new properties that can put those people to good work and solve the social problems at the same time. London is crying out for a socially responsible approach to housing. Let us not leave it all to the market; The market is what created the problem in the first place.

12:40

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

I thank the hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) for securing this debate. As he clearly articulated, there are serious issues in London. Social housing has been one of the most intractable problems facing central and local government. The scale of the problem is staggering, but the Government have robust plans to deliver more homes in London and elsewhere.

Many of the problems that I come across in my weekly surgeries are to do with housing. The hon. Gentleman articulated many of the issues that people come to talk about. Perhaps they need a bigger house because they now have a bigger family. There may be overcrowding. Repairs may be necessary in flats and houses; some of the photographs that I see are absolutely disgraceful. People can be on the council house list for years. They cannot afford a deposit for private rental, and private landlords often do not give accommodation to those on housing benefit. People struggle to get into private rented accommodation.

In the bigger picture, 1.8 million households are on social housing waiting lists across the country and many of the 8 million people currently living in social housing are in properties that do not match their needs. Properties are often under-utilised—when children leave home, for example—but others are overcrowded. Some people are prevented from moving because of the lack of mobility in the system as a whole.

In London, as in many other major cities around the world, the problem is particularly acute. Housing waiting lists have nearly doubled in the past 10 years and about 54,000 households—three quarters of which include children—are living in temporary accommodation there. At the same time, buying a home in the capital is becoming increasingly difficult, as we have already discussed. My hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mr Field) talked about the squeezed middle. Whether we are talking about central London or my constituency of Brentford and Isleworth, which stretches out towards Hounslow, it is still difficult to buy a home in London.

About 9,500 households are on the housing register in my borough of Hounslow. Last year, only 919 properties were available for rent.

[Mr Mark Field]

My hon. Friend is coming to the point about the huge scarcity of social housing. I would argue that that resource needs to be much more properly and comprehensively assessed. Does she agree that far too many people in social housing are sub-letting illegally and that there needs to be a national campaign—although probably worked out at local government level—to make sure that those in social housing are properly entitled to it? That would help correct some of the terrible shortfalls and disadvantages experienced by many of her constituents.

[Mary Macleod]

I thank my hon. Friend for his comments. I agree that that is happening across London and we need to do something constructive to deal with it.

Hounslow council’s website advises that

“Most people waiting for housing will never be offered a property because the number of people registered is much higher than the number of properties we have available to let each year.”

We need a new housing model that provides a range of opportunities for people’s housing needs and that continues to protect the most vulnerable and those with the greatest need.

There is no doubt that there is a need for far-reaching reform of our social housing to meet current and future needs and to modernise the system while protecting provision for the most vulnerable. How can we deliver this better system? There is significant potential for innovation in the social housing sector overall. First, I shall focus on building new homes and bringing empty homes back into use. Secondly, I want to explore the use of new models in the private rented market. Thirdly, I will address the issue of encouraging increased mobility within the social housing sector.

On the first issue, clearly, there is a desperate need to increase the number of new homes being built and of empty homes being brought back into use. The national affordable housing programme and the new homes bonus, put in place by the Government, will both help to support that goal. The Government are investing £6.5 billion in housing, which includes £2 billion to make existing social homes decent and a £4.5 billion investment in new affordable housing to deliver 150,000 more affordable homes.

Housing associations play a critical role in the provision of affordable homes and the national affordable housing programme will provide them with a new model for the building of new homes. They will be allowed to set affordable rents on their new build homes, and some re-lets at up to 80% of the market value, to provide additional capital to reinvest in new property development.

[Jim Fitzpatrick]

I recognise that the Government are giving housing associations the flexibility to charge up to 80% of the market rent. How does the hon. Lady respond to the point, made by my hon. Friend the Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn), that for many people that is a poverty trap that keeps them out of employment? Many of them—especially those in constituencies such as mine—will not be able to afford 80% of the market rent.

[Mary Macleod]

The hon. Gentleman states one of the problems in London. There is a range of models from which people can choose, but it is important for us to come up with constructive ideas about how we can make a difference to such issues and find a way that does not allow people to get stuck in that trap. That is to a large extent why we are doing a lot of work on welfare reform, so that we get people into work and make sure that they get the support that they need.

[Heidi Alexander (Lewisham East) (Lab)]

Before the hon. Lady moves on, I want to come back to the national affordable housing programme. She referred to the £4.5 billion that the Government are investing in new build. Will she tell me what percentage reduction that, in effect, represents from the money spent in the previous comprehensive spending review periods between 2008 and 2011?

[Mary Macleod]

All I know is that there is an incredible shortage of housing in London, so the last Government did not do nearly enough to solve the problem. Look at what Ken Livingstone did not achieve as Mayor; the current Mayor of London is trying to address the issue massively in creating new affordable homes.

The new homes bonus announced by the Minister for Housing and Local Government last month also provides powerful incentives to transform house building by encouraging local communities to support development rather than resist it. Under the scheme, the Government match the council tax raised from new homes for the first six years, and communities themselves can decide how to spend the extra funding—for example, to provide local facilities such as libraries, swimming pools or leisure centres. The scheme will also encourage councils to bring empty properties back into use, as they will receive the cash bonus for that.

[Mr Love]

Will the hon. Lady confirm that the new homes bonus will not include any new money? It is all being redistributed from existing sources of funding.

[Mary Macleod]

That question is best directed at the Minister, who will, I think, disagree. I am sure that he will respond to it at the end of the debate.

The new homes bonus shows the concept of localism in practice, with local communities, local government, business and the third sector coming together to make decisions that will bring real benefit to the local area. The Mayor of London has made a commitment to deliver 50,000 new affordable homes by 2011, of which 30,000 will be social rented homes; the remainder will be for low-cost ownership. He is on target to deliver his manifesto by the end of his mayoral term, despite the biggest downturn in the market for many years. By the end of the financial year 2010-11, 40,000 homes will have been completed, with a higher proportion of social rented homes being family sized than in any previous mayoral term. The Mayor has also fulfilled his manifesto commitment to invest £60 million in bringing 3,142 empty homes back into use.

Secondly, let us consider the increased use of the private rented sector. We have been used to an “Englishman’s home is his castle” approach to housing, but it is clear that we need to move more towards a European model, whereby long-term renting is much more the norm. Private companies can play a role in that, and several are now developing models that provide grant-free housing for economically active families who find that they are unable to get social housing or who have no realistic prospect of getting on the housing ladder—the so-called sandwich class. Those companies work in urban areas to develop brownfield sites and provide good-sized family accommodation for under the £340 a week housing benefit threshold.

For example, the London Rental Housing Company intends to build 2,000 private rented units in the next five years, and it is currently searching for 10 sites across London that can accommodate at least 150 three-bedroom apartments. It also intends to build larger units for families and sharers. That is part of a new, emerging build-to-let sector, which is entering the market to build purpose-built mass housing. Perhaps one of the greatest indictments of the Labour years is the previous Government’s rigid adherence to political dogma and their ignorance of the private sector’s potential to help solve some of the problems.

The Mayor of London believes that, by attracting institutional investment, there is significant scope for the private rented sector to play a bigger role. He is also committed to ensuring value for money in the private rental market and introducing the London rents map, which enables prospective tenants to see the going rental rates for any given postcode area in the capital.

Thirdly, let me deal with increased mobility. The majority of tenancy agreements are currently made on a lifetime basis, with no regard for future needs. Indeed, tenants can leave properties to family members after their death, with no regard to their housing needs. Although I understand that it would be difficult to change the arrangements for existing tenants, and I appreciate why the Government have decided not to do that, the suggested changes for the future represent a much more realistic model for moving forward.

[Mr Slaughter]

I am listening carefully, and I have heard about no under-occupation for social tenants, so long-standing families will be forced to move out of their homes. I have heard, “Let’s rely on the private rented sector”, of which, as a west London Member of Parliament, given our heritage from Rachmanism, the hon. Lady should be ashamed. I am now hearing that lack of security is a benefit. I hope that she tells her constituents what she believes about housing policy in London, because, given the size of her majority, I would like to see how they vote next time.

[Mary Macleod]

I take every single person who comes to my surgery with housing problems extremely seriously, and I deal with them, as I am sure the hon. Gentleman does, too. That is what a Member of Parliament should do.

[Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)]

I like the hon. Lady, who often comes out with some good stuff. However, today, she is not on the best of wickets. How will she deal with constituents who come to her when they are about to be evicted because they somehow fall short of the bedroom standard? How does she think that that standard will be applied? Does she think that neighbours will tell on each other? Will there be a percentage figure for how often the bedroom is used as an indication of whether someone should be evicted? She talks about realistic policies, but she does not seem to have realistically engaged with that policy.

[Mary Macleod]

When any constituent comes to me in dire need, I work with the council to find a solution. I work to ensure some solution is found for that person. Rather than hon. Members talking purely about all the problems, which we know are vast and need to be tackled, I would like to hear some really good solutions from the Opposition.

As I said, the majority of tenancy agreements are currently made on a lifetime basis, and the Government have decided that the most reasonable approach is to ensure that a two-year minimum tenancy should be available for landlords to offer. However, longer-term tenancies would be expected to be provided to vulnerable households or those with children. All tenants will also have access to a mechanism that will enable them to move if their circumstances change—for example, if they secure work in another part of London or need to move to be closer to other family members.

Earlier, it was asked what the Mayor of London has been doing. I have already mentioned the 50,000 affordable homes that he will deliver by the end of his mayoral term. However, he also made several other promises to help London: to halve severe overcrowding in social housing by delivering larger, better-designed homes and more family-sized homes; to provide major regeneration; and to end rough sleeping. He has taken a range of measures such as providing a record number of affordable starts—a 35% increase in 2009-10 on 2007-08, the last year of Ken Livingstone’s administration.

More family-sized, affordable homes have been provided under the current mayoral administration than in the previous 10 years, with around 40% social rented homes with three or more bedrooms to help deliver the goal. Some of the red tape has been removed in the draft replacement for the London plan, including the 50% affordable homes target—that was never going to be achieved in the good times, and it would stifle development in the downturn. There has also been a major programme to unlock stalled regeneration schemes, leading to £200 million investment in more than 10 schemes across London. There is also London’s biggest programme to bring empty homes back into use, trebling investment to £60 million, and 1,700 empty homes have been brought back into use so far. Progress has been made. That is not to say that no problems remain, but I stress that some progress has been achieved.

In summary, there is no doubt that the current system of social housing is broken and it was critical for the Government to find ways to improve it. However, there is also room for more innovation. We need to be aware that any provision that simply seeks to allocate supply on a more efficient or compassionate basis will fail unless it is linked to demand-side reforms. Of course, that takes us into the wider issues of transport and infrastructure planning and regional economic policy.

There is scope for innovation, and I believe that the extended freedoms provided to local authorities in the Localism Bill will help encourage that. In London, the Mayor will play a critical role in outlining the strategy and in driving forward his commitments.

We all agree that an effective housing model is important to London, where more than 8 million people live. I congratulate the Government and the Mayor on their aim to raise aspirations and promote opportunities; improve homes and neighbourhoods; maximise the delivery of new homes and end rough sleeping; strengthen localism and reduce dependency; create a more flexible system; try to find a better use of resources; and make the system fairer.

We are discussing improving people’s lives, especially those of the most vulnerable, throughout the city. This is an example of politics making a real difference to people and creating stronger communities.

12:58

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

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) on securing the debate, his fine speech and his long-term campaign on housing. I apologise for the fact that I have to leave early because I have a long-standing constituency engagement this afternoon, not related to an election.

Having a decent, secure and affordable home should be a fundamental human right, but sadly, it is not. For most of our history in this country, people have been expected to provide for themselves, and the majority have lived in insecure, cold, damp and often insanitary and overcrowded conditions, until, for a relatively short time, as my hon. Friend the Member for Islington North pointed out, slum clearances and mass house building by councils produced safer, spacious, secure and affordable homes.

Then, however, with living standards and aspirations rising, more and more ordinary families moved out of their council homes—they did not have the right to buy at that time—and became home owners, and this nation became divided between home owners and non-home owners. Mrs Thatcher, of course, knew whose side she was on. Council house building was curtailed, and as the years passed, housing stock was sold off or fell into disrepair—nowhere was that more acute than in London and inner-city boroughs such as mine—yet no one seemed to understand that the housing market and private ownership would never offer a solution for all, given that profits had to be made and household incomes varied so widely. The Thatcher Government was a disaster for housing in London, and London has never recovered.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Islington North also suggested, Labour too bears some responsibility. When we entered government in 1997, our priorities were education and health—that was absolutely right—and we succeeded extraordinarily well. However, we failed to connect education and health with housing—although of course, where there is inadequate housing, education and health are severely affected.

[Jim Fitzpatrick]

My right hon. Friend is making a strong start to what clearly will be an important contribution to this debate. I entirely accept what she and my hon. Friend the Member for North (Jeremy Corbyn) said about the invisibility of house building to the Administrations of whom we were a part. However, the Labour Government inherited 2 million homes below the decency threshold. Does she not give them credit for recognising that that was an absolute priority and for the good work done in that aspect of housing, which was very important, particularly for thousands of homes in Tower Hamlets?

[Joan Ruddock]

I am most grateful to my hon. Friend. He anticipated what I was about to say—[Interruption.] There is no need for an apology, because he is so right, and I am glad to have my point reinforced in advance.

I was about to say that when we turned our minds to the housing crisis in the capital, we made progress. In my constituency a raft of Government policies, including the decent homes programme, led to huge improvements in conditions. Many large council estates were completely demolished and rebuilt, removing the tower blocks and providing modern energy-efficient homes in low-rise blocks and, in some cases, terraces with gardens. No longer did constituents come to me begging to be got off an estate or crying because the cold was so intense—because of crumbling windows, poor insulation and lack of central heating—that they could not endure the winters.

Overcrowding continued, however, and new starts did not keep up with the demand, particularly for the larger family-sized units. Making up for the lack of investment under a decade of Tory policy became impossible, because property and land prices rose by an unprecedented degree. However, the effort continued, and the Labour Government concluded their period in office having made available £5 billion of investment for housing in London between 2008 and 2011. As a consequence of the Labour Administration, new starts in affordable house building peaked in 2009-10 at almost 16,000 units. That Labour programme is nearing its completion, however, and hereafter numbers look certain to collapse, as my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith (Mr Slaughter) suggested in an intervention might happen.

In addition, Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London, has abandoned Labour’s target of having 50% of all new build as affordable homes. In my borough the number of homeless households in temporary accommodation at the end of March was 924, and at the end of February there were 16,000 on the housing register. Once again we have a growing housing crisis in London.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

Of the 16,000 on the Lewisham housing register, how many are in a position actively to bid or apply for properties as they become vacant?

[Joan Ruddock]

Some 50% of those on the list are deemed to have a choice and a need. None the less, the other 50%, who are in the lowest band and so stand no chance of being offered anything, have a housing need too. I can testify to that, having seen hundreds—probably thousands by now—of them in my surgeries. They are on the register because they cannot find an alternative, or because what they have is absolutely unacceptable. They do not, however, have a bedroom deficiency.

I believe that the hon. Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Mary Macleod) genuinely accepts the need in London and seeks to do the best for her constituents, but in all the schemes that the Government have put in place, or plan to put in place, there is nothing that meets my constituents’ need for affordable new units. There is a complete deficiency of supply, and I see no way of it being made up. There is also to be no security for tenants of social housing, and there are to be draconian cuts and changes to housing benefit that will result in thousands, including those at work and renting from private landlords, being thrown out of their homes because rents have become impossible. Those who currently enjoy security and pay substantial housing association rents will find themselves in rent arrears as rents are forced to rise to 80% of the private sector average.

Is no one—Lib Dem or Tory—in this Administration aware of incomes levels in London? How much does the army of workers serving the private sector—business and enterprise—in the capital city earn? In my constituency, people earn as little as £10,000 a year to support a whole family, and the average median wage is £26,500, yet the gross annual income required to afford housing association rents at 80% of market levels ranges from £35,500 for one bedroom to £83,770 for four bedrooms. At 60%, the range is £26,500 to £83,500, and so on. Analysis by Hometrack published in Inside Housing suggests that in London a household income of £44,500 per annum would be required to cover the higher rents.

The difficulties with house purchase are obvious. We all know that the price of property in London, even for a one-bedroom flat, let alone family-sized accommodation, is so many times the annual average income that it is impossible for the average worker in London, on whom all our prosperity and welfare depend, to become a home purchaser. It is a cruel deception to suggest that people should just rely on council housing in difficult periods and be able to move on. It just cannot happen, and we will quickly find ourselves with a revolving door to homelessness.

A divorced woman who was caring for her two children, was in work and had not been able to sustain a mortgage, recently came to see me. She had given up and gone into the private sector—she was not deemed eligible for council or social housing—and was paying an enormous amount of her wages to secure the housing, but the landlord had, as he was entitled to do, increased the rent. She came to me in total despair. She said, “What am I to do? I can’t pay this, I can’t get more housing benefit. Do I have to give up my job? Do I have to take my children into a hostel, after the family breakdown and everything they’ve gone through?” What could I say? There are no council or social housing units available to that family at this moment, and no prospects of one.

I saw another family—one of the most desperate I have seen—where the man, a bus driver, was supporting his non-working wife, who had two very young children, and his mother and mother-in-law, all living together. The two mothers were in wheelchairs. They lived in a maisonette and one had to stay upstairs, never leaving, while the other had to stay downstairs, but for the housing shortage, and for no other reason. Who could not deem that family to be in desperate need of specialised family accommodation? There was no alternative for that family. From lifting the mothers in their wheelchairs and so on, the husband now had a major back problem and faced the prospect of possibly not being able to continue in his job.

Whether they give a description or not, I know that every Member who speaks in this debate will have had harrowing cases of housing need where families are suffering immensely. It is, of course, the children who suffer. Sometimes there are three children in a bedroom, perhaps with asthma or in unhygienic conditions, or perhaps the oldest child is studying for exams in secondary school, but cannot get any peace and quiet because the whole family is living in two rooms.

In the past year in Lewisham there has been a 30% drop in re-lets being made available for social housing offers. The lettings outcome at the end of the year was reasonably positive, but only because of a high out-turn of new builds. However, the local authority, in giving me some information for this debate, said, “There’s a real concern that if re-lets continue to drop—and everything suggests that they will—along with new build decreasing as a result of reduced grant, the available supply to meet need will be dramatically reduced.”

The hon. Member for Brentford and Isleworth said that the Opposition had to offer some solutions. One solution, of course, would be for Londoners to elect a Labour Mayor next year. The Labour candidate, Ken Livingstone, has made a whole raft of suggestions. He has suggested, for example, using the Mayor’s planning powers to negotiate the maximum reasonable amount of affordable housing in private development schemes and making better use of publicly owned land to provide affordable homes in mixed developments, including through an expanding council house building programme.

[Mary Macleod]

Does the right hon. Lady accept that Ken Livingstone previously set a target of 50% for affordable homes, yet he only ever achieved 36%?

[Joan Ruddock]

I do accept that, but the fact is that before Ken Livingstone there was no such requirement—no aim, no goal—so there was no provision. The hon. Lady might want to acknowledge that any politician who aims for 50% and achieves 36% is actually doing rather well. Having had that experience, Ken Livingstone is now clear that a 50% target could and should be achieved. That is why he wants it to be a target once more. He suggests changes to allow public bodies such as the GLA Group and London boroughs to borrow against their assets on the bond markets in order to invest in the development of new affordable housing. He also suggests raising money on the bond markets to build affordable homes, including for rent, to break the back of the housing shortage and create work, and, as I have said, restoring the target that 50% of new housing provision in London should be affordable.

[Mr Slaughter]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that it ill behoves the Tories to be smug about the achievements of Labour Mayors in London? Any failure to achieve was almost inevitably due to the failure of individual boroughs—particularly boroughs such as Wandsworth and Westminster, which have had a disgraceful record on this over many years—to build any affordable housing, even in single figures. The former Mayor’s achievements over that time working with Labour boroughs were actually extremely significant, which is of course why the targets were abolished.

[Joan Ruddock]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Indeed, I pay tribute to the Labour administration in Lewisham for working so hard with the Mayor of London and social housing landlords in the borough to achieve considerable levels of new build, an effort that was defeated at times only by the price of land, which was often difficult to acquire.

Let me conclude. My greatest fear is that by the time I leave this House, we might have come full circle. We might be back to the kind of housing conditions that I saw and experienced through my constituents when I entered this House in the 1980s. At that time, Londoners and visitors to London were used to seeing those cardboard boxes under the arches on the south bank. There are some people here who will not have those memories, but they are so powerful for those of us who lived in London at the time. I have a terrible fear that instead of getting people into work and making London a better and more prosperous place, where people are properly housed, all the Government’s changes, along with the cuts and everything that goes with them, will return us to those terrible times.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

Every borough has a duty to deal with homelessness, but is my right hon. Friend aware that although there are usually charities that deal with people who are sleeping rough, the number of rough sleepers and people sleeping in parks or on park benches in London is increasing dramatically? I fear that we are looking again at the misery of the 1980s, when there were all those cardboard boxes.

[Joan Ruddock]

I agree with my hon. Friend. He uses the term “rough sleepers”, but we should bear in mind that those are often people with a multiplicity of problems in addition to their housing need. They need special programmes, special treatment and special care—provision that the Labour Government made available, reducing the number of people on the streets with additional problems so dramatically.

My greatest fear is not just that those numbers will increase, but that ordinary families and single people who do not have additional problems will be affected. Their only problem will be that they have become homeless because of Government policies, and that there will ultimately be no means for local authorities to cope with the strains and stresses of trying to house homeless people. What will happen is that the acceptance criteria will become more stringent, and many people who do not meet them will end up on the street.

However, I also have some hope that the people of London will not allow that to happen, but will apply sufficient pressure—through their local authorities and representatives, including Members of this House—to persuade this Government that however they thought up these policies, they must meet the test of practical experience, and that test shows that the market will not provide for the people of London. That is not to the shame of the people of London. It is not that they cannot earn their own living and pay their way—they can do all that—but they must have sufficient social housing provision in which to conduct their lives.

13:19

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

I must also start by apologising for having to leave before the end of the debate; I have a pressing engagement with an AV referendum in my constituency.

I should like to congratulate all the speakers who have taken part in the debate so far. They have made some heartfelt contributions. I particularly want to congratulate the hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn), who has an admiral record of consistency in campaigning on this issue. Come rain or shine, come Labour or coalition Government, he is there, trenchant in his criticism and committed to his solution. I do not want to simplify his solution, but I would describe it as a heritage Labour solution involving more public spending on building social housing.

I also commend my hon. Friend the Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Mary Macleod), who has not yet had time to build up an admirable record of consistency on these issues, but is clearly making a very good start in defending her constituents. I am sure that, in the years to come, she will build up a record similar to that of the hon. Member for Islington North.

The right hon. Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Joan Ruddock) set out the problems in her constituency. I would like to point out, in regard to those problems and those in my own area—there are about 4,000 households on the housing waiting list in the London borough of Sutton—that many of those families have been there for many years. The problems have not arisen in the past 12 months; they have been a long-standing challenge that successive Governments have failed to address. The right hon. Lady put forward certain solutions—I think that they were actually Ken Livingstone’s solutions—including one involving bonds. Those solutions could have been implemented by the previous Government, and it is regrettable that that did not happen when her party had the opportunity, because there were some good ideas there.

I want to thank Centrepoint, which I am sure has sent briefings for the debate to other Members as well. I want to thank it in particular because, a couple of weeks ago, it took me round a couple of its schemes in the London borough of Sutton that focus on supporting young people. The first scheme that I visited comprised a number of bed-sits in a large house. There was a small Centrepoint office in the same residential property, so that the residents—typically 16 and 17-year-olds—can get help and advice on a range of issues from managing their bills to employment issues, whenever they need it.

I met a young man of 17 there who was just beginning to come to terms with living by himself. He was looking for employment and was hoping to start work with a firm of scaffolders when he turned 18. I thank him for explaining to me how the scheme was helping him to build up his confidence. We then went on to another scheme close by, which was made up of independent houses and flats for young people starting out in their own first full property by themselves. The Centrepoint schemes in my constituency and elsewhere are clearly making a significant contribution to supporting young people.

In return for Centrepoint helping me by showing me its local schemes, I should like to mention some of the points that it has raised in the briefing that it sent out to Members for today’s debate. I recognise that the coalition Government are, of necessity, having to take steps to address the budgetary problems that we face. I am afraid that Labour Members still do not recognise that, while the coalition Government are talking about saving £16 billion in the coming year, Labour had plans to save £14 billion. The ratio is, therefore, that for every £8 that we plan to save, Labour intended to save £7. There has to be some recognition of the need to tackle the financial deficit, but there has not been much evidence of that from Labour Members’ contributions today. When the hon. Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck) responds on behalf of the Opposition, perhaps she will not only set out Labour’s genuine concerns about the state of social housing in the UK—and particularly in London—but outline to us her solutions, so that we can assess their effectiveness or otherwise.

[Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab)]

One of the issues that I will set out later is the absurdity of cutting—indeed, slashing—spending on social housing construction and consequentially driving up the housing benefit bill by pushing more people either into the private rented sector or into properties whose rent is set at 80% of the market rent. Would the hon. Gentleman like to comment on the logic of trying to reduce the deficit by increasing it?

[Tom Brake]

I understand the point that the hon. Lady is making, but that does not really address the budgetary situation that we face. Unfortunately, I will not be able to listen to her speech later, but I will read carefully the full range of solutions that she sets out to see whether her party is now in a position to deploy effective solutions. I think that the hon. Member for Islington North would accept that Labour did not tackle the housing crisis very successfully when it was in government.

[Mr Love]

One of the arguments that has been deployed in the Finance Bill debates this week—which will be continued upstairs—was the need for a bank bonus tax. One of the benefits of such a tax would be to create the opportunity to build 25,000 additional units of accommodation over the next few years.

[Tom Brake]

That might well be among the solutions that the hon. Member for Westminster North will list later. I should point out, however, that over the course of this Parliament, we will raise at least an extra £10 billion from the banks through the taxation measures that we have already introduced, and that there might be a limit to how much one can draw on that source of funding.

I want to move on to the specific points that Centrepoint raised in its briefing. I am sure that the coalition Government will want to monitor those issues, and to assess whether our proposals have had any unintended consequences. If that is the case, there might be a need to show flexibility further down the line. On social housing tenancies, there are clearly different views in different organisations on the idea of minimum fixed terms. I know that some Conservative and Liberal Democrat local authorities are reluctant to introduce them. Centrepoint says that, while it does not oppose them, it is crucial to have a degree of flexibility in the system, in particular for young people who might need more stability as they start out, and that tenancies should reflect people’s individual circumstances rather than acting as a straitjacket that constrains everyone in the same way.

Centrepoint also raised concerns, as have Members in previous debates, about the shared room rate, particularly the risk that as this applies to people up to 35, even more pressure might be put on properties currently going to younger people. There might be a tendency to give priority to the older person seeking a shared room, perhaps because they are more settled, which might have a displacement effect on younger people seeking shared accommodation. I hope the Minister will respond to that particular point.

[Mr Slaughter]

Moving on from the Centrepoint briefing, does the hon. Gentleman support the removal of security of tenure for social tenants or only for some types of social tenants? If so, what types—older people or families, for example? He mentions young people, who might have insecure lifestyles, but what advantages does the hon. Gentleman see in taking away the security that social tenants have been used to for the past 50 years?

[Tom Brake]

I am happy to give local authorities and others the powers to change the terms of tenure and I hope the hon. Gentleman would agree with me that there is an issue with some people having security of tenure who, from a financial point of view, could afford to live in their own accommodation or in the private sector. Perhaps Bob Crow springs to mind as one such example. By continuing to occupy council or social housing, those people are not making that accommodation available to others in greater need. The hon. Gentleman might not want to draw the line in the same place as me, but I hope he will acknowledge that it could be argued with considerable justification that people at the extremes should not have security of tenure in premises that could be more appropriately given to people in far greater need.

A further point raised in the Centrepoint briefing was the issue of the uprating of the local housing allowance and the move towards basing it on the consumer prices index. It is argued that using the CPI figure could cost the Government money if there has been a drop in the rental markets locally. The Minister might want to look at that from a Government spending point of view.

The final point in the briefing is the issue of direct payments. I fully support the concept that people should take more responsibility for their expenditure, so I have some reservations about paying money directly to landlords. Centrepoint’s view is that there are circumstances—this might be particularly true for young people—where people might prefer to have the money paid directly to their landlord because they do not feel they are ready to take on that financial responsibility. Some flexibility there might help.

My final point is not one that Centrepoint raised; it is about arm’s length management organisations and I would like the Minister to update us on his view of them. Other Members in their places may well, like me, be members of the all-party ALMOs group. Members will recall that when tenants were given an option to transfer to an ALMO, a consultation process had to be gone through. The concern of the all-party group is that the travel nowadays is in the opposite direction and that some local authorities are seeking, perhaps precipitately, to bring ALMOs or social housing back under their control without going through the anticipated process of consultation. I hope that when the Minister responds—or, if necessary, in writing—he will pick up on that point and let us know whether he has heard those concerns and raised them with local authorities, as it is important to ensure that tenants are given a fair outline of their options and are fully consulted about the process. They can then make a decision with the full facts in hand on whether they want the responsibility for the management of their properties brought back in house or to retain the ALMO.

This is an important debate. I have been a Member for 14 years and I have spoken in about 25 debates on this subject during that time. It is a particularly critical issue in London. I do not believe that there is much difference between us about the need to tackle the problem, although there are big differences in approach. I hope that in the months and years to come, my Government will demonstrate by the measures we are introducing that we are tackling the problem, growing the amount of social housing available and starting to address what has proved to be a real dilemma for Londoners for the last 30 or 40 years.

13:36

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

I also want to apologise for having to leave the Chamber for a period—not because of an appointment with the referendum, but because I have a debate in Westminster Hall, which might be more important. I congratulate my hon. and good Friend the Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn), who I think has become the conscience of the House on this issue over recent decades. He continually reminds us of the plight of many of our constituents. I also thank him for raising this matter because it provides us with an opportunity to get some of the issues associated with it off our chests.

My constituency faces the worst housing crisis since the second world war—perhaps even worse, given the level of demand. To be frank, I cannot cope much longer with my constituency advice surgeries, which I find so distressing. I have mentioned this before, but I find it difficult when I see how my staff are having to cope with it. We have even talked about whether we should be trying to get some counselling for the people concerned. So far as the role of being a local MP is concerned, I find the surgeries to be just about the most distressing experience of my life. I cannot cope with any more families coming in with their children at their ankles, in tears and desperate for a roof over their heads. I simply cannot understand why the sixth wealthiest country in the world cannot solve the problem.

I was born in Liverpool. My dad was a docker and my mum a cleaner. We lived off Scotland road. I have read from sociological studies that it was one of the worst slums in Europe, but we just called it home. I remember the day when we moved out into a council house prefab and I also remember the day when we moved from the prefab into a brick-built council house of Parker Morris standards, with a garden and all the rest of it. We celebrated as a family. I can remember us celebrating getting a decent roof over our heads in a decent environment. When people come to my surgery nowadays, however, I cannot offer them anything. I cannot even offer them a crumb of comfort; it is so distressing.

We are all going to quote our constituency figures. I now have 900 families homeless and 7,600 on the waiting lists. On average, it takes seven to 10 years before they have any real prospect of getting a council house or social housing. In my constituency, people have to be earning £51,320 a year just to afford any prospect of living in an average house—and that is well beyond the means of most of my constituents. The reasons have already been stated. The bulk of council housing in my area was sold off after the Thatcher policies and there has been no replacement. The money was not reinvested; often for political reasons under certain administrations, it was used for other purposes such as reducing the rates in order to get re-elected.

I am equally critical of the last Administration. It must be admitted that one of the most significant failures of the last 14 years under new Labour was the failure to provide adequate housing, although we did many good things, such as refurbishment. As was pointed out by my right hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Joan Ruddock), that has had consequences for health, education, social well-being, and community life in general.

We had three referendums on the establishment of an ALMO in my area. In two of them, the tenants voted against it. They were invited to a number of parties and receptions. I have never seen so much glossy information material as that with which they were provided. Eventually they succumbed and voted for the ALMO, and they were then transferred to Hillingdon Homes. There was a wonderful new logo and most of the chief officers received salary increases, but the arrangement was a failure, and the housing was returned to council control. There was virtually no new build, although the decent homes programme went ahead and there was some refurbishment, which I welcomed.

In my area, the ALMO was not particularly well managed. Rip-off companies made extremely high profits in return for very poor delivery. Some months ago I raised the matter in an Adjournment debate. The Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, the hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Andrew Stunell), met tenants and me, and we are still calling for a public inquiry. The poor management in my area let down many people who were expecting their properties to be refurbished.

We also have a so-called “choice” bidding scheme called Locator. Desperate families bid every week for properties to which they have no hope of ever gaining access. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Islington North that the problem is not simply the fact that local people with local jobs cannot afford a roof over their heads; I have known firefighters at Hayes fire station to commute from Cornwall and Devon, sleeping at the station and returning home after their shifts. There is also the problem of family breakdown, when people’s kids cannot live in their local area and have to move miles away. The whole family network breaks down, as does the social caring network. The system is completely counter-productive and it is not cost-effective, because the burden of care must fall on the state rather than on local families.

Of course housing associations play a key role in providing social housing in my constituency, but they are not as they used to be. I was involved in the development of the early housing associations, which were small and more like co-operatives. They had specialist roles, particularly in relation to the elderly and people with disabilities. No one ever envisaged their becoming the large corporations that they are now. There has been merger after merger, and takeover after takeover. Many of the tenants cannot distinguish them from private landlords. Some of the management is extremely poor. There is a slow response to requests for repairs. Within four years new buildings provided through housing associations in my area have developed damp and other construction problems because of poor standards and poor management of the construction process.

I must also put on record, because I am so angry about it, the consistently poor management by a number of housing associations in my area, and their failure to deal with antisocial behaviour. There are some extreme examples which I have raised with Ministers in the past. That problem continues, and has not been remedied.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

I would be grateful if my hon. Friend commented on the lack of democracy in the running of housing associations and the problems that that has created. When they were small, semi-co-operative organisations, there was a clear line of responsibility and accountability, but I do not perceive any accountability in the majority of housing associations now.

[John McDonnell]

Some of the smaller ones in the Irish community with which I have been involved, such as Innisfree and Casra, have done a very good job. They have remained relatively small, and have therefore managed to engage their tenants. In that sense, they are manageable. As I have said, however, most of the housing associations with which I deal now are mega-corporations. There is only tokenistic tenant involvement, with no element of real tenant control. When I, along with tenants, attend meetings with housing associations, we become supplicants, as if we were dealing with any private corporation or landlord.

[Frank Dobson]

I had a hand in the setting up of Community Housing in Camden. At one point, it announced that in future it would not allow tenants to vote to choose their representatives on the board; the board would do that. In a leaflet that it put out, it made clear that anyone who had ever taken it to the housing ombudsman or to court need not bother to apply. It took me a long time to persuade the Housing Corporation and the ombudsman to make it withdraw at least that small element of its anti-democratic approach.

[John McDonnell]

I was head of the Camden council’s policy unit during the 1980s. I remember with pride the engagement and investment in developing tenants’ associations. They gave us a hard time—they were in your face—but they played an important democratic role in the raising of standards. In the case of the larger housing associations, that whole ethos has completely gone.

[Mr Slaughter]

My hon. Friend has hit a rich seam, which I shall develop when I have an opportunity to speak in the debate. Not all housing associations are bad, even in terms of tenant involvement. The tenant chair of the Shepherd’s Bush housing association in my west London constituency does a good job. However, I am afraid that most of them, particularly the large ones—the Notting Hills of this world—are, as my hon. Friend says, corporations in all but name. The trouble is that, while they would like to think that they are out there wheeling and dealing in the business world, they are very poorly run and are doing a very poor job for our tenants. It is a disgrace. They are worse than the Tory councils in many respects, because their actions are not politically motivated. These are people whose only job is to provide affordable housing for people, and they simply are not doing it. That is a scandal which should be exposed.

[John McDonnell]

I entirely agree.

I want to be able to attend my other debate so that I can say wonderful things about the British Airports Authority, so I shall move on to the subject of the second source of housing supply in my constituency. There have been a number of new private developments there in recent years. Thanks to Ken Livingstone’s policy of trying to create a social mix, we have gained a combination of private and social housing on individual sites. The problem is that the area is infested with a number of developers who are seeking to impose the highest possible housing density. In reality, they are building the slums of the future. I will name one company, Inland Homes, which is developing properties that not only fail to meet existing need but undermine the quality of housing in the area.

Let me give two examples. One is West Drayton in Porters Way. The Government have a role in that development, because it is a former Government site. It was the air traffic control centre for Heathrow and an RAF camp before it was handed over to the private sector for development. High-density, barrack-like accommodation was constructed, with inadequate parking facilities so that the parking spills on to the rest of the estate. It consists of flats which do not blend in with the houses with gardens on the rest of the estate. There is inadequate provision of social facilities— there are none at all for young people—and the local schools and medical facilities have become overloaded. The amount of traffic has increased, and even the drainage system cannot cope with the new development. The section 106 planning agreements have failed to deal with the costs and burdens placed on the local infrastructure.

The other development is on the old railway estate in Hayes, which was built for employers of British Rail and was sold off after its privatisation. The Glenister hall site—the former site of Hayes working men’s club—was sold to Inland Homes. Glenister hall was a community hall with playing fields and a football pitch on which the local team played, as did local kids, but the site has now been allowed to deteriorate. Inland Homes has made two planning applications for an intensive development. It lost the first, but Hillingdon council has approved the second. No alternative place has yet been provided for the kids to play football on. The company has offered to improve one site, which is already a football pitch, but it is literally a mile away, across busy roads. So we are now to have another intensive development. The local residents campaigned against it but were overridden by the council, and we are now hoping that the Secretary of State will call this in. One leaflet was put out anonymously by a local resident and the company is threatening legal action against the chair of the residents association, Peter Robinson, an elderly gentleman who is not in good health. He is being threatened with libel action, even though he did not put out the leaflet. This sort of ruthless developer is taking over entire sites in my area to build the slums of the future.

Under the previous Government—I hope it will not happen under this Government, but I think it will go on—the buy-to-let landlordism in my area grew massively. Individuals—this mainly involved individuals, rather than companies—bought up small property empires. They offer these places at high rents, often to families on housing benefit. Some of the properties have been developed into illegal houses in multiple occupation—they are not registered. These places are not maintained and people are living in appalling slum conditions. We are talking about Rachmanite landlords who threaten and abuse tenants whenever they make any complaint, and then evict them illegally. In many cases, these landlords fail to abide by even basic housing legislation, in respect of providing rent books and so on. People are evicted when they complain and if they seek to take legal action, they have neither the resources, nor the ability to do so—now that there are restrictions on legal aid, they will have even less ability to do so.

Hillingdon council uses local estate agents to push people into the private sector. We have discovered that the estate agents it has been using have often used these buy-to-let slum landlords. There is a belief that in Hillingdon an informal agreement exists whereby the estate agent will seek properties in the south of the borough, in my constituency—the working-class, multicultural area—and not look for them in the rich north of the borough. So an apartheid regime is developing with regard to housing homeless people in the borough—of course it is not that the north of the borough is represented by Conservatives who are protecting their own patches. This has resulted in families living in appalling conditions and overcrowding on a scale not seen in my area since the second world war. Some families are living in almost developing world conditions because some of the properties are so poor.

The housing shortage has also resulted almost in a planning free-for-all. There has almost been a breakdown in local planning controls, enforcement and monitoring in my area: extensions are put on properties; new units are put up in gardens; and new buildings are created with no control whatever. The council fails even to acknowledge a number of the developments and does not seem to be aware of the developments that have gone on. When these things are reported, the council gives retrospective planning permission.

A resident in my constituency, Brian Duffy, has led a campaign on the issue, working with Councillor Jaz Dhillon and others. They have looked on Google Earth to see what properties have been developed. We have seen a new phenomenon in my area: leisure rooms. These are, in effect, sheds built in gardens. They are given retrospective planning permission and are supposed to be used for leisure purposes, but on inspection— like many of my colleagues, I carry out walkabout inspections—we find that curtains have gone up, bathrooms and toilets have been installed and whole families are living in these “leisure rooms”. I understand that a large family might be desperate and might feel that this is the only way in which they can put a roof over their heads, but that is not what is happening in most cases. What is happening is that landlords are constructing these leisure rooms and getting families to live in what are, in effect, garages. In some instances we have discovered these places only when the family have turned up to register for council tax and we have found out that they are living in a shed or a garage as a result of these illegal developments.

There has also been an increase in people sleeping rough in my area. A large number of people sleep rough by the Grand Union canal and I tell the police that I do not want them moved on, because I do not know where else they could go. If they are seeking warmth and security under the bridge by the canal and that is the only place they can find, I cannot see what other option there is, because my area has no rough sleeping provision. The only option would be to send them to central London but there is barely any provision for them there either.

An element of squatting is breaking out in London again. That is understandable, because people have nowhere else to go. I am anxious about the Government’s proposals to introduce tighter legislation on squatting—I would certainly be anxious if they are cutting back on housing investment alongside that. I believe that their policies will make things dramatically worse. I do not wish to rehearse all the arguments I have put forward so far, but the benefit cuts, the increase in social housing rents and the cuts in the capital programme spell absolute housing disaster for my area. There will be an increase in problems such as homelessness, housing need and overcrowding. The tragedy of all this is that homeless people and the people living in these conditions have no political clout; they are largely voiceless. Therefore, it is our responsibility to use every platform we can to speak up for them, which is why I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Islington North.

What is needed in this area? It is blindingly obvious that we need an emergency housing programme on a scale not seen since the second world war. We have to treat this situation as a crisis and put all the resources into it, and that means an emergency housing purchase programme. I want councils to be given the powers and the resources to buy vacant properties in my area that are on the open market and use them to house families—that is how critical the situation is. They must buy the properties and manage them directly. We can then develop for those properties schemes of small co-operatives, perhaps see a return of the housing association movement and break up the overly large, bureaucratic corporations. Perhaps we could see a return of that movement to its origins, but in the meantime we need an emergency housing purchase programme.

On new builds, I would like councils, particularly those in my area, to be given the opportunity of compulsory purchase and be allowed almost to commandeer sites for building. We should of course protect the green belt and the open spaces—I am worried about the Government’s threats to allotments—but to establish a new building programme we need to give the councils the powers to sequestrate sites to bring them into use, particularly industrial and commercial units, and the empty shops and properties above shops in town centres. Of course we can use creative design and creative construction techniques but, above all else, we just need to start building council homes again.

I also want an emergency programme of refurbishment. I want the decent homes programme to be not only maintained, but extended and intensified. I want higher standards and I want to ensure that these are green homes. I want them to be insulated and warm. I want renewable energy to be used and I want us to minimise the waste. In that way, we can find the funding—we could also end the tax breaks to the buy-to-let landlords, which they have used so extensively to profiteer over the past 14 years.

I was the Greater London council’s chair of finance and we had a capital pool. We had the most efficient borrowing scheme in local government in this country and possibly in western Europe. It had cross-party support and I believe it was started by a Tory administration and then maintained through a cross-party agreement throughout the life of the GLC. It enabled us not only to build, but to give mortgages.

I would like to see local authority mortgages brought back again. The London county council started them and because of the scale of London and of our resources, and therefore of our capacity to borrow and lend cheaply, the LCC and GLC mortgage was often the first mortgage that people took. It was an affordable mortgage that enabled people to get on the first rung of the housing ladder. People may recall that we developed, at that stage, our own part buy, part rent schemes, but they were affordable. Some hon. Members may also recall that we freed up properties through the seaside homes programme, whereby we bought and built properties in seaside resorts outside London where people wanted to retire to. Those people gave up their council properties and we were able to put families back into them.

We should be looking at creative incentive schemes such as those, rather than penalising people or limiting their ability to maintain their council house based on their wage or a particular time period. I agree that part of that proposal concerns the self-build projects that we launched and they should be built on. We need to use all those inventive and creative ways to tackle the housing crisis.

The most important thing to recognise—for everybody, but for this Government in particular—is that there is a crisis that cannot be ignored. In past debates and under past Governments, the whole point of housing policy has been not merely to paternalistically hand down housing from Government to people in need, but to be one of the most effective stimuli to the economy to get us out of recession. My hon. Friend the Member for Islington North mentioned unemployed workers in the construction industry and that industry is one of the sectors of our economy that are faring worst at the moment. Whenever we have seen any lift or recent growth in the economy, the construction sector has held us back. If we could launch an emergency house-building programme on some scale, it would put people back to work, and a housing purchase programme would lift asset values. In that way, an emergency housing programme could help this country to tackle the recession. We could be lifted out of the recession on the basis of investment for social need rather than investment for greed and profit.

14:01

[Mr Matthew Offord (Hendon) (Con)]

Today’s debate is very valuable and I congratulate the hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) on securing it. I do not always agree with everything he says, but on this point there is a lot of common ground between his party, mine and that of my colleagues in the coalition Government.

Labour Members speak about housing as though it is an issue that affects only them and their constituents. We are demonstrating today that there is a housing problem across London that is experienced by all Members, particularly in their surgeries and postbags. People regularly come to see me about this in my surgery and I feel a fraud in many ways because they are concerned and upset about their housing or lack of housing and I know that we will not be able to do anything to help. I feel greatly sorry for them and we recommend that they go to the private sector in the knowledge that we have nothing in the public or social rented sectors.

I want to cover a few points that the Government are addressing as well as to speak about my experience. Some people seem to think that all London is completely the same, but it is not. We have diverse areas and different experiences, which is exemplified in the housing crisis across the city. It is a crisis; we have a problem. Many people are not only unable to afford their own homes but have a problem housing themselves in the type of quality accommodation we would expect all our families to live in.

That is why it is vital that the Government and local authorities continue to promote the development of attractive mixed-tenure communities in our local areas instead of the monolithic estates about which many of us have been concerned. We have seen not a rush but an agenda to knock those estates down, and they are crime-ridden in many parts of London. Promoting such a development is the only way we will help people into home ownership. At the very least we should change their tenancies so they are better suited to individual needs. That is how we will stop people being trapped in that vicious dependency cycle.

I shall not reel off a lot of statistics, but one thing that I am very keen on—I spoke about it in my maiden speech—is social aspiration. I do not believe that people who go into the social rented sector lack social aspiration, but I do think that they have it hammered out of them. In 2008-09, only 49% of tenants of working age in the social rented sector were in work, down from 71% in 1981. I have heard the comments about cardboard boxes under Blackfriars bridge, but they do not stack up with the statistics. In comparison, in that same year, 89% of home owners, and 75% of private renters, of working age were in work. About 60% of social rented households report that they are in receipt of housing benefit compared with just 20% in the private rented sector. I would not say that people in the social rented sector were failures, but I believe that they certainly end up feeling that they are at a disadvantage in comparison with other people who are perhaps attracted to, or able to afford, the private rented sector.

[Mr Slaughter]

I am just glancing through a report from Family Mosaic, a large housing association that is very good, on the whole. It states that

“setting rents at 80% of market rent would increase our clients’ requirement for housing benefit by 151%”.

What does the hon. Gentleman think of that policy?

[Mr Offord]

We should allow the social rented sector to help the people who really need that help. The hon. Gentleman asked the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake) who should be thrown out of their homes, and it is quite clear that no demographic section of the community should be thrown out, whether that is the elderly or people with children. It should be done on a financial basis to people such as Lee Jasper and Bob Crow, whom I read about in the paper today and who earns £145,000. If we removed people such as him, we would open up the social rented market to the people who really need it. That is what I think of that policy.

The point I want to make, which helpfully illustrates that answer, is that social landlords are required by inflexible and centrally determined rules to grant lifetime tenancies in the vast majority of cases, and I presume that someone like Mr Crow would have that sort of tenancy. There is no account of how their individual and household circumstances have changed and they cannot be removed. I spoke to my office today and I have received a telephone call from a lady in my constituency who said that she urgently needs to move house as her husband has become disabled, but she is unable to do so because of the rigid rules and structures that I have just described. In shocking contrast, other people’s tenancies can be inherited by family members who might no longer be in need of the housing that they have been allocated. That is clearly not a system that helps to serve the people we represent.

Labour Members have spoken about the development proposals in their local areas and how they feel that the local authority alone should be allowed to develop. That has not been the experience in my constituency.

[Mr Slaughter]

rose—

[Mr Offord]

I have given way to the hon. Gentleman once, so I am going to continue with my speech.

My experience has been very good. Large elements of the constituency certainly need development—I am thinking of the West Hendon estate and Perryfields, as well as areas of Burnt Oak and, significantly, the Grahame Park estate, of which some hon. Members might be aware. It was the site of the old RAF Hendon base and it is a location that has now changed to allow development from the private sector. That has been a great success and many of my friends live in that area, which is proving to be a real boon to the local economy.

I was pleased a couple of weeks ago to attend the first phase of Choices for Grahame Park, which is a separate phase of development in Colindale, with the mayor of Barnet, Councillor Anthony Finn. When that is completed, it will form a central part of the Colindale area action plan and will create a new community in my constituency, providing greater transport links on the tube, greater community health facilities and a radical rebuilding programme that will transform the estate, which has been a blight for many years. This will happen in the next 15 years and we expect to see about 3,000 new homes as part of this new heart of my constituency.

The regeneration of the area will also provide retail facilities and 25% of the existing homes are built in a traditional layout, instead of like the cardboard boxes and rabbit hutches that some hon. Members have described. In total, we will demolish 1,314 outdated and overused homes and replace them with 2,977 brand-new, purpose-built family homes that will revolutionise life in the Grahame Park area and in my constituency as a whole.

[Angie Bray (Ealing Central and Acton) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that too often the special circumstances in London seem to get missed out in policy making? For example, I think we all want to see more family-sized homes built in the affordable sector rather than the small boxes that typified the affordable houses built under the previous Mayor, Ken Livingstone. Many people got very agitated about that because London wants family-sized homes. Here is the problem: a couple of London housing associations came to me and said that they would like to build more family-sized homes but in order to be able to afford to do that under the current circumstances they will have to charge 80% of market value, which many of their tenants will find difficult to afford. Is it not very important that—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

Order. All afternoon, we have been drifting into longer and longer interventions. Interventions are supposed to be short, not an excuse for a speech, and the hon. Lady has now finished.

[Mr Offord]

I was enjoying my colleague’s contribution. She certainly has some relevant experience in her constituency, but I want to continue by talking about the current system’s inflexibility in providing social tenants with heavily subsidised rents for the duration of their time in the sector regardless of their changing needs and ability to pay. Perhaps, again, Mr Crow is one of those people.

Inflexible lifetime tenancies contribute to significant imbalances between the size of the households and the property that they live in. A one-size-fits-all model for rents and tenancies is not the best answer to the wide-ranging needs and circumstances of those who access the social rented sector.

I understand—I hope to hear from the Minister about this later—that the Government believe that we must make far better use of existing social housing, by ensuring that we target our support where it is needed most. Given the huge pressures on the public finances, we must ensure that we get more for the money that we invest in new social homes. My colleague’s point about investing in family homes is a serious and important one, particularly for people in my constituency.

I hope and believe that the Government will create a more flexible system of social housing—a system that recognises that everyone’s needs are not the same, that offers stability when needed, that helps people to move when they start to work, for example, and that protects the most vulnerable people in society.

[Ms Buck]

The hon. Gentleman makes quite a lot of an anecdote about Mr Crow—we could all make policy by anecdote—but does he recognise that the average income of social tenants is dramatically lower than that of private owners and tenants and therefore that Mr Crow’s house and those of a handful of others like him will not house the 1 million people who are on social housing waiting lists?

[Mr Offord]

I thank the shadow Minister for making that interesting point, but a principle could be set that someone such as Mr Crow should not espouse certain values on the one hand and live in a different fashion on the other. She also makes the important point—I am sure that she is very keen to hear this—that the Government’s plan to make work pay for people will be a valuable incentive to encourage people towards home ownership rather than the culture of dependency that I spoke about earlier.

Currently, the rules to allocate social homes are unfair. Despite the previous Government spending £17 billion on social housing in the past 13 years, more than twice as many people were left on the waiting lists. Again, I welcome the Government’s recent consultation, and I notice that the local authorities that responded welcome the plans to give them extra freedoms to manage their waiting lists in particular and that two thirds of social landlords said that they plan to use the new flexibility to offer fixed tenancies—something that will reinvigorate the market. Indeed, the Localism Bill, which is currently before Parliament, will give landlords the option to offer flexible tenancies and give councils greater control over allocating their social homes. The valuable resource that we all have in our constituencies will be available to all those who need it, when they need it.

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

My local authority has foolishly considered the possibility of fixed tenancies, but its objective is to provide housing for people in employment. Does the hon. Gentleman think that it would house Bob Crow?

[Mr Offord]

Bob Crow earns enough—if we can call it earning—to house himself, so I do not think that he will need such assistance from any local authority.

I hope that the Minister mentions some of the reforms that the Government are promoting. I am certainly aware of flexible tenures, which I have mentioned, and fair allocations, but I should like the Government also to focus on greater social mobility. Again, I return to making work pay and to fixed tenancies that allow people to consider their housing needs and, as they change, to change where they live.

I want the Government to consider fairer provision for homeless people. I should like local authorities to have greater flexibility to make decisions on how best to stop people becoming at risk of homelessness. Currently, some homeless families turn down the decent private rented accommodation that they have been offered as settled homes and demand to be provided with more expensive temporary accommodation at greater cost to the taxpayer until a social home becomes available. Surely—I hope the Minister agrees—that cannot be right for the taxpayer, and it cannot be right for those individuals.

I shall leave my comments there, but as I said, I certainly welcome the debate. It is important; we have heard some good contributions; and I look forward to the Minister’s response.

14:15

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

The hon. Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Mary Macleod) referred to 1.8 million people being on the housing waiting list. That is a staggering figure. I recollect that a petition on the No. 10 website against speed cameras once attracted 1.2 million signatories and received headlines in newspapers throughout the country. So speed cameras generate comments in the national newspapers, but the fact that 1.8 million people are on the list does not. I wonder when those people will get angry. We all marched against cuts a few weeks ago—500,000 people marched through London. When will people start to get angry about this issue?

We could all write the Minister’s speech. He will go on about the fact that Margaret Thatcher built more council houses than Labour did in the last 13 years. He will say that Ken Livingstone was a failure because he had a 50% target but only achieved 36%. We have heard all that before, and quite frankly, it is just not good enough. For the past 30 years, Government Members—Labour and Conservative—have, quite frankly, failed on the issue.

[Jane Ellison (Battersea) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Clive Efford]

Hang on a minute; I have hardly started.

We can make excuses—they are good ones—about the amount of money that we invested in social housing over the last 13 years. We should be proud of that investment. Many of my constituents live in far better quality housing as a result of the commitment and money that we invested in social housing, but we lost sight of a growing crisis in the provision of affordable rented accommodation for our constituents right across the capital and the country.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) on securing the debate. He referred to articles about how unattractive social housing is, how the failed experiment of building huge monolithic estates of rented accommodation became microcosms of all social ills, and how people with social problems became concentrated in those communities, which were unattractive and difficult for people to leave, but that is not my recollection of growing up in communities full of rented council and housing association accommodation. Back in those days, the Church Commissioners provided social rented accommodation where I lived.

[Jane Ellison]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Clive Efford]

I will in a moment. Calm down. [Interruption.] Hon. Members will notice that I was more restrained in my comment.

Those people did not lack aspiration or exhibit all the problems that people have given as reasons for not investing in building social rented accommodation. We have lost sight of the issue. It has been suggested that such people lack aspiration and that such areas become concentrations of high unemployment, low educational attainment and high levels of crime, particularly antisocial behaviour among young people. Such circumstances become self-fulfilling prophecies as a result of people having to be housed according to priority need.

Over the years, the housing supply has been constantly reducing. Because of the right to buy, the amount of social housing for rent went down consistently, in spite of the new building that was taking place, until only a couple of years before the previous Labour Government left office. The only time there was an increase was from about 2008 onwards as a result of the investment of the previous Labour Government. Just as we got to the end of our last term in office, we actually got it and finally started to invest in building again, and so the building of council housing began again. There were projects in my constituency and my local authority was successful in bidding for money to start to build council housing again. That is what we have to get back to. It will be no good the Minister’s coming to the Dispatch Box and saying that it has all been bad under both Tory and Labour Governments. We have to get this right for future generations.

We have heard about the flexibility of having 80% of market rents. To give them credit, many registered social landlords and housing associations are saying that going for 80% of market rents would fundamentally change their ethos. It would mean that they were no longer providers of social housing and they believe that they would be wrong to go down that route. To accept rents of 80% of market rents would be to accept the principle that people who live in social housing should subsidise the future development of social housing—that they should pay for it rather than the general taxpayer or anyone else. For many years, people buying private housing got enormous subsidies. A myth has built up that there are huge subsidies for council housing, but the housing revenue account has paid its own way for decades. Even my local authority, in its response to the consultation on social housing rents, made the mistake of believing that there was a cost to the taxpayer of providing social housing.

It cannot be right, at a time when the Government have stated that they want to cut the housing benefit budget, to introduce a policy of moving social housing rents towards market levels. That has to be counter-intuitive. The people who cannot afford to find rented housing in the private sector or to buy will, by the very nature of the problems they are facing in their lives at times of crisis when they search for social housing, be likely to get priority and be on lower incomes, so that policy is likely to have an impact on housing benefit if rents of 80% of market rents are encouraged. At the same time, the changes in housing allowances and the new 30th percentile rate will increase the amount that people will have to contribute to their rent if they are in the private rented sector. That will force many people who live in central London to move to areas such as mine where rents are lower, relatively. That is bound to increase the demand for housing there, which could have an impact on the private rented sector and, again, have a negative impact on rent levels if demand goes up. If the private rented sector refuses to rent to people on housing benefit, what will happen to those people and what will be the consequences for local social housing and the level of demand? How will the council deal with that?

What the Government propose in their social housing strategy does not add up or make sense and will have very contradictory outcomes in many areas. The fundamental problem behind what we are dealing with is supply. Some hon. Members have argued that we should have flexible rents that change as people move through social housing and that people should move into the private sector as they gain employment and increase their income. I do not agree that people should be in social housing only at times when they have a low income and that they should be encouraged to move through the system. Such arguments about the management of social housing are to do with the fact that we are managing a limited supply of housing. That is the fundamental problem and we have to increase that supply.

One issue with which we have faced problems in the past—successive Governments have been at fault in this regard as well—is the supply of land. We have put too many obstacles in the way of local authorities’ supplying land to build social housing. In fact, we have often put incentives in their way to dispose of it. We end up in the curious situation whereby local authority land is sold to a private developer for it to build a housing estate, so that we can try to get a residual amount of properties through that development for social housing under planning gain—usually through a housing association whose rents are higher than the local authority’s target rents. That is certainly the case in my area. That approach has failed to deliver the number of properties that we needed over the past two decades, and is a major contributory factor to the huge shortage of social housing in London.

I do not blame private developers. They do what private developers do. They swim in the sea of regulations that we create for them. The profits that they can make from private developments—buying the land, developing it and selling it on—are absolutely huge. We have failed to tap into those profits to recycle resources and invest in future social housing. As a consequence of that policy, until only a few years ago we saw, effectively, a year-on-year reduction in the units of social housing available for rent. So we need to ensure that the land is made available, and that local authorities are encouraged and given incentives to make that land available for future developments.

Where there have been developments they have often been of the wrong type, in which the properties are not available to local communities. Shelter did a study of eight local authority areas. One was Tower Hamlets, and although that is not my local authority the report makes very interesting reading. Between 2006 and 2010, 10,430 properties were built in Tower Hamlets. Barclays bank, whose headquarters is in Canary Wharf in Tower Hamlets, has just paid out over £1 billion in bonuses to its staff. I wonder what that £1 billion could have done for the 21,000 local people on the housing waiting list in Tower Hamlets if it had been invested in local housing.

Of the houses that were built in the four years between 2006 and 2010, 8,500 were in the private sector and just under 2,000 were built by housing associations. None were local authority builds. Fifty-four per cent. of the properties in Tower Hamlets have been built since 1966, and yet there are 21,000 on the waiting list. There is a very high vacancy rate in the new-build properties in private ownership. So we have been building houses at a heck of a rate in Tower Hamlets, but we have not been building them to meet the housing crisis there. I am not attacking the local authority; I am not attacking anyone. As I have said, it simply highlights the fact that the policy is completely and utterly wrong.

I have a development in my constituency, the Kidbrooke Regeneration. I visited some of the brand-new properties that had been built as the first phase of that development— beautiful properties. The price is £300,000 for a two-bedroom property overlooking one of my local parks. I asked who the target market was for those properties—who was expected to buy them. Was it local people living in big three or four-bedroom houses who were nearing retirement, whose children had moved on and who wanted to downsize to a comfortable flat? I was told “There may be one or two of those, but mainly we’re advertising abroad.” In that regeneration we have knocked down 1,900 local council properties. About 30% or 35% of the 4,400 properties will be social housing, provided through a housing association. Most of the private properties will be targeted at people who are not local.

I am not attacking the developer; it works in the market that is out there, and is trying to maximise its profits, as any company would. However, clearly we need to look at how we encourage development, and who we encourage it for, if we are ever to deal with the lack of supply that is at the root of all the problems that we are debating today.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Robert Neill)]

I do not intend to intervene very much. The hon. Gentleman raises an interesting point, but how does he reconcile his proposition with the commitment of the previous Government, the current Government and the Mayor of Newham to the desirability of encouraging mixed communities, so that there is a range of tenures, occupations and populations in an area, which benefits the economy of the area?

[Clive Efford]

I am grateful to the Minister for that point, but I am slightly confused because I saw him nodding encouragingly to the hon. Member for Hendon (Mr Offord) when he said that Bob Crow should be evicted. I thought Bob Crow was doing his part to create mixed communities.

[Robert Neill]

Not on a public subsidy.

[Clive Efford]

I would like to know what public subsidy the Minister is referring to; perhaps he will elaborate when he makes his speech. One of the myths frequently peddled about social housing is that it is publicly subsidised.

[Stephen Pound (Ealing North) (Lab)]

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation produced a report on the desirability of mixed tenure back in 1990. We have had that argument, and we have moved on a bit. With regard to my hon. Friend’s point about the development in Kidbrooke, does he agree that one of the real problems, referred to earlier, is the people who buy to let? Does he agree that it might not be too fanciful to suggest returning to the days when a person could have only one mortgage, rather than having 10, 15 or 20, in a way that rips the heart out of any housing development?

[Clive Efford]

I agree. Buy to let has not been the success that some thought it would be in providing rented accommodation and encouraging people to enter the private rented market; that idea has been consigned to the history books. I hope that we do not go back down that route again.

We need to deal with the problem of the supply of social rented accommodation. I point out to the Minister, before he attacks the previous Mayor of London’s record, that thanks to the last Government’s subsidy, the number of affordable house-building starts in 2009-10 was 16,000. Last year that was down to just over 2,000. This year, 2011-12, the figure is 2,000. From 2012-13 it is zero. I do not know how the Minister will explain at the Dispatch Box how the Mayor of London will hit his 50,000 homes target without building a single home in 2012-13 or 2013-14—unless, that is, the Mayor moves a whole host of Bob Crows. [Interruption.] The shadow Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck), is waving an informative graph at me; coincidentally, I happen to have a copy. It is from the Homes and Communities Agency, and she will no doubt refer to it in her speech. It officially confirms the figures that I gave; they come not from a Labour party press release, but from the Homes and Communities Agency. Boris has clearly failed in his objective and his promise to provide affordable housing for people in London.

Another policy that we must confront is the one that Boris described as “Kosovo-style social cleansing” when it was announced. I have never agreed with him more—but unfortunately, the following week he went on to say:

“My consistent position has been that the government is absolutely right to reform the housing benefit system which has become completely unsustainable. I do not agree with the wild accusations from defenders of the current system that reform will lead to social cleansing.”

Boris says one thing in front of a microphone when the policy is first announced, but he secretly makes those comments at a later date. When the matter is in the media and it is discussed on the 6 o’clock news he appears to stand up to the Government, but after he has been sat on by the Minister and everyone else, he sneaks out a press release a week later saying that he absolutely agrees with their policy—a policy that will result in people on low incomes being moved from large areas of inner London to places outside London where private sector rents are lower.

There have been huge clearances of estates, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith (Mr Slaughter) will doubtless refer, as perfectly good council housing, in which millions of pounds has been invested under the decent homes programme, will be knocked down to make way for private luxury developments. The Conservatives just do not get it when it comes to housing. Surprisingly, the Liberal Democrats do not get it either. My hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) made a point about how essential it is that people on low incomes should be able to live in mixed communities across the capital. During the earlier spell of cold weather, my local authority kept the roads clear so that people could get to work. I am sure that that was true, too, of Hammersmith and Fulham, Kensington and Chelsea and other areas.

There is affordable housing in those areas for people who do all sorts of jobs in the local economy, from driving refuse lorries to sweeping the roads and pushing trolleys in local hospitals or even cleaning floors in posh houses in the leafier parts of central London, but those people will have nowhere to live in those communities if the Government continue to pursue their policies. Those people will not be there to do jobs such as stacking shelves in supermarkets. They are an essential part of our local economy, but they will disappear from many of our communities. The biggest effect on the Tories will perhaps be that their cleaning costs will go up, because of the shortage of cleaners, pushing up the hourly rate.

During the crisis in the freezing cold weather, many of us could get to work only because fairly low-paid people in local authorities across the capital got into work early in the morning, driving gritting lorries, clearing roads and so on, so that buses could run and other people could keep the economy moving. Those people are an essential part of our economy. I suspect that they will not qualify, even if they can afford it, for key worker schemes, to buy properties in those areas. They will be forced out by higher rents and the lack of housing benefit designed to support part-time workers who provide essential jobs such as child minding and caring and other roles. Under the policy, they just will not be there.

Social housing is not just a benefit that is means-tested and provided by a welfare cheque. It is an essential part of our communities and economy. To get rid of it in large parts of the capital is a hugely retrograde step that we will all come to regret. Social housing is also essential not just for people on low incomes, but for those who aspire to buy their own homes. We know now that the house lending market has changed—probably for ever, but certainly for a long time. It will no longer be possible to gamble on the future value of a house to borrow 100% of its cost on the understanding that we know that it will be worth more in the future; 100% mortgages are a thing of the past. Any bank or building society will make it clear that no one is lending 100% mortgages any more, and they do not foresee that happening. That means that people will have to be savers for a long time before they can become home buyers. Even people in social housing who aspire to buy their own home will have to save for a long time.

In a study published in October 2010, the Home Builders Federation came to the conclusion that

“In London, first time buyers aged between 22 and 29 cannot pay their rent and save for a deposit—this would cost 10% more than their net monthly income.”

It goes on to state:

“The average deposit across the UK is 230% that of average salaries—almost 300% in London.”

Even if people wanted to become home owners, if they are forced into the private rented sector they can never save enough money to do so. That tells us that affordable rented accommodation is not just about people on benefits or on low incomes, people who lack aspiration or are in a crisis in their lives, but is essential to the future of the housing market, particularly in London where deposits will be high. If we do not provide affordable housing at levels at which people who may aspire to become future home owners can reasonably be expected to save at a decent rate, we are undermining the future of our own housing market. To have a home construction industry in the future, we will be relying on developers of schemes, such as mine in Kidbrooke, where they sell to people not from the local community, not even from the UK, but to business people from abroad. That cannot be right. That is not right for the future of our city, and we should not encourage it.

My final point concerns the social management of council rents and registered social landlord rents in order to create mixed communities. As my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing North (Stephen Pound) said, we have debated that for many years and it has never worked. When I grew up in rented accommodation in Southwark, surrounded by friends who all lived in rented accommodation, we had mixed communities. In those days, under a Labour Government, unemployment was not prevalent. Under the most recent Labour Government we increased employment enormously, and that is the policy that we need to return to, rather than the huge cuts that we see from this coalition Government.

The idea that we cannot create mixed communities because we have social rented properties is something that we should put behind us and never return to. It is not a matter of the tenure, but the people who live there. If we provide employment, we provide mixed communities, whether Bob Crow lives there, the local GP or shop owner, or someone experiencing a temporary period of unemployment. We need a Government who are prepared to stand by people and help to create jobs in those communities and invest in them in order to ensure that we do have mixed communities. They will not be created by flexible rents and social engineering.

[Mr Slaughter]

My hon. Friend has made an important point. I do not believe that the Government now believe their own rhetoric on mixed communities. The estates that Conservative councils are demolishing are mixed communities; mixed communities are made up of rented, owned, freehold and leasehold properties, with mixed income levels. Those estates are being replaced not with mixed communities, but with exactly what my hon. Friend described—ghettoes of the rich. They are properties that are advertised abroad or go for prices far above what ordinary families can afford. That is the future for housing in London. “Mixed communities”—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

Briefly.

[Mr Slaughter]

“Mixed communities” is now a euphemism for building the poor out of London.

[Clive Efford]

I could not agree more with my hon. Friend.

It is a fool’s paradise to suggest that we can continue with the policies of the last 20 years or more and just build social housing as a fag end of private sector development. We need to make local authority land available for development, build social housing and create mixed communities by encouraging employment within communities, without messing around with flexible, temporary or probationary tenancies.

That is the way forward for housing in London; it is essential for future generations, whether they aspire to be homeowners or not. Affordable rented accommodation, even in communities where property values are extremely high, are absolutely essential if we are to have a thriving economy and thriving communities in those areas. We need to return to that situation, and I hope that the Government will reconsider their policies on the cuts in housing investment under the Mayor and the cuts to support to new council housing building programmes. I hope that we can start to build the houses that future generations need.

14:46

[Angie Bray (Ealing Central and Acton) (Con)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. Having rightly been chastised by you for allowing my intervention to run a little long, I thought that I would expand it into a very brief contribution in the form of a speech.

I want to reiterate the point that I was trying to raise with my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon (Mr Offord). In a number of areas, London has a particular set of circumstances that are not shared by the rest of the country. I sometimes feel that London does not get fully considered in the general policy making of Governments of all persuasions. That is why it is so important that we London MPs should sometimes get together and have an opportunity to raise some of the specific issues affecting our constituencies. What we are debating is a particularly important example.

I want to draw the Minister’s attention to something brought to my attention by representatives of a couple of London housing associations, who came to see me to express concerns. They are very keen to build more family-sized houses, which is what we all want. As I said before, it is fine to have large numbers of the sort of very small affordable flats that the previous Mayor of London was famous for building, but there are not the family-sized homes that we all want.

The issue is that the housing associations would very much like to build family-sized homes, but to be able to—in London, particularly—they will probably have to go to the 80% of market value to generate the kind of funds that will make such building possible. There is concern that they may find it difficult to charge that rate to a number of their tenants, but without that 80% they will find it difficult to deliver the kind of homes that we all want so badly. A bit of a problem has been thrown up through the particular circumstances that pertain in London.

I hope that the Government, particularly the Homes and Communities Agency, will bear those circumstances in mind when making the assessments. I am delighted that the HCA is going to be taken into City Hall, because that will make it a great deal more sensitive to the needs of Londoners. It is important that the gap should be considered properly to ensure that there are family-sized homes in the affordable sector. They need to be built, because they are such an important part of building our communities.

[Stephen Pound]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady, my neighbour, for giving way. She says that family-sized homes are the homes that “we all want”. May I urge her to accept the fact that not everybody wants to live in a family home? A great many people with disabilities, or widows, widowers or people on their own quite enjoy the small properties that she rather put down and implied were some creation of Ken Livingstone that nobody wanted to live in. Actually, a great many people do.

[Angie Bray]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that important contribution. Of course it is true that not everybody wants to live in family-sized homes, but the problem in the past was that small properties were the only affordable housing on offer. A large number of families in our communities need affordable houses, and one or two-bedroom, even three-bedroom, flats simply do not accommodate them properly. It would also be nice to think that families might have a bit of green space outside and not always be housed in large blocks of flats.

Of course there has to be a balance, but in the past family-sized houses were neglected; it was too easy to tick boxes, as the previous Mayor did, to say, “I’ve delivered X affordable homes,” but they were flats rather than the family-sized houses that many of us think of when we hear the word “homes”. My request to the Minister is that he ensures the Government are fully aware that London’s special circumstances make it important to recognise the particular problems of housing associations when they are providing housing in areas where market rents are high.

14:49

[Frank Dobson (Holborn and St Pancras) (Lab)]

Research by the school of medicine at University College in my constituency suggests that apart from smoking, the principal sources of avoidable illness and premature death are overcrowding, homelessness, a poor standard of housing and insecurity of housing. We need to bear that in mind when discussing anything to do with housing.

The previous Government achieved quite a lot in improving the existing stock, but were carried away by the fashionable idea that the first step on the housing ladder is the cheapest place that people can buy. It seems to me that the first step on the housing ladder is somewhere decent to live that meets the needs of the people concerned, whatever the form of tenure. There is no excuse for the state of housing and the massive pressure for further social housing in London, including my area of Holborn and St Pancras, and Camden in general, because we should have a big drive to start building more houses.

It is very simple. We do not need a degree in some fantastical form of economics to conclude that if there are not enough houses, one of the things we do is build more of them. It has been done in the past—admittedly when I was leader of Camden council. I do not say that vaingloriously, but because it demonstrates that things can be done and problems addressed. During the 1970s, Camden council built no fewer than 500 new homes a year, and sometimes started as many as 1,000 a year. We were much mocked when we bought between 5,000 and 6,000 flats from the private sector, largely at the behest of the people living in them, sometimes in real slums but sometimes in mansion flats overlooking Parliament Hill Fields. Those people wanted to become council tenants because they wanted security of tenure and to get away from Rachmanite private landlords. The arrangement had the benefit of giving them security but it also meant that when anywhere fell vacant the council could let the property to people on the housing waiting list.

One of the consequences, which strikes me almost violently, is the difference between what happens at my advice surgeries now and what happened when I was first elected in 1979, at the end of the period of building and of the municipalisation of housing in Camden. When I was first a Member of Parliament, if people came to me and said, “We need somewhere decent for our family”, I would write to the council, which would write back. I used to tell people, “If you haven’t got a new flat in six or nine months, come back and see me.” Hardly any of them had to do that because they were rehoused. If I said that now, they would all be back because hardly anybody is rehoused any more. The problem has been that all those who form the leadership in our politics have not given sufficiently high priority to building and providing social housing for people who cannot afford to purchase a home.

Instead of buying and building property, there has been a lot of selling. Some councils, including Camden under the Lib Dem-Tory coalition—we had some experience of that between 2006 and 2010—sold off valuable street properties to the private sector. The housing associations in Camden, two of which were established as niche organisations to help solve problems, started selling off properties. Circle 33, which was founded in Primrose Hill in the 1970s, grew and grew, became Circle Anglia and started selling off much-needed property in my constituency so that it could use the funds to build social housing in Cambridge. That was not its purpose, in my opinion and that of most of the people I try to represent.

Even under Mrs Thatcher—I must give her credit for this—when public land became surplus, be it from the railways or the hospitals, the local authority was given first choice of whether it wanted to buy it for socially useful purposes. That prevailed for a long time when Mrs Thatcher was Prime Minister. Subsequently, doubtless at the Treasury’s behest, things were sold to the highest bidder. It is about time we went back to giving first go to using surplus public land for public social purposes.

In my area, it is as if someone has declared war on the prospect of providing more social housing. There is a proposal, which I support, for the biggest laboratory and research centre in the country to be located behind the British Library in Somers Town in my constituency. It is a combined effort by the Medical Research Council, Cancer Research UK, the Wellcome Trust and University College. It will undoubtedly make a major contribution to medical research worldwide, but it is located on a site, a substantial part of which was originally designated for housing. All the time that the talks were going on, I argued that some land that the Medical Research Council owns at the National Temperance hospital should be made available for the housing that would be displaced from the laboratory site. However, the Government have decided, “Oh, no. It should be sold on from the public sector.”

Similarly, when properties became surplus after the new University College hospital was built, a proposal, which local people and the council overwhelmingly supported, was made to knock down buildings and build decent housing on what was known as the Middlesex hospital annexe site. Two and a half years ago, a proposition by English Heritage to list the building was duly turned down. The law states that if a Minister wants to reverse that decision, they cannot do it within five years unless something new comes up. Someone managed to cobble together a connection between this ex-workhouse and Charles Dickens and claimed, at one point, that it was the workhouse described in “Oliver Twist”. Well, they had obviously not read even the first page of that book, because Oliver had to leg it to London from the workhouse in a country town often believed to be Kettering.

[Stephen Pound]

I am reluctant to intervene on my right hon. Friend, but as one who spent 10 years as a hospital porter at the Middlesex hospital, I can assure hon. Members that the connection is that Charles Dickens frequently gave public readings that funded the hospital’s building. That is the connection, although on Kettering my right hon. Friend is spot on.

[Frank Dobson]

But no one claimed that famous connection. Indeed, English Heritage was quite happy to nod through the demolition of the whole of the Middlesex hospital—we are talking about the annexe that was left. Anyway, that programme for a large number of new flats has been set back for God knows how long.

Similarly, there is meant to be the building of a lot of social housing on the King’s Cross railway lands behind King’s Cross station, but I understand that the project has been set back because Ministers are not prepared to help the private developer comply with the section 106 agreement that the developer entered into in order to get on and build some new flats. As a final encore from the Government, they are proposing not just to prevent the building of new social housing, but to knock down social housing for 360 people who live in the blocks of flats that will have to be knocked down if High Speed 2 is going to come into Euston, which is itself a ridiculous proposition.

We feel a trifle beleaguered in Camden. We are massively affected by the ludicrous increase in property prices in our area and the ludicrous increases in commercial rents. However, at the same time as rents are soaring out of sight, the Government, including those caring Liberal Democrats, have proposed the slashing of housing benefits. To demonstrate just how out of touch they are in setting the new housing benefit maximum levels, I will provide a simple illustration. A Member who lives outside London and needs to rent a single-bedroom flat in London is given the money—rightly—by the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority. IPSA has decided that the going rent in London for a single-bedroom flat is £340. That is the most it will pay. However, £340 appears to be a magic figure among public bosses these days, because the Government have decided that £340 is also the maximum housing benefit that can be paid to anybody in London for a three-bedroom flat. So officialdom now says, “One-bedroom flat for an MP: £340. Three-bedroom flat for a family: £340”. The fact is that the going rate for a one-bedroom flat probably is £340, but for a decent privately rented flat in London, £340 goes nowhere near towards meeting the costs of family accommodation.

There are all sorts of arguments about what we should do about this problem. My point is this: If in that great centre of capitalism, New York—so that includes Wall street—they still have rent controls in the private sector, I see no reason why we should not reintroduce rent controls in this country. If that upsets a few property developers or if the Gaddafi family’s property portfolio suffers from a cut in rental income, I do not really mind. I want rents to come down and there to be a massive increase in housing for those most in need, because as my hon. Friend the Member for Eltham (Clive Efford) pointed out, there are legions of people whose daily contribution to the life of this city makes it a tolerable place to live.

[Stephen Pound]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Frank Dobson]

I would rather not. I will just get on, because other people want to speak.

There is no chance now of a tube driver, an ambulance driver, an ordinary police constable, a nurse, a midwife or, in some cases, a junior doctor meeting anything like the going rate for a private sector home. They are out of that market altogether. If we want such vital people to contribute to making living in London tolerable, we have to go much further than we have in the past, under Governments of all persuasions, because otherwise the place will be torn apart. I know that the leader—at least for the time being—of the Liberal Democrats, the Deputy Prime Minister, objects to the term “social cleansing” in relation to driving up rents and removing security of tenure, but as the inventor of the phrase, I make no apologies for it, because that is what will happen. If people’s security of tenure is removed, and if rents are driven up and subsidies for them are also removed, they will be driven out.

People say that we are spending far too much on housing benefit—and indeed, one could not make a more truthful statement. I think the figure is £22 billion, and it is that high because the rents are too high. If we want to cut the amount of money going into housing benefit, the best thing would be to cut the rents. Rather than trying to cut housing benefit, we should cut the entitlement by ensuring that we reduce the rents.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Frank Dobson]

I will certainly give way to my hon. Friend, and then I will finish.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

Is my right hon. Friend aware that the Government’s claim is that when the housing benefit allowance is cut, the tenant can negotiate with the landlord, who will understand the situation and therefore reduce the rent? The Minister himself told me that in his office. I expressed some astonishment and decided to check up with Islington council, which has tried to negotiate rent reductions with landlords. The council tells me that, sadly, it is very difficult to do that, if not well nigh impossible, even for the most well-meaning and determined people. Surely the answer is not only controls, but investing £10 billion in housing, rather than £22 billion in housing benefit. That way we would all be a lot better off.

[Frank Dobson]

I entirely agree. Even if we transferred the money from the housing benefit account into the account of, at least, the public sector landlords who are charging high rents, that would bring rents down and be to everyone’s benefit.

My final point is this. Large numbers of places have been sold under the right to buy—certainly in my area—that have then been sold on by those who bought them or their children, following which the buy-to-let people have moved in. Therefore, somebody will have bought the flat with a massive subsidy from the taxpayer, then someone else will have bought it with a tax incentive and now they will be charging a rent that is two, three, four or five times higher than it would have been had the property never been transferred from the council’s ownership in the first place. So when people talk about public subsidy for housing, they should remember that the biggest imaginable public subsidy involves those who own or are buying a buy-to-let property that was formerly a council flat. That is the sort of thing that we need to stop, rather than rabbiting on about taking away security of tenure from all sorts of other people.

I hope that the Government will eventually take this matter seriously. One of the biggest housing programmes in my constituency was carried out by Neville Chamberlain when he was Minister of Health. Indeed, one of the buildings is called Chamberlain house. Tories should not be ashamed of their distant past record on social housing; all they need to do is revert to type and stop being mad marketeers.

15:11

[Heidi Alexander (Lewisham East) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) on securing this debate. I know that he has been a fearsome campaigner for social housing and all manner of other housing issues in London, and I am pleased to be able to make a contribution today.

I would also like to pick up on the comments made by the hon. Member for Ealing Central and Acton (Angie Bray), just before she leaves the Chamber. She said that London faces specific and often unique circumstances in relation to housing. Many people across the country might not understand that. When I tell my parents, who live in Swindon, that I spend a lot of my time doing work on housing, they look at me slightly quizzically, as if to say, “Why is that?”, but anyone listening to this debate must realise that London faces quite extraordinary circumstances.

According to an estimate by the Greater London authority, the cost of renting in London is 51% higher than anywhere else in the country, and the National Housing Federation has recently estimated that, in order to buy an average-price house in London, a first-time buyer would need a salary of almost £100,000. Social housing, whether it is owned by a local authority, an arm’s length management organisation or a housing association, therefore fulfils a large number of needs for people across the spectrum, including those on benefits and all the others we have heard about today: the construction workers, the public sector workers, the nurses and the doctors. Sometimes, when people outside the capital think about housing, they do not really understand the true nature of the housing market here.

I also want to reflect on the fact that we are having this debate on the day when people are going to the polls to vote on changing the voting system. A couple of weeks ago, I did my street surgery. I write to 2,000 residents once a month and say, “If you want to see me on a Saturday morning, please put this poster up in your window. I will come and sit in your front room and talk about whatever you want to talk to me about.” A couple of weeks ago, when the Westminster village and the media were getting very excited about today’s referendum on changing the voting system, all my constituents wanted, without fail, to talk to me about social housing. One elderly gentleman lived in a block of flats, and his wife had just broken her leg. They had lived there for 25 years. He said, “I just need the housing association to move us to the vacant flat downstairs.”

[Jeremy Corbyn]

That sounds very complicated!

[Heidi Alexander]

Well, I am really pleased to be able to tell my hon. Friend that the housing association—it is quite a large one, London and Quadrant—responded superbly when I contacted it. I am pleased to say that that gentleman has been moved to the flat that he wanted. So there are cases where housing associations respond and provide the sort of services people need, but that is not to say that there are not other circumstances in which couples desperately need to live in a more suitable home but cannot achieve that. There are hundreds of people whom I have seen in my surgeries and out on the doorstep since I became an MP whose families are living in desperately overcrowded situations—and it is mainly for those people that I make my remarks in today’s debate.

I shall speak on three main themes. The first is the massive need, as others have mentioned, for more homes that people can afford to rent. The second is the Government’s proposals on housing and how they relate to the wider welfare reform changes. I have a number of concerns about how they interrelate. Thirdly, I shall speak briefly on a topic that has not been mentioned so far—the proposed changes to the planning system and how some of them might result in fewer homes, particularly affordable homes, being built. I shall reflect on how proposals in the Localism Bill might make it harder to build the affordable homes that London needs.

Let me deal with the supply side first. We know that 350,000 people are on the social housing waiting list in London, and that one in 10 households are living in overcrowded conditions. As others have said, there is undoubtedly a massive need for more homes in London that people can afford to rent. Tackling the problem of under-occupation has been mentioned, and some argue that people are living in properties that are too big for the number of people living in them. I have seen research that shows that even if we tackled the problem of under-occupation in London completely, it would come nowhere near to solving the housing crisis.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

My hon. Friend makes an important point in that under-occupation is only a slight issue and tackling it would not solve the problem. If children move away from home and grandchildren are born, is there not something quite reasonable, normal and acceptable in the idea of those grandchildren going to stay with their grandparents in the house’s bedroom? Why should it be that those in social housing cannot lead the kind of lives that anyone living in an owner-occupied place would assume to be perfectly normal and sufficient for them and the entire family’s needs? Why cannot we be a bit more human about it?

[Heidi Alexander]

I entirely agree. Many people look forward to that sort of thing in later life. We need to ensure that, whatever policies are in place in future, we recognise that issue. I would say, however, that I sometimes meet constituents who are living in a large three-bedroom house and find it too hard to manage and cope with. Lewisham has a positive record as a local authority in providing the assistance needed to make a move easier. More can be done about under-occupation, but it will not solve the problems in London, as I said. In the rest of the country, it could make a significant difference, but not in London because of the scale of the challenge we face.

[Frank Dobson]

In my area, those who, like my hon. Friend’s constituents, want to move out of a large place—perhaps a widow or an elderly couple—are often reluctant to do so because the front room of the one-bedroom place they are offered is simply too small. One of the practicalities of dealing with the issue, then, would be to provide a bigger front room in those properties, as people are often reluctant to get rid of the nice furniture that they have had with them for a long time.

[Heidi Alexander]

My right hon. Friend makes a very good point, with which I entirely agree. Interestingly, I spoke a few months ago at the launch of the National Housing Federation’s “Breaking the mould” report, which looked at the housing needs of older people or those moving into later life. Given that one in five children born today will live to the age of 100, it is important for us to ensure that, as more people move into later life, we provide housing that meets the specific needs of our population.

Campaigns are sometimes mounted against the building of extra care housing. When I spoke at the launch of that report a few months ago, I encountered a gentleman who had been trying to build such housing through a church-sponsored scheme in north London. He was amazed at the degree of opposition that the scheme had generated in the local population, who said that the development was too big, too ugly and too wide. I could not help thinking that their concerns might be genuine. There is a desperate need for new forms of extra care housing, but we must give thought to the specific type of housing that is required, whether it is social or private sector housing. I shall say more about that later.

The hon. Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Mary Macleod), who is no longer in the Chamber, referred to the amount being invested in the national affordable house building programme. I asked her how that compared with the level of investment over the past three years. She declined to give me the answer, but I can give it to the House now. The national affordable house building programme has been cut by 63%. Between 2008 and 2011, £8.5 billion was invested in it, with a target of building 155,000 affordable homes. In the current comprehensive spending review period, between 2011 and 2015, £4.5 billion is being invested, and the Government have a similar target, namely the building of 150,000 affordable homes. That represents a halving of the programme. The budget has been slashed, and, whatever Boris Johnson or Government Members may say, that has dealt a devastating blow to the future of house building.

I mentioned Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London. I want to say a little more about some of his pronouncements about his record of building affordable homes. We have seen him on television recently, standing in front of new flats. I often scream at the television—I do not know whether other Members do as well—

[Jeremy Corbyn]

It does not solve anything.

[Heidi Alexander]

It does not, which is partly why I am making this speech in the House.

When Boris Johnson stands there and looks proudly at new homes, I feel like saying to him, and to the public, “Those new homes are a result of the Labour Government’s investment in housing. They are a direct result of the national affordable house building programme.”

I have been involved in regeneration and attempts to build new homes in Lewisham for a number of years, and I know how long it takes to get new developments off the ground. Any homes that are being built at the moment probably went through the planning process three or four years ago, and the commercial viability of the scheme was probably assessed and agreed three or four years ago. For Boris Johnson to stand there and claim this as his victory is entirely wrong. His record will relate to what happens in the years to come. As we have heard, the Homes and Communities Agency predicts that in a couple of years no new affordable housing will be being built in London. It will fall off a cliff face. Boris Johnson should bear in mind that that will be his legacy for London, not the legacy left by the last Labour Government.

Another thing that I wish to say about my experience of trying to deliver regeneration in Lewisham is that no thanks are due to the Liberal and Tory councillors in this regard. As soon as there was the faintest whiff of local opposition to a new housing scheme, whether it was a private sector development or affordable housing, they generally chose to vote against it. Some of the plans in the Localism Bill will make it easier for some of those nimbys to block development. If we really are going to build more homes, we need to be thinking about how the planning system works.

I have talked a little about the fact that the capital grant programme has been slashed and the Government seem to be moving to a way of funding new homes that relies on the future rents that they will get in from properties. The approach of allowing housing associations to build and charge 80% of market rents seems to relate to an argument about why capital grants are being reduced. My big problem with that approach is that I fear we are simply not going to build the type of housing that Londoners, including my constituents, can afford.

I have done a bit of research on the average rents in Lewisham in the private rented sector and for housing association properties, and I have thus been able to work out what 80% of market rent would mean. At the moment, the average median rent for a one-bedroom flat in Lewisham is £170 a week and the rent in a housing association for such a property is about £80 a week. An increase to 80% of the market rental value would make the cost £136 a week and would mean a weekly increase of about £55.

That is bad enough, but the average market rent for a four-bedroom flat or house in Lewisham is £300 a week. Someone living in a similar London and Quadrant property would pay, on average, £114 a week. If London and Quadrant builds new homes in Lewisham and charges 80% of market rent, that figure would increase to £240 a week, which is an increase of about £125 a week. That represents a monthly increase of £500 and an annual increase of £6,000 in someone’s housing costs. If someone is lucky enough to be in full-time work in Lewisham and they are on the minimum wage, they will be earning less than £12,000 a year, so how on earth are they going to find £6,000 extra to pay towards their housing costs? I cannot see how that will happen and the London Council agrees with me. Its recent briefing produced for councillors in London on the affordable rent model states:

“There is already a widespread recognition that the ARM will fail to deliver on larger sized family homes; and that, at 80% of market rates, the model’s maximum rent level will be unaffordable in the capital”.

As I have mentioned, I am also concerned about families living in overcrowded situations. When they are offered a flat or house at 80% of the market rate, how are they going to be able to afford it? If they are going to have to pay an extra £6,000 a year, they are not going to move and so will stay in the overcrowded flat that they are living in.

My hon. Friend the Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck) discussed in an intervention the additional costs that could be pushed on to housing benefit, and that is precisely what the affordable rent model could result in. I recently read an interesting report by Family Mosaic entitled “Mirror, signal, manoeuvre: our drive to provide more social housing”. Family Mosaic did some research on about 50 of its new tenants who moved into properties across London at the end of last year. Some of those people were in work and some had caring responsibilities; the real-life situations of a vast range of people were researched when putting together that report.

Family Mosaic estimates that if every one of those 50 individual households lived in a property at 80% of market rent, the housing benefit bill would increase by 151%. That is a huge amount of extra money that will have to go out in housing benefit and my hon. Friend the Member for Westminster North is completely right to say that that is a way not of tackling the deficit but of making it worse.

At the end of the report, Family Mosaic asks what we can do:

“How do we go forward?”

In answer, the report states:

“To mitigate this risk”—

the risk that people might not be able to afford the rents—

“we could change the profile of our tenant group, and not let new properties to those most in need: this, however, goes against our core principles.”

I am concerned about how the affordable rent model will deliver any homes in which people can afford to live.

[Mr Slaughter]

It is refreshing to hear that from a housing association. The quote is from the same report that I mentioned when I intervened on the hon. Member for Hendon (Mr Offord), who chose, for reasons best known to himself, to answer about security of tenure. The report completely gives the lie to the idea that so-called affordable rent—a piece of Orwellian speak if we have ever heard one—will be in any way affordable. It also states that 60% market rents will not be enough to enable

“a large proportion of tenants…to retain enough income to pay their rent and live according to government standards of affordability”.

[Heidi Alexander]

My hon. Friend is completely right. Our debate about what it is affordable to pay out in housing costs was interesting. My hon. Friend the Member for Islington North gave scenarios in which people might be spending 50% of their household income on their housing costs alone. I know that the Department for Communities and Local Government, in the guidance it published a number of years ago on how local authorities should carry out strategic housing market assessments—the Minister might wish to comment on this—says that the definition of affordable housing costs is a household paying 25% of its overall income on housing. We are clearly seeing situations in which households are paying much more.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

My hon. Friend makes a very important point and I have intervened on her now so that the Minister can have time to think about giving us an answer later. If a local authority ensures that an offer of a property is made at 80% of market rents and the family cannot afford to move into it, according to my understanding of the law, the local authority will have discharged its duty to provide a property for those homeless people who would then have no access to any public sector housing. They would only be able to access a completely free-market private sector. We will end up building a sub-class of people who are unhouseable in law and homeless in reality.

[Heidi Alexander]

It is a complete trap. I look forward to the Minister’s response to that.

I used some figures to demonstrate how much more people would have to pay out were they living in a family-sized property and being charged 80% of market rates. What concern me more are the proposals for universal credit in this context and what the £26,000 will mean for people in London who are paying out such amounts of money in their housing costs.

If we assume that the universal credit means that a family in London will get no more than £500 a week and that they are paying £240 a week for a four-bedroom flat at 80% of market rent in Lewisham, they will be left with £260 a week for all their other living costs. I presume that that £260 will cover their council tax benefit as well as payments for their gas, electricity and phone. We must also remember that if those people want to move into work, the costs of child care in the capital are much higher than elsewhere in the country and so are public transport costs. I therefore take this opportunity to ask the Minister to have conversations with his colleagues about how realistic the £26,000 universal credit cap is in a London context.

I draw a distinction between London and the situation elsewhere in the country. I heard my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) talk about his upbringing. My dad is an electrician. He has a nice house now. If he was an electrician in London, there is no way that he would live in the sort of house that he lives in now. He would tell me that £26,000 is a lot of money. His annual income has been about that figure for as long as I can remember. So I have some sympathy with what the Government are trying to do with welfare reform, but I ask them to consider carefully what that means for people in London. I have spoken a lot about figures, and they show how dreadfully difficult that reform could be for people who live in London on low incomes.

If the Government do not think that families on low incomes should be able to live in London, they should come clean and say so, because that will be the result of their proposals and policies. We have talked about the impact of housing benefit changes and the potential clearance from London of people who simply cannot afford to live in their private rented properties. They will have to move either to the outskirts of London or elsewhere.

Personally, I genuinely think that we must ensure that those people—my hon. Friend the Member for Eltham (Clive Efford) talked about them—who drive the lorries to clear our roads and who clean our offices and work in our shops can live close to their places of work. It is right to do that. It makes absolutely no sense for people to have to rely on the transport system, and it makes no sense to people’s lives when they have caring responsibilities and need to pick up their children from school. It is right that we have genuinely mixed communities of people able to live in central London. The proposals to change the welfare and housing benefit systems run a real danger of making that impossible in future.

Before I move on from the wider changes to welfare reform, I want to pick up another point: the possibility of paying housing benefit directly to tenants so that they can pay it to their landlords. Housing associations in the capital have some concerns about that. I see where the Government are coming from, and it is right to make people realise and think about quite how much it costs to live in a property—encouraging individual responsibility is a good thing—but equally, housing associations tell me that this is the worst time that the Government could consider giving housing benefit and accommodation support benefit, even if incorporated in universal benefit, straight to tenants, because we all know that their household incomes and budgets are coming under extreme pressure.

Housing associations also tell me that if rent arrears increase, they could find it harder to borrow money because their cash flow will be less secure. They are concerned that the banks will re-price their debts when they borrowed the money to build homes. I hope that the Minister will pick up on some of those concerns when he responds.

I want to say a little about planning. I served on the Committee that considered the Localism Bill for a number of weeks, and I have a number of concerns about how the Bill’s proposals will impact on the construction of new affordable homes in London. I think the Chancellor said when he announced his Budget that there would be a presumption in favour of sustainable development, and that is completely at odds with what is said about planning in the Localism Bill. I am not saying that there are not occasions on which people should be able to say, “No, that development is not appropriate.” Indeed, there is a housing development like that in my constituency at the moment in a place called Pitfold close. It is right that local people should have a say about what happens in their neighbourhood, but what the Government propose, as many hon. Members will know, is the creation of neighbourhood forums that will be able to come up with neighbourhood plans. The Minister with responsibility for decentralisation, the Minister of State, Department for Communities and Local Government, the right hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark), who was on the Bill Committee, seemed to think that those neighbourhood plans would always contain higher housing numbers than the strategic plan for the local area, but my experience of attempts to bring development forward is that local people often want to say no.

I can understand people’s concerns about new homes. If a block of flats going up at the end of the road would cut out the sunlight to someone’s garden, I can understand why they might say, “I am not too happy about that.” I can understand why people might say, “How’s my child going to get into the new school?”; “How am I going to get on to the doctor’s or dentist’s list?”; or “What about all those cars coming down my road, blocking up the road network?” I understand why people are concerned about new development, but if we give too much power in the planning process to very small community groups in these neighbourhood forums, which it is proposed would include only three people, I am not sure that we will get the levels of house building in the capital that we need.

While I am on the subject of planning, there was much debate in the Committee about the 50% target, whereupon the Minister would jump out of his seat and say, “Ah, well, even though you had the 50% target, Ken Livingstone delivered only 36%,” to which I would say that at least we tried. Setting that target and saying that we believe the provision of affordable housing is so important that half of all the new homes built in the capital should be affordable is the right message to send to developers and planning officers. When those planning officers sit down at the table and start their negotiations, they should be saying, “Ideally, we want 50% of new homes to be affordable.” Yes, there will be some situations in which it is impossible to do that because of the commercial realities of the scheme, but it is right to have that target.

[Angie Bray]

Does the hon. Lady agree that one problem with aggressively setting such a target, as the previous Mayor of London discovered, was that many developers were put off coming into more expensive parts of London altogether because it was not worth their while financially? They tended to be put off rather than coming forward to work out what they might have been able to afford to do.

[Heidi Alexander]

There will be different situations in different parts of London, but I suggest that the hon. Lady goes back and looks at the figures for the number of home starts in London and the number of new homes that it is predicted will start in the next couple of years because of the policies of the Tory Mayor of London we now have.

I have probably tried Members’ patience by making a longer speech than I had anticipated making. I will end by giving an anecdote about someone whom I met a number of years ago, whose story sticks in my mind as a reason why we have to tackle the housing crisis in London. This picks up on a number of points that have already been made about the impact of poor-quality housing on people’s life chances—how healthy they are, how well they do at school, and how able they are to succeed economically. I was once asked to visit a family in an overcrowded flat in Deptford. When I was there I met a young man of 19 and chatted to him while his mum was doing something before she came to speak to me. I asked him if he was studying or was at school and he said, “I am retaking my GCSEs because I didn’t get the grades I wanted.” Later in the visit, it transpired that he was sleeping in an armchair in the living room. He had no bed to sleep in because the flat was so overcrowded. I thought to myself, how on earth can this young man do well at school? How can he get the GCSEs that he needs to go on to study at university, as he wants?

That image will probably stay with me for the rest of my life. That is why we have to do something to increase the supply of affordable homes in the capital. I am sorry to say that everything that the Government are doing in respect of housing makes it so much less likely that we will see the new homes that we so desperately need.

15:45

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

It is a delight to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham East (Heidi Alexander). I shall be interested to hear how the Minister responds to her devastating critique. I congratulate my very good friend the hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn). As he said, we go back a very long way. When I joined Haringey council many years ago, it was pronounced to me, as a new member, “Don’t worry; we’ve almost solved the housing waiting list problem in Haringey.” That was a year before Mrs Thatcher savagely cut housing investment programmes—and if I may say so, we appear to be going round the same cycle again.

I want to focus on two main areas. The first is the local housing allowance changes and their impact throughout London. Secondly, I want to reiterate points that have been made by many other people, including my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham East but also, very pleasingly, by the hon. Member for Ealing Central and Acton (Angie Bray), on affordable housing and the problems that the new regime is creating. Before I do, I should like to give a brief overview of the housing situation in my borough, the London borough of Enfield.

We suffer from extreme housing stress. Indeed, we are told that Enfield is the fourth most stressed housing authority in the country, and easily the most stressed in outer London. For owner-occupation, the cost of an average house in Enfield has tripled since 1995. That is not particularly exceptional for London. The price to income ratio is now 9—again, not exceptional, but it makes owner-occupation unaffordable for a very large majority of the people living in the borough.

One in four of all households in Enfield are currently in receipt of some form of housing benefit. That is a 36% increase since 2005. There is some relatively good news, in the sense that the number of households in temporary accommodation has gone down from 3,400 in 2006 to 2,300 in the latest year for which we have figures. Interestingly, that has happened mainly as a result of the deposit scheme that the previous Government introduced, which has made going into the private rented sector a good deal more secure than it was.

Sadly, locally, overcrowding in the social sector, and particularly the council sector, has increased markedly in recent years. The most common form of overcrowding in the social sector is in two-bedroom properties, among families looking to move to three, four and five-bedroom accommodation. That is where the biggest overcrowding problem is, and I will return to that because it is critical to what we are discussing today.

Others have already said that local housing allowances are very much a London issue. It is not just that rents are 50% higher in London than anywhere else; the private rented sector is much more important in London than anywhere else. Enfield is not currently affected by the changes being made to the caps. I note from documents recently released that there is some transitional protection for those in the private rented sector in central London, but that lasts only until 2012, so we can see the nightmare looming on the horizon. Indeed, there are already signs of it: my local authority did a little survey of who was claiming housing benefit or local housing allowance, and 28% of recent claims were made by people coming into the borough from outside. Many will not be from central London, but quite a lot of them will be.

London Councils estimates that more than 18,500 households will be affected by the changes, so we see that the changes could have a dramatic impact, not just in inner London—Members have spoken about the impact there—but in outer London. By 2016 quite a lot of outer-London boroughs will be unaffordable for tenants in the private rented sector. Quite a lot of boroughs will be affected, including Barking and Dagenham. In Enfield around three quarters of accommodation, mainly in the eastern half of the borough, will still be affordable then. Indeed, Enfield has estimated—I should probably say guesstimated—that upwards of 2,000 additional local housing allowance claims could be made following the ending of the temporary support for people on local housing allowance in central London.

What impact would that have on Enfield? We discussed the subject earlier. My hon. Friend the Member for Islington North mentioned that quite a lot of Islington tenants are temporarily housed in Enfield. I think the latest estimate is that more than 2,000—certainly a very significant number—of temporary accommodation tenants from other parts of London are housed in the London borough of Enfield. I mention that because if we have an influx as a result of the policies introduced by this Government, it will add quite a lot of pressure.

The issue of school places in Redbridge was raised earlier; we already have an acute problem. We have knocked on the Government’s door, asking them to help us with primary school places. That will be another difficulty for us. Of course, additional demands will also be placed on social and welfare services. We have not been able to estimate locally what the impact would be on private sector rents, but if demand increases, rents are likely to go up. Will that lead to greater overcrowding? Possibly. Even though we have a better record on homelessness in our area, it is still very high locally. Of course, that will put additional pressure on the very limited social housing in the borough.

I could talk about increases in poverty and deprivation. Many are concerned that with the changes in London, community cohesion is being strained to the limit. I would not subscribe to that view, but the significant movements that are going on are having an impact. Not all those impacts are caused by local housing allowance changes, but the changes will certainly exacerbate them.

To pick up on a point that the hon. Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Mary Macleod) put to Labour Members, what should we do? The first thing that we need to do is review the cap; it just does not make any sense for inner London. Setting the local housing allowance at the 30th percentile of rents will have a negative impact on London in particular, and the Government really need to look seriously at the implications of the local housing allowance changes that they are suggesting.

[Mary Macleod]

Does the hon. Gentleman not agree that in some cases, albeit not many, ridiculous sums of money were spent? There were families receiving £104,000-worth of housing allowance. That is ridiculous, when other people who are working and earning much less cannot afford the rents that we have discussed.

[Mr Love]

If we searched long and hard enough we might be able to find an individual instance of someone receiving such sums. If I may say so, it is a bit like the Bob Crow issue that was raised earlier, and is entirely a diversion from the reality that people face in London. What we need to do in any debate in the House—indeed, it is incumbent on us to do so if we are to represent our constituents—is discuss the reality, rather than a figment of someone’s imagination involving Bob Crow.

[Jane Ellison]

We all accept that some of the exceptional cases that make the newspapers are just that. Nevertheless, at the general election the hon. Gentleman stood on a manifesto that made a commitment to look at and substantially reduce housing benefit. It was not just Conservatives who recognised that that was a problem; the hon. Gentleman’s own party manifesto recognised that it was, too, and made a commitment to reduce the cost of housing benefit.

[Mr Love]

I would not disagree with anything that has just been said, or deny that that was in my party’s manifesto. We must always look at the cost of housing benefit, as with any other welfare benefit. Of course, there is sympathy for trying to limit the amounts paid out from the public purse, if for no other reason than to stop, to put it colloquially, the Daily Mail headlines that we see every day and in every way. I accept that, but it is not reflected in the changes that the Government have made. They have gone much, much further, and those changes impinge on the real lives of ordinary people. As was said only a few moments ago, the people who are affected are train drivers, tube workers and hospital staff.

[Lyn Brown]

Is it not the case that the Government have changed and cut housing benefit for 1 million people to deal with what may be just a handful of people in the extreme circumstances of charging the taxpayer enormous amounts for their rent?

[Mr Love]

Absolutely. That is the question that we wish to put to the Minister, and I hope that he will respond. We are not asking, “Have you taken housing benefit from someone who was receiving £100,000?” We would hope that that would be looked at carefully and sensibly, and we hope that if that was suggested, it would be done. What we are asking is why the Government are taking from families on low incomes in enormous housing stress and multiple deprivation their one lifeline of accommodation.

Let me park that issue and move on to the next, which is ever so important—the supply of affordable accommodation in London. As has been said by everyone, it is obvious that we need to increase supply to tackle severe housing stress in London. Let me repeat something that was said earlier, now that the hon. Member for Brentford and Isleworth is back in the Chamber. She was asked how much grant funding had been slashed: it has been slashed by 63%, and how the Government can stand by and say that they can sustain the supply of affordable rented accommodation on the basis of a 63% cut beggars belief. Their argument is that the revenue from higher rents can be used to build houses that would not otherwise be built because grant is not available. The first thing that should be said about that is that the Homes and Communities Agency says that it will provide grant funding towards the building of accommodation, but only where the expectation—that is the word used is that the rents will be close to the maximum 80%. It also says that the tenancy should be of two years or thereabouts. Therefore, it is looking to set conditions.

What will be the impact of those changes? Everyone who has spoken from the Opposition Benches has already mentioned this, but I will say it again for emphasis. According to independent figures produced not by Opposition Members or Labour-dominated local authorities, but by independent commentators, in the year to 2011—before all this comes into place—there has been a 20% drop in housing starts. There is forecast to be a 40% drop between 2010 and 2013, and, as has already been said, because of the uncertainties and the dramatic change that is being brought in by the Government, the whole thing falls off a cliff after 2013. I hope that the Minister will give some reassurance that the Government are aware of that problem and will do something about it.

I tried to get figures out of my local authority. It proudly proclaimed that in the years from 2008 to 2011 it would reach the target of building 648 new properties, but it takes a long time to build houses, so they were all built—if I may put it this way—under the administration of the former Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone. It also tells me that a significant reduction is anticipated. It could not quantify that, and it is still early days to be able to do so, but the local authority was secure in the knowledge that the number would be significantly lower. Therefore, what credence can we give to the figures being produced by the Mayor of London, and what are the Government doing to address this problem?

The problem with the slump in the supply of accommodation is the affordable rent model and the complex interaction between “affordable”—however that is defined; we seem to be redefining it continuously—and the introduction of universal credit in 2013. As background to this, in my local authority two thirds of all social tenants are on housing benefit, either partially or fully, so this affects a large proportion of my electorate. Comparisons of social rents with market rents show where the problem arises. In my local authority area, for one-bedroom accommodation it is 40% of the market rate, and for three bedrooms it is 33%. For RSLs, the equivalent figures are 45% and 41%. But on re-lets, where the rent goes up somewhat, it is 58% for one bedroom and 42% for three. It goes down even further for larger accommodation.

I would like to spread a little good news to ease the situation for the Minister. Under the current rules, accommodation in Enfield is affordable, whether one is working or not. As was mentioned earlier, however, under universal credit the figures will be capped at £500 a week. My local authority has worked out that if rents are set at 80%, as is being suggested, an average family, living in three-bedroom accommodation, will pay 46% of their universal credit in rent. They will have only 54% left for all the other necessities of life. If, on the other hand, we use the definition of affordability used by Enfield, and I think by many others, which is that no family should pay more than 30% of their income in rent, and no single person or childless couple should pay more than 35%, on a three-bedroom property, they would pay only 52% of market rent. So there is a very stark choice for everyone.

We do not yet know what the definition of “working” will be; it has been suggested that the cap might not apply to working households, but we do not know what “working” means. Many people in my constituency—and, I suspect, all over London—are in work, out of work, back in work and back out of work. How will it all pan out? I hope that the Minister can reassure us that the Government recognise the problem that I am trying to convey and have solutions to it.

[Clive Efford]

One of the things that the Government have never understood about their cap on the housing benefit limits in the private rented sector is that many in that sector are in work. They receive benefit because of the high rents in their areas. It is those people who will be shifted out of those areas and probably forced into unemployment.

[Mr Love]

We are waiting to see. As I understand it, there is not complete clarity on how people in work will be dealt with, how “work” will be defined and whether part-time work will be taken into account. I rest my case in the hope that the Minister will respond to some of my concerns.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

I want to follow up the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Eltham (Clive Efford). I was recounting the figures earlier; there are at least three London boroughs in which the 80% rule on rent levels is higher than the average income of people in work and who live in council housing association properties. There will be 100% social cleansing of Kensington and Chelsea, Westminster and perhaps some other boroughs as well. I am talking about people in work, not on benefits.

[Mr Love]

Absolutely. That reinforces the message that we are looking for flexibility and a recognition of the reality that people face in inner London. As has been mentioned, there are areas where rents are so much higher than anything suggested in the Government proposals. Unless the Government recognise the gap that will open up as a result of their policies, my hon. Friend will be absolutely right—the cleansing of social tenants will occur. That cannot be good for community cohesion or the economy of London; it is certainly not good for the people affected. I hope that the Government will recognise that, even now.

What are my local housing associations saying about the situation? It is early days, and they do not have firm enough data. However, they have been asked to submit proposals to the HCA. What they have come up with is that the 80% may be viable for one-bedroom accommodation. There is much more of a judgment in relation to two-bedroom accommodation, and for accommodation with three bedrooms or more, the figure is simply not economically viable. In other words, no family accommodation will be built at a time, when the real need in the social sector, because of overcrowding, is for accommodation with three bedrooms or more. There is an acute shortage of large family accommodation for those on the housing waiting list.

If we stick to the rules outlined by the Government, we will find that we are not building any large family accommodation. My housing associations suggest that there should be a target rent, rather than whatever the definition of an “affordable” rent would be. That would be intermediate between what we have generally known as affordable social renting in the past and the new so-called affordable rents suggested by the Government. The housing associations will put that suggestion to the HCA, and we shall see what eventually emerges. Anything the Minister can say about it will be helpful.

To respond to the invitation given by the hon. Member for Brentford and Isleworth, what housing associations tell me is that there must be flexibility on the £500 cap. There are different ways of doing it. The Government could separate the housing element from the rest of the universal credit, or they could give more universal credit in parts of London that are adversely affected, which would in fact include most of London. Flexibility is the key.

Another issue is increased capital investment and one way of providing that is through a bank bonus tax, as I said earlier. That investment is incumbent on the Government. If they do not want their Mayor of London to have egg on his face over his so-called target for affordable accommodation during his time in office, they need to do something about it. The system will not work as it stands. A sensible and pragmatic Government would be flexible in adapting it so that they could achieve what they claim to want—a significant increase in the supply of affordable accommodation.

I hope the Minister will be able to pick up those points. There is great concern, not just in inner London, which is mainly affected by the proposals, but in outer London too. These matters relate specifically to London; they do not apply in most other parts of the country and I hope the Minister will communicate the message to the Government. They need to be flexible about London. We all hope that things will improve in the future.

16:12

[Jane Ellison (Battersea) (Con)]

Before I make my few remarks, I draw Members’ attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. In case anyone is curious about it, I rent out the flat I lived in previously. I am in every sense a small landlord. It is slightly unhelpful that whenever people talk about landlords, they constantly refer to Rachman and the like; it has peppered this debate. There are lots of good small landlords, just as there are some good big landlords. It is important that we acknowledge that and do not descend into cliché.

We have had a good debate. There are clearly some ideological differences across the Chamber and within parties, but we all know that there is an issue. Although the debate has been forced on us by circumstances, inasmuch as we appear to be almost the only MPs left in the building, it has been really useful to have a London-focused debate, because we all acknowledge that London is different. Indeed, it is unique.

As the Member for Battersea, I welcome and enormously enjoy representing a genuinely mixed community. I want to continue to represent a mixed community. One of the great joys of London is the amazing mix of people. This morning, I was out at an unearthly hour delivering leaflets in my constituency and I noticed the extraordinary conjunction of posh flats, tower blocks and rows of terraced houses. It is one of the things that makes London amazing and it is an honour to represent a London constituency.

I have a few remarks about a practical solution that my council, Wandsworth, has been putting into practice for some years. When I talk about the number of new homes created under the scheme, Members may think it is relatively small given the scale of need identified during the debate; nevertheless, it has brought real homes to real people in need over the last 10 years, and I take this opportunity to highlight it.

The project is called the hidden homes programme. In 2002, Wandsworth undertook an enormous survey of all its properties and started the first hidden homes initiative. It is an odd title, because obviously the homes are not hidden; they were previously hidden, but they should now be called uncovered homes. Wandsworth undertook a survey of its entire estate and looked at the potential to bring back into use as homes all the rooms and spaces that were designed into the 1950s and 1960s blocks but are no longer needed—storerooms, laundry rooms, the big old boiler rooms, some unused garage spaces and so on. Many of those spaces are abandoned and, as we all know, places where antisocial behaviour lurks. The opportunity was there not only to create some new homes, but to design out crime from some of the estates.

To date, Wandsworth council has built 183 affordable homes, latterly with a housing association partner. There is a potential programme to bring many more new dwellings on stream. Wandsworth estimates that around 10,000 such new homes could be created across London, and 70,000 nationally, if all councils replicated the programme. It means creating valuable additional housing units at relatively low cost because the land is already owned. The acquisition of land, which, as we all know, is one of the great hurdles in London because it is very expensive, is therefore not a problem, and the council can crack on with building.

Planning permission is also relatively easy to secure. If a scheme is offered that could design out crime in areas where antisocial behaviour takes place, residents will greatly welcome that. Again, a box is ticked on that front. Another particularly positive aspect of the building programme is that it often involves valuable ground-floor and basement properties. Many of those who come to our surgeries have particular needs, which means that ground-floor accommodation is greatly in demand. Some properties have been designed and built from the start with adaptations for families who have a disabled member. The scheme therefore has many positives, and the accommodation has been provided quickly.

Another nice aspect is that many properties are unique in character. As I was slotting a few leaflets through letterboxes this morning, I was thinking that, as many of us recognise, people in social housing have the same desire as anybody else to live in a unique home, which has character and perhaps some quirkiness, rather than something standardised and mass produced. Again, the scheme has much to offer.

In 2006, Wandsworth council built almost half the new council homes in London through the scheme. It is important, and I understand that three other boroughs are considering it. Some are already some way down the line of looking to do the same on their estates. Wandsworth council has always said that it is happy to share ideas and expertise. Obviously, people learn along the way—it is not always plain sailing. Some of the adaptations— I have come across one or two in basements—have been challenging. However, expertise is available in identifying potential sites and putting together suitable packages.

I encourage other Members to consider that approach in their authorities. As I said, some authorities are looking at the scheme, and it is well worth bringing it up and considering the potential. I do not pretend that it represents anything other than a small contribution towards solving London’s housing, but if it can be brought on stream quickly and relatively cheaply, what’s not to like?

I want briefly to consider under-occupation. I thank the hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) for securing the debate, not least because, as a member of the Backbench Business Committee, I must say that it was not an easy day to offer to supplicant Members, either in Westminster Hall or the Chamber. There was not a huge queue for the day, so it was excellent that we could have the debate and that the hon. Gentleman secured it. However, I want to pick up on one of his points about people’s need for a civilised family life in the context of solving under-occupation. The right hon. Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Joan Ruddock) also mentioned that. More imaginative thinking is being applied to the matter. The problem cannot be solved by saying, “Here’s the number of people, here’s the number of rooms. That’s it.” Clearly, that will not work.

We have talked about the needs of older people. We need to recognise that it might not be possible to persuade someone to move from a three-bedroom flat to a one-bedroom flat, but it might be possible to move someone from a three-bedroom flat to a two-bedroom flat with room for the grandchildren to stay or for someone who comes regularly to keep them company. Those things are really important. Many housing associations and the National Housing Federation are considering them and trying to encourage people to take that approach. They are not taking the one-size-fits-all approach.

[Lyn Brown]

I say gently to the hon. Lady that although that is a very humane way of looking at it, the current housing benefit policy would not make it possible.

[Jane Ellison]

I am not sure I entirely agree with that, if we are talking about older people and pensioners, in particular. Nevertheless, the housing associations are considering the matter, and it is something that we could all look to encourage as well.

I want to deal with another matter that I feel strongly about and that has been alluded to already. I think that the hon. Member for Eltham (Clive Efford) asked why people are not angry or marching on Parliament and so on, given that so many people sign petitions about other things. There is a genuine problem in how we democratically represent the housing problem. One of the biggest challenges we face is that we often do not speak on behalf of the people who are not yet living in an area. The voices to which MPs and councillors listen—rightly—are those of the people already living in their areas. However, there remains a democrat deficit when it comes to speaking up for the people who want to live in an area but are not yet there. Naturally representatives will tend to voice the concerns of local residents.

MPs and councillors have to set themselves a challenge. It was slightly naughty of the hon. Member for Lewisham East (Heidi Alexander) to suggest that nimbys are limited to any one party. I do not think that is true; there are nimbys across all parties, and probably, if we look to our own consciences, everyone at some point in their political lives has thought in their heart of hearts, “Hang on, actually there is a real need for this housing, but there is a huge local campaign against it.” Sometimes we have to take courage and say to someone, “No, I’m sorry, but there is a real housing need.” I did it recently at an exhibition on my patch. A lady was saying, “Oh, there are going to be too many houses and so on”, and I said, “I’m sorry, but there is a terrific housing need in London, and this is an urban area with brilliant transport links. This is a really great place to build some new homes. So I do support this building.” We have all got to be prepared to do that from time to time.

On a tangential point in relation to what is happening today around the country, I voted no in the AV referendum this morning, mainly because I worry about encouraging blandness and people’s desire to try to please everybody. Sometimes we have to show leadership and be prepared occasionally to be unpopular, perhaps in the short term or with a particular group of residents. Giving political leadership means that occasionally we have to be prepared to go against the grain, and housing is a good example of an issue in which we should be prepared to do that. There are things we can do. We have to encourage great design and sensitive interaction with local residents. I have seen the amazing difference that it can make if the people who want to build have in place a good programme of communication, but I have also seen terrible programmes with really bad models and representations and in which people have been treated with arrogance. I have seen good and bad examples.

We have to do much to convince people about designing out antisocial behaviour and crime. We all know that when we talk about building new blocks of social housing, some people worry that it will bring a disproportionate amount of antisocial behaviour.

[Heidi Alexander]

The hon. Lady has made a thoughtful and persuasive speech. On some of the understandable concerns that her constituents express about new developments, what assessment has she made of the provisions in the Localism Bill for neighbourhood forums? Does she think that those forums will come forward with plans to build new housing, including suitable housing for older people?

[Jane Ellison]

That is a fair question, and it takes us back to my point about leadership. We will have to engage with the problem, put the case to people and be a voice for those who have not yet got a home in our areas. People’s natural instinct is to be wary, and I acknowledge that it will not be easy, but I think we have a role there. There are sensible ways of proceeding—such as by presenting some of the benefits to the local area—although sometimes someone who objects to new houses being built might take one view as a resident, but will see things from another perspective when we talk to them about their children or grandchildren struggling to get on to the housing ladder or to find a home close to where the family has always lived. We all have a leadership role to play, although sometimes the objections will be entirely valid, as we all know. However, we have to be equally prepared to engage with the process and speak up on behalf of those who really are voiceless—people in great housing need or those who are sofa-surfing. They have fallen down the cracks of the democratic system, and we have to be imaginative on their behalf.

To finish, let me say that infrastructure planning is incredibly important, because as the hon. Lady said, people often object when they look at a scheme and ask, “Well where’s the school? Where’s the post office? Where are the car parking spaces? How will my local train or tube station cope?” It is important not to divorce the two, particularly in London—my view is that London is almost a mini-economy of its own. I am glad that many of the big infrastructure programmes have continued to go ahead and I welcome the fact that the Mayor is pressing ahead with some of those important transport capacity expansion projects. If we go to local communities with a plan that makes sense and that shows that we have thought through all the issues, we are more likely to find that people will engage willingly with the need to create more housing and expand our communities to meet the need that we all acknowledge exists in this amazing city that we all represent.

16:25

[Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

Having listened to the whole debate this afternoon, I hope that the rest of the country leaves us to it more often, because it has been a very interesting debate. I have enjoyed all the speeches, from both sides of the House. I would make particular mention of the contributions from the Government Benches, because we have heard some of the more thoughtful and compassionate speeches from Conservative Members—that is probably why there were only three of them.

I would also like again to thank the sponsor of the debate, my hon. Friend the Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn), who really does know his onions on this issue. He has driven many debates on the issue over the six years that I have been in this House, and we are all grateful that he keeps it at the top of the agenda.

Without embarrassing him, I would also like to mention my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell), who reminded us what this issue is all about. Those of us who are housing anoraks can get tied up in housing benefit regulations—particularly my hon. Friend the Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck)—and how the housing revenue account works, but in the end, this debate is about human beings. It is about our constituents. We would not think of half-teaching someone to read or performing half an operation, so it genuinely puzzles me that we should be content as politicians to leave people living in the most appalling conditions in our capital city. Not only has that happened throughout the tenure of all recent Governments, but it is getting worse. That is why the Government cannot afford to be complacent today.

The period when I was born, 50 years ago in Fulham, was what we would probably now call the heyday of social housing, following the Bevan period, when he was the Minister responsible for both health and housing in the 1945 Government. He genuinely understood the importance of housing as a public service, and although he probably would not have used the phrase “life chances”, he knew that housing is important to people’s life chances, just as it is to their basic health. That period was followed by Macmillan and other Tory Governments who would also have prided themselves on building a sufficient supply of housing—and doing so in what were, quite frankly, much more difficult economic times than today—to meet the nation’s need. Why that is no longer an ambition I do not understand. When I was growing up, council housing was the kind of housing that people aspired to. The houses had plumbing, for God’s sake! They had central heating and running hot water. They had inside toilets. In the ’60s and ’70s in Fulham, those things were not to be found in the private rented sector or even in the owner-occupied sector.

Yes, that was the era of estates, and there were good estates and bad ones, but—to follow up on a point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington—they did not start leaking and falling down after four years, as they do now. An example of that is the South Acton estate, which I used to represent. The hon. Member for Ealing Central and Acton (Angie Bray) might want to have a look at that. Many of the estates were very good ones, and they are still standing to this day and providing good-quality, affordable homes with a good space standard.

That was also the era of acquiring properties. Councils around London—Hammersmith, Islington and others—bought up private sector slum properties, renovated them and converted them into housing, sometimes with several flats in one Victorian house. There are now thousands of those properties in boroughs around London. Those boroughs are now being targeted by the designated sales policies of Conservative councils, but those were the mixed communities. When we walk down the street in Hammersmith, we see council and housing association accommodation and privately rented and owner-occupied houses next to each other in a row. Ironically, those are the mixed communities that the Government are seeking to destroy.

Fifty years ago, there were also housing action areas. Grants were available not only to private sector tenants but to poorer owner-occupiers to ensure that they had basic facilities in their homes. That was also the era that saw the start of the housing associations.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

Does my hon. Friend acknowledge that housing action areas came in at the end of the wholesale building clearance policy and did a great deal to preserve London’s Victorian heritage and, at the same time, to preserve communities? They are something that we should applaud and welcome.

[Mr Slaughter]

Absolutely. Those areas presented a win-win situation. They maintained buildings that we now value, which some politicians and planners in the ’60s and ’70s did not value, and they also provided good-quality homes in which people could live and bring up their families while enjoying the facilities that most of us take for granted today.

[Clive Efford]

Has my hon. Friend read a book by Professor Peter Hennessy, who is now in the House of Lords? One of the points that he makes in the book is that the soldiers who liberated France after the invasion of Europe found themselves liberating people who were living in better conditions than those of their families back in England. The title of the book is “Never Again”. When those soldiers came back, one of the driving issues in the subsequent election was housing. That led to the era of building the communities and housing to which my hon. Friend has just referred. We have lost that sense of mission, but we need to get it back.

[Mr Slaughter]

I have not read that particular book, but my hon. Friend is absolutely right to make that point. In my constituency, we have what used to be called “homes for heroes” estates that were built after the first world war. There are also 1930s garden estates, such as the Wormholt estate in Shepherd’s Bush. Those are fantastic examples of social housing, but the Tory politicians always seem to overlook them when they are decrying social housing and social housing communities.

Getting back to the subject of housing associations, I am going to read from the “Our history” page on the Notting Hill housing association website. Talking about how the association was set up, it says:

“In 1962…our founder Bruce Kenrick…came to live in Notting Hill in West London. He was shocked by social and financial inequalities experienced by poor and immigrant communities in West London. He later wrote:

‘What struck me painfully was the extent to which people’s problems stemmed from housing conditions. Marriages broke up because one or other partner could no longer stand the strain of living in one room with a stove and sink squeezed into one corner.’

In December 1963 Bruce Kenrick, together with a group of equally committed individuals, formed a new, proactive type of voluntary housing organisation. Notting Hill Housing Trust was born. Within our first year, we had bought five houses and housed 57 people. Within five years, we had become a large presence in west London, housing nearly 1,000 people.”

I shall refer to the Notting Hill housing association later in my speech, in a less flattering light. In those days, however, people aspired to build decent housing for the working poor, and indeed for the ordinary citizens of London.

Twenty-five years ago—I think it was 25 years ago this week that I was first elected as a councillor in the London borough of Hammersmith—we had what we then thought was a housing crisis. Now, however, I think we would be quite grateful for the conditions that obtained then. It was a difficult time. Right to buy under the Thatcher Governments had depleted some of the best social housing stock, and problems of disrepair were growing yearly because of the neglect by Tory Governments and Tory councils of the council housing stock, which was already becoming a feature of the division between the political parties on this issue. Overcrowding was increasingly becoming an issue, too. Even in the mid-80s, however, it was possible to have hard-to-let properties; there was not the same degree of pressure or the same level of market rents or prices that forced people to live in ever-more overcrowded housing.

I have glossed over the period of the Labour Government because it has already been dealt with. I will say, however, that I think it was a mixed record. Decent homes was a good programme, but I am not sure that the voice of London was heard strongly enough in those times. Decent homes became so much of a priority that housing supply, which is such a big issue for us today, did not get a fair crack of the whip. I recall that during some of the years when I was running a local authority, we tried by hook and by crook to build as many socially rented and intermediate homes as we could—and we succeeded as best we could—but housing supply remained a failure overall. I regret that. I believe that the last Prime Minister got it and I believe that the present Leader of the Opposition certainly gets it. Prime Minister Blair, however, did not get it when it came to the importance of housing, not just as a public service but as an important part of the country’s economy.

With that brief history, we come to today. Other Members have mentioned the statistics, which are important. The housing waiting list in Hammersmith and Fulham is the highest I think it has ever been, with 9,361 households—more than 12%—on it, even though it is one of the smallest boroughs in London. Those figures are often manipulated. Over the recess, I spent some days on the public inquiry into the new core strategy —this is how I spend my leisure time—and found the council claiming that there were only 3,000 on the waiting list, which is only a third of the official figures according to the House of Commons Library.

As I look down this list, I notice that the famous Tory boroughs of Kensington and Chelsea, Wandsworth and Westminster appear to have low numbers on their waiting lists—just 4% and 7% of their populations. That is half or even a quarter of the figures for some of the Labour boroughs. It is not because there is no housing stress in those boroughs—on the contrary, there is; they have a worse record on the supply of affordable housing than most Labour boroughs. It is because the lists are manipulated in a most unseemly way. People are discouraged in every way from going on the lists.

[John McDonnell]

It is a process of discouragement. I know of families in my borough who have been threatened with having their children taken into care if they seek to declare themselves homeless. That has happened too frequently for it to be no more than anecdotal evidence of what goes on behind the scenes when people turn up at a civic centre and seek to be interviewed for housing need.

[Mr Slaughter]

It is anecdotal, but it is a consistent stream—from the year a Labour administration was elected in Hammersmith in 1986 when I recall that the response of Wandsworth council’s homeless person’s unit was to put up a map on the door outside, showing people in housing need the way to Hammersmith’s housing office, right through to the most recent Tory administration in Hammersmith, which makes people wait outside in the cold if they turn up out of hours. They used to be allowed to wait in the foyer of the town hall, but now, in case they offend or upset anybody, they have to wait outside, even in the middle of winter. As I say, those are anecdotes, but they tell a story. Some estates in my constituency have 20% overcrowding—eight times the national average, and it is a growing trend. That is the position on need.

I do not pretend that it is easy to solve the problems created for low-income families in housing need by the price of land and the price of property. However, I do expect Governments to try to solve the problem, and if the present Government did try, they would have our support. I should like to see less partisanship, but I am afraid that this issue has become one of the most partisan of all.

I have spent some years using the Freedom of Information Act 2000 to get various seedy hidden documents out of Hammersmith and Fulham council in order to discover what it really thinks of its tenants and what its real plans are. I was going to quote from some of them, but I think it more entertaining to quote from press releases issued by the Department for Communities and Local Government, particularly those issued in the name of a Liberal Democrat Minister. They say the same thing, only using more fantastical language.

This is what the Government are offering people in housing need. They are offering “flexible tenure”:

“Landlords will be given the freedom to offer their properties under fixed term tenancies, from a minimum of two years”.

They are offering “affordable rents”, which is a new technical term:

“Affordable Rent properties will offer fixed term tenancies at a rent higher than social rent - with landlords able to set rents at up to 80 per cent of local market rents.”

It is a bit like tuition fees. I suspect that most landlords will go for the full 80% rather than for 40%, 60% or 70% when they set their rents.

The Government are also offering

“greater flexibility for councils to make decisions on how best to help people at risk of homelessness at the local level.”

They say that

“Currently some homeless families are turning down the decent private rented accommodation they've been offered as a settled home, and demanding to be provided with expensive temporary accommodation, at huge cost to the taxpayer, until a social home becomes available.”

The scandal of it! It is no surprise that the Liberal Democrat Benches are empty. A Liberal Democrat Minister has said:

“These changes will lead to a much smarter system”.

As well as those three principles, there are a couple that the Government do not need to make law in the Localism Bill. As was mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Edmonton (Mr Love), housing grant has already been cut by 63%. He also mentioned the changes in housing benefit. As I do not want to keep Members here all night, I will not go into the details.

The cumulative effect of those five principles—giving councils flexibility to use the private rented sector, which means no more social homes as a permanent solution; flexible tenure, which means no security of tenure; affordable rents, which means no more affordable housing; no more capital investment; and the changes in housing benefit—will be that hundreds of families in all our constituencies will no longer be able to afford to live where their relations are, where their schools are and, in many cases, where their work is, and will have to move out.

If it is allowed to develop over a period of years, the effect of those changes will be the end of social housing in this country. I say that not because I wish to be sensationalist, but because it is the inevitable conclusion, and, increasingly, the conclusion of experts. I think that the Government know what they are doing. I think that this is phase two of the desocialisation of the housing market which began with the right to buy, although this is a much deeper and more profound way of destroying a whole form of housing tenure.

I can speak with some authority about that development, because I believe that much of it originated in Hammersmith and Fulham, the borough that I represent. A document entitled “Principles for Social Housing Reform” contained four of the five principles that I listed—although not the one relating to housing benefit—and was published a year before the last election. When I drew attention to it, I was told that I was scaremongering and that what I was saying was nonsense. The Minister for Housing and Local Government told me on many occasions in the House that this was not Tory policy and would not happen.

The same discussions that led to the development of those principles led to the local policy in Hammersmith and Fulham, which was effectively a policy of removing the bulk of social housing tenants from the borough.

An Evening Standard features article in the middle of 2009 stated:

“Hammersmith and Fulham council is plotting a Dame Shirley Porter-style programme to move out the poor and replace them with private homes and retail developments…new homes will be built to attract residents with higher incomes and areas that have traditionally voted Labour will be broken up as more than 3,500 flats and houses are demolished…One document shows that if rents in Hammersmith were increased to private levels, a two-bed council flat currently costing £85 a week would go up to £360 a week.”

I regret to say that all that is coming true in Hammersmith.

I was amused to find that immediately after the election, in the first interview that he gave to a national newspaper, the Prime Minister singled out Hammersmith and said that he was angry about “appalling” Labour “lies” there. He said:

“They were telling people in Hammersmith they were going to have their council house taken away by the Tories.”

The only thing that we got wrong was that we did not realise that this was going to happen so quickly and that it was going to happen across the country. We certainly did realise what was going to happen in Hammersmith, because we had seen the evidence on that.

Three main local attacks are being used in Hammersmith, and some of them will be familiar to the shadow Minister because we all remember the days of Shirley Porter in west London. We thought that we had got rid of the terms “designated sales” and “building stable communities” in west London, but they have come back to haunt us. Some 64 council properties were sold up to last year, bringing in just over £30 million and, according to a decision taken this month, a further 300 will be sold to bring in a further £107 million. These will not just be sales of the largest properties; a range of sizes will be involved, with one, two, three and four-bedroom flats being sold. As hon. Members will see, these properties will be expensive, selling for about £500,000 each in many cases. More than 9,000 families are on the waiting list, so what is the purpose of deciding to sell 300 to 400 of the council’s best properties? These will be not be sales of estate properties; they will be sales of street properties, which command very high values in Hammersmith and Fulham.

In discussing the second principle, I shall again talk a little about housing associations. For some years we thought that housing associations would save us from the ideologically driven policies of Tory councils and that associations such as Notting Hill Housing Association and Shepherds Bush Housing Association, the two largest in my constituency, would perform that role. As I said, Notting Hill Housing Association was set up, following the Rachman era, to perform that role and ensure that good quality, affordable housing was available.

I shall read just a few sentences from the NHHA’s response to the Government consultation paper proposing the social housing changes. It states:

“We are likely to grant 2 year tenancies to all new tenants of both new homes and existing homes that become available for new letting.”

It goes on to say:

“In appropriate cases we would like to be able to increase rents up to market rents for those who can afford them.”

It also says that

“we may want to sell some voids, or to let them on full market rents”.

It continues:

“The new flexibilities will also enable us to support boroughs’ efforts to create more mixed communities”—

that phrase again—

“reducing the concentrations of deprived often unemployed people found in areas of social housing in London.”

The NHHA response continues:

“we see no need for the Government to specify that particular groups of tenants such as older people or people with long term illnesses or disabilities must be provided with a social home for a longer period than the two year minimum.”

Finally, and perhaps most poignantly of all, given the history of the NHHA:

“We support the proposal…that local authorities should be given greater flexibility in bringing the homelessness duty to an end with offers of accommodation in the private rented sector.”

What I find particularly objectionable about that is, as I said in an intervention, that these organisations were set up purely to provide good quality affordable housing to people.

The chief executive of Notting Hill Housing, who featured in the popular press over the last weekend and previously along with her partner, who was director of housing and regeneration for Hammersmith and Fulham, earns £200,000 a year, whereas he earns £260,000 a year as a consultant. Their jobs have been to run the two main social landlords in Hammersmith and Fulham and they are also the advisers to the Conservative party who contributed to the document “Principles for Social Housing Reform”. So far, he, Mr Nick Johnson, has been paid more than £830,000 as a consultant and director of regeneration in Hammersmith and Fulham.

[Teresa Pearce (Erith and Thamesmead) (Lab)]

Is it true, as far as my hon. Friend believes, that that contract was given to Mr Nick Johnson under a corporate vehicle so that national insurance on those payments was not paid by Hammersmith and Fulham?

[Mr Slaughter]

Yes. I do not want to get too far off the subject and speaking about individuals can be invidious, but this is an extreme case. The Minister smiles, so let me read him what the Minister for Housing and Local Government said about the case. I should point out before I read that that Mr Nick Johnson retired on a permanent ill-health pension as chief executive of the London borough of Bexley with a £300,000 lump sum and a £50,000-a-year pension that was payable immediately. Within three months, he had taken up his £260,000-a-year job, first running Hammersmith and Fulham Homes and then as director of housing and regeneration in Hammersmith and Fulham. The House can imagine my views on this.

When I raised the matter in the House, the Secretary of State appeared to take Mr Johnson’s side. The council has certainly taken his side, as the Daily Mail reported this week that

“the council defended the move, saying Mr Johnson was ‘excellent value for money’.”

For once—this might be a one-off, so everybody should take note of it—I want to praise the Minister for Housing and Local Government, who said:

“Town hall pensions cost every council tax-paying household over £300 a year. Hard-pressed taxpayers cannot afford to foot an ever-growing bill. It’s not justifiable to have healthy employees working in local government and claiming an ill-health benefit at the same time. Councils have power to stop such payments and should use them.”

What is Mr Johnson being paid to do that means that he is such good value for money for the London borough of Hammersmith and Fulham? I think we know why Ms Davies is good value for money, because she parrots every right-wing phrase that is needed to support the Government’s atrocious housing policies and that sort of support from the housing association movement, although shameful, is, I am sure, very welcome in providing cover. She is earning her money all right.

How is Mr Johnson earning his money? As director of housing and regeneration he was in charge—and is still, because even though Hammersmith and Fulham has now appointed a director of housing and regeneration on about £170,000 a year, Mr Johnson is still retained as a consultant to help him out—

[John McDonnell]

How is his health?

[Mr Slaughter]

It seems okay to me.

Mr Johnson is in charge of some of the most controversial and largest developments not just in this country or in Europe but across the world—that is, the opportunity area schemes in Hammersmith and Fulham that will see the demolition of thousands of units of good quality social housing and their replacement with luxury high-rise housing, principally, as my hon. Friend the Member for Eltham (Clive Efford) said, for the benefit of people living abroad who wish to have a pied-à-terre somewhere near central London.

I have spent many days in the public inquiry dealing with this matter and I shall try not to bore Members with the subject for too long. The core strategy documents, which hon. Members will all have in their various boroughs, are interesting reading if one sits down with them. The housing policy in the Hammersmith and Fulham core strategy, which is the planning document that is supposed to last us for 20 years, states:

“The Council would prefer all additional affordable housing to be intermediate housing unless a small proportion of new social rented housing is necessary in order to enable proposals for the regeneration of council or housing association estates”.

That was amended during the public inquiry to add the words “and affordable rented housing”. That is a bit of a give-away that the Minister might want to blush about. In other words, all the time that the definition of affordable housing was social housing, the council wanted none of it, but as soon as it became 80% of market rent, it was happy to include it in its planning documents. That exposes what so-called affordable housing is about.

I am dealing with dozens of those schemes across the constituency, but let me mention just three of them. There are three opportunity areas in the borough. There are 30 of those large London plan schemes—roughly one per borough—but we have three of them in Hammersmith and Fulham, even though it is one of the smallest and most densely populated boroughs. One of them covers Earls Court and West Kensington, where the proposal, apart from knocking down the historic exhibition centres, is to demolish 750 newly modernised, good quality and popular council homes, half of which are terraced or semi-detached three or four-bedroom houses with garages and gardens, so that they can be replaced with 7,500 luxury flats in blocks up to 30 storeys high. That is described as four villages and a high street. I went to the architect’s premises to look at the plans. He had given nicknames to the high street and the other road that will be built—one was Sloane street and the other was South Molton street—and that is where the West Kensington and Gibbs Green estates are at present.

Of those 7,500 homes, the only social rented homes will be for tenants who are displaced because their homes have been demolished who insist on having a new home in the area. I believe that about 250 such homes will be built, and they will be built conveniently just outside my constituency, so that those people will not be able to vote for me anymore.

The White City opportunity area is much larger. It is the area around the BBC site in which at least another 4,000 homes will be built—again, in blocks 20 to 30 storeys high. The planning document contains a little orange circle where it says, “This is where we are going to build just over 1,000 social rented homes.” That sounds like quite an attractive prospect, until one finds out that those homes will be built so that tenants can be moved from the 2,400 homes on the White City, Batman Close and Wood Lane estates in another part of Shepherd’s Bush. In other words, without saying anything about what will happen to the nearly 2,500 families who live on those estates—the document is silent on that—more than 1,000 homes will be built to rehouse them. Well, I might not be Inspector Clouseau, but I can work out that once those families are moved into those 1,000 homes, the leaseholders have been bought out and other people have been discouraged from living in the area, the bulldozers can then go into the White City estate, which is the largest estate in my constituency.

The most controversial site is Hammersmith town centre and riverside, which includes the listed town hall, cinema and flats owned by the Pocklington Trust, which is a trust for people with visual impairments. Again, the ambition is demolition and to build 320 luxury flats and a footbridge over the A4 that will take out a third of the riverside park, so that Malaysian investors can have somewhere with direct access to the riverside to put their money into and perhaps come to when they are in Hammersmith. How that is conceived as providing for all the needs—let alone the housing needs—of my constituents I do not know.

Council officers proudly told me that the Earls Court development is the largest one of its kind—I think that they mean by value—outside China. They are very proud of that. What those developments have in common is that they face the unanimous opposition or near-unanimous opposition of residents and that the council is co-developer. The planning authority is the developer in each case, and hon. Members can imagine how planning committees go in that context.

The key point for today’s debate is that there is no affordable housing—not one new unit of affordable housing, by which I mean social rented housing. As London citizens will say, the only type of housing in London boroughs such as mine that is affordable to people on the London living wage, which is now almost £8 an hour, is social rented housing. That is what there is a need for. Of course, we need other types of housing as well, but they are easier to provide. The function of government is to provide for unmet needs, but those unmet needs are not being provided for. On the contrary, the whole thrust of policy—not just in Hammersmith, although it is more obvious in Hammersmith—is to reduce the quantum of social rented housing, to stop the construction of new social rented housing and in that way to change the nature of housing tenure across inner London.

What is the motivation for that approach? If I am right about this, and I think I am because I have spent a lot of time looking at it, the first motivation of those politicians—principally Conservative, although we must now associate the Liberal Democrats with them—is economic. A phrase that I hear from Conservatives in my area is “sweat the asset”, and a memorable comment from the leader of the council is, “We want to attract people to the area who are very rich.” I think that such people see council houses with affordable rents, on what would otherwise be very expensive land, as an affront to them economically. They think, “This is not what should be done with this piece of land. What we should have here is a 30-storey, Singapore-style tower block or a conference centre or office block. What we should not have is low to medium-rise housing built in the same style as the rest of the district when it was created in the Victorian era.”

The second motivation is, I think, a social agenda. Estates are described in the most disparaging terms in official council documents—as “not decent”, or “inward-looking”. I know that Tory politicians are often not comfortable with council estates, but I do not know whether that is because they think the people who live on them vote Labour or because they do not like the collective ideals that built them. Perhaps they do not like the communities who live there, but they could at least leave them alone. Those communities are often the opposite of inward looking: they are some of the most diverse and cohesive in the country and now, partly because of housing policies, they are among the most stable in the country, but they are pilloried in that insulting language.

The third motivation is a personal objection to people who live on council estates. If hon. Members do not believe me they should go back and look at some of the election literature and what was said in Hammersmith and Fulham about dependency culture and how living in subsidised housing with security of tenure makes people flaccid and unambitious. Some politicians think that such people need a touch of iron and that we should go back to the more competitive and animalistic culture that the Conservatives would like us to have.

[Angie Bray]

indicated dissent.

[Mr Slaughter]

I hope that my constituency neighbour, who is not, from what I have heard of her comments, in that category, shakes her head because she does not want to be associated with such people.

I shall close on a point that I think is where this debate, in relation to Hammersmith, started. I shall read a couple of paragraphs from an article on ConservativeHome, of which I am a great reader. I enjoy it and find it amusing—sometimes intentionally and sometimes not. Hon. Members can make up their own minds about the article, which is about social housing and was written by the leader of Hammersmith and Fulham council in relation to a Commons debate such as this one almost exactly two years ago. It reads:

“On the day of the first Opposition social housing debate for three years, we ask here whether this is the time to reform social housing. It may not be an issue for the current intake of Conservative MPs at this time, but it will become an issue for many new MPs elected from target marginals which have far higher levels of social housing. Figures supplied to Greg Hands MP from the Commons Library show that shadow housing minister Grant Shapps’s seat (Welwyn Hatfield) has the highest percentage of social rented housing of any Conservative seat. Some key targets have huge percentages: Hammersmith at 36%, Westminster North at 30% and Birmingham Edgbaston and Battersea both at 29%.”

With the exception of Battersea, what do those other three seats have in common when one looks at the results of the last election?

The article continues:

“Whilst Conservatives are at a highpoint in local government, we still have a mountain to climb in our inner cities. We have no Conservative councillors in Liverpool, Sheffield or Newcastle and just one in Manchester. Many inner London boroughs remain either Labour or Liberal Democrat-run…Finally Boris Johnson’s stunning victory in our capital city was largely a suburban revolt. Why is this? The current state and levels of social housing in our inner cities may provide part of the answer. All our inner cities have relatively high levels of social housing compared to their suburbs. Today social housing has become welfare housing where both a dependency culture and a culture of entitlement dominate…Competition revolves around drawing welfare support and taking something out of the system. Conservative principles of freedom, self-reliance and personal responsibility run counter to this culture.”

That is not some lunatic adviser in the Conservative party; that was the head of the innovation unit for local government, who is running the Mayor’s campaign for re-election and is the leader of a London borough council.

I do not make the obvious point, which is that this is all about politics and gerrymandering. Of course it is about that, in a far more profound way than the things that Shirley Porter did. But the fact that we have people like that driving policy within the Conservative party creates a complete divide between the parties that has never existed before, such that it is now impossible for rational voices to be heard—even the voices of people in the Conservative or Liberal parties who know that they have a duty towards people in housing need and ought to be helping them, and that that should be separated from a political argument. This well has become so poisoned now that I believe that, unfortunately, it is Government policy—I have traced in this speech the link from that article through to the “Principles for Social Housing Reform”, through to Government policy in the Localism Bill and the demise of social housing—that is driving social housing policy in this country, particularly in London.

I do not expect to get a rational response from the Minister to this debate today—or probably ever—but I would like Government Members to think about the implications, not for us in our seats and our livelihoods going forward, but for the thousands of families who are the victims of the very crude political policy that is being pursued, in relation to housing uniquely. We can all have disagreements on other areas of policy, but they do not have such profound effects on people’s lives as this form of experimentation—demolishing people’s homes, making people move away from the communities that they have lived in for generations and separating families.

Those are the policies that are being directly pursued by the Conservative-Liberal coalition Government now. They are shameful policies. They should have received more attention from the media, and I wish that they did, but I think there is enough morality in the governing parties for them to go back and look at what they are doing in relation to housing policy and to think again. We are talking about future generations of people in this country who are growing up in conditions that are wholly uncivilised and wholly unworthy of the country.

17:08

[Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)]

Follow that! Today’s debate would be really important at any time, and I am really grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) for securing it, because as other hon. Members have said, it is a good idea for Members from the capital to get together and debate subjects that are central to the capital.

I am pleased to see the Minister in his place, because he represents a London constituency so I know that he will be able to empathise, at least, with some of the issues that we are bringing forward today—and as he is a West Ham United supporter, I am sure that he is honourable enough to take note of the concerns expressed in the House and perhaps try to do something about them. When we are thinking about our national housing policy, we might want to look specifically at the needs of the capital within that, where a one-size-fits-all approach may not be possible, ethical or even manageable, in the long or even the short term. I ask the Minister to listen carefully to the arguments that have been so persuasively advanced from both sides of the House, and see whether he can do anything to influence Government policy in this area.

The judgment that many experts have reached is that taken together, the Government’s policies will make it increasingly hard for people on low incomes to find a decent place to live in London. What happens to social housing and its supply, security and affordability are central to the story that will unfold across the country, and especially in London, in the next few years. As we have heard Labour Members say time and again, Ministers have announced a raft of policies that will, among other things, reduce and restrict the financial support for housing available to many who are already struggling on low and fixed incomes. The Government will end security of tenure in social housing for new tenants and penalise social tenants who have just one spare bedroom.

The Government have tried to assert that the measures are part of a solution that somehow progresses fairness and flexibility, but there is more than enough information now for us to see that their approach will lead to new problems without seriously addressing the core priority, which must be to increase the supply of genuinely affordable housing. That is important for all of London, and for our national economy. The shortage of decent affordable housing in London is holding back economic growth and the creation of a socially successful city for residents and businesses alike.

London clearly faces big housing challenges. That is not new; it has been the case for some time. Labour Members have confronted the Government with the issues in previous years, so we are not saying these things simply because a Government of a different colour have been elected. The city’s population has been increasing steadily since the 1980s, which has led to high and sustained demand for housing. House prices have held up better in London than anywhere else in the recession. The upshot is that the average London house costs about 14 times the average London annual salary, taking home ownership further and further beyond the reach of those on low and even modest incomes.

For many, the only realistic option is renting, but probably not in the social housing sector, as there are more than 800,000 people on housing waiting lists in London—more than 30,000 in my area of Newham alone. Shelter says that at the current letting rate, it will take Newham council 38 years to clear the list, so for most of those waiting, social housing is just a dream. The Government have correctly noted that people who are not working are over-represented in social housing, but if there were more social housing we would see a more mixed community living in it; it is as simple as that. The Government have incorrectly concluded that social housing is the primary problem, and that the way to solve it is to end secure tenancies.

As the Minister is a London MP, he will understand that the extraordinary pressure on social housing means that it is increasingly occupied by the people with the greatest needs, such as the elderly, the disabled, the chronically sick and lone parents. The Government’s response—ending secure tenancies—misses the fundamental point, and will cause difficulties for vast numbers of residents. In Newham 35% of households already rent privately, and the demand for that form of accommodation seems sure to rise. If we consider all those facts, it becomes obvious that the top priority, and the most cost-effective thing to do, is simply to create more social housing in London.

During the recession the Labour Government increased investment in the construction of new affordable homes, and the volume coming on stream has risen for several years as a direct result, protecting construction jobs and enabling the economy to continue at least to bubble along in the circumstances. Last year, however, the new Government decided to slash the budget in the spending review, and whereas more than half of the cost of any housing association building scheme used to be met from capital grants, that will go down to 20%, which is far too low. Experts say that with much less public investment, the number of new social home completions will inevitably fall.

The Government claim that that need not be the case, and say that the difference can be made up both by borrowing, which worries many housing associations, and, as we have heard from Labour Members, an increase in the income from higher rates, which worries all of us. Under the Government’s so-called “affordable rent” model—my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith (Mr Slaughter) nicked the term “Orwellian” from me—rents can be set at up to 80% of the market level, threatening to price many people out of their home in the capital, especially larger families, once the universal benefit cap of £20,000 a year kicks in.

We are about to see major disruption in the private sector too. Average rents vary enormously in London, so pegging local housing allowances city-wide will instantly price some households out of some districts, making London more socially segregated and geographically unequal, and further increasing churn. I do not want hon. Members to think that churn is some kind of social or geographic term with few or no consequences. It results in children being shunted from house to house, living in poor conditions and temporary accommodation, often over chip shops or Chinese takeaways. It has profound effects on health, education, inclusion in the community and mental well-being. It weakens the sense of community across London while giving tenants little reason to invest in their home or local area and become part of an inclusive community by generating income and making a contribution. Thousands of people are expected to be displaced outwards from the centre, risking jobs and work, child care and schools for families with children, and breaking valuable ties with GPs and hospitals for the elderly and disabled.

By 2016 most of inner London will be unaffordable for tenants claiming local housing allowance, so cheaper neighbourhoods in outer London will have to house many more people. Those areas, which include my part of east London, already have high rates of deprivation and unemployment, so they are poorly placed to cope with a surge of incomers with acute housing and other needs. Newham expects people to migrate from more expensive areas nearby such as Hackney and Tower Hamlets, putting further strain on hard-pressed council services that have been subject to big cuts, and increasing the gap between supply of and demand for school places in the borough.

My constituents have problems of their own. Newham has the fourth highest level of child poverty in the country. Research for the East Thames Group confirms that in our area more than 65% of households will be unable to afford a three-bedroom home at the 80% market rent, which is a very high number. I am sure that the Minister will not want to see such results in Newham or elsewhere, because the churn and movement resulting from higher rents will effectively find its way to Bromley and surrounding areas.

What will people who find themselves in this position do if they are on a low or fixed income and cannot make up the shortfall? Apart from moving to cheaper areas, with all the problems that that entails, they seem to have only two options. Either they can, as my hon. Friend the Member for Eltham (Clive Efford) said, move to a smaller home—further increasing the number of overcrowded households in the city, which is already worryingly high—or they can try to hold on, as they do. They try to hold on, despite the odds against them, despite it being mathematically impossible, because they do not want to move the children, or because they have roots in the area that make their property so important to their life. They will go into arrears and run up huge debts, increasing the risk of real poverty and homelessness.

The Government’s approach rests in part on the premise that reducing local housing allowance will force landlords to lower their rents, but experts say that that is wishful thinking in London, where the demand for rented accommodation is unusually strong—and, as Ministers are keen to point out, one cannot buck the market. They also risk prompting an increase in homelessness—a shocking reversal in trend after a series of years in which the number of homeless households was reduced, thanks to the successful preventive policies of the Labour Government.

When taken together, rather than improving the position of people in housing need in London, the Government’s policies look like making things so much worse, creating needless distress and huge destruction along the way. That means that Ministers have some serious questions to answer. First, they need to explain where, in the city, people on low incomes will find decent affordable accommodation in future, once all the policy changes have come into effect. They also need to explain why they have chosen to introduce measures that will make life considerably harder for thousands of Londoners, including many vulnerable elderly and disabled people, for no good end, instead of focusing relentlessly on increasing the amount of affordable social housing.

People need homes, not just a roof over their heads. Secure tenure is an essential feature of a home, and that is what social housing should continue to provide. Social housing’s key defining characteristics have always been security and affordability, so that those in housing need can access it. But now it seems that Government policies will make it impossible for either of those conditions to go on being met in London.

Ministers need to explain how, under their policies, the social housing that does exist can possibly still be worthy of the name. Instead of introducing confused policies that will rip communities apart and leave many living in insecure inadequate housing—or worse, homeless—the Government must start delivering the decent affordable housing that is so desperately needed.

17:24

[Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab)]

I begin, as many others have done, by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) on introducing the debate. How the years slide by, and I think of the first time that we spoke in the Chamber on housing in London, joined by my hon. Friend the Member for Eltham (Clive Efford) and others, who have all been habitual attendees of housing debates. How we wish that the problems that we were so exercised about in 1997 were the problems that we face now.

I am also delighted to place on the record my thanks to the Backbench Business Committee for giving us the opportunity to discuss this issue on the Floor of the House. We often have our debates in Westminster Hall, but it is important to be able to use the main Chamber to reflect on an issue that is so important to many of us. My hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith (Mr Slaughter) said that we so often address with great passion the welfare concerns involved in education and health policy, but housing, which is at least as critical and stands alongside those issues in importance, tends to be marginalised.

I thank the hon. Member for Ealing Central and Acton (Angie Bray) for making an important point. She said that London was often not understood in the context of national politics. Although, sadly, there are housing pressures and problems in every part of the country, London is unique and faces particular cost pressures. It is good that we have had an opportunity to bring London Members together to talk about London problems, but we want colleagues from other parts of the country to hear more about why London is different and why the pressures are so intense here.

We have heard outstanding speeches from Opposition Members. I am thinking of my right hon. Friends the Members for Lewisham, Deptford (Joan Ruddock) and for Holborn and St Pancras (Frank Dobson) and my hon. Friends the Members for Lewisham East (Heidi Alexander), for Eltham, for Hammersmith, for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell), for Edmonton (Mr Love) and for East Ham—

[Angie Bray]

West Ham!

[Ms Buck]

I am sorry; I meant my hon. Friend the Member for West Ham (Lyn Brown).

All those speeches addressed, with slightly different emphases, the impact of the housing crisis on people—on families in overcrowded accommodation, homeless families and families forced into constant moves and changes of address. The statistics matter, but it is important that we should remember that people are at the heart of the issue. I suspect that most of us in the Chamber, on both sides, have sat in advice surgeries with people weeping with distress as they have talked about the conditions in which they live and the number of times they have been uprooted and forced to move. They crave only a stable home.

Opposition Members drew out something important about social housing policy—that it has come about as a consequence of market failure. It is precisely because the private housing sector could not meet the needs of low-income and vulnerable people that council housing came about—and before that, there were the great social housing developments of Peabody and Octavia Hill. Subsequently, the housing association movement grew up in response to the catastrophe of the private rented market, particularly in places such as my previous constituency, the home of Rachman and Hoogstraten.

As the hon. Member for Battersea (Jane Ellison) said absolutely rightly, most landlords are not bad landlords at all—I am happy to place that on the record. However, the grim truth is that a substantial minority are, which brings the entire sector into disrepute. We already know from the English housing survey that 40% of private houses are below the decent homes standard and the conditions in the private rented sector are worse across the piece; a larger proportion of them fail to meet that standard. That is a particular challenge if vulnerable people are in the part of the market that has failed. That is exactly why the housing association movement developed. It is sad to hear from my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith how some housing associations seem to have strayed so much from their original purposes.

[Mr Slaughter]

I want to get something off my conscience; I promise that this will be my last intervention. Last Friday, I got a planning application—again, I am afraid, from Notting Hill Housing—for 41 high-quality houses, including four new five-bedroom houses on St Peter’s square. They go for about £3 million each. Not one of those 41 houses will be an affordable home because there is not enough equity in the scheme. That is what some of our housing associations have descended to.

[Ms Buck]

My hon. Friend is right, and that is extremely sad. In some cases, there appears to be a deliberate straying away from the original aims and objectives; in others, the kind of thing that he describes is a response to the constraints under which housing associations now operate.

All my right hon. and hon. Friends critiqued aspects of Government policy. A number of them drew particular attention to the risks inherent in the cuts to the local housing allowance. We heard from Government Members extreme examples of high-cost private sector tenancies. We agree. Indeed, the Labour manifesto stated that measures would be taken to deal with some of those extremely high costs. I completely accept that, but if it was the objective of Government policy why was it not confined to tackling the relatively small number of high-cost cases? I think I am right in saying that the Government have not even been able to tell us how many, if any, properties cost more than £100,000 a year, yet throughout the country—not just in London—nearly 1 million households will have their local housing allowance cut.

My hon. Friends the Members for West Ham and for Edmonton raised concerns about what would happen when people are displaced, particularly from the central London broad market rental area where only 5% of accommodation will remain affordable, and a knock-on displacement moves those families to highly stressed, poorer communities on the fringes of London and beyond. Many Members talked about social housing investment and tenure, and I shall return to those issues briefly.

We heard thoughtful and reasonable contributions from Government Members. I single out particularly the hon. Members for Ealing Central and Acton and for Battersea (Jane Ellison), not least because they are still here. They made good points. In some cases, there is shared understanding of the impact of the housing shortage, particularly in central London.

From the hon. Ladies and from the hon. Members for Hendon (Mr Offord), for Brentford and Isleworth (Mary Macleod) and for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake), we heard support for Government policy on market rents and the end of security of tenure, which it is asserted, without significant evidence, will deal with the shortage of social housing that we are all concerned about. Frankly, that assertion is a triumph of hope over experience, and I shall spend a moment or two deconstructing it.

I am sorry that the hon. Member for Hendon is no longer in the Chamber. He revealed a little of the attitude towards social housing and social tenants that permeates so much of the Government’s thinking about the problem—that secure and affordable social housing traps individuals in deprivation and unemployment, and the language of welfare dependency reinforces that belief. However, as several of my hon. Friends said, the fact that social housing is now such a scarce resource means that people with social problems are concentrated in it. Far from being the problem for many vulnerable and poorer families, it is an essential part of the solution.

We all agree that the problems facing social housing in London are complex, long term and difficult to resolve. Anyone who claims to have a magic bullet is lying. We know that the supply of social housing has been squeezed for decades, principally through the non-replacement of right-to-buy stock during the 1980s and 1990s, but in retrospect it is a shame that more properties were not built under the Labour Government, as several of us have pointed out. It would be hypocritical of me not to say that, as I lined up many times during the Labour Government to make exactly that point. However, as has been said, we can be proud of the substantial investment made during those years in the decent homes initiative, which brought millions of homes to a decent standard.

The decline in supply is not the only problem. London is a global city; foreign, national and business money distorts the market, and the fact that house prices have risen so much over the decades has its consequences. One striking issue about social housing is that between 10 and 15 years ago there was a steady outflow of tenants buying their home, sometimes through right to buy but often in the private market, which has effectively silted things up, as people on modest incomes are no longer able to afford a house. The relationship between the private housing market, owner-occupation and the social market must be properly understood. The Labour Government invested in decent homes and new buildings, so by 2009, the lead-in time for planning and investment led to a high of 16,000 starts in London. We now know that that was the golden age.

The coalition Government have a package of investment and policy suggestions, which are likely to combine to cancel out almost all the hoped-for objectives. They want more social homes—don’t we all?—but they have made, as we heard, a 63% cut in the affordable housing grant. Consequently, the 16,000 starts peaked in 2009-10 and will fall away to nothing, according to the Homes and Communities Agency, in 2012. The Government want housing benefit to take the strain—to fill the gap in the affordable housing grant—but they also want housing benefit expenditure to fall. Those two things are incompatible.

The Government want to improve work incentives—don’t we all?—but they propose 80% market rents, which will make work incentives much harder to achieve. If it is hard to make work pay when rent is £100 a week, how much harder will it be when rent is £400, £500 or £600 a week? They want more social homes, particularly, as the hon. Member for Ealing Central and Acton said, more family-sized homes, but the overall benefit cap means that housing developers and housing associations do not want to build family-sized homes. The set of policies is completely incoherent. Something has to give.

The Government want mixed communities—don’t we all?—but they suggest throwing people out of their homes when they achieve a certain amount of income. What could be a worse work disincentive than saying, “If you earn a certain amount of money, you’ll be out on your ear”? What nonsense that makes of the concept of mixed communities. However, the Mayor of London proposes a £60,000-plus ceiling for access to socially assisted housing, which cuts across the stated objective of not allowing people with a decent income to be assisted with housing.

The Government want to tackle under-occupation—don’t we all?—but they are doing so in a way that possibly even some of my hon. Friends have not yet fully internalised. They propose doing so through a cut in housing benefit for social tenants who have one or more bedrooms more than they are deemed to need. That will hit 150,000 London households with an average of a £21-a-week loss in benefit. I do not have the London figures to hand, but I know that, nationally, if every single person affected by the proposed cut in housing benefit tried to avoid that penalty, it would mean that every one and two-bedroom property allocated in the social housing sector for the next five years would have to go to those households. That is clearly nonsense and would lead to a catastrophe of homelessness and overcrowding. Indeed, the Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions, the right hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling) let the cat out of the bag by making it clear that the policy’s intention is not to tackle under-occupation, but to save money. As far as the Government are concerned, the fewer people who move, the better.

The Government also want to end security of tenure. When I, like my hon. Friends, was on the campaign stump last year, and warning people that a Conservative Government would mean a move to market rents and the end of security of tenure, we were howled down and accused of lying. Our only error in robustly defending that position was not realising how quickly it would happen.

I have been remiss in not making the point earlier, but shadow Communities and Local Government Ministers, who are out campaigning today, are rightly opposing those measures in the Localism Bill.

The Government’s policy is fundamentally flawed and deeply incoherent. It will have the opposite effect, almost across the board, to what it seeks to achieve. At the very least, we know that the Mayor of London’s re-election campaign is on a cliff edge as new housing supply drops to nothing. We therefore look forward to a campaign that will replace the Mayor, who has talked the talk, but is not walking the walk. He will not deliver new social housing; he is not standing up for London tenants or those who face a housing crisis.

Although the crisis has been long building and slow burning, it is reaching one of the most critical points that I have ever known. Whether for people in social housing, people in the private sector waiting to obtain social housing, those in the queue or those facing homelessness, it is clear that the Government’s policies will do nothing to resolve that crisis. It will take a Labour Mayor and a Labour Government to resolve the crisis of social housing in London.

17:39

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Robert Neill)]

I thank and congratulate the hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) on obtaining this debate. As has rightly been observed, he has been a consistent advocate of housing issues in the Chamber. He has advocated them seriously and with great commitment, and although I do not always agree with all his analysis and remedy, I respect how he approaches these matters.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

So the Minister agrees with some of it?

[Robert Neill]

I do not want to tempt the hon. Gentleman into being too optimistic, but I do appreciate the spirit in which he raises those matters.

It has been a worthwhile debate for all London Members. I thank all hon. Members on both sides of the House who have contributed. We have heard some thoughtful contributions. In particular, I thank my hon. Friends the Members for Brentford and Isleworth (Mary Macleod), for Battersea (Jane Ellison) and for Ealing Central and Acton (Angie Bray), who have contributed thoughtfully, as have some Labour Members. Sometimes, that standard of thoughtfulness was not consistently applied, and we have heard examples of conspiracy theories reaching almost to the delusional. However, I put that down simply to the excitement of matters elsewhere in the country at the present time.

I am a London Member, I have spent the whole of my life in London and I recognise the importance of this issue. As hon. Members said, there are particular pressures on housing in London that put it in a different category from other parts of the country. However, the affordability issues and so on are not unique to London, which is a world city. The same problems will be found, to a degree, in New York, Paris and Tokyo. However, within the UK, London is in a unique situation, and as I shall mention later, the Government are recognising that fact by devolving much more power over housing policy and housing funding to the Mayor of London, who is democratically accountable and will have, therefore, the ability to respond in a more flexible and nuanced way to the particular London demands that my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing Central and Acton and others mentioned.

I am very conscious personally of the importance of housing. I hope that Labour Members will take this in the spirit intended. My grandfather worked in the London docks. He was born in a slum in Stepney. He started his married life in rented accommodation in Canning Town. He managed to work his way to buying the semi-detached house in which I was born. Against that background, first I do not need to be lectured by anyone about the importance of affordable and decent housing for working people in London, and secondly I recognise the issue of security of tenure. However, I hope that hon. Members will recognise that that does not mean that we should automatically go down the same route that was perhaps appropriate and effective in the past. We might need now to be more imaginative in thinking of alternative solutions and other ways forward.

[Jim Fitzpatrick]

rose—

[Robert Neill]

I give way to a fellow West Ham supporter.

[Jim Fitzpatrick]

The Minister and I share several passions: the Thames Gateway, because we both live there, the no to AV campaign and West Ham United football club. He is also a former constituent of mine on the Isle of Dogs. I raised earlier issues about market rates in the Canary Wharf area and people in Tower Hamlets who cannot afford 80% market rates on those terms. Given his background—I would not challenge his credentials and pedigree as a Londoner—does he not recognise that the Government’s policy of trying to force market rates of 80% rents for social landlords and council housing will drive local people out of Tower Hamlets and into wherever they can find decent housing?

[Robert Neill]

I understand the hon. Gentleman’s point, but two things have to be recognised. The first is the acceptance in his party’s manifesto that the current model of dealing with housing benefit was not sustainable. Secondly, I will go into this in a little more detail in a moment—I hope that he will forgive me if I return to it in the order that it appears in my speech—but there remain significant numbers of houses in London that are affordable. It cannot be sustainable for people who happen to be in receipt of housing benefit who can afford houses not to have to make the sometimes difficult choices that people in work at lower wages have to make.

I will return to the detail later, because there are some useful points to make. However, it is also worth saying something else—something that I am sure the hon. Gentleman and others will reflect on. I put this as gently as I can to Opposition Members, but they are not really in a position to criticise this Government for trying to do something to deal with the housing crisis in London when they left us in such a heaven’s awful mess in the first place. We heard a grudging acceptance that things were not quite right from some Opposition Members, including one or two who served in the previous Government, but let us put things where they are: the lowest levels of house building in peacetime since 1924; social housing waiting lists at record levels; 250,000 families in social housing living in overcrowded conditions; and—this is a particularly worrying factor—only half of social tenants of working age in work.

That is the inheritance that this coalition Government are trying to pick up, and at a time when there is less money available from the public finances, because of the economic mess that the previous Government left behind. I can understand that people such as the hon. Member for Islington North, who have been consistent in their criticism, are entitled to make the points that they do. However, there are other Opposition Members who—if I may politely say so—have selective memories, and I am not prepared to brook criticism from that source.

There is some common ground between us, however, so let us look at what we need to do. The hon. Member for Edmonton (Mr Love) talked about the need to increase supply, which is obviously right. We need to increase supply right across the types of tenures that are available, because the complexity of the London housing market is such that there is no single bullet. That point is right, and I will deal with it later. We also need to look at flexibility in social housing, which includes the questions of tenure and so on. There is probably common ground there, too. We also need to accept that there is an obligation to protect the most vulnerable and disadvantaged—something that I also want to touch on.

On the first point, about supply, I am not going to rehearse the rights and wrongs of our disagreement with Labour about the targets approach to the delivery of housing. We know where the previous Government stood; Labour Members know where we stand. However, at the end of the day, there was a failure to deliver an adequate supply of housing. We are determined to take steps to address that, which is why we are seeking to incentivise housing right across the board. That is why the new homes bonus is an important factor in again giving communities a real stake in giving permissions. That will be important in dealing with the reluctance of some communities previously to accept needed development because they felt that they had no stake in it and that it had been imposed on them without having a proper say-so. That is why we propose to reform the community infrastructure levy and turn it into a localised tariff, so that—to deal with the point that the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) made—the community that receives development has a means of getting back a meaningful proportion of the planning gain arising from it.

Those are some important supply-side issues, but we are also setting aside £1 billion over the comprehensive spending review period for the new homes bonus scheme—I would politely point out to the hon. Member for Edmonton that the first £200 million, in the first year, is additional money from the Treasury. We seek to incentivise those authorities that are prepared to accept necessary and sustainable growth. We are investing a further £6.5 billion in housing, which includes more than £2 billion to make existing social homes decent and nearly £4.5 billion in new affordable housing to help to deliver up to 150,000 affordable homes. There is therefore significant investment taking place, against a background of seeking to pay down the debts that we inherited as a Government.

Those are supply-side issues that we are seeking to deal with, but the other key issue to the supply side is getting the economy right. Ultimately, confidence has to be restored to the markets, so that people start lending and builders can build once more. Getting the economy right—on which the Opposition have not been exactly supportive of the Government so far—is key, too.

[Heidi Alexander]

The Minister is talking about supply-side interventions. Can he explain why the Government have insisted on the new homes bonus gimmick, rather than putting that money directly into capital subsidy for building new affordable homes?

[Robert Neill]

It is not a gimmick; it is a holistic solution. With respect, the hon. Lady is making exactly the error that Labour Members sometimes make, which is to pluck out social and affordable housing policy and to treat it as though it were separate from the rest of the housing market. Everything is interlinked, however, and the key objective is to increase supply across the board. An increase in supply will lead to greater mobility of people, which will free up accommodation in the often hard-pressed social rented sector.

I want to turn to the changes to flexibility in rents and market rents. Those proposals have been made because affordable rent is a less grant-dependent system than previous models. Criticism has been made about the grant, but we have had to reflect the fact that money is limited because of the mess we inherited. We have moved to a model that we think is proportionate and less grant intensive, in order to make better use of the money. This also recognises the reality that we need to encourage housing associations. I am sorry that there has been a degree of criticism of housing associations. They vary; in my experience as a London MP, I have found that some are very good, and others less so. It is wrong, however, to denigrate the whole sector, just as it would be wrong to denigrate the whole private landlord sector. Lest I forget, let me place on record the fact that my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests refers to a single property from which I receive some income.

If we are to generate income for reinvestment in new affordable housing, there has to be an income flow into the housing associations. As a result of the mess that we inherited, that cannot be entirely dependent on Government grant, so it is necessary to get that money from somewhere else. That is why we believe that an affordable rent model will lead to more houses being built, and more households being able to access the benefits of what is still a sub-market rent.

We are all concerned about the specific situation in London, which is why we are devolving the Homes and Communities Agency’s powers to the Mayor. The Mayor has raised issues about the way in which he intends to operate these functions in London, and we will look at the flexibility of that. We will also look at the responses of various associations, and the Minister for Housing and Local Government will respond to those in due course. That is why I will not go into that matter further at this stage.

It is important to recognise that the housing policy spend in London is significant, and that the Mayor has already established a good track record in this area. He is on track to deliver 50,000 affordable homes by the Olympics, but he has been up front and said that, because of the economic situation, that might have slipped by a year. However, he preferred to be honest and say that it had slipped a year because of external economic factors, compared with the previous Mayor, who set a 50% target that was not met in any of the eight years that he was in office. The best he achieved was 34%, so Mayor Johnson is much more on track than his predecessor. He has also recognised that we will need transitional arrangements to deal with the issues arising from the change to an affordable rent model in the sector.

The reform of tenure was recognised before the election by the right hon. Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint), in one of the periods when she was off the Front Bench, as an issue that needed to be tackled. In that context, existing tenants will be protected. It seems perfectly reasonable to say that, if we are to encourage a more flexible supply of tenure, people who go into a new tenancy should do so in the knowledge that, if circumstances change, it will be appropriate to review that provision.

[Heidi Alexander]

rose—

[Robert Neill]

I will finish this point, then I need to make way for the hon. Member for Islington North.

Some of the more alarmist comments about churn in a city that has a great deal of population churn anyway are unjustified.

[Ms Buck]

rose—

[Robert Neill]

This will have to be the last time I give way to anyone.

[Ms Buck]

Will the Minister confirm something for the record? I understand, following the consideration of the Localism Bill in Committee, that existing tenants who voluntarily downsize to smaller properties or move from overcrowded properties will, after the new rules are introduced, be subject to short-term tenancies. That does not seem to me to be consistent with what he and others have said about current tenants not being affected.

[Robert Neill]

The point is that it is a voluntary change in the arrangements, not what exists at the moment. At the end of the day, we must be sensible and recognise that, if we want more new homes, either we go down the route of pumping more and more public money in—when, thanks to the actions of the previous Government, there is no public money—or we go down the alternative route of using a bit more common sense and imagination and being prepared to look at more flexible models for dealing with the situation.

Ultimately—I am conscious of the need to allow the hon. Member for Islington North time to respond to the debate—this Government are strongly committed to housing in London. The current Mayor is committed to housing in London and there has been a 35% increase in the number of affordable starts since Mayor Johnson took office. Increasing the number of family-size properties is another important issue and there has been a 40% increase in three-bedroom houses, so we do not think that we have anything to be ashamed of in respect of our housing policy in London. I am confident that, when we debate the subject again in perhaps a few years’ time, I shall be able to defend Mayor Johnson’s record after he has been re-elected. I am sure that the hon. Member for Islington North will still be there to raise housing issues with the same passion and vigour. I hope that I have left him enough time to conclude.

17:56

[Jeremy Corbyn]

In closing the debate, I would like to thank the Backbench Business Committee for allotting us the time for it. There was initially some doubt about whether sufficient London Members would attend the debate and whether it would be last the full time allotted to it. We have been proved wrong on that, as many Members —14, I believe—have spoken and put many valuable points on the record.

I would like to thank both Front-Bench teams. I particularly thank my hon. Friend the Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck) for her fantastic record on housing. The fact that she is still a Member after the last general election is because of her record on housing and her support for the people in her community. I would also like to thank the Minister not only for the manner of his reply but for the fact—unprecedented in my experience of watching Ministers in operation—that he has been in his place throughout the whole debate and listened to every speech. He will have heard the passion and commitment shown by many Members on housing issues.

Let me remind the Minister of these points. None of them is new; housing issues are not new; the passion and commitment of London MPs to social housing issues in London is not new—and it will not finish with today’s debate, as we will be back, back and back again because we passionately believe that everyone deserves somewhere decent to live and we passionately believe in cohesive communities.

When the Minister goes away from this debate, I would like him to reflect on four points on which he could take action. First, he should re-examine what is happening with the housing allowance, how it has been imposed and how families have been forced out of their communities, creating a huge problem that is hitting people in areas such as the one that I have the privilege to represent.

Secondly, I accept that not every private landlord is a bad landlord—but there are some bad landlords and some badly maintained properties. Private tenants pay more than others for heating, lighting and everything else because the homes are often badly maintained and inefficient—not all, but quite a lot are.

Thirdly, the Minister should recognise that the housing needs of London are special and that if we do not recognise them we will end up with a divided, inefficient, ineffective city. I do not want that; the Minister does not want that; nobody in the Chamber wants it.

Lastly, I ask, please, for money in the form of investment in good homes for a good future for our young people. It is better to put the money in bricks and mortar than to subsidise private rents. That has to be the way forward. London can do it, but we need the Government’s recognition and support if we are to succeed.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the matter of social housing in London.

Port Health Authorities

Thursday 5th May 2011 Commons Chamber

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

17:59

[Dr Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test) (Lab)]

I am delighted to have secured the debate. I do not think that the subject of port health and port health authorities has been discussed in the Chamber before; indeed, I do not think that most people—including, I suspect, some hon. Members—know what a port health authority is or does. Just as many people assume that a port consists of a quay, some cranes, some trucks and some men unloading goods from ships on to trucks, many people, if they consider the matter at all, assume that a port health authority is about health in ports. Well, it is not; or, rather, it is about much more than that.

Port health authorities are, to put it simply, the last line of defence—and a very thin red line at that—for the United Kingdom as a whole. They protect us from incoming disease in humans or animals, from contaminated food, and from dangerous merchandise that has, as we know, entered the country in the past with devastating consequences. They provide the first and last opportunity for a nation that lives on trade, mostly through ports, to be defended from such unwanted intrusions.

If infected or unfit animal products enter the country, that concerns port health authorities. If sick or infected animals enter the country, that concerns port health authorities, along with others. If there are aflatoxins in peanut cargos, that concerns port health authorities. The preparations to combat a world influenza pandemic that we saw a while ago are very much a concern of port health authorities. Standards relating to food imported from outside the European Union are a central concern of port health authorities, as are the standards and certification of hygiene and cleanliness on cruise, cargo and passenger ships. The disinfecting of ships in ports concerns port health authorities, and many other things do as well.

About 120 port health authorities, or branches of such authorities, undertake the task of carrying out what I think we all agree are vital national functions. That number includes not only coastal ports, but inland ports and airports such those that serve London, including Gatwick. They are maintained and funded by local authorities, but—for there is a but—they are maintained mostly by the local authorities in whose areas most of a port sits, regardless of the national or regional importance of the work being undertaken. There is no line in local government revenue support grant marked “port health”, and there is no weighting factor in formula funding that recognises the existence of local authorities’ port health responsibilities. As a result, local authorities shoulder the cost by charging council tax payers. Moreover, there is no national underwriting of any aspect of port health authority activity. A national association, the Association of Port Health Authorities, undertakes national co-ordination and pursues national activities relating to port health, but it is funded solely by the subscriptions of its member authorities.

Let me complete the picture by making two points. Local authorities have been and are scrupulous in funding the net costs of port health. I say “net costs” because although port health authorities can charge for a number of their services, such as the provision of health certificates for ships, by no means all their activities enable their costs to be recovered in that way, and, as I shall illustrate, the list of such activities is growing. Southampton port authority, in my city, provides an example. It covers: the container port, which is the second largest in the UK; the cruise ship terminals, which are the largest in the UK; general port bulk activity; the wharfs on the Itchen and Hamble; the military port in Marchwood; the oil terminals at Calshot; and Southampton airport. In short, the authority covers a complex of port areas and activities which are much more extensive than the area covered by Southampton city council and it undertakes nationally significant activity.

All that work—the activities of Southampton’s port health authority—is carried out at a gross cost per annum of £1.1 million and a net cost of some £300,000, and it is funded by the council tax payers of Southampton. Southampton’s port health authority has 13 staff, as well as administrative support, to cover all those duties and the movements in this vast port, and it is on duty 24 hours a day. It is very effective and very efficient, and it provides very good value for money. However, its duties continue to increase in scope and the new duties are mostly unfunded. So not only does the PHA not gain resources, but it has to cope with an ever-increasing work load with static resources.

An example of these new duties relates to regulation 669 from the European Union, which came into force on 20 January 2010. It deals with the inspection and, if necessary, the seizure of incoming non-animal foodstuffs, and all the new work that it involves is unfunded. Tony Baldock, the food quality inspector for Crawley borough council in Gatwick airport, is reported to have received a visit from EU inspectors last November and they expressed astonishment that no more resources were available to him to deal with the 2,600 extra consignments that he and his team were inspecting—indeed, this is true. In most other European countries the equivalent functions are resourced and undertaken on a national basis, but at Gatwick and other port health authorities all this work is done on the basis of existing and locally raised resources.

I mentioned the issue of aflatoxins in peanut imports. Aflatoxins are essentially a virulent fungus that can come into the country with peanut imports and it can cause liver failure if it is released into the general retail environment and infected nuts are consumed. It is essential that port health authorities carry out inspections for aflatoxins and, if necessary, prevent these imports from coming into this country, but no funding is provided for such inspections. Of course, port health authorities also carry out preparations and operations concerning emergencies such as the world avian flu virus, as well as inspections for radioactivity in food coming in from Japan, but no funding is provided for such work either.

The picture—I believe I am giving a fair picture—shows that even under conditions of extreme budgetary strain, local authorities are not sacking staff and making net funding reductions in port health authorities; they are acting very responsibly as far as their enforced local charges are concerned. However, there certainly are no new resources available to deal with new demands and requirements, and port health authorities, including Southampton’s, are operating increasingly stretched round-the-clock cover under progressively more difficult circumstances. That thin red line for all is being kept in place by efficiency savings, additional work rosters and responsible but difficult funding decisions being taken by local authorities in specific places.

In short, we face not an imminent catastrophe or collapse, but the skin being stretched tighter and tighter across the fabric of the service. For example, we face having future foot and mouth threats being dealt with by hand-to-mouth methods, and that is not ideal. This is not a recipe for all of us to sleep easy in our beds knowing that all will be well for the foreseeable future. Furthermore, as I have mentioned, because the funding and underwriting decisions are taken authority by authority, and locality by locality, no national co-ordination takes place, even when that would have obvious advantages—for example, a ship inspection database could help to avoid inspection duplication. The exception to that funding approach, as I have mentioned, is the APHA, which attempts to fill the breach with the few thousand pounds it gets in subscription from its member authorities. It is sometimes described as taking national action on corner-shop resources.

The problem with all this—at national level at least—is that the existence of all these duties and the degree to which they are overloading our present system is not recognised. Indeed, it is salutary to reflect that a recent report, the Rogers review of national enforcement priorities for local authorities, completely failed to notice or record the existence of port health authorities as a local authority function. Perhaps part of the issue is one of departmental responsibility and awareness. Does port health come under the Department of Health because of its public health implications, the Department for Communities and Local Government because of its locational and funding concerns, or perhaps the Department for Transport because it concerns ports and airports? That is not entirely clear in some circumstances and, perhaps for that reason, it falls between the cracks in the pavement.

If I have been able to bring to the attention of the House the existence and scope of, and difficulties facing, port health authorities, I hope I have achieved a little, but I believe we should be looking to move matters forward more urgently as far as port health is concerned. We should not proceed for the long-term future hoping that particular local authorities will be able to find the share of the funding not taken up by others. We must not cross our fingers and hope that, somehow, those officers in post now will exponentially absorb new duties and responsibilities so that our dinner tables and public health concerns can remain protected. I believe we should do more.

I am delighted to see the Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill) in his place to answer the debate, as I had been given to understand that it would be answered by the Department of Health. I am sure that he is equally delighted to be here and it is good that he will be able to reflect on the issues I have raised as far as the DCLG is concerned. Some might see this as an additional burden placed on some particular local authorities, whereby funding has to be found from within that area but goes towards activities that, I think we will agree, are nationally significant or at the very least regionally significant in their benefit and that are undertaken on behalf of us all.

We need at least to make allowance in the funding formula for the existence of port health alongside introducing mechanics to ensure that the load on local authorities is fairly shared to reflect the national importance of the function. That is a consideration for the DCLG. I cannot say I am completely optimistic that such a change in formula will immediately come about, but I would hope consideration of what it means to run a port health authority, the responsibilities on the shoulders of local authorities and the difficult circumstances that local government is in will be taken fully on board by the Department.

We also need recognition of the need for national support for public health co-ordination of port health at a national level, perhaps through providing support for the Association of Port Health Authorities to carry forward national co-ordination work. That is perhaps for the Department of Health to consider, and I hope that the Minister will convey those thoughts to his colleagues in that Department when the opportunity presents itself. Above all, I want port health to work to the best possible benefit of us all, not just for my city. It is incumbent on us all to think how best that can be secured.

18:14

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Robert Neill)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Southampton, Test (Dr Whitehead) on securing the debate and raising this important issue, which straddles departmental boundaries, but I am happy to do my bit for the greater good and to shoulder the burden, as I was here anyway. I am much better informed, as is the House, thanks to his debate. I see the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) in his place, and I have come across the issue as a London Member of Parliament in the context of Heathrow, but the hon. Member for Southampton, Test has usefully set the matter in a broader context.

Perhaps I can deal with some of the points that the hon. Gentleman raises and consider whether there are ways forward. He is absolutely right: local authorities have the fundamental responsibility under the Public Health (Control of Disease) Act 1984 for protecting the health of the population. Some of those public health functions are indeed discharged by port health authorities, which obviously have a particular focus in that regard. The 1984 Act provides for a port health authority to be formed either by a single local authority, as I think is the case in Southampton and in most of the cases that I looked at before the debate, or jointly by a number of authorities. To reflect local circumstances sensibly, there can be a joint board or other appropriate management arrangement.

Such arrangements are set up by a port health authority order made under the 1984 Act. Those orders are constituted by the Secretary of State for Health, but as the hon. Gentleman has observed, the funding issues tend to fall within the formula grant, which comes via the Department for Communities and Local Government, so that is where some of the overlap occurs.

Although the approach to port health authorities is the better part of 25 years or more old, it is well aligned with the Government’s localism agenda. It is permissive and local authorities have considerable discretion to come together, so it is bottom up in that sense, and there is flexibility for such orders to specify what functions port health authorities take on. Those functions can vary from place to place. The authorities are pretty fit for purpose for the current localist approach, so we would not necessarily want to change that arrangement.

As well as predominantly receiving funding from formula grant, port health authorities have the power to levy a precept in certain circumstances on the billing authorities in their areas. I understand that from the funds that they receive, they pay a small amount to their representative body. I am glad that the hon. Gentleman referred to the Association of Port Health Authorities, because I am told that it has a good working relationship with the Department of Health. Officials in that Department keep in touch with the association’s officials, and I am told that they very much value that. In due course the Department will make proposals for consultation on updating regulations that relate specifically to international travel and the circumstances of port health. It is willing to discuss that with the representative body.

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

The Minister mentioned Heathrow airport, which is in my constituency. It is possibly the largest passenger port of entry in the country, but a large amount of cargo comes through it as well. I am grateful to him for mentioning that the regulations will be reviewed. I would be grateful if that was linked to a review of staffing levels and the required resources, because the regulations need to take account of the demands on resources, particularly at Heathrow.

[Robert Neill]

The hon. Gentleman makes a sensible point. Obviously, we need to consider what resources are required when we find out what the regulations require. I shall link that point to the one made by the hon. Member for Southampton, Test about regulation 669. I will certainly ensure that my officials talk to officials at the Department of Health, and I will correspond with my opposite number there, so that such things are all considered together. There, too, is the opportunity to consider whether the burden is appropriately addressed in the current circumstances. So it is sensible to look at that in the round, as both hon. Gentlemen suggest.

In terms of the broader aspects of the funding, formula grant has so far been a tried and tested means of financing local authorities. There is also the ability to levy a precept, which will vary slightly according to the composition and responsibility of each port health authority. I know too, as I am sure the hon. Member for Southampton, Test does, that in certain circumstances there is a power for the authority to make a charge to recover the cost of providing a service to a user of the port, so there are some flexibilities.

In a broader context, I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will know that the Government are committed to consulting over the summer and taking forward a review of local government resourcing, which will include the operation of the business rates. Port authorities and port operations are often significant contributors to business rates within their areas and are important economic hubs. Of course, the outcome of that review might influence the approach that we adopt to formula grant as a whole. Formula grant started life as part of the business rate that was being recycled, but life has become rather more complicated than that in local government finance. However, the review gives us an opportunity to look holistically at the relationship with the grant. I cannot make promises about what the outcome of the review will be, but I can promise the hon. Gentleman that I can, as a result of this debate, take steps to ensure that the impact of any change on port health authorities is taken into account. I accept that many people might not realise their dependency on formula grant, and that this issue could fall between the ship and the quayside—that seems an appropriate analogy—but I would not want that to happen.

I hope that my comments have given the hon. Gentleman some indication that the Government are prepared to engage on this issue. We think that port health authorities fulfil a valuable role, and I pay tribute to their staff. He is right to say that they are on the front line, and they give a pretty cost-effective service.

[John McDonnell]

It would not be worth living back in Hillingdon if I did not raise this point on behalf of the borough. In the review of wider business rates, it would be invaluable to assess not just the implications of the cost of the control of port health—particularly with regard to passengers, but also in relation to the import of goods—as well as the knock-on effects of having a port within a local authority area. I give as an example the role of health and social services in giving support when passengers who have particular needs arrive at Heathrow airport or another port. In addition, the local authority has to exercise a wider environmental health role for any goods that are brought into an area where a particular issue arises. That needs to be reflected in any future review of grants to local authorities and the use of business rates.

[Robert Neill]

That is a fair point. I have heard the hon. Gentleman’s comments, which are on the record, and I will ensure that my officials take that point on board. It is worth remembering that although an element of national activity is undertaken, that does not automatically make it a national service in the strict sense. Some authorities, because of their differing constitutions and the different level of function, will probably be in a different position in terms of the impact of regulations and changes that affect them. A one-size-fits-all approach is therefore probably not appropriate, but there are things we could consider to make sure that all this is put into context.

Lest anyone who has not been following all this should be in any doubt about the variation in port authorities, let me make it clear that the term “ports” is to be read much more widely than some people might appreciate. Southampton is, unsurprisingly, a port authority, and Heathrow, in Hillingdon, is the largest of the port authorities, but Brent—that well-known coastal town—also has a port authority. I understand that is because a good deal of cargo interchange is dealt with there. The same applies to Trafford, which I suppose might have a footage on the Manchester ship canal; your constituency is closer to that area than mine, Mr Deputy Speaker. That serves to demonstrate the variety of operations covered by port authorities, and why there has to be some flexibility in the arrangements. I have done my best to address hon. Members’ concerns and I am very happy to ensure that we take this matter forward, either through correspondence or as is otherwise appropriate.

Question put and agreed to.

18:24

House adjourned.

Ministerial Correction

Thursday 5th May 2011 Ministerial Corrections

Thursday 5 May 2011

Cabinet Office

Thursday 5th May 2011 Ministerial Corrections

Public Bodies

[Jon Trickett]

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office pursuant to the answer of 21 March 2011, Official Report, column 838W, if he will publish the departmental estimates that were collated to arrive at the stated estimates of savings.

[Official Report, 1 April 2011, Vol. 526, c. 540-41W.]

Letter of correction from Mr Francis Maude:

An error has been identified in the written answer given to the hon. Member for Hemsworth (Jon Trickett) on 1 April 2011. The HO and total figures were incorrect.

The full answer given was as follows:

[Mr Maude]

[holding answer 31 March 2011]: On 16 March 2011, I announced that we estimate cumulative administrative savings of £2.6 billion will flow from public bodies over the spending review period.

The departmental estimates that were collated to arrive at that figure are:

[Mr Maude]

[holding answer 31 March 2011]: On 16 March 2011, I announced that we estimate cumulative administrative savings of £2.6 billion will flow from public bodies over the spending review period.

The departmental estimates that were collated to arrive at that figure are:

Petition

Thursday 5th May 2011 Petitions

Thursday 5 May 2011

World education

Thursday 5th May 2011 Petitions

The Petition of the constituents of Manchester Withington and others,

Declares that world leaders have promised that all children will have a primary education by 2015, but with only five years left to go there are still 72 million children missing out on an education completely.

The Petitioners therefore request the House of Commons to urge the Government to act quickly and decisively to ensure that the goal of all children obtaining a primary education by 2015 is indeed obtained.

And the Petitioners remain, etc.—[Presented by Mr John Leech, Official Report, 20 July 2010; Vol. 514, c. 321.]

[P000845]

Observations from the Secretary of State for International Development:

Although good progress has been made over the past decade, with 47 million more children gaining access to education, it is a tragedy that, with just five years to go until 2015, 72 million primary aged children still do not have access to any education at all.

As laid out in “The Coalition: our programme for government”, the UK will prioritise increasing access to basic services, such as health and education, for the world’s poorest people.

I have recently initiated a review of all of the Department for International Development’s (DFID) aid programmes, including health and education, to ensure that we achieve maximum value for money and accelerate progress towards the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

DFID support to education is demonstrating results. In 2008-09 DFID funds supported some 5 million children in school, trained 100,000 teachers and built 12,000 classrooms.

It is clear that accelerated international action is needed to achieve the goal of universal primary education by 2015. At the forthcoming United Nations MDG review summit in September 2010, the UK will be pushing for a results orientated action plan to meet the MDGs, including those related to education.

Westminster Hall

Thursday 5th May 2011 Westminster Hall

Thursday 5 May 2011

[Mr Joe Benton in the Chair]

backbench business

Thursday 5th May 2011 Westminster Hall

General Debate

Thursday 5th May 2011 Westminster Hall

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

14:29

[Jane Ellison (Battersea) (Con)]

The Backbench Business Committee encountered some difficulty in finding sufficient business today, when many Members have good reason to be in their constituencies. We are pleased to have been able to arrange some business, but the Government giving us Westminster Hall and the Chamber on the same day as part of our allocation caused us some difficulty. Discussions about the number of days the Committee allocated in the Session will no doubt refer back to today.

Parliamentarian of the day award goes to the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell), who, I anticipate, will have contributed in both Chambers within an hour. It is also good to see my hon. Friend the Member for Sittingbourne and Sheppey (Gordon Henderson) in his place.

Two Members notified the Committee that they wish to participate in the debate, but others are free to speak. Today’s debate follows the traditional structure of pre-recess debates. The Committee has found that introducing this structure at times other than before recesses has proved popular among Members, as it offers flexibility within the parliamentary timetable to raise a range of subjects. We are happy to have arranged this debate, albeit on a slightly tricky day for business.

[Mr Joe Benton (in the Chair)]

Two subjects have been notified to us, the first of which is the impact of BAA on the Heathrow villages.

14:32

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

I thank the hon. Member for Battersea (Jane Ellison) and the Backbench Business Committee for giving us this opportunity.

I fully support the innovation of the Backbench Business Committee and reform of Back-Bench debates. Having sat for eight hours through many pre-recess debates and been able to speak for only two minutes, I think this is a wonderful innovation. The fact that so few Members have applied to speak in the debate is no reflection on the structuring of these debates. There are no local government elections in my constituency, so this is perhaps a higher priority than other matters.

I represent Hayes and Harlington, which covers Heathrow airport. The airport is surrounded to the north by Cranford Cross, Harlington, Sipson, Harmondsworth and Longford—villages in the traditional Middlesex style. They still have their own identities and wonderful features to celebrate that we value greatly locally.

Cranford has a wonderful park, in which is situated the mediaeval St Dunstan’s church. We in Hayes regularly hear the peal of its bells. At an open day a couple of months ago I tried my hand at a peal of bells, and although it was not particularly successful it has gone down well as a comic act on YouTube.

In Harlington, we have St Peter and St Paul mediaeval church, with its ancient yew trees. Harlington was the home of William Byrd, the composer and musician to Elizabeth I.

Sipson is a vibrant village, despite the threat to it. It has a traditional pub, the King William, and a wonderful primary school. Sipson house was owned by Nelson’s funder and banker and is still a local monument.

Longford is a collection of attractive homes, many of which are located on an island surrounded by a stream. Despite the problems of noise and pollution, it remains an attractive place to live.

Harmondsworth is a traditional Middlesex village, with a green and pubs on it. The person who discovered the Cox’s orange pippin, Mr Cox, is buried in its mediaeval church, St Mary’s, which is a place of pilgrimage for gardeners. Harmondsworth tithe barn is the largest mediaeval barn in Europe.

All those villages are surrounded by park lands—Prospect park and Cranford park—and linked by open spaces. There is 1,000 years of history in the villages. Philip Sherwood, a friend who is a local historian, has written books on the history of the Heathrow villages, and Catherine Kelter has written on the wider history of Hayes. People can read various articles by Douglas Rust, another local historian, in our local history society journal. Those books and articles, especially Philip’s history of Heathrow and photo collection, show how the area has changed over time. That change has been dominated by the growth of London airport, now known as Heathrow.

Heathrow was developed in the 1930s. Initially, there was a row of tents in a field located strategically on the A4 near London and the aviation manufacturing and development at Fairey Aviation in Hayes.

In the second world war, Heathrow served as a key airport for London and it expanded. Heathrow village was demolished to develop the airport. The Government developed their plans for the expansion and growth of the airport throughout the war, but they were largely kept secret. It was to be the national airport with a network of runways and terminals. Interestingly, those plans bear close resemblance to those that BAA eventually proposed for a third runway and sixth terminal. From the mid-1940s to the 1990s, we saw a rolling out of almost the original plans: five terminals, two runways and an emergency runway.

Heathrow village was demolished and wiped off the face of the earth. Longford and Cranford Cross suffered increased noise and pollution, but we managed to contain it by liaising with the airport authority, minimising the environmental damage. We were able to protect the other villages by maintaining a divide between the airport and the villages: the A4, which forms the northern boundary of Heathrow airport.

The peripheral developments associated with the airport are beyond the A4—hotels and the headquarters of BA, the British Airways Pilots Association and the Unite union—but they were managed to a large extent by the planning process and therefore had minimal impact on the Heathrow villages. There were some incursions into Longford, as properties were bought by developers for more hotels, some of whom were encouraged by BA. Allegations were floated at the time that BA was secretly funding the developers so that it could take control of Longford.

Nevertheless, the Heathrow villages were maintained. They were jealously protected as thriving communities by vigilant residents represented by vigilant residents associations, working with councillors and me over the past 35 to 40 years. Village life continues, and we have excellent and successful schools such as William Byrd school in Harlington, Heathrow school in Sipson and Harmondsworth school in that village. The churches and the local temple have been an essential part of the local community, we still have small local shops, pubs and clubs, and there were British Legion clubs in Sipson and Cranford Cross.

Wonderful community organisations include Harlington hospice, of which I am a trustee. It provides an essential service supporting the local primary care trust. There are active community centres in Harmondsworth and Sipson, and the secret jewel of Harlington is the model steam railway, which children especially enjoy. We have local scouts, guides, cubs and brownies—everything we would associate with a typical English village, evolving over time.

When the threat of the third runway came on the scene, things changed. Let me outline the history. In the 1980s, BAA introduced proposals for terminal 4. That expansion was agreed to on the basis that the airport could have a new terminal, but there was to be no further expansion, and the new terminal was to be contained within the airport and south of the A4 boundary. In the 1980s and 1990s, despite Government assurances of no further development, BAA started to lobby for terminal 5, which I opposed and campaigned against because I thought it was overdevelopment. Terminal 5 was eventually agreed in the 1990s; none the less, when it was agreed, the inspectors’ report was extremely helpful, because it recommended rejection of any further expansion of Heathrow, particularly a third runway or a further terminal.

BAA lobbied extensively after that inquiry and within 18 months introduced proposals for a third runway between Harlington and Sipson. It was initially to be a short take-off runway, but we knew that it would eventually become a full runway. It would have demolished Harmondsworth and its mediaeval barn, obliterated Sipson, and even impinged on Harlington. At one time, the proposed network of roads would have gone through our local cemetery at Cherry lane and we were faced with the prospect of having to exhume our loved ones. A further revelation that came during that process was that, as we predicted, a third runway would require a sixth terminal, which would completely obliterate Sipson village. All the Heathrow villages would be dramatically affected by the airport’s expansion, and many would come within the airport’s boundaries.

As many hon. Members know, local residents launched a campaign against the proposal. We campaigned on a cross-party basis in the local area, but it became a national issue and we had support from a range of direct action campaigners. The climate camp arrived in my constituency, and I slept there for a few nights. I learned more about the use of superglue in direct action than I ever knew before—one campaigner, in a publicity stunt, superglued himself to the previous Prime Minister.

Friends of the Earth and 50,000 of their supporters bought a piece of land, and became beneficiary owners, so that they would be consulted on the expansion of Heathrow. The issue went from being a local one, sometimes described as nimbyism, to one of national shame that the project might go ahead with the threat of 10,000 people losing their homes, and 2 million being affected by noise and pollution. It then became a global issue as we discovered more and more about climate change.

As a result of debates about the expansion of Heathrow, we looked at alternatives, including high-speed rail which, it seemed, would provide more employment and environmental protection than the expansion of Heathrow. The threat of climate change changed the nature of the debate on aviation expansion: it moved on to reducing demand and controlling the environmental impact of airports instead of simply acquiescing to more and more expansion.

We won the campaign. It was a virulent and mass campaign—I will not go into the use of the Mace in the Chamber—and it was creative in developing a broad base of opposition. The Liberal Democrats supported us. The Conservative party turned a policy somersault from backing airport expansion to being opponents of the third runway, and I congratulate it on doing that. The Labour party was split: it supported Heathrow’s expansion and the third runway, but in the negotiations on a coalition, I believe, it offered up the third runway as an item that could be dropped.

When the coalition was formed, the third runway was rejected. I am convinced that the third runway and the sixth terminal are dead, but although we secured victory in our campaign, we must recognise that casualties continue. Residents and small businesses in the Heathrow villages have suffered blight from the threat of expansion—a threat that has existed for more than a decade. The culprit was and continues to be BAA.

BAA was established in 1966. It owned and was responsible for Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted and originally Prestwick airports. It was then a nationalised industry, but in 1987, the Thatcher Government privatised it, and as a private company, it was responsible for 85% of air traffic movements in the London area. In March 2006, BAA was taken over by the Spanish company, Grupo Ferrovial, which is a major international construction group.

At various times, Ferrovial has had to refinance the debt that it incurred when it purchased BAA, as well as Heathrow and Gatwick airports. The Civil Aviation Authority determines the charges that airport authorities and owners may levy, including BAA’s charges at Heathrow. When purchasing BAA and Heathrow, Ferrovial consistently overestimated its ability to charge and the profits that it could make from expanding Heathrow. As a result, it failed to fulfil the expectations of its shareholders.

Ferrovial thought that the purchase of Heathrow would be a way of making a fast profit in the short term that would justify investment in expansion to make even more profit in the long term, but the CAA’s control of the levy and its failure to increase charges to the level that Ferrovial demanded has made Ferrovial’s ownership of BAA financially embarrassing. Ferrovial has found managing the short-term and long-term profitability of the airport difficult. I think it wanted to repatriate some of the profit from Heathrow to prop up its position because of problems with its international construction group and to cope with volatility in the construction market. It has failed to do so. When it factored Heathrow expansion into its calculations, it did not reflect charging levels and the possible failure to achieve a third runway.

It is entirely understandable that Ferrovial factored in the expansion of Heathrow and a third runway because, until the last three years, BAA’s every demand for expansion and the aviation industry’s every policy demand has been acceded to by successive Governments of every political hue. There has been cross-party consensus on acquiescence to every demand from the aviation industry. Ferrovial was shocked that the CAA did not allow it to increase its charges so it could make the profits it wanted, and by the incoming Government’s refusal to allow Heathrow to expand. I understand that shock because, as I have demonstrated in debate after debate in the House, there has been an almost incestuous link between BAA, the aviation industry and the Department for Transport, with almost a revolving door for people coming to and from jobs in the Department and the aviation industry, and even from No. 10 into airline companies and BAA.

The third runway dominated BAA’s thinking about its long-term future. It was so confident of convincing the Government to allow expansion that it dominated the media, which took that expansion as read. As soon as the previous Government opened up the debate on the third runway, there was immediate blight. Home owners who wanted to move for the usual reasons—families growing up, people retiring and wanting to move nearer their children, and people securing jobs away from the area—were unable to sell, even at significantly knocked-down prices.

Small local businesses were unable to raise capital to invest or plan for the long term, and they were therefore unable to secure their long-term futures effectively. Community groups were affected by the blight because they were not able to raise funds—particularly capital funds—to secure investment in their premises, because of the risk that those premises would be demolished with the building of the third runway. The local authority, Hillingdon council, was not able to plan investment in local schools or housing because of the insecurity over whether or not the area would be affected by the airport expansion and schools would be demolished or rendered unusable.

As a result, we lobbied BAA and asked it to introduce some mechanism to provide security or compensation for those who were affected by the blight and wished to sell their properties and move, or invest in their companies. We met Ministers who put pressure on BAA, and that organisation linked up with the airlines that operated as part of the consortium around Heathrow. We asked BAA whether it would introduce a mechanism to allow families, residents and businesses to receive some form of assistance to overcome the blight, and we presented a number of heart-rending examples of those affected. One family, for example, lived in a one-bedroom flat. The number of people in that family had increased over the years, but they were totally unable to sell their accommodation and move somewhere larger. There were people who were elderly or ill and wanted to move to live near their families who had moved away. They were unable to do so because they could not sell their properties. There were retirees who wanted to move to be near their sons and daughters.

After a lot of pressure, and assistance from representatives of all political parties who mobilised to put pressure on BAA, BAA came up with a proposal for a bond scheme. Under that scheme, BAA agreed to purchase individual properties from residents at a guaranteed price if planning permission was given. The scheme was extremely limited to certain identified areas that included Sipson village and some streets in Harmondsworth, although not many. Some concerns about prices and valuations needed to be hammered out, and the bond scheme did not include compensation to organisations other than individual property owners. There was no compensation for community organisations or for the wider consequences of the blight, particularly in Harmondsworth and Harlington.

The scheme also failed to address the needs of small businesses in the area. I will provide examples in a moment, but in such businesses, the family often live on site above the shop. In the post office, the local hairdressers, the pub and the local garden centre, people were faced with the loss of their home and their business without compensation. That was largely the result of complications that excluded leaseholders in those circumstances. There was certainly no redress for the wider implications of blight on the local authority or other community organisations.

A number of residents submitted an expression of interest in the bond scheme for consideration. After the general election, the coalition Government rejected the third runway and announced publicly that it would not go ahead—I supported them wholeheartedly in that and congratulate them on having done it. To give it its due, BAA adhered to its commitment to implementing the bond scheme for the many families who were suffering blight and wanted to move for a range of reasons, such as having outgrown their properties, wanting to move closer to other family members, or because of the insecurity and the potential threat that plans for the third runway might return.

So far, BAA has identified 723 properties within the bond scheme, but only 300 of those are homes for families and eligible for that scheme. Of those, latest figures show that 268 properties have been purchased, and another eight sales are in progress. BAA is now the largest home owner in Sipson village, and it is a significant home owner in other Heathrow villages. Many of the homes that have been purchased have been left empty. We are told that those homes are being refurbished with a view to being let, but the process is extremely slow.

Although I have met representatives from BAA and, along with local residents and the local residents association, applied as much pressure as possible, the assurances we have received that the properties will be let quickly to families have not been fulfilled. The slowness of estate agents in allowing lets to take place has been extremely influential in undermining village life, and allowing properties to stand empty has had appalling consequences. In addition, many of the properties have been let not to families but to transient airport workers who have, frankly, no role in village life. They are in the village for short periods of time, do not spend much in the local shops and some do not pass the whole week there. Many of those incomers make no contribution to the local village or to village life because they are there only for short periods of time.

We urged BAA to look at the potential of housing local authority nominated families in those properties, so that the local council can tackle its waiting list that currently stands at over 7,000 families. We also suggested that the council could manage some of the properties more effectively. That has not occurred although I believe that some discussions have taken place at Hillingdon council. Local businesses were not included in the blight compensation scheme. They have lost their loyal customer base and some of them have been devastated. They are struggling to survive from week to week, and it is difficult to see how they can continue.

The current situation is dreadful. I will give some examples because I feel that BAA and the Government need to know the personal circumstances of some of the people in the village as a consequence of decisions made by BAA and in this place. Jackie Clark runs the local hairdresser in Sipson together with her partner, Danny, and she is the third or fourth generation of Clarks to live in the village. I knew her father, Jack Clark, who died aged 97 a short while ago. He was famous because he used to plough the fields in the village and take produce to Covent Garden. Jackie runs the local hairdressers and she was an important figure in our campaign to save the village. It now looks, however, as though she will lose her business and her home because she lives above the salon. Her takings are down by 70%; her husband, who works alongside her, has had to look for alternative work but has found only part-time positions so far. Her business is on the edge of survival.

Shaun Walters runs the local pub. The brewery has done everything it can to assist him and Shaun is not paying himself at the moment—he cannot. He has tried many methods to encourage the use of the pub; he has developed it as a restaurant and added other facilities, but his takings are down by 50% and he is looking at the prospect of not being able to survive unless assistance is provided.

The butcher’s shop in Sipson is run by Gerald Storr. Again, he is not sure how long he can survive because his takings are down so considerably. The village general store and post office, the heart of the village, is run by Mr and Mrs Daurka. They have told me that their customer base has gone and that the number of regular customers is down by at least a quarter, perhaps more. They have looked at whether they can sell their business but they cannot because it is no longer as profitable as it was, or indeed at all. Sipson has a garden centre run by Ian and Pam Stevenson. They once employed 30 staff, but that number is now down to six. Their takings are down by between 60% and 80%, and they are looking at enforced closure if business does not pick up.

The problem is that the homes BAA has bought in Sipson are not being sold. They are being sat upon by that authority, and when they are let, they are not let to settled tenants or families. If the homes are not sold or let to settled families, it is incredibly difficult for the businesses to rebuild the loyal customer base that they once had. Then village life declines. Indeed, if we lose the core village businesses—the shops, the post office, the hairdresser’s and the pub—the village dies, and at the moment we are witnessing the village dying before our eyes.

There are knock-on consequences for the other villages of Harmondsworth, Harlington, Longford and Cranford Cross. They largely were not included in any compensation scheme and they live in the continuing fear of a third runway coming back. That is fuelled by public statements made by BAA that it is still seeking Heathrow expansion and is still confident that it can convince the present Government or future Governments that a third runway should be allowed at some stage. The villagers are receiving no compensation for the suffering that the blight is causing them. Many residents, a lot of whom are elderly, have endured real worries and stress and they are still affected by blight. They are trapped in their homes because the value of their properties has fallen so dramatically, but they are not included in any bond guarantee schemes.

Community organisations, too, have been undermined by the falling population in Sipson village and elsewhere. St Mary’s church in Harmondsworth was cited in the local paper and in a national paper, The Independent, as unable to pay its church stipend this year because of the falling number of parishioners.

A pall is still hanging over the Heathrow villages and that has been caused by BAA. I have had meetings with representatives of BAA consistently. The relationship is relatively amicable. I want a good working relationship with it. I am not opposed to the airport; none of us is. We support the airport: it is an employer and an engine of the local economy. All we oppose is any further expansion of Heathrow. We just want BAA to be a good neighbour. As I said, I have met BAA representatives, and we have considered various schemes to assist the villages and the village businesses. We looked at a “Shop Local” campaign, which I launched. There is consideration of a discount purchase scheme in local shops that can be promoted at the airport among its employees. But with the best will in the world, such schemes are insufficient—they are not what is needed. What is needed is a number of actions by BAA and by Government.

The first relates to blight compensation. I would like BAA at least to accept responsibility for the blight that it has caused. Just a statement of acceptance of that responsibility would go a long way towards restoring some of the relationships between the villages and BAA. However, BAA also needs to bring forward now consideration of a new compensation scheme that provides compensation for the blight that has been caused in the past and for the ongoing blight. That is a wide issue. Immediate action is needed to agree a scheme of compensation for the Sipson small businesses that comprises both lump sum compensation for past blight and ongoing compensation to ensure that they are sustainable while they rebuild their customer base in the village. We are talking about half a dozen small businesses. It is a limited number, so it would be an extremely limited cost.

Secondly, there needs to be consultation of community organisations about the community view of the blight and the ongoing implications. A community investment programme needs to be agreed to regenerate the Heathrow villages. When terminal 5 was agreed, a compensation scheme was set up and it was to be administered by the Hillingdon Community Trust. Under that scheme, BAA gave the trust £1 million a year for 15 years to spend on local community organisations in the south of Hillingdon to tackle community regeneration and environmental improvements. A similar scheme could now be established for the Heathrow villages to compensate them for the blight. I am talking about a scheme controlled by the villagers themselves specifically to regenerate the Heathrow villages and to overcome the ongoing blight that they are suffering.

I would also like BAA to consider a compensation scheme for special cases of blight impact. Where individuals or voluntary and community organisations, such as individual Harmondsworth residents, individual schools or St Mary’s church, could identify specific impacts of blight caused by BAA’s expansion policy, BAA could consider how it could provide compensation and work with those people and organisations to overcome the problems.

Above all, I would like BAA to start selling the empty properties to families. BAA now owns numerous properties in Sipson. It does not need to sell them all at once, but if it now started a process, to take place over a limited period, of putting those properties on the market at a reasonable price so that families could buy them, we could re-establish a stable, thriving community. To get a social mix in the village, it would possibly be worthwhile for some of the properties to be given to Hillingdon council to let to local families. The council would manage the properties itself.

I would also like BAA to look again at using its purchasing power. We have worked with BAA to develop a local supply chain to the airport, which has encouraged businesses across the west of London to take up contracts that have supported the airport and, as a result, supported those businesses. I would now like BAA to consider developing a local supply chain whereby the local village shops and the garden centres elsewhere could become key suppliers to the airport and therefore be sustained.

Above all, I would now like BAA not just to admit the blight, but to give a public and firm commitment to my community that there will be security in the future because it no longer wishes to expand Heathrow airport. I would like BAA to make a public statement that it accepts that the present Government and future Governments will not allow the expansion of Heathrow and that it is giving up its expansion ambitions—that there will be no third runway and no sixth or seventh terminal. I fear at the moment that BAA is retaining the properties—some allege that it is continuing to purchase properties around the Heathrow villages—because it is convinced that it can change the policy of the existing or a future Government by its lobbying and that the third runway will be back in prospect.

We know that BAA is developing a lobbying strategy, particularly targeting coalition partners and Conservative Back Benchers—I will be frank about that. It will be lobbying at the national party conferences. The wining and dining will start again. It will also try to lobby within the Labour party, using the unions as a wedge to try to promote the expansion of Heathrow as developing employment in the area. I believe that that strategy will be well funded and that BAA will seek, during the next 18 months to two years, to get to a situation in which, in the run-up to the next general election, the issue of the third runway and Heathrow expansion will be reopened.

I am convinced that the present Government are committed to no further Heathrow expansion and I am now of the view that the Labour party will come alongside it and support that policy. The problem is that even if we could convince BAA to come out with a promise not to expand and it was written in the blood of the chief executive, not many people would believe it. Therefore, we have to search for a better and more secure route to a commitment that will give people in my area more assurance and lift the blight that they still face. The Government and all the political parties have a role to play in that.

I would like to see, across political parties, the development of a common statement that we all sign up to and that says that no matter who is elected, they do not and will not support the expansion of Heathrow. Let me be frank: I do not see that as an issue for the Liberal Democrats, because it is a long-standing Liberal Democrat party policy. With regard to the Conservatives, the present Government made a commitment and it has proved popular. It would therefore be unpopular to resile from it, but as I said, lobbying is going on, particularly of Back Benchers, by BAA. The policy review taking place on transport is the way in which the Labour party can get itself off the hook of its previous commitments to Heathrow expansion. I hope that the Labour party will rise to that challenge.

I am not sure, however, that even a commitment from the political parties that there will be no further expansion at Heathrow would convince people and lift the blight. We therefore need a more secure commitment, and I look to the example of Gatwick. As Members will recall, one reason it was proposed to expand Heathrow rather than Gatwick was the existence of a legally binding, covenanted agreement that there would be no further expansion at Gatwick until 2020, and that agreement has held.

I would like the Government to bring together all the partners, including all the representatives of the political parties, the Greater London authority and the Mayor—mayoral candidates across the parties have opposed Heathrow’s expansion—the area’s local authorities, particularly Hounslow and Hillingdon, BAA and the airlines, to see whether we can hammer out a draft legal agreement that prevents further expansion at Heathrow. We can seek political consensus, but we can give people authoritative reassurance if we produce a binding legal agreement, which might well be secured by some form of legislation. In that way, we can give people security. A Heathrow concordat or contract would also give my constituents the assurance that their community and village life will not come under threat again.

That is not too much to ask. My community has suffered this blight for decades. I just want my constituents to be able to live in peace in their community and in an environment of their choice. I want them to be able to bring up their families and enjoy their lives in a way they have not been able to because of the lack of security and the blight caused by BAA over the past three decades.

[Mr Joe Benton (in the Chair)]

I now call Mr Gordon Henderson to raise the subject of roads infrastructure in Sittingbourne and Sheppey.

15:11

[Gordon Henderson (Sittingbourne and Sheppey) (Con)]

It is good to take part in this rather select debate and to have you in the Chair, Mr Benton. It is also good to follow the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell), although I wonder whether the next boundary review will change the name of his constituency to Heathrow, since the airport seems to take up the major part of it. It is ironic that the London Mayor wants to uproot Heathrow lock, stock and barrel and move it to my constituency, although Members will be delighted to hear that I will fight that with every breath.

I will not talk about airports today, however. My aim is to highlight a problem in Sittingbourne and Sheppey. I have lived in the constituency for 30 years and I feel immensely privileged to represent it in the House, but almost 3,000 people in my constituency are out of work, and like many right hon. and hon. Members, I want the number of people out of work in my constituency to be reduced. I appreciate that the jobs needed to reduce unemployment will not be created by me, the Government, Kent county council or Swale borough council; only private enterprise can achieve that. Our small, medium-sized and large businesses can provide the entrepreneurial spirit that will help steer industry in Sittingbourne and Sheppey through the choppy economic waters we are experiencing. With a fair wind, I hope we will come out the other side stronger and fitter.

I also appreciate that a prospering local business sector is good for all my constituents. For that reason, I have made it one of my top priorities as the area’s Member of Parliament to help my local business community in any way I can. I am well aware of my limitations and recognise that there is little I can do as the Member of Parliament to make a difference to my constituency’s prosperity, but I can offer leadership and be on hand to offer help and advice to local companies that do not know where else to go to get information and advice—it is always surprising how many do not.

With that in mind, I recently set up a dedicated website called Sittingbourne and Sheppey Link 2 Business, which can be found at www.blinkss.co.uk. The website offers local businesses a direct link to my team so that they can contact me if they have a problem with a Government agency—companies have difficulties with Government agencies every day of the week. Equally, companies that have a problem or a query about Government policy can get an answer fairly rapidly by visiting my website. Link 2 Business also hosts monthly breakfast forums, where local business leaders can share their concerns, frustrations and, sometimes, good ideas with me so that we can improve our local community together.

I am lucky that my constituency has a wide variety of industries: for example, we have a major deep-water port with the deepest water outside of Rotterdam, which is unique; we have the only steelworks in the south-east, as well as one of the last remaining brickworks in Kent and the largest paper mill in the country; and we have just opened a regional distribution centre for a national supermarket chain. We also have a number of industrial sites with a wide range of industries, from refrigeration equipment refurbishment, which is a national concern, to aluminium casting companies.

We have those traditional skills and traditional, old-fashioned industries, but at the Kent Science Park we have a number of high-tech companies that are at the cutting edge of technology in this country. Our largest employer is in the public sector, because we have three prisons; and, last but not least, we have the long-established summer tourist industry, which is based mainly on the Isle of Sheppey.

We therefore have a good industrial base, which provides a higher percentage of private sector jobs than some constituencies can boast, but things could be so much better. Sittingbourne and Sheppey might be located in the south-east, but it still needs a helping hand: for example, much of the unemployment in my constituency is concentrated in areas that are among the most deprived in the country—indeed, two of our wards are in the top 10 most deprived wards in the UK. We can go some way towards eradicating that deprivation if we can ensure that our existing businesses expand and if we can attract more companies into those deprived areas.

On the face of it, Sittingbourne and Sheppey is ideally located for business development: it has good sea links with Europe and good rail links with London, and it is close to the M2, the M20 and the M25. Ironically, though, one of the biggest obstacles to business growth in my area is the local roads infrastructure, and that is where local and national Government have an important role to play.

My area needs help to improve a number of important local roads. For example, the A249 is a good dual-carriage trunk road linking Sheppey with the M2 and the M20. It includes the superb second crossing of the Swale, which was built just three years ago—until the bridge was built, a lifting bridge provided the only way on and off Sheppey, which, as Members can imagine, caused havoc to the local economy in the summer, when yachts were going up and down the Swale and the bridge was going up and down almost every hour. We are therefore really pleased to a have a second decent bridge.

The problem with the A249 is that the dual carriageway stops at Queenborough corner, which is on the outskirts of Sheerness. If the dual carriageway went all the way into the dock area, which is less than half a mile away, it would open up the port of Sheerness for an expansion that would offer the south-east of England an alternative to an increasingly congested Dover as a strategic port of entry. It would help to avoid the expensive Operation Stack that takes place several times a year on the M20. Finishing the A249 would be a major strategic benefit to the country.

The Sittingbourne northern relief road links the A249 to the industrial areas in north Sittingbourne. The latest section of the road, from Ridham avenue to Castle road, is under construction and will be opened later this year. Eventually, the northern relief road is planned to link up with the A2 at Bapchild, but nobody knows when that will be. For the foreseeable future the NRR is destined to become an expensive cul-de-sac. Local businesses on the Eurolink industrial estate and residents living on the new housing estate at Great East Hall want the final link to be built as soon as possible, which is understandable, but many other people feel that finishing the NRR without first planning for a southern relief road, which would link the A2 to the M2, will simply increase traffic problems for residents living in east Sittingbourne and the surrounding villages. It is a square that has to be circled as a matter of urgency.

Another major traffic bottleneck in Sittingbourne is the Stockbury roundabout, which is located on the A249 at junction 5 of the M2. The congestion at that spot has been going on for so many years and has caused so much havoc in the local area that urgent action is needed to solve the congestion if we want to provide easier access to our industrial sites, encourage business expansion and keep the traffic flowing.

While I am talking about roundabouts on the A249, it is worth pointing out that the one at Iwade, which serves the St Regis paper mill and the new Morrisons regional distribution centre, is becoming increasingly congested. One way of solving that problem would be to provide a rail spur into Ridham at Swale halt. Both Morrisons and St Regis Paper are very supportive of a rail spur, which would put more incoming goods on to rail and off the road. Of course, it will take the Government to make that rail spur happen.

Finally, as I mentioned earlier, we have three prisons on Sheppey. I believe there is potential to expand the prison estate, solving in advance the undoubted problem of finding suitable sites for future prisons, but the current road from the A249 to Eastchurch, where the prisons are located—the newly designated A2500—is a single carriageway that can barely cope with the current traffic flow, let alone any expansion of the prison estate. The A2500 will need to be upgraded soon, which would be an added bonus to the communities at the east end of the Isle of Sheppey, because it will help to reinvigorate the local economy in one of the deprived areas I mentioned. If we can get extra tourists going to the historical camp sites and the traditional seaside town of Leysdown, we can reinvigorate the whole of that area.

South-east England is acknowledged to be the economic dynamo of the United Kingdom, and Kent is considered by many to be the economic dynamo of the south-east. I believe that improving the roads infrastructure in Sittingbourne and Sheppey, which in the grand scheme of things would be relatively inexpensive, would help make my constituency the economic dynamo of Kent. I am pleased that the Deputy Leader of the House is here, but I do hope the Secretary of State for Transport will hear about this speech, take note of my words, and perhaps agree to visit my constituency, so that he can see for himself the tremendous potential that we offer our country, at a relatively small cost to the Exchequer.

15:25

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Office of the Leader of the House of Commons (Mr David Heath)]

It is a pleasure to be here under your chairmanship, Mr Benton. It is also a pleasure to have another opportunity for a general debate. We had one not long ago with a pre-recess Adjournment debate; I suspect we will have another one relatively soon, with the next pre-recess Adjournment debate. One can never have too much of a good thing. The only thing I regret is that both hon. Members who have taken the opportunity to speak today have raised issues about transport in their constituencies. Had we known that only transport issues would be raised in the general debate, it might have been more appropriate for a Minister from the Department for Transport to offer a response, because I fear that I am an inadequate substitute.

I assure the hon. Members that their comments will be passed on to relevant colleagues. Where there are issues, which inevitably I will not be able to answer to their satisfaction because I do not have the expertise, they will get replies in due course from the relevant Departments. I also thank the hon. Member for Battersea (Jane Ellison) and the Backbench Business Committee. They were given a difficult spot to fill today, when so many hon. Members are quite properly engaged in matters in their constituencies, and they have done their best under difficult circumstances to ensure that hon. Members have the opportunity to raise matters of importance.

I echo the hon. Member for Battersea regarding the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell): it takes great energy to speak in two debates simultaneously in the House on different issues that affect his constituency. He has contrived to do that this afternoon, which is to be commended.

I enjoyed the history of the Middlesex communities that the hon. Gentleman gave us at the beginning of his comments. I do not think we hear enough about rural Middlesex, which has been wiped from the national consciousness. However, it is a delightful area. I felt for him when he talked of his lack of success in ringing a peal of bells. I have never tried a full scale peal of bells, but I was recently asked to open a refurbished chapel in my constituency, where I simply had to ring a single bell to mark the fact that the chapel was reopened. I was told firmly that I had to pull hard on the rope. That is not advice one should give to a former rugby player. I pulled hard and the bell remained obstinately silent, but the rope was there in my hand, no longer attached to the bell. That is an aside. I was glad that no one filmed that for people to watch on their computers.

I will not fill my entire reply with anecdotes about my constituency, but I like the fact that the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington mentioned that Mr Cox of Cox’s orange pippin apples came from his constituency. I am sure that he already knew that, but I am always fascinated by the fact that one continually finds out new things about one’s constituency as one goes around. I recently looked at the history of the village of Rode in my constituency, which became topical due to the book and subsequent TV programme, “The Suspicions of Mr Whicher”, about a very famous murder there. I was irritated by the fact that it constantly said that Rode was in Wiltshire, and I knew it to be in Somerset. I looked at the local history to see whether it had ever been in Wiltshire, and, no, it had not been, but the house where the murder took place was just across the county boundary. Purely by chance, I discovered that a wool mill in Rode invented the colour “royal blue” in response to a competition, therefore “royal blue” was invented in my constituency. That is the sort of detail that one discovers as an MP, which one would never have a reason to find out otherwise.

I shall return to the matters about which we are supposed to be talking, which are the important issues raised by the hon. Members for Sittingbourne and Sheppey (Gordon Henderson) and for Hayes and Harlington. I ought to declare an interest in the matter raised by the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington, in that I believe I am still a beneficial owner of 1 square foot of Sipson village as part of the campaign against the third runway at Heathrow. I do not regret my position, and I am very pleased that it is now the Government’s position. It was an excellent campaign that drew attention to the fact that we really need to put some constraints on airport expansion, while recognising, as the hon. Gentleman does, the economic and other benefits of airports. Getting that balance right is inevitably the purpose of Government.

The hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington correctly stressed that the coalition Government made a clear commitment not to proceed with the third runway at Heathrow, but to look at how we make Heathrow, and the other major British airports, work more efficiently and provide a better service without expansion—make Heathrow better, not bigger. I think that the hon. Gentleman and I share that aspiration. He drew attention to how the long period spent aspiring to the expansion of Heathrow blighted the neighbouring villages and his constituents, and this debate is a good opportunity to have done that. He talked about its effect on people who needed or wished to sell their homes, and the fact that they were unable to find buyers in the context of an anticipated expansion of the airport.

The hon. Gentleman has worked very hard on these issues over the years with BAA and the previous Government, even in the context of a policy in favour of expansion, to see how its effects could be mitigated. Part of the result of his labours and the work of the previous Government was the home owners support scheme that BAA set up, which he referred to as the bond scheme. It is important to stress that it was a non-statutory arrangement set up by and entirely a matter for BAA. It was clearly persuaded that it was worth while and what it should be doing as a good neighbour. Nevertheless, the scheme had no statutory basis, therefore how BAA operates it to protect local home owners from the effects of blight, to allow them to sell their homes without financial penalty and to move if they need to or want to is a matter for BAA. It is interesting to see the number of home owners who took advantage of the scheme and the impact that it has had on the local area. He said that BAA now owns some 300 houses. It had no obligation to establish the scheme; I think that it was a recommendation in the 2003 transport White Paper, and of course there is no obligation on home owners to partake in the scheme.

I readily recognise what the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington said about the scheme’s effect on the local area given the number of houses that are not normally filled with residents. If houses are lying empty or are subject to short-term lets or arrangements with airport employees, the situation will inevitably affect the local community. He not only listed the effects in terms of the lack of residential population, but listed the effects of the lack of a residential population on local businesses. He mentioned his constituents Jackie Clark, Shaun Walters, Gerald Storr, and Ian and Pam Stevenson, and the hairdressers, the local pub, the post office shop and the garden centre, which are all affected by no longer having a local constituency of customers or consumers, which means that their businesses will inevitably be put in some difficulty.

To summarise, I think that the hon. Gentleman seeks: BAA’s acceptance of responsibility for the blight caused by the expansion plans; a new compensation scheme that includes local small businesses and special cases that might fall outside the previous criteria; a consultation with community organisations to look at whether it is possible to establish a community regeneration scheme; and the sale of the empty properties and a move to ensure that they are not retained in the ownership of BAA, but are put back on to the general market. He also wants the various political parties to come together to create a common statement of intent with regard to Heathrow expansion. I think that he would ideally like a covenant putting a legal restraint on future development at Heathrow.

There is a limit to what I can stay to the hon. Gentleman in response, as he will appreciate. I hope that I am able to communicate all his points to my colleagues in the Department for Transport effectively. I am happy to reiterate the general policy direction. I have already said that we do not want the third runway—that is clear. We want Heathrow to develop in a better, rather than a bigger, way. There are further steps afoot that I am sure the hon. Gentleman, as an expert in the area, will be more familiar with than me. The South East Airports Task Force, which was announced on 15 June last year, has an important part to play. It is engaged with the various aviation stakeholders to deliver operational improvements at Heathrow, Stansted and Gatwick, and is due to report in July 2011. It may have something to say that—“makes more concrete” is perhaps an inappropriate phrase—strengthens the future intentions in terms of the strategic planning of aviation.

The Department has issued a scoping document setting out the questions that it wants answered to develop a new vision for a competitive aviation industry, which supports economic growth and addresses aviation’s environmental impacts, both globally in terms of climate change and locally in terms of noise and air quality. It put out the scoping document and set out the questions that it wants answered, and it is hoped that it can publish a draft policy framework for consultation by March 2012. That may add further weight to the direction in which the Government are working on aviation policy.

There are some important issues here that need to be taken up with BAA. To a large extent, the matter is in its hands, and there is a limit to how much the Government can insist on. The dialogue, however, must be maintained.

[John McDonnell]

I am grateful to the Deputy Leader of the House for saying that he will set out the proposals and communicate them to the relevant Ministers in the Department for Transport and for the supportive way in which he has responded to my contribution. Securing Government policy in the long term is important, and I am sure that there is good will in government to do that. I hope that there will also be good will across the parties. Will he say to the Secretary of State for Transport and the appropriate Minister that it would be helpful if they could meet the Hillingdon Members as soon as possible to look at this programme, because it is a matter of continuing concern? Locally, we have been working on this matter on a cross-party basis. It was the pressure that coalition Members applied when they were in opposition that brought BAA to the table for a proper dialogue, so an early meeting would be helpful.

[Mr Heath]

I will happily communicate that request to the Department. The Minister of State, Department for Transport is probably the appropriate Minister, and I will ask her whether such a meeting is possible. We will also see whether we can convey the concerns of the Government on this matter as well as those of individual Members.

This matter may be of interest to the Department for Communities and Local Government. The hon. Gentleman said that he would like to see the London borough of Hillingdon hold nomination rights. Economic development issues will often be mediated by the Department and the local authorities, especially Hillingdon and, I suspect, Hounslow as well. I will bring his remarks to the attention of the DCLG in the hope that it will also have a view on the matter. I am grateful to him for everything that he said today. He made a compelling case on behalf of his constituents, and we all understand the difficulties that they face.

My hon. Friend the Member for Sittingbourne and Sheppey prefaced his remarks by stressing some unavoidable facts in his constituency. Although we often hear that the south-east drives the economy and that its economic conditions are rather better than those in the rest of the country, constituencies such as his have genuine problems relating to employment and to ensuring that there is sufficient access to growth in the economy. He said that 3,000 of his constituents are out of work, which is too many. We can reduce the number of unemployed people by enabling business to develop. However, that is not something that Government do; they create not jobs but the environment in which private industry can create jobs.

My hon. Friend told us some of the things that he is doing on behalf of his constituents. I am rather jealous of the acronym in his website—BLINKSS. It would not work for my constituency because it would become “BLINKSF”, which sounds like a speech impediment. He is clearly attuned to the needs of his constituents.

Despite the difficulties in north Kent, my hon. Friend listed a number of major employers in the area, such as the deepwater port, the steel works, the brick works, the paper mill, the distribution centre, the high-tech industries and the three prisons. The tourism industry is unrelated to the three prisons but, nevertheless, they co-exist.

[Gordon Henderson]

Not entirely.

[Mr Heath]

That is an interesting observation, but not one on which I will expand. We always hear that economic difficulties and deprivation take place in regions such as the north-east, which is true and I do not in any way minimise them. None the less, such problems also exist in the so-called prosperous south-east and south of England. Sometimes, it is more difficult to deal with pockets of deprivation within an otherwise reasonably affluent part of the country. I applaud what my hon. Friend is doing on behalf of his constituents.

My hon. Friend raised a number of road issues, most of which will not come as a great surprise to the Department for Transport, because they are matters that he has raised before. The A249 is the principal road serving his constituency. I hope that he is impressed that I have a full colour map of his constituency—I brought it along so that I could understand his geographical points. He mentioned how effective the new Swale crossing is in making the A249 fit for purpose, but then pointed out that it peters out on the outskirts of Sheerness, which means that it cannot effectively serve as an artery to the port facilities. As I understand it, Kent county council has not submitted an application to the Department for Transport for that to be dealt with, but one may be submitted in the future. If there is, my colleagues will be interested in considering it. However, the thrust of Government policy is that decisions of this kind will, as far as possible, be taken at a local level. He will recognise that in much of what has been said by both the Department for Transport and the DCLG. Such a policy is entirely appropriate, because local people know how resources should be applied to provide the best outcome. On matters such as the dual carriageway beyond Queenborough corner on the A249, and Sittingbourne’s northern relief road and its connection with the road at Bapchild, we are looking for a clear steer from the local authorities in the area. I know that my hon. Friend will be constantly pressing the case with Kent county council and with the other local authorities, which, in turn, will be applying for substantial amounts of capital investment from the Department for Transport to make such projects a reality.

I was intrigued by what my hon. Friend said about the rail spur and the effect that it will have on the movement of freight in his area. He also mentioned the prospect of improving the B2231—at least that is how it appears on my map, but it has apparently been renamed, which means that my map is out of date. He is talking about the road that serves the east of the Isle of Sheppey and provides a communication link to Eastchurch and Elystan. I can see that improving the road would make an immediate difference to the area.

My hon. Friend will understand that I cannot give any commitments on behalf of the Department for Transport. I suspect that even if a Transport Minister were here, they would be equally unlikely to make firm commitments in response to his requests other than to say that they would seriously consider any applications.

The hon. Gentleman made a very strong case on behalf of his constituents. I will ensure that what he has said today is communicated to Ministers at the Department for Transport, and I will also ensure that he receives specific responses to his points, because I understand that he is seeking to make sure that the infrastructure in his constituency meets the aspirations for economic development that he has for his area, which I am sure his constituents appreciate.

I assure the hon. Members for Hayes and Harlington and for Sittingbourne and Sheppey that I will ensure that messages are passed to the Department for Transport about the specific points that they have made today and that responses will be passed back from the Department to them.

I thank both hon. Members for participating in the debate; I thank the Backbench Business Committee for giving us the opportunity to have the debate; and I thank you, Mr Benton, for chairing the debate.

Question put and agreed to.

15:50

Sitting adjourned.

Written Ministerial Statements

Thursday 5th May 2011 Written Statements

Thursday 5 May 2011

Written Parliamentary Question (Correction)

Thursday 5th May 2011 Written Statements

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Mr Andrew Robathan)]

I regret to inform the House that, unfortunately, an error has been identified in the written answer given to the hon. Member for Garston and Halewood (Maria Eagle), Official Report, 26 April 2011, columns 71-72W. I apologise for the error, which was not identified at the time.

The full answer given was as follows:

Departmental Travel

Maria Eagle: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how much his Department has spent on ministerial travel by (a) ministerial car, (b) train, (c) bus, (d) commercial aircraft and (e) private aircraft since May 2010. [50223]

Mr Robathan: In order to keep costs as low as possible our Department uses an electronic booking system together with Hogg Robinson Group that search for and provide the cheapest and competitive prices available through their travel search engines.



Our data currently only extend to January 2011 and are provided in the following table:

Libya

Thursday 5th May 2011 Written Statements

[The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr William Hague)]

On 4 May I ordered the expulsion of two diplomats from the Libyan embassy in London on the basis that their activities were contrary to the interests of the UK. They and their dependants now have until 11 May to leave the country. We keep the status of the Libyan embassy and its staff under constant review. I judged that the behaviour of these individuals had become unacceptable, and that they should therefore be declared persona non grata.

Public Records: Colonial Documents

Thursday 5th May 2011 Written Statements

[The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr William Hague)]

As a result of searches in connection with a legal case brought by Kenyan Mau Mau veterans, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in January became aware of the significance of a large collection of files sent to the United Kingdom from various former British territories generally at the time of their independence.

I commissioned an internal review to establish why the files had not already been dealt with in accordance with the Public Records Act 1958. That review was undertaken by the former British High Commissioner to Canada, Mr Anthony Cary. I have today deposited in the Libraries of both Houses the findings of that investigation. The report is critical of past management practices but pays tribute to the professionalism and commitment of current FCO staff, who have done much to bring the material to light. I fully endorse that tribute. The report makes a number of recommendations regarding information management at the FCO and I am committed to ensuring their full implementation.

I believe that it is the right thing to do for the information in these files now to be properly examined and recorded and made available to the public through the National Archives. This will be taken forward rapidly. Given the size of the archive the process may take some time to complete in full. It will be overseen by a senior and independent figure I shall appoint. I will inform the House further once details of the appointment and terms of reference are decided. It is my intention to release every part of every paper of interest subject only to legal exemptions.

Foreign Office officials have briefed the Governments of those former British territories who may have an interest.

House of Lords

Thursday 5th May 2011 Lords Chamber

Thursday, 5 May 2011.

11:00

Prayers—read by the Lord Bishop of Birmingham.

Pensions

Thursday 5th May 2011 Lords Chamber

Question

11:06

Asked by

[Lord Dykes]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what representations they have received on their plans for a single state pension with an estimated value of around £155 at current prices.

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

My Lords, the Government’s consultation paper, A State Pension for the 21st Century, published on 4 April 2011, sets out two high-level options for state pension reform. Following the consultation process, the Government will be considering all the responses to our options for delivering a simpler and fairer state pension. The media reports of a £155 a week pension are based on speculation of how much this single-tier state pension could be worth if it is introduced in the future. However, no decisions have been made on how to change the state pension system.

[Lord Dykes]

My Lords, I congratulate the coalition on this far-reaching decision, which will help many pensioners in the future at whatever level the figure starts. What specific mechanism will the Government deploy to ensure equal treatment between the existing recipients and the new entrants to the state pension at the commencement date?

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

My Lords, the reform is based on future pensions rather than on existing pensions. We will seek to protect existing pensioners during the period of transition, but the future reform depends on the consultation exercise, and the mechanisms that we will use will be those arising as a result of that.

[Lord Tomlinson]

Does the noble Lord accept that two different levels of state pension—one for existing pensioners and one for new pensioners—are exactly the kind of injustice for which, in other circumstances, were it challenged at a judicial review, a challenge would be upheld?

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

The Government will seek to avoid such a situation. Indeed, that is the reason for the consultation. I think all noble Lords will agree that this is a necessary reform that needs to be addressed by the Government, who want to take things forward. The programme for this is not one of rushed implementation. It is likely to be legislated for not in this Parliament but in some future Parliament.

[Baroness Hollis of Heigham]

My Lords, I am sure the Minister will agree that it would be highly desirable to extend the new state single pension to all pensioners if it can be done within the cost framework and the time limits available. However, does he agree that the new single simplified state pension will not only substantially tackle pensioner poverty but, equally important for the future, will mean that it is safe to save? It will lift people above means-testing, and therefore every penny of their savings will be enjoyed by future pensioners.

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

The noble Baroness is exactly right. Of course, that is what lies behind the Government’s proposals.

[Baroness O'Cathain]

My Lords, will my noble friend take very seriously indeed the problem that will arise with pensioners who currently have a state pension but will not be raised up to the £155 level when the new pension comes into effect? These are the very people who have been so badly treated by the earnings link being cut and who have a lower pension than those in many other European Union countries.

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

My noble friend makes a very good point. We would expect people who traditionally do not build up significant amounts of additional pension, such as women and low earners, to gain under a single-tier pension. Conversely, those who expect to build up much more significant amounts of additional pension, such as higher earners and those with longer working lives, will no longer be able to do so under a single tier. So there will be a redistribution within the pensions system which the single tier will be able to operate.

[Lord McFall of Alcluith]

Given that two-thirds of those in occupational pensions presently face a life of poverty—that affects 20 million out of the present UK working population of 30 million—how confident are the Government that means-testing will be eliminated from the new state pension system? Have they any estimates for how many will still be means-tested after this policy is introduced?

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

We will publish full costings on the whole programme. I think the House will accept that the current situation has arisen over a period of several Governments. I hope the noble Lord will consider that the Government are doing the right thing in seeking to address the issue, but I cannot answer his question in detail.

[Lord Palmer of Childs Hill]

My Lords, have the Government found a way of ensuring that some women are not particularly affected by the changes? A small number of women seem to be suffering because of the changes. I hope the Government have found some way of alleviating that problem. Will that also affect additional benefits that might be claimed by those suffering in this manner?

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

I remind my noble friend that, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, clearly indicated, one group of people who are likely to benefit from this introduction are women pensioners who have not had the opportunity to accumulate benefit through the current pension system.

[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Dykes, described these proposals as far-reaching but, as the Minister himself has acknowledged, there is a lot of uncertainty about what the shape of this will be, and indeed about whether it will ever come to fruition. One thing is very clear from the consultation document; there will be no new money attached to it. There will therefore be not only issues of equity between existing pensioners and new pensioners but, among the new pensioners, clearly some element of redistribution. Will the noble Lord say something about that?

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

In an earlier answer I indicated that there would be high earners over a longer working life whose accumulation of benefit would be less as a result of these proposals. However, the whole programme is designed to benefit those who have not normally, under the existing system, had the opportunity to accumulate a basic state pension that is adequate for their retirement. That must be the strategy that we seek to address. Anything involving pensions is a long-term programme and must seek consensus across Governments if we are likely to succeed.

[Lord Mawhinney]

My noble friend said with some confidence earlier that legislation in this area would be for some future Parliament and not for this one, and that it is the Government’s policy that no amount of extra money will be added to this proposal. Given that we are talking about implementation following legislation a number of years hence, in what financial circumstances would my noble friend consider the possible addition of extra money to fund the proposal?

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

I cannot speak for future funding that will be available to the Government for this or any other programme. At the moment, as far as government finance is concerned, we all know that we seek to tackle the deficit. This is a priority within Government, but I note the underlying subtext of my noble friend’s question.

Education: English Baccalaureate

Thursday 5th May 2011 Lords Chamber

Question

11:15

Asked by

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they are making of the impact of the new English baccalaureate on the breadth of subjects offered by schools.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Schools (Lord Hill of Oareford)]

My Lords, anecdotal evidence suggests that the English baccalaureate is already having an effect in terms of opening up opportunities for pupils to take qualifications in key academic subjects. We will continue to monitor teaching, as we do at present, through the school workforce census, which will collect information annually on the subjects being taught by all teachers in maintained secondary schools. We will also be examining trends in GCSE entries.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch]

I thank the Minister for that reply. Can he explain the process by which the core subjects in the English baccalaureate were put together at the expense, as some see it, of other equally merited academic subjects? Is he aware that schools are now putting pressure on pupils to focus on those English baccalaureate subjects regardless of their aptitude, so that the school will perform well in the new league tables? If he agrees that pupils should not be shoe-horned into those narrow curriculum choices, what is the department doing to ensure that they are given a broad range of curriculum options and can flourish and excel at subjects they enjoy?

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

I agree with the point that children should not be shoe-horned into choices that are not appropriate for them. I think that everyone would accept that children are different, that there is no right way for any particular children and that vocational options as well as academic options should be fully available. It would be wrong if schools were forcing children to do things that were not right for them or were forcing them to change subjects halfway through their course. The point of the English baccalaureate is to try to make sure that a number of key academic subjects are available to as many children as possible. If one starts at the point that what one wants to do is to get children from all backgrounds, particularly from poor backgrounds, to get to university, and to keep those options open to them, the subjects in the English baccalaureate are the kinds of subjects that will help those children to progress to A-level and from A-level to university. The correlation between the subjects that the Russell group has said that it would look for and the subjects in the English baccalaureate is very close.

[Baroness Coussins]

Would the Minister agree that state school pupils should have equal opportunity with those in the private sector to achieve the English baccalaureate and that restoring modern languages for all pupils at key stage 4 would be a very important and enormous step towards giving them that opportunity?

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

As I hope I have already indicated, I would like as many pupils as possible to have a chance to study academic subjects, if that is appropriate for them. Modern foreign languages would be a good example of that. As the noble Baroness will know, the question about their place in the national curriculum stages is part of the curriculum review. I know of the case that she makes, and I hope and believe that one consequence of the English baccalaureate will be to encourage the take-up of modern foreign languages and reverse the sharp fall that there has been in recent years.

[Baroness Walmsley]

Does the Minister accept that broad-brush monitoring cannot look in detail at what is happening at school level, and that the Government cannot control individual school timetabling? Is he aware that schools are already staffing up for the subjects covered by the English bac at the expense of other subjects? How can he ensure that children are not limited as to the choices that they want to make for their own future ambitions by what the school is doing and the way it is timetabling and staffing up for the English bac?

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

My Lords, one problem has been that children have been limited in their choices and some of that limitation has applied to some of the key academic subjects. That is what we are keen to open up. We are trying to open up more choices.

I agree with my noble friend that the Government cannot monitor every school and should not seek to micromanage those schools. The English bac is part of what we are trying to do more broadly to encourage more information about school performance. I hope over time that with the provision of more information, whether it is on the vocational or academic qualifications being offered, schools and parents will work out for themselves what is the most appropriate mix of subjects for the children in those particular schools to study.

[Lord Knight of Weymouth]

My Lords, I know that the Minister is concerned to ensure that those currently disengaged from schooling become re-engaged. Many of those young people are more engaged by learning by doing—by creative and vocational learning—than by the narrower academic styles of learning incentivised by the English baccalaureate. What advice would he give to head teachers? Should they focus on doing well in the English bac or in engaging the disengaged?

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

As is often the case, the issue is not either/or but both/and. I agree strongly with the noble Lord that one wants all schools to do what is right for their children. I take the point about engagement; that is why I am supportive of studio schools. Alongside things like the English bac, which is to try to get more of a focus on academic subjects, I want to encourage and promote things like the studio school movement precisely to give some of those disengaged children the chance to learn practical skills and then re-engage with school. There are also UTCs, as well as the review of the vocational qualifications. I hope that that is all part of the picture. I do not see this as a black-and-white choice or as saying that all children should go down one route rather than another.

[Lord Cormack]

My Lords—

[The Lord Bishop of Birmingham]

My Lords, is the Minister aware of the deep and widespread concern that, in narrowing the compulsory subjects in the English baccalaureate, there will likely be a reduction in religious studies and religious education learning—rigorous academic subject that it is—and a consequent reduction, which is already happening, in places for PGCE training of RE teachers? Underlying that, there is the likely erosion of religious literacy, particularly among more able and older teenagers, which is essential in our diverse society. Would he be prepared to consider adding religious education to the other excellent humanities subjects of geography, English and history?

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

My Lords, I am aware of and understand the views expressed particularly by church schools about RE. The choice of subjects currently in the English baccalaureate is not meant in any way to imply that subjects that are not in are less worthy or less academically rigorous. Fortunately, even though RE is a compulsory part of the curriculum, the number of children taking GCSE RE has been increasing—and I very much welcome that—whereas the proportion of children taking history and geography has been decreasing. In seeking to redress that balance, I understand the strength of the feeling that there is in church schools, which do a wonderful job in educating our children. It is always the case that the English baccalaureate is not fixed in stone, and these things need to be kept under review.

Sudan

Thursday 5th May 2011 Lords Chamber

Question

11:22

Tabled by

[Lord Chidgey]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what discussions they have had with the Government of south Sudan about their resettlement policy for urban migrants from north Sudan to smallholdings in the south.

[Lord Avebury]

My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend Lord Chidgey, and with his permission, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in his name on the Order Paper.

[The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Lord Howell of Guildford)]

My Lords, around 300,000 people have left north Sudan for the south in the past six months. Around three-quarters have settled in rural rather than urban areas. There have been two meetings in Khartoum with South Sudan Caucus Ministers to discuss reintegration needs and regular meetings with the Government of Southern Sudan. A major meeting on reintegration needs will take place in Juba on 17 to 18 May.

[Lord Avebury]

My Lords, the United Nations Secretary-General estimates that that figure of 300,000 will have increased to 550,000 by the end of the interim period. If three-quarters of them are to be resettled in rural areas, what provision is being made by the UN for training and support for people who may have no previous experience of agriculture and horticulture? Is UNMIS prepared to offer protection to those returnees who have resettled in areas of conflict, particularly in Abyei and in Unity state?

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

My noble friend is right: this is a serious problem. There are various estimates of the numbers concerned. These are voluntary refugees heading south and there are enormous problems. Some 24 per cent have settled in urban areas, 76 per cent in rural areas. The problems of their reintegration and resettlement and of how they can adjust to new conditions are the top priority for the constant discussions that are going on, both those that I have mentioned and the regular ones that the troika of the UK, the US and Norway has fortnightly with the United Nations. These worries are being addressed but the numbers are large and the process is difficult to manage. However, we will make progress.

My noble friend also mentioned Abyei, which is on the border and was not able to join South Sudan. There have been ugly and violent developments there. We urge consultation and careful support from both Khartoum and Juba to ensure that militias and armies are not heavily involved and that proper consultation takes place, but these, along with South Kurdufan and the Blue Nile province, are all very difficult areas where there is considerable political tension.

[Baroness Cox]

Is the Minister aware that, with the advent of the rainy season, the problems of returnees will be severely exacerbated, particularly if they have not been resettled with adequate shelter? The rainy season also brings increased vulnerability to diseases such as malaria and gastrointestinal and respiratory tract infections. There is as yet inadequate healthcare for the existing population. Will DfID be able to assist the Government of Southern Sudan with these escalating problems?

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

As the noble Baroness knows extremely well, because she is very close to this problem, DfID has got substantial programmes. We do not assist with the funding, transportation and movement of refugees, but we most definitely invest heavily in the problems of solving reintegration that I have already described to my noble friend. That is what is being done. DfID is now committed to providing assistance over the next four years at the rate of £140 million a year for both north and south; £90 million each year for the next four years will go to the south. A very substantial proportion will go into precisely the problems the noble Baroness has raised.

[Baroness Kinnock of Holyhead]

My Lords, will the Minister comment on the intransigence being shown by the SPLM in allowing political space to opposition parties? How are the UK and other international donors responding to this? Is there any intention to invest in the capacity of political parties in Southern Sudan and increase their legitimacy, and to encourage the Government of Southern Sudan to loosen their grip and prepare for a broad-based Government in that country?

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

The noble Baroness is most definitely right. Of course we want to see more political activity and a downgrading and standing back of the militia wings of these political parties. It is the militias that lead to violence and difficulties, within both Southern Sudan and the three provinces I have already named. That is what we seek to do. The more we can move away from militias, killings and violence and have a proper political process, the better chance there is for this new nation of Southern Sudan to prosper, which we all want to see and should welcome and encourage in every possible way.

[Lord Kilclooney]

My Lords, are there any plans to establish diplomatic relations with South Sudan and to recognise that country?

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

Yes, there are indeed. We are moving ahead on that front. South Sudan will have an independence celebration on July 9, where there will be senior ministerial attendance; I cannot say precisely what it will be. This will place South Sudan in the comity of new nations. I am also glad to say that one of its aspirations—it is not for us to decide—is that it should join the Commonwealth of Nations. This encourages me, although it is of course a matter for all 54 members to decide and not just the UK.

[The Earl of Sandwich]

Does the Minister agree that Juba, the capital, has some of the features of an old frontier town with the promise of oil revenues and a get-rich-quick mentality? Thousands of people are coming into this town, and yet DfID is wholly concerned with health and education. Those are good priorities, but what about employment, especially in the small business sector? Many of these northerners have skills that can be employed.

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

It is not quite true to say that DfID is wholly concerned with the two areas that the noble Earl mentioned. DfID has an elaborate programme which takes account of the need for economic development for smaller business enterprise. It is very concerned with the reintegration of the thousands coming from the north. It is a wide programme. There is a big and very effective team of 35 people from DfID in Juba, who provide the platform on which my department—the Foreign and Commonwealth Office—also works. This is not a backward or diminished operation. It is a very strong one. We are determined to support this new nation as effectively as we can in all sectors.

World Development Report 2011

Thursday 5th May 2011 Lords Chamber

Question

11:29

Asked by

[Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government how they will respond to The World Development Report 2011: Conflict, Security, and Development by the World Bank.

[Baroness Verma]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord and other noble colleagues across the House on meeting the challenge of living on £1 a day to raise awareness of the challenges facing the poorest people in the world. The Secretary of State welcomed this excellent, challenging report last month at the World Bank spring meetings. Its key messages are consistent with our commitment to spending 30 per cent of UK aid on supporting conflict-affected and fragile states. Her Majesty's Government will focus development efforts on 20 fragile states, working to strengthen government institutions, civil society and the private sector, and increasing support for security, justice and jobs. We are urging the World Bank and the United Nations to implement the report’s recommendations.

[Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for her comments. This excellent report highlights the centrality and importance of building national institutions in both conflict prevention and post-conflict reconstruction. It also highlights the urgency that is required in the reform of international responses to conflict and in conflict prevention. It details in a very comprehensive way the importance of these matters for development and reaching the millennium development goals. Will the Government step up their efforts both to take a lead in pursuing reform of the international response to conflict and to prioritise stabilisation at the centre of our overseas development assistance?

[Baroness Verma]

We agree completely with the noble Lord and recognise that the UK alone cannot deal with the challenges of conflict and fragility. Therefore, it is crucial that the World Bank and the United Nations also put the necessary reforms in place to improve their effectiveness in fragile states. The Secretary of State has already discussed the development report with the World Bank at its spring meetings, and has highlighted the specific reforms that need to take place.

[Lord Roberts of Llandudno]

Can the Minister assure me that none of the countries in receipt of international aid is also being targeted for arms sales by the United Kingdom?

[Baroness Verma]

My Lords, my noble friend raises an important issue, which, by and large, we look at country by country. We take very strict instructions on how we sell our arms to countries.

[Lord Judd]

My Lords, I declare an interest as a trustee of Saferworld, which works on security sector reform. Does the Minister agree that all those exposed to the problems of the third world over the years recognise that one of the biggest of all generators of poverty is conflict, and that too high a priority cannot be given to conflict prevention and resolution? Does she also agree that one of the problems is that very often the security systems of these countries exacerbate the problem, and that effective security sector reform is another high priority? Of course, we must also do more to strengthen moves to control the arms trade, and the moves by the United Nations, on which Britain is leading, are crucial.

[Baroness Verma]

My Lords, the noble Lord is absolutely right about many of the issues that he has raised today. That is why focusing 30 per cent of aid on those countries where fragility and conflict have set back the ability to move forward has been a key reform to how DfID works. Through our bilateral reviews, we recognised some of the countries where we needed to change how we gave aid to them, directing it to the causes of conflict rather than just looking at poverty.

[The Countess of Mar]

My Lords, does the noble Baroness accept that land hunger is a major cause of conflict in developing countries, and that if the smallholders have a sound agricultural basis it is a springboard for both security and development?

[Baroness Verma]

I absolutely agree with the noble Countess that we need to ensure that addressing poverty means that people have a stake in the countries in which they live, and are empowered to take decisions for themselves.

[Baroness Kinnock of Holyhead]

My Lords, in the context of the Government’s two declared priorities of focusing additional resources on fragile states and simultaneously ensuring that there is value for money, how does the Minister respond to the view strongly expressed in the World Bank report that in countries where governance and financial systems are weak it will not be possible to account for every penny spent?

[Baroness Verma]

My Lords, the noble Baroness is also aware that unless we direct what we are doing and have a focus we will not be able to address any of the difficulties that those conflict-ridden countries are facing. This is not about saying yes to this and no to that but about a combination of both. I think the noble Baroness is also aware that, through our reviews, we have been able to work very closely with the multilateral agencies to ensure that we are directing our aid to where it is most required.

Chechnya and the North Caucasus

Thursday 5th May 2011 Lords Chamber

Debate

11:35

Moved by

[Lord Judd]

To call attention to the political situation in Chechnya and the North Caucasus, and its implications for global security; and to move for papers.

[Lord Judd]

My Lords, if I give the Russians full marks for anything, it is for their success in so largely isolating the Caucasus from the sustained focus of international attention and analysis. With the exception of a handful of courageous and determined journalists and brave NGOs, very few have managed to penetrate life there and to reveal and understand it as it is. I fear that for too many editors and NGOs it may have slipped into the “too difficult” category. They should persevere; they are acutely needed.

Much of the Caucasus is claimed by the Russians as part of the federation. Russia is a full member of the Council of Europe. The raison d’être of the Council of Europe is to strengthen democracy, accountable government, human rights, the quality of justice and the rule of law among its member states. Few member states are without skeletons in the cupboard; none is perfect; and that certainly applies to the UK. However, I hope that, as members of the Council of Europe, we all strive to improve performance. Therefore, when we speak out about the conduct of another member state, we should do so as part of a common struggle by all member states. We should do so in a spirit of humility, aware of our own shortcomings. We see the European convention, based as it is on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, as a recognition of the value, worth and dignity of all people. Remembering the realism of those who drafted them in the aftermath of the cruel experiences of the Second World War, we see them as a pillar of sustained, civilised, stable and secure society. Where human rights prevail and freedom flourishes, the danger of extremism and associated terrorism can be marginalised. Where they are absent, there will be alienation, and alienation too easily produces a recruiting ground for extremists and terrorists.

Counterproductivity in the way we respond to extremists, however sinister, blood chilling and provocative they may be, can make an insecure situation still more dangerous. We have to support each other in constantly demonstrating the highest standards and principles not just in rhetoric but in action. The soldier or policeman, immigration official or prison officer who maltreats those with whom they are dealing becomes an agent of instability and insecurity. What they do is not just wrong and a denial of the very principles we claim to hold dear, it is treacherous by playing into the hands of the extremists, and by aiding and abetting them and, indeed, those who manipulate them. Hearts and minds, when on our side, are the cornerstone of our society; when they are not, they become its biggest threat. It is in this context that I move this Motion.

In the Caucasus, Russia is still, by her direct or surrogate action, too often contradicting her commitments as a member of the Council of Europe and driving people into the arms of the extremists. In January 2000, I was part of a Council of Europe delegation to Dagestan, Ingushetia and Chechnya, led by the late Lord Russell-Johnston, who was then president of the parliamentary assembly. In Chechnya, we could not reach Grozny as the security situation was still too grave; we got close and could hear the dreadful bombardment. A couple of months later, as rapporteur to the parliamentary assembly on the conflict and accompanied by a small group of assembly members, I went again. We were among the first from outside Russia to visit Grozny after the bombardment. It was a ghost town. No building we could see appeared undamaged. Most had been totally destroyed. Those that remained standing looked as though it might well be necessary to demolish them before rebuilding. We were all stunned into silence. The few people still in the city were somehow surviving among the ruins. We talked to some of them. There were absolutely no public services. Everywhere the bombardment seemed to have been indiscriminate.

The people of Chechnya have suffered grievously in their history, not least from the brutality of Stalin. However, this was Russia at the beginning of the new millennium and now a full member of the Council of Europe. As we travelled, we became increasingly aware of the indiscriminate and ruthless action of the Russian army and security forces. Within both Chechnya and Ingushetia the plight of the displaced people was terrible.

Over the next few years as rapporteur, I visited Chechnya and Ingushetia seven times. In connection with that work, I visited Russia several times more. I was able to meet officials, senior Ministers and the heads of the FSB. We had very candid exchanges about the situation. I became increasingly disturbed and exasperated by the contradictions that I was seeing and experiencing that were presented for the purposes of the Council of Europe, and by their counterproductivity. The situation was constantly strengthening the appeal and influence of the very extremists who were perceived by the Russians as the threat to Russia. The anguish of the disappearances, the absence of justice, the indiscriminate destruction of villages, the extra-judicial killings, the house burnings, the intimidation of witnesses, the victimisation of the relatives of the accused and the torture were grim.

The coldblooded deliberately targeted assassination of that courageous journalist Anna Politkovskaya, who was unflinching and steadfast in her commitment to integrity and truth, speaks for itself. She was a challenge to journalists throughout the world, and she was not the only one who paid dearly for their brave work.

Worst of all and pervading everything was the culture of immunity. When challenged, the authorities would regularly plead that investigations into complaints had been initiated. However, the total absence of any convincing outcomes to such investigations was glaringly obvious. The cynical and fundamentally flawed and imposed so-called constitution came out of no widespread public discussion and with no sense of popular ownership or acceptance. Together with the manipulated elections and the selective electoral roll that followed, this for me became the last straw. This and far more was the story I encountered during my four years as rapporteur.

Of course there has been no monopoly on abuse or atrocities. Totally unacceptable behaviour has also been the story of the rebels and extremists. They have been responsible for reprehensible and counterproductive action, but what they have done has been eclipsed by the scale of the Russian action. That action, and more recently that of its surrogates and tyrannical henchmen such as Kadyrov, the present so-called President of Chechnya, has been out of all proportion. Many of the Chechens who took to arms did so in desperation. As they saw it, it was the only way to defend the nation’s identity and integrity. Others certainly were drawn to wider global terrorism. The ruthlessness of the action by the Russians and their surrogates has blurred the dividing line. It has become a powerful generator of recruitment for the global terrorist cause.

Last year, on behalf of the All-Party Group on Human Rights, together with Jo Swinson, the Liberal Democrat MP, I visited Chechnya after some six years. Jo Swinson and I cannot thank too warmly Nicole Piché, the administrator of the all-party group who worked so hard to make the visit possible and who accompanied us. I also thank those at the Foreign Office who gave so much practical support, not least financial, at ministerial, official and embassy levels.

On the surface, the physical rebuilding of Grozny and some other prominent places is impressive. It is a setting that totally contrasts with early 2000. However, it is impossible to vouch for the quality of the buildings or the means by which access to, for example, housing can be secured. We heard doubts on both scores. The new mosque in Grozny is formidable, at least on the surface. The school premises and medical facilities that we were able to visit were striking, as was the quality of some of the professionals with whom we were able to speak. However, the packed meeting of students in a main hall at the university was a profound disappointment. With senior university administrators on the platform, try as we did, we could not get the meeting to open up. Subsequently, we learnt that the previous day, students had been cautioned to toe the line.

The physical changes, whatever their real merit, are simply not matched by improvements in the quality of freedom, justice and human rights. Some suggest that there is at least greater stability, but we came away convinced that any stability there was was the sterile stability of tyranny and fear. Indeed, it was sinister. In the North Caucasus as a whole, it has been calculated that more than 1,700 people were killed or injured in 2010 alone. We were apprehensive about the suppressed pressures and the continued, inevitable growth in the influence of extremism, with all its implications for global stability. The disappearances, torture, witness intimidation, victimisation of relatives of the accused, house burning and extra-judicial killings continue. In the absence of a convincing system of justice, so continues the culture of impunity and the failure to call anyone to account, let alone to punishment.

The so-called Parliament is frankly synthetic: 37 of its 41 MPs are drawn from the United Russia Party. There is no evidence of its holding those in power to account. As was found six years earlier, the official human rights bodies are clearly an arm of government. They have a chilling effect on NGOs rather than supporting them. Nobody has yet been brought to justice for the death of Natalia Estemirova, another incredibly brave journalist who refused to compromise on her commitment to truth. A couple of years ago, she greatly impressed those of us who met and heard her here in Westminster shortly before her assassination.

The European Court of Human Rights has made more than 150 judgments condemning the Russian Federation for serious human rights violations across the North Caucasus. As Human Rights Watch and others have established, other than some limited assistance in the form of financial compensation, little has been done to pursue those responsible and to hold them accountable before the law. Still, the argument is too often used that investigations have been initiated without any sign of their being concluded. The absence of a wholesome civil society leaves a gigantic gap. There are a number of NGOs, ranging from the outstandingly courageous and professionally convincing, such as Memorial, based in Moscow itself, and now being pursued by Kadyrov in the courts on criminal charges of subversion, to the relatively tame state groups in Chechnya itself. It must be said that some Chechen-based NGOs strive to be independent, but it is a hazardous road to take.

It is impossible to look at Chechnya or the North Caucasus region as ends in themselves. In too many ways, they are symptomatic of what is wrong in Russia itself. Corruption is another gigantic, all-pervading reality. As the contagious consequences of the political sickness of Chechnya spread across the whole region, not least Dagestan and Ingushetia, the process of generating a recruiting ground for global terrorism continues, with all its implications for global security.

It need never have been so. I believe that there is still a chance to win nationalist rebels into a political process if that process is genuinely inclusive and free of too many preconditions. The process of any solution will have to be owned by a convincing cross-section of the parties. Northern Ireland, while of course in many ways different, illustrates what can be achieved with courage and imagination.

As we seek to build co-operation with the Russians, as we should and must, in meeting the immense global challenges which confront us all, I hope the Minister can reassure us, first, that no stone will be left unturned and no opportunity missed to bring home to the Russians that they are making global security more difficult to achieve by the way they have been handling the Caucasus and they must change course; to persuade them that no sustainable, enduring solution can be imposed by the military and security services and that there has to be a genuinely wholly inclusive peace process owned by the parties.

Secondly, I hope the Minister can reassure us that the UK will do everything within its power to provide effective muscle—which is lacking at the moment—in the Committee of Ministers in Strasbourg to persuade the Russians of the imperative of pursuing to a convincing conclusion the action for which the European Court of Human Rights’ judgment has called, holding to account those responsible for abuses and putting in place effective arrangements to prevent a repetition of those abuses. Thirdly, working with the diplomatic representatives of other friendly countries, our embassy in Moscow should be encouraged to find ways to give all possible support to the building of a thriving civil society in Russia and the Caucasus and to find ways of assisting those who strive for human rights. Fourthly, the Government should ensure with our European Union partners and allies that Chechens and others from the region who are at risk are protected and have access to asylum. Finally, the Government should provide tangible support, both within the Caucasus and in the diaspora, for building up the professional and skilled human resources necessary to build a sustainable future for Chechnya and her neighbours when a stable political solution emerges.

The Chechens and the people of the North Caucasus have suffered for too long. I beg to move.

11:51

[Lord Jopling]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Judd, in this debate, and I congratulate him on having secured it. He and I have known each other well for the past 45 years. All those years ago we took part in Anglo-American conferences on Africa, as did the noble Lord, Lord Howie, whom I am glad to see in his place.

This is an important debate on Chechnya and the North Caucasus. The noble Lord has drawn attention to the extraordinary rise of Mr Kadyrov, who seems to have become a ruthless dictator in Chechnya and has almost totally succeeded in creating a potential Islamic caliphate in that region. The regime clearly suits Russia—to which I want to apply my remarks, because Chechnya is still nominally part of Russia. The relationship also suits Chechnya, as it is only too glad to reap the vast amount of money that Russia is bucketing into the place. However, how long Mr Kadyrov’s admiration for Russia, and for Mr Putin in particular, will last is an interesting source of speculation. However, I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Judd, and the Minister will allow me to talk in broader terms about the Russian approach to the whole of the Caucasus region, and to discuss what should be the response of our Government, and the wider governments of NATO and western Europe, to this situation.

I want to discuss the situation in the South Caucasus—in Georgia, and particularly in the troubled states of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. I am a member of the United Kingdom delegation to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly. Last November, in Warsaw, I presented to that assembly Resolution 382, which was extremely critical of Russia’s policies on Georgia and those two territories. The resolution condemned Russia’s failure to allow displaced citizens of the two territories to return to their homes and criticised its failure to comply with the European Union-brokered ceasefire agreement and to withdraw to the positions it held before the conflict with Georgia. It also criticised Russia for blocking the extension of the OSCE and United Nations missions to Georgia into the two regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. An international monitoring mechanism is therefore absent from those two territories.

The resolution that I presented urged the Government and Parliament of the Russian Federation, as well as the de facto authorities in Abkhazia, Georgia and South Ossetia, to reverse the results of what the independent international fact-finding mission on the conflict in Georgia and other international documents have described as ethnic cleansing; to allow the safe and dignified return of all internally displaced persons to their homes; to allow the European Union monitoring mission unimpeded access to the territory of the two regions; and to ensure access to international humanitarian aid by those who need it.

The NATO Parliamentary Assembly unanimously agreed the resolution. Indeed, it followed a previous policy which it adopted immediately after the conflict between Russia and Georgia and removed some of the Russia’s rights and privileges to join in the assembly’s activities. Russia, like a number of other non-NATO member states, participates in the NATO Parliamentary Assembly as an associate member.

Since the assembly took that firm action to remove Russia’s ability to join in the assembly’s activities, I have become increasingly concerned at the way in which NATO member states have progressively softened their attitude to Russia’s aggressive obstinacy over Abkhazia and South Ossetia in this ongoing crisis, as they have previously done to its aggressive attitude to Chechnya itself. This became clear to me a few weeks back, in April, when I attended a meeting of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly’s standing committee with the leader of the United Kingdom delegation, Sir Menzies Campbell, who is a Member of the other place. A proposal was put before us to restore to Russia most of the rights and privileges that we had removed only a short time before. The United Kingdom delegation voted against the proposal, and we almost found ourselves isolated but for the three Baltic states and Romania. I was shocked at the way in which so many NATO states are softening their attitude to Russia’s continuing aggressive behaviour, particularly in the whole of the Caucasus region. A cynic might say that a vote in the NATO Parliamentary Assembly is not all that significant. However, the line taken by various NATO member state delegations is a straw in the wind indicating the views of their respective Governments.

My purpose this morning is to urge the United Kingdom Government to continue to take a very firm line with Russia, even if others do not want to do so. The softer approach that seems to be becoming more popular will only encourage Russia to continue to take an aggressive approach to the problems that we face in the whole Caucasus region.

Russia's policy is well known to us. It is attempting to control the flow of oil from Azerbaijan, the Caspian region and Kazakhstan beyond. It would love to control all the flows and all the pipelines. One cannot help but feel that if it could extend its influence in the South Caucasus area to the whole of Georgia, rather than to the two territories about which I have talked, it would then effectively control all the oil that comes out through Baku in Azerbaijan to the West.

My purpose in speaking this morning concerns the whole of the Caucasus area. I hope that the Government will continue—I am sure that this is their intention—to take a very firm line with Russia, even if some of our friends are falling away in that quest.

12:01

[Lord Dykes]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow my noble friend Lord Jopling, who has experience and knowledge both of the Council of Europe and the North Atlantic Assembly over many years. It is a particular pleasure to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Judd, on taking the initiative, initiating this debate and putting forward his Motion on Chechnya and the North Caucasus.

My pleasure is augmented by a recollection. My noble friend Lord Jopling talked about 40-plus years ago. I will not go back that far, but I am still entitled to go back to 1973, when I first came across Frank Judd MP, as he was then. He was a junior Minister in the Foreign Office and sat on the Labour Benches. He came on the first historic visit that we made in November 1973 to the People's Republic of China, prior to the Edward Heath visit that followed the Nixon thaw with China. I well recollect the awe and inspiration I felt around Frank Judd. I embarrass him deliberately today with this praise, because it is due and I have been meaning to say it for many years. He has a deep knowledge and passion for human rights, international civic rights, the protection of minorities and new techniques for dealing in a kindly way with the international migration problem that we have in many parts of the world. Frank Judd's links with the UN over the years have also been a tremendous inspiration.

In those days in the People's Republic of China, the cultural revolution was still on, although it was fading away at the edges. We saw China in a totally different guise from how it is now, after its tremendous transformation. That experience showed the need for the democracies of the world, and western democracies in particular, to be very vigilant about how countries change internally. China remains a one-party state. There has been some opening out of the National People's Congress and so on, but the country retains a command economy, despite a huge input now of private enterprise.

One only hopes that the fact that Russia achieved democracy in its own form after the collapse of the Soviet Union will lead—it has not happened yet—to the genuine creation of a lasting and durable democracy, which Russia has never had. Because of that, Russia can continue to be tyrannical and brutal, particularly in the more geographically extreme areas of the federation. I share the dismay of the noble Lord, Lord Judd, and my noble friend Lord Jopling—and I use his words—at the rage and brutality of the Russian intervention in these areas. The word “overkill” is unfortunate because it can be taken out of context, but we saw almost a deliberate overkill in response to so-called terrorist rebellions—they were immediately classified as terrorism, although some people would say that there were freedom fighters—in Chechnya and elsewhere. There was overkill physically, too. What happened to human beings and to buildings, as the noble Lord, Lord Judd, said, was really disturbing in Russian terms. We know, too, how there was a reaction to some incidents which took place when, tragically, innocent human beings were killed and wounded in Moscow and elsewhere. There was a measured reaction to contain the problem, but when dealing with the human rights aspects either of countries wishing to be autonomous or of regions and provinces seeking more local freedoms within the federation structure, there is the need for Russia to respond to that.

My pleasure is followed by a feeling of great embarrassment on my part about this debate. This is the first time that I have ever pleaded with the House to give me leave, but I have to leave this debate early. I do so with genuine sincerity and I apologise that this is a day of voting on a number of important aspects. The Liberal Democrat Party is particularly concerned with one national aspect, the referendum on AV, and therefore we will all be engaged later on. I am able to go out later than some of my colleagues who have already gone to urge our voters out for the referendum. That is why I have to leave this debate early. I hope that, in future, the noble Lord, Lord Geddes, will continue to speak to me from time to time despite this impertinence on my part. I hope that the Front Benches will grant me leave to leave early today. It was not possible for another of our foreign affairs team to speak in this debate.

[Earl Ferrers]

Might I just interrupt my noble friend for a moment? I wondered whether he might think that he would serve the national interest best if he remained here to the end of the debate.

[Lord Dykes]

I will stay in the debate as long as possible. Unfortunately, my embarrassment is augmented by the reality that I also have a lunchtime meeting with an official who is coming from overseas. That was fixed four and a half months ago, whereas I am standing in for a colleague at short notice in this debate. I have to do that at 1 o'clock but I shall stay in this debate as long as I can. My double embarrassment in that respect is then completely transmogrified into pleasure again that, after my few words about these matters, more expertise will come from the noble Lord, Lord Ahmed, who knows so much more about them than I do. I pay tribute to him, too, and the work that he has done in bringing the Muslim international community together with the Christian and other faith and non-faith communities throughout the world for peace and general international understanding.

Concerning Chechnya, surely it behoves the Government to be deliberate and emphatic today—even if I am not there right at the end, and I apologise in advance to my noble friend Lord Wallace for that reality. I understand completely what my noble friend on the Bench below the Gangway meant in his intervention. I feel very bad about it, as it is the first time I have ever done it, but I have to persist. However, I ask my noble friend Lord Wallace to reassure us that the Government really will, definitely and emphatically, repeat, reiterate and reinforce our determination to make representations to the leaders of the Russian Federation and to those in the Russian Parliament—particularly in the majority party, which is so dominant in their system after the last election—that they must now begin to indicate that there really will be a greater human rights reform in those outlying regions of the federation. It should be not only in the Muslim parts but in Georgia. The noble Lord, Lord Jopling, mentioned the south Caucasus countries, but there is also what will happen in the future in places such as Armenia. All those things have some linkage.

It is very important both for the European Union as a whole and the UK Government in particular, with our interests in those matters, to ensure that we make very strong representations to the Russians and do not allow that softening-down process to which the noble Lord, Lord Jopling, referred. It sounds very sinister and disturbing. I hope, too, that the Labour Front Bench—having I hope forgiven me, in the guise of the noble Lord, Lord Triesman, for my impertinence in leaving the debate later—will add its support so that it will be a joint Front-Bench effort to persuade the Russians to be very careful and cautious in future about the way that they handle these delicate and tragic matters.

12:10

[Lord Ahmed]

My Lords, it is my pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Dykes. He is a great man and has plenty of work to do this afternoon to convince some of his voters, so I have no objection if he leaves early.

I congratulate my noble friend Lord Judd on securing this debate and thank him for giving me the opportunity to discuss the human rights situation in the North Caucasus and, especially, in Chechnya. I express my special thanks to Human Rights Watch for providing me with excellent information for this debate. I am told that first-time visitors to the capital of Chechnya—Grozny—now see a modern city with new construction, high-rise skyscrapers and modern infrastructure, as described by my noble friend Lord Judd. You can easily assume that the people of that city enjoy all the freedoms, rights and privileges enjoyed in any other city in the Russian Federation. However, that is not the case for many Chechens. President Kadyrov’s autocratic rule is described by many as a,

“clan-mafia model of political power”,

that is ruthless, oppressive and corrupt.

Human rights defenders in Russia remain vulnerable to harassment and attacks, and those working to end impunity for abuse in the North Caucasus are especially at risk. While the Russian leadership has spoken out about the importance of normal working conditions for NGOs, it has failed to react to repeated and open threatening statements about human rights groups that have been made by the Chechen leader, Ramzan Kadyrov, and other high-level Chechen officials. In summer 2010, a prominent human rights lawyer from Dagestan, Sapiyat Magomedova, was severely beaten by police in the city of Khasavyurt. Although the alleged perpetrators have been identified, they have not been brought to justice. There has also been no justice for the brazen murders in 2009 of human rights defenders working in North Caucasus, including the murder in July 2009 of Natalia Estemirova, the most prominent human rights activist in Chechnya, and it is unclear whether any of the investigations have examined possible official involvement or complicity in these crimes. Meanwhile, Oleg Orlov, the chairman of the Memorial Human Rights Centre and one of Russia's most prominent human rights defenders, remains on trial on criminal slander charges for saying that Chechnya's leader, Ramzan Kadyrov, bore political responsibility for Estemirova's murder.

Violations of women's rights are another growing concern, with authorities in Chechnya unambiguously condoning the pelting with paintball guns of unveiled women on the streets, resulting in the hospitalisation of at least one woman in summer 2010. In a July 2010 television interview, Chechnya's leader Kadyrov professed his readiness to “award a commendation” to the men engaged in this crime and said that the targeted women deserved such treatment for not being dressed with sufficient modesty. A March 2011 report by Human Rights Watch documented numerous cases of women being harassed in the streets of Grozny for not covering their hair or for wearing clothes deemed too revealing. Chechen authorities have also banned women refusing to wear headscarves from working in the public sector or attending schools and universities. Moscow, meanwhile, has remained silent in the face of these blatantly abusive policies.

Fuelling the climate of impunity for abuses in Chechnya is Russia's persistent failure fully to implement the judgments of the European Court of Human Rights on applications from Chechnya, which we have already heard about. The court has to date issued some 165 judgments holding Russia responsible for grave human rights violations in Chechnya. While Russia has generally paid the required monetary compensation to victims, it has failed to implement the core of the judgments, which entails conducting effective investigations and holding perpetrators accountable. The authorities have also failed to take adequate measures to prevent the reoccurrence of similar abuses with the result that a steady flow of new complaints are being lodged with the court every year. The practices described stand in stark contrast with the Kremlin’s welcome rhetorical commitment to human rights and the rule of law.

The UK Government should seize every opportunity to convey, in the strongest terms possible, concern about this inconsistency, along with an expectation that the Russian Government take concrete steps to address it. Such steps should include fostering a normal working environment for civil society organisations and activities, and ensuring that they are protected from persecution and harassment; ensuring a thorough and transparent investigation into Natalia Estemirova’s murder and the other murders of activists, including the possibility of official involvement in these crimes; dropping criminal charges against Oleg Orlov; publicly disavowing unlawful counterterrorism-counterinsurgency practices, holding accountable those who engage in them, and acknowledging the role that they play in destabilising the situation in the region; putting an end to the local rule of forcing women in Chechnya to observe a dress code and acting to protect the rights of women to a private life and personal autonomy; and implementing fully judgments by the European Court of Human Rights on Chechnya, including conducting effective investigations and holding perpetrators accountable, and taking adequate measures to prevent similar abuses from reoccurring.

I should also like to draw the attention of your Lordships to the worsening situation in Dagestan. The law and order situation in Makhachkala is now worse than in Grozny. Corruption from government officials, and from Ministers to school teachers, is ignored. Life for ordinary citizens is becoming unbearable.

Finally, I am invited to attend a peace conference in Grozny later this month. I feel that after my contribution in your Lordships’ House I probably will not be welcomed but if Moscow takes any notice of what I have said, it is a price worth paying.

12:17

[Viscount Waverley]

My Lords, it is rare that we have an opportunity to debate matters North Caucasus and it is a particular pleasure for me in that I have majored on the South Caucasus and central Asia in the years since independence. Therefore, while focusing my remarks principally on Chechnya, I wonder whether I might be excused attempting to put today’s debate into context, particularly the aspect relating to security.

The majority of contributions this afternoon have addressed human rights issues. However, sustainable solutions can come about only as a result of the right political environment on the ground, with all the benefits that flow from that. It is with that in mind that I believe it is important to remind ourselves of some of the background, together with Russia’s long-held vulnerability and policy to protect its core area surrounding Moscow and down into the Volga region, and Russia’s lack of geographic barriers to protect it.

The basis of Russia’s national security have been three expansions to the natural border barriers marked, first, by the Tien Shan mountains in Kyrgyzstan; secondly, the Carpathian mountains on the far side of Moldova and Ukraine; and, thirdly, the Greater Caucasus mountains on the southern side of the Muslim republics. The Greater Caucasus mountains, which are separate from the Lesser Caucasus mountains in Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan, are the most important as they are the closest to Russia’s core and historically have kept out the Ottomans and the Persians. So it always has been a geopolitical imperative to hold the Muslim republics. It is not a perfect plan but it is the basis of Russia’s national security.

The North Caucasus region is a multiplicity of ethnicities split into seven territories including North Ossetia, Ingushetia, Chechnya and Dagestan. The majority of the northern Caucasus people are Sunni Muslim, but while there are many different blends of Islam as well as pockets of Orthodox Christians, Jews and Buddhists, religion is not the source of discontent in the region. Animosity and disputes are nearly wholly derived from territorial issues between each of the ethnic groups, and with the region being one of the toughest in Russia and then the Soviet Union for the Kremlin to clamp down on.

During the Second World War, Moscow removed hundreds of thousands from the North Caucasus in order to split the populations, ensuring that they could not consolidate with the Germans into a force to rise against the Kremlin. Over the decades these populations returned to the region, and on into the 1990s at the demise of the Soviet Union. The implosion sent shock waves throughout the region, with the first dispute forcing the Russian state to react not in Chechnya, but to an inter-ethnic conflict between Muslim Ingushetia and Orthodox Christian North Ossetia in 1989 with their dispute over territory. The conflict demonstrated to Moscow how complicated it would be to define the status of each of these regions, how much autonomy to give them, and how to prevent them from fighting among themselves, and all of this at a time when Russia was concerned that the region would rise up against the Russian state. These are the issues that haunt the Kremlin today.

Chechnya is the largest anxiety to Moscow, as it has been for more than three hundred years, with the two regions of Dagestan and Ingushetia to a lesser degree, and the remaining four republics even less so by comparison. Chechnya lies on a lowland that, unlike its neighbours, gives it reliable food supplies, and on a bed of relative energy wealth. So no matter if Chechnya is dominated by the Russians, rising up against Moscow rule or aligning politically with the Kremlin, the focus on the Caucasus by the Russians will always be on the Chechens first. The first war ended in 1996 with little more than a stalemate, in effect an embarrassing defeat for the Russian military. This upset was another nail in the coffin of attempts to westernise and democratise.

The Russian people were sick of a chaotic country. It had endured already what many perceived as a weak leader in Yeltsin, a broken economy, a massive financial crisis, its main state enterprises taken up by oligarchs, an invasion of foreign entities, all compounded with defeat in the Caucasus. The Russian people wanted only one thing: change. And so there was the rise of a strong leader who was willing to take back control of the country, no matter what it took. President Putin came into office with a precise checklist: consolidate politically under one party loyal to him, oust foreign influence, seize strategic economic assets, crush the oligarchs and rehash the Chechen problem. Putin reacted to the atrocities and launched the second Chechen war in 1999, but the problem this time was that the Chechen insurgence was nothing like that which took place during the first.

A massive shift had taken place in the region between 1996 and 1999. Chechen militants had been infiltrated by foreign ideology, shifting the militants’ goal from a nationalist strife for independence to a jihad in order to create an Islamic state. With this came new tactics not often used in the region: large-scale terrorism. The Kremlin’s declaration of the second Chechen war brought a string of terrorist attacks across Russia, starting with the co-ordinated apartment bombings in Moscow, Buynaksk and Volgodonsk. In the years to come, this terrorism evolved into regular train and subway bombings, the Moscow theatre siege, the twin airline bombings and Beslan.

Islamism in the region gave the Kremlin another tool in order to crush the insurgency. In the early 2000s, Russia began to split the nationalists from the Islamists and set them against each other. Moscow pulled the nationalists into alliances and loyalties with the Russians, offering them power and money in exchange for their help against the Islamists, and so the Chechen nationalists began fighting alongside the Russian forces against the Islamists. Over the mid-2000s, nearly all the Chechen Islamist leaders were killed, thus enabling the declaration of the war being over by 2009. With the war officially over, Chechnya remains today a delicate and complex republic, with its problems and insecurities resonating throughout the region.

The Catch-22 is this: in setting up an alliance with the Chechen nationalists the Kremlin was compelled to empower them. Whereas the Caucasus emirates, representing Islamic militancy, were successfully broken into smaller militant groups with no real co-ordination, the Chechen brigades were given free rein to use traditional guerrilla warfare and—unapologetically—torture, together with specialist training by the Russian military, to squash the Caucasus emirates.

The Chechen brigades are now an elite fighting force in the region, currently numbering 40,000, whereas the Russian forces in the region have dropped from 110,000 to around 50,000, nearly equal to that of the Chechens. The Chechen brigades have also been given licence to secure the neighbouring region of Ingushetia, but here is the rub: the Kremlin has petitioned them to expand their security reach into Dagestan but the bitter rivalry between Chechnya and Dagestan will erupt into war once again if the Kremlin allows Chechen forces to cross the border.

Looking forward, other difficulties in the short term and the long term arise. First, although the rebellion in Chechnya has ended, this does not mean the end of militancy. The militant groups in the Caucasus are fractured and disorganised; however, they still hold the capability to strike at soft targets. So while the large-scale attacks of the past, such as Beslan and the apartment bombings, are most likely over, small attacks such as those on the Moscow subway and Domodedovo Airport will continue. The Kremlin has come to accept this reality, as have most of the Russian people.

This leads to the second problem: whereas Russia has accepted that smaller attacks will occur, Moscow is focusing on preventing any attack, no matter how small, when large international events take place. Russia is hosting two major events in the next decade—the 2014 Olympics in Sochi and the 2018 World Cup in Moscow. The Olympics in Sochi are of immediate concern as it is a mere 500 kilometres from the Chechen capital. The Russian Government have been considering their choices, with a distinct possibility of a firm military option being implemented. The killing yesterday in Chechnya of a top al-Qaeda militant, who co-ordinated foreign rebels in the North Caucasus, will reinforce this.

The third issue concerns the mid term. Even though the Chechen wars are over, the traditional rivalry between the Caucasus republics remains, with the largest between Chechnya and Dagestan. Dagestan is still without a suitable security plan by the Kremlin, although the current thinking by Chechnya is to set up Dagestani brigades like those in Chechnya. However, there is no real leader in Dagestan under whom to establish such a force. With the strengthening of the Chechen brigades, it has become a real concern in Dagestan as to whether it can trust the Kremlin to control its rival Chechnya.

The last issue is twofold and the most dangerous of them all. While the Kremlin has created an elite fighting force in Chechnya—made out nearly all of former militants—and empowered it with regional wealth, military training, arms and a right to do as it pleases, its forces in the region nearly match those of Russia. The Kremlin is singularly uncomfortable with this but felt it had no other option in order to win the second Chechen war. Russia has a large demographic problem which will particularly manifest itself in both the workforce and military in a decade or so. The effect on the Russian military is the most troubling—the Kremlin is already downsizing its forces and will continue to do so. At the same time, the only population in Russia that is growing is the Muslim population, from the current 12 per cent of the population to an anticipated 20 per cent in 2020. The effect of that will be that ethnic brigades and militant forces in the Russian Caucasus grow rather than decrease and that the balance of power in the region tips in future, unless the Kremlin can devise an alternative. It appears that Moscow is for the moment currently devoid of that strategy.

12:30

[Lord Rea]

My Lords, I join other noble Lords in thanking my noble friend Lord Judd for bringing Chechnya and the North Caucasus to our attention. As he told us, he was for four years the rapporteur on Chechnya for the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, trying in his characteristic way—as we heard in his intervention in the fourth Question preceding this debate—to encourage dialogue rather than conflict between the Russians and Chechens.

Most people in the West associate Chechens with the hostage-taking episodes of the Ostrava theatre in Moscow and the school in Beslan. These acts were inexcusable but it should be pointed out that the deaths in the theatre rescue were caused by the poison gas used by the Russians and that the Beslan rescue operation was handled violently when dialogue might have resulted in the release of some or all of the hostages. Both these operations were masterminded by the notorious Shamil Basayev and were strongly condemned by the late President Maskhadov, leader of the Chechen resistance, and his representative in exile, Akhmed Zakayev, who has given his opinion that Basayev has done more than the Russians to damage the Chechen cause.

My interest in this area comes from a somewhat hazardous unofficial visit to Chechnya with a small health charity in 1995 during the first of the two phases of the Russo-Chechen war. Our safety was guaranteed by General Maskhadov, in charge of the Chechen resistance. We stayed in the homes of ordinary Chechens behind the lines, although there were no established lines. My overall impression was of the generosity and resourcefulness of the Chechen people but also of the corruption, cruelty and unnecessarily destructive methods, particularly in Grozny, of the occupying Russian army. Some of the weapons used by the Chechens had been bought from hungry, underpaid Russian soldiers. We heard eye-witness accounts from former inmates of the so-called filtration camps of murder, torture and inhuman and degrading treatment of arbitrarily arrested prisoners. Families often had to pay a ransom to receive the bodies of their murdered relatives.

Historically, as the noble Viscount, Lord Waverley, pointed out, the North Caucasus has for nearly three centuries been a problem for Russia. The Chechens—only some 1 million—have been the most persistent of the Islamic North Caucasians in their resistance to Russian domination. The worst event in Chechen history came in 1944 when Stalin deported the whole population of Chechnya, Ingushetia and some neighbouring republics—except for those who hid in the forest—to faraway Kazakhstan and Siberia. They were packed into cattle trucks and some estimates say that about half of them died from starvation, privation and disease. As the noble Viscount said, Stalin’s reason for this was that the Chechens were planning to collaborate with the Germans when they reached the Caucasus—which of course they never did. When the deportation took place, they were in full retreat. After Stalin’s death, the survivors were allowed to make their own way back, to find that their land and houses were occupied and had to be bought back or taken by force. Even so, the Russians gave part of Ingushetia to North Ossetia—an act that caused lasting resentment.

This experience of deportation has left a searing folk memory. No family was unaffected. However, Chechens then showed themselves to be astute in business and some became quite well off. A minority resorted to shady Mafioso-style business, including kidnapping and extortion. This has been used by some Russians to blacken all Chechens. They and other North Caucasians have become Russia’s hate objects and are targeted and often beaten up by a racist, fascist youth cult that has recently grown up in Russia.

When the USSR disintegrated in 1991, the Chechens declared unilateral independence. Dzhokhar Dudayev, a Chechen general in the Soviet air force, was elected President in a free, fair election on an independence ticket. However, Chechnya’s independent status was not accepted by the Russian hierarchy. Later, President Yeltsin thought he would gain popularity, particularly with the military, if he regained Chechnya through “a short successful war” in 1994. It did not work out that way. After initially capturing Grozny with heavy losses, the Russians were humiliated by Maskhadov’s skilfully led guerrilla army, who recaptured the city. By then, in 1996, the war had become deeply unpopular in Russia and a peace treaty with Maskhadov was negotiated. In an internationally monitored election, Maskhadov was elected President in 1997 to replace Dudayev, who had been killed by a Russian missile.

There followed an anarchic period with some foreign aid workers, including two British Telecom workers, being murdered. The perpetrators were thought to be a militant Wahhabi Islamic sect from outside Chechnya, wishing to drive all foreigners out—they largely succeeded. Others blame the Russians and their attempt to destabilise Chechnya and give the Chechen Government a bad name.

As the noble Lord said, in 1999 the blowing up of apartment blocks in Moscow and Ryazan, which was blamed on Chechens without any evidence, and a Chechen incursion into Dagestan, which was not sanctioned by Maskhadov, were used by the then Prime Minister Putin to launch a full-scale military assault on Chechnya to assuage the humiliation of Russia’s earlier defeat. Grozny, already half destroyed, was further devastated, to leave the picture that my noble friend Lord Judd found. The Chechen forces were eventually reduced to guerrilla bands based in the mountains and forests. Maskhadov was traced and killed, as was Shamil Basayev, Chechnya’s enfant terrible. The Russians have now reduced their military presence, as the noble Viscount, Lord Waverley, pointed out. The former Chechen resistance fighter, Ramzan Kadyrov, was installed as President by Putin. He now heads the repressive state described by my noble friend Lord Judd.

This time, the Russians have been generous in their support of Kadyrov’s regime as compared with the interwar years when they gave not a penny in reparation for the damage they had done. On the surface, as my noble friend said, Grozny has regained its former handsome status but the absence of the rule of law and arbitrary arrests and disappearances have still carried on, as revealed by several journalists and my noble friend’s human rights delegation.

Russia, as my noble friend said, has repeatedly been found guilty of human rights breaches by the European Court of Human Rights. Putin, however, tries to suppress this information, as indicated by the murders of Anna Politkovskaya and Natalya Estemirova. The perpetrators have still not been brought to justice. Murders have not been confined to Russia and Chechnya; in 2002, Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev, who was Maskhadov’s chosen successor as President, was murdered by Russian agents in Doha, in Qatar. The culprits were caught but released and congratulated when they returned to Russia. His successor, Abdul-Khalim Sadulayev, was killed in Chechnya. In 2009, a prominent Chechen activist was murdered in Vienna—and so the story goes on.

The most notorious overseas murder is, of course, the polonium poisoning of the former FSB agent Alexander Litvinenko, where the evidence clearly pointed to a Russian, Andrei Lugovoy, as the culprit. The Chechen connection is that Litvinenko was the co-author of a book called Blowing up Russia, which gave very plausible evidence that the Moscow apartment explosions of 1999 had been carried out by FSB agents and not by Chechens. He also accused Putin of being responsible for the death of Anna Politkovskaya at a public meeting just before he was poisoned.

The conflict has other international dimensions. It has been estimated that there are 150,000 Chechen refugees in the EU. I have personally assisted a number of Chechen asylum seekers in this country. Deaths in Chechnya are hard to measure accurately, but they are estimated to be between 80,000 and 100,000 out of a population of 1 million. My noble friend has always warned that the repressive methods used by the Russians and now Kadyrov will lead to the radicalisation of the Chechens, who normally practise a moderate form of Islam akin to Sufism. This has now happened, with Doku Umarov, who claims he is the true leader of the Chechens but is rejected by Akhmed Zakayev, calling for an emirate of the north Caucasus and a jihad against Russia, Israel and the West. To the noble Lord, Lord Jopling, I would say that what Kadyrov is doing in forcing an Islamic code on the Chechen people is very different from the widespread caliphate or emirate that Umarov is calling for. How seriously he is taken by the North Caucasians is open to question, but there is no doubt that there are frequent violent acts against Russian-appointed administrators and security forces in several North Caucasian states. That was described well by the noble Viscount, Lord Waverley. Umarov claims responsibility for the recent devastating suicide bombing at Domodedevo airport in Moscow.

What can we suggest that the Russians do who are faced with this situation? First, there should be greater economic investment and job creation in the area, which is extremely poor and has massive unemployment. There should be an amnesty for the remaining resistance fighters, an end to arbitrary arrests, a return to the rule of law and compensation for those whose homes have been destroyed. As soon as possible, there should be internationally supervised free elections. Then we might see an end to kidnapping and suicide bombing.

12:44

[Lord Triesman]

My Lords, I add my congratulations to the noble Lord, Lord Judd, and to all those who have taken part in this debate. The noble Lord has returned to these issues very regularly, and the House should feel grateful for the fact that he has. He pressed the then Labour Government in March 2005—I remember the pressure—and has consistently done so since. He has reported today on the key role that he played in the Chechnya fact-finding mission of the All-Party Parliamentary Human Rights Group, which he undertook with Jo Swinson MP in February 2010. It is noteworthy, I think, that all these efforts have consistently met with all-party support. It has been one of the better examples of recognition of a significant problem. I suspect that some of that all-party support has come about because of the depth of knowledge that the noble Lord is able to impart. I know that he has made 11 visits to Russia and Chechnya and is regarded very widely as having excelled in his four years as rapporteur for the Council of Europe. Very much of what he says is accurate and authoritative and should be treated as such.

To paraphrase some of the main conclusions, which have been shared by other noble Lords, the noble Lord has argued that the Government of Chechnya are very rarely held accountable for their actions, however dire they might be; that its institutions have neither the capacity nor the desire to hold anyone to account for those actions; and that the conduct of the Government under law is consistently poor and is undermined by a judiciary that lacks independence and is unable to protect witnesses, and therefore has at its heart a corrosive dynamic that makes the effective impact of the law so much less.

Security forces in effect enjoy impunity. Crimes are committed by them in an open and completely unashamed way. There is consistent evidence from very many reporters of torture, extrajudicial executions and enforced disappearances. These crimes have allegedly been committed by people who have been named frequently in the European Court of Human Rights and the judgments of that court but who are after being named very much more likely to be promoted in the security services of Chechnya than ever to face any kind of justice whatever. My noble friend Lord Ahmed spoke powerfully on these points as well.

It is very clear, as reports have shown, that the Chechen President encourages the use of any means that deal with those he sees as his enemies. No enemy can escape the environment, which is essentially paranoid in its operation. It is quite right to look, as various noble Lords have encouraged us to do, at Chechnya and Russia together in this. The noble Lord, Lord Jopling, made the point with great force that corruption with impunity is a characteristic of both, and there is a deep interpenetration of these facts. I support the noble Lord’s proposition. It would make no sense and would greatly encourage Russia to step back from taking a very clear and principled view about these activities, and I hope that the Government confirm today that that is the view they will take. I broadly agree with the noble Viscount, Lord Waverley, about the uneasy coalition between Russia and the nationalists in Chechnya, because it has created an environment of repression in its own right. I hope that I will not embarrass the noble Viscount in saying what a superb overview of the strategic conditions he provided for the House. I greatly appreciate that.

The fundamental conclusion that the noble Lord, Lord Judd, and many others come to, including the noble Lord, Lord Rea, is that tyranny generally generates militant extremism as a response. Secure and stable societies based on human rights are, of course, the antidote. It is clear that those who have put that point are far from alone. Leading academic investigators have reached similar conclusions over the years. For example, research at the Free University of Brussels shows that the concentration of power and the brutal exercise of that power by Kadyrov, often in concert with Russia in pursuit of his own material, political, economic and other interests, have produced a response that is itself dangerous to all of us.

That is, without question, a depressing picture. I suspect that those who say that they see more stability must be arguing that that is a relative state. Conflict and terrorism are still there and they are not conducive to stability. Rebuilding and growth have taken place, but they have done so in a grim way and in grim human rights conditions. That is one reason why I think that in our description of this we face a rather more complex picture than we sometimes draw. The UN Commission on Human Rights identified atrocities that have been committed on all sides in the Chechen conflict, a point that I recall was made eloquently in 2005 by the noble Lord, Lord Howell. The pursuit of greater autonomy has been conducted with considerable brutality in its own right, not least in acts of appalling terror against Russian civilians, against schoolchildren at Beslan, against commuters in the attacks on the trains and the metro, and recently, I note sadly, in some of the conflict that is emerging even around events that should be social and enjoyable, like football matches, where groups of neo-Nazi thugs are now attacking each other. I say with the greatest respect to my noble friend Lord Rea that on occasion the Russian authorities might well have dealt with situations—the siege of the theatre and other things—with responses that might not have been the most sophisticated that they could have produced, but they did not instigate the attack on the schoolchildren. That is what we should ensure we condemn.

[Lord Rea]

If my noble friend recollects, I said that these acts were totally inexcusable and that they were condemned by the late President Maskhadov and his deputy in this country.

[Lord Triesman]

My Lords, I acknowledge that. I suppose I am trying to make the point that responses to terrorist acts can sometimes be badly planned, misjudged and so on, but they occur in the context of the terrorist attack having taken place. The response overall has been pretty brutal and, in the minds of the Russians, has been seen as directed towards them by forms of extremism, and by al-Qaeda in particular. That is what they have used to justify their actions.

However bleak the situation, the need for further discussions is clear, as many noble Lords have said. The need to abide by international legal decisions of the European Court of Human Rights against Russia in the human rights abuse cases is equally clear. The Government could tell us today how they are pursuing these objectives with Russia to ensure that it meets its obligations as a member of the Council of Europe. Will they sustain their position, as the noble Lord, Lord Jopling, asked, on NATO and its Parliament?

I turn to the wider region. I welcome the general style of the approach that has been taken by this Government, and indeed by the previous one, to regional crises. The ethos is well set out in a response to your Lordships’ European Union Committee report on the EU and Russia following the crisis in Georgia. It is a good model for how to deal with many of these issues, and it is important because it shows that however difficult and modest the achievements were in intervening—to try to achieve, first, a ceasefire in Georgia and then, with much delay, partial withdrawals from Georgian territory, except in South Ossetia and Abkhazia, which were followed by all-party talks—we saw that initiatives can, on occasion, bear at least a little fruit.

Both North Caucasus and South Caucasus are of great strategic significance. Both provide bridges between Europe and Asia. The region is in the midst of huge transitions of populations and resources, and I suspect that the consequences have been that that has given rise to many of the ethnic and interstate conflicts, some of those conflicts becoming full-scale wars. The region is important for its natural resources and as an important intersection of energy supply systems. Both the north and the south are central to Eurasia’s energy and transport corridors, hence the strategic importance of what the noble Viscount, Lord Waverley, said. The issues that must arise about the management of resources, their fair distribution and the way in which the income yield gets passed to the populations of those countries rather than being held exclusively by small elites are vital. Environmental issues are vital. The pollution issues from the ageing industries of those areas are vital. In some cases, uncontrolled urban growth becomes an acute issue. Collapsing irrigation systems—all of them—call for attention. I am interested to know how the Government believe some of this could be done.

We cannot intervene everywhere and I am not advocating that we should try, but there might be some lessons to learn, at least from the efforts made by one of the near neighbours of the regions. I am referring to Turkey. Turkish policy is focused on intensive efforts to foster regional co-operation—understandably, given its location, both in the southern Caucasus and more generally. It has promoted economically independent projects, some of which have huge potential, including in the northern Caucasus. Turkey’s speed off the mark in supporting independence and recognising emerging nations might have pre-empted some of the decisions that people in the region might have taken for themselves about geographical borders. All in all, though, active economic and state-building approaches appear more likely to have some success than a constant lament, however justifiable, about how bad things are in the region. Do the Government intend to engage more with Turkey, either through the EU or directly, on exploring some of the practical programmes that can be developed in this region and which might be an adjunct to peace?

As I said, we cannot do everything everywhere; were we to try, we would certainly fail. We might, however, have other partners with whom we could engage more vigorously. Have the Government themselves identified partners in these circumstances? What do they think of the programmes of some of those potential partners?

I ask these questions fully aware of the complexity of the region and of the issues that we face, which were introduced so ably by the noble Lord, Lord Judd, and debated so ably in this Chamber. I am eager to learn how the Government believe they can assist in fostering peace in the region and in seeing the peace that has been achieved in southern and eastern Europe over the past couple of decades extended further south and east for the greater security of us all.

12:58

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, this has been a worthwhile debate and I thank the noble Lord, Lord Judd, for securing it. The Council of Europe Assembly and indeed the NATO Assembly play a valuable role in discussing a range of sensitive regional and international issues. I have often felt that Members of both Houses who take part in those assemblies do not always succeed in bringing back to Westminster some of the useful consultations and investigations that they have had there, so I welcome this report. The Council of Europe plays a part in a range of activities, as has the noble Lord himself over the years.

When I first joined this House, I rapidly became aware of how many Members of it are expert on some of the most troublesome regions of the world. Shortly after I joined this House, working for the Open Society foundation, I went to Yerevan and was told in a hushed voice by the key lady on the corridor of my hotel that I was staying in the same room that Caroline Cox had stayed in only some months before. Some years later I went to Sukhumi with Anna Politkovskaya and others, thinking that I had reached one of the most God-forsaken and abandoned places in the world. As we left, the Foreign Minister said to me, “By the way, would you please give my best regards to Lord Avebury?”. I am aware that there are Members of this House, of which the noble Lord, Lord Judd, is one of the most determined, who have spent a great deal of time making sure that we do not ignore conflicts that it is very easy to ignore.

We all recognise that what is happening in the north Caucasus—indeed, across the whole of the Caucasus—is very easy to neglect when so much is happening across the Middle East and when the situations in Afghanistan, across southern Asia and in the Persian Gulf are also extremely complex and active. However, we need to be reminded that what is happening in the north Caucasus is a problem that may well spill over across the region. It was quite right that we talked in this debate not just about Chechnya but also about the north and southern Caucasus. These all spill over.

Much of the population of southern Ossetia fled, in the course of the conflicts of the early 1990s, to northern Ossetia. South Ossetia is now an almost uninhabited territory. Some of us remember that, when the conflict between Georgia and Abkhazia broke out in 1991, some of those fighting for an independent Abkhazia came from Chechnya and went back to fight for an independent Chechnya afterwards. These things have unavoidable links. Georgia has a long frontier with Dagestan and Chechnya. There have been and continue to be accusations from the Russians that the Georgian Government have been assisting in supporting rebels to the north. Perhaps unwisely, the Georgian Government have now developed a number of services which broadcast to the north Caucasus. So there is an unavoidable overlap between local conflict and the wider region.

Mention has also been made of the Sochi Olympics, coming up in 2014, which, as a number of diaspora groups remind us, will be the 150th anniversary of the final suppression of the Circassians in the north Caucasus. The Circassians’ descendants spread out across what was then the Ottoman Empire, and are now in Libya, Jordan, Turkey and elsewhere. There are various threats—how credible they are we do not know—that efforts will be made to interrupt and obstruct the Sochi Olympics. That, again, would be a matter of concern to all those who propose to send national teams there. As Members have mentioned, we have seen bombings in Moscow and St Petersburg, claimed to have been conducted by people from Chechnya and Dagestan. So this is not purely a local conflict. It spills over.

We recognise that the layers of bitterness and historical conflict—stretching back to 1989-1991 and, before that, as noble Lords have mentioned, to the Second World War and beyond to the tsarist conquest of the north Caucasus in the 19th century—are all part of what we now have to address. I am glad that Her Majesty’s Government have issued an invitation to Alexander Khloponin, the federally appointed administrator for the north Caucasus, to visit the United Kingdom and, in particular, Northern Ireland, to discuss how to attempt to come to terms with and overcome conflicts with deep historical roots and layers of grievance on both sides. That invitation has not yet been accepted, but it is still very much open.

We are also conscious that the demographic change across the north Caucasus, with substantial emigration of ethnic Russians and a rising population of many of these local groups, also raises major issues. I read something yesterday which talked about mounting resistance in Dagestan. There have been a number of explosions at ski resorts and at a power station in Kabardino-Balkaria, so, again, this is not purely a local issue.

The noble Lord, Lord Ahmed, talked a little about the role of Islam in the area. From all that I have read, this is a difficult area to get a grip on. A Caucasus emirate has been announced which operates to bring together rebel groups in the largely, but not entirely, Muslim republics of the north Caucasus. How much influence that has, and what links it has with groups outside Russia, we are not entirely sure. Claims are made. There has clearly been some external support and fighters over the past 20 years. So far as we can see, however, these are local grievances. It is a local conflict, exacerbated by the violence used by the local security forces, which often drives young men into the forests to join the resistance and then use Islam as part of the rationale for their violence. We must all be aware that the use of Islam can easily become part of a more radical internationalist link.

The potential spillover concerns us a great deal. The Foreign Secretary has made clear on several occasions in discussions with the Russians that, for us, supporting the rule of law and protecting human rights are essential and indivisible from our national foreign policy objectives. These values are part of our national DNA. Discussing them frankly and seeking constructive ways in which to co-operate with the Russian authorities in addressing the challenges they face is an integral part of our bilateral relationship.

Some noble Lords may ask what our leverage over the Russians in this is if we are not prepared to intervene. Certainly, one area of leverage is that the Russian elite wants Russia to be accepted as a great power, as a civilised power and as a European state. Russia is a member of the Council of Europe and of the OSCE. Therefore, our ability to say, “You are not living up to civilised standards. You are not living up to European standards,” continues to have some leverage. There is some evidence that the elite in Moscow is now rather unsettled by what is happening across the Middle East. Its preferred model of an authoritarian modernising state is unsettled by the appearance that the Egyptians, Libyans and others prefer a rather more open society than many in Moscow want. The Foreign Secretary continues to raise human rights and rule-of-law issues, including those in the north Caucasus. We are the only Government in the EU to have a formal Government-to-Government human rights dialogue with Russia. Within that, early this year as well as last year, we talked as much about what is happening in the north Caucasus as about other issues.

On my personal view, having spent some time with Anna Politkovskaya in Georgia, South Ossetia and Abkhazia, and having had long conversations with her about the insecurity of being a journalist in Russia, I feel particularly passionate about the extent to which journalists and civil rights activists, not just in the north Caucasus but across the whole of Russia, are taking their lives in their hands as they now operate. I am happy to say that the Russians repealed the most draconian of their controlling civil society organisations laws last year, and it is possible for foreign Governments to provide support for NGOs. Her Majesty’s Government are providing support for a number of NGOs inside Russia, including Memorial, which the noble Lord, Lord Ahmed, has mentioned. We are doing whatever we can to support the strengthening of civil society in the whole of the Russian Federation.

The noble Lord, Lord Jopling, asked whether we have others with us. We have some evidence that other NATO members are prepared to soften their approach to Russia. I am happy that the German Government are providing as much assistance as they can to civil society groups in Russia. Nordic Governments are actively concerned with strengthening civil society. As I look around the Chamber, I see the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, who I know has been engaged over the years in helping independent academic and other institutions in Moscow.

I say to the noble Lord, Lord Triesman, that if we are looking for partners, the Turks are very useful partners in the Caucasus. The Turkish Government, as the noble Lord will recall, have made considerable efforts to bring Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan together. Turkey has legitimate concerns. The coalition Government regard Turkey as one of our most important international partners for this and for many other reasons.

Noble Lords, in particular the noble Lord, Lord Jopling, raised the question of Georgia. We are doing our best to assist the Georgian Government in the frozen conflicts. We face many obstacles, sometimes from the Georgian Government themselves, and often from the Russian Government, which has blocked the EU monitoring mission from playing the role that it would like to play in these conflicts. The UK continues to offer its strong political support to the EU monitoring mission. We bitterly regret Russia’s decision to veto the continuation of the UN mission in Georgia in June 2009. We also regret that Russia continues to block consensus on an OSCE mission similar to that which existed prior to June 2009. Russia is a member of the OSCE and a member of the UN. Effective international monitoring of what is happening on these contested borders is itself a confidence-building measure, and is therefore strongly to be supported.

The noble Lord, Lord Judd, asked several questions. I hope I have answered most of them positively. He made the comparison with Northern Ireland. Are we willing to push the Russians to change course away from a military security solution? Yes, absolutely—that is what we are doing. That is partly why we suggest that our sometimes bitter experience in some of our own domestic and colonial conflicts may be of relevance to the Russians as they face a not entirely dissimilar situation. Are we using our muscle with Russia in the Council of Europe Committee of Ministers? We certainly are. The whole question of the European Court of Human Rights is now very much on the agenda under the Turkish presidency of the Council of Europe.

Does our embassy in Russia help NGOs? Yes, we are working to support NGOs and to strengthen civil society. Are we helping Chechens at risk? Yes indeed—we are doing what we can. Several Chechens have been offered asylum in Britain and elsewhere in the European Union. We are willing to offer whatever assistance we can to provide a solution, but that requires our Russian partners to be willing to accept assistance, which is not always entirely easy.

The report on human rights from the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe in June 2010 called the situation in the north Caucasus,

“the most serious situation in the entire geographical area encompassed by the Council of Europe in terms of human rights protection and the affirmation of the rule of law”.

The Government agree with this assessment. Although the UK-Russia bilateral relationship has been a complicated story in recent years, human rights issues have never been ignored. We continue to press them, as did the previous Government, even though one sometimes gets a stony reception. The noble Baroness, Lady Smith, may remember a wonderful and very stormy confrontation that some of us, as a delegation, had with the Russian Parliament’s Committee of Foreign Affairs some years ago on this exact issue. I assure the House that this will continue to be the case. I emphasise that this is not just a question for the Government but something that many of us who are involved in relations with Russia engage in inside and outside government.

The Government take the situation in the north Caucasus extremely seriously, on both human rights and international security grounds. Indeed, our foreign policy recognises the deep link between the two issues. Where human rights violations go unchecked, our security and international security also suffer. I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Judd, for the opportunity he has given us to pay attention to Chechnya and the north and south Caucasus today.

13:15

[Lord Judd]

My Lords, I thank most warmly all those who have participated in today’s debate. I know some have made considerable efforts to be here. That is all the more appreciated; I understand that there are a lot of pulls in other directions today. On that, as we have the opportunity across the United Kingdom, in various elections, to participate in a fully democratic system, the people we have been talking about in the Caucasus would give their right arms to begin to have that same opportunity and sense of genuine freedom. If we have any sense of solidarity with people across the world, this brings home the importance of the debate today.

I realise that it is not the practice in such debates to reply in full. Although we have a little time, I will not be tempted down that road. In particular, I thank the Minister for his positive response to my specific points. I have been in government. I know that while you can have an intellectual and moral commitment to do certain things, it is not always possible to follow them through in practice as strongly as the aspiration perhaps suggests. My noble friend Lord Triesman encouraged us to be positive. I would simply say that the Government should feel that they would have all possible support from across the House in making my noble friend’s points a substantial reality, so that when we make representations to the Russians, they are not formal representations but representations made with conviction, strength and determination.

If I take anything away from this debate, it is, first, the depth of specialised knowledge that exists in this House. I know that we are prone to a bit of self-congratulation in the House of Lords, but that is not a bad thing. It has been great to hear that specialised knowledge being contributed to this debate. I have learnt a lot and listened with great attention.

The second thing that has been brought home to me by the debate—I agree with my noble friend Lord Triesman—is that we must try to be positive and look to the positive things that are happening. However, as I am sure he will be the first to agree, events in the Middle East and the southern Mediterranean, to which the Minister referred, bring home dramatically that all this can turn into a pretty fragile reality with dire consequences unless the foundations of societies are right. You cannot build a sustainable, decent society on rotten foundations. Therefore, it is absolutely essential first to put right freedom, justice and human rights. Then you will have a secure society in which economic and social development in every form can effectively take place and be sustained.

That brings me to the third point that I shall take away strongly from this debate—a point that re-emphasises a conviction that I already have, which is no bad thing. We must all snap out of this tendency to think of human rights as a sort of qualitative extra in society: “There is the real stuff of politics and security, and then there are human rights”. We must not forget them and must bring them on board. If I have learnt anything in 33 years in Parliament—but in some ways even more from my professional work outside Parliament, in Oxfam and elsewhere—it is that human rights are an absolute, essential cornerstone of effective security. They are not an optional extra but a cornerstone of stability and sustainability in any form of society. That point has come across very strongly in the debate, for which I am glad.

The final point that I take away—this is not unique to the Caucasus but applies to so many of the other issues that confront us—is that as we look for solutions, we must learn to forgo the temptation externally to manage the situation. Peace cannot be imposed, it has to built, and it is a painstaking process. Peace has to be built by the people who are the parties to the conflict if it is to be a secure and lasting peace. If we want to talk to our Russian friends about anything, it should be that. I do not use the word “friend” lightly, because I want Russia to be our friend. I do not believe that we can successfully approach the future of the global community, highly interdependent as it is, unless we work closely with the Russians. Therefore, we should forcefully bring home to them our own analysis of the situation as we see it, but with the purpose of strengthening our friendship and collaboration with Russia. That should be the objective. However, the reality is that we can do it only if we talk honestly. I happen to believe—I have come to this conclusion after some years of direct experience—that the Russians do not put up with bullshit. They listen when you are talking sincerely, earnestly and toughly. That is what I believe we should do as good friends. I beg leave to withdraw my Motion.

Motion withdrawn.

Disabled People

Thursday 5th May 2011 Lords Chamber

Debate

13:22

Moved by

[Lord Low of Dalston]

To call attention to the impact of government policies on disabled people; and to move for papers.

[Lord Low of Dalston]

My Lords, I begin by saying how sorry I am that the noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Holbeach, will be answering the debate. I say that not because I am sorry to see the noble Lord, but because the noble Lord, Lord Freud, cannot be here as planned because he has been involved in a motoring accident and has had to be taken to hospital. However, I am happy to say that he is all right and, I believe, will soon be back with us. I am sure that I speak for everybody when I say that we send him our very best wishes for a speedy return to the House.

I thank all noble Lords who have put their names down to speak. I am sure that I speak for all noble Lords when I say that I am particularly looking forward to the maiden speech of the noble Lord, Lord Fellowes of West Stafford. The noble Lord, Lord Morris of Manchester, very much wanted to be here, but he has asked me to say how sorry he is that he cannot be present owing to a long-standing commitment elsewhere. It is indeed an irony that, in the 40th anniversary year of the coming into force of his historic Act, we should be discussing the possible rolling back of so many of the gains for disabled people that it set in train.

It is a cliché that the civilisation of a society is measured by the way it treats its most vulnerable members. That is a test that the Government certainly acknowledge, as they have made many statements to the effect that they intend to introduce their austerity measures in such a way as to ensure that the most vulnerable are protected. However, there is a real risk that the Government are failing their own test, for next Wednesday we will see the largest ever lobby of Parliament by disabled people—more than 10,000 of them, angry at the prospect that, far from being protected, they are being hardest hit of all by the Government’s measures. They are angry and fearful. There is a sense that Ministers are not listening, so I hope that they will see today’s debate as a welcome opportunity to improve the dialogue.

The coalition’s programme for government states that the Government will ensure that,

“fairness is at the heart”

of decision-making so that,

“those most in need are protected”.

Let us look at the baseline from which such a pledge should be judged. In fact, the link between disability and poverty through lower incomes and higher costs is well established. On almost any indicator of poverty or disadvantage, disabled people are significantly overrepresented, with research by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and the New Policy Institute finding that disabled people are around twice as likely to live in relative poverty as non-disabled people. Disabled people are also more likely to rely on state benefits as a significant source of their income and face extra costs directly related to their impairment, such as increased fuel bills, medical costs or a contribution to the cost of their social care. Official poverty figures do not take account of these additional costs. However, if they were factored in, they would suggest that well over half of disabled people in the United Kingdom live below the poverty line.

The impression is often given that the welfare budget is out of control as a result of unfounded claims of sickness and disability, but in reality the greater part of the growth in the welfare bill seen in the past 10 years has been on pensions as a result of demographic factors, families with children and low-income workers. Sir Bert Massie, former chair of the Disability Rights Commission, has also referred to the rhetoric around welfare, which paints disabled people as welfare cheats. In fact, most of the stories in the press about disabled scroungers are not about disabled people at all but are about non-disabled people pretending to be disabled.

The Government’s flagship policy for addressing the poverty of disabled people is their programme to get disabled people off welfare and into work. This aspiration, in particular the simplification of welfare through the universal credit, is welcome. As always, however, the devil is in the detail. The Welfare Reform Bill currently makes no provision within the universal credit for the enhanced disability premium or severe disability premium, worth £13.65 and £53.65 a week respectively for a single person. Without these premiums thousands of disabled people with the greatest needs will be left without the support they need to meet the extra costs of disability. Nor do we know whether the system of disregards will replicate the disability element of working tax credit or enable couples who both have an impairment to retain its equivalent to which they have each been entitled individually up to now. Can the Minister assure us that the move to universal credit will not have these untoward and no doubt unintended but certainly self-defeating consequences? However, the development of the universal credit is going in broadly the right direction. The same cannot be said of the Government’s other measures designed to support their welfare to work agenda.

I say at the outset that the agenda remains correct. Disabled people want to work and do not want to be written off on welfare. We had a debate in the RNIB—here I declare my interest both as a vice-president and a disabled person—about whether we wanted to hang on to incapacity benefit and we came down firmly against sending a signal that blind people were not able to work. However, we said that conditionality applied as much to government as to disabled people. If disabled people were to be expected to undertake work-related activity to get them close to the labour market and ideally into work, they should be entitled to expect that there will be a job at the end of the road and that the Government will be held to account for providing the necessary support while they got there and for removing the barriers to the employment of disabled people.

The Government have a massive programme to reassess more than 1.5 million people on incapacity benefit by 2013 to see whether they qualify for employment and support allowance. However, the assessment process is deeply flawed. Forty per cent of appeals are successful, and there is widespread dissatisfaction with Atos Healthcare, the company carrying out the assessments. There are also serious concerns with the way that the process is being handled. The descriptors in the work capability assessment have been repeatedly revised over recent years so as to raise the bar for claimants. Further changes are now being rushed through before Professor Harrington has concluded the all-important second stage of his review, against the advice of the Social Security Advisory Committee. In particular, the committee felt that the work capability assessment measured theoretical work capability and took insufficient account of the realities of the work environment and the labour market, which has not enabled significant numbers to move into employment, even in relatively favourable pre-recession conditions. Some 92 per cent of employers say that they would find it difficult or impossible to employ someone who is blind or partially sighted, for instance. Now we learn that increasing numbers of disabled people are experiencing rigorous reassessments of their access-to-work support packages, which is hardly going to ameliorate the situation.

The vast majority of incapacity benefit claimants have been on benefit for at least five years, which puts them a very long way indeed from the labour market. Yet, following the changes to the work capability assessment, the Government estimate that around a quarter of these claimants will fail to qualify for ESA, which will mean that they have to make a claim for jobseeker’s allowance or some other benefit or lose their benefit altogether. Can the Minister say what support will be available for disabled people who fail the work capability assessment but nevertheless face significant barriers in finding work?

Even if you qualify for ESA—employment and support allowance—you may be no better off, because anyone receiving contributory ESA from next April who is in the work-related activity group will have payment of their benefit means tested after 12 months. This change is to be made retrospective. People will still be able to apply for income-related ESA after their contributory ESA ends, but if their partner is earning as little as £150 or working 24 hours or more a week, they will no longer be eligible for ESA. These are particularly savage policies going far beyond anything contemplated in the Thatcher era. They will cause great hardship and have a devastating effect on the lives of hundreds of thousands of disabled people. It is estimated that by 2015-16, 700,000 people will be affected by limiting contributory ESA to one year: 203,000 will lose on average £11 a week; 217,000 will lose £22 a week; and 280,000, a good 40 per cent, will lose as much as £89 a week. To people forced to live on benefit, these figures are mind-boggling.

Disabled people see this as a betrayal of the citizen by the state. People have paid in through tax and national insurance contributions in the belief that if they became sick or disabled the benefits system would support them as they came to terms with their impairment, retrained and moved towards work again. The Minister may say that disabled people with a partner in work or with savings of more than £16,000 have other means of support and should use them, as people on contributory JSA have to after only six months. However, this totally fails to appreciate the difference between someone who is work-ready on JSA and a disabled person who may need some years of support to enter work. Most important of all, there simply are not the jobs to enable someone on ESA to get a job within 12 months. The number of long-term unemployed far outstrips the number of job vacancies. DWP figures show that only 13 per cent of people on the Pathways to Work programme in 2008-09 returned to work within one year. How is one to account for this, other than in terms of coalition heartlessness—picking on disabled people, to cut the deficit, by returning us to the hard-faced days of the means test? That is certainly how it is seen by those marching next Wednesday and engaging the week after in a week of action against Atos Healthcare.

I prefer to think of it differently. I know the Minister; he is not a hard man. I believe that he genuinely wants to reform a welfare system that has kept disabled people in a state of dependency and out of work for too long, by making it pay to be in work. However, Ministers have become mesmerised by this rhetoric to the point where they fail to see the consequences of the policies they are pursuing. Making work pay is not the same as seeing to it that it does not pay to be out of work. Using the threat of loss of benefit in an attempt to force people who are not work-ready to work, or for whom there is no work, is plain sadistic.

The Government should freeze their plans to migrate more than a million and a half incapacity benefit claimants on to ESA from April this year until they can implement the recommendations of the Harrington review, and they should reconsider their approach to contributory ESA. At the very least, I ask the Minister to undertake—as the noble Lord, Lord Freud, did recently with respect to the changes to housing benefit—to carry out a review of what happens to people who are found to be fit for work and therefore unable to claim ESA.

I have concentrated on welfare to work because it is the Government’s flagship policy and represents their strategic approach to dealing with the poverty of disabled people. However, there is more—much, much more—that I can only touch on, and I leave it to others to say more on those points if they wish to.

Expenditure on disability living allowance, which helps people with the extra costs that disability brings, is to be cut by a fifth. The Government have said that they will review the withdrawal of the mobility component from state-funded claimants living in residential care, which was planned to take effect in 2012 and has caused particular anger. However, Clause 83 of the Welfare Reform Bill still denies entitlement to personal independence payment for anyone living in a care home, and the impact assessment suggests that 78,000 disabled people will still lose out. Closure of the Independent Living Fund will hit some of the most severely disabled.

Most astonishingly of all, the Government have recently included the entire Equality Act that we passed in this House just last year within their red tape challenge, which invites members of the public to comment on regulations with a view to their being simplified or scrapped. Not surprisingly, this has caused huge concern among disabled people; if carried through, it would sweep away at a stroke all the provisions that flow from the Disability Discrimination Act, which has been such a potent vehicle for protecting and advancing the interests of disabled people. I invite the Minister to disavow any such intention on the part of the Government.

As support from central government is withdrawn, so it is from local government. This represents a double whammy. Eighty per cent of councils in England expect by the end of this financial year to help only disabled people whose needs are assessed as being critical, substantial or—in the case of Birmingham City Council—super-critical. “Critical” effectively means life-threatening. How is one to account for this except in terms of crude cost-cutting? Time-limiting contributory ESA will save £2 billion, and DLA a further £2.17 billion. The disability contribution, as we might call it, to reducing the deficit is therefore larger than that sought from the banks through the banking levy, which is to be only £2.5 billion. This therefore represents a clear choice on the part of the Government to go for welfare rather than the parts of the economy that caused the problem in the first place. It is a clear choice, but is it fair and is it necessary?

When we were in a much worse position at the end of the Second World War, we were able to found the National Health Service and introduce a Disabled Persons (Employment) Act. We have to ask, have our Government got their priorities right?

13:38

[Lord Sawyer]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Low of Dalston, for initiating this debate. I want to make a brief contribution. Unlike most of today’s speakers, many of whom have a distinguished record in this field, I am afraid that I have no special knowledge or personal experience of disability. As a trade union leader, however, I had responsibility over many years for representing members with disabilities, and I have always taken a serious interest in these issues—in particular, in the employment prospects of those with disabilities.

In the process of some work I was doing recently as a member of the scrutiny panel of the Sayce review of the employment of people with disabilities, I was reminded of the contribution made to the working lives of the disabled by an organisation that we all recognise by the name of Remploy. As noble Lords will know, it is a provider of specialist employment services focused on people with disabilities and health conditions who are furthest from the job market. Most of us will probably relate to Remploy through knowledge of its 54 factories, which I will briefly mention later, but may be less aware of the first-class employment service provided by Remploy, which helps those with disabilities to find work. It has an excellent record and had an outstanding year in 2010. The Remploy employment service was successful in finding more than 10,000 jobs in mainstream employment for disabled people and those experiencing complex barriers to work. That represents an increase of almost 40 per cent on the previous year. I hope that the Minister will join me in congratulating Remploy on that achievement.

There have also been considerable achievements in Remploy’s enterprise businesses. As well as providing employment for 2,800 disabled people in 54 factories, its business also supported an additional 600 people with barriers to employment with training programmes in its factories to prepare them for the world of work. The frontline Remploy business in 2010 secured and delivered an important £15 million contract from the Home Office to supply more than 20,000 specialist protection suits to 53 police forces in England, Wales and Scotland. That is just the sort of work that Remploy workers need to enjoy the satisfaction and dignity of contributing to our economic well-being.

Unfortunately, however, the recession and the government policy of cutting back public expenditure have had serious effects on Remploy’s order books in 2011, resulting in a lack of activity in the factories, with some having few or no new orders. I know that the previous Government and their Ministers supported the business and fully recognised its difficulties in times of recession. I should very much like to hear that Ministers in the present Government share that view, that there is no change in that position and that everything will be done to help the Remploy factories to be successful.

I know that there is a modernisation plan which covers the first two years of the spending review, which I understand will not be impacted. I believe that the Government have given that commitment, and I am very pleased about that. However, we need a way forward which secures job opportunities and meaningful work for people with disabilities, not just in the Remploy situation but across the whole of the economy. Again, I should like to know that the Minister shares that view and that his Government are committed to that aim.

13:43

[Lord Addington]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Low, for introducing the debate and look forward to the maiden speech of my noble friend Lord Fellowes, who is two down the list from me.

This debate has taken on a tone to which all those on the government Benches must listen carefully. People are very worried at the moment. Probably the most inept thing we have heard is that the Equality Act is regarded as red tape. I do not know whether I would support it if I were told that it was red tape. Let us put it this way, I would have to be convinced that it was either that or killing the firstborn. A good few of my colleagues would be with me on that one. The Government must explain that more clearly. Most of what has been done all around this House for a long time has been working towards one solid body of law which allows us to defend the rights of minorities. I do not know who described it as red tape, but whoever it is should be made to come to explain to us why. It will lead to fear. Fear does not lead to rational debate.

The continuity of approach should be recognised. The previous Government worked hard to try to get the disabled into work. They tried initiatives; they pumped money in; but they had limited success. The implementation of that policy proved to be difficult. The interface between those we were trying to help and the government machine proved extremely difficult to manage. The noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, who is not taking part in this debate, demonstrated a continuity of approach at Question Time today on the matter of pensions. In this area there is a degree of continuity of thought. The previous Government said that they would train people to do undertake the interviews: the one-stop shop. That was a good idea. They said that people would get hours and hours more help. I said, “Will you train them sufficiently to know when they should back down and bring in an expert?”. “We’ll get more training”, they said. Unless we get people sufficiently trained, with authority to bring in the expert, when they are dealing with people with very individual, complicated needs, there will be mistakes. The real problem is making mistakes and missing the target. Unless we can address that in more depth, we will continue to make mistakes. Giving people unnecessary problems leads to costs further down the line. That is a well-known fact. If we do not pick it up here, we pick it up in the health service.

With that in mind, I turn to something which I can thank Ministers for addressing. Let us say that it was a Treasury Bench cock-up, which started under the previous Government, reached a peak under this Government and has been dealt with by them. The National Apprenticeship Service was convinced that dyslexics should not be able to take apprenticeships because they could not pass part of the communication test, which was a written test. Both current government parties raised that in opposition and got what we thought were assurances. I then discovered, through casework which I occasionally found myself doing, that people were being denied, which was in direct contradiction of the Equality Act and the Disability Discrimination Act before it. Somebody thought, perhaps, “We’re business. We’re different. We’re applying for business services”, and so the Act did not apply to them.

Dyslexics are allowed to take degrees, by the way. I must declare an interest here. I am chairman of a company that provides computer software and support to allow people to use voice-to-text and text-to-voice technology. That is fairly old technology, but it is improving. It is being polished. We have been doing that for years. They can do that, but people who work practically with their hands outside, where literacy problems should be less of a burden, were being excluded. The noble Lord, Lord Low, led the charge, not particularly on the part of dyslexics but on that of others in the field. He got there in front of me. I am getting used to the view of the back of the noble Lord’s head as he charges into these fields. We intervened. John Hayes, who is a Minister in a different department from the one that the noble Lord usually deals with, said to me in a meeting on Tuesday, “This is ridiculous. Let’s sort it out”. I cleared with him that I could say that today.

This matter cuts across all departments and we must get into it as a government-wide project. Unless we do, we will make problems worse. We must make sure we target access across government. We must make sure that Parliament is vigilant and that the legislation we pass is implemented. There is enough legislation now. After years of trying, we have done enough. We have to get into the system and say, “You are not an exception. The defence of reasonableness does not mean that you can say it is inconvenient for you to implement the legislation. You have to do it as a duty”.

Any change leads to fear. The Government have a duty to make sure that people have a degree of confidence that overall the change will be for the better. If we do not do that, no matter what we do, we will fail to achieve at the right level. That has probably been true for a long time for all government initiatives. We have to be prepared to explain what effort, time and indeed even money, even in these circumstances, are being expended to get the best out of these changes. If we do not do that, we will end up with more ridiculous situations like the one that I have just described, where people are worried about going through processes because they are unable to get from them the necessary rewards, and we will end up going nowhere.

All of us in this House and in another place have a duty to honour the undertakings that we have made. I hope that the noble Lord will be able to assure me that the red tape idea will not filter down and affect the basic laws that we have passed to protect the disabled.

13:51

[Baroness Campbell of Surbiton]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Low, for securing this debate. As always, his timing is impeccable. Today, I shall confine my remarks to independent living. I was thinking, “Goodness, I’ve got to declare my interests”, but, to be honest, as my entire contribution reflects both a professional and personal interest, I should like all noble Lords to take it as read that I have a big declared interest in this area.

Over the past 40 years, successive government policies have liberated disabled people by increasing the choice and control that we have over our lives. We call this independent living. It is not simply about being helped to get up, to go to bed and to get out of the front door; it is about getting the support needed to access all life’s opportunities, such as work, leisure and family life—in fact, all the things that non-disabled people take for granted.

All Governments have stated their desire to maximise disabled people’s choice and control, and they have clearly recognised that by introducing policies and legislation to realise that goal. The Community Care (Direct Payments) Act, the Independent Living Fund and the Government’s strategy, Improving the Life Chances of Disabled People, are but a few notable achievements. Most importantly, Governments have provided the money necessary to put them into practice, and that, as we have seen over the past decade, has generated cost savings.

Disabled people are now visible. We witness them working, raising families, supporting others through volunteering, and even securing debates and speaking in this Chamber. Alas, this progress is possibly now at risk. When this coalition Government came to power, they rightly needed to spend wisely and to cut wherever possible, but their treatment so far of essential independent living support for disabled people has become alarmingly unwise and potentially even dangerous. I can point to three policies that are having a cumulative effect of putting independent living at risk and of turning back the clock on this Government’s past brilliant reforms regarding independent living.

The first is the refusal to ring-fence any of the additional £2 billion of social care money made available to local authorities directly to support independent living for disabled people. The Association of Directors of Adult Social Services estimates that local authorities have cut £1 billion from the social care budget before we even begin. A quarter of these cuts are going to be to front-line services for older and disabled people. The second is the decision to close the Independent Living Fund without local authorities being in a position to replace it, as was the position before. The fund is already closed to new applicants, denying disabled people entering adulthood the same opportunities that their older peers enjoy. Thirdly, the Government say that they intend to reduce the disability living allowance budget by 20 per cent, representing a cut of £2.17 billion for working-age adults.

These policy decisions do not just turn back the clock on independent living; I think that they could take us back to the 1970s or even the 1960s, when basic needs, such as living safely in one’s home, eating and drinking, and using the toilet when you needed to, let alone when you wanted to, were not properly met. I should like to give noble Lords one very clear example.

At this point, Baroness Wilkins continued the speech for Baroness Campbell of Surbiton.

Elaine McDonald is a retired prima ballerina who became severely disabled. She received night-time assistance with visiting the toilet. However, her local council says that it can no longer afford to provide this assistance and says that she must now sleep on incontinence pads. She unsuccessfully appealed the decision and is taking her case to the Supreme Court. Why must she be forced to go through all this? Would any of your Lordships consider it reasonable to be required to lie in their own urine and faeces? The Human Rights Act includes the right not to be subjected to degrading treatment. Slopping out in our prisons was outlawed as a result. Does Elaine McDonald have fewer rights because she is a disabled woman?

That example is not unique. Government policies mean that this country is failing in its obligations under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Article 19 of that convention recognises the equal right of all disabled people to,

“live in the community, with choices equal to others”.

It requires that states take “effective and appropriate measures” to ensure that disabled people fully access the right to,

“full inclusion and participation in the community”.

Social care services make human rights possible. Cutting services means that a person with a communication impairment may be denied freedom of expression because they are refused the equipment and assistance that they need to communicate. Someone with a mobility impairment may be denied the equipment and assistance needed to leave the house. Elaine McDonald will be denied basic human dignity and be subjected to inhuman and degrading treatment.

Independent living, which is what Article 19 is about, is what makes us human. It is about our rights to autonomy, to self-determination and to make the most basic, as well as the most important, choices about our lives. All political parties recognise the importance of that and supported the five-year independent living strategy. This committed the Government to taking action to ensure that,

“All disabled people will have the same choice, control and freedom as every other citizen”.

At this point, Baroness Campbell of Surbiton resumed.

Can the Minister please explain how current government policies are compatible with that aim?

Of course, these government policies do not only harm disabled people; they also damage carers, 80 per cent of whom are women who are left to pick up the pieces. Denying support to disabled people equally means denying support to carers, as well as denying them their independence.

To help us to understand the thinking behind the Government’s strategy for independent living for disabled people, we need to know what independent living impact assessments were conducted before the policy decisions were taken to close the Independent Living Fund and to cut 20 per cent from the DLA budget. Will the Minister please make these available to us in the Library? He will undoubtedly tell us that making personalised independent living support a reality has been adequately funded and that it is up to local authorities to spend wisely. That will not do. It suits the Government and local authorities to blame each other and disabled people are left in the middle. Who do we believe? Disabled people are caught up in this ping-pong match and have no avenue other than to go to court to challenge decisions. We know that that is an impossible route for 99 per cent of disabled people.

Our support should be ring-fenced, not left to localism to get it right. These are our human rights. Will the Minister give his personal commitment to ring-fence money for independent living support at a local level? I know that this Government’s policy of localism is often seen to be at odds with ring-fencing but disabled people’s human rights depend on it. Otherwise, more of us will be forced into residential care against our will, or be found alone gasping for a drink or to go to the toilet. The UK Government will be ignoring their responsibilities under the Human Rights Act and Article 19 of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. The Minister will be aware that the Joint Committee on Human Rights, of which I am privileged to be a member, is now conducting an inquiry into the implementation of the right to independent living for disabled people. His response in this debate will help inform that inquiry and I look forward to hearing it.

14:02

[Lord Fellowes of West Stafford]

My Lords, I have stood before many different audiences in my life, but few as impressive or as daunting as your Lordships. Indeed, I am every day made more aware of the wealth of knowledge and experience by which I am surrounded on every side, making me both humble to have been included in your Lordships’ company and amazed by the support that I have received since my arrival.

I must first thank my sponsors, my noble friends, Lord Northbrook and Lord Marland, my patient mentor, my noble friend Lady Seccombe, and my Whip, my noble friend Lady Rawlings, both of whom have taken so much time and care to lead me through the steps of the dance. Of course, like all of us, I am indebted to the staff who are an outstanding example in their dedication to their tasks. I must especially remember Mrs Banks, who made it her business to ensure that my introduction ran smoothly. It will always remain one of the great days of my life.

Like many Members of your Lordships’ House, I have come to you by a circuitous route, although I was, I suspect, originally destined for a less bumpy and varied journey than the one I have travelled. My upbringing was a traditional one, largely dictated by my dear father who was as straight as a ruled line and who expected, after Ampleforth and Cambridge, that I would seek my goals in the predictable arenas of diplomacy or the City. Instead, for reasons now lost to me, I opted for the hurly burly of show business, passing through drama school and the now extinct system of repertory theatre before coming to London in a comedy, “A Touch of Spring”—a chance that I was given because I was the only actor they could find who was stupid enough to fall down a staircase eight times a week.

However, my arrival in the industry was not well timed. This was the early 1970s, a period of intense political activity, and both my perceived circumstance and my unfashionable allegiance to the Tories rendered me quite wrong for the prevailing zeitgeist. Before very long, I had been told I need not even try to audition for the RSC; I was deselected from a television show, in which I had been cast, because the star would not work with a Conservative; and when I was requested by the director of a restoration revival at the National Theatre, the casting director told me herself this would not happen because my sort of actor was, “better off on the other side of the river”—in other words, in the less intellectually challenging West End. There is a kind of hopelessness when faced with this sort of thing which I would like to think none of your Lordships has encountered, but I know full well that many of you have. It is distressing because it is invariably denied and consequently almost impossible to fight.

Eventually, despairing of my chances here, in the 1980s I left for Los Angeles. Since my intention was to become a film star, I cannot pretend the move was a succès fou, my highest point being the day when I came second to replace the dwarf on “Fantasy Island”, but it was a useful adventure all the same and I came home reinvigorated to find that both the mood in the business and I, myself, had changed. I married and had in fact achieved a respectable acting career and had begun to write when Robert Altman approached me to work on a version of the country house murder mystery. This was in every sense my lucky break, and I was fortunate in being old enough, at 50, to recognise it. When “Gosford Park” was released, I won the Oscar for Best Screenplay, an experience I can heartily recommend, and it led to many opportunities for which I am most grateful.

However, my early years in the business have never left me. This is not a complaint. Indeed, I am sure that the bursting of my bubble of self-confidence was a powerful spur. Like the Red Queen in Through the Looking Glass, I had to run twice as fast to stay in the same place, and it served me well. Nevertheless, I have experienced the strangeness of being disliked not for who but for what I am. It is strange, as too many of you will recognise, to be dismissed—or even just assessed—by people who do not take the trouble to know you at all. It has left me with a lasting distaste for generalisations when it comes to people. I do not just mean racist views or religious intolerance, but any opinion about a nationality or an age group, a class, or the members of a club or political party. Even in the pseudo-tribute of praising this group for its rhythm, or that one for its handling of money, there is a patronising distance, a we-they attitude that is never helpful.

Possibly no group suffers more from a sometimes benevolent but still ignorant tendency to lump them all together than disabled people. Disablement, whether severe or, as in the case of the majority, something that with proper understanding and training is perfectly compatible with a full and fulfilled life, is no guide whatever to the personality or potential of the sufferer.

I should here declare an interest. For some years, one of my hats has been as chairman of the RNIB Talking Books appeal, a cause that embraces both my enthusiasm for literacy in all its forms, as well as for the empowerment of the disabled—in this case the blind. The organisation is pleasingly non-political—or cross-political. I succeeded the noble Lord, Lord Bragg, and we both consecutively served under the benign chairmanship of the noble Lord, Lord Low, who has initiated this discussion, today. Above all, I am an admirer of the RNIB’s conviction that blind people should strive for autonomy. In our recording studios in Camden Town, several of the technicians are themselves blind—a living demonstration that disability need not be an embargo to an interesting career, requiring specialist knowledge and highly developed skills.

Surely this must be the guiding principle of any government support for the disabled: a permanent and funded emphasis on helping them take their place in the workforce and in the world. For this reason, and in the mildest possible maiden speech sort of way—and while I am fully aware of the need for cuts at a time when our debts have spiralled not just beyond control but almost beyond comprehension—I would yet argue, like the noble Lord, Lord Low, that, in the coming changes, the employment and support allowance in particular should be as strongly defended as is compatible with the coalition's plans.

There is a suggestion that one year's assistance to find work is to be considered enough, the period to include the 13 weeks required by the initial assessment. However, there is such a thing as a false economy and, as my late mother used to say, “sometimes it's cheaper to pay”. Just as with health spending on blind people, there is no question that money spent on sight loss, where many conditions are now curable, will always cost the country less than supporting the sufferer who could have been cured and is not. Similarly, I remind the powers that if there could be some leeway in the area of training, the resulting gainful employment of disabled candidates would save the state a fortune.

My years at the RNIB and working with other charities, not least Changing Faces, an organisation that deals with shockingly severe facial disfigurement, have convinced me that the core philosophy when dealing with all forms of disablement must be inclusion. These are the days of the big society, and that must mean concentrating on the common ground that binds us all. Above all, it means talking to disabled people in the first person, and not about them in the third.

We hear a lot on the subject of human rights, and I know that I must avoid contention, but I am confident that there is one human right at least that we would all of us, on every side, defend. That is the right to dream. Disabled people must be allowed their dreams of how they would spend their lives, as well as a reasonable chance to achieve them. If their ambitions are unlikely, so what? So were mine, and they all came to pass. However, the dreams of most of our disabled community are not unlikely; they are quite realistic, if they can only persuade our society to treat them as fully paid-up members of it.

14:12

[Lord Rix]

My Lords, I am delighted to welcome and congratulate a fellow trade unionist in your Lordships' House. The noble Lord, Lord Fellowes of West Stafford, and I, are both members of Equity. As far as I know, he is the fifth thespian to enter your Lordships' House as a life Peer. The first, of course, was Laurence Olivier. The second was Bernard Miles. I came in 19 years ago with my trousers firmly belted and braced, and Dickie Attenborough followed a year later. I am sure that all of us in your Lordships’ House would like to send our best wishes to the noble Lord, Lord Attenborough, who alas is still suffering from his severe accident a few years ago. Now we welcome the fifth member of the acting profession, Julian Fellowes.

There the similarity between us ceases. The noble Lord, Lord Fellowes, is still an actor, although he is now best known for his writing. I gave up acting 34 years ago but he forges ahead, particularly as a writer of successful screenplays. “Gosford Park” was his first huge success. More recently, I am sure that all of us have enjoyed “Downton Abbey” and look forward to seeing its sequel in the not too distant future. Judging by his excellent maiden speech, the noble Lord promises to be as great an asset to your Lordships' House as he is to the world of theatre, television and film. We all welcome him and look forward to his further contributions.

I congratulate also my noble friend Lord Low on securing this timely debate. I begin by declaring a personal interest as president of Mencap and co-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Learning Disability, along with the right honourable Tom Clarke. It is through forums such as these that I have heard first-hand accounts of the impact that certain government policies might have on disabled people.

To put this issue in context, I will refer to the coalition Government's promise in the coalition agreement document that they will ensure that “fairness” is at the heart of their decisions,

“so that all those most in need are protected".

Additionally, in June of last year, the Government stated their commitment to create fairness in society, and dignity and respect for disabled people. These pledges are very welcome and it is imperative that this continues to be the Government's prime consideration when pursuing their policies. This is particularly poignant in light of the current climate of cuts, efficiency gains and the drive to find savings. While I appreciate the current financial pressures that the coalition Government are under, there can be no excuse for allowing disabled people to suffer as a result.

Only a few weeks ago, Birmingham City Council lost a court case in the wake of its attempt to change its eligibility criteria so that any needs that were not “critical” would no longer be paid for. Further, even before the local government settlement late last year, 74 per cent of local authorities only provided care for those with “critical” or “substantial” needs. This is a worrying trend that compromises the social care provision for people whose support needs can least afford to be compromised. Effective social care can make a huge difference to the quality of someone's life and, crucially, this support often allows disabled people to access other services such as education, health and transport. To reduce this support would be to undermine the positive impact on the lives of disabled people and is certainly not a reflection of the Government's pledge to ensure fairness, dignity and respect for this group.

I fully support the announcement in the CSR that an additional £2 billion will be allocated for social care over the next four years, and see this as evidence that the coalition Government are aware, to some extent at least, of the importance of social care. Nevertheless, the policies of devolution as part of the localism agenda carry significant risks that local authorities will look to cut corners. I have already mentioned the issue of reduced eligibility criteria, but there are also significant concerns around the de-ring-fencing of social care funding. When these are coupled with reductions in allocations to local authorities, there is the distinct danger that disabled people will be negatively affected. Additionally, while I welcome the concept of personalised care and support, I caution that disabled people are at risk of being denied the necessary choice and control if an adequate number of good-quality local services is not provided, and if local authorities view personalisation as a means to save money. This must be addressed, and I urge the Government not to shirk their responsibility in this regard.

As the topic for debate is so broad, I will also cover a few other policies in forthcoming Bills that are particularly relevant to disabled people. The first of these are contained in the Welfare Reform Bill, which is currently in Committee in the Commons and which, I anticipate, will be thoroughly considered when it reaches us in the Lords. First, to offer credit where credit is due, I do not see that the principle of simplifying the benefits system and reducing bureaucracy can be too strongly opposed. This should help disabled people, particularly those with a learning disability, to understand the benefits process better, and should reduce the burden of filling in numerous forms.

However, as the Minister will be aware, I have voiced considerable concerns about other policies in the Bill. The measure to remove the mobility component of DLA for people in residential care, for example, is something that particularly troubles me. I welcome the deferment of this until 2013, but I am suspicious of the measures to replace it that may be in the forthcoming PIP, as recommended by the internal review now taking place. I am far from satisfied that this internal review is wide-reaching enough or takes into account the expertise of disability organisations and people with a disability who stand to be affected. I urge the Minister to ensure that disabled people, including those with a learning disability, are meaningfully included in the review. Can he assure me that this will happen?

Another issue that concerns me in the Welfare Reform Bill relates to the work capacity assessment. There are growing reservations over the accuracy of the assessment pilots in properly taking account of the needs of ESA applicants and their actual ability to work. Our main concern was, and still is, the merging of the three descriptors—memory and concentration, execution of tasks, and initiating and completing personal action—into one: initiating and completing personal action. This measure fails to account for certain elements of capability, such as the time taken to complete a task, which could have significant implications for people with a learning disability who, by definition, take longer to process information. It could result in disabled people being found fit for work as a result of the inadequacies in the assessment. Coupled with the additional barriers that disabled people face to find work, it becomes evident that they stand to be significantly disadvantaged by this policy. If the Government intend to push through these newly merged descriptors, which do not take into account certain hidden needs, what guarantees can be given that disabled people will receive the appropriate support to tackle these extra barriers, such as deep-rooted employer prejudice and discrimination?

I also wish to refer to the Health and Social Care Bill. I have no interest in engaging in all-out criticism of its overall principles but several areas require greater consideration in relation to their impact on disabled people. It is a case of scrutinising the policies which are not included more than those which are. Unbelievably, for a 367-page-long document, there are only three mentions of disability and very little mention of the need to tackle existing health inequalities or discrimination for all groups, not just for those who are easiest to reach.

With all the points that I have raised, I refer back to the coalition Government's commitment to ensure that “fairness” is at the heart of their decisions,

“so that all those most in need are protected”.

I urge the Government to be true to this pledge and I trust that the Minister can offer me assurances that this principle will guide policies which relate to all disadvantaged and disabled people.

14:23

[Baroness Browning]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow my noble friend Lord Rix who has, for many years, been such an inspiration to us all in the field of disability. I also congratulate my noble friend Lord Fellowes of West Stafford on such a memorable maiden speech. Congratulations are due, too, to the noble Lord, Lord Low of Dalston, who has brought this important debate to your Lordships’ House today. I begin by declaring my interests: I am the named carer for an autistic adult who is in receipt of state disability benefits, a vice-president of the National Autistic Society and patron of Research Autism. I hope that your Lordships will indulge me if I confine my remarks to that group of people who would come within the autistic spectrum, people with learning disabilities and those with chronic long-term mental health problems, because I believe there is such an overlap affecting all three of those groupings.

In his opening remarks to the debate, the noble Lord, Lord Low, used the word fearful—a word which other Members of your Lordships’ House have picked up. It is not just people with disabilities who are fearful at present. I hope that your Lordships will not mind if my opening remarks are extremely personal, not just to me but to many other people, as I am sure that many of your Lordships will recognise what I am about to say. I am a parent and I, too, am fearful. If you have a child who is born with a lifelong disability, you know that that child—however long its lifespan and whatever difficulties it will encounter—was not only born with that disability but will die with it. You also know that while you are on this earth, you have the opportunity to try not only to allow that child to fulfil its own potential but to do what you can as a parent to make provision for what will happen to that child when you are no longer around to support it.

It is perhaps in the whole context of things when, as parents, we concern ourselves with all our children’s education, particularly with disabled children's ability to take on what are euphemistically now called life skills, which are so important—perhaps more than we realise at the time—that your waking thought almost every day is: “Have I done enough and what will happen?”. My concern about the Government's reforms, many of which I support, is that, with the grouping which I have mentioned in mind, the reform of DLA is, for example, to reduce by 20 per cent over the next three years the amount of money spent. The focus will be on those most in need, which sounds quite laudable when you listen to it. “For those most in need” sounds a fair way to spend resources which we know are restricted but for the autistic community, for the learning- disabled community and for those with ongoing mental health problems—some have two or three of those conditions—there is a real fear.

I pick up on the excellent speech made by the noble Baroness, Lady Campbell of Surbiton, about independent living. It is probably only in the last 20-plus years that we have really taken on and embraced the opportunity for people with a range of disabilities to be included in society and to exercise their right—and it is their right—for independent living. That will vary from disability to disability and from individual to individual but I know that however severe that disability, each step of the way is hard fought for and won. It is not something which is handed out; very often, people end up having to go to court to exercise their right to get the sort of support they need to sustain independent living.

It is a long process. For many in that group it takes years to bring about, step by step, an ability to look after themselves and to make sure that their personal care can be coped with, that they eat properly and have the right nutrition, and that they maximise their own desire to take part—often in work but more particularly in social activities, too. For example, part of that package of care which is paid for by the state could well be for somebody to be a friend to that person two or three times a week in a befriending package, since they cannot access or make friends as the rest of us would because of the nature of their disability. I cannot emphasise how important what might seem very small, individual parts of a care package are to making the quality of life worth living and to enabling that person to live independently and to take their part in society, as the rest of us do without really thinking about it.

However, when I look at what the Government intend to do, I am concerned that those who have achieved independent living, which has taken many years to construct, will find that because they are no longer regarded as the most in need, those valuable building blocks that have been put in place over many years to allow them to achieve that level of independence will no longer be regarded as important enough to be supported. I say to my noble friend with all due respect, but with absolute certainty, that if what has taken years to put together is removed, it will fall apart in a matter of months. With many disabilities, it is not the case that once you have solved a problem, you have solved it for the rest of that person’s life. It is a bit like a mosaic. This is not a broad-brush painting where you can identify the picture. It is a mosaic made up of many small pieces, all of which are interdependent and important in their own right, but when you have achieved the mosaic, it is a picture that has allowed somebody to take their place in society and fulfil their potential and those important dreams that we heard about just now.

This is not special pleading or the bleeding hearts brigade, but the words of a mother who for 40 years has been on that journey with a child. I am, of course, not the only one. I know that there are thousands of mums like me up and down the country who say to my noble friend in all sincerity: realise where we have come from in the past 20 years and where we are now. The reason why there are so many more payments for DLA and other disability benefits is because 20 years ago people would have been in institutions or, more often than not in the case of people with learning disabilities or autistic spectrum disorders, would be sitting at home, unoccupied, living out an existence with well meaning but very worried elderly parents. The crisis would come only when something happened to those parents, and then the state would know the full cost and consequences of dealing with disabled people in crisis. The cost of dealing with people in crisis is always far more. In fact, it is off the Richter scale compared with the minuscule cost of the basic building blocks that will allow so many disabled people to continue to live independently. I say to my noble friend: do not take those blocks away. It would set this country back years and cause mayhem and disadvantage to the most vulnerable people.

14:32

[Baroness Wilkins]

My Lords, first, I wish the noble Lord, Lord Freud, a speedy recovery and I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Fellowes of West Stafford, on his excellent maiden speech. I also congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Browning, on her excellent speech.

This debate could not be more timely as a prelude to the mass lobby and march on Parliament next week. Under the banner “The Hardest Hit”, disabled people from all over the country will be ensuring that their MPs and the Government take note of the dire impact that the Government's policies are having on their lives, and I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Low, on securing this debate.

The Government might not have intended disabled people to be the ones who suffer most under their policies, but that is certainly their effect. The fact is that cuts in welfare benefits are falling unfairly and disproportionately on disabled people, leading to an increase in poverty levels among disabled people and their families. The think tank Demos's report Destination Unknown calculated that the impact of the emergency Budget last June alone will mean that over the lifetime of this Parliament disabled people and their families will lose a total of about £9 billion in much needed income.

Over the past year, we have seen such drastic reductions in people's income increasingly justified by unwarranted stereotypes being applied to those in receipt of disability benefits, particularly to those who have been receiving incapacity benefit and the disability living allowance. The Government have promoted a myth that the increase in the number of people claiming incapacity benefit over the past 10 to 15 years is a result of people with trivial health conditions exaggerating either how ill they are or the impact on their ability to work. In fact, the Government's own statistics in the 2011 report Trends in the Employment of Disabled People in Britain show that most of the growth of limiting long-standing illness has been among people at the more severe end of the spectrum.

In spite of this, the Government, and the media, tend to present two images when discussing the reform of incapacity benefit. The first is the deserving disabled person, the healthy blind person or wheelchair user who wants a job and who the Government want to support into employment. The other is the welfare dependant, the press's scrounger, who exaggerates their impairment or illness and who needs a tough regime of conditions to get them back to work.

What is missing from these two images is a third group, which research tells us in fact makes up the largest group of those on incapacity benefit. Many of these people had been in employment for years, paying their taxes and national insurance contributions, until they developed a chronic condition that means that now they find it extremely difficult to fulfil what an employer expects from the average worker. An example is people incapacitated by chronic pain. More than one in 10 of the population lives with chronic pain, and almost two in every five will lose their job as a result. This portrayal is pernicious, and its effect, as Tom Kenny, my local welfare rights officer, has found, is that people are apologetic and loath to claim the support that they need and are entitled to, lest they be seen as scroungers.

However, it is becoming clear that there are further reasons why we are seeing so many disabled people losing their benefits. As the Guardian revealed on 2 April, under the growing pressure to cut the welfare budget, some Jobcentre Plus advisers are working to targets on the number of people they refer for sanctions each week, meaning that clients can lose their benefits for up to six months. The latest DWP figures available show that from January to October 2010 the number of claimants with registered disabilities who lost their benefits more than doubled to almost 20,000.

The Minister might dismiss that as a mere press story, but let me set out what is happening in my local area with disabled people's claims for employment and support allowance. The disability organisation's welfare rights officer, Tom Kenny, is overwhelmed by clients being found fit for work who are obviously incapable of working. Without exception, all have been treated disrespectfully by the Atos doctors and nurses. Every case that he has taken to tribunal has been overturned on appeal. His experience of the poor quality of medical examinations by the DWP-appointed Atos staff is shared by numerous other advice workers, but when Atos fails clients, the independent decision-makers at the DWP are supposed to make an independent judgment of the assessment. In the past, that would have happened, but what Tom has found most striking is that obviously erroneous negative Atos decisions are now not being overturned; they are just being rubber-stamped. In doing this, the decision-makers are acting illegally and, of course, appeals are increasing.

There has been a fivefold increase in the number of IB and ESA appeals being processed by the Tribunals Service over the past two years. This has come about even though there were no really major changes to the regulations. It is unlikely that the increase in appeals is due to increasing incompetence in Atos and the DWP. It is much more likely that the staff are working to an agenda dictated by government targets to reduce the number of people on incapacity benefit and ESA. With the new, tougher WCA regulations that came into force last month, we can expect appeals to rocket.

The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions has said that people who are genuinely sick have nothing to fear from the new system of assessment. The evidence points to the contrary. During the WCA’s pilot phase, Citizens Advice estimated that 40 per cent of appeals found in the individual's favour and, most importantly, that where the CAB assisted on the appeal, the success rate was 70 per cent. As I have shown from my local area, there are similar success rates where the individual is assisted by a welfare rights adviser, yet these voluntary organisations are increasingly having their funding cut. This makes it less likely that people who have been cheated by an ineffective and unfair system out of a benefit they should qualify for will receive proper redress for such an injustice.

However, the Government have another card up their sleeve. Not only are disabled people finding it much harder to claim the benefits to which they are entitled; there will also be far less help available to challenge negative decisions. The Government’s proposals for the reform of legal aid in England and Wales include cutting all legal help and representation for welfare benefit matters. It means that there will be no legal advice on appeals to tribunal for awards of DLA, attendance allowance, incapacity benefit, income support, housing benefit, social fund payments and others. The argument set out to support this cut is that the importance of financial entitlement is “relatively low” and that the issues are not complex. Tell that to someone who is struggling to cope with MS and has lost their job. Is the importance of their financial entitlement relatively low?

In its report on the Government’s planned cuts to legal aid, published on 30 March, the cross-party Justice Select Committee said that disabled people could be hit “disproportionately” hard. It goes on to say that it is,

“concerned that the ability of the most vulnerable people to present their cases will be weakened because they will not have had help and advice in preparing them”.

So much for the Government’s commitment to protect the most vulnerable in society.

The Government could ensure that the assessments are carried out fairly in the first place by people who are competent to understand the reality of a person’s disabling conditions. Is the Minister willing to take up that challenge? The results of a survey conducted by the Disability Benefits Consortium with the support of the Multiple Sclerosis Society in October last year demonstrate just how necessary this is. The survey found that, of 208 people with multiple sclerosis who had gone through the work capacity assessment, 60 per cent said that the person who carried out the assessment did not understand their impairment; 70 per cent said that the assessment did not take account of how their symptoms were affected by repeated activity such as fatigue or increased pain; and 65 per cent felt that the assessment made their health worse because of stress and anxiety. As one person said:

“The assessment was stressful and made me feel like a fraud. I began to doubt my sanity—I have been told basically that nothing is wrong with me and that I'm fit to work. Am I imagining the pain, the fatigue, the lack of balance and my jerky hands? NONE of this was included in the ESA written report even though I told the assessor about it. Neither were my MRI scans taken into consideration; nor my GP’s reports. The whole assessment process is bizarre. I feel like Alice falling through the rabbit hole”.

The frustration of a debate such this is that there are so many more areas to cover and so much more that needs to be said. Perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, would convey this message to the noble Lord, Lord Freud: will he take up the challenge that was put to him at the end of the recent debate on the new WCA regulations on 16 March when he expressed surprise at the disability organisations’ horror at his plans? He was challenged to mend his department’s communication with the disability community—and to do so personally and not leave it to his senior officials. To help that process, I invite him to visit my local disability organisation, Hammersmith and Fulham Action on Disability—HAFAD. He will not have to travel far. There he can learn at first hand the effects of his policies on the lives of disabled people. I hope that he will accept.

14:43

[Baroness Thomas of Winchester]

My Lords, I too am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Low, for the opportunity to raise a couple of specific matters. One is very familiar to old DWP hands in this Chamber who have heard me raise it many times before: namely, the problems posed by the service user involvement of disabled people in receipt of benefits. The other matter is completely different and arises from the new descriptors of the work capability assessment, which were the subject of a debate a few weeks ago and to which the noble Lord, Lord Rix, referred.

I shall begin with this last issue. One of the matters that struck me when we debated the recent changes to the WCA was that manual wheelchair users may no longer automatically be entitled to ESA—presumably neither the employment and work-related activity side of ESA nor the support side. This change was made, I suppose, on the grounds of equality, as it was felt that if manual wheelchair users had no other particular health problems they should be treated as fit for work because they had adapted to their disability. On the face of it, that looks fair enough because we are told that the ethos of the work capability assessment is to identify claimants on the basis of their functional capability rather than their condition. We know that the WCA looks at only a person's fitness for work; it does not take into account the jobs market or, more controversially, whether a person is likely to find a job in the real world. This came out strongly in the Social Security Advisory Committee’s report.

It might be argued that most workplaces nowadays are fully adapted for wheelchair users, but that is very far from the case. Many workplaces are up steps with no alternative access and many do not have facilities such as disabled lavatories. It is true that most public buildings have adaptations nowadays, but we are talking about workplaces of every shape and size all over the country. With the emphasis now on the shedding of jobs in the public sector and the hoped-for growth of jobs in the private sector, is it really fair to put manual wheelchair users on a par with those with no mobility problems when there are not going to be so many public sector jobs? They are likely to find it many times harder to get a job than their able-bodied counterparts—and I have not mentioned the problem of discrimination at all.

The most worrying thing is that, by being entitled only to JSA rather than ESA, they will lose almost £30 a week. I know that there might be cases in which access to work will help, but this admirable scheme cannot change the access into a building, widen doorways or put in disabled loos. I have not mentioned transport, which must loom large in whether someone in a manual wheelchair can get to suitable employment. It may be said that DLA is designed to help, but it is not taken into account by the work capability assessment. If it is taken into account, so should the availability of accessible and suitable jobs. Of course those in manual wheelchairs wish to be treated as ordinary working people, but when the dice are loaded so heavily against them in a practical way, is this fair?

Before my noble friend quotes from the equality impact assessment in the relevant statutory instrument, I shall do so myself. In theory, it gives me some comfort, but I fear that I am very sceptical. It says:

“For those who have a more limited availability for work and scope to find and carry out certain types of work they can restrict their work search activity and availability for work provided those restrictions are reasonable given their condition. This is agreed between the customer and personal adviser”.

There is a sentence about the disability employment adviser later. Will Jobcentre Plus staff really have enough time to devote to those who have such practical barriers to the relatively few jobs open to them, and will they be subject to the tough sanctions regime? I should have thought that they needed the kind of help to get a job that they would receive under the ESA regime, and I would welcome the Minister’s comments.

I now turn to the second and quite separate issue of service user involvement, specifically the unresolved problem of those disabled people on benefits who help with NHS, public health and social care research. They are asked to take part in clinical trials and other health and social care research studies, not just as subjects but as active partners in the research process. Disabled people are asked to help improve the way in which research is prioritised, commissioned, undertaken, communicated and used.

The specific unresolved problem that I would dearly love to nail is that the reimbursement of out of pocket expenses, and sometimes a small fee for these people, is still taken off their benefits. Two years ago, legislation was introduced in this House by the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie of Luton, which to great rejoicing removed two significant barriers to involvement by allowing these expenses to be disregarded when benefit entitlement calculations were made. However, this change was relevant only to those whose involvement was in the field of health and social care services and not research. In other words, this new and welcome change in the legislation applied only where the involvement was required by law. The benefit changes apply to involvement with local authorities, landlord authorities, NHS trusts and health boards. They do not apply to involvement with the work of the National Institute for Health Research.

Are we talking about relatively few people who are being caught by this distinction? No, we are talking about thousands of people, as a glance at the website of the institute will show. Research is going on into every organ in the human body and into every condition. Not everyone involved in this kind of research will be on benefits, but many will be. The institute recommends as good practice the involvement of service users and carers in research, but it is not required by law, so the benefit changes do not apply to public involvement in research.

When universal credit is introduced under the Welfare Reform Bill, which is currently going through Parliament, I understand that the regulations introduced two years ago will be incorporated into UC regulations, but the changes to benefit rules on the earnings disregard will not resolve the benefit barriers to involvement in NHS research. This is because any reimbursed expenses, plus possibly a small fee and the cost of a personal assistant or a replacement carer, will be totalled and the whole amount treated as earnings and taken off benefits. Where the total amount that is treated as earnings is in excess of the earnings disregard set for UC, which will usually be in the region of £40 a week or less, the excess will lead to a 65 per cent taper of UC for every £1 over.

Then we have the outrageous matter of notional earnings, which means that if a person declines to take a small fee because they do not want to upset their benefit arrangements, they will be treated as though they had taken the fee, so they are most likely to be out of pocket as a result of helping with NHS research and are not likely to repeat the experience. I myself have helped with people taking the MRCP exam, so I know what it is like. I was not on benefits, but if I had been I would have been out of pocket. I hope the Minister will agree that this is an anomaly that we really must resolve as soon as possible. The new Bill gives us the perfect opportunity to do so.

14:52

[Baroness Grey-Thompson]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Low, for initiating this debate and begin by declaring my interests. I am interim chair of the English Federation of Disability Sport, a board member of UK Athletics and the London Marathon, and work in a number of areas with LOCOG. In this debate I want to look at sport for disabled people, and to say that I have had the opportunity to discuss some of these issues in a positive way with a number of Ministers in the other place. It is a wide and complex issue, and the landscape of disability sport has many layers.

The Sport England Active People survey shows an interesting picture of where currently we are. Up to 90 per cent of disabled people do not regularly take part in any kind of sport whatever. While the survey could be considered to be a blunt tool because this is a constantly evolving landscape, it shows that the number of disabled people participating is not increasing perhaps as much as it should and there is a need for further detailed research to get the interventions right and make it cost-effective. Only 16 per cent of disabled people belong to sports clubs compared with 26 per cent of non-disabled people.

The decision of the coalition Government to review school sport funding was absolutely right, but we need to understand the impact on disabled people because they are in a unique situation. In terms of school sports partnerships in previous funding cycles, special schools have had a two day a week school sports co-ordinator. I would like to ask the Minister whether, under the current proposals, special schools will receive one day a week funding, or is there an opportunity to review this? Also, will it mean a switch to focus on primary schools at the expense of what we deliver in secondary schools?

There are many agencies and people involved in delivering sport to disabled people, but what impact assessment work has been carried out to ensure that we do not lose the knowledge and experience from the network in an environment where we know already that it is really hard to engage with disabled people? If we look to mainstream schools, we need much more information on what physical activity disabled children actually access? PE is a compulsory part of the curriculum, but it is not taken into account in any statement of special educational need and often has a low priority. Sending children to the library is just not good enough. Disabled people should have the right to experience sport and physical activity in exactly the same way as non-disabled people. For all the good and the bad and the horror that might mean to some disabled children, we need to make sure that they leave school as fit and healthy as possible so that they are able to contribute back.

This is not about identifying athletes for a talent pathway or future elite success, but it should be noted that while many Olympic medallists come from the independent education sector, many Paralympians do not, and the decisions we take now could have a potential effect on 2016 and 2020.

On the announcements about the new school Olympics, I look forward very much to the reports on the pilots that are taking place in nine geographical areas, and I am delighted that there is a commitment to a disability element in all the documentation. But I urge the Minister to look closely at what sports are included and who they target. The definition of someone who is eligible to compete at the Paralympics is narrow—just a tiny percentage of the disabled population compared with those who can compete in wider disability sport. But if the aim of the school Olympics is to position young non-disabled people on a pathway to the Olympics, it should be the same for young disabled children—and Paralympic sports should be on the programme, not made-up inclusive sports that tick a box.

Inclusion can mean so many different things. It is sometimes better carried out if you take a young wheelchair user out of school to play in a wheelchair basketball club rather than, as I have seen, letting them sit on the sidelines of a football field and throw a corner in wherever they happen to be sitting or, heaven forbid, dump the stopwatch on them because that is what we assume they can do. It would be a real shame if the schools competition became a model where sports are included because they are the easiest ones to fill. I heard it said by a teacher at a recent development day that, “We brought them because they are the easiest ones to get on the bus”.

There are many positive schemes in sport across many different departments. We have Places People Play, which is about improving sports facilities. Sport England has an £8 million lottery pot to help fund grassroots development. The Department of Health is investing £6.4 million over two years in Change4Life, which is all about encouraging sports clubs in secondary schools. The Department for Education is investing £65 million over two years in secondary schools to release PE teachers in order to help to train primary school teachers. The reality is that teachers receive barely any training at all on working with disabled children, but that could so easily be changed, which links back to my earlier statement about what we are doing in special schools. Whether it be through direct sports funding or in other departments, we need to ensure that all this joins up to form a continuity of provision and, more important, that disabled people are genuinely included.

Sport and physical activity can play an important part in helping to fulfil many government policies, whether it be getting people into employment, reducing knife crime or cutting teenage pregnancies—there are plenty of statistics that I will not list here. But in a real sense the impact of government policy changes has meant that charities such as Mencap are much more likely to be involved in providing sport for disabled people. Mencap has had to cut its sports department, which means that until the hole has been plugged, English athletes with a learning disability will struggle to get classified. That could prevent them taking part in sport and seriously disadvantage them against athletes from other home countries and the rest of the world.

I will bring my remarks back to elite sport because in 449 days the Paralympic Games will begin. Our bid was based on winning the two sets of Games and we made a number of promises. But we should not forget that the Paralympic Games were founded because of the exclusion of disabled people from mainstream sport. In a major move forward for a host country, in April 2011 the Office for Disability Issues released a report entitled, London 2012: A Legacy for Disabled People. The main thrust is that the Games should help to transform the way disabled people interact with society, support opportunities to participate in sport, and promote community engagement. There is also a strong desire to change attitudes, promote economic inclusion and change media coverage. Those are important and vital things.

The 2010 British Social Attitudes survey showed that 79 per cent of people felt that there was some level of prejudice towards disabled people. LOCOG is doing some fantastic work in recruiting disabled staff through its scheme “access now” which is encouraging disabled people to volunteer. No other organising committee has ever done this work. Where will disabled people go afterwards? If it is to be a stepping stone, there needs to be something to go on to afterwards. If the attitude towards young disabled people is still poor and 2012 provides a catalyst for their wanting to be involved in sport, coaching or volunteering, are we equipped to deal with it? Future government policy must take this into account. What happens when the flames go out in 2012?

The Government have stated that they want the British Paralympic Association to issue press guidance aligned to the social model of disability. If this could be extended beyond government departments to all funded agencies and to national governing bodies of sport that would be incredible—as would it be if every Minister and Peer were able to think about the difference between the Olympics and Paralympics and include those two words together. That would do much to raise the profile of disabled people in sport.

As for the media, we need to move well away from sticking Olympians in a wheelchair to play basketball—usually they are not even basketball players in the first place—to show the world that disability sport is serious. Yes, it is serious—we do not need to resort to gimmickry to make that happen.

With an increased move to mainstream, which is part of the solution, are the Government able to ensure that the voice of disabled people is not lost? Who could possibly imagine a women’s sport and fitness foundation being run solely by men? Disabled people need to have a voice in the provision of disability sport and we need to ensure that major players are empowering disabled people into governance, coaching, consultation and social modelling. If we want to make a positive impact we must track how many disabled people are employed by national governing bodies of sport; how many disabled people sit on sports boards; how many coaches and volunteers. I know the answer—it is not many.

At a time when we are planning the hosting of the Paralympics, we have a great opportunity to engage disabled people. We are the envy of the world in terms of provision for the tiny minority, the elite few—those athletes who will be competing in 2012—but we could and should be in a position to enable disabled people to have a real equality of opportunity in sport. We can start that by beginning at the grass roots.

15:01

[Lord Touhig]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Fellowes, on his maiden speech. I have been an admirer of the noble Lord for many years, both as a writer and an actor. At the moment I know him better as Lord Killwillie in “Monarch of the Glen” but I look forward to getting to know him as the noble Lord, Lord Fellowes of West Stafford, who, if his maiden speech is anything to go by, is most comfortable with direct and plain speaking. That is most welcome.

I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Low, on securing this debate at a time when the Welfare Reform Bill is at the Committee stage in the other place and the Government are embarking on major changes to the benefits system which will affect disabled people. The Government have previously stated that their aim is to ensure that disabled people are supported to lead full and independent lives, yet some of the proposed changes threaten to undermine this aim by making disabled people worse off and so less able to lead the lives they have the right to expect.

There is merit in some of the proposals put forward by the Government, including the universal credit. However, the good which these policies do will be dwarfed, I fear, by the harm which will be done to disabled people if the Government are not persuaded to change some of their other plans. The decision to cut the funds available for the personal independence payments, the extension to the qualifying period for personal independence payments, the time-limiting of employment service support and the changes to housing benefit will all hit disabled people and make them worse off.

I know and admire the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions—he is a man of principle and high ideals which underpin his commitment to welfare reform—but some of these policies bear all the hallmarks of the Chancellor and his determination to cut public spending further and faster than is perhaps necessary. The disabled are being asked to bear an especially heavy burden in order to allow the Chancellor to meet his economic targets. That is not fair, just or right in a civilised society.

I shall concentrate the remainder of my remarks on the impact that the changes will have on people with autism, although my comments could apply generally across the board to a range of disabilities. In past debates, I and others in the House have pointed out that the National Autistic Society says that people with autism already routinely struggle to access the services they need and that, consequently, the outcomes for them are poor. Its research indicates that over 60 per cent of adults with autism rely on their families for financial support, 40 per cent live with their parents and 63 per cent report that they do not have enough support to meet their needs. As a result of this lack of support, one-third of adults with autism have developed serious mental health problems and only 15 per cent are in full-time employment.

I share the National Autistic Society’s concerns about the Government’s plans to replace disability living allowance with personal independence payments while, at the same time, making £2.17 billion of cuts in expenditure by 2015-16. This will adversely impact on adults with autism, who are already struggling to get the help that they need. Disability living allowance is a key benefit for people with autism to help them meet the additional costs that arise from their disability. If its replacement with personal independence payments marks a fall in spending, it seems inevitable that some of these people will be left without the support that they desperately need.

The Disability Benefits Consortium recently published the report, Benefiting disabled people?, which looks at disabled people’s experience of the benefits system and is based on the findings of two large surveys. When asked about DLA, fewer than 10 per cent of the respondents said that DLA covered all their disability-related costs, and 22 per cent said that they never received enough DLA to meet their health impairment-related costs. Given that disability living allowance is already inadequate to meet the needs of disabled people, reducing it further risks pushing an even higher number of disabled people into poverty.

The National Autistic Society is particularly concerned about decisions to focus support on “those with greatest needs” and the implications that that will have for people with moderate needs, a point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Browning. Many with moderate needs currently receive the lower rate DLA care component and might therefore lose their support. If people with moderate needs lose their support, their health, independence and quality of life will deteriorate. It will leave them in need of greater support than before and place heavier burdens on the benefits system, the National Health Service and social services. Coming at a time when councils across the country are raising their eligibility criteria for social care and excluding many people with moderate needs, some people may find both their social care package and support from DLA withdrawn. The loss of this award could have tremendously detrimental outcomes for both the individual and society as a whole.

Together with the noble Baroness, Lady Browning, I had the privilege of working with the National Audit Office for a number of years when we both served on the Public Accounts Committee in the other place. The National Audit Office does a first-class job for the taxpayer and in its report in 2009 it demonstrated that huge savings could be made in the medium-long term by ensuring that the needs of adults with autism were met. The report focused on adults with Asperger’s syndrome and high-functioning autism, whose needs are often less obvious. The NAO found that identifying these individuals and supporting them could save more than £67 million a year depending on how many people were identified. The type of support that would help ensure that these savings are made would be low-level support such as travel training, outreach and social skills training. It is unlikely that people with autism would be able to access social care budgets for such help because of the eligibility criteria. The National Autistic Society knows that some people with autism are already using their DLA to fund this type of support, therefore potentially saving the taxpayer significant amounts of money.

I conclude by asking the Minister several key questions. First, what studies have the Government made of the cost in the medium and long term of people with autism losing their DLA/PIP entitlement if it leads, first, to an increased demand for mental health services; secondly, an increase in demand for primary care services; and, thirdly, a loss of employment. Secondly, how will the Government ensure that adults with autism—some of whom are the most vulnerable in society—will be able to access the personal independence payments? Thirdly, what support will be put in place for people with autism who lose eligibility to DLA/PIP, particularly considering the challenges that adults with autism face when trying to access social care services?

I appreciate that the Minister is standing in for his colleague, the noble Lord, Lord Freud—who we wish a speedy return to good health and to the House—and that he may wish to go away and reflect on the questions that I have put. Perhaps he would write to me later if he is not able to answer at this stage.

The Government say that they want to support disabled people to leave full and independent lives. I am sure that we all support that. However, if they are serious about this aim, they should think again about some of their policies, which risk plunging disabled people deep into debt and undermining their ability to live their lives to the fullest, something the rest of us simply take for granted.

15:09

[Baroness Masham of Ilton]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Low on winning the ballot for this debate, which has shown how wide and varied are the needs of disabled people. Having had a spinal injury resulting in being paralysed from the chest down, I can assure your Lordships that people who are disabled will always face plenty of challenges and extra expenses. We have a Prime Minister who has experienced severe disability at first hand. I applaud him for the loving care that he and his wife gave their disabled child but some disabled people are not so lucky as to have such support. Many families break up under the strain and we must not forget the cruel treatment that Mrs Pilkington and her disabled daughter had to suffer at the hands of bullies, which ended in her suicide. We live in a complicated society and people with genuine disabilities need protecting.

I declare an interest as president of the Spinal Injuries Association, which has made a robust response to the recent government consultation on proposals to reform the disability living allowance, which will become the personal independent payment. The SIA is concerned by the introduction of a six-month qualifying period for PIPs. This will mean that newly disabled people, those most in need of support, are left without the appropriate funding to meet their needs.

The NHS reforms and the enormous upheaval might give an opportunity to look at some of the needs of disabled people when they have to be admitted to hospital. Many disabled people have to be admitted to general hospitals as there are not enough beds in special units such as spinal units. The patients then face the lack of vital equipment such as monkey poles, turning beds and pressure mattresses to prevent pressure sores, help with paralysed bowels, enough pillows and incontinence products—to mention just a few of the many needs. They also need staff who know what they are doing. Disability should be part of a nurse’s training.

I am a past president of the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy and know personally the benefits of physiotherapy for disabled people. Physiotherapists are one of the health professions who have a critical role in improving people’s physical capabilities, whether that is in getting someone back to work or school, or just to improve their quality of life. At the moment, physiotherapists are worried about the loss of specialist clinical posts in the NHS, the widespread freezing of physiotherapy vacancies and the rationing of treatment sessions that they can now provide due to the efficiency savings required of the NHS. The Chartered Society of Physiotherapy says that this is an increasing problem and is concerned about the impact on people with disabilities. The right health and social care can greatly improve the quality of life for people with Parkinson’s, for example. This includes access to a specialist, multidisciplinary team of Parkinson’s special nurses, specialist physiotherapists and speech and language therapists—as recommended in the NICE guidelines on Parkinson’s—and appropriate social care, including support for carers.

The wheelchair service needs a complete overhaul. It is totally inadequate. Who will be responsible for this? I am glad that the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas of Winchester, mentioned that.

With the reforms to the NHS, the Government have suggested that GP practice boundaries should be removed. Could this be a threat to continuity of care? I am a keen supporter of the saying, “No decision about me without me”. Disabled people who are vulnerable and less mobile need both helpful GPs who are interested in their special needs, medication and ongoing care, and the support of expert specialists. Some disabilities are extremely complicated. If patients find that their GP is not helpful, then they are better moving to another practice. This can be very difficult in some rural areas, especially for disabled people. The consortia should be made up of different health professionals who understand the different needs of complicated patients and patient representation. The responsibility for wide-ranging disability needs experts. GPs are generalists and need to work together in union for the good of patients. There should always be good communication between specialists, GPs and patients.

Patient safety should be the priority at all times, not just financial interests, and there should always be a good standard of care. Disabled patients can be the most at risk. Many patients with long-term conditions often need to get their specialist treatment a long way from home, as the specialist units are few and far between. These can be life-savers but disabled people need to keep in touch with their homes. Could the cost of telephoning from hospital be brought down? It is very expensive.

While there is a pause in the NHS reforms, I hope satisfactory solutions will be found in the best interests of patients. There are always the worried well but now, with so many changes suggested, there are genuinely worried disabled patients who find the cost of disability and cutbacks extremely draining on their systems. We have heard little about how Health Watch will work and if it will be able to support patients when they have a genuine complaint. When disabled people have problems, these can involve legal matters and knowledge of the law is necessary. Disability covers so many different aspects of life.

I am a member of the Patients Association, which has a helpline. The most common complaints relate to accessing healthcare. People feel that hospital transport services are often inadequate and blue-badge holders often find provision of disabled spaces is low and taken up by non-badge holders. Within hospitals, the most common cause of complaint is the lack of help for disabled people going to the lavatory. I can bear this out. When I was visiting Peterborough hospital on an occasion when my husband was admitted as an emergency, a man implored my helper to take him to the lavatory. He could only hop on one leg. Another man asked if she would give him a shave. This was in the afternoon. To my amazement, there were two care assistants chatting at the nurses’ station. Perhaps that is why we hear about nurses who are too posh to wash. Also there is the unwillingness of nurses to feed patients who are too disabled to feed themselves; the food is left at the bedside, untouched. That is another common complaint.

Patients often complain that medical professionals treat them differently because they are disabled. It is time that compassion was put back into nursing. Up and down the country one hears cries of “Bring back the matron”—not just the so-called modern matrons, who do not seem to have made a difference, but people who will take full responsibility for nursing care and nurses. Helping disabled people takes extra time and time can cost money, but surely there is more to life than just economics.

15:19

[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Low, for initiating this debate and for his powerful introduction. Like others, I join in sending best wishes to the noble Lord, Lord Freud, and thank the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, for stepping into the breach. Many congratulations to the noble Lord, Lord Fellowes of West Stafford, for an interesting and powerful maiden speech. I was intrigued by the juxtaposition in the speakers list of our two thespians. I wondered if this heralded an era of theatrical co-operation and whether we might see “Downton Abbey” farces as part of our Christmas viewing this year. But I shall wait and see.

As a number of noble Lords have said, it is timely that we have this debate, because the Welfare Reform Bill will be with us before many months and, as my noble friend Lady Wilkins said, because of the rally organised for next Wednesday. Just one month ago, the public sector equality duty, in its updated form, came into effect. As the noble Lord, Lord Addington, said, regrettably this could now be under challenge as red tape.

I express gratitude for the briefing that has been prepared by the Library and the DBC. The former in particular reminded us, as did the contribution of the noble Baroness, Lady Masham, of the cross-government nature of the challenges that we face covering education, housing, health, benefits, employment, transport, local government and much else—particularly sports, as we heard in a very authoritative way from the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson. The noble Lord, Lord Addington, reminded us that if we do not view these things in a cross-government manner, we can end up with real horror stories—and he gave the example of apprenticeships.

I was delighted to see that the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas, is carrying on the campaign about service users, and she is right—we did make some progress. I hope that now would be time to bring some successful closure to that.

Perhaps somewhat inevitably, most of our focus this afternoon has been around DWP issues, as are most of my comments. In 2009, the then Labour Government ratified the UN convention on the rights of disabled people, as well as the optional protocol. This year, in 2011, the coalition Government will have to report to the UN on how the convention is being implemented and what progress is being made. They will be publicly held to account domestically and internationally. It will be interesting to see how they justify the claim for fairness to be at the heart of government and how that is working for disabled people. As the noble Baroness, Lady Campbell, said, how would they be able to explain the impairment of social care, the cutting of local authority budgets, and the removal of ring-fencing and its impact on independent living?

As we know, much is in the pipeline, and not all of it to our liking. However, I have some plaudits first—there have not been many this afternoon. The Government are to be congratulated on taking forward the right to control trailblazers. The right to control concept, as noble Lords will recall, was developed in partnership with disabled people and is intended to ensure that disabled people have choice and control over the support that they need to go about their daily lives. It is at the heart of independent living. It was developed under the controlling guidance of the noble Baroness, Lady Campbell. It is therefore distressing to hear her assessment that we risk turning the clock back on these issues.

We are also pleased that the Government, after some dithering, decided to proceed with Work Choice. That is welcome.

As for transport policy, we have recently discussed the proposed demise of the Disabled Persons Transport Advisory Committee in the context of the Public Bodies Bill—I hesitate to mention that Bill with the Minister on the Front Bench—when we heard from a number of noble Lords about the vital role that this body has played in advising on and promoting accessible transport systems for disabled people. In responding to the debate, the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, indicated that the Department for Transport would be issuing a discussion document before the summer to inform its proposals about disability advice and the assertion that transport operators across the sector need to mainstream these matters in their transport planning and delivery. May we please have an update from the Minister? What engagement has taken place with stakeholders?

As my noble friend Lord Touhig and others explained, on benefits we are faced with major changes to income-related benefits with the introduction of the universal credit from 2013, changes to DLA and its eventual replacement with the personal independence payment, changes to housing benefit and the local housing allowance. We welcome the opportunity to simplify the benefit system but, with so much unknown about the detail over so many areas, we can but undertake a journey of inquiry. A cursory glance at Clause 11 of the Welfare Reform Bill, for example, dealing with the potential inclusion of housing costs in the universal credit, indicates that we have to await regulations to learn what is included in housing costs; when somewhere is treated as a person’s home, how the calculation of amounts to be included should be proceed; and what exceptions apply. The Bill will tell us virtually nothing.

There are also many unknowns surrounding proposed changes to DLA and the introduction of the PIP. For a start, there remains a substantial ambiguity about the form and structure of the new assessment. I should stress that we are not wedded to the current arrangement, but the Government’s responses to questions on this have not been consistent. Perhaps the Minister will take the opportunity to produce some clarity.

The June 2010 Budget Statement indicated that savings in excess of £1 billion by 2014-15 would be generated by the introduction of objective medical assessments. In October last year a Minister in the other place stated that there was no intention to introduce a medical assessment for DLA, but reference is now made to a new objective assessment. Will the Minister please clarify matters for us? Given the Government’s draconian approach to date to reducing benefit expenditure, the lack of precision on these matters will cause disabled people to fear the worst.

The Minister has heard the concerns expressed by the Disability Benefits Consortium about benefits which, by focusing support on those with the greatest need, will abandon those with currently moderate needs—the noble Baroness, Lady Browning, also focused on that point—and that the basis of awards will move away from meeting the additional costs of living with a long-term condition or disability. How does he respond to this, along with the charge that extending the qualifying period before claimants can receive personal independence payments will push more disabled people into debt?

The reality is that there are still lots of unanswered questions about DLA reform. So far the Government have been unable to tell us the estimated number of people who will no longer be eligible for benefit following the introduction of the personal independence payment, the number of people affected by shifting the eligibility criteria from three months to six, and what form the new assessment will take.

Confusion reigns also over the mobility component of the disability living allowance. The Prime Minister has said that the Government are not going to remove the mobility component from 80,000 care home residents, but Clause 83 of the Welfare Reform Bill—the noble Lord, Lord Rix, made this point—contains provisions to do just that, and the Budget 2011 book scores the savings from doing so. What exactly is the position?

We had an opportunity to consider changes to the work capability assessment in mid-March when we debated the new regulations. We on these Benches continue to support the approach of helping the disabled people who can to get closer to the labour market, and to do so by focusing on their capability via a range of descriptors to determine an individual’s functional capability. This broad approach, as Professor Harrington’s review concluded, remains valid. Notwithstanding that, as we heard on that occasion and again today, the detailed changes to descriptors provoked a barrage of criticism about their appropriateness and about the process, which involved ATOS. We have heard again today about decision-makers.

There was especial concern raised about the application of the descriptors to individuals with mental health conditions and autism; we heard that from the noble Baroness, Lady Browning, today, and from my noble friend Lord Touhig. The noble Lord, Lord Freud, was kind enough to convene a follow-up meeting, and the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, might update us on his behalf, if he is able, on what is happening.

Of course, none of this works if there is no work; or, as the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas, said, no accessible work. I was interested to hear about the efforts of my noble friend Lord Sawyer with Remploy, and his concerns about the challenges it now faces.

The Minister will also be aware of concerns raised about support for those who do not qualify for ESA under the migration exercise, who therefore end up on JSA, or possibly no benefit at all, as well as about the numbers affected by the reduction in the time period for contributory ESA—“savage proposals”, in the words of the noble Lord, Lord Low.

The noble Baroness, Lady Wilkins, referred to Jobcentre Plus working to targets for people to be sanctioned, a very worrying development that was reported in the press. I hope that the Minister will be able to clarify that today.

Finally, on the universal credit and what it might mean for disabled people, we do not have time to unravel all of its implications. However, we already know some of the categories of winners and losers. The announcement that payments for children are to be aligned with those for adults is a mixed blessing for families with children with the most severe disabilities. It will represent a slight improvement in their financial position, and the inclusion in this group of children with severe visual impairment is clearly to be welcomed. However, for families with children with other disabilities, the reduction in support will amount to something like £1,300 a year. This is deeply worrying.

Many other issues have been raised in our debate today and in the briefings we have received: issues around couple entitlements, disregards for disability, disability premiums, housing costs and, in particular, linkages to CPI. Our deliberations on the Welfare Reform Bill must be extensive, as well as those on the Localism Bill, which is also due soon.

The process of welfare reform, as the noble Lord, Lord Addington, said, is a particularly worrying time for disabled people. The noble Lord, Lord Low, should be congratulated on making us all vigilant on this occasion.

15:32

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

My Lords, I am pleased to have the opportunity of participating in this debate, although it has not been by choice. I shall update the House on my noble friend Lord Freud: he is having medical treatment but as a precaution only. He hopes to be back in the House early next week. I know how much he was looking forward to this debate. Indeed, it places the debate at a disadvantage since he is not here to respond. I can promise to take the record away and to go through it with him. It would be helpful to noble Lords if we wrote a comprehensive letter together to all noble Lords who have participated in this debate, because there may be lots of questions which people have mentioned that I have to skate over today—particularly in view of the fact that I do not have quite the amount of time that I had originally hoped for.

I thank all noble Lords for their participation, particularly the noble Lord, Lord Low, for tabling this debate. It has been a special privilege to be here to hear my noble friend Lord Fellowes make his maiden speech in the House, and what a delightful speech it was. He talked powerfully of the imperfections of the way in which people talk about disability. How well he described to the Government the importance of their need to take seriously their responsibility to disabled people. I am sure that we will hear much more from him as an active participator in our debates.

The real impact of government policies on disabled people will be to help all disabled people fulfil their potential and participate fully in society. We have a moral obligation to support those who cannot work, but we also have a moral obligation to support those who can work to find suitable work—just as disabled people who can work have an obligation to look for work. This is a critical issue. There are more than 10 million people in the UK who have a limiting long-term illness, impairment or disability, of whom nearly half already work.

There is strong evidence of the significant health, social and financial benefits of work, and of the cost to individuals, society and the economy of long-term inactivity. Put simply, work is good for you. We have moved away from the old idea that disabled people should be protected from work. More and more, we appreciate that taking an active part in the labour market supports good health and well-being. Welfare reform is about doing what is right; it is not about reducing the benefits bill. The combination of fundamental reforms to the benefits system and a new radical approach to “back to work” support for everyone will ensure that everybody gets the right help.

Universal credit will replace the current complex array of benefits. It will be a simpler, fairer system. It will protect the incomes of current claimants so that nobody will be worse off claiming universal credit than they are under the current system. We will focus additional support on the most severely disabled people. Some households could see their incomes rise by as much as £40 per week if they qualify for the support component in universal credit, which we aim to increase from £31.40 to £74.50. Universal credit will provide more generous support for disabled people than for those non-disabled people who have otherwise similar circumstances. The seven disability-related components of the current system will be reduced to two, which will reflect whether a disabled person can reasonably be expected to work or undertake work-related activity.

I note and will take up the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas of Winchester, on the earnings disregard for people who are engaged in research. We have a special disregard for disabled households, which enables many people to keep more of their earnings than they currently do under the employment and support allowance. The White Paper proposed a disregard of up to £7,000 per year for disabled households, equivalent to £134 a week. Once a disabled household begins to earn more than £7,000 a year, its benefits would reduce gradually as it earns more. I do not think noble Lords would consider that unreasonable.

Universal credit will encourage people to find work by simplifying the move from benefits to employment. In the mean time, disabled people will receive improved support through employment and support allowance. There are two categories of support. First, there is the key provision for severely disabled people in the support group and for other disabled people in the work-related activity group, who will explore suitable work or training. We propose to introduce a one-year time limit for those in the latter group, who will be claiming the contributory employment and support allowance. ESA was always intended to be a benefit that provides temporary support for those in the work-related activity group, where, with the right support, it is reasonable to expect a return to work. It was never meant to be a benefit for the long term for this group. The time limit of one year strikes the best balance between the need to restrict access to contributory benefits, and allowing for those with longer-term illnesses to adjust to their health condition. This is double the length of time for contributory jobseeker’s allowance.

I know that a lot of noble Lords were concerned about this whole area and the WCA. The noble Lords, Lord McKenzie of Luton and Lord Rix, and the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas of Winchester, raised it, as did the noble Lord, Lord Low, in his introductory speech. We have accepted Professor Harrington’s review and have appointed him to undertake the second independent review of the WCA. Refinement and improvement of the process are ongoing. I hope I can reassure noble Lords on that point. The work capability assessment generally is a matter of considerable concern to noble Lords. The noble Baroness, Lady Wilkins, was concerned about the very large number of appeals that were successful. However, overall, 60 per cent of appeals are found in favour of the department. If the department’s decision is not upheld by the appeal tribunal, it does not mean to say that the original decision was incorrect. The tribunal is an independent body and in many cases new evidence is provided at the tribunal hearing that was not available to the original decision-maker, or the tribunal raises the original evidence differently. The Ministry of Justice and the Department for Work and Pensions are working together as part of a task force with the Tribunals Service, Jobcentre Plus, and the Pension, Disability and Carers Service to increase capacity and reduce demand for an appeals process. I reassure the noble Lord, Lord Rix, that we will seek to improve this process. I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Wilkins, that there are no targets to get people off incapacity benefit.

We are also breaking new ground to ensure that good-quality back-to-work support is available. Private and voluntary sector organisations will provide this support through the new Work Programme. The lessons learnt from the Pathways to Work programme have been taken into account in designing the new Work Programme. For people who may need more support to help them back to the workplace, including disabled people, we will reward sustainable employment, placing a much greater emphasis on supporting people to stay in work. Providers will receive higher payments up to £14,000 if they help people who need the most support into long-term jobs. This long-term, serious investment means that providers of back-to-work support can in turn invest in their business and in the people they are there to help. The 18 preferred bidders have indicated that they plan to invest up to £580 million over the lifetime of their contracts. We expect the providers of this back-to-work support to include respected disability charities such as Mencap and Action for Blind People, organisations which really understand the challenges that some may face.

For people facing more significant disability-related barriers to work, the Government have introduced Work Choice. This provides supported employment as well as support into work. Work in this area of specialist support continues. In the summer, Liz Sayce, chief executive of Radar, will produce an independent report looking at specialist support for people with severe disability-related barriers to work. Included in the scope of this report is access to work. We are continuing to look at ways to make the scheme more efficient and effective so that we can support more disabled people in the workplace. Since December, disabled people have been able to complete an online assessment of their eligibility for access to work via Directgov. This means that both disabled jobseekers and prospective employers can have confidence that the necessary assistance will be available to them. We want to make sure that the range of in-work support for disabled people is effective.

Another key form of this support is the disability living allowance, which is payable whether or not disabled people are in work. The current DLA provision needs reform. The benefit is too complex, and eligibility is based on unclear criteria and outdated assumptions about disability—often leading to inconsistent awards. DLA provision is too static. People’s conditions change, medical advances mean that once debilitating conditions may become more manageable, and technological changes mean that once insurmountable tasks become possible.

Disabled people deserve a system that recognises them as individuals and provides support on the basis of individual need, assessed objectively, and with clarity around eligibility criteria. We plan to retain the key elements of DLA as a non-taxable non-means-tested cash benefit that provides a contribution to the extra costs disabled people may face, whether they are in or out of work.

However, our proposal is to replace DLA with a personal independence payment that will provide for a fairer, more objective and transparent assessment of individual need. That will be at the heart of the benefit. It will look past broad categories of impairments and labels, and instead treat people as individuals and look at the specific challenges they face, rather than make vague assumptions. The noble Baroness, Lady Campbell of Surbiton, was very concerned about the target to reduce DLA expenditure by 20 per cent. Reducing DLA expenditure by 20 per cent by 2015-16 simply means bringing working-age expenditure back to 2009-10 levels and making it more sustainable for the future.

Regarding our response to a public consultation on DLA reform, we are working with disabled people and disability organisations as we design the PIP assessment, ensuring that it takes account of the full range of disabilities, including sensory impairments, as well as physical, mental, intellectual and cognitive impairments.

My noble friend Lady Browning and the noble Lord, Lord Touhig, particularly mentioned people suffering from autism and those responsible for their care. The National Autistic Society published a useful report on who benefits, and it raises a number of helpful points, such as a need for a new assessment to reflect the needs of people with autism spectrum disorders. We agree on all this, we are still working on the design of the assessment, and we will continue to work with disabled people and their organisations, including those relating to autism, as we take this work forward. We know how important it is to get this right. That is why we will test the impact of the new assessment criteria rigorously before we finalise the scheme.

I will conclude by referring to the comments of a number of noble Lords on the Equality Act and the implications that there may well be. The noble Lord, Lord Low of Dalston, mentioned this, as did my noble friend Lord Addington. We are very concerned about the red tape challenge and how it might impact on the Government’s commitment to the Equality Act. The red tape challenge is part of the Government’s commitment to transparency and growth. The Government set up the red tape challenge website to invite the public to take part in a debate on regulation. The website has recently been revised to make clear that the presence on it of a particular regulation or law should not be read as implying any intention on the Government's part to remove that regulation or law from the statute book.

Several noble Lords mentioned the particular restrictions on local government finance and the enormous impact on local government spending and responsibilities. I reassure them that the Government are very mindful of that. The noble Lord, Lord Sawyer, mentioned Remploy. I am very grateful to him for bringing it to our attention. We confirmed in the spending review that the five-year £555 million operational budget is protected and that the status of Remploy remains unchanged at a time when, as the noble Lord will know, many other programmes are under review.

I will conclude my comments because I am running out of time. I hope that I will be forgiven if I have not mentioned everything. As I said, I will go through the record and write to noble Lords.

I finish by reminding the House of the principles underpinning our reforms. Yes, budgets are tight for the moment, but the changes are about more than saving money; they are about changing lives and people's life prospects. It is right that we have been reminded of the Government’s commitment to fairness by the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie; we take that commitment seriously. The real impact on government policies on disabled people will be to empower them, to establish the right and opportunity to work, to encourage accessibility and to provide greater choice and control over how public money is spent to deliver independence and ensure that no one is ever written off because of disability.

[The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Pitkeathley)]

My Lords, the time allotted for this debate has now elapsed. Does the noble Lord wish to withdraw his Motion?

[Lord Low of Dalston]

I beg leave to withdraw the Motion.

Motion withdrawn.

Charities Bill [HL]

Thursday 5th May 2011 Lords Chamber

Second Reading

15:52

Moved by

[Baroness Verma]

[Baroness Verma]

My Lords, the Bill will bring together provisions of the main legislation on charities in England and Wales into a single piece of legislation; simplify the structure of the existing legislation, making it more accessible to the lay person; and replace the Recreational Charities Act 1958, the Charities Act 1993 and relevant provisions of the Charities Act 2006.

As a consolidation Bill, it brings together provisions of the main charity legislation into a single piece of legislation. Importantly, it does not and cannot introduce new policy, nor open up existing policy for amendment.

The Bill has been drawn up by the Law Commission, working closely with the Office for Civil Society in the Cabinet Office and the Charity Commission. As a Law Commission consolidation Bill it will go through the special parliamentary procedure for Law Commission consolidation Bills, with the detailed parliamentary scrutiny undertaken by the Joint Committee on Consolidation Bills.

Although Ministry of Justice Ministers usually take consolidation Bills through Parliament as Law Commission sponsors, in this case it was decided that a Minister with responsibility for the relevant policy area should pilot the Bill through Parliament. I am pleased to be piloting this Bill through the House of Lords.

Due to the fragmentation of charity legislation over many years, it has become increasing difficult to navigate the law in this area, not least because the Charities Act 2006 made extensive amendments to the Charities Act 1993. Although lawyers and government officials can be expected to keep track of the moving legislative landscape, the same cannot be said of the huge army of volunteer trustees who are the lifeblood of charities large and small throughout England and Wales.

During parliamentary scrutiny of the Bill that became the Charities Act 2006, the Joint Committee on the Bill recommended that charity law be consolidated. It summed up the complexity of the legislative landscape well when it said that,

“small charities—run by volunteers from the proverbial kitchen table—will have to study three different Acts and the relationship between them in order to know the current state of statute law”.

During debates on the Bill, the Joint Committee’s recommendation was endorsed by several noble Lords, who agreed that charity legislation should be consolidated to make it easier to follow.

Although the Bill does not seek to make changes to policy regarding charity law, some minor changes to the existing legislation are being dealt with in a pre-consolidation amendments order. The order, which is made under a specific power in Section 76 of the Charities Act 2006, was considered by this House on 27 April this year. It makes minor changes to the existing legislation which will facilitate the consolidation but which cannot be made in the Bill itself.

As is usual practice, the Cabinet Office conducted a full consultation on the proposed Bill and the pre-consolidation amendments order. Respondents were broadly in support of the consolidation and no substantive concerns were raised about the Bill itself. To address points raised by respondents, some additions were made to the pre-consolidation amendments order where these were within the scope of the power in Section 76 of the 2006 Act. A number of minor drafting changes were also made to the Bill in the light of those responses.

There have been calls by some parties, including some of the consultation respondents, to include in the Bill the 2006 Act provisions relating to fundraising. This was carefully considered but rejected for two good reasons. First, the Bill consolidates the law relating to charities. The fundraising provisions go much wider, covering fundraising for charitable, philanthropic and benevolent purposes, and professional fundraisers and commercial companies undertaking charity promotions. They are therefore beyond the scope of a Bill to consolidate the law relating to charities.

Secondly, there is some doubt about when the public charitable collections provisions of the Charities Act 2006 will be implemented. The provisions create a new regime for licensing and regulating charitable collections conducted in the street or house-to-house, replacing existing legislation that dates back almost 100 years. It has not been possible to implement the new regime for several reasons. Questions have been raised about whether the regime, instead of being deregulatory as intended, will add to the regulatory burden of charities—something that we are very keen to avoid. There is also the issue of cost-effectiveness. The new regime would give the Charity Commission a major new role, but with no new funding to deliver it, at a time when pressure on resources means that the commission has to focus on its core regulatory functions. Finally, the new regime would remove decision-making powers from local authorities, running counter to our plans to devolve more power to local communities. We now believe that the most sensible course of action will be to consider the regulation of public charitable collections as part of the wider review of the Charities Act 2006, which is due to begin later this year.

It is worth saying a bit more about the review of the Charities Act 2006. The review, which is required under Section 73 of the Charities Act 2006, will be a good opportunity to look at the effectiveness of the 2006 Act and the underlying policies, and to consider whether other changes to the legal and regulatory framework for charities could usefully be made.

This consolidation Bill will provide a very clear basis from which to conduct the review—that is, once the legislation is more clearly laid out, it will be easier to assess how well implementation of the legislation is working. Any suggested policy changes or substantive amendments to existing charity law will be considered as part of the review. There are some who will say, “Let’s wait to consolidate until the review of the Charities Act has concluded”. However, any recommendations for legislative change that come out of that review would require primary legislation and could not be achieved through a consolidation Bill. They could also happen only after proper consultation with the charity sector, which would take time, and there is no telling at this stage whether or when there would be the opportunity to legislate. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Phillips of Sudbury, who in welcoming this Bill was reported as saying that if we waited for the perfect moment to consolidate, perhaps we would wait for ever.

The Bill represents a small but important step in making charity law simpler to navigate and supports the Government’s aim of making it easier to set up and run a charity as it will make charity law more accessible to the lay charity trustee. We have a window of opportunity to tidy up what has become a confusing and messy legislative landscape and I commend this Bill to the House.

16:00

[Lord Phillips of Sudbury]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for the way in which she has introduced this Bill and in so doing thank those responsible for it, particularly the Law Commission, the Charity Commission, the Office for Civil Society and the Consolidation Committee under the chairmanship of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Carswell. Consolidation is an often thankless task and I sympathise with the poor old parliamentary draftsmen who on such occasions get nothing but brickbats. He, she or they have done a sterling job in pulling together the 200 plus pages that constitute the Bill.

As my noble friend said, it is vital that Parliament never loses sight of the nature of the charity and voluntary sector which is, as its name implies, made up of volunteers. Ninety-five per cent of all charities in this country have no paid staff and the overwhelming majority of trustees are volunteers—there is just a tiny handful of exceptions. I suspect that every Member of this House is trustee of at least one, and in many cases, many charities. The charity sector is the jewel in our national crown. It is that which keeps us going in hard times; that which keeps us from getting cynical; that which gets us out and about contacting fellow citizens whom we would normally come nowhere near.

The Minister said why the Bill does not consolidate the fundraising provisions in Part 2 of the Charities Act 1992 and in the Charities Act 2006. I will read in Hansard what my noble friend said but at first hearing it sounded a convincing explanation of why the consolidation has not occurred. It has disappointed very many people. I am sure that my noble friend Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbots will have something to say about that when he speaks. Certainly, the Charity Law Association is very disappointed about that important aspect of charity law not being within this Bill. I do not instantly see why it could not have been consolidated and if it proves the case that on review large parts of it are abandoned or changed, you can as well change this consolidation Bill as you can change the 2006 Act.

I know that the Minister is keen to address any issues that are raised in this House, particularly those which will clarify even further the consolidation Bill. Make no mistake, it will make a huge difference. Many solicitors I know who try to help local charities but know very little about charity law will be extremely grateful for this legislation. As the Minister said, the basis on which consolidation measures are brought forward is that they do not change substantive law. I will, therefore, refer in detail to the opening clauses of the Bill in that regard. To enable the Minister, her very helpful Bill team, the parliamentary draftsmen and this House to get to grips with my rather gritty points. I am afraid that I need to set out my observations in unremitting detail. I have hitherto raised these issues with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Carswell and the Bill team.

In short, the key definitions in the Bill are not as clear as they could and should be. They affect the whole interpretation of the Bill. Key to this are the unnecessary distinctions made in the first three clauses between “charitable purpose” and “charitable purposes”. Clause 1(1)(a) refers to “charitable purposes” in defining what is meant by “charity”. Clause 2 is headed, “Meaning of ‘charitable purpose’”. Clause 2(2)(a) refers to “charitable purposes”. The heading to Clause 4 begins, “Charitable purpose”, and the heading to Clause 11 is “Charitable purposes”. Clause 3 takes the biscuit and has it both ways. The heading is, “Charitable purpose: purposes which can be charitable purposes”. Clause 11 purports to define “charitable purposes”,

“In the rest of this Act”.

That implies that there are different definitions of “charitable purposes” in Clauses 1 to 10 from those in Clauses 11 to 358, plus the 11 schedules. Schedule 11, which contains an index of defined expressions, hedges its bets and refers to “charitable purpose or purposes”, directing the reader to Clauses 2(1) and 11.

For those in the Chamber who are still listening and think that I am splitting hairs, I say that we lawyers thrive on hairs. Furthermore, the courts will aver that we parliamentarians do nothing in vain; we may do it vainly, but not in vain. The difference between singular and plural must be taken as having significance—and I believe that it does.

I return to Clause 3, which is crucial and contains the 13 main purposes of a charity. Noble Lords will recollect that the clause heading is, “Charitable purpose: purposes which can be charitable purposes”. I can find no reference in the 2006 Act, or in any other pieces of legislation consolidated in the Bill, to the quizzical qualification, “can”. What can one make of something that “can” be a charitable purpose? The headings to Clauses 2 and 3 seem mutually inconsistent, the former being the same as Clause 2 of the 2006 Act and the latter containing that brooding word, “can”.

I turn now to another issue. I wonder whether the Bill is clear enough in mentioning only in Clause 1(1)(a) the need for a charity to have exclusively charitable purposes. Although it may be arguable, if one follows through the interlocking of the first three clauses of the Bill—with a towel around one’s head, I may say—that the need for a charity to be established for charitable purposes only works through the remainder of the clauses, I prefer the approach of the Charities Act 1993. There, the general interpretation section at the end—Section 97—defines “charitable purposes” as,

“purposes which are exclusively [charitable purposes as defined by section 2(1) of the Charities Act 2006]”.

That last phrase was inserted by the 2006 Act.

I draw the attention of the Minister and the House to an obscurity that exists in relation to what law is being applied in the Bill. Clause 2 makes it clear in two places that it is, unsurprisingly, the current law of England and Wales. In Clause 3(1)(m)(i), one finds a reference to “the old law”. I think I know what the draftsman means, but I am not sure how many other people will, and I would like to be sure that what I think it means is what it means. Finally, I cannot resist pointing out that Clauses 4(1) and 4(5) are superfluous, particularly in the light of Clause 2(1)(b).

I apologise profusely for the turgid nature of my contribution to this debate, but at least there are 10 colleagues in the Chamber who have had to suffer my meanderings. I am grateful for the opportunity.

16:10

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts]

My Lords, I declare interests as president of the NCVO and chairman of the Armed Forces Charities Advisory Company. I add my thanks to the Minister for bringing forward this Bill and my congratulations to all those who have been involved in its preparation. I do so on the grounds of the important principle, which has been referred to already, that there is nothing more infuriating or dispiriting than starting off to research new legislation which you find is amending previous legislation and which, when you get to it, amended earlier legislation and so on ad infinitum. It reminds one of those archaeological programmes where they slice away the side of a street and you find what was thrown on to it in about 1200, then layer on layer below.

That makes the law unfriendly and, as my noble friend Lord Phillips has said, it is particularly important that charity law should be as user-friendly as possible for the simple reason that most charities are run on voluntary effort. Of course, some will require the expert advice available from firms such as that where my noble friend Lord Phillips was previously a senior partner. However, as far as possible, DIY is a good principle for charities and that is facilitated by consolidation.

In at least two senses, however, I find this a slightly strangely timed Bill. First and most importantly, this being the year of our Lord 2011, the Charities Act 2006 is about to start the quinquennial review which, as my noble friend said, was written into Section 73 of that Act. It is and will be an extensive review because it requires the examiner to look at,

“public confidence in charities … the level of charitable donations … the willingness of individuals to volunteer”,

and,

“the status of the Charity Commission as a government department”.

It is clear from the word on the street that considerable changes will be suggested to the examiner when they set to work, so I fear that this consolidation Bill, while welcome in one sense, will not be the last word and that we shall be reploughing this ground before too long.

The second and more proximate reason for my surprise is the forthcoming charity tribunal hearing on the issue of public benefit. As noble Lords will recall, the 2006 Act ended the presumption of public benefit and required all charities to show that they had a public benefit requirement in their operation. That has always been controversial, as it takes you straight into the heartland of private schools and private hospitals. When we debated the 2006 Bill, some noble Lords found it counterintuitive that schools charging fees of £30,000 could be charities. For the record, I do not find that counterintuitive at all as you do not strengthen the weak by weakening the strong. Yet the strong have a contribution to make to our society in the form of bursaries, useful facilities, teacher exchanges and so on.

A further difficulty about the public benefit test is the rather obscure nature of the test case. The noble Lord, Lord Phillips, can expound on this at great length and has done so. It is the case of Re: Resch. which, as a non-lawyer, I find difficult to understand. It is about an Australian private hospital—a fee-paying institution—set in the grounds of a state, or free, hospital. That whole area of public benefit is quite obscure and difficult to deal with and one objective that we had in 2006 was to ensure that the thing was not further confused or compounded by introducing political angles into that tricky area from either end of the political spectrum. That was why the Charity Commission was given the role of establishing the public benefit test.

16:15

[Lord Phillips of Sudbury]

The noble Lord cited my name on Re: Resch., and he is quite right that it is a leading Privy Council case, but it is wonderfully obscure. He may remember that, during the debates on the 2006 Act, I moved an amendment to try to give the Charity Commission a little help in giving guidance and making judgments on public benefit. In many ways, it is a pity that we left it nude and relying on a paucity of very unsatisfactory cases.

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts]

The noble Lord, Lord Phillips, is one of the prime charity solicitors, and if he says Re: Resch. is obscure, who am I to disagree? I bow to his expert opinion. As he said, the Charity Commission was left with the task, and we now have a reference by the Attorney-General to the charity tribunal for a determination on the public benefit test. The hearing is later this month, so we are holding this Second Reading debate on the cusp of potentially significant changes for the charity sector. Some noble Lords may say that is all about private hospitals and private schools—that they deserve what is coming to them—but I think a word of caution is required because, as has been pointed out, the decisions made in those proceedings will affect not just fee-paying independent schools but potentially all fee-charging charities. That will include playgroups, nurseries, care homes, healthcare charities, museums, theatres, amateur sports clubs, advice centres, veterinary care charities, heritage and visitor attractions, housing associations and alms-houses. It has a very substantial possibility of changing the sector. When coming in to the House, noble Lords may have seen the huge queues outside Westminster Abbey of people wanting to go in to see the abbey today. It will be affected by the tribunal’s determination. While I absolutely support the Bill, I think we are holding this debate at an unusual point in the development of charity law.

As my noble friend pointed out, this Bill is a consolidation measure containing no new legislative proposals. I will not repeat what the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, said on the points that he made. The guts of the Bill are in Clauses 3 and 4 and are to do with the public benefit test and the test for charitable purposes. I entirely support what my noble friend said about the charitable purposes clause. I was surprised that Section 2 in the 2006 Act, which is headed “Meaning of ‘charitable purpose’” and seems absolutely clear, is replaced by a clause headed “Charitable purpose: purposes which can be charitable purposes”. That does not clarify anything; it seems to obscure things. That issue needs to be chased down.

Secondly, the words “under the old law” which, as my noble friend pointed out, now appear at the end of Clause 3(1)(m)(i), are a further confusion. Perhaps the Minister will explain why Section 2(8) in the 2006 Act, which contained the definitions of charity law and existing charity law, seems to have dropped out of the Bill. Maybe they appear somewhere else or have proved otiose or redundant, in which case, I am perfectly happy, but it would be helpful to have some words on that in due course.

One of the glories of consolidation Bills is that they provide a brief opportunity for reflection on where we got it wrong in the past and the direction of travel for the future. The Minister and my noble friend Lord Phillips referred to fundraising, which has proved a tricky subject and is clearly still in need of further treatment.

There are three brief issues that I would like to signpost this afternoon. The first is the role of the charity tribunal. The idea of the charity tribunal was to provide a quick, user-friendly, cheaper alternative to High Court proceedings so that small charities were not burdened by the risk that they would have to undertake if they appealed against Charity Commission hearings. I am afraid that it has not worked. There have been very few cases. Those that there have been have been highly legalistic in their approach and we are back with Silks, lawyers and everything else. The idea that we had for a simple remedy has not been fulfilled. One problem was the terms of the old Schedule 4, which is very prescriptive. We tried to persuade the then Labour Government that it would be a good idea to remove the schedule, but we were not able to do so. It is now reproduced wholesale in Schedule 6. If we are to make the tribunal as effective as we had hoped that it would be, a whole fresh eye is needed.

The second problem concerns dealing with the emergence of social investment. Recent years have seen the emergence of people who wish to make investments for social as well as financial purposes. They have an interest in making an investment and want to see a financial return but they also have a social purpose. The present proposals for charitable investments to be able to get improved results if they are successful—for example, as regards prisoner reoffending, getting people into work and ending school exclusions—would mean that the charities would get a better return.

There are implications for this whole area, including individuals. We have the counterintuitive idea that you may give the money to a charity to do something but you may not invest in it. That cannot be sensible. People who invest in charities or one of these schemes would get back their money or perhaps a modest return. That surely would be a sensible way of increasing the volume of money available for the sector. For charitable trusts, this would mean tackling the issue of permanent endowment, which cannot be spent. Therefore, many charities find it impossible to support schemes which are entirely in line with their objectives because of the issue whereby they cannot invest in schemes where there is a social return characteristic. That is a new area which has come to the fore in recent years. As we move forward we need to take time to think about it.

The last and greatest issue is of course the future regulatory structure. This afternoon, we have talked about charitable trusts. But there is now a welter of different corporate forms. You might be a charitable trust, a company limited by shares, a company limited by guarantee or a community interest company—a CIC. You could be an unincorporated association or an industrial and provident society, and you are shortly going to be able to become a charitable incorporated organisation—a CIO. Each of those forms of company or structure has different regulatory requirements as regards governance and fundraising. I am not sure that we have begun to think about how we get some coherence into the whole sector. I think that we can look at those issues in the future.

In conclusion, I entirely support this Bill. The UK charitable sector is glorious in its diversity. Therefore, this Bill has my strong support. But it is not the end of the road. Important decisions lie ahead if we are to find the right way to engage our fellow citizens in this critical area.

16:23

[Lord Sheikh]

My Lords, at the outset I should declare an interest as I have formed and entirely fund the Sheikh Abdullah Foundation, a small charity set up in my father’s memory which undertakes charitable work in the United Kingdom and overseas. I have also previously spoken in your Lordships’ House on the subject of the charitable sector. Charities are a fundamental barometer of the cohesion of our society and bring people together for a common cause. I feel that by performing charitable work people attain considerable satisfaction, and the work adds meaning to their lives. There are more than 170,000 charities in this country, an estimate of around 1 million charitable trustees, and our record for charitable donations is the best in Europe. We should therefore be justifiably proud of our charities.

I warmly welcome this Bill. As those of us who are heavily involved in charitable work will be only too aware, the law on the affairs of the third sector have become increasingly complicated in recent years. We should be grateful to the Law Commission, which, working with the Office for Civil Society and the Charity Commission, has undertaken the considerable workload of preparing this consolidation. The fact that the Table of Origins accompanying the Bill runs to 49 pages suggests that the Bill is long overdue—and it is a large Bill, with over 350 clauses. None the less it is important, and the House will want to ensure that its provisions meet the ambitious tests that the Government have set themselves in bringing it forward. I believe that the Government are right to seek to bring together the principal provisions for charities into one piece of legislation, and to take this opportunity to simplify the structure of the provisions, making it easier for those who wish to practise charitable actions to understand and navigate. That will command widespread support right across the entire charitable sector, where the current system is complicated and inaccessible other than to experts.

In part, this Bill arises from a commitment given during the passage of the Charities Act 2006 to consolidate measures into a single piece of legislation. The current legislative basis is fragmented, with key provisions contained in the Recreational Charities Act 1958, the Charities Act 1993 and the Charities Act 2006, all of which have been subsequently amended. The Charity Commission is undertaking a review of its services and this may well result in a reduced role for the commission as part of reducing charity regulation.

Many people in the United Kingdom donate their time and energy to assist the work of various charities as trustees, volunteers and fundraisers. We should do all we can to ensure that their efforts are not undermined in any way by unnecessary complexity. The National Council for Voluntary Organisations has estimated that nearly 31 million people in this country volunteer informally, with over 20 million volunteering formally. We also have the big society deregulation taskforce, chaired by my noble friend Lord Hodgson, which is likely to suggest a number of measures to reduce regulatory burdens on voluntary activity. The Government are also working to implement my noble friend Lord Young’s recommendations on reducing health and safety burdens on organisations.

Cutting red tape and making it easier to volunteer is crucial in encouraging us to volunteer, and I look forward to the implementation of the national citizen service in this regard. The setting aside of £100 million in a voluntary sector transition fund will help many organisations in an environment of reduced public spend. I am also encouraged by the Government’s determination to ensure that charities and social enterprises will have greater opportunities to deliver public services.

Making it easier for people to donate to charity is welcome and the big society bank is an extremely exciting development. By expanding the social investment marketplace and helping to attract extra private sector investment, it is expected that the bank will generate hundreds of millions of pounds for charities, social enterprises and voluntary groups to help fund social projects across the country. The Bill will also assist the Government in the implementation of their big society agenda. We should take this opportunity to applaud the changes in the 2011 Budget such as the innovative 10 for 10 proposal, whereby if one leaves 10 per cent of one’s estate to charity, the inheritance tax will accordingly be reduced by 10 per cent. The Government should be commended on their commitment to civil society, and the charitable sector plays a critical role in delivering that agenda.

One of the key measures of the success of this Bill will be its ability to enable the charitable sector to get on with the excellent job it is doing and to devote less energy to the details of charitable law. We need to ensure that those who donate to charity can have confidence that their resources are being put to optimal use. It is estimated that over 50 per cent of the population make monthly donations to charity, and they want to see that their contributions are making a real difference for the particular cause they support.

Yet even in the area of donations we have not managed to optimise the opportunities. The Charities Aid Foundation has estimated that around £750 million each year goes unclaimed from the gift aid scheme. I welcome the action that the Government have taken on gift aid. In this year’s Budget the Chancellor announced reforms to the gift aid scheme in order to try to encourage more people to donate to charity. Under the new regulations charities will not have to declare gift aid when claiming it on small sums adding up to £5,000 over the course of a year. I hope the Minister will take the opportunity to reassure the House that the Government will ensure that, in the new framework, we can expect a silver service from the Charity Commission.

We should make it easier to establish and run a charity so that administration consumes fewer resources and the real value can reach those in need of charitable support. Our charities do excellent work and it should be our ambition to create the framework for them to go even further. This is what underpins the Government’s approach, and the Bill is but one part of that.

Too often, the good intentions expressed in this House do not translate into good law in the world outside. The Bill is an opportunity to get this right and to make a crucial difference to the charitable sector. In that context, I hope that the Government have given consideration to how best to engage people in the work of charities. Trustees are busy, working together. They have an average age of 57; only one in three is under the age of 50, and only 2 per cent under 30. Experience may bring benefits, but I hope that the Minister agrees that it would be good to encourage a greater number of younger people to get involved in charitable governance.

As the size of the charitable sector increases, there is more pressure on recruitment. We need to make sure that those who want to get involved in the work of charities can find a quick and simple way to match their interests with available opportunities. The perception of a complex regulatory framework can act as a deterrent, but the Bill has a chance to fix that—by consolidating provisions it should make the legislation more understandable and easier to navigate.

The current charitable landscape is encouraging and the Government have decided to address the concerns about complexity around the legal framework at an opportune time. I fully support the Bill.

16:33

[Baroness Smith of Basildon]

My Lords, although shorter than usual, this has been an enjoyable debate. It has shown this House at its best and the depth of knowledge, commitment and expertise of its Members. I thank the Minister for her detailed and helpful introduction and explanation of the consolidation Bill.

I welcome this consolidation. As we have heard, it brings together the provisions of the existing main charity legislation. The Recreational Charities Act 1958—I am not entirely clear what a recreational charity is as opposed to any other charity—the Charities Act 1993 and the relevant, although not all, provisions of the 2006 Act are brought together into one piece of legislation. I welcome the assurance of the noble Baroness, Lady Verma, that there are no new policy issues involved and that no changes have been introduced. This is exactly what it says on the tin—a consolidation Bill designed to simplify existing legislation.

Like all noble Lords who have spoken today, I thank the Law Commission and congratulate it on its work, as I do the Office for Civil Society, the former Office of the Third Sector and the Charity Commission, which also consulted on this prior to the official formal consultation.

As noble Lords will know, the consultation was launched in September 2009 and closed in December 2009. I should confess to your Lordships’ House that at that time I was the Minister for the third sector, with responsibility for this legislation. I was keen to see progress before the last election but in those few months between the end of the consultation and the dissolution of Parliament in April 2010, there was no time in the legislative timetable—which was certainly of regret to me. Another year has passed before we have found time for debate but I certainly welcome the legislation being brought forward.

On the consultation, I was keen to refamiliarise myself with the consultation responses and am disappointed that they are no longer available on the website. It may be helpful for further consideration of the Bill, and would have been helpful for today’s debate, if they were made available. Having said that, I understand, and the Minister made it clear, that there was broad support for the Bill. As far as I am aware, there were no substantive objections to issues in the Bill before us today.

There have clearly been widespread concerns that, since the first legislation was introduced in 1958, charity legislation has over time become more complicated. That can be a deterrent and put off those who wish to contribute to society through charities and charitable work. The noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, described the previous legislation as “unfriendly”. That is a good description for those trying to wade through the legislation or to set up a charity or conduct themselves as trustees. It is right to pay tribute, as other noble Lords have done, to not just those who work for charities and the wider sector but also the, in many cases, unsung trustees. Being the trustee of a charity can be a huge responsibility. We should be grateful to them, many willingly and some not so willingly taking on these roles out of a sense of duty and responsibility. We have an obligation as legislators to make it as easy for them as possible to take on the responsibilities that they wish to and to play a role in society. Consolidating the law in a way that seeks to reduce complexity and bring the laws together in one place can be extremely helpful.

One general point that other noble Lords have made is that we should not be overly confident that this is going to make life much easier for charities. Looking through the Bill and its schedules, it is long and detailed, with huge implications and responsibilities. It will not be that much more easily understood by the lay person, however much we in your Lordships’ House try to make it so. Those noble Lords in the House for Questions yesterday may have heard the Question asked by my noble friend Lord Boateng: whether those who wish to set up charities should be able to do so without needing a lawyer. I noticed at the time that the noble Lord, Lord Phillips of Sudbury, gave a wry grin at that comment. That wry grin was explained when he spoke on some of the clauses of the Bill: it is almost impossible for the lay person to understand charity law in detail or to navigate their way through without a lawyer.

Charity law has, of necessity, to be detailed. It seeks to protect the donor and the public, and also seeks to regulate the charity’s activities, protect its integrity and that of its trustees. Looking at the Table of Origins and the involvement of different Government departments, the legislation is a response to issues that have arisen. This is a hugely complicated area but the legislation exists to bring order and, I hope, logic to that complexity. As welcome as this is—I warmly welcome the legislation coming forward at this point—there still remain some uncertainties for charities which I hope the Minister will be able to comment on. The noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, referred to some of these as well.

I commented that the Bill brought together existing legislation, including the relevant provisions of the Charities Act 2006—as other noble Lords have mentioned. I was grateful for the Minister’s explanation at the beginning as to why, as part of this consolidation, we have not got to the parts of the 2006 Act that have not been activated and which would make the Charity Commission the lead regulator for public charitable collections. As the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, said—I agree with his comments and will also look at Hansard carefully—there seems to have been a change of policy by the Minister on that issue. I would be interested to know, if the Government’s intention is not to proceed with those provisions in the 2006 Act, whether there will be a further consultation with those charities. My understanding is that as part of this consultation a number of organisations welcomed those provisions and wanted to see them included in the legislation. The Minister seemed to say that it was unlikely that they would come forward. If that is the case, will there be a further consultation on this? She will also be aware—and her own comments hinted at this—that one reason why that is not included today is because cuts in the Charity Commission’s budget make it difficult for it to undertake further responsibilities. If that is the prime reason, the House would appreciate some further information, but I may have misunderstood that.

The other provision from the 2006 Act that has not yet come into force is on the charitable incorporated organisations. It is in this legislation and is widely welcomed; there is no dispute over how widely welcomed it is. I may be missing something, but could the Minister explain why the CIOs are in this legislation while the other measures that we mentioned on fundraising are not? Is that a policy decision or a funding decision for the Charity Commission rather than a technical legal point?

I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbots, about the uncertainty around the 2006 review of the Charity Acts. The commitment is that the review would take place in 2011. I fully understand, as the noble Lord, Lord Phillips of Sudbury, said, that there would be a reluctance to delay consolidation legislation, because that would mean that much-needed legislation would come through the statute books. But there may be changes and suggestions for changes following the review that will make this legislation out of date very quickly. That is the concern. After we have gone to the effort, in which all the organisations have been involved, of ensuring that we have comprehensive legislation, if the review takes place this year it will be out of date within the year. Given that the commitment has been made to have the review on the legislation go through now, can the Minister assure me that following the review, should changes be sought that benefit charities and civic society, the necessary parliamentary time will be made available as quickly as possible to ensure that we do not have legislation on the statute books advising charities that will be out of date so quickly?

The third uncertainty, although I shall not overly dwell on it, is about the funding difficulties faced by charities for both national and local funders and the impact that it is having on their ability to deliver and provide support for the big society. We have heard the comment from the noble Lord, Lord Phillips of Sudbury, that almost every Member of your Lordships' House is involved in a charity in one way or another, which is perfectly true. So your Lordships' House is only too aware that the charities and the wider third sector have been the backbone of the big society, although it has not been called that, for many years. There is now an increasing anxiety and uncertainty of what that means for them, and how they can continue to fulfil that role against a backdrop of funding cuts. Those charities will broadly welcome the legislation before us today because they know that it seeks to address some of their concerns and the problems that they have with legislation and simplify the legal requirements on them. We also welcome it and hope that the co-operation and support shown in the legislation continue in other areas of government policy, in recognition of the enormous power for good and the practical support that charities provide to communities across the country.

16:43

[Baroness Verma]

My Lords, I start by thanking the noble Baroness and all noble Lords for the warm welcome for this Bill. I absolutely agree with the noble Baroness that this House has been seen at its best today, with the breadth of knowledge and expertise—and especially the way in which my noble friend Lord Phillips navigated us around some of the most complicated legal speak that I have ever come across.

Charity is a subject that resonates with all Members of this House, where we have such a broad range of knowledge and experience of the charitable sector, as we have seen from this afternoon’s contributions. I thank all those who have spoken and will try to respond to all the points raised. I am grateful for the speech of my noble friend Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbots. I know that he played a significant part in this House’s scrutiny of the Charity Act 2006 and was one of those who called for the consolidation of charity legislation at that time. He is now taking forward important work in leading the cutting red tape task force, which is shortly to make its recommendations on how we can cut the thicket of red tape that holds charities back. I understand that the task force has looked at certain barriers to social investment as part of its work, and I look forward to seeing his recommendations on this fairly complex area.

The Government are committed to encouraging and facilitating social investment wherever appropriate, and to making the regulation of charities less burdensome while preserving trust and confidence in the sector. The review of the Charities Act 2006, which is due to start later this year, will present the right opportunity to consider the charity law implications of these recommendations.

I note my noble friend’s points about making permanent endowment much easier. I sympathise with his concerns about the complexity of the schedule of appeal and review rights in the Charities Act 1993. That is not something that we can address in the consolidation Bill but it is an issue that shall be considered as part of the review of the Charities Act 2006. There certainly appears to be a case for simplifying the current complicated system.

My noble friend also raised the issue of public benefit. As the matter of public benefit is now before the Upper Tribunal, I do not really want to comment at this stage other than to say that we would welcome clarification of the law. The review of the 2006 Act will be able to take tribunal decisions into account.

I turn to my noble friend Lord Phillips of Sudbury’s point. I am grateful for the knowledge and experience of charities of my noble friend, who was a key contributor to the Charities Act 2006 and who has applied his keen eye to the Bill and the pre-consolidation amendments order that we considered in Grand Committee last week. I hope that I will be able to provide him with some reassurance on the points that he raised during last week’s Moses Room debate on the pre-consolidation amendments order, particularly his concerns about the pre-consolidation amendments to Section 79 of the Charities Act 1993. I have written to him with a response on his points about Section 79 but would be happy to arrange a meeting with the Bill team and the drafter if he has any remaining concerns on those points.

I have some sympathy with my noble friend’s frustrations that in places the drafting of the Bill inherits some of the complexity of the existing legislation. However, one must bear in mind the main constraint of the consolidation process itself, which is that it must not involve any change in the law other than those that can be achieved by way of the power to make pre-consolidation amendments. What to the untrained eye might appear to be a straightforward improvement in drafting could in fact change the meaning, which we must be careful to preserve.

I am sorry that my noble friend is disappointed by the decision to exclude the fundraising provisions of the Charities Acts of 1992 and 2006. As I said in my opening speech, the decision not to include those provisions was taken for good reasons. I know that in its response to the consultation on the draft consolidation Bill the Charity Law Association called for the inclusion of the fundraising provisions, but it is important to point out that some of the other consultation respondents agreed with the decision to exclude those provisions.

I recognise that both my noble friends Lord Phillips and Lord Hodgson also have a number of detailed points about the Bill itself, notably about Part 1 relating to the meaning of “charity” and “charitable purposes”. I understand that my noble friend Lord Phillips has written to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Carswell, the chairman of the Joint Committee on Consolidation Bills, and that the points that he has raised are receiving proper attention, so I hope that he will not be too disappointed if I do not deal with those detailed and complex points today.

My noble friend Lord Sheikh rightly pointed out that this country has a proud record of many thousands of volunteers who work tirelessly for charity and social enterprise day in, day out. I welcome his warm welcome to the Bill and congratulate him on the work that he does. My noble friend is right that the big society sits at the heart of highlighting the ability of individuals to engage and deliver such necessary and valuable contributions. He also mentioned gift aid. Her Majesty’s Treasury leads on all tax issues, including gift aid. The Government recognise the importance of gift aid, which is now worth nearly £1 billion a year to charities. The Budget announced a package of measures to support charities. This included the introduction of a new gift aid small donations scheme from 2013. That will permit a gift aid-style payment to be claimed on many small donations without the need for a charity to obtain gift aid declarations. These measures will increase funding to charities by around £600 million over the lifetime of this Parliament.

The noble Lord also talked about support for volunteering and giving. The Government have issued a giving Green Paper, which sought to encourage a debate on making social action the norm for all ages. The Office for Civil Society is also working on creating a civic service, encouraging civil servants to volunteer, and a range of initiatives related to the European Year of Volunteering this year.

The noble Baroness, Lady Smith, asked about consultation responses. A summary of them is now available on the Cabinet Office website, as of this morning. She also asked about CIOs. They will be implemented later this year, although availability of the CIO to existing charities will have to be phased to help the Charity Commission manage the demand. She also spoke of Charity Commission funding. All government departments are facing tough decisions about priorities; the Charity Commission is no exception. It is currently undertaking a strategic review to focus on key priorities for its future work, including seeking the views of the public and other stakeholders. The public consultation phase of the commission’s strategic review has now been completed, and is now focusing on the detail of the changes it will need to make.

The commission’s strategic review will feed into the statutory review of the Charities Act 2006, which is due to begin later this year and will consider potential changes to the legislative framework for charities and the commission. The commission’s chief executive has said about its strategic review:

“I am quite convinced that even with the reduced resources we can be a very good and effective regulator, but we are going to have to be smart and we are going to have to be tough about what we do and don't do”.

In conclusion, I once again thank all noble Lords for giving their time and consideration to this Bill. This is clearly a subject close to many of your Lordships’ hearts, and I welcome the well informed comments that have been made. I look forward to the full and thorough review of the Charities Act 2006 later this year, which will pick up on many comments made by noble Lords today. In the mean time, I hope that noble Lords will agree that the consolidation Bill is a positive step to tidying up what has become a confusing area of legislation. The Government are firmly committed to making it easier to set up and run a charity. I look forward to the recommendations from the taskforce of the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, on cutting red tape in the sector. I am also pleased that, later this year, the first ever legal structure designed specifically for the needs of charities, the charitable incorporated organisation, will be available.

I, too, will read Hansard very carefully tomorrow. If there are points—I am sure that there must be—that I have failed to address this afternoon, I undertake to write to noble Lords and place a copy of the letter in the Library.

Bill read a second time.

House adjourned at 4.54 pm.