House of Commons

Tuesday 7th June 2011 Commons Chamber

Tuesday 7 June 2011

The House met at half-past Two o’clock

Prayers

Tuesday 7th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker in the Chair]

Oral Answers to Questions

Tuesday 7th June 2011 Commons Chamber

The Secretary of State was asked—

[Nigel Adams (Selby and Ainsty) (Con)]

2. What assessment he has made of the financial performance of the NHS in 2010-11; and if he will make a statement.

[The Secretary of State for Health (Mr Andrew Lansley)]

Financial performance in the NHS in the last year has been strong. As at quarter three of financial year 2010-11, the strategic health authorities and primary care trusts were forecasting an overall surplus of £1,269 million, and the NHS trust sector was forecasting an overall surplus of £132 million. I expect the 2010-11 final year-end surplus to be no less than this forecast, representing about 1% of the budget, broadly in line with plans.

[Nigel Adams]

I am grateful to the Secretary of State for his response. My constituents will be pleased that the NHS performed on a sound financial basis nationally. What increases will the NHS receive in my local area of north Yorkshire in 2011-12, and can my right hon. Friend confirm that those increases are the result of the Government’s decision to protect the NHS?

[Mr Lansley]

In 2011-12, NorthYorkshire and York primary care trust will receive £1,207.3 million. That represents a cash increase over last year of £34.7 million, or 3%. That exactly represents our coalition Government’s commitment to protect the NHS and to increase its budget in real terms, and it is in stark contrast to what we were told we should do by the Labour party and what the Labour Government in Wales have done, which is to impose a 5% real cut in NHS spending in Wales.

[David Miliband (South Shields) (Lab)]

Can the Secretary of State confirm my figures that over £20 million has been spent in the north-east of England sacking PCT staff, that that money has come from funds previously earmarked for hospitals, and that there will be at least as many commissioning groups under his arrangements as there are currently PCTs employing managers in those roles? Does not that show that his plans are lunacy not reform, and that they should be taken away and put in the dustbin, not given a simple pause?

[Mr Lansley]

I can tell the right hon. Gentleman that in contrast to the last Labour Government it is our intention to increase the front-line staffing of the NHS relative to the staffing of the administration in the NHS. That is why, since the general election, there are 3,800 fewer managers in the NHS and 2,500 more doctors.

[Mr Stephen Dorrell (Charnwood) (Con)]

Can my right hon. Friend confirm that it is a key priority of the Government to reverse a decade of declining productivity in the health service in order to ensure that the resources that are committed by the Government deliver improved access and improved quality of patient care?

[Mr Lansley]

Yes, I can. My right hon. Friend is absolutely right about that. Over the last year in hospitals in particular we saw what was approaching a 15% reduction in productivity. That is why we are proceeding with ensuring that across the NHS we recognise not only that there are increasing demands on the NHS, which is why we are increasing the NHS budget by £ll.5 billion over four years, but that that money must be used increasingly effectively to deliver efficiency savings in excess of 4% each year so that we can improve the quality of services for patients.

[John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State spoke in glowing terms of the last year, but the last year has been a catalogue of confusion, incompetence and broken promises. So will he now accept that the Government’s massive mishandled NHS reorganisation is piling extra pressure on NHS services, with nearly £2 billion promised for patient care being wasted on the internal changes? Will he admit that it is patients who will suffer as front-line NHS staff lose their jobs, treatments are cut back and waiting times start to rise again under the Tories?

[Mr Lansley]

The right hon. Gentleman asked about performance last year. I told him what the financial performance was. Let me also make it clear that, for example, for hospital in-patients, referral to treatment waiting time has gone down from 8.4 weeks in May 2010 to 7.9 weeks in the latest figures in March, and for out-patients the figure has gone down from 4.3 weeks in May 2010 to 3.7 weeks in the latest figures, so waiting times have improved. We have established the cancer drugs fund, with more than 2,500 patients benefiting from that. We have published and driven down the number of breaches of the single sex accommodation rules: a 77% reduction in those breaches, which Labour never achieved. In the last year we have reduced the number of MRSA infections in hospitals by 22% and C. difficile infections by 15%. I applaud the NHS—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I think we have got the thrust of it and are most grateful.

[John Healey]

The Secretary of State mentioned a lot of things, but I notice that he did not mention the Prime Minister’s five new guarantees. [Interruption.] The Secretary of State shakes his head as if they do not matter, but perhaps he was not consulted on them. People have seen the Prime Minister make and then break promises on the NHS before, but this time he is breaking his pledges as he is making them. The King’s Fund says that waiting times are going up and the Nuffield Trust says that health funding is being cut in real terms. Privatisation, the break-up of integrated care and the removal of national standards at the heart of the health service are exactly what his health Bill is designed to do. Is that not why MORI shows public concern about the NHS rising rapidly and why people are right to conclude that they cannot trust the Tories on the NHS?

[Mr Lansley]

My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has made it very clear that we will not let waiting times rise and that we will improve performance in the NHS right across the board, which was what I was illustrating. I remind the right hon. Gentleman again that waiting times in hospitals are down from 8.4 weeks to 7.9 weeks for in-patients and from 4.3 weeks to 3.7 weeks for out-patients. That is what we are committed to. Chris Ham of the Kings Fund was on the “Today” programme this morning and said on waiting times, “There hasn’t been a great deal of change since the election.” What has changed since the election is that we are improving performance, driving down the number of breaches of the single-sex rules, increasing access to dentistry, cutting the number of managers and increasing the number of doctors. Those are the things we are doing in the NHS, and it is to the benefit of patients that we do.

[Mr John Baron (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)]

3. What steps he is taking to enable GP consortia to commission integrated cancer services.

[The Minister of State, Department of Health (Paul Burstow)]

“Improving Outcomes: A Strategy for Cancer” set out our plans to support GP consortia to commission high-quality cancer services that deliver improved outcomes. The strategy confirmed the importance of cancer networks and we have recently confirmed that the NHS commissioning board will continue to support strengthened cancer networks.

[Mr Baron]

I thank the Minister and the Secretary of State for extending the guaranteed funding for cancer networks to 2013 and their commitment to support them thereafter, because the cancer networks’ expertise will be much valued by consortia. How will the authorisation process for GP consortia ensure effective commissioning of those cancer services that span consortia boundaries, such as radiotherapy?

[Paul Burstow]

What we are doing at the moment with the pause is making sure that we revise the proposals in ways that ensure that we deliver the outcomes set out in the White Paper last year. One of the things we said in the White Paper, and which the Bill currently provides for, is that GP commissioning consortia can collaborate where they need to commission for larger populations.

[Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)]

On GP commissioning consortia, one of the concerns that the Minister will have heard during his pause is the public’s concern about the possible role of the private sector in GP commissioning. Although we all agree that the private sector has always had, and will always have, a role in the NHS, does the Southern Cross Healthcare disaster not show the dangers of leaving health and social care to the short-term decisions of private equity bosses?

[Paul Burstow]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. The Minister will want to focus on GP commissioning of integrated cancer services.

[Paul Burstow]

I am grateful for that advice, Mr Speaker. The hon. Lady’s remark was one that she might have made from the Back Benches when the Labour party was in power, but which it never listened to when in government. On GP commissioning consortia, we believe that it is important that consortia have access to the right expertise to be able to commission effectively both clinicians from other parts of the health economy and other expertise from the voluntary sector. That should be possible and we think that it is how we can improve commissioning in the NHS.

[David Tredinnick (Bosworth) (Con)]

Will commissioners be able to approach specialist integrated cancer services, such as the Penny Brohn cancer clinic in Bristol, and will that clinic and others be represented on health and wellbeing boards in future?

[Paul Burstow]

The membership of health and wellbeing boards will be a matter for the local authorities that will set them up. The Bill provides de minimis provisions for involving local councillors, representatives from commissioning consortia, public health directors, social services and children’s services, but I am sure that many of the pilots that are currently going on across the country are looking at innovative ways of involving others as well.

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

4. What steps he is considering in relation to Southern Cross Healthcare; and if he will make a statement.

[Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)]

5. What steps he is considering in relation to Southern Cross Healthcare; and if he will make a statement.

[Sheila Gilmore (Edinburgh East) (Lab)]

8. What steps he is considering in relation to Southern Cross Healthcare; and if he will make a statement.

[The Minister of State, Department of Health (Paul Burstow)]

Southern Cross has plans in place to restructure its business and is keeping the Government updated on progress. We will continue to keep in close touch with the situation and work with local authorities, the Care Quality Commission and others to ensure that there is an effective response which delivers to everyone the protection that we should want for all in those residential homes.

[Alex Cunningham]

I am grateful for that answer, but Southern Cross will not win any medals for managing its self-made crisis or for the anxiety caused to thousands of residents and their families, including 200 in five homes in my constituency. If organisations such as Southern Cross fail to get the investment that they need and end up going bust, will the Government guarantee those older people that decisive Government action will be taken to safeguard them in the places that they now call home?

[Paul Burstow]

Let me make it absolutely clear to the hon. Gentleman and to hon. Members on both sides of the House who have legitimate concerns about the welfare of residents in those homes: that is the Government’s paramount concern, and we will ensure that every step necessary is taken to safeguard those interests. The responsibility for providing care rests with local authorities, and that is why we as a Government have been working so closely with the Local Government Association and the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services to ensure that such arrangements are in place in the event of any need. The key thing at the moment, however, is to ensure that the company continues to restructure and continues to be in business.

[Nick Smith]

Uncertainty about Southern Cross is troubling for the 74 residents of the two homes in Blaenau Gwent, and I commend my local authority on contacting their relatives to explain that it is monitoring the situation. If Southern Cross cuts its running costs, what measures will the Government put in place to ensure that the standards of care are closely monitored? Will the Government investigate the financial management of the company, described by my constituent Mr Hooper, whose mam is a Southern Cross resident, as

“greedy chancers who gamble with crazy business plans”?

[Paul Burstow]

The Government continue to maintain very close contact with the devolved Administrations on those issues to ensure that we co-ordinate in that way, and the hon. Gentleman is right that we need to make sure that the standards of care provided in all those homes are maintained. That is a role that the CQC has been discharging and will continue to discharge.

[Sheila Gilmore]

Housing associations have regulatory control over financial management and viability in order to protect tenants’ homes. Will the Minister consider putting in place a similar regime to protect the homes of care home residents?

[Paul Burstow]

Within the current legal framework established in the Health and Social Care Act 2008, there are requirements on financial viability, but we will undoubtedly want to look at those issues when we come to publish a White Paper on social care reform later this year.

[John Pugh (Southport) (LD)]

Does the Minister agree that to avoid similar issues we need to build consensus throughout the House on the future of social care—and its financial governance?

[Paul Burstow]

I could simply say yes to my hon. Friend, but I agree entirely, and that is why last year we acted quickly to establish an independent commission, led by Andrew Dilnot, to undertake a review of how we fund social care. His report will be coming forward shortly, and I would certainly welcome all necessary discussions to ensure that we deliver effective reform.

[Margot James (Stourbridge) (Con)]

We have six homes in Dudley borough managed and owned by Southern Cross, and I am pleased to hear the Minister’s assurance that he will work with local authorities to ensure that no resident is left in need. Questions must be asked, however, about the conduct of the former directors of Southern Cross, and about how they acted in terms of the duty of care to their company and to residents. Will my hon. Friend consider investigating the conduct of those former directors should the company’s situation worsen?

[Paul Burstow]

Those matters would more appropriately be dealt with by colleagues in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, but those points are fairly made by my hon. Friend. As a Government, we continue to maintain close dialogue with the company, the landlords and all other interested parties to make clear to them their responsibilities to secure the ongoing care of the individuals in those homes.

[Mr David Ward (Bradford East) (LD)]

I welcome the Minister’s response to the issue, which I acknowledge is the responsibility of local authorities, but they face many other difficulties, not only with nursing care but with residential care and the increased demand for it. What effective support will there be, other than additional words of support?

[Paul Burstow]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that question. Over many months, we have been in discussions with colleagues at the Local Government Association, and the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services recently produced new guidance on maintaining continuity and quality of care for individuals in homes that may be in difficulties. That is the appropriate way for us to proceed. We continue to work with them to ensure that all the necessary arrangements are in place. However, I remain focused, as all Members in this House should be, on ensuring that the company has the best possible opportunity to get itself on a stable footing so that it can continue to provide the care that people want.

[Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)]

The Minister will be aware that 25 care homes in Northern Ireland operate under the Southern Cross banner. What is he going to do to ensure that there is a consistent approach across the entirety of the United Kingdom? Will he have discussions with the Health Minister in Northern Ireland and other concerned parties to ensure that patients and residents in those homes are treated equitably and fairly?

[Paul Burstow]

The hon. Gentleman makes a fair point that relates to the earlier question where I indicated that we are in constant contact with the devolved Administrations and will continue to have that dialogue—if necessary, at ministerial level.

[Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)]

Although we welcome the Government’s statement today that whatever the outcome of the restructuring of Southern Cross, they will not allow anyone to find themselves homeless, may I cast the Minister’s mind back to a week ago? Where was he? Why was he not visiting Southern Cross homes and speaking to residents, families and carers, as I was? Does he not now regret hiding in his bunker and allowing No. 10 to attempt to answer the questions that were put to the Government on behalf of these very vulnerable people?

[Paul Burstow]

I was about to say that I was grateful to the hon. Lady for the question, but clearly I am not. I have been following this as a Minister throughout, and I continue to follow it closely and to give the necessary instructions to officials to secure the future and the fate of the residents in these care homes. We have to be cautious and careful about the language we use on this particular endeavour. That is what I am doing, and I would urge the hon. Lady to do the same.

[Emily Thornberry]

The Minister can be assured that I am careful in the language that I use, and the words that I wish to use are these: does he agree that it is simply wrong that financiers and some of Southern Cross’s previous directors have creamed off millions of pounds while putting at risk the care of 31,000 elderly people who seem to have been used merely as commodities? Now that this has come to light, will the Government look urgently at whether regulation should be extended to ensure the financial stability of organisations that we entrust with the care of our most vulnerable?

[Paul Burstow]

That question has already been asked, and I have already indicated the approach that we intend to take with regard to the White Paper. I also point out that the establishment of the business model that Southern Cross operates of separating out provision from the ownership of the homes took place not under this Government’s watch but under her Government’s watch.

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

6. What assessment he has made of trends in outcomes for NHS patients since May 2010.

[The Secretary of State for Health (Mr Andrew Lansley)]

I am determined to focus on the results that matter most to patients. For example, in the year ending March 2011, the number of MRSA bloodstream infections decreased by 22% and C. difficile infections decreased by 15% on the year before. These are key outcomes in the drive to protect patients from avoidable harm. We also want to see continuous improvements in patients’ experience of their care. For example, between December last year and April this year, we took action on breaches of the single sex accommodation rules, and the number of breaches reduced by 77%. The NHS outcomes framework will drive up quality across services as well as providing evidence of the overall progress of the NHS.

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

I thank the Secretary of State for his answer. He has rightly identified patient experience as a key outcome that has improved over the past year. Given that tens of millions of patients every year experience accident and emergency as their first point of contact with the NHS, what steps has he taken to improve the quality of care that patients receive in A and E wards?

[Mr Lansley]

In the past, the only measure of activity and performance in A and E departments was whether patients had been discharged from the department within four hours. That meant, for example, that the emergency department at Stafford hospital was able to tick the box marked “Four-hour target met” in circumstances where patients were discharged completely inappropriately and patients suffered and died. We have now published, for the first time, quality indicators agreed with clinical professionals across emergency services that indicate what A and E quality should look like regarding not only time waited but the time before patients are seen by a qualified professional, re-attendance rates for the same problems, and mortality and related outcomes.

[Mr Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State is using a highly selective reading of waiting times. Will he confirm that breaches of the four hour target for A and E waits and the 18 week target for operations have increased massively in the past year? If they have not, why did the Prime Minister today confirm his support for those Labour targets?

[Mr Lansley]

The Prime Minister made it clear that we will focus on outcomes for patients, not just on individual targets. In 2010-11, the financial year that has just ended, only 2.6% of people who attended at A and E waited for more than four hours, despite an additional 870,000 people attending A and E departments.

[Mr Gary Streeter (South West Devon) (Con)]

7. What plans he has for access to NHS speech therapy services for children.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Anne Milton)]

As my hon. Friend knows, speech and language therapy services are critical for children and young people who need help to develop their speech, language and communication skills, and who have conditions such as swallowing difficulties. We have published a Green Paper on special educational needs and disability, which includes proposals to develop a new co-ordinated assessment for education, health and care plans by 2014 and for the option of a personal budget for all families with such plans. That will offer families more choice and ensure that children get the support that they need.

[Mr Streeter]

Does my hon. Friend agree that when a child needs to access speech therapy, often it is to unlock vital early years education and is therefore time critical? The west country has known waiting times of three, six or even nine months. Will she assure me that the coalition Government can do better than that?

[Anne Milton]

We most certainly can do better than that. I agree with my hon. Friend that such problems are often a barrier, and that therapy can unlock so much more. I refer him to service redesigns that have happened, such as at the Cambridgeshire Community Services NHS Trust, which redesigned its clinical pathways with the result that the number of children waiting longer than 18 weeks from referral to treatment fell from 409 in May 2010 to eight at the end of January 2011. That is a fantastic improvement in the service. This is not all about money, but about the way in which services are designed.

[Mr Kevin Barron (Rother Valley) (Lab)]

The Minister will know that more than 60% of inmates in young offender institutions have speech and communication problems. Can we ensure that the Green Paper addresses this matter not just within the national health service, but in education and wider, so that we can begin to tackle this problem, which has lain dormant in this country for decades?

[Anne Milton]

The right hon. Gentleman is right that we are not talking just about children. A number of people have languished and failed to achieve their potential, particularly their educational potential, for the lack of speech and language therapies. I take this opportunity to commend the work of Jean Gross, the communication champion, in raising and highlighting these issues.

[Annette Brooke (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (LD)]

10. What recent representations he has received on the future of NHS Blood and Transplant; and if he will make a statement.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Anne Milton)]

Since February 2011, we have received about 60 representations on the future of NHS Blood and Transplant, including from MPs, Unison and the public. Representations continue to come in. I am happy to meet the hon. Lady if she would like. I should make it clear that the current review is not considering the sale of any part of NHSBT.

[Annette Brooke]

I wonder whether the Minister can give further assurances to address the great concern that voluntary donations of blood and organs might be put at risk if it is perceived that profits are being made in any part of the operation.

[Anne Milton]

My hon. Friend is right. The altruistic donor system is one of the rocks on which the NHS is built, and we will do nothing to jeopardise public confidence in it. I am alarmed at some of the scare stories that have been circulating. They serve nobody any good, least of all those who need the necessary donations that are made.

[Andrew Stephenson (Pendle) (Con)]

11. What recent representations he has received on the operation of the cancer drugs fund.

[Stephen Hammond (Wimbledon) (Con)]

16. What recent assessment he has made of the operation of the cancer drugs fund; and if he will make a statement.

[The Secretary of State for Health (Mr Andrew Lansley)]

I have received representations from hon. Members, noble Lords and members of the public on how the fund has operated. A number have welcomed the additional support that we are giving to cancer patients in need. More than 2,500 patients have already benefited from the additional funding provided up to the start of April 2011, and the further £600 million that we have committed for next three years will improve the lives of thousands more cancer sufferers.

[Andrew Stephenson]

Can my right hon. Friend confirm that the cancer drugs fund is helping cancer specialists tailor treatment regimes to patients in areas including my constituency, and helping to provide a more personal and responsive cancer service?

[Mr Lansley]

Yes, I can reassure my hon. Friend on that point. Indeed, I cannot do better than to quote Mike Hobday, head of policy at Macmillan Cancer Support, who said:

“The £200 million Cancer Drugs Fund will make sure every cancer patient has a better chance to get the drugs their doctor prescribes for them. This is particularly important for those with a rarer cancer, who have historically lost out on getting drugs on the NHS.”

[Stephen Hammond]

I am sure the whole House will welcome my right hon. Friend’s announcement today that 2,500 people have already benefited from the interim cancer drugs fund. Can he give the House some indication of whether people with the more difficult types of cancer will benefit from it?

[Mr Lansley]

My hon. Friend will be aware that in the run-up to the election and since, the Rarer Cancers Forum has mentioned the number of applications to the exceptional cases panels of primary care trusts that have been turned down, and pointed out how often patients in this country have not got access to new cancer medicines that are regularly available to patients in other European countries. That was the basis on which we estimated the level of demand for the cancer drugs fund, and it has actually turned out to be a very good predictor of demand. Patients are now receiving second-line or new medicines for a range of cancers, including prostate and bowel cancer. People with common cancers as well as rarer ones are getting access to new medicines that are increasing their quality of life or life expectancy.

[Liz Kendall (Leicester West) (Lab)]

Today the Prime Minister pledged to increase NHS funding, protect universal coverage and keep waiting times low, but his promises are already being broken on cancer care. Three quarters of the cancer drugs fund is not additional money, as the Secretary of State claims, but money taken from other patients, and half as many new cancer drugs are available in some parts of the country as in others. Whatever he claims, can he now confirm that the number of patients waiting more than six weeks for their diagnostic test, including for cancer, has doubled since this time last year?

[Mr Lansley]

The hon. Lady seems to have forgotten that we were very clear at the time of the election that we would establish the cancer drugs fund not least on the basis that under this Government, the NHS would not have to pay the additional employer’s national insurance contributions that it otherwise would. The money available for the NHS is being used for the benefit of patients, and it represents additional resources.

I might also remind the hon. Lady that before the election, her party was not committed to protecting the NHS budget. The Leader of the Opposition was completely wrong today when he said that Labour was going to protect NHS spending, as we did. That is not true. Actually, it was committed to only 95% of NHS funding, which was that for the PCTs. It was going to cut the rest, and centrally funded budgets such as the cancer drugs fund are precisely what would have disappeared.

The hon. Lady asked about diagnostic tests. The figures show that a year ago, the average waiting time was 1.7 weeks, whereas the latest figure is 1.8 weeks.

[Pat Glass (North West Durham) (Lab)]

12. What recent assessment he has made of the ability of all NHS hospital trusts to become foundation trusts by 2014.

[The Minister of State, Department of Health (Mr Simon Burns)]

The Department is currently in the process of working with strategic health authorities to establish timetables for every NHS trust to achieve foundation trust status by April 2014, and to agree the actions that are required to achieve that. That work is ongoing, and once plans are finalised, they will be published locally.

[Pat Glass]

The Minister will have to make some difficult decisions very soon about specialist children’s heart provision. In my part of the world, the choice will be between the NHS trusts in Newcastle and Leeds. Can he confirm that those decisions will be based on clinical outcomes, not political expediency?

[Mr Burns]

I can give the hon. Lady a categorical assurance that they will be based on clinical outcomes, not political considerations. I hope she will accept that it would be inappropriate for me to say anything further at this point in the proceedings, because we are in the middle of a consultation process at arm’s length from Ministers.

[Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)]

Over the past 12 months, the Peterborough and Stamford Hospitals Foundation Trust has spent thousands of pounds of public money in connection with a vacant site—the former Peterborough district hospital site— and has yet to take it to market, despite having a £38 million deficit this year. Will my right hon. Friend ask Monitor to ensure that trusts make use of, and dispose of, valuable public assets in a timely way, in the best interests of both the taxpayer and the local health economy?

[Mr Burns]

I hope that I can reassure my hon. Friend by giving him a straightforward yes in answer to that question.

[Paul Goggins (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)]

Will the Minister look urgently at what is happening in Trafford? The Trafford Healthcare NHS Trust has decided not to seek foundation status and is looking to transfer its acute services to another local provider. One difficulty with that is the projected funding shortfall of £55 million. Will he take a close interest in that, and seek to resolve the current uncertainty?

[Mr Burns]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for that question. I am aware of that situation and of the problems at that hospital. My understanding is that the strategic health authority is working hard with the trust to seek a solution. That work will continue until a viable solution is found.

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

13. What recent assessment he has made of progress by GP pathfinder consortia in delivering improvements in NHS services.

[The Secretary of State for Health (Mr Andrew Lansley)]

We have taken time to pause, to listen and to reflect on our reforms; none the less I am pleased to report that there remain 220 pathfinder consortia, covering nearly 90% of England. In my hon. Friend’s constituency, the Enfield consortium group is established and is focusing on quality and productivity improvements to local health care services. I have been greatly encouraged by the initiative that clinicians have taken to improve patient services, and examples are available at the pathfinder learning network, a forum through which we are supporting their development.

[Nick de Bois]

My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State knows my view on the need to ensure that there is a comprehensive network of commissioning consortia across the whole country by April 2013. Does he share my view that that essential requirement will not only improve patient choice but ensure that we can pass a further £5 billion in savings back into front-line services?

[Mr Lansley]

Yes, I think my hon. Friend is absolutely right about that. What has been interesting in the listening exercise is the clear expression—on the part of front-line clinicians, general practitioners, doctors, nurses and other health professionals—of a desire to take greater responsibility for commissioning. They are only too aware of a decade of decline in productivity in the NHS, in which administration costs and staffing ballooned while front-line staffing did not increase to anything like the same extent. They want to deliver better clinical services for their patients, and to have the responsibility to do so. We are determined to give that to them.

[Mr Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con)]

14. Whether his Department has considered the merits of introducing a supplemental ultrasound breast screening examination as part of the NHS breast screening programme.

[The Minister of State, Department of Health (Paul Burstow)]

The answer is no. Mammography is the only screening modality that has been proven to reduce mortality from breast cancer, and is supported and promoted by the World Health Organisation’s international agency for research on cancer. Ultrasound screening may be used within the breast screening programme as part of the triple assessment process.

[Mr Brine]

The Minister will be aware that forms of cancer such as lobular breast cancer are far more difficult to detect with a mammogram than other types of breast cancer. Will he perhaps clarify exactly what guidance his Department issues to primary care trusts on the use of ultrasound screening as part of the triple assessment process? Sadly, in the case of my constituent Lindsay Jackson, mammography failed to detect that form of lobular breast cancer.

[Paul Burstow]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his question. The Department does not issue guidance, but the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence does. Its guidance on improving outcomes in breast cancer states that mammography and ultrasound imaging should be available in breast clinics as part of the triple assessment of women with suspected breast cancer. In addition, the guidance states that ultrasound is useful in predicting tumour size and in planning surgery, and that it can complement mammography in differentiating malignant and benign disease. That guidance is the key tool used in making such decisions.

[Gavin Barwell (Croydon Central) (Con)]

15. What recent progress he has made in establishing foundation trusts in London.

[The Secretary of State for Health (Mr Andrew Lansley)]

The Department is currently in the process of working with NHS London to establish timetables for each NHS trust and agree the actions required to achieve foundation trust status by April 2014. This work is ongoing; once it is finalised, plans will be published locally.

[Gavin Barwell]

In 2010-11 Croydon Health Services NHS Trust delivered an operating surplus of £4.5 million. May I commend its FT application to my right hon. Friend in the hope that in future years, that money can be reinvested in local health services in my borough?

[Mr Lansley]

Yes, I understand and entirely sympathise with my hon. Friend’s desire to see Croydon Health Services NHS Trust achieve foundation trust status. He will know that the trust was recently the subject of a responsive review visit by the Care Quality Commission, which revealed areas in which further assurance will be needed ahead of its foundation trust application going forward. He will appreciate, as I do, that in the past foundation trust status did not depend sufficiently on the achievement of high-quality services, rather than merely viable services. We intend that in future, foundation trust status will depend on both.

[Nicky Morgan (Loughborough) (Con)]

17. What steps he is taking to improve mental health services.

[The Minister of State, Department of Health (Paul Burstow)]

Mental health is a cross-government priority. Earlier this year we published our mental health outcomes strategy document “No health without mental health”, to drive up standards in services and improve the nation’s mental health. But this cannot just be a problem for the Government, which is why we are working in partnership with the voluntary sector and the wider community.

[Nicky Morgan]

I thank the Minister for his reply, and I am pleased to hear about the emphasis on mental health. During the recess, I met members of the Charnwood health forum, including Leicestershire’s public health lead for mental health matters. He is concerned that there will be no place for him to advise or work with GP commissioning consortia. Can my hon. Friend reassure him that he will be able to advise GPs?

[Paul Burstow]

Yes, I believe that I can. Directors of public health will be the local leaders for public health in their communities. For example, local authorities and GP commissioning consortia will be required to undertake joint strategic needs assessments and produce joint health and well-being strategies for their areas, through health and well-being boards. The directors of public health will be directly engaged in that process and will therefore be able to influence the commissioning not only of health care services but of social care. They will be directly involved in the commissioning of public health locally.

[Tony Lloyd (Manchester Central) (Lab)]

The Minister will be aware of the proposal to close the Edale unit in central Manchester and open a different facility in north Manchester. Can he give the House, and the country, a guarantee that if that were to take place, financial consideration would be given to the total NHS economy and not simply to the mental health trusts, and that there would be clear benefits for mental health patients?

[Paul Burstow]

The key point that I take from the hon. Gentleman’s question is the importance of ensuring that there are clear benefits for those who rely on mental health services. Obviously, I cannot prejudge any decisions that are being made locally, because they may well come to a Minister for a decision in the future. I will, however, undertake to consider further the point that the hon. Gentleman has raised, and if necessary to write to him with more detail.

[Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)]

18. What assessment he has made of the potential role of (a) competition and (b) co-operation and collaboration in the NHS.

[The Minister of State, Department of Health (Mr Simon Burns)]

Co-operation and competition both have important roles to play in improving services for patients. We want to see better integration of services to improve quality and increase choice for patients. Following the listening exercise, we are awaiting the report on the best way forward.

[Lilian Greenwood]

The Deputy Prime Minister says that he wants Monitor to promote co-operation and collaboration, while the Secretary of State says that competition can lead to a far greater degree of integration. It is good that the Deputy Prime Minister has finally caught up with the views of the public and health professionals—but which of those fundamentally contradictory views will end up in the Bill?

[Mr Burns]

First, we all want co-operation and competition based on quality. We have had a listening event, and we are awaiting the recommendations of the forum set up under Professor Steve Field. Until we see that report, we cannot comment. I can tell the hon. Lady, however, that we do not want the kind of system of competition in the health service that leads to an independent sector treatment centre in Nottingham being paid 18% more than the NHS for the services provided, and getting £5.6 million for not doing a single operation.

[Dr Daniel Poulter (Central Suffolk and North Ipswich) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that a key focus for improving collaboration in the NHS must be to break down the silo working that occurs between adult social services and the NHS? That will be particularly pertinent in improving elderly care services and mental health care services, and in providing a community focus for that care.

[Mr Burns]

Yes—and it is always refreshing to get a question from someone who has had experience of working in the NHS and actually knows what he is talking about. My hon. Friend is absolutely right; greater integration of services is crucial if we are to break down the barriers and get improved, high-quality care for all patients.

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

I was interested to hear the Minister’s earlier answer to my right hon. Friend the Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Paul Goggins) about the situation in Trafford. Will he confirm that he will encourage a collaborative approach, involving the strategic health authority, the primary care trust, the existing foundation trust and the potential bidding foundation trust, to secure the best possible clinical and financial outcome for patients?

[Mr Burns]

Yes, I can tell the hon. Lady that it will be up to the SHA, the trust and officials at the Department—[Interruption.] The SHA is the strategic health authority in the north-west. It is for them to work together to produce a tripartite formal agreement—when agreed, it will be published for the local community to see—as the best way forward to seek solutions and to help trusts achieve foundation trust status. It is in their interest and the interest of patients to bring about improved, high-quality patient care.

[Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)]

19. What steps he is taking to improve mental health services.

[The Minister of State, Department of Health (Paul Burstow)]

May I refer the hon. Gentleman to the answer that I gave to the hon. Member for Loughborough (Nicky Morgan)?

[Henry Smith]

I am grateful for the Minister’s answer to that earlier question. Will he explain more fully exactly how services for those with eating disorders can be enhanced, particularly in the Sussex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust area?

[Paul Burstow]

Yes, the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence will update its guidance on eating disorders later this year. The plans already set out in the Health and Social Care Bill mean that eating disorders will be subject to specialised commissioning in future by the NHS Commissioning Board. We believe that, because of the consolidated expertise in matching needs, this will help to drive up standards and enhance quality and consistency across the country. In the hon. Gentleman’s own patch, the assessment service run by Sussex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust is certainly an impressive one.

[Karl MᶜCartney (Lincoln) (Con)]

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

[The Secretary of State for Health (Mr Andrew Lansley)]

My responsibility is to lead the NHS in delivering improved health outcomes in England, to lead a public health service that improves the health of the nation and reduces health inequalities, and to lead the reform of adult social care, which supports and protects vulnerable people.

[Karl MᶜCartney]

I thank the Secretary of State for that answer. Will my right hon. Friend reassure me, and my Lincoln constituents, that whatever the outcome of the Government’s consultation, our NHS still requires some measure of reform—and that if a provider is qualified to deliver NHS standards at NHS costs, and if patients, with the support of their doctor, want to be treated there, this Government should do nothing to stand in their way, regardless of any political posturing by our flip-flopping coalition partners? [Hon. Members: “ Ooh!”] And further to—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I apologise for having to interrupt the hon. Gentleman, but topical questions must not be statements or essays; they must be very brief questions. I think we have got the thrust of his question, and we are grateful to him.

[Mr Lansley]

Through the listening exercise and in response to the report of the NHS Future Forum, which we hope to see shortly, we hope to be able further to strengthen the principles of the Bill and its implementation of the White Paper, so that patients can share in decisions about their care and access the services that give them the best quality. That includes, in many instances, patients having access to a choice of providers as well.

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

T5. Doctors, nurses and PCT staff in my area tell me that the Government’s pausing of the health reforms has had no impact whatever on the ground, and that implementation of the Health and Social Care Bill is proceeding just as it was before. Does the Secretary of State believe that that is wrong—and if not, does it not mean that this whole consultation period is an absolute farce?

[Mr Lansley]

No, not at all. We were very clear—indeed, I was clear to the House on 4 April when I announced the pause to listen, to reflect on and improve the Bill—that it was specifically related to achieving in the legislation the necessary support for the many changes happening across the NHS. It cannot be right, however, that people across the NHS who are engaging in delivering improved care, redesigning clinical pathways—or designing clinical services to deliver the best outcomes for patients—should be told to stop making those positive changes. They are engaging with those positive changes and we are not preventing them from doing so.

[Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)]

T2. I am wearing neither sandals nor flip-flops, Mr Speaker. Given that local GPs typically charge £500 a day, what action is the Minister taking to ensure that GP consortium board members do not cost the NHS as much as £25,000 each a year for just one day’s work a week?

[Mr Lansley]

Among the intentions that we have made clear from the outset is our intention to reduce the running costs of management in the NHS. We propose to cut administration costs by a third in real terms, including the running costs of the commissioning consortia when they are established. There will be a constantly tight envelope for running costs, which means that whoever is working for a commissioning consortium, it must deliver value for money.

[Hazel Blears (Salford and Eccles) (Lab)]

T7. For the 200,000 people in the country with dementia who are currently in residential care, the recent horrific events at Winterbourne View and the financial problems at Southern Cross have caused huge anxiety. The Minister is now proposing to make local authority safeguarding boards mandatory, at a time of huge cuts in social care budgets. What extra resources will he make available to ensure that the system works and protects the most vulnerable people in our country?

[The Minister of State, Department of Health (Paul Burstow)]

I think that Members throughout the House share the right hon. Lady’s concern about the events that were revealed in more detail last week. We will deal with an urgent question on one of the other matters later this afternoon. She also asked about funding for social care. In last year’s spending review we not only secured additional resources enabling us to put safeguarding boards on a statutory basis, but ensured that by 2014 an additional £2 billion would go into social services. Much of that will come via the NHS to ensure much closer working between health and social care services, which is an essential prerequisite for the delivery of better outcomes for people with dementia.

[Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)]

T4. One of my constituents, a vulnerable young adult with complex needs, was recently sectioned under the Mental Health Act 1983, taken from the family home, and placed in Winterbourne View. The mother was very concerned about her child’s care there, and contacted me. However, I was told by adult social services that I could not know the details of the case because of data protection. When reviewing the regulations involving vulnerable adults, will the Minister ensure that questions from Members of Parliament about such cases can be answered, so that they can stand up for even their most vulnerable constituents without their express written permission?

[Paul Burstow]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for highlighting that issue. I think that Members in all parts of the House experience the same frustration from time to time when they feel that they are unable to discharge their responsibilities on behalf of constituents and obtain the information that they think they need in order to do that job. I will certainly undertake to examine the issue again. Patient confidentiality is complex and we must respect the confidentiality of individual patients, but we should not let that get in the way of ensuring that good-quality care is delivered.

[Mr John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)]

T8. When I asked the Minister about Southern Cross on 2 December, he replied:“The responsibility for providing or arranging publicly supported residential accommodation under section 21 of the National Assistance Act 1948 rests with councils with adult social services (CASSRs), not the Department. Any discussions regarding continuing provision for residents of care homes should take place between care providers and CASSRs.” —[Official Report, 2 December 2010; Vol. 519, c. 1014W.]Does the Minister now regret that complacent and wholly inadequate reply, which lost vital months in which the crisis could have been dealt with?

[Paul Burstow]

No, because it was an accurate statement of the legal position, which is what the question required.

Since these issues became a cause for concern many months ago, the Department of Health has been very much engaged with them at both official and ministerial level. We have also ensured that all parties—the local authorities, the Care Quality Commission and others—are clear about their responsibilities. I should have thought that that was what the hon. Gentleman would expect us to do, and it is what we have done. We are ready for any eventuality.

[Gavin Barwell (Croydon Central) (Con)]

T6. Croydon University hospital recently took on responsibility for community care, which will allow much better integration of acute and community services. What scope does my right hon. Friend think exists for wider application of that model in our NHS?

[Mr Lansley]

As my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister made clear today, we continue to believe that we can achieve more integrated services for patients, and we are determined to do so. That must be at the heart of the way in which reform and modernisation of the NHS deliver improving outcomes for patients. For patients, the results of care, and indeed their experience of it, will be greatly enhanced if it is designed and integrated to meet their needs. We know that that is effective, we know that it works for patients, and we are determined to make it happen. My hon. Friend has given just one example, and an important one, of the way in which hospital and community services can be integrated.

[Mrs Mary Glindon (North Tyneside) (Lab)]

The Prime Minister has stated this afternoon that competition will be an integral part of patient choice. How will the Secretary of State ensure that all patients are able to make a fully informed choice of treatment when market forces fully exist?

[Mr Lansley]

I do not accept the hon. Lady’s premise. We do not intend that there should be an unrestricted market—or a free market, as she described it—in the NHS. It is a regulated, social market with powerful regulations governing how the participants in the provision of care meet their responsibilities. We are very clear that competition is a means to an end. It is not an end in itself; it is there to support the integration and delivery of services in the best interests of patients, but it does include giving patients choice. The hon. Lady highlights an important point. In our consultation earlier this year on the information revolution in the NHS, we set out how we felt we could empower patients, including those for whom in the past the NHS has provided a rather impenetrable route to getting the best treatment. I hope that when we respond to that consultation, we will demonstrate how we will make that better for all patients.

[Nigel Mills (Amber Valley) (Con)]

T10. Does the Minister agree with my constituent Susan Garrity that licensed treatments for multiple sclerosis such as Sativex should be accessible to all people, wherever they live?

[Paul Burstow]

Certainly I agree that MS patients should have access to clinically effective and cost-effective treatments. The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence has not issued any guidance on the use of Sativex, and it is for primary care trusts to make funding decisions based on the available evidence and the individual patients’ circumstances. Following consultation, NICE expects to make a decision later in the year on whether to update its clinical guidance on MS, and whether to re-evaluate Sativex as part of that.

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

There are 12 Southern Cross homes in Aberdeen, nine of which are in my constituency. Just in the past month, one of them, Eastleigh in Peterculter, received a damning report from the Scottish care commission. Is it any wonder that relatives of the people in those homes are concerned that the company that runs them is in financial difficulty, and that the quality of the care provided may suffer as a result? Over the past few years I have also been approached by constituents about self-funders facing unfair cost increases in order that their home might be able to overcome its financial difficulties.

[Paul Burstow]

As I said earlier, the key concern of this Government—and, I think, of all Members—is to ensure the continuity and quality of the care of residents in Southern Cross homes. That has been the purpose of the Government, and of all the other agencies involved, throughout our engagement with Southern Cross. It is also important that the quality inspectorates in both Scotland and England continue to discharge their role of making sure that the essential standards of safety and quality are being maintained.

[Jo Swinson (East Dunbartonshire) (LD)]

As the public health White Paper recognises, building positive self-esteem is important for children’s health and well-being. Yesterday, the Bailey review highlighted many parents’ concerns that exposure to very sexualised imagery in our visual culture fuels children’s anxieties about their bodies and reduces self-esteem. How do the Government plan to tackle that as a growing public health issue?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Anne Milton)]

I thank the hon. Lady for her question. She raises an important point about children’s exposure to such imagery from a variety of media sources. It is crucial for the future public health of our country that children get help and support over this and are able to learn the skills they need, and we are determined to get that right. Many of our plans are laid out in the White Paper, and we look forward to seeing them become a reality.

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

Can the Secretary of State or the Minister confirm whether they will take up the offer from my Front Bench for bipartisan discussions about the future of adult social care—or will he put political interests before the public interest?

[Mr Lansley]

We were very clear that the commission that we established, led by Andrew Dilnot, should look at the reform of long-term social care funding in such a way as to secure maximum understanding, consensus and agreement. Andrew Dilnot has gone about that process in an exemplary manner, and the right thing for us to do now is await his report, which should then form a basis for taking things forward.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

Does the Secretary of State agree that the competition measures in the Health and Social Care Bill will drive up standards and quality outcomes for the NHS?

[Mr Lansley]

I am sure that my hon. Friend is aware of the evidence—for example, in reports published by the London School of Economics and by Imperial college, London—on this country’s experience of the Labour party’s implementation of choice in elective care and the impact that had on the quality of services. What is clear from that evidence is that where there was an NHS price—a tariff structure—the more competitive areas of the country secured greater improvements in quality.

[Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)]

I thank the Secretary of State for writing to me on 12 May about the listening exercise and its cost, although he could not quantify that. Now that the listening exercise is over, can he say how much the cost to the public purse has been?

[Mr Lansley]

I will, by all means, write again to the hon. Lady. The cost is not dramatic. Many organisations and people across the NHS have participated, giving freely of their time. Some 8,000 people have participated in the listening exercise events, of which there were more than 250. This has been immensely valuable; its value far exceeds any costs involved.

[Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con)]

A constituent of mine who suffers from bowel cancer has so far failed to be funded for Avastin on the NHS via the east midlands cancer drugs fund. She has already spent more than £40,000 of her own money. Her oncologist has written before on her behalf to appeal, but as not one of his appeals has been successful, for her or for any of his other patients, he is reluctant to write again to appeal for her, although she desperately needs this. What assurance can the Secretary of State give my constituent and her consultant?

[Mr Lansley]

My hon. Friend is assiduous in representing her constituent, and I will gladly discuss this matter further with her to see what the situation is. I should, however, emphasise that these are decisions being made in the use of the resources to deliver access to new cancer medicines for patients by clinical panels in each region—in each strategic health authority. To that extent, I am not seeking to substitute my judgment for that of the senior clinicians involved. None the less, if it would help my hon. Friend I will also arrange for the national clinical director for cancer services to have a discussion with her constituent’s consultant to examine this case.

[Mr David Ruffley (Bury St Edmunds) (Con)]

The Labour Government paid independent sector treatment centres 11% more, on average, than they were prepared to pay NHS hospitals. Will the Secretary of State confirm that such a practice forms no part of his health reforms?

[The Minister of State, Department of Health (Mr Simon Burns)]

I share my hon. Friend’s concerns, and those of his constituents, about the appalling situation whereby not only were ISTCs paid more than the NHS, but they were paid considerable sums for doing no work at all. It was a sham and a waste of money that could have been spent on front-line services, and I can give him the categorical assurance that it will not happen under this Government, or under my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State.

Winterbourne View Care Home

Tuesday 7th June 2011 Commons Chamber

15:33

[Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)]

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Health to make a statement on the Government’s decision not to hold an external independent inquiry into the abuse of vulnerable adults at Winterbourne View.

[The Minister of State, Department of Health (Paul Burstow)]

Nobody watching the BBC’s “Panorama” programme last week could have been anything but shocked and appalled by the systematic abuse of residents at Winterbourne View. May I, first, extend my deepest sympathies, and those of all of my colleagues in the Government, to those so horribly mistreated and abused, and to their families and loved ones? For the avoidance of doubt, I should say that we have not ruled out an independent inquiry. A criminal investigation is under way and it is important that we do nothing that could prejudice it.

In the coming weeks, the Care Quality Commission will inspect the other 22 hospitals run by Castlebeck and the reports will then be publicly available on CQC’s website. The CQC is also starting a three-month inspection of the 150 hospitals that care for people with learning disabilities, and this will include unannounced inspections. Where it identifies inadequate care, the CQC will require the necessary improvements to be made immediately. South Gloucestershire council will also lead an independently chaired serious case review. I have asked the Department of Health to draw together the findings of these various investigations and ensure that they are completed in a thorough and timely manner. I can also report that Mark Goldring, the chief executive of Mencap, will bring an independent voice and a depth and breadth of knowledge of the needs of people with learning disabilities to the task of drawing conclusions and learning lessons. Once in possession of the full facts, and once the police investigation has concluded, we will be in a position to decide what further action is required.

Since being made aware of the abuse, our priority has been ensuring the safety of patients at Winterbourne View. Fifteen staff have been suspended by Castlebeck and no further patients will be accepted at Winterbourne View. All residents now have a personal advocate and the CQC is working with all the agencies involved to find suitable alternative placements for them, taking into account their specialist needs and the wishes of their families. I issued a full written ministerial statement on these matters at 9.30 this morning.

It is the right of every individual being cared for by others to be treated with dignity and respect and it is the responsibility of those trusted with their care to provide it: a responsibility that weighs most heavily on those who care for the most vulnerable, including those with learning disabilities. This responsibility rests in four places: with the providers themselves, in this case Castlebeck; with commissioners, both primary care trusts and local authorities; with the regulators, including both the Care Quality Commission and the professional regulators, and the CQC has acknowledged it should have acted sooner and issued an unreserved apology; and, of course, with individuals. No training, guidance or management should be needed to tell people that the behaviour experienced by the residents of Winterbourne View was nothing other than obscene and unacceptable.

In future, our proposed HealthWatch organisations will provide a valuable early warning and will be able to ask the CQC to investigate where concerns exist. We intend to put safeguarding adults boards on a statutory footing, helping local authorities, the NHS and the police to work together to safeguard vulnerable adults. We will do everything in our power to prevent incidents such as those at Winterbourne View from happening again and to ensure that, if they do, the system responds quickly and decisively to protect those at risk.

[Emily Thornberry]

The Opposition agree entirely with the sentiments expressed by the hon. Gentleman. It was with great shock and sadness that we saw the terrible events happening, before our eyes, on the television screens. To see the abuse of the most vulnerable by those entrusted with their care was truly shocking and sickening. In the wake of this tragedy, however, vital questions must, in our view, be answered fully and impartially.

Although internal investigations conducted by the CQC and South Gloucestershire council, both of which are directly connected with this failure, will be of some value, they are nevertheless insufficient. We are asking for an independent inquiry similar in nature to the well-respected “Healthcare for all” inquiry, which Sir Jonathan Michael carried out in May 2007. The Government could include in that inquiry experts to work alongside Mark Goldring, such as Professor Jim Mansell, who has already conducted two reviews for the Department of Health into the structure of homes for those with learning disabilities, because the issues raised in his reports are still to be resolved, as this tragic case suggests.

We need full and frank answers. Was the CQC’s failure to monitor the treatment of residents due to the lack of resources? Was it due to the shortage of 300 staff, as reported in the Financial Times last week? Does the CQC have adequate powers to act in cases such as that of Winterbourne View and, if so, is it using its powers appropriately? If not, how must the CQC be strengthened to prevent a repeat of this failure and what actions will the Government take to ensure that staff working in social care are better trained and regulated so that events such as those at Winterbourne View can never be repeated?

Last week, the Minister created confusion with his response. On Tuesday, he seemed to imply that there would be an independent review of the case but by Wednesday he seemed to have changed his mind. Does he now think that internal reviews will be sufficient to answer the questions? I hear what he says about sub judice and the police inquiry, but we are not asking for an inquiry into individual culpability. We are asking for an independent inquiry into the failure of the system, for that inquiry to begin immediately and for there to be no delays. We need assurances that there will be a wide-ranging review, held in public, that will shine a light on the terrible events at Winterbourne View. Only an independent inquiry will do.

[Paul Burstow]

Of course, we need to ensure a full and thorough inquiry into all these matters, which is being undertaken in the serious case review, which will be chaired independently, and in the work of the CQC. That will go on as the Department brings together all the different reviews and that is why we are very pleased that Mark Goldring will take part in the process.

The hon. Lady suggests that there was confusion last week, but the confusion was only that which she sought to spread. We were very clear from the outset that we wanted to examine all the results from all the different inquiries, and that is what we are doing. We are not ruling out any further inquiries, but we want to ensure that the processes that are in hand are concluded and that we make judgments with the full facts available.

[Mr Stephen Dorrell (Charnwood) (Con)]

May I welcome my hon. Friend’s announcements to the House this afternoon? Does he agree that although there has quite properly been a lot of focus on the CQC—Dame Jo Williams accepts that there have been quite clear failures in its supervision of the home—there are also some difficult questions to be answered, particularly by the commissioners of the care? What were they doing paying for care that clearly was not to the required standard? Equally importantly, there are some important questions for the professional regulatory bodies to answer. Did no doctor ever go into the home? If they did, what conclusions did they draw? Where were the nursing regulators in this case?

[Paul Burstow]

My right hon. Friend poses a number of questions that are at the heart of the various current inquiries. He is right to say that to focus solely on the CQC is to miss the point, as the primary responsibility rests with the provider organisation to recruit, train and supervise the right staff in the first place. He is also absolutely right to ask about the role of the commissioners and the professional regulators. Those are the issues that we are looking at and will examine, and I will come back to the House with answers in due course.

[Mr Michael Meacher (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab)]

As the CQC has been forced, by Government cuts, to reduce its inspections by no less than 70%, how are the Government going to prevent similar abuses from occurring elsewhere and going uninspected and undiscovered unless someone happens to blow the whistle or offer undercover photographic evidence?

[Paul Burstow]

Let me start by addressing the whistleblowing issue. Terry Bryan, the whistleblower in this case, is to be applauded for his tenacity in pursuing it. The Government have been clear about the need to strengthen the arrangements and safeguards for whistleblowers, because that is an essential first way in which we can make sure that the system protects those who are vulnerable. The right hon. Gentleman suggests that the Government have in some way cut the number of inspections, but he should reflect back to 2008 when his Government introduced the current mandate for the CQC and changed the basis on which it would inspect. That is what led to the changed inspection system. Perhaps he should ask some questions about that as well.

[Mr Robert Buckland (South Swindon) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the model of large-scale institutionalised provision for people with learning difficulties is now broken and that we should support even more moves towards personalised and supported care close to the families and loved ones of people with learning difficulties?

[Paul Burstow]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point. The move towards personalisation and greater supported living is undoubtedly the direction that we wish to move in. That was started by the previous Government and we have been continuing it. We have made a massive transfer of resources from the NHS to local authorities to support that very transfer of responsibility, which is undoubtedly the way to deliver better results for individuals.

[Mr Dennis Skinner (Bolsover) (Lab)]

Is it not self-evident that if there were a full inquiry we would be able to hear about the owners and the people who make money out of these business ventures—businesses such as Lydian Capital Partners, which owns Winterbourne View, and people such as J. P. McManus and John Magnier, who have rubbed shoulders in royal circles? Is it not ironic that those two billionaire Irishmen, at the same time as the British people are bailing out the Irish economy, are making misery for disabled people by inflicting the damage they have caused and are making money in the process?

[Paul Burstow]

In my public statements and in my statement today, I have made it clear that the spotlight needs to be shone just as clearly on the provider organisation in this case, and not just on the CQC. That will be my continued intention as we pursue this matter to its conclusion.

[Dr Sarah Wollaston (Totnes) (Con)]

Will the Minister address the question of how long these vulnerable people were filmed being abused, because that simply would not have been tolerated if they were children?

[Paul Burstow]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. I do not know the answer to the question of how long the people were filmed before the whistle was blown again by “Panorama”. However, it is an important point that will undoubtedly become clearer as we come on to the details of the inquiry.

[Glenda Jackson (Hampstead and Kilburn) (Lab)]

I endorse the Minister’s praise for the whistleblower in this horrific case, but may I remind him that he blew the whistle three times to the Care Quality Commission, which did precisely nothing? What are the Government doing to ensure that such a situation can never arise again?

[Paul Burstow]

The local authority was notified in the same way, so there are a number of agencies at which we need to look carefully and critically, and that is what the independently chaired serious case review will do. That is what the review by the CQC is about, and we will pull all those reviews together. If there are any gaps in the information that comes from that process, we will make sure that they are filled. However, the key thing is that lessons are learned along the way and changes are made straight away.

[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)]

Further to what the hon. Member for Hampstead and Kilburn (Glenda Jackson) said, given that the CQC clearly ignored the advice it was given, there should be resignations at the highest level—the buck has to stop somewhere.

[Paul Burstow]

I am afraid that I am not going to agree with the hon. Gentleman today that we should call for anyone’s head. I want the heads of that organisation to be relentless in pursuing the questions that hon. Members have asked today and which I have asked since this came to light about why failures occurred—not just the CQC’s acknowledged failure but failures by others in allowing this to go on for the time it did. I am not calling for resignations, but I am calling for action and resolution. Learning should take place, and there should be change as a result of that learning.

[Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)]

The Minister has rightly addressed the issue of whistleblowers. Will he assure us that there will be protection for whistleblowers in future, whether they are relatives or staff, so that they have the confidence to act? In relation to staffing issues, are any of the inquiries making any assessment of whether there is a correlation between shift lengths and pay rates and the poor care in some of those institutions?

[Paul Burstow]

Again, those are all matters that need to be properly considered and weighed up in the reviews and that the Department will want to make sure is part of the overall report. When that work concludes, we will report to the House and make sure that the information is available to all hon. Members so that they can assess it and make their own judgments. It is certainly the Government’s intention to strengthen the protections on whistleblowing. We are consulting on how that might be given effect, and I urge the hon. Gentleman to contribute to the consultation.

[Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)]

Does the Minister envisage that putting safeguarding adults boards on a statutory footing would help care home residents, their families and all those concerned; and would bring these incidents to light and, indeed, to a halt sooner in future?

[Paul Burstow]

It is essential to establish a statutory basis for safeguarding adults boards, but it is not sufficient, as other issues must be addressed in the review, which is why various aspects of the work are progressing. However, it is right that we should respond quickly to the Law Commission, which recommends that we should put the boards on a statutory basis, and that is what we will do when legislation is introduced.

[Malcolm Wicks (Croydon North) (Lab)]

If, as is often said almost as a cliché, a test of a civilised society is how we care for the most vulnerable—sadly, it is likely that Winterbourne is not an isolated example, and that even today many frail elderly people, often with dementia, and people with mental illnesses or learning difficulties are being abused and neglected—we must all think hard about how to move forward. Strong and unannounced inspections are clearly a significant part of the answer, but are there ways in which we can involve local communities and concerned citizens in safeguarding the well-being of people in homes—often private homes? If around every home there were two or three citizens who had rights to enter and could befriend some of the people there, that might be another way in which the community could add to the statutory services to try to prevent occurrences in future.

[Paul Burstow]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his question. We must acknowledge that there will never be a time when there is an inspector in every room of every care home for every minute of every day. We must therefore make sure that the systems in place are robust, and that organisations are recruiting the right people and delivering the right training and supervision. However, the right hon. Gentleman’s point about the involvement of the community is spot-on. That is why we are proposing the establishment of HealthWatch and why we see that as an opportunity for citizens to become involved in the provision and scrutiny of health and social care in their communities.

[Margot James (Stourbridge) (Con)]

Very often a whistleblower is the vital link that people in such vulnerable circumstances have with the outside world, so I am pleased to hear that that will be a big part of the review. I have written to the chairman of the CQC to ask how many such whistleblower complaints were made in the past 12 months but not been followed up. The data are essential. May I have the Minister’s assurance that the review will find out that information?

[Paul Burstow]

My hon. Friend draws attention to an area that we need to look at as part of the various aspects of the work that I described to the House today. Although I do not know the basis on which such data are collected by the CQC, I undertake to look at what data are available.

[Ms Gisela Stuart (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab)]

I accept the Minister’s logic in not asking for heads to roll ahead of the report of the independent inquiry, but will he give the House an undertaking that once he has asked the questions and received the answers, he will not shy away from allocating responsibility and will do what the NHS is usually very bad at—allocating responsibility at some stage and asking people to resign?

[Paul Burstow]

I think I will say yes to that, but I want to make it clear that I am not answering in the context of hypotheticals. I do not know the conclusions of the exercise, and Ministers who come to the Dispatch Box and promise that things will never happen again are all too often and too soon proven wrong. We must make sure that we do everything we can to learn lessons from this to minimise the risks in the future, and we need to make sure that responsibility and accountability are at the heart of the reforms that the Government are making to health and social care.

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

The Minister is right to say that we need to learn lessons from this, but how long will it take us? The CQC has admitted inspecting Winterbourne View three times in the past two years. The South Gloucestershire safeguarding board was informed in October, but apparently took no action before the programme was aired on television. This is not the first such scandal. When I was first elected, one of the first things I did was to persuade the Department of Health to commission the Bergner report into the Longcare home scandal on the borders of my constituency —a similar huge institution in which residents were raped, abused and tortured by the people who were given care of them. It seems to me that it is not just the individual institutions but Government who need to learn the lesson. How much money is the Minister putting into advocates and listeners of the volunteer kind mentioned by my right hon. Friend the Member for Croydon North (Malcolm Wicks), or of the professional kind, so that the voices of those who cannot always speak for themselves are heard in the inspection process?

[Paul Burstow]

I mentioned in my statement that each of the individuals who have been affected in this terrible way have advocates. The hon. Lady makes an important point about the role that advocacy plays for those who lack capacity or the ability in certain circumstances to advocate on their own behalf. We are looking at that as part of the overall reforms of health and social care, but as for a precise sum of money, I do not have a figure in my head that I can give her now. I will write to her on that point.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

My elderly constituent, Mr Ivor Needs, has been looking after his vaccine-damaged son, Matthew, for many, many years. Ever since I became an MP, he has been expressing concern to me about what will eventually happen to Matthew when he is no longer able to look after him. How can we reassure people such as Mr Needs that the Government are pulling out all the stops and doing all they can to ensure that care homes in the Bristol and south Gloucestershire area will be fit for purpose and a fit place for him to entrust the care of his son?

[Paul Burstow]

I entirely understand that question. I suspect the hon. Lady speaks for many who saw the programme and therefore fear for their loved ones who may be in other institutions. That is why we have to act in a thorough and thoughtful way, why we have to act quickly, and why the various processes that I described today are the best way to reach conclusions quickly. Because of the separate criminal inquiry, a separate independent inquiry would not be able to start until those judicial processes had been completed. That is why we want the internal processes to go forward. We have provided external scrutiny to make sure that they deliver what we all want—greater assurance that the system will deliver the best quality care for our loved ones.

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

The Minister has stated that there cannot be an inspector in every bedroom, and that is why he and hon. Members across the House this afternoon have acknowledged the vital role of whistleblowers in protecting vulnerable adults. Will he speak to colleagues in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills to ensure that any changes to employment law do not make it more difficult for people to blow the whistle, especially new employees who often see a service through fresh eyes and therefore see faults that others have grown used to?

[Paul Burstow]

I will certainly have those discussions, and I would add that there is another area that we need to focus on, and that is the training and development of the work force. That is why just two weeks ago I announced not just a work force development strategy, but additional new resources to underpin that strategy for all providers to enable them to ask Skills for Care for the resources to develop their work force.

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

Will the Minister also look at the vetting and barring scheme in this country, and in particular have regard to the provisions in the Protection of Freedoms Bill, which is going through the House at the moment, that will remove millions of people who work with vulnerable adults from the thorough background checks that the Independent Safeguarding Authority carries out at the moment?

[Paul Burstow]

I will take away that point, reflect upon it and write to the hon. Lady rather than give her an off-the-cuff answer of any sort.

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

Like my right hon. Friend the Member for Croydon North (Malcolm Wicks), I too believe that we are kidding ourselves if we think that this is a one-off and it is not happening day in, day out. There will be vulnerable adults living in their own homes today, behind locked doors, who are in fear of the carers who are paid to look after them. Might not another way of getting an eye into the locked environment be the use of telecare to make sure that someone outside is aware of what is happening in these locked institutions?

[Paul Burstow]

I would not want to give the impression that we would see that as a substitute for any of the other points that have been made on this urgent question today, but undoubtedly telecare, telemedicine and assisted technologies have their part to play, both in improving the quality of care and increasing independence for individuals. That is why the Government support that as part of the way in which we see the future for social care unfolding.

[Catherine McKinnell (Newcastle upon Tyne North) (Lab)]

A recent Tyne Tees television report uncovered cases of appalling abuse and neglect in the north-east that are now being investigated, and the staff in those cases reported dreadful treatment from their employers, not just losing their jobs but having their professional reputation smeared. Will the Minister please elaborate today as there will be workers who are aware of abuse but are in fear of their jobs, who could report abuse if they had some reassurance today of the changes that the Government are looking to make to protect vulnerable workers?

[Paul Burstow]

The first thing I would say is that if anyone sees criminal activity of the sort that took place at Winterbourne View, they should blow the whistle on it. There is no if or but about that. The Government have consulted and we are looking at the responses to the consultation on whistleblowing. I am not in a position to elaborate further, but it is absolutely vital that people feel able and safe enough to come forward if they have concerns about neglect, abuse or poor-quality care.

Middle East and North Africa

Tuesday 7th June 2011 Commons Chamber

15:59

[The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr William Hague)]

With permission, Mr Speaker, I would like to make a statement on north Africa and the middle east. On Saturday I visited Benghazi with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for International Development. We went to show our support for the people of Libya and their legitimate representatives, the national transitional council. Our overriding impression was of a great sense of optimism among ordinary Libyans, who are hopeful that Gaddafi will leave and deeply grateful for what the United Kingdom has done. I pay tribute to the brave men and women of our armed forces and to our diplomats and aid workers in Benghazi for their courageous work.

Benghazi is functioning well under the circumstances, with police visible on the streets, many shops and restaurants open and food staples in good supply. We also noted a dramatic expansion of civil society groups, which rightly see themselves as one of the key building blocks of a free Libya.

The UK’s approach is as I have set out many times before. We continue to take robust action to implement UN Security Council resolution 1973, which authorises military action to put in place a no-fly zone to prevent air attacks on the Libyan people and all necessary measures to stop attacks on civilians while ruling out an occupation force. The case for this action remains utterly compelling.

Operating strictly within the limits of the UN resolution, we are steadily intensifying the military, economic and diplomatic pressure on the Gaddafi regime. We have increased the tempo of air strikes against regime forces, which are currently taking place at a rate of approximately 50 strike missions per day and include the targeting of military command and control sites in Tripoli, regime tanks, artillery, rocket launchers and armoured fighting vehicles. Nearly 10,000 sorties have been carried out since 31 March, including more than 3,700 strike sorties, on top of operations to disrupt regime military activity and arms shipments at sea. On 1 June the North Atlantic Council agreed unanimously to extend NATO’s operations for a further 90 days from 27 June.

It is right that we ensure that our military operations are as effective as possible and that we adapt our tactics as the regime forces change theirs. Last week Britain deployed Apache helicopters to operations in Libya, alongside French helicopters, which is enabling the precise and potent targeting of regime forces.

The Gaddafi regime is isolated and on the defensive. Last week a number of senior military officers abandoned it, including five generals. The head of the National Oil Corporation also recently fled Libya. On 17 May, Arabsat joined European satellite companies in suspending Libyan state television broadcasts, a significant blow to Gaddafi’s ability to carry out psychological warfare, and we press all satellite companies to take similar action.

British humanitarian support has already played a vital role in Libya. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for International Development has announced further assistance to protect 200,000 people in Misrata and elsewhere from land mines. We have deployed an international stabilisation response team to Benghazi, which is leading the international effort to plan detailed assistance for Libya when the conflict comes to an end, ensuring that clear plans are in place for the international community to support. Separately, we are providing additional communications equipment, uniforms and bullet-proof vests to help the national transitional council develop responsible security forces and to protect civilians.

In our meetings, we found the NTC focused on Libya’s future. It has published a road map for the transition to democracy, with an interim Government including some technocratic members of the regime and elections. We have advised the NTC to develop its proposed transition in more detail to ensure that comprehensive plans are in place.

Any political settlement in Libya requires an end to violence and Gaddafi’s departure. At the G8 summit in Deauville on 26 May, participants, including Russia, agreed that Gaddafi has lost all legitimacy and must go. On 11 May, at the Foreign Affairs Council, the EU agreed to intensify efforts to block the regime’s access to resources, funding, military hardware and mercenaries. Today the EU has added six regime-controlled port authorities in western Libya to the EU sanctions lists. This will help prevent the regime acquiring military resources and will support the protection of Libyan civilians.

The next meeting of the Libya contact group will take place on Thursday in the United Arab Emirates, where Britain will call for all this international pressure to be intensified and maintained. The House should be in no doubt that the efforts of Britain and our partners are saving lives and enforcing UN resolutions. Had we not acted, the bloodshed would have been far greater and the consequences for Libya’s neighbours and the entire region would have been extremely serious.

The Gaddafi regime is not the only Government seeking to suppress peaceful protest. Scores of people were killed in Syria over the weekend after demonstrations involving tens of thousands of people. Members on both sides of the House will have been horrified by the killing of many children and the death of 13-year-old Hamza al-Khateeb, who was allegedly tortured. The regime is using live fire against protestors and blocking UN efforts to get help to those in need. There have been reports overnight that a number of security force personnel have been killed in the town of Jisr al-Shughour, close to the Turkish border, and we call for restraint in response to this incident.

Since my previous statement, our efforts to agree EU sanctions against President Assad and other individuals responsible for the violence and repression in Syria have been successful. We are exploring with our European partners the potential for further sanctions if the violence continues.

Britain has circulated a draft UN Security Council resolution condemning the repression in Syria and calling for the Syrian Government to meet their people’s legitimate demands, to release all prisoners of conscience, to lift restrictions on the media and internet and to co-operate with the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. The House will appreciate that a resolution is not in our gift and needs the support of nine UN Security Council members and no vetoes. We are working to persuade other countries that the Security Council has a responsibility to speak out. President Assad is losing legitimacy and should reform or step aside.

We must show the same resolve and purpose in supporting change and democratic development elsewhere in the region, using, for example, the economic appeal of the EU to act as a magnet for positive change in the region. We welcome the review of the European neighbourhood policy, issued on 25 May. It includes many British proposals and follows weeks of intensive engagement by Ministers, including the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister. It offers a new partnership based on progressively greater economic integration, including trade, and increased funding for the southern neighbourhood of €750 million. It links EU support with progress on political and economic reform, and it includes a civil society facility and a European endowment for democracy to help fund new political parties and small non-governmental organisations.

The G8 summit agreed the Deauville partnership, which will provide more than $20 billion in vital assistance to Tunisia and Egypt and to countries that commit to more open and democratic government, and in February I announced Britain’s new Arab partnership initiative to support civil society and democratic development in the region, with initial funding of £5 million. The Prime Minister announced at the G8 summit that we will increase that funding more than twentyfold, expanding it to £110 million over four years.

The fund will provide support for lasting political and economic reform through the building blocks of democracy: independent institutions, political pluralism, free media and economic opportunity. It includes up to £40 million to work with Parliaments, civil society, human rights groups and reforming Governments, and up to £70 million to support growth and tackle the fundamental problems that leave so many millions of young people throughout the region without a job. This is in our vital national interest as well as true to our values.

Tunisia has made significant progress towards a more democratic society, but there is a risk of political reform being destabilised by economic challenges. In Egypt there have been further demonstrations calling for faster political and economic reforms and a revised electoral timetable. We are concerned that planned parliamentary elections in September will be too early to allow political parties to organise their activity and to contest the elections. The Prime Minister and I have pressed the Egyptian authorities to ensure an open and plural election process.

The situation in Yemen is extremely uncertain following President Saleh’s departure to Saudi Arabia to receive medical treatment and his transfer of authority to the Vice-President. We urge the Vice-President to work closely with all sides to implement the Gulf Co-operation Council agreement and to begin political transition now. Yemen faces huge humanitarian and economic challenges, and the Yemeni Government need to dedicate all their efforts to confront the impending crisis, with international support.

Recent events have shown just how quickly the security situation in Yemen can deteriorate into ferocious and unpredictable fighting. It is of the utmost importance that all British nationals leave the country immediately by commercial means while it is still possible to do so, as we have advised them to do since 12 March. I warn again that it will be extremely unlikely that the British Government will be able to evacuate British nationals from Yemen.

We are also concerned about developments in Bahrain, particularly the arrest and trial of a large number of politicians, doctors and nurses and the allegations of torture. I raised our concern and the need for the Bahraini Government to meet all their human rights obligations when I saw the Crown Prince of Bahrain last month. I also emphasised the need for a long-term political solution that builds bridges between the different religious communities.

I welcome the lifting of the state of national safety on 1 June and the announcement by the King of Bahrain that a comprehensive and inclusive national dialogue will start on 1 July. Urgent dialogue on genuine political reform is the only way to address the legitimate concerns of the Bahraini people and to ensure long-term stability.

With a month to go before South Sudanese independence on 9 July, we have made strong representations about the violence in Abyei and southern Kordofan. I met the Sudanese Foreign Minister yesterday and urged a peaceful and durable solution for Abyei and agreement on outstanding areas of the comprehensive peace agreement. This is only more urgent following the very worrying reports received just this morning of renewed fighting in southern Kordofan. We are in touch with the UN mission in Sudan and monitoring these developments closely. I urge both sides to cease all hostilities immediately and to return to negotiations under the auspices of the African Union.

The Arab spring underlines the importance of a breakthrough on the middle east peace process. This long-standing conflict needs to be resolved, through negotiations, to give the Palestinian people the state that they need and deserve and the Israeli people long-term security and peace. The status quo is not sustainable, nor will these populations be immune from the effects of change and instability elsewhere. We strongly support President Obama’s recent statement that negotiations should be on the basis of 1967 lines with mutually agreed land swaps and proper security arrangements, and along with France and Germany we are pressing the parties to return to the table.

The new Palestinian Authority should be composed of independent figures on the basis that President Abbas set out on 4 May. As was the case with the outgoing authority, it should uphold the principle of non-violence, be committed to a negotiated two-state solution, and accept previous agreements of the Palestine Liberation Organisation. Hamas will remain a proscribed terrorist organisation unless and until it abandons violence and commits to a two-state solution, and we call again for the immediate release of Gilad Shalit. The UK will judge a future Palestinian Government by their actions and their readiness to work for peace. We are also concerned by this weekend’s violence in the Golan heights, resulting in many deaths, and we continue to urge restraint and call for the avoidance of the lethal use of force.

There must also be no let-up in our efforts to prevent nuclear proliferation in the middle east. Iran is combining brutal suppression of Opposition leaders at home with the provision of equipment and technical advice to help the Syrian regime to crush protests in Syria. This is unacceptable, and compounds our concern about Iran’s behaviour and its intentions over its nuclear programme. We support peaceful pressure on Iran to persuade it to negotiate, backed by the offer by the UK, the US, Russia, China, France and Germany to reach an agreement through talks. That is why the UK has recently helped to extend Iran sanctions in the EU, with over 100 new designations, while keeping the door open to further negotiations. Until Iran negotiates seriously, international pressure against it will only increase.

In all these countries, Britain’s approach in the coming months will be consistent and determined. We will support greater economic and political freedom while anticipating and addressing threats to our own security, and we will work with our allies to protect our nation’s interests while standing up for the highest values of our society.

[Mr Douglas Alexander (Paisley and Renfrewshire South) (Lab)]

I thank the Foreign Secretary for his statement and for advance sight of it.

Let me begin my remarks with Libya. The mission to enforce Security Council resolution 1973 continues to have the support of the Opposition, but, as has been the case from the start, we will continue carefully to scrutinise the Government’s policy towards Libya. The brave and professional work of our armed forces in Libya has already helped to avert a slaughter in Benghazi and continues to provide vital support to the Libyan people, and I am sure that I speak for the whole House in saying that they continue to have the support of every Member of this House.

It has been clear from the outset that this conflict was always going to be easier to start than to finish. I therefore note all that the Foreign Secretary has said about post-conflict planning and, in particular, the work of the transitional national council, which is now producing a road map towards a more democratic future post-Gaddafi. Could he give the House a sense of the time scale by which further documentation might be available and what assessment he has made of the TNC’s capability to meet the challenges set out in this plan? Can I take it from his words this afternoon that in addition to our significant military commitments, the United Kingdom, in the form of the international stabilisation response team, is now also in the lead in developing the international community’s post-conflict planning?

On the Apaches, I think it is a matter of record that the French Defence Minister, Gérard Longuet, announced the British deployment before it was confirmed to this House. Does the Foreign Secretary agree that it is a matter of regret when French Ministers seem better informed about the deployment of British military personnel than the British Parliament?

I welcome what the Foreign Secretary has said about the increased pressure on the regime, but given the continuing limited capacity of the opposition forces to make broader strategic gains within Libya, by what means does he think the pressure can and will be increased in the weeks ahead?

Let me turn to events in Syria. I associate myself with the Foreign Secretary’s condemnation of the actions of the Assad regime thus far, and with what President Obama said recently:

“The Syrian government must stop shooting demonstrators and allow peaceful protests; release political prisoners and stop unjust arrests; allow human rights monitors to have access to cities like Dara’a; and start a serious dialogue to advance a democratic transition.”

Will the Foreign Secretary update the House on the regime’s efforts to shut down internet and mobile networks in parts of Syria? What work, if any, is under way in the United Kingdom to support people in countries such as Syria, whose freedom of expression is being restricted in that way?

Given the welcome work that is under way at the United Nations, will the Foreign Secretary provide the House with an assessment of the prospects for securing support among the P5 members for a resolution on Syria? What impact does he judge the action in Libya has had on those prospects? Will he tell the House whether consideration is being given to referring Syria’s leaders to the International Criminal Court? Does he agree that the European Union can further strengthen such pressure? The EU can and should be looking at further sanctions on the regime, irrespective of what is or is not agreed at the Security Council. What discussions have the Government held with the Arab League on Syria, given its regrettable silence to date on that issue?

The situation in Bahrain continues to be deeply concerning. I reiterate our belief that the legitimate demands of protesters should be met with reform and not repression. Will the Foreign Secretary therefore give the House more details on the points that he and the Prime Minister made to the Crown Prince of Bahrain at the end of his recent visit to London? Did they raise the issue of military courts continuing to dispense summary justice? Did they raise the cases of the hundreds of protesters who have been jailed and the 90 or so who have been killed or simply disappeared? If they did raise those questions, what answers did they receive? What answers did they receive on the sharpening polarisation between communities within Bahrain?

In that context, what discussions have taken place between the Government and the governing body of Formula 1, the FIA, about its recent decision to reinstate the Bahrain grand prix in October? Will the Foreign Secretary confirm that now is not the time to decide on that event, especially given the need for restraint, reform and reconciliation to be the focus in Bahrain in the months ahead?

When I visited Tunisia recently, a number of senior figures in the transitional Government and the fledgling political parties felt that the European Union had not come up with an assistance package to match the scale of the task on which they have embarked. Will the Foreign Secretary therefore update the House on what steps Britain is taking to ensure that more comprehensive offers than those that have been outlined are made to Tunisia and Egypt to help them on the path to democracy and to assist in their economic development?

I concur with the Foreign Secretary’s concern that September is too early to ensure that all political parties in Egypt have sufficient time to organise their activities and contest the elections. Following the work of my right hon. Friend the shadow Secretary of State for International Development to highlight this issue, how confident is the Foreign Secretary that the place of women in Egyptian society will be advanced and not set back by the constitutional settlement that is under construction?

Given our vital interest in the emergence of broader based democratic, prosperous countries across the middle east, how does the Foreign Secretary respond to the report by the Institute of International Finance, which predicts that Egypt’s economy will contract by 2.5%? Inflation is now above 12% and unemployment is up this year. According to Reuters, the country’s foreign exchange reserves fell by as much as a third in the first three months of the year. Newspaper estimates suggest that $30 billion have left Egypt since the start of the revolution. Given that the Deauville partnership of which he spoke applies not to one country but to the whole region, and given the scale of the capital flight, does he really feel that the World Bank’s package of $1 billion in each of the next two years and the International Monetary Fund’s loan of $3 billion are adequate? Can he really assure the House that he is confident that the international community’s response is appropriate to the opportunity and the risk of the present moment in the middle east?

There have been significant developments in relation to Israel and Palestine over the last few weeks, to which the Foreign Secretary alluded. I welcome the US President’s decision to reaffirm his country’s long-standing support for a two-state solution based on 1967 borders and mutually agreed land swaps. Last week’s clashes on the Israel border and the Golan heights, in which a number of protestors were killed or injured, were deeply concerning. Israel of course has a right to protect its borders, but can the Foreign Secretary tell the House what the Foreign Office is doing to ensure that Governments on both sides of those borders do everything they can to avoid provocations and escalations that make it harder to find peace? After the President’s speech in the United States and his speech to parliamentarians here in Westminster Hall, can the Foreign Secretary update us on any further discussions that he has had with Secretary of State Clinton on how, in practical terms, the United States and the UK will push for progress on the issue in the coming months? In addition—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I think the shadow Secretary of State is approaching his last sentence.

[Mr Alexander]

I am indeed.

In addition, given the widespread discussion that the Palestinians plan to argue for statehood at the United Nations later this year, can the Foreign Secretary give his assessment of, first, where European Union allies are on that issue and, secondly, when the UK Government intend to come to a final view on the matter?

[Mr Hague]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for that wide range of questions. There are many subjects within the topic of the middle east and north Africa. I am grateful to him, of course, for joining me in paying tribute to the work of our armed forces, diplomats and aid workers, and for reaffirming what we said together in the House on 21 March—that we needed to avert slaughter in Benghazi. The action that we took did so, and that has been the foundation of the unity of this House on the conflict in Libya. We continue to be grateful for that.

The right hon. Gentleman asked about the time scale for the national transitional council producing more detail. I hope that it will do so at the contact group meeting in Abu Dhabi this week, and that it will take every further opportunity to publicise a more detailed programme for the process of transition in Libya. What it has already produced is absolutely sound, and we can support it, but it needs the added credibility of detail to be ready for Gaddafi’s departure.

The right hon. Gentleman is right in assuming that the work done by the stabilisation response team, which my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for International Development and I visited in Benghazi on Saturday, means that Britain is in the lead in post-conflict planning. We met Italian and Turkish experts who are also working with the team there, but we are certainly playing a leading role.

The right hon. Gentleman asked about the reference by a French Minister to the deployment of our helicopters. As my right hon. Friend the Defence Secretary would tell him, the decision had not been taken in the United Kingdom at that time, although it was clearly assumed in other capitals. That has been known to happen before on other subjects, and I have no doubt it will happen again.

The increasing pressure on the regime comes in all the ways that I set out in my statement. It is military, economic and diplomatic, and it is having its effect. There is no doubt that the regime has lost the initiative both in the military campaign and on the political scene in Libya in recent weeks, as a result of what we have been doing.

As for the right hon. Gentleman’s questions about Syria and internet use, this has been another unacceptable aspect of the Syrian Government’s behaviour in closing down freedom of expression however they can. We will always do what we can to protect people’s freedom of expression, but of course we are not universally able to do so in every county of the world. In the P5 on the Security Council, Russia and China have strong reservations about a UN Security Council resolution on Syria. Russia in particular has expressed those reservations and some hostility to a resolution. We continue to work on the matter at the Security Council.

The right hon. Gentleman asked about a possible reference to the International Criminal Court, but he will be aware that in the case of a country that is not a party to the ICC, as with Syria, such a reference would require a UN Security Council resolution. As we are not able at the moment to pass a resolution on the terms that I described, we are clearly also unable to pass a resolution on a reference to the ICC. The European Union is considering additional sanctions, as he called for, and I discussed the position with the Arab League when I was in Cairo a few weeks ago. However, Arab nations have more divided loyalties than they had in the case of Libya, so there is not the same degree of Arab League unity. We have to face up to that fact.

The Prime Minister and I raised with the Crown Prince of Bahrain all the subjects that the shadow Foreign Secretary asked about. For his part, the Crown Prince is very keen for a national dialogue to be resumed and to mobilise moderate voices in Bahrain on both sides of what is, unfortunately, a very sharp sectarian divide. Formula 1 must take responsibility for its decisions, but if such an event is to take place, it should be a focus for improvements in Bahrain, and provide an incentive for all in that country to work together on a national dialogue. However, Formula 1 must make its own decisions.

The shadow Foreign Secretary asked about several vital matters on Egypt and was quite right to draw attention to the very serious economic situation. In fact, the main conclusion that I drew from visiting Egypt a few weeks ago is that the economic challenge is, if anything, even bigger than the political challenge. Although the measures announced at the G8 and by the EU might have to be revised and expanded over time, they are an ambitious start. It is important that EU nation states follow up with real determination what the Commission has said. The risk of the policy that the EU has announced not being followed through is that nation states will say, “Well, market access for products from north Africa is not so easy,” and will not follow through on the commitments. We must be a strong voice for following that up, for implementing the support for civil society, human rights and the diversity of politics in those countries, and for helping the creation of liberal and secular parties. Part and parcel of that is the great importance of the strong participation of women in society and politics in Egypt and other north African countries, to which the shadow Foreign Secretary drew attention.

On the middle east peace process, of course we are active in urging all sides to avoid provocations. We are in constant touch with France, Germany and the US in encouraging both sides back into negotiations on the back of President Obama’s speech. In my view, the strength of our case would be added to by a statement by the Quartet to follow the US statement. We have asked the US in addition to support that.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. A great many hon. and right hon. Members are seeking catch my eye, but I just remind the House that Members who entered the Chamber after the Foreign Secretary began his statement should not expect to be called.

[Richard Ottaway (Croydon South) (Con)]

I welcome the Foreign Secretary’s statement and congratulate him on his visit to Benghazi with the International Development Secretary, which was right and timely.

There is a gap between the humanitarian nature of resolution 1973 and the stated aim of removing Gaddafi. Russia’s shift of position means that a further UN resolution on Libya is conceivable. Does the Foreign Secretary believe that such a further resolution is necessary?

[Mr Hague]

The resolution on Libya is now nearly three months old, and circumstances have developed since then. My hon. Friend is right to point to the fact that it has been hard to adapt the resolution because of a lack of agreement on the Security Council to do so. We will continue to search for agreement on, for instance, adapting the sanctions regime, which of course requires unanimity in the sanctions committee, which is a bigger hurdle than a resolution in the Security Council itself. Russia’s position at the G8 holds out some hope that such agreements may be forthcoming, but I cannot yet say to my hon. Friend that the Russian Federation’s change of position at the G8 has been followed by a wider change of position at the Security Council and elsewhere.

[Mr Jack Straw (Blackburn) (Lab)]

May I first express my appreciation to the Foreign Secretary and his right hon. Friend the Defence Secretary, and to their officials and our armed forces, for the work that is being carried out, above all in Libya but across the middle east? May I ask the Foreign Secretary specifically about Israel? He said in his statement that the “status quo is not sustainable”—I think the whole House will agree with that—but does he not acknowledge that the one person who believes that the status quo is indeed sustainable is Prime Minister Netanyahu? It is perfectly obvious from the rebarbative, obdurate speech that he made in Washington straight after President Obama’s statement that he has no intention whatever of making any constructive moves towards a settlement. That is clearly accepted in the States, as I recognised when I was there over the past two weeks.

In that context, is it not time for the British Government to abandon the approach of successive Governments, which is to deal with Israel with kid gloves? Should we not make it clear to Israel that we will make decisions in the interests of the Israeli people, of which the Israeli Government now seem incapable, as well as the wider Arab world?

[Mr Hague]

Prime Minister Netanyahu is the elected Prime Minister of Israel, and we must always bear that in mind, but the right hon. Gentleman is right to say that we should make a strong case, as we do, for an agreement based on the 1967 borders. Our Prime Minister met Mr Netanyahu a few weeks ago and made that case very strongly, as I have done to him and to the Foreign Minister, Mr Lieberman. We will continue to make that case based on diplomatic persuasion, but we will also vote in accordance with our convictions. In February, we voted in the Security Council for the Palestinian resolution on settlements. That was a clear indication of the view in this country and in this House on those matters and on the importance of taking forward the peace process. I would express this a bit more diplomatically than the right hon. Gentleman did, but it is incumbent on me to do so, as it is no longer incumbent on him.

[Sir Menzies Campbell (North East Fife) (LD)]

In spite of my right hon. Friend’s understandably restrained language in relation to Bahrain, does he understand that many of us in the House and outside it think that the decision to reinstate the grand prix is simply shameful, and that it does the sport of motor racing no favours whatever? If the dialogue that is to begin in July is to be given a good start, could that not involve the cancellation of the race and, equally importantly, the release of those doctors and nurses who have apparently been arrested for having the temerity to tend the wounded?

[Mr Hague]

It is very important that due process should be followed. One of the most alarming things is the use of military courts in such cases. That was one of the issues that we took up with the Crown Prince, and on which we are looking for further assurances from the Bahraini Government. I am sure that my right hon. and learned Friend is right to say that the sport of Formula 1 has not done itself any good by that announcement. The important thing is to encourage all sides to get back into a real dialogue. There is no way for Bahrain to proceed into the future without a successful dialogue between the two communities; there is no other way of resolving the situation in Bahrain. We must continue to be on the side of that dialogue while always taking up our very strong human rights concerns, as we have done with the Crown Prince and as I have done in my telephone calls with the Foreign Minister. We will continue to do that.

[Mr Bob Ainsworth (Coventry North East) (Lab)]

On post-conflict planning for Libya, the Foreign Secretary is reported to have said at the weekend that although such planning is vital, it is as yet in an “embryonic” state. I do not know whether that is true, but it is what I read in the press. Surely there is now an urgency to post-conflict planning. The Gaddafi regime could go on for some time yet but, equally, it could be on the point of collapse. What is the hold-up? What urgency can the Foreign Secretary bring to post-conflict planning for Libya, and what can he tell the House about the problems and plans involved?

[Mr Hague]

The right hon. Gentleman is right to point out the urgency of this situation. This is why we are taking the actions that we are. The main case that I made to the national transitional council in Benghazi was that it must step up its own planning for the day that Gaddafi departs. In Libya, it will have prime responsibility for proceeding into the future in a stable, democratic way. We are, however, at the forefront of the work being done. There is real urgency involved, which is why my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for International Development has sent the stabilisation response team to Benghazi. It is undertaking its assessment there now and will return within the next week or so to write its report. All its work has been accelerated—[Interruption.] Well, it has to be a good report, as well as being done quickly. There is a balance to be struck between those two things. The United Kingdom has taken a strong lead in this, and we have shown the greatest sense of urgency of all the Governments that are engaged in the issue.

[Nicholas Soames (Mid Sussex) (Con)]

The Foreign Secretary is clearly right to give priority to the need to get rid of Gaddafi in short order, and then to bring what help we can to the transitional government, but does he agree that the linchpin of the whole of the middle east is Egypt, and the encouragement of the values of human dignity, freedom and opportunity there? Will he quantify what further assistance the British Government are giving to the Egyptian people to help them in their democratic process?

[Mr Hague]

Clearly, Egypt, with its geographic position, its vast population and its history, is at the centre of so much; my hon. Friend is quite right about its central importance. As I said earlier, the economic side of our work with Egypt is of prime importance. To quantify it further, Egypt will or can benefit from the £110 million Arab partnership fund, to which I referred earlier; from the entire EU southern neighbourhood policy, with €750 million of additional funding; and, indeed, from the $20 billion of various forms of financing set out at the G8 summit in Deauville. That is the quantification of the available assistance, most of which, given the distribution of the economies in north Africa, is available to Egypt. It is also necessary for Egypt to undertake its own economic reforms to give confidence to investors and the private sector so that the country can succeed; it cannot all be done by the international community. The Egyptians must have the right environment for economic success set out by their own Government as well.

[Mr Denis MacShane (Rotherham) (Lab)]

Why did the Foreign Secretary use the term “allegations” of torture about what The Times reported as

“47 health professionals… on trial, accused of seeking to overthrow the Gulf state’s monarchy”

in a closed court. It continued:

“The doctors and nurses did this, in reality, only by treating the sick. Only the most paranoid of regimes could see treason in the Hippocratic oath.”

Instead of rolling out the red carpet at Downing street, is it not time that the Foreign Secretary got a little bit more robust with this torturing regime?

[Mr Hague]

It is often necessary to use the word “allegation” and I have used it in respect of certain cases in Syria, which are as disturbing as some of the cases the right hon. Gentleman mentions in Bahrain. He has been a journalist in his time, so he will know that, based on what we read in newspapers, we sometimes have to refer to “allegations” rather than “established facts”. Of course, these things are a huge cause for concern. It is important, however, to maintain our own contact with, and pressure on, those in Bahrain who are looking for a successful dialogue. One of those is the Crown Prince of Bahrain. It is important to maintain contact both with him and with those on the Shia side in Bahrain. Simply not to talk to anybody in Bahrain because terrible things have happened would not be the correctly constructive position of this country.

[Mr Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

Will the Foreign Secretary say a bit more about post-war planning? As we saw in Iraq, getting rid of a bloody tyrant in the middle east is a lot easier than ensuring stability afterwards. Let me press him more particularly on these talks with Italian experts. What exactly does that mean? Benghazi and Tripoli were divided for centuries before the Italians imposed unity. What evidence is there that Tripoli will co-operate with the national transitional council after the fall of Gaddafi, if he does fall?

[Mr Hague]

Of course these are valid questions from my hon. Friend. We do not know what the exact circumstances will be whenever it is that Colonel Gaddafi departs the scene. We do know that the national transitional council is preparing for that and we have advised it to prepare more intensively. Already included in the national transitional council are members representing the Tripoli area—in fact, I met those members on Saturday—so it already has representation from all parts of Libya. Its stated goal is to include current members of the current regime—what one might call the more technocratic members of it—in an interim Government. The plans are there; they need fleshing out in more detail, but they are more grounded in sensible reality than was the case immediately after the fall of Saddam Hussein in Iraq.

[Angus Robertson (Moray) (SNP)]

The Secretary of State has highlighted the pending independence of South Sudan on 9 July, which no doubt we all welcome. Will he confirm that this was accepted by the United Kingdom Government after the international norm of a single independence referendum?

[Mr Hague]

There was a single referendum, but there was also a 99% vote in favour.

[Mr Tobias Ellwood (Bournemouth East) (Con)]

I welcome the statement. I have just returned from a visit to Cairo. Whoever one speaks to there—the Muslim Brotherhood, the military or, indeed, the youths in Tahrir square—no one can predict where Egypt will be in 12 months’ time, but what is certain is the wish for a delay in the elections, which my right hon. Friend mentioned. What encouragement is Egypt being given to allow the newly formed parties time to establish their democratic base, rather than allowing the old institutions to keep their momentum going?

[Mr Hague]

The case advanced by my hon. Friend is mounting all the time, as is apparent to many in Egypt and outside. We must respect the sovereignty of the Egyptians—it is their decision—but we will certainly be making the case, as the United Kingdom, that they would be wise to delay the parliamentary elections. In fact, there would be merit in their holding a presidential election before the parliamentary elections, which I believe would allow the most orderly transition to a democratic system. We will make that case, while respecting the fact that the Egyptians must make their own decisions in Cairo.

[Mr David Winnick (Walsall North) (Lab)]

Does the Foreign Secretary really believe that his remarks about the killing of Palestinian demonstrators by Israel—it was Israel, by the way, which was not mentioned by him—were sufficient, and that remarks that he made urging restraint were enough? Would it not be far better to condemn absolutely what happened over the weekend? I thoroughly agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) that it is time that the British Government made it clear to Israel that certain actions, such as what happened over the weekend, are totally unacceptable.

[Mr Hague]

Obviously we condemn anything that leads to unnecessary deaths, and I have made a strong appeal for avoidance of the use of lethal force. Israel’s response is certainly one that should be criticised, but Israel is not the only country that may be criticised in this regard. The area on the other side of the Golan heights boundary is under the direct control of the Syrian Government, and the access that people have gained there leads one to speculate about the motives of the Syrian Government in this matter. So the responsibility may not be all on one side, and trying to cross the borders is not the way to resolve the problems of the middle east.

I think we are all absolutely clear about the fact that the use of lethal force should be avoided whenever possible.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. There is intense interest, which is reflected in the number of Members who are seeking to catch my eye. I want to accommodate colleagues because these are very important matters, but there is now a premium on economy, a legendary example of which I know will now be provided by Mr Mark Pritchard.

[Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin) (Con)]

Thank you for your generosity, Mr Speaker. No pressure!

Does the Foreign Secretary agree that the recent violence on the Israeli-Syrian border may well be a cynical strategy on the part of the Syrian regime to try to distract the eyes of the international community from the regime’s own brutality against, and murder of, its own people within its own borders?

[Mr Hague]

My answer to my hon. Friend is in line with my answer to the hon. Member for Walsall North (Mr Winnick). The area on the other side of the boundary fence is under the control of the Syrian Government, and people are able to draw their own conclusions from that.

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)]

Can the Foreign Secretary credibly continue to say that Britain is not militarily involved in a war for regime change in Libya? While there are enormous concerns about violations of human rights by the Gaddafi regime and its forces, there are also reports of human rights violations by the forces opposing Gaddafi. Did the Foreign Secretary raise those with the transitional council during his visit? Is he at all concerned about the role that Saudi Arabia is playing across the region, and about its own human rights abuses? He did not mention Saudi Arabia once in his statement.

[Mr Hague]

Let me answer some of those questions. We did raise with the members of the national transitional council the need to uphold the very highest standards in their own behaviour and treatment of prisoners, for instance. The report to which the hon. Gentleman referred said that the council was upholding the Geneva conventions, unlike the Gaddafi regime.

Can we still credibly argue—to put the hon. Gentleman’s question another way—that military action is within the terms of the United Nations Security Council resolutions? Yes, we can. If we were not taking the action we are taking, there is no doubt that the regime forces would move back into the harassment, threatening and killing of the civilian population of Libya.

[Rory Stewart (Penrith and The Border) (Con)]

Given that the Foreign Secretary has so eloquently pointed out that Libya is just one, and perhaps not the most important, part of the events happening in the middle east at present, will he please reassure the House that nothing we do in Libya alienates the support of the Arab world or the UN Security Council, on whom we depend, for solving the much bigger issues of a dozen countries over the next 20 years?

[Mr Hague]

That question is about the importance of maintaining the international coalition and staying within the terms of the UN Security Council resolutions. My hon. Friend will be aware that there are Arab nations involved in this military action as well, and many more are giving it logistic and financial support, or support in the form of overflight rights. We also expect more Arab nations than before to attend the contact group meeting in Abu Dhabi, so we are enlarging the coalition of support on Libya, including with many nations of the middle east. We are also communicating with the people of the middle east in every possible way, such as through satellite television channels, to explain what we are doing. Certainly if our visit to Benghazi was anything to go by, there is very strong support for what we are doing among ordinary people, representatives of civil society and the press.

[Sir Gerald Kaufman (Manchester, Gorton) (Lab)]

In the light of the report in yesterday’s The New Yorker that Barack Obama used his recent visit to canvass western European Governments to vote against the recognition of a Palestinian state at the United Nations, will the right hon. Gentleman affirm that this Government will vote in favour of the recognition of a Palestinian state at the United Nations General Assembly in September, since no decision could be more calculated to force the Israelis to come to their senses?

[Mr Hague]

We have taken no decision about that, and it would be premature to do so. This situation may arise in September. At the European Foreign Affairs Council, my advice to all my colleagues of the other 26 European nations was that we should withhold our statements on that issue. The fact that we have done so, and that we will judge events over the coming months, may be one factor that encourages all parties to behave responsibly over those few months.

[Jo Swinson (East Dunbartonshire) (LD)]

Across the middle east and north Africa, appalling stories are emerging of the torture and abuse of civilians during this unrest. Last week, an Egyptian general admitted that women protestors had been subjected to forced virginity tests, and in Misrata two Libyan soldiers told the BBC how they had been ordered to take part in the gang rape of young women. What can the UK and the international community do to ensure that the perpetrators of these abuses are brought to justice, and, in line with UN Security Council resolution 1325, how will women be properly engaged in the post-conflict reconstruction?

[Mr Hague]

We can do many things, which we are doing. They include the following: in the case of the situation in Libya, reference to the International Criminal Court; in the case of many other countries, encouraging their Governments and domestic legal systems to take these problems seriously, and to bring about reconciliation through facing up to what has happened over recent months; and in the cases of regimes that are not listening to that, we are of course trying to intensify the pressure in other ways, as I have described. Our entire programme of encouraging civil society, human rights and the development of political parties is also in line with the strong participation of women in these societies.

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

How can there be a comprehensive, inclusive national dialogue in Bahrain when secular Opposition leader Ibrahim Sharif is on trial, and moderate Wafaq MPs Matar Ibrahim Matar and Jawad Fairoz have been arrested and detained? Is it not time that they were released, so that they can take part in such a dialogue?

[Mr Hague]

Certainly I agree with the hon. Gentleman that a successful dialogue will have to be with senior representatives of the Opposition and in different circumstances, but that should not stop us trying to encourage that dialogue. The alternative policy to the one we are pursuing is to condemn all concerned and say there is no hope for dialogue. We have to encourage those on both sides of the divide in Bahrain who believe in dialogue to undertake it. Clearly, however, they are not starting from an advantageous position given all the things that have happened in recent months, including the things to which the hon. Gentleman refers.

[Richard Fuller (Bedford) (Con)]

The good work of our armed forces, the Department for International Development and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in Libya depends on the support of the United States. Does the Foreign Secretary have any comment to make on moves in the US Congress to review President Obama’s decision on his commitment to our efforts in Libya?

[Mr Hague]

This has been a long-running constitutional issue in the United States of America between various Presidents and Congress, and I probably have enough on without wading into American constitutional theory. We are assured by the US Administration that—[Interruption.] No, I really am not going to wade into that. We are assured by the US Administration that they are entirely satisfied with the powers they have to undertake the operations that they are undertaking and that those operations will continue.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

In a year’s time, the barbarous regimes in Bahrain and Syria will probably expect to send teams to the Olympics here in London, along with a load of officials, who will doubtless stay in some very polite London hotels. Will that really be right if the atrocities continue?

[Mr Hague]

It really is premature to consider that. I am not a regular fan of boycotts of the Olympic games, which are brought up every time there is an Olympic games for one reason or another. We should be very reluctant to advocate the boycotting—

[Mr MacShane]

Mrs Thatcher supported the boycott in 1980.

[Mr Hague]

Well maybe we should learn from what happened 30 years ago. We should be reluctant about advocating boycotts, but the question is premature in any case.

[Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)]

The reported reopening of the border between Gaza and Egypt runs the risk of refuelling Hamas and Islamic Jihad. What steps is the Foreign Secretary taking to make sure that the Egyptian Government stop assisting Hamas and Islamic Jihad, so that pressure can be brought on all sides to return to the negotiating table?

[Mr Hague]

Clearly, we do not want the Egyptian Government to do anything that will increase the risk of violence in Gaza or emanating from Gaza, but I must say that I do not think that the reopening of crossings necessarily leads to that. The closure of borders in Gaza has tended to strengthen Hamas, creating a corrupt economy on which it has been able to thrive and increasing the sense of grievance on which it is based. So I do not think that Egypt’s announcement, in itself, represents a strengthening of Hamas, but of course we must be on the alert for anything that would lead to more weapons going into Gaza and to an increased risk of violence.

[Richard Burden (Birmingham, Northfield) (Lab)]

Motor racing is a sport and an industry where Britain leads the world; the majority of Formula 1 teams are based here. Does that not give us a special responsibility to make it much clearer to the FIA that its decision to reinstate the Bahrain grand prix is wrong ethically and on safety grounds, that its decision is bad for the long-term reputation of Formula 1 and that it is absolutely clear that there is widespread opposition to the decision among teams and among Formula 1 drivers? We should be clearer in asking the FIA to think again.

[Mr Hague]

Clearly there is widespread opposition of the kind that the hon. Gentleman describes, and the FIA must take that into account as it considers the decision it has made. It must make its own decisions—we should be clear about that—but the widespread opposition that he refers to is clear.

[Christopher Pincher (Tamworth) (Con)]

In his statement my right hon. Friend rightly said that the national transitional council represents the legitimate aspirations of the Libyan people. So does he believe that the $53 billion-worth of frozen Libyan assets, including the $182 million-worth allegedly held by the Royal Bank of Scotland, will be released to the NTC for it to dispose of as it wishes?

[Mr Hague]

It is not possible to release those assets under the current UN resolutions—of course we have looked at this matter, but all the advice that we have been given is that it is not possible to do that. Other countries have received the same advice and, certainly, all other European countries are in the same position. It is very important that we stay within the UN resolutions and retain the moral authority of operating within international law, even though that is inconvenient in some respects and requires us to do some things differently from how we might wish. So that is a higher priority than finding a way around the UN resolutions. If it is possible to change them at any stage, we would be ready to do so.

[Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)]

Does the Foreign Secretary agree that events in Syria have the potential to be even more destabilising than events in Libya given the cynical attempt to stir up problems on the border with Israel? Will he therefore outline to us the additional sanctions on Syria that he is considering with the EU partners mentioned in the statement?

[Mr Hague]

The sanctions so far cover President Assad and 22 other individuals in terms of asset freezes and travel bans. Additional sanctions would involve the designation of further individuals involved in repression and violence in Syria and of commercial organisations, so the sanctions on Syria would be wider spread. I do not want to pretend to the hon. Gentleman that such sanctions will change the entire situation in Syria. They are a demonstration of our strong view rather than something that will transform the situation there. We must recognise our limited leverage in Syria, but we are exercising the leverage that we have.

[Dan Byles (North Warwickshire) (Con)]

On the post-conflict phase, will the Foreign Secretary confirm that if the UK were to give long-term assistance to Libyan police and security forces, that assistance would be paid for by the Department for International Development and not the Ministry of Defence?

[Mr Hague]

Yes. Such support predominantly comes from the Department for International Development or out of the reserve. The costs of the operations in Libya are being met from the reserve, as the Chancellor has said, so they are not an additional burden on the Ministry of Defence.

[Heidi Alexander (Lewisham East) (Lab)]

What conditions, if any, have been placed on the Arab partnership fund to ensure women’s equal political participation and—dare I say it—representation in north Africa’s emerging democracies?

[Mr Hague]

This is one of the objectives of the fund and £40 million of it is there to encourage political reform. That is very much one of the objectives. As I have said several times before, the encouragement of civil society, human rights groups, NGOs, and training for liberal and secular political parties is designed to ensure, among other things, that women have a strong role in the politics and society of these countries. We will strongly champion that.

[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that Israel has the right to defend its own borders, given that the consequences of not doing so would be enormous? Does he agree that Iran is likely to have had influence on recent events over the weekend and has he made an assessment of Iranian influence in Syria?

[Mr Hague]

Israel does have the right to defend its borders but it must do so in a sensible and proportionate way; I think we should stress that. I have no direct evidence of Iranian involvement in the events around the borders of Israel but I have seen a good deal of evidence of Iranian involvement in Syria in attempting to crush dissent, including in the provision of riot control equipment and of expertise in how to flood particular towns and cities with security forces for the purposes of repression. Iran has a strong role in trying to quell the views of the people of Syria and we should condemn it for doing so.

[Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)]

Although I acknowledge the scope and energy of the Foreign Secretary’s personal engagement on these issues, he must accept that there is some concern that he chooses to use language that is so elliptical in relation to some clear-cut events in comparison with others. On the Syrian resolution that the Government are seeking, does any of the resistance voiced include any reference to the possibility that the existing resolution on Libya is being exceeded? If so, how does he refute that?

[Mr Hague]

I do not think that that is a major factor in this. As has been pointed out by hon. Members earlier, Russia, which was not an enthusiast for the Security Council resolution on Libya, has conceded at the G8 that Gaddafi has lost legitimacy and must go. When it comes to the resolution on Syria there are other factors at work. Syria has stronger relationships with various countries around the Arab world and with Russia than Libya has had in recent years. There are more powerful factors at work in making countries reluctant to condemn the Syrian Government, but if these events continue as they are, it must be acknowledged across capitals all over the world that the Syrian Government’s behaviour is unacceptable and we will make a renewed push at the United Nations on that basis.

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

The Foreign Secretary will know that the United States previously appointed Jerry Bremer as the Governor and administrator in Iraq to oversee the transition to democracy. Will the United Kingdom appoint someone to a similar position to oversee the transition to democracy in the post-Gaddafi regime?

[Mr Hague]

I doubt it because we are not intending to be an occupying power in Libya, where I hope that the situation when Gaddafi goes will be radically different from the situation in Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein. It will not be a situation in which armies have come from outside to remove the system and to try to construct something completely new; it will be about the success of people inside Libya who have fought for their freedom and are able to build a structure in accordance with their own culture and society. I am not anticipating there being anyone from Britain to oversee that.

[Mr Dennis Skinner (Bolsover) (Lab)]

Would not a fair summary of the Foreign Secretary’s statement be that it suggests the halcyon days of the Arab spring are fast moving towards a harsh winter and that all that will remain is a big bill for the British people to pay?

[Mr Hague]

No; whatever happens with the Arab spring, we should welcome people’s aspirations for freedom and democracy anywhere in the world, including in the Arab world. It is bound to cause many crises and difficulties along the way, but if we did not handle these things in a sensible way, the cost to this country in terms of uncontrolled migration into Europe and new breeding grounds for terrorism would be enormous. I think that the hon. Gentleman’s view is a very blinkered one.

[James Morris (Halesowen and Rowley Regis) (Con)]

Does the Foreign Secretary agree that given all that is going on in the middle east, it is more vital than ever that the international community should take any means necessary to prevent Iran from getting a viable nuclear weapon?

[Mr Hague]

The way I would put it is that it is important to intensify the peaceful and legitimate pressure on Iran to turn it away from its nuclear programme. As I set out in my statement, we have secured in the past two weeks the designation of more than 100 additional entities in Iran that are in various ways engaged or associated with the nuclear programme. We are looking to other countries to intensify the pressure and we discussed this a great deal with President Obama and Secretary Clinton on their visit here a couple of weeks ago. We will continue to intensify that policy. This is of prime concern to the security of the region and the world.

[Mr Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab)]

Given what the Foreign Secretary rightly says about the importance of consistency, I am astonished that he thinks it could be remotely acceptable for the grand prix to go ahead in Bahrain. What evidence does he have that the representations that he and the Prime Minister are making constantly, as he tells us, to the Bahraini Government are having any effect at all?

[Mr Hague]

We will see over time the effect that we have in Bahrain. It is important to have channels of communication to the ruling family and the ruling group as well as to the opposition forces in Bahrain, and Britain is one of the few countries that has both those channels, which our embassy in Manama has built up over the years. We should use those channels constructively because there is no solution in Bahrain other than one based on a successful dialogue between both sides. We have to continue to encourage that.

[Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

The Foreign Secretary has consistently condemned the use of live fire against unarmed protesters by murderous regimes such as Assad’s and Gaddafi’s, so why does he find it difficult today to condemn exactly the same thing by the Israeli regime? What protest is he making to the ambassador and to the Government of Israel and what sanctions will he consider if there is a repetition of these events, which go on week by week on all of Israel’s illegal borders?

[Mr Hague]

I have pointed out that the responsibility for the situation on the borders is not entirely on the Israeli side. I have made very clear our opposition to the use of lethal force and that the defence of borders and boundaries should be proportionate. Hon. Members should make no mistake about that. That is the message that we convey to the Israeli authorities. We should not be so short-sighted as to believe that in the case of Syria no one else is involved in trying to create those incidents and putting people in a position in which they are caught up in violent incidents.

[Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)]

I thank the Foreign Secretary for his comprehensive statement. Will he be specific about the number of British nationals who have fled Yemen since the statement in March? Will he give us his estimate of the number of British nationals who remain in Yemen and, finally, why are there 80 British marines off the coast of Yemen and what do they intend to do? In the statement, he said that it was “extremely unlikely that the British Government will be able to evacuate any British nationals” left in Yemen.

[Mr Hague]

There is a good deal of evidence that many British nationals have left Yemen in recent months in response to our advice, although it is not always easy to track them all individually. Most British nationals who remain appear to be dual nationals, so they may not intend to leave under any circumstances—they are Yemeni as well as British. The number of people holding only British nationality is certainly down to a few hundred as far as we can see—fewer than 300 would be a fair estimate. There are British military assets in the region, but I am not going into the operational tasking of those assets. I restate that, whatever the assets we may have in the region, conducting a safe evacuation from a place where it would be difficult for people even to get to the airport if greater violence breaks out is not something on which people can rely.

[Ms Gisela Stuart (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab)]

The Foreign Secretary suggested that one reason why we heard so little from the Arab League in recent weeks was the level of disagreement. Will he update the House on where agreement may be reached, as the support of the Arab League will be extremely important and vital to all of us?

[Mr Hague]

On Libya, the Arab League has been very clear and is very supportive of what we have done under the Security Council resolutions. I trust that it will be represented on the contact group in Abu Dhabi. This week, it is on Syria that Arab councils would be more divided, because the connections between some of their Governments and the Syrian authorities are much closer than they were in the case of Colonel Gaddafi. There is no doubt that Arab nations individually are, in many cases, playing a role in encouraging President Assad down a path of reform, although it may be too late for that. However, they are playing their role in doing so as individual nationals, rather than through the Arab League.

[Naomi Long (Belfast East) (Alliance)]

With respect to the planned national dialogue in Bahrain, what representations will the Secretary of State make to the Bahraini authorities to ensure that that dialogue not only addresses the main sectarian tensions and political reform but wider issues of civil and religious liberty for other minority groupings in Bahrain?

[Mr Hague]

The hon. Lady makes an important point. For it to be a successful national dialogue, it will have to embrace all those concerns. In our next meetings with those authorities, I will certainly make the point that she has made in the House.

[Mr Speaker]

I am grateful to the Foreign Secretary and colleagues for their co-operation.

Prevent Strategy

Tuesday 7th June 2011 Commons Chamber

17:08

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

With permission, Mr Speaker, I would like to make a statement on the review of the Government’s strategy to stop people becoming terrorists or supporting terrorism.

Intelligence indicates that the UK faces a serious and sustained threat from terrorism. Osama bin Laden may be dead, but the threat from al-Qaeda-inspired terrorism is not. Indeed, the threat level from international terrorism remains at “Severe”, meaning an attack is highly likely. That threat comes both from foreign nationals and from terrorists born and bred in Britain.

To tackle that threat, as the Prime Minister made clear in his speech in Munich earlier this year, we must not only arrest and prosecute those who breach the law, but we must stop people being drawn into terrorist-related activity in the first place. That will require a new approach to integrating our divided communities, led by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, and delivered by Ministers across the whole of Government. In counter-terrorism policy, it will require an effective strategy to tackle radicalisation in this country and overseas. That is why, last year, I launched a review of the existing counter-radicalisation strategy known as Prevent. That review found that the Prevent programme that we inherited from the previous Government was flawed. It confused Government policy to promote integration with Government policy to prevent terrorism. It failed to tackle the extremist ideology that not only undermines the cohesion of our society, but inspires would-be terrorists to seek to bring death and destruction to our towns and cities. In trying to reach out to those at risk of radicalisation, funding sometimes even reached the very extremist organisations that Prevent should have been confronting. We will not make the same mistakes.

Our new strategy is guided by a number of key principles. Prevent should remain an integral part of our counter-terrorism strategy, Contest, a full update of which we will publish later this summer. Its aim should be to stop people becoming terrorists or supporting terrorism. Prevent should address all forms of terrorism, including the extreme right wing. That is only right and proper and will also provide a more flexible basis to adapt to emerging threats in the future.

In a world of scarce resources, it is clear that Prevent work must be targeted against those forms of terrorism that pose the greatest risk to our national security. Currently, the greatest threat comes from al-Qaeda and those it inspires. The majority of Prevent resources and efforts will therefore be devoted to stopping people joining or supporting al-Qaeda, its affiliates or like-minded groups. But Prevent must also recognise and tackle the insidious impact of non-violent extremism, which can create an atmosphere conducive to terrorism and can popularise views that terrorists exploit.

Prevent depends on a successful integration strategy, but integration alone will not meet our counter-terrorism objectives, and our integration programme should go much wider than just security and counter-terrorism. This was a fundamental failing of the last Government’s approach. They failed to promote integration, and where they did promote it, they did so through the narrow prism of counter-terrorism. So we will do more than any Government before us to promote integration, including through teaching our history and values in our schools, through the national citizen service, and through other policies, but we will do so separately and differently from Prevent. The combined effect of this work and of the new Prevent strategy will be an unyielding fight against extremism, violent extremism and radicalisation.

It is critical that agencies, Departments and local authorities work to a common set of Prevent objectives to deliver the outcomes that we want. Public funding for Prevent must be rigorously prioritised and comprehensively audited. The previous Government were far too lax in spending in this area, as they were in so many others. Let me reiterate that under this Government, public money will not be provided to extremist organisations. If organisations do not support the values of democracy, human rights, equality before the law, participation in society—if they do not accept these fundamental and universal values—we will not work with them and we will not fund them.

Within this overall framework, the new Prevent strategy will have three objectives. First, Prevent will respond to the ideological challenge and the threat from those who promote it. As the Deputy Prime Minister said in his speech in Luton, we must be much more assertive about our values. Let me be clear: the ideology of extremism and terrorism is the problem; Islam emphatically is not. Tackling that ideology will mean working with mainstream individuals and organisations to make sure moderate voices are heard. It will mean robustly defending our institutions and our way of life. So where propagandists break the law in encouraging or approving terrorism, it will mean arrest and prosecution, and where people seek to enter this country from overseas to engage in activity in support of extremist or terrorist groups, we will exclude them. Since coming to power, I have already excluded 44 individuals from the UK either because of unacceptable behaviour or for national security reasons.

Secondly, Prevent will stop individuals being drawn into terrorism and will ensure that they are given appropriate advice and support. Radicalisation is a process, not a one-off event. During that process it is possible to intervene to stop vulnerable people gravitating towards terrorism. We will do this by building on the successful multi-agency “Channel” programme, which identifies and provides support for people at risk of radicalisation. I want to use this opportunity to make one thing clear—Prevent is not about spying on communities, as some have alleged. It is about acting on information from the police, the security and intelligence agencies, local authorities and community organisations to help those specifically at risk of turning towards terrorism. It is incumbent on everyone in this country to play their part in helping them do so.

Thirdly, we will work with sectors and institutions where there are risks of radicalisation. It is right to acknowledge that progress has been made in this area, but that progress has been patchy and it must be improved. So we will work with education and health care providers, universities, faith groups, charities, prisons and the wider criminal justice system. We will also work to tackle the particular challenge of radicalisation on the internet, and to make better use ourselves of social media and other modern communications technologies.

This review has been independently overseen by Lord Carlile of Berriew, and I pay tribute to him for his contribution. Lord Carlile has said that the new Prevent strategy has his full support. He said that

“it provides a template for challenging the extremist ideas and terrorist actions which seek to undermine the rule of law and fundamental British political values and institutions. Its tone is clear, and its policy compelling. It offers a positive message for mutual respect, tolerance and liberty.”

Prevent has not been without controversy. In the past, it received allegations that it was a cover for spying. Those allegations have been found to be false, but now we will make sure that this is seen and known to be the case. In the past, Prevent was muddled up with integration. It operated to confused and contradictory objectives—not any more. At times funding even found its way to the sorts of extremist organisations that themselves pose a threat to our society and to our security—not under this Government.

Let me be clear. We will not fund or work with organisations that do not subscribe to the core values of our society. Our new Prevent strategy will challenge the extremist ideology, it will help protect sectors and institutions from extremists, and it will stop the radicalisation of vulnerable people. Above all, it will tackle the threat from home-grown terrorism. I commend this statement to the House.

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

We should take this opportunity to pay tribute to those who work so hard to protect our national security. Today we expected the Home Secretary to update the Prevent strategy, but she has done nothing of the sort. We support updating the Prevent strategy, but there is a massive gap between her rhetoric today and the reality of her policies. Where she should be building consensus around counter-terrorism, instead she has been political point-scoring. She has set out no actual proposals on how she would deliver in such an important area.

Most of the work on the development of Prevent was done after the 7/7 bombings and it was treading completely new ground. Urgent work was needed to disrupt the process of radicalisation, but there was no experience to draw on, and a range of different approaches was rightly tried. Much of that work was supported by the Opposition at the time. Some like “Channel” were very successful; some were not as effective. We were clear from the very beginning that it would need to be reviewed and evolve in the light of the evidence. The same is true now.

The Home Secretary, however, has claimed with great certainty that she will not make mistakes. If she believes that she now knows all the answers on how to tackle extremism and radicalisation, she is heading for a fall. In her desire to blame the previous Government for everything she is blinding herself and her Government to the fact that this is difficult work. Some of what she would like to do will work, but some will not, and it will need to be reviewed again, but that should be on the basis of evidence, not political positioning.

The Home Secretary has not even told us what her new mistake-free strategy involves. We agree that some groups should not be funded because of their extremist views, but the review says that it found no evidence to indicate widespread, systematic or deliberate funding of extremist groups, either by the Home Office or by local authorities or police forces. She has told us nothing about the new framework that will somehow prevent it happening inadvertently with local decisions in place. She has said that there will be a new focus on integration from the Department for Communities and Local Government, but what is it, what will it do and how will it be funded? She has already cut 40% from the Prevent funding for local councils this year alone and they have major cuts still to come.

The Home Secretary has claimed that there will be stronger work by universities and the NHS, but the Universities UK and the British Medical Association have already rejected her views. How workable are these plans if such critical stakeholders are hostile from the start? She has not set out different approaches for dealing with violent extremism, non-violent extremist and integration and seems to be confusing all three. Is it not the truth that there is a massive gap between her rhetoric and reality?

The Prime Minister has claimed that there will now be no more of the passive tolerance of recent years and much more active, muscular liberalism, but what will the Government actually do and how will they deliver? Police counter-terrorism budgets are being cut in real terms, as are the Foreign Office’s counter-terrorism programmes, and later today the Home Secretary will introduce a Bill that will make it harder, not easier, to prevent terrorism attacks by watering down elements of control orders. Despite all the Prime Minister’s strong claims about getting tough on extremists, there is still no sign that he will meet his pre-election promise to ban the extremist group Hizb ut-Tahrir.

I know from previous experience of the Home Secretary’s statements that if I give her a long list of questions, she will not answer them, so let me leave her with just one: will she confirm that the Government will not meet their promise to ban Hizb ut-Tahrir and admit that sometimes it is not as easy in practice to deliver counter-terrorism and work to prevent extremism as it is to make grand political promises as she has done today?

[Mrs May]

I am rather disappointed in the tone that the right hon. Lady has taken in her response. On the one hand she said that she recognised that the Prevent strategy needed review, but on the other hand she has completely rejected the review that has taken place. She claims that no change is taking place, but clearly there is. On Hizb ut-Tahrir, the Government are concerned about that group’s actions and keep it under constant review. She asked me to confirm that that is a very difficult area in which to work, which I am happy to do. It is difficult to make the proper judgments in this area.

When we came into office we looked at the previous Government’s approach and found that they had not looked at the issue of extremism but focused instead on violent extremism. We believe that it is important to look at extremism, because people involved in it can be led on to violent extremism and terrorist acts. We believe that it is also important to look at extremism because it can create an atmosphere in which people can more easily be radicalised towards terrorism. That is a key change that we are bringing about. We are looking at all forms of terrorism and have made that clear in what we are doing.

I have identified a number of areas where I think not enough has been done to look at radicalisation. The right hon. Lady said that Universities UK had rejected the review’s statements relating to universities, but I have to say to her and to Universities UK that I consider one of the problems to have been a degree of complacency in universities and their unwillingness to recognise the radicalisation that can take place on their campuses and do anything about it. We aim to work with universities to ensure that in future, with regard to their pastoral duty of care to students, they take radicalisation seriously and act accordingly.

There will be real differences in the approach we are taking. It has been a problem in the past that, because Prevent covered both integration and the counter-terrorism aspects of the strategy, it was perceived to be the securitisation of integration, so it is right that the Department for Communities and Local Government will take on the integration aspect of our policy and work on aspects of community cohesion.

Finally, I think that it is absolutely right that the Government should look very carefully at the groups that are being funded, analyse and evaluate them properly and carefully monitor how money is spent. The previous Government did not do that.

[Mr David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con)]

I welcome wholeheartedly my right hon. Friend’s statement and comments, not least because a couple of weeks ago I received a letter from a Muslim inmate of one of our high-security prisons, in which he said:

‘Last week our prison service imam told us ‘not to believe western media’ in relation to the death of Usama bin Laden. The week prior to that the imam celebrated the escape of hundreds of Taliban prisoners from the Kabul jail.’

He went on to list equally inappropriate teachings by prison imams in a total of five prisons. The Home Secretary is right to draw attention to the previous Government’s complacency over the issue. Will she give an undertaking that this will be put right and that we will not be able to say those things next year?

[Mrs May]

I thank my right hon. Friend for bringing that letter to the attention of the House and, in doing so, raising a very important aspect of the work on which we wish to focus. There is a great deal more to be done in prisons, and a number of steps that we intend to take are set out in the Prevent strategy today. I should be very happy to receive a copy of that letter, if he feels able to share it with me, so that we can look at the specific allegations that have been made, but we intend to work more carefully with prisons, prison staff, the National Offender Management Service and those going into prisons to deal with individual prisoners in order to try to ensure that we do not see the sort of activity taking place that he has identified.

[Mr David Blunkett (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)]

Who could possibly disagree with the three objectives that the Home Secretary has set out? But she has not done herself or her Government justice by seeking to make party political points about those who had to deal—I did not have to—with the reality of post-7 July 2005. I have just one very simple question. How can she this afternoon talk about building on our institutions and on an understanding of our values and history while the Education Secretary is proposing to withdraw citizenship from the school curriculum?

[Mrs May]

In relation to my comments on the previous Government, we did a proper review of the Prevent strategy to identify those areas where change was necessary. We have done that, and I have brought to the House a number of areas where we believe the previous Government’s strategy was flawed and where it is necessary to make changes, which I have set out before the House today.

In relation to what is happening in education, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education is quite clear about the necessity of ensuring that values are indeed taught in our schools, but that that is done in a number of ways, including through the proper teaching of our history.

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

During the cold war, Governments of Labour and Conservative persuasions differentiated between communists who were subversive and broke the law and communists who preached a totalitarian philosophy. Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is the job of the police and of the Security Service to deal with those Islamists or, as I prefer to call them, un-Islamic extremists who break the law, but that the job of Prevent must be to destroy the philosophical basis of the perversion of the religion that they seek to convey?

[Mrs May]

I certainly agree with my hon. Friend that we need to ensure that those who break the law are dealt with appropriately. We need to ensure also that we challenge the ideology—or, the perverse ideology—that people use to lure others down the road of radicalisation and into violent acts and into terrorism. In terms of the Prevent point of view and the very clear counter-terrorism aspect of the strategy that we have identified, that work will be done in a number of ways. In the Prevent strategy, we set out how we will deal with issues such as the internet and the use of the internet to radicalise people, but it will also be done through work with individuals who are identified as vulnerable.

[Hazel Blears (Salford and Eccles) (Lab)]

I am very disappointed at the tone that the Home Secretary has adopted today. She has been extremely partisan in her comments. It is very easy to talk tough on these issues, but what practical support will she give to women and to young Muslims to develop the skills and confidence to tackle that pernicious ideology? In particular, what will she do about the £4.2 million that the research, information and communications unit in the Home Office spent last year? It is supposed to be developing a counter-narrative, but I for one have not seen one useful piece or product of research and information that RICU has produced. At the same time, the money for communities has been slashed, but we have a real responsibility to support people in our communities, so that they have the skills to tackle this pernicious, political ideology that is all too prevalent.

[Mrs May]

The right hon. Lady is correct to say that it is important to ensure that individuals are able to tackle this perverse ideology, and part of Prevent’s work with individuals will be precisely about that—about enabling people to understand the perversion of the ideology.

In relation to dealing with the wider aspects of community participation and cohesion, however, including looking at the involvement in society more generally, as we would like, of women from particular communities who are often not able or encouraged to do so, the Department for Communities and Local Government is looking at that issue in the integration strategy that it is developing.

We refer to RICU, which was set up under the last Government, in the strategy. I fully accept the right hon. Lady’s point about communication, which is extremely important; that is why we are looking at the role that RICU plays in it.

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

Does the Home Secretary agree that a clear divide must exist between the measures designed to tackle violent extremism and those designed to promote community cohesion, that funding must be denied to organisations that do not support our basic values in relation to respect for women and minorities, and that the most effective way to confront radical non-violent groups is to tackle their beliefs in open debate?

[Mrs May]

I certainly agree that we need to challenge the ideology. I also agree that the means by which we deal with violent extremism, or people who are vulnerable to radicalisation towards violent extremism, need to be separated from the wider task of community cohesion and working towards greater participation in society. In the past, people came to look with some concern at what was being done in the name of Prevent because it was trying to mix up those two aspects of work. It is important that we separate out the community cohesion work, which is overseen by the Department for Communities and Local Government.

[Mr George Howarth (Knowsley) (Lab)]

As somebody who has high regard for the Home Secretary, I, too, express regret that she has chosen to express some of her views in such party political terms. Surely it is right that we seek unity across the House on this issue.

Given that several thousand young Islamists in this country have been through training systems in Pakistan, can the Home Secretary give the House an assurance that that will be borne in mind in future and that the good work that has been carried out in Pakistan under Prevent and associated programmes will not be jettisoned, because it is important for the terrorist activities that take place in this country?

[Mrs May]

It is certainly the case that a strand of Prevent work takes place overseas and is overseen by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and it is important that that work is properly evaluated and evidence-based so that we ensure that the money is being spent where it can be seen to be properly working. We need to look very carefully at how the money is spent in that area of activity, but we also need to ensure that it continues to take place, and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office will be doing that. Separately from that, because the Department for International Development does not fund Prevent-related work, the work that DFID does in building up society has an impact in this area as well.

[Patrick Mercer (Newark) (Con)]

The Home Secretary talked about the dangers from Islamist fundamentalism but did not, I am sure for good reason, mention the dangers from Irish republican terrorism. Could she account for the difficult nexus in terms of intelligence and prevention work on the mainland of the United Kingdom and how this policy will encompass it?

[Mrs May]

I thank my hon. Friend for raising Northern Ireland-related terrorism. The Prevent strategy that I have outlined specifically does not cover Northern Ireland-related terrorism because it is important that we work through the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, and the Northern Ireland Assembly and Ministers there, in looking at these issues. There is a responsibility for this in Northern Ireland, and it would not be right for us to bring Northern Ireland-related terrorism under the Prevent strategy that I have announced. However, certain aspects of the Prevent strategy have some commonality with themes in relation to Northern Ireland-related terrorism, and I am sure that others will draw on that.

[Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)]

I thank the Home Secretary for her statement and for clarifying that point, but will she elaborate on it? Will she confirm that where a dissident republican suspect is found to be operational, active and gathering intelligence here on the mainland, they will come under this policy and will be subject to its restrictions, and, importantly, that they will not be sin-binned back to Northern Ireland but will be restrained here, where they are trying to commit their crime?

[Mrs May]

I assure the hon. Gentleman that anybody who is identified as being involved in acts of terrorism or preparatory acts of terrorism that are suitable for prosecution under the law will be prosecuted under the law.

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

I welcome the Home Secretary’s statement. The strategy highlights the targeting of university campuses by extremists for the purposes of radicalising vulnerable students. I noted her concern that some universities are complacent about those risks. Will she give more detail on how the revised Prevent programme will better protect students while not overwhelming universities with excessive burdens?

[Mrs May]

I am happy to look at that issue. That work has started in a number of ways. The National Union of Students has done good work on the role that it can play to prevent radicalisation on campuses by considering issues such as who is speaking on campuses. We will continue to work with the NUS to develop its approach, including to other university societies. We will also work with university vice-chancellors and staff on this issue. It is certainly not our intention suddenly to overburden universities with red tape. However, we hope that universities are prepared to recognise the role that radicalisation on campuses can play and accept that they have a responsibility to look at what is happening on their campuses.

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

In the last Parliament, the Communities and Local Government Committee did a report on the previous Government’s Prevent strategy. One criticism that was made to our inquiry, to which the Secretary of State has alluded, is that there was confusion between a strand of the policy that dealt with individuals who were felt to be at risk of becoming involved in terrorism and other policies that were more closely related to social cohesion measures. Is the Home Secretary saying that the first of those issues will be the responsibility of the Home Office and the second the responsibility of the Department for Communities and Local Government? Will there be any links between the two? If there are, how will the policy differ from that of the previous Government?

[Mrs May]

It is our intention that there will be different responsibilities for those matters. We will allow the Department for Communities and Local Government to identify how it wishes to operate its integration strategy. I believe that hon. Members will hear more from my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government on the wider issues of community cohesion, participation in society and integration in due course. We will bring together a joint board to ensure that all activity takes place against the Government’s overall objectives in this area. I expect that that board will look at the interface between the Prevent strategy and the integration strategy of the Department for Communities and Local Government. We will not label the DCLG work as part of the Prevent strategy, and it will not be part of the counter-terrorism strategy run by the Home Office.

[Lorraine Fullbrook (South Ribble) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend reassure my constituents in South Ribble that these reforms will ensure that the Prevent programme is properly focused and, above all, more effective than it has been?

[Mrs May]

I welcome my hon. Friend to the House following her recent illness. It is good to see her back in her seat. It is certainly our intention to monitor how money is spent on Prevent to ensure that it is spent effectively. In looking at the programmes that work, we will ensure that the decisions that are made are fully evidence-based.

[Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)]

In what new ways will the right hon. Lady promote integration? What core values and whose history will now be taught in schools?

[Mrs May]

The last time I looked, there was a different education system in Scotland, and I reassure the hon. Gentleman that I am not suggesting that I will touch it. However, I think that people across the United Kingdom share a belief in the values of democracy, human rights, equality and the rule of law, and those are the values that we are talking about.

[Graham Evans (Weaver Vale) (Con)]

I welcome the teaching of British history in our schools. Will my right hon. Friend reassure the House that the police and security services are content with the new package of proposals?

[Mrs May]

I am very happy to give my hon. Friend that confirmation. We have of course been talking to the police and the intelligence agencies about the issue, and there will be particular interaction with the police because a significant part of the Prevent money is spent by them. I will write to chief constables and others today to set out the new strategy.

[Tristram Hunt (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab)]

I am glad that the Home Secretary mentioned the extreme right wing. In Stoke-on-Trent, we have dealt with alleged terrorist conspiracies from both Islamic fundamentalists and far-right white fascists. I am also keen on her announcement of actions regarding the internet. Many young British Muslims are heading towards radicalisation via the teachings of Anwar al-Awlaki, gained over the internet. May I urge her to make the security services go on the front foot against some of the stuff that is coming over the internet?

Finally, may I urge the Home Secretary to proceed with caution on defining British values? The history of Britain also involves the denial of democracy, the denial of the rule of law and the denial of equal rights in many nations around the world, and for Home Secretaries to define what is and is not Britishness is treacherous territory.

[Mr Speaker]

I am very impressed that the hon. Gentleman is still breathing.

[Mrs May]

I of course recognise the experience in Stoke-on-Trent, particularly over the past year, in relation to both terrorist plots of an Islamic nature and the influence and actions of the English Defence League. I would hope that everybody in the House believes in the values to which I referred in my answer to the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart), namely democracy, the rule of law, equality and human rights. Those are the values that we wish to promote.

[Mr Rob Wilson (Reading East) (Con)]

May I congratulate the Home Secretary on her statement, and say what a breath of fresh air it was to hear some of the things that she said? As she knows, much of the threat to the UK comes via Pakistan. Can she explain how the Government are working with counter-terror agencies to deal with that specific threat?

[Mrs May]

We work closely with the Government of Pakistan on counter-terrorism matters, and I should put on record in the House, as I believe I have on previous occasions, that in fact the Pakistani people have suffered significant losses to terrorist attacks. Several thousand people have died in Pakistan in recent years as a result of such attacks, and we should never forget what is happening to people living there. Of course, there are considerable links between this country and Pakistan, and as I said, we work closely with the Pakistani Government in examining counter-terrorism issues.

[Kate Hoey (Vauxhall) (Lab)]

I very much welcome the better targeting of our resources, but will the Home Secretary ensure that projects and schemes that are doing extremely well in inner cities, such as some around the mosque in Lambeth, are protected or at least not arbitrarily thrown away just to save money?

[Mrs May]

One aspect of the new strategy that we are adopting is a much closer evaluation of the work that is done, so that we can identify precisely the projects that are working well and should continue to be supported. At the same time, we will also identify groups that we feel it is no longer right for the Government to fund.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

I thank the Home Secretary for coming to the House again to keep us informed. In Wellingborough prison, the imam is in charge of all the religious affairs. I am sure he is very good, but what checks are made in prisons to ensure that the imams there are not preaching extremism?

[Mrs May]

My hon. Friend’s question refers back, in a sense, to that asked by my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis). In considering how we deal with prisons, we will do much more work to examine exactly what is happening there. We will work with prison governors and staff and with the National Offender Management Service to get better information about what is happening in prisons, which is a key aspect of the strategy. We recognise that more work needs to be done.

[Naomi Long (Belfast East) (Alliance)]

I thank the Home Secretary for her statement. In disentangling the issues of trying to create more community cohesion and at the same time trying to deal with terrorism and radicalisation, how can we ensure that there is not a gap through which radicalised young people can emerge? How can we ensure that the policies co-exist and are complementary to each other, not in conflict?

[Mrs May]

As I indicated earlier, we will take steps to ensure that our policies are complementary across the Government. Importantly, I hope that the integration and community cohesion strategies will encourage people to be willing to identify those young people who they consider to be vulnerable to radicalisation, and who they feel need the support and action of the programmes that are available, to ensure that they do not go down the route to terrorism.

[Mr David Burrowes (Enfield, Southgate) (Con)]

The Home Secretary spoke of the values of our country. It is important to recognise the Christian heritage of those values, so will she recognise the failure of the previous strategy, which diminished the positive contribution of faith-based organisations and distorted their relationships with the Government? I welcome the announcement of the £5 million of near neighbours funding to enable churches to be involved in reaching out to all communities. That is a positive and welcome step.

[Mrs May]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for making the point that it is important that the Government are willing to work with groups from all faiths, to ensure that we use the expertise and ability that faith groups have to reach out into their communities in a way that the Government cannot. As I said, it is important to do that across all faiths.

[Mr Denis MacShane (Rotherham) (Lab)]

If I pointed out to the Home Secretary that before 1997, her Conservative predecessor, who was advised by the current Prime Minister, allowed into Britain no fewer than four times Sheikh Qaradawi, the theologian and ideologue of suicide bombing, she would just dismiss it as a political point. All Governments get some of their policies on such things wrong, and she should not have made such a partisan statement.

On a specific point, the University and College Lecturers Union has just repudiated—at its congress last weekend—the EU’s definition of anti-Semitism. That is a highly retrograde step, because that working definition is accepted around the world. The union has given a green light to all those who want to encourage anti-Semitic thinking. Will the Home Secretary and the Education Secretary look into that?

[Mrs May]

As the right hon. Gentleman may have seen, an Education Minister is sitting on the Treasury Bench. He will have heard that point and I am sure he will raise it with the Education Secretary.

[Sajid Javid (Bromsgrove) (Con)]

May I warmly welcome the Home Secretary’s statement? Since the terrible bombings of July 2005, it is clear that in some cases self-appointed Islamist groups have used public funds to poison young Muslim minds. Will my right hon. Friend therefore make it absolutely clear that this Government will only work with and fund groups that accept the British way of life, our democracy and our values?

[Mrs May]

As I made clear in my statement, and as is made clear in the strategy, the Government will not work with or fund groups that hold extremist views.

[James Morris (Halesowen and Rowley Regis) (Con)]

Does the Home Secretary agree that one key to this strategy is international co-operation with agencies in other countries, particularly in addressing the prevalence of propaganda on the internet? Sharing intelligence across agencies could well get to the source of that problem.

[Mrs May]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for again raising the internet, which was mentioned in an earlier question. It is important that we look at the use of the internet, and we can do so in a number of ways. The police could take action in relation to some of the things that are put on the internet here, but one of the key things is to work internationally, particularly with the US. Many internet providers are based there rather than here, and are therefore outside UK jurisdiction. We are doing more to talk to the US, and indeed to those companies directly about their responsibilities.

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

As somebody with an Islamic background, I very much welcome the Secretary of State’s statement. She has announced an excellent and proper way forward to deal with that bizarre, distorted ideology and to promote community cohesion. What representations, if any, have been made to the Governments of Afghanistan and Pakistan on reforming the madrassahs—the religious schools—which have often been a breeding ground for extremism?

[Mrs May]

I am happy to say to my hon. Friend that that was one of the issues that I discussed with the Pakistan Interior Minister when I visited that country last October.

[Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)]

One problem with the Prevent scheme funding under the previous Administration was the lack of clarity on what the funding was for and which organisations would receive it, and ensuring appropriate outcomes. Will my right hon. Friend ensure not only that a broad range of organisations receive funds, but that those organisations are outcome-based, so that we can clearly evaluate the success or otherwise of the funding?

[Mrs May]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. It is not good enough for Governments simply to give money to organisations; we need to ensure that it is being effectively used for the purpose for which it was intended. That is why it is important that we establish much clearer evaluation and monitoring of the use of that money.

Kinship Carers (Parental Responsibility Agreements)

Tuesday 7th June 2011 Commons Chamber

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

17:50

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That leave be given to bring in a Bill to require the Secretary of State to make provision to extend the system of parental responsibility agreements to enable a kinship carer to obtain parental responsibility for a child they are raising without having to bring a case to court; and for connected purposes.

There are an estimated 200,000 to 300,000 children in the United Kingdom being raised by relatives or friends because their parents cannot look after them. Those children have often experienced tragedy or trauma due to the death or imprisonment of a parent, or to a parent’s alcohol or drug misuse or mental health problems. Sometimes, the parent has simply walked out on them. The Family Rights Group describes those carers and the children they care for as

“the forgotten families of family policy—overlooked by service providers and government”.

Most of those children are being raised by grandparents, but many are also being raised by older siblings, aunts and uncles, and even friends and neighbours or their parents’ ex-partners. Those carers step in when there is a crisis—an instinctive response to a vulnerable child needing to be taken under someone’s wing. It is a decision made without pausing to think about practical matters, such as what the legal arrangements will be or what sort of support might be needed. The children benefit hugely from remaining in family units. They feel loved, they maintain contact with family members and they have some much-needed stability in their lives.

The aim of the Bill is to extend the system of parental responsibility agreements, which currently applies to step-parents under section 4 of the Children Act 1989, to allow close relatives to obtain parental responsibility for a child they are raising, with the consent of the parents who have parental responsibility, without having to go to court. It would apply only to those who are defined as a relative under section 105 of the Act: grandparents, brothers, sisters, uncles or aunts, whether by full blood, half blood, marriage or civil partnership. It would therefore not apply to friends or to wider family carers such as cousins, to ensure that the arrangements remain distinct from private fostering arrangements, which require regular local authority checks set up as a result of the Victoria Climbié inquiry.

The aim is to assist with those private, temporary arrangements, which are currently completely under the radar, and to enable kinship carers to be recognised by schools to authorise school trips; to register the child with a GP and to be entitled to make medical decisions on the child’s behalf; to apply for a passport; to assist with demonstrating that they are the primary carers with regard to accessing child benefit, child care vouchers, and so on; and to qualify to apply for parental leave and the right to request flexible working arrangements. To get parental responsibility, most kinship carers currently have to go to court to apply for special guardianship or a residence order. My proposal would minimise the huge disruption to family dynamics involved in bringing a case to court, enabling families to function during periods of crisis.

I shall give the House a few examples. One grandmother told me that when her grandson needed injections at the doctors, they were turned away. With a parental responsibility agreement in place, she would have been in a position to sign for his injections there and then. Instead, they had the difficult job of trying to track down the mum and getting her consent. Grandparents who had raised their grandson from when he was a toddler told us that they would not go to court to apply for a residence or special guardianship order until the child was 10, because they feared that the court might not support their application and that they would lose him, possibly to adoption. They therefore did not have the legal authority to make key decisions—for example, to sign for him to go on school trips. Another woman has told me that she has looked after her six-year-old nephew for the past three and half years. She has been advised to go to court to apply for a legal order to get parental rights, as his birth mother is unlikely ever to be able to look after him again, but she cannot afford to pay the court costs. She is in full-time work, so she can get no help with those costs.

This week is European prisoners’ children week, which makes this a good time also to be talking about the particular difficulties faced by families with a parent in prison. Every year, 160,000 children experience the imprisonment of a parent. Family carers play an important role in helping prisoners and their children to stay in touch during a sentence, which has been shown to be critical in preventing reoffending. Children in those circumstances are also at higher risk of becoming offenders themselves, and kinship carers play a vital role in supporting those vulnerable and often traumatised children. The problem is that, in those circumstances, carers are often reluctant to seek the help that they need from children’s services. They are often scared of state involvement, and especially fearful of social workers removing the children from them or criticising their ability to parent the child, even if that fear is unwarranted, as it is in the vast majority of cases.

I would like to share with the House a couple of the many stories from carers at whom the Bill is particularly targeted. Angie has looked after her granddaughter for the past three years, since the child was just one year old. Her granddaughter’s father is in prison, and the child’s mother has just come through a home detox from heroin; she is now completely clean. Prior to Angie’s full-time involvement with her granddaughter, she looked after her most weekends and on some week nights. She says:

“I have strong views on parents and children remaining as a family unit and if my daughter had lost control of her daughter, this would have had the reverse effect on her drug recovery and the bond between mum and daughter would simply have vanished. The consequence of this would be long term for the child. I am delighted that my daughter has had regular supervised contact with her own daughter. It has meant a lot and I am sure that is why she was eventually able to detox from all drug use and see her own daughter as needing a real mum”.

Angie goes on to say:

“I think this Bill would have helped me enormously. I have considered special guardianship but the court process would be too much for my daughter who sees this as ‘taking her daughter right from under her’. People in drug abuse situations do not have the foresight to see things clearly and this Act would have been an enormous help to us if it had been in force three years ago”.

I have also been contacted by a woman who, for obvious reasons, wishes to remain anonymous. Her sister has mental health problems and is an alcoholic. The children’s father did not want residence, so the grandparents went to court, gained a residence order and took on caring for the children, but the grandparents’ health declined, and the children’s aunt and her partner have unofficially taken on care of the children. They do not have the money to go back through the courts to change the residence order arrangement. Also, they want to ensure that the new living arrangements are what the children want—a decision that they are unable to make until they have given it a go for a sustained period of time. I shall quote from the aunt’s e-mail:

“My parents live 70 miles away, so sorting all the consent letters for school, activity clubs, etc., does become a pain. My nephew broke his leg recently and you can imagine the rigmarole when he had to undergo emergency medical treatment and neither my partner nor I were officially able to sign for treatment. My partner even had to lie about being official next of kin to the ward staff, in order to sleep overnight in hospital with him. We weren’t prepared to leave him alone, but if we’d been honest, that’s exactly what would have happened!”

My proposal does not involve any spending commitment. In fact, it goes a little way towards supporting the carers who save the state the estimated £12 billion that it would cost if the children involved were in independent foster care. I am pleased that the last Labour Government produced draft family and friends care statutory guidance for local authorities just before the general election. That guidance has now been finalised, and requires that local authorities must have a family and friends care policy in place by 30 September this year, addressing all children in family and friends care, not only those in the care system.

The Bill is backed by the Family Rights Group, the Fostering Network, the Grandparents’ Association, Grandparents Plus, the National Children’s Bureau, Action for Prisoners’ Families, the Who Cares? Trust, the Prison Advice and Care Trust, the Adolescent and Children’s Trust, and Mentor UK. I would particularly like to thank Cathy Ashley of the Family Rights Group for all her work on the Bill.

I would like to finish by thanking Paul, a young man who is bringing up his six younger siblings after his mother walked out, and who had to battle the system for a year and see his brothers and sisters taken into care and put into foster homes before the courts accepted that he was the best person to look after them. It was hearing Paul recently on “Woman’s Hour”, speaking so articulately and passionately about his experience, that inspired me to take up this issue. He is an excellent role model for his younger siblings, and I wish his family all the best for the future.

Question put and agreed to.

Ordered,

That Kerry McCarthy, Mr David Blunkett, Paul Goggins, Mrs Helen Grant, Kate Green, Andrew Gwynne, Mrs Sharon Hodgson, Alan Johnson, Mr David Lammy, Lisa Nandy, Priti Patel and Mr Jamie Reed present the Bill.

Kerry McCarthy accordingly presented the Bill.

Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 21 October, and to be printed (Bill 198).

Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measures Bill

Tuesday 7th June 2011 Commons Chamber

Second Reading

18:00

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

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

There is no greater task for any Government than to protect their citizens, to uphold their values and to defend their way of life, but when we face such a significant threat from terrorism over so great a period it becomes even more important that the Government ensure that the protection of our citizens does not overshadow the freedoms of us all. That is why we reviewed counter-terrorism legislation and it is why we need this Bill. Let me be clear: I will do nothing that risks our national security or the safety of our citizens, but this Bill is necessary precisely because public safety is enhanced, not diminished, by appropriate and proportionate powers.

There is in this country a small number of people who pose a real threat to our citizens, but whom we cannot successfully prosecute or deport. Prosecution, conviction and prison will always be our priority because the right place for a terrorist is in a prison cell. Where successful prosecution or deportation is not possible, however, no responsible Government could allow dangerous individuals to go freely about their terrorist activities. Since becoming Home Secretary, I have made use of the control order powers available to me to stop terrorist activity and to place restrictions on such individuals on a number of occasions.

[Mr William Cash (Stone) (Con)]

I think that my right hon. Friend may have anticipated that I would have something to say. She refers to terrorists and I am sure she realises that what she is talking about in this context is suspected terrorists. Does she recognise that it is the fault of the Government and Parliament if judges are given too much scope in human rights matters? Why produce a Bill here at Westminster that fails to provide for due process and a fair trial according to the basic principles of British justice? The coalition is simply giving in to Lib-Dem pressure for this Bill to comply with the Human Rights Act and the European convention; and it has not even provided for a derogation from article 5.

[Mrs May]

I did indeed expect that, as my hon. Friend was in the Chamber, he might wish to raise certain matters. I am aware of his private Member’s Bill on the same issue. I have to tell him that I was not entirely clear from what he said whether he was in favour of more human rights or against more human rights. I see him leaping to his feet.

[Mr Cash]

I am grateful to the Home Secretary for walking into that one. I am very much in favour of human rights, but I am in favour of human rights according to principles of British justice, not those devised through the European convention and applied through the Human Rights Act, which has led to so many contradictions and inconsistencies and has raised so much concern among the public at large.

[Mrs May]

I hope my hon. Friend is grateful for the opportunity I gave him to clarify that particular point. I simply say in response to that and his comments about the judiciary that legislation is, of course, set by Parliament, but I believe that the relationship between politicians and the judiciary has changed as a result of the operation of the Human Rights Act. As a Government, we have set up a commission, which will report in due course, to look at the Human Rights Act and the possibility of introducing a Bill of Rights.

I said that I felt the Bill was necessary because public safety is enhanced, not diminished, by appropriate and proportionate powers. Protecting the British public will always be my top priority, but the current control orders regime is neither perfect nor entirely effective. I believe that the Bill will give us appropriate, proportionate and effective powers to deal with the risk posed by people we believe are involved in terrorist-related activity whom we can neither prosecute nor deport.

Our approach is clear, consistent and coherent. We will repeal the control order regime and replace it with a more focused and targeted regime of terrorism prevention and investigation measures. We will then support the new measures with increased covert investigative resources. So this Bill starts by repealing the Act that provides the power to impose control orders on individuals: the Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005.

The Bill sets out the essential elements of the TPIM—terrorism prevention and investigation measures—regime that will replace control orders. It enables the Secretary of State to impose specified terrorism prevention and investigation measures on an individual by means of a TPIM notice. Unlike under the control order regime, the detail of the measures that will be able to be imposed will be specified in legislation and so will be specifically approved by the House. It is only right that it is Parliament, and not the Executive, that decides what types of measures may be imposed.

The Bill establishes 12 types of measures that could be imposed as part of a TPIM notice. It also provides clear limits on the restrictions that may be imposed under each measure. These measures include: an overnight residence measure; a travel measure, mainly to prevent travel outside the United Kingdom; an exclusion measure to prevent individuals entering specified areas or places; a financial services measure; an electronic communication device measure; an association measure; a reporting measure and a monitoring measure.

The overnight residence measure is not the same as the control order curfew requirement. Under control orders, curfews could last up to 16 hours and apply at any point in the day. Our intention is not to force individuals to remain in their homes during the day, when they might normally go out to work or study, but to ensure they are in their homes overnight, as most people normally would be. This will reduce the scope for involvement in terrorism-related activity and reduce the risk of absconding.

The travel measure will allow the banning of overseas travel without permission. It will also allow the individual to be required to surrender their passport or travel documents. This measure is, I believe, absolutely vital to stop travel for terrorist training, for example.

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

The Home Secretary has said that the overnight residence requirements are different from curfews and that she does not want to prevent people from going out in the evening. Why, then, did she apply for a control order that included a curfew between 5 pm in the evening and 9 am in the morning—a total curfew of 16 hours?

[Mrs May]

We are currently operating—and have been since the Government came to power—the control order regime that was put in place by the Prevention of Terrorism Act. That is the basis on which I am currently operating. The new regime that will be put in place—of terrorism prevention and investigation measures—is a package that includes not just the measures in the Bill, but, as the right hon. Lady knows, the extra resources for the security services and the police.

[Yvette Cooper]

But will the Home Secretary confirm that she has the power to specify how many hours a curfew should be for and that she has chosen to specify a curfew for 16 hours rather than for fewer hours?

[Mrs May]

I will not comment on a particular case, which the right hon. Lady appears to be trying to get me to do. What I will say is that under the current control order regime it is possible to specify the length of a curfew. As she will know, the length of curfew has been challenged—and challenged successfully—in the courts. What we are doing with TPIMs is taking a different approach to the issue. The TPIMs in the Bill are intended to ensure that we allow prevention of terrorism activity for national security requirements, while also ensuring that individuals can take part in what is regarded as normal activity, such as work or study.

[Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)]

Will not the Home Secretary simply accept that these TPIMs are nothing other than a repackaging and rebranding of the old, discredited control orders regime? Has she had a chance to look at the sheet produced by Liberty, which goes through measure by measure, showing how similar they are? Is it not the case that she is no better than Lord Reid when it comes to control orders?

[Mrs May]

We are introducing a new regime. We did what we undertook to do as a coalition Government when we came to power. Both parties were committed to reviewing the control order regime. We did that, and what we have decided is that the right balance between civil liberties and national security is reflected in the Bill. It will enable us to take action to prevent terrorist activity by that small number of people who, as I have said, we are unable to prosecute or deport, while at the same time re-striking the balance between national security and civil liberties. The financial services measures would allow individuals to be limited to one bank account, for which they would have to provide statements. Transfer of money and goods overseas without prior permission could also be prohibited. Under the association measure, a list of prohibited associates would be supplied to the individual in advance, with the possibility that notice would be required of meetings with other individuals. The reporting measure would require individuals to report to a particular police station at a particular time, and the monitoring measure would require them to co-operate with arrangements to monitor their movements, communications and other activities. That might include a requirement to wear an electronic tag.

The Bill places clear limits on each of the restrictions that can be imposed. For example, it clearly provides no power for individuals to be relocated to another part of the country without their consent. The exclusion measure will allow only tightly defined exclusion from particular places such as named buildings and streets or defined locations. It will not allow exclusion from wide geographical areas. Exclusion will also be allowed from certain types of locations such as airports, ports or international railway stations. The need for such an exclusion should be obvious. As for restrictions involving electronic communication devices, the Bill makes it clear that the individual concerned must be allowed to own and use at least one fixed-line telephone, a computer and fixed-line internet connection and a mobile telephone. All that must of course be subject to specific conditions, such as the provision of passwords and phone numbers.

The Bill also sets out the conditions that must be satisfied before the Secretary of State may impose a TPIMs notice. A key change from the control order regime is that the Secretary of State must now reasonably believe, rather than reasonably suspect, that an individual is or has been involved in terrorism-related activity. The Secretary of State must also reasonably consider that it is necessary to impose particular measures on an individual to protect the public and to restrict the individual’s involvement in terrorism-related activity. That means that the package of measures will vary from case to case, which is only right given that all cases will be different.

We are aware that TPIMs are a short-term tool to protect the public rather than a long-term solution. A person will be subject to a TPIMs notice for no more than two years in response to specific terrorist-related activity. The initial notice will be imposed for one year, and can be extended once if that is necessary to protect the public. If an individual engages in new terrorism-related activity, of course a new notice and new measures can be imposed with a further two-year time limit. A new notice could be imposed immediately if terrorism-related activity had occurred during the life of the TPIM, and a new TPIMs notice could be imposed after the original one had expired. That is an essential safeguard for our national security, ensuring that appropriate disruptive action can be taken if an individual re-engages in terrorism-related activity.

As with the current regime, the courts will have to give permission for a TPIMs notice to be imposed. Only in the most exceptional and urgent cases will court permission not have been obtained before the imposition of a notice. If the court gives permission, a full review of the decision must begin automatically. There will be no requirement for the lodging of an appeal. The full review will be heard by a High Court judge. If the judge does not consider that the relevant conditions have been met, in relation to the notice as a whole or in relation to specific measures within it, the judge may quash the whole notice or specific measures as appropriate. Individuals will know enough of the case against them to enable them to instruct their own lawyer and the special advocate who will have access to all material, including sensitive material.

[Naomi Long (Belfast East) (Alliance)]

The power to use control orders has always extended to Northern Ireland, but has never been used. What discussions has the Home Secretary had about the availability of special advocates in Northern Ireland? There are very few at present, and the imposition of TPIMs could present a problem.

[Mrs May]

One of the issues that we are examining is the more general issue of special advocates and the information available to them, but I take the hon. Lady’s point. As she says, the current regime is not being used in Northern Ireland, but we will be very aware of the issue of special advocates and their availability there. The Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (James Brokenshire)—who is responsible for crime and security matters—is involved in wider Government work in relation to the availability of sensitive information in cases relating to terrorist activity.

In practice, individuals subject to terrorism prevention and investigation measures will know the key elements of the case against them, even if it is not possible for them to see all the underlying intelligence. Once a TPIMs notice has been imposed, there will be a further right of appeal against subsequent decisions—for example, decisions to extend or vary the terms of the notice. The package in the Bill will assure individuals subject to TPIMs notices of a significant and appropriate level of judicial oversight of their cases. As well as providing for rigorous consideration by the courts, the Bill contains a formal statutory requirement for the Secretary of State to keep under review whether a TPIMs notice, and all its restrictions, remains necessary to protect the public from a risk of terrorism. That will remove any doubt about whether such notices are assessed to ensure that they remain necessary at all times.

The Bill provides a number of further safeguards. The Secretary of State will be required to make a quarterly report to Parliament on the exercise of the powers in the Bill. That mirrors the current practice in relation to control orders, and will ensure appropriate visibility, and public accountability, of the TPIMs regime. The Secretary of State must also appoint an independent person to review the operation of the enacted legislation. That, too, mirrors the current control order regime.

As the House will know, David Anderson QC recently took on the role of independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, which was previously undertaken so effectively and for so many years by Lord Carlile of Berriew. As independent reviewer, David Anderson would undertake the statutory reviews of the TPIMs legislation, just as he currently reviews control order powers.

The final part of the Bill relates to enforcement. It provides for a criminal offence of breaching measures specified in a TPIM notice without reasonable excuse. The maximum penalty will be five years’ imprisonment. The Bill also contains detailed provisions relating to powers of search and entry, which build on the existing powers relating to control orders. There will be an explicit power for the police to undertake a search for compliance purposes—for example, to check that the individual has no prohibited communications devices—but they will be required to obtain a warrant first.

The final part of our approach is to combine the new preventive measures with significantly increased resources for the police and the Security Service, over and above those agreed in the spending review, to help with investigation and prosecution. For security reasons I cannot give the House a full breakdown of the funds provided for specific security activities, but I can reassure Members that this is new money that has not been taken from any existing counter-terrorism programmes. These additional investigative capabilities and resources will help the police and MI5 to gather evidence with a view, as always, to prosecution. The commitment to prosecution is also reflected in clause 10, which requires prior consultation with the police on whether evidence is available that could realistically be used for prosecution in relation to a terrorist offence. It also requires the police to keep the individual's conduct under review while a TPIMs notice is in force, and to report to the Home Secretary on that review.

I have discussed the new arrangements in detail with Jonathan Evans, the director general of the Security Service. He has told me that he considers that the changes provide an acceptable balance between the needs of security and those of civil liberties, and that the overall package mitigates risk.

The Bill is a vital part of the Government's new, more effective and more proportionate approach to counter-terrorism. This afternoon I announced to the House a new and more effective strategy for countering radicalisation; the Bill is, perhaps, as important as that new strategy in restoring trust in Britain's approach to counter-terrorism. The repeal of control orders, their replacement with TPIMs, and extra resources for covert surveillance and investigation constitute the right approach. It is an approach that is necessary and proportionate, that will do a great deal to protect the public from the risk of terrorism, and that deserves support from all parties. I commend the Bill to the House.

18:18

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

The Home Secretary barely had time to draw breath between statement and debate, but that transition exposes again the gap between the Government’s rhetoric and reality in regard to counter-terrorism. On a day on which the Home Secretary has launched her review of the strategy to prevent terrorism, with tough talk about clamping down, she is simultaneously watering down measures proven to prevent terrorist activity.

The fact is that, for the most part, the Bill is a confusion and a con. It does not do what it says on the tin, and it does not fulfil the grand promises made by the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats. In 27 clauses, it takes us in a circle and—almost—back to where we started. However, in a few areas it does make changes, and some of them are worrying.

[Dr Julian Huppert (Cambridge) (LD)]

Will the right hon. Lady confirm that Labour party policy favours a more authoritarian version of this Bill?

[Yvette Cooper]

If the hon. Gentleman persists with such simplistic soundbites, he will misunderstand the nature of the terrorist threat to Britain, and also the nature of the Bill that he is supporting, because this Bill represents a complete reversal of the promises he and his party made during the election, and does not abolish the control orders regime but simply renames it with a few minor amendments.

We on the Opposition Benches do not have access to the latest security assessments from the experts. We believe it is important to support the Government on counter-terrorism issues where we can, but in order to do so we will need more reassurances from the Home Secretary, and also some changes. The first duty of any Government is the protection of the people and the safeguarding of national security, yet the Home Secretary’s changes currently make it harder for the police and security services to limit the actions of a small number of dangerous people. We therefore need more reassurances on that.

Ideally, we would not have control orders because, ideally, we would not need them, but the Labour Government introduced them because we recognised that we needed to deal with a very small number of difficult cases, where prosecution was not possible for a range of reasons and where the public still needed to be protected from terrorist activity. In opposition, the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives condemned control orders, but now they are in government they have changed their minds. Indeed, the Home Secretary has introduced six new control orders since she came to office, and renewed eight more, but rather than admit that, she is desperate to maintain the fiction that control orders need to be replaced by something fundamentally different and that this Bill does the trick.

Most of the Bill is a fudge, drawn up to meet promises made to the Deputy Prime Minister that control orders would be abolished. Clause 1 does exactly that, but clauses 2 to 27 just reinstate most of the elements of control orders. The Bill does not therefore meet the Liberal Democrats’ manifesto promise to scrap orders that use evidence in closed sessions of court, nor does it meet the Conservative pledge of

“eliminating the control order regime.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 3 March 2010; Vol. 717, c. 1530.]

It certainly does not meet the grand claims of the Deputy Prime Minister in January, when The Sunday Times was briefed that he had

“won his Cabinet fight to scrap control orders”,

that suspects will no longer have to wear electronic tags or have a home curfew, and that they

“will also be allowed to travel wherever they want in Britain”.

As all Members now know, the Bill allows for tags, home curfews and restrictions on travel around Britain. Where control orders use closed proceedings and special advocates, so too do TPIMs. Where control orders are instigated by the Home Secretary with the permission of the High Court, so too are TPIMs. Where control orders are used when prosecution is not possible, so too are TPIMs. Where control orders can restrict people’s movements, communication, association, travel and bank accounts, so too can TPIMs.

Let me read out some extracts from the Government’s own explanatory notes to the Bill. Clause 1 abolishes control orders, and clauses 2 to 4 introduce TPIMs. On clauses 6 to 9 and schedule 2, the notes say:

“This replicates the position in relation to control orders”.

On clause 10, they say:

“The clause maintains all the existing requirements contained in the 2005 Act.”

On clauses 12 to 15 and schedule 3, they say:

“The clauses make provision—equivalent to that in the 2005 Act in relation to control orders”.

On clauses 16 to 18 and schedule 4, they say:

“This provides similar rights of appeal to those that exist in relation to control orders.”

They say that clauses 19 to 20

“place requirements—equivalent to those contained in the 2005 Act in relation to control orders”.

On clause 21, they say that

“this effectively recreates the main offence of the 2005 Act of contravening an obligation imposed under a control order”—

and they then add, in brackets—

“(including the same maximum penalty)”.

This Bill is one big set of square brackets which reads: insert control orders here.

[Pete Wishart]

The right hon. Lady is absolutely right: there is almost no difference between TPIMs and the former control order regime. What is the Labour party’s position on this? Would she amend control orders to make them more in line with her party’s new view on civil liberties? Indeed, what is the Labour party’s view on civil liberties? Were control orders a step too far? Will she now come on our side and start to take on the anti-civil libertarian state that Labour created?

[Yvette Cooper]

As I said earlier, control orders are not ideal, and ideally we would not need them, but we do. We need to continue with control orders and this kind of protection.

I will set out my view of the Bill’s measures and where we think greater scrutiny is needed, and highlight the reduction in safeguards and checks and balances that the Home Secretary is introducing, because the point is not simply that she is weakening the powers of the police and security forces in certain areas, but that she is weakening the checks and balances, and in particular the parliamentary checks and balances, on the system that is in place. Those parliamentary checks and balances are extremely important for safeguarding our civil liberties, as well as for protecting national security.

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

I rise in search of some clarity on where the right hon. Lady stands. She seems to be saying on the one hand that TPIMs are simply recreating what existed under control orders, but on the other hand that what the Government are doing is making the situation much more dangerous, but it cannot be both.

[Yvette Cooper]

I suggest that the hon. Gentleman listens more closely to what I am saying. The overall approach of the Government’s Bill, which he should read, is to reinstate most of the elements of control orders. I agree however—and I have said this clearly—that the Home Secretary is changing control orders in a series of ways, and I will address them shortly as they are significant. Some of them are justified, but others create risks, and changes will need to be made.

Overall, the Government should admit what they are doing. This is a cut-and-paste job. In place of control orders, all we have is “son of control orders”. It is irresponsible to maintain this pretence. That is not being straight with Parliament or the public on an issue of grave importance: how we safeguard our national security and our civil liberties. Debates on matters such as these should be open, transparent and considered, not fudged, fraudulent and confused. This is an area where Governments need to maintain the trust and confidence of the public, but we do not achieve that by playing these kinds of political games.

This is also a very strange use of parliamentary time. There are some limited and specific differences between control orders and “son of control orders” that I am not concerned about, but, frankly, the Home Secretary could have achieved them with about four clauses amending the 2005 Act which could have been debated as part of the Protection of Freedoms Bill. She could have covered the issues of relocation, the length of the curfew and access to phones through amendments to an existing Act. She did not need an entirely new piece of legislation to abolish control orders and then reintroduce them under another name.

Why are we not doing that? Why do we have an entire additional Bill with 27 more clauses, all redrafted, doing the same thing? Why are we here today? The answer is because the Home Secretary has lost yet another battle with her Cabinet colleagues on her policy areas, so she is forced to go through this charade of entirely new legislation; and because, once again, the Government are putting politics before good policy.

As I have made clear, some of the changes to the control orders are limited. We can support some of them, but some are very troubling. The first change is to move the burden of proof from “reasonable suspicion” to “reasonable belief”. We understand that the view of the experts is that none of the control orders that have been upheld would have failed that higher standard, and that this will not make a significant difference to the serious cases they worry about. We believe it is right to follow the evidence, and we are happy to support this change on that basis.

The second change is to alter the wording in respect of the hours. That is a bit of a joke. In place of curfews, we have a reference to overnight residence requirements, but what is the difference? The online “Oxford English Dictionary” definition of a curfew is

“a regulation requiring people to remain indoors during specified hours, typically at night.”

It is, therefore, a requirement to stay in one’s residence overnight, or, as one might say, an overnight residence requirement. The Deputy Prime Minister made great play of the fact that people would be restricted for fewer hours under TPIMs than under control orders, but that is not what the Bill actually says. In fact, there is no specified limit on the number of hours someone has to stay at home. All the Bill says is “overnight”.

Let us turn again to the OED for illumination about what that should ordinarily mean. Overnight means

“for the duration of a night”,

and night means

“the period from sunset to sunrise.”

So does the Home Secretary intend TPIMs to apply for the hours of darkness? Does she want them to be longer in winter than in summer, and longer in the north than in the south? Does she want them potentially to be used to prevent evening activities and meetings, or only to require people to sleep in their own beds? If she does not think TPIMs should be used to prevent evening meetings or people going out after dark when surveillance is much more difficult, is she confident that this will not increase the risks to the public, or make it harder for the security services and police to do their jobs?

I asked the Home Secretary this during her speech, but how does this fit with her own decisions? A number of the 14 orders she has made or renewed since she took office include curfews, several of more than 12 hours. A recent one runs from 5 pm to 9 am—it is summer, so does that count as “overnight”? She can refuse to answer all these questions, but if she does not answer them, the courts will. Her definition just invites legal challenge or judicial review and, for the sake of the Government’s legal bill alone, she should tighten it up.

Thirdly, the Home Secretary has replaced an inexhaustive list of restrictions with an exhaustive list to choose from. We will ask in Committee whether or not any case, historical or current, would have been affected by this change. Fourthly, she and the Deputy Prime Minister have said that the new Bill would prevent relocation. This matter does raise some significant concerns. Preventing people from entering an entire area, or requiring them to live somewhere else, is, in general, deeply undesirable. However, many experts have concluded that in certain limited circumstances it is extremely important and can be justified. Indeed, police officers have told me that relocation can, in some exceptional circumstances, be the most effective way to disrupt terrorist activity and break someone out of a network of dangerous contacts and associations.

The Home Secretary must think that too, because in February she imposed a control order on a suspect that banned them from entering London and less than one month ago her lawyers defended those restrictions in the High Court. I have gone through the Court papers for this case, which, like so many, is extremely serious. The individual on the order, who is known as CD, was suspected of planning forthcoming attacks using firearms in London. The Court was told that he was attending regular meetings with associates in this city to plan an attack and had previously travelled to Syria for what was alleged to be extremist training. The assessment of the security services and the Home Secretary was that it was necessary to relocate CD outside Greater London to prevent him from having these meetings and co-ordinating an attack—that is what they argued in Court just last month. The High Court judge concluded that the relocation obligation is

“a necessary and proportionate measure to protect the public from the risk of what is an immediate and real risk of a terrorist-related attack.”

All this happened just last month, so the House needs to consider why we are seeking to introduce a change to control orders that would remove a function that the Home Secretary believed, and the High Court agreed, was needed for national security only one month ago?

Fifthly, the Home Secretary is restricting individual TPIMs to two years. Control orders could be renewed repeatedly, and she has not explained what will happen to the two people currently on control orders for more than two years once this Bill comes into force. Will they transfer to TPIMs or will the Home Secretary have to apply to the courts all over again? Sixthly, she is permitting access to phones and computers. She has assured the House that that will be monitored, but we will seek assurances from the monitoring agencies as to whether sufficient safeguards are in place and whether they have the resources to manage the continued monitoring that will be involved.

A wider question is being raised because these changes—the potentially reduced hours for curfews; a potentially narrower list of restrictions; more association with others who may be causing trouble; and the greater use of phone and internet—all require greater surveillance and resources to fill the gap. The Home Secretary has refused to confirm a figure, but the figure of £20 million has been routinely used in the newspapers and, presumably, has been briefed from her Department. Yet the overall police budget is being cut by £2 billion, the police counter-terrorism budget is still being cut in real terms and experienced counter-terrorism officers are being laid off through the A19 process.

I am concerned that the Home Secretary knows that there are troubling gaps in her plans. She has said that

“in exceptional circumstances, faced with a very serious terrorist threat that we cannot manage by any other means, additional measures may be necessary…So we will publish, but not introduce, legislation allowing more stringent measures, including curfews and further restrictions on communications, association and movement…We will invite the Opposition to discuss this draft legislation with us on Privy Council terms.”—[Official Report, 26 January 2011; Vol. 522, c. 309.]

What “additional measures” are these, given that control orders are pretty far-reaching? Does this mean that she knows already that there is a potential gap in security as a result of the new TPIMs? The Home Secretary has said she would consult the Opposition about these plans, but she has not yet done so. If new emergency legislation is needed to fill the gaps her own Bill creates, Parliament needs to know about this before we get to the evidence and Committee stage; otherwise we will be debating the Bill under false pretences, legislating only to legislate again.

This Bill is a con, recreating most of control orders while pretending not to do so, and it is risky, as some elements and changes water down the protection for national security, but there is a third problem: the Bill also reduces, rather than increases, parliamentary checks and balances on the Home Secretary. As I have said, the right approach to take to ensure that we protect civil liberties and national security together is to support strong powers for the police and security services to act in difficult circumstances, and to make sure that there are strong checks and balances to prevent abuse.

The current checks and balances on control orders are both judicial and parliamentary: the High Court has to approve every control order but Parliament has to give its approval every year for the control order regime to remain in place. Democratically elected MPs have to decide every year whether the terrorism threat remains sufficiently severe, whether anyone has come up with a better alternative and whether to allow the Home Secretary to continue to use these exceptional powers. That is an important parliamentary check on the exercise of Executive power which should continue to be unusual, yet she is removing it in this Bill. The power of the Home Secretary to impose TPIMs under this Bill is not a temporary one—it is permanent. TPIMs do not have to be renewed annually, as control orders do, and the TPIMs regime does not have to be renewed annually, as the control order regime does. This is therefore a serious downgrading of parliamentary oversight of a regime which is always supposed to be exceptional. She will know that serious concerns have been raised about this by Liberty, Justice and others, who say that far from representing a positive innovation, the TPIMs regime is, in one crucial respect, more offensive than the system it is designed to replace.

The Home Secretary is now in the astonishing situation of pleasing no one. She has a Bill that fudges the issue and does not fundamentally change the control order regime in the way that she and others promised its critics. However, it does water down some measures, worrying those who monitor national security, and it waters down the checks and balances that allow Parliament to prevent abuse, and that should worry this House.

The Opposition have very serious reservations about this Bill. Where possible, we want to support the Government on counter-terrorism. That is made more difficult when neither we nor the Intelligence and Security Committee have access to more detail about the risks in individual cases that would allow us to be reassured that the Home Secretary’s judgments are right. We believe that it would have been better not to introduce this Bill at all. We believe that it is, in the main, unnecessary, that it includes elements that take risks and that it reduces accountability to Parliament. Now that the Government have introduced it, we believe that it needs a serious rethink in Committee. We will not vote against Second Reading tonight, but we will expect greater transparency on these measures, more answers to the questions we have posed and significant changes to be made to the Bill to reassure us about our concerns. Counter-terrorism is too important for us to take risks for the sake of political expediency. The Home Secretary should forget deals done to save face for the Deputy Prime Minister—it is beyond saving—and she should ignore the demands for short-term headlines from the Prime Minister, as in the longer term she has to carry the can.

18:39

[Kris Hopkins (Keighley) (Con)]

I want to concentrate on the impact of terrorism and anti-terrorism law on the relationship between the Muslim community and the non-Muslim community and between the Muslim community and the state. The Bill needs to be understood in the context of the Prevent agenda that was mentioned earlier, the relationship between the Muslim community and the police, the work of the security forces and international events, interventions and identity. There must be a question about what incited young British Muslim men to blow themselves up in British streets.

Perhaps it is right that we should look right at the root of some of those issues and ask whether people feel that they are British, whether we make them feel British and what it is to be British. In July 2001, I watched out of the windows of Bradford city hall as hundreds of mainly young British Muslim men ran through the streets of Bradford while mounted police and young, brave police officers fought to try to protect the city. More than 300 police officers were injured, £20 million-worth of damage was done to the city and its reputation was severely damaged. That action was undertaken by mindless idiots. It was not about race—it was not a race riot—but about thuggery.

It was interesting—these events were appreciated and understood by the community—that a few days later the local newspaper published the mugshots of some of the participants and the parents and family members brought those young men down to the police station and started the process of convicting them. That was a harmonious event among all the destruction and upheaval that was running through the community.

Later that year, in September, a meeting of the council’s executive, of which I was a part at the time, was stopped and adjourned while we watched the second plane go into the twin towers. Those shocking events made the city reel. Our city was already uneasy with itself and braced itself for further fallout. The tension and suspicion were evident in the pub and the street and when one talked to friends; racists had a field day. What the terrorists wanted had happened and people were frightened. After the Iraq invasion, seen by many in the district as illegal, the dividing line with the Muslim community appeared even greater, so the community, led by the council and other agencies, set about mending bridges. Indeed, bridges were often created for the first time. For five years, there were school exchanges, people were brought together and cross-community sports were promoted. Areas were created where people could talk openly, speak honestly and speak their mind about issues, challenging each other. We were not naive about where we got to in that process, but it was important in building relationships.

The day after it was announced that London had won the Olympic games, four men, one originally from Bradford, blew themselves up and murdered many innocent people. That evening, all the main agencies met at the university, which then and since has played a huge role in promoting cohesion in the district. They were brought together to talk, to try and reassure each other and to ensure that we resolved that individual psychopaths would not damage our city further. Our resolve to work together was stronger than that.

In the days that followed, time and time again Muslim people came up to me and told me of their disgust at what had happened. Let me exemplify the feeling of fear. A couple of days after 7/7, an elderly friend of my mother’s was crying as she got off the bus. A young Muslim man—completely innocent—was carrying a rucksack on the bus and she feared that she would die as a consequence. A whole set of tensions, fears, contradictions and events ran through the community as a consequence of those terrorist activities.

We need strong anti-terror laws, but they need to be owned by all the community. Many innocent citizens feel that the existing laws are somebody else’s and we need to ensure that we do not make the same mistakes. As I outlined in my introduction, communities respond, adapt, learn and survive in the face of terrible events and today the Muslim community in my town is not listening to this debate—those people are getting on with their lives, like the rest of the community.

When I talk to people from the Muslim community, I hear that they feel battered. It is always the wider Muslim community—I know that is a generic term to use—that feels pursued. Good people who have no hatred in their hearts are looked on with suspicion by others and have been subjected to some of the knee-jerk reactions. I agree that it was difficult to start the Prevent agenda with a blank piece of paper and although I was extremely critical of it, I take it in good faith that it had to be started somewhere. The idea behind national indicator 35, which planned to map a specific community, had a huge impact and was seen as a hugely derogatory gesture.

I have seen reports in the paper that doctors will be asked to report if they spot somebody who is acting suspiciously. My chief executive was brought to London and was told that the binmen had to look out for bombs and devices. Good-minded, good individuals, if they spot a bomb, a device or something suspicious, do not need the Government to ask them to pick the phone up and tell somebody. They do it because they are good citizens of this country.

In conclusion, any anti-terror law must protect its citizens from ideological psychopaths who threaten to destroy society and the values that define it. One fundamental problem, as the Prime Minister has pointed out, is that there are differences in certain values to do with such issues as equality, human rights and corruption. The Government have the difficulty of achieving a balance between ensuring safety and not alienating communities from one another. The aim of a coherent society cannot be achieved to the detriment of one part of that society.

People can seek to integrate, respect each other and even to develop shared ownership of important laws such as the one we are talking about today without compromising their principles. I want the Muslim community to feel safe, to be successful and to play a full part in British society and this Bill must be made law to help and to enable and not to hamper that aim.

18:49

[Paul Goggins (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Keighley (Kris Hopkins), who, early in his speech, mentioned the 9/11 attacks. In three months, we will mark 10 years since those horrific attacks took place in America. At that time, I undertook the role that is now undertaken by the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mr Timpson); I was Parliamentary Private Secretary to the then Home Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Mr Blunkett). Over the following nine years, in that role and as a Minister in the Home Office and then the Northern Ireland Office, I worked closely with successive Home Secretaries and other Ministers who were seeking to deal with the deadly threat that was emerging from international terrorism. There was no book on the bookshelf entitled, “Rules of Engagement with al-Qaeda”, but I saw every one of those Ministers make every effort to defend the people of this country against new forms of international terrorism, including the dreadful prospect referred to by the hon. Member for Keighley of the so-called home-grown terrorists who are prepared to blow themselves up as well as their victims.

The debate that has gone on since 9/11 has created great tensions in the Chamber and outside it as we have tried to balance and rebalance the equation between individual liberty and collective security. The previous Government received much criticism for the measures they brought forward but I believe that, without exception, the Ministers who introduced those measures did so with total integrity. The current Home Secretary also displays that integrity and she has my full support in taking the difficult decisions that she has to take about specific individuals.

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)]

In my right hon. Friend’s years in the Home Office, in which he must have been involved in many discussions about anti-terrorism legislation, how much consideration was given to the implementation of the criminal law in open court rather than the creation of a series of special courts, special measures and all the suspicion that surrounds them?

[Paul Goggins]

Considerable consideration was always given to those issues. As the Home Secretary said earlier, prosecutions should always be brought where possible. Those who engage in terrorist activity should feel the full force of the law and where possible—where the evidence is there—they should be convicted and go to prison for a very long time. The problem is that sometimes the evidence and information that the Home Secretary and other Ministers have is not enough to secure a prosecution because much of it is protected or secret information that could not, of itself, sustain a successful prosecution. That is the territory we are dealing with, but I assure my hon. Friend that that consideration was always at the foremost of Minister’s minds at that time.

[Mr David Winnick (Walsall North) (Lab)]

I have the highest respect for the work that my right hon. Friend undertook during his time at the Home Office. I have tried to get a parliamentary answer to my question, but I did not get anywhere. I understand that no one who has been subject to a control order has later been charged with a terrorist offence. That seems rather odd and, if I may say so, rather disturbing.

[Paul Goggins]

My hon. Friend has well-known views on this issue and has expressed them frequently in the Chamber from both the Government and Opposition sides over the years. He forms his own conclusions but my conclusions about such individuals is that they are a small group of people for whom it is necessary to have some form of control outside the normal judicial process because of the risks that they pose. My hon. Friend has put forward his point of view on this before and he has strong views—I respect that.

[Naomi Long]

The right hon. Gentleman’s experience in Northern Ireland will also colour his view on these issues. One of the experiences that we had is that the use of unusual measures can often act as a rallying point for radicalising other young people, rallying them behind the cause, because people are seen as being persecuted rather than being tried under the law. Does he agree that such experiences show that these measures should be seen as unusual and that, for this reason, their ratification each year in Parliament is an important part of reinforcing that?

[Paul Goggins]

The hon. Lady speaks with great authority on this issue and I agree with every word she says. These powers—whether the control order powers that have been in place up to now or the new powers that the Home Secretary is bringing forward—should be used absolutely exceptionally and we should always bear in mind the risk that the hon. Lady mentions that their use can become a rallying point and can assist in the radicalisation of people whom we are trying desperately to keep in the mainstream of society. That should always be kept in mind. These powers should not be used generally; they are very specific powers to be used in very specific circumstances.

Let me deal with the circumstances in which the powers should be used. We are talking about a small group of individuals who are suspected of involvement in terrorist activities and who are either foreign nationals who cannot be deported because of a ruling of the European Court of Human Rights or they are individuals who cannot be prosecuted successfully because, as I said earlier, the compelling information about them is secret intelligence that could not alone sustain a successful prosecution. Over the past six years, control orders have been the best—some have used the expression “least worst”—set of powers to deal with that group of people.

As I have said before, we should always seek to gain consensus in the House on the important issue of counter-terrorism. The formation of the new Government last year gave us all an opportunity to reflect on the previous decade and see whether changes were required that would bring greater consensus and get an even better balance between individual liberty and collective security. I have changed my mind about pre-charge detention, having previously voted for 28 days and, indeed, for 42 days. I agree that the normal maximum should now be 14 days, provided that in exceptional circumstances it can be extended to 28 days. I am currently serving on the Joint Committee that is considering the emergency legislation that the Government have brought forward on this, and I have changed my mind on this issue.

[Mr Winnick]

Did I persuade you?

[Paul Goggins]

My hon. Friend is always very persuasive—one way or the other.

One area of policy on which I remain absolutely clear is the need to be able to control the activities of that small group of people who pose a serious threat and who cannot be deported or imprisoned, and I am pleased that the Government appear to have come to the same conclusion. We should seek consensus. There is much in the Bill that I can readily support. Conditions A to E, which are set out in clause 3, are welcome. They confirm the need for these TPIM notices to be focused on protection and prevention and they provide that the terrorism-related activity must be new activity. However, it is important that when a first application for a notice is made, that new activity can well predate the application.

A general time limit of two years is not unreasonable given the provisos that further notices can be made if there is new activity and that where a further notice is made, the older activity can be taken into account in addition to the new activity of which the Home Secretary has become aware. However, I caution her and her ministerial colleague against making that a general rule which can never be excepted. As I said about the maximum pre-charge detention period of 14 days, there might be exceptional circumstances. I hope that the Minister will be prepared, in Committee, to see whether some amendments can be framed to allow extensions beyond two years in specific and exceptional circumstances.

On making the powers permanent, I heard what my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) said about that reducing parliamentary oversight, but we could also see it as a positive development if Parliament can reach a consensus and settled view. Given the constant arguing and bickering on this issue year after year when we should be seeking consensus in the face of the terrible threats that terrorists bring, there is some merit in Parliament’s reaching a settled view. There is a balance to be struck.

I agree strongly with condition A, that the Secretary of State must have a reasonable belief

“that the individual is…involved in terrorism-related activity”.

That is a higher threshold than the reasonable suspicion threshold that has previously operated for control orders, but in reaching my conclusion I have referred to the opinion of Lord Carlile in his most recent report that the higher threshold of reasonable belief was, in practice, always achieved anyway for each control order that was taken out under the existing system. It is a standard that was already being met, and I see no problem in including that formally in legislation.

It is right, given that we have six years’ experience of operating control orders, to set out in more precise form the measures that can be imposed as part of the new TPIM notices. Schedule 1 includes a list of measures, including accommodation, travel, communications, association and so on. I urge the Minister to see whether there ought not to be a catch-all power, because there may be a condition that is not caught by schedule 1. It might be sensible to leave an opening so that the Home Secretary can impose such a condition if circumstances allow. It is not a power that I would expect to be used frequently, but if we do not have that power, and unusual circumstances occur, there is nothing we can do about it. Perhaps that is something that could be considered.

I have four serious difficulties with the Bill and in relation to other pertinent issues. The first was mentioned by my right hon. Friend—the overnight residence measure. She was right to point out that in schedule 1, which says that the Secretary of State may impose a requirement

“applicable overnight…for the individual to remain at a specified residence”,

there is no definition of “overnight”. It may be possible to go into that in Committee to see whether it is possible to include something a little clearer.

The really important issue is the specified residence itself. My right hon. Friend made a powerful argument in relation to that. Paragraph 1(3) says that the specified residence must be

“premises that are the individual’s own residence, or…other premises…that are situated in an appropriate locality or an agreed locality.”

An appropriate locality is one in which the individual has a pre-existing connection. In the case of CD, which my right hon. Friend mentioned, it would not be possible under the new legislation for the Home Secretary to impose the conditions that she rightly imposed on the control order governing that individual. If it is possible, I would welcome an explanation on that from the Minister in his winding-up speech.

Let us reflect on who CD is: a leading figure in a close group of Islamist extremists based in north London. That conspiracy of individuals was planning attacks and seeking to acquire weapons. He was a real threat, and the Home Secretary was quite right to take action, and to insist that he live in the west midlands. It is not just me who says so, as Mr Justice Simon supports her view. My right hon. Friend made it perfectly clear when reading from paragraph 53 of Mr Justice Simon’s judgment that the relocation obligation is a necessary and proportionate measure to protect the public from an immediate and real risk of a terrorism-related attack. The Bill as drafted would not allow the Home Secretary to force that individual to live outside London in the west midlands, and the people of London and elsewhere would be at much greater risk if she could not do so.

My second concern relates to electronic communication, which is dealt with in paragraph 7. Sub-paragraph (1) sounds quite tough, as the Secretary of State may impose

“restrictions on the individual’s possession or use of electronic communication devices”.

However, under sub-paragraph (3), each suspect may have

“a telephone operated by connection to a fixed line…a computer that provides access to the internet…a mobile telephone that does not provide access to the internet.”

To be honest, I am concerned that that demonstrates naivety about the sophisticated operations of international terrorists. They use multiple mobile phones, and will run rings round the measure, unless paragraph 7 is toughened up and made much more specific and much less confusing. There is a real job of work to be done by the Committee.

[Dr Huppert]

Does the right hon. Gentleman realise that one purpose of the measure is to enable more evidence to be gathered for prosecution? The point of allowing people to have that communication is partly for the sake of civil liberties but partly because it can be monitored. What we want to see is prosecution, not indefinite or even two-year detentions.

[Paul Goggins]

If the hon. Gentleman thinks that an international terrorist is sitting there thinking, “Thank goodness they have given me the internet so I can reveal all my contacts and conspiracies,” he is quite naive. We are talking about highly sophisticated people, and I am concerned that the provisions in paragraph 7(3) are not as sophisticated as they need to be to deal with the threat.

[Tom Brake]

The right hon. Gentleman has said that international terrorists are not going to use their internet access, because they will not want to reveal their deals, so what is the problem with providing internet access in the first place?

[Paul Goggins]

The hon. Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) was saying that international terrorists would rush off and use it and reveal all their sources and contacts to the authorities monitoring the measure. I shall make the point again: I do not think that the provisions as set out reflect the sophistication with which international terrorists operate.

My third difficulty relates not to the Bill but to a wider issue that is significant to the powers in the Bill—the whole business of rules on the disclosure of evidence. I welcome the fact that under the Bill there will still be closed hearings which can continue as before under control orders. That is needed, because if a judge is going to review the material or hear an appeal from a particular individual, he must consider the information available to the Home Secretary when she made the initial application. If some, if not all, of that information has to be protected, that must be done in a closed hearing. Special advocates will still be needed. The gist of the case must be provided to the individual.

As we recognise, however, the AF judgment makes it increasingly difficult to protect what in the interests of public safety and national security must remain secret information. That issue caused problems for the previous Government, and it has caused problems for this Government. It has ramifications for our relations with international partners with whom we share important information and intelligence. I applaud the fact that the Government are seeking to address that problem and deal with it in the Green Paper. May I tell all Front Benchers that we should do everything we can to resolve the issue, because if we do not do so the TPIM system will simply not work, as there will be an ever stronger demand that information that should remain secret is revealed in open court to the individual concerned? It is important that we resolve that issue so that we know what can be disclosed and what can be protected.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

I thank my right hon. Friend for giving way again. Does he not accept that there is a major concern about anti-terrorism legislation with special courts and special advocates, and in which information is withheld from the defendant? The barrister acting on behalf of the defendant is not allowed to reveal to them the nature of the evidence or the case against them. Therein lies a road to something very, very dangerous in a democracy that prides itself on open prosecutions and open justice, and thereby a much wider acceptance of the judicial system and the rule of law.

[Paul Goggins]

My hon. Friend again makes his point with great care. Of course, these are exceptional powers that should be used sparingly. We have all this apparatus in relation to control orders to ensure that the suspect’s interests can be protected. That is why we have special advocates who can consider the information and argue on behalf of the suspect. [Interruption.] Does the hon. Member for Cambridge wish to intervene?

[Dr Huppert]

I should be delighted to do so, and I thank the right hon. Gentleman for giving way. The problem is that the special advocate is not allowed to communicate the nature of that evidence to the person involved. That fundamentally means that they cannot advocate fairly on behalf of their client.

[Paul Goggins]

It is true that special advocates cannot share the intelligence directly, but they are there to represent the interests of the individual. To the hon. Gentleman, that might not be a perfect solution, but it is better that the individual has somebody to speak for them than nobody to speak for them. That is why that system was introduced.

I say again to my hon. Friend the Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn), who put his point very fairly, that these are exceptional mechanisms to assist in making sure that the rights and interests of the individual are protected, but in the end, the entire Bill is designed to ensure that the rest of us are protected against the threats that those individuals pose. We must not forget that. As we have these debates about the liberty of the individual, we must balance that against the need for the protection of the wider public. That is the dilemma that goes right through the debate. We should never lose sight of one or the other side of that argument.

My final point is whether the whole new TPIM system represents the same level of risk as we had with control orders or a greater level of risk. I can only assume that the Home Secretary believes there is an increased risk from the new TPIM system, otherwise why would she be committing a serious level of resource—whatever that level is—to the police and the Security Service to help them deal with the additional work and the additional pressures that will result from the new system?

I was somewhat concerned to hear the Home Secretary quote Jonathan Evans as saying that the additional money would—I think she said—mitigate against the additional risk. That is an interesting phrase worthy of further exploration. I am extremely concerned that new gaps will open up. The question is whether there will be sufficient resource to fill those gaps and whether those gaps will pose an additional risk. No one in the House should be complacent about the possibility of an increased risk. I know that the Intelligence and Security Committee on which my right hon. Friend the Member for Salford and Eccles (Hazel Blears) and I sit will take a very close interest in that.

I am sure that the last thing this Home Secretary would want to do is increase the risk to public safety. I mean that genuinely and sincerely, but Parliament must help her. One immediate way in which it can help is by tightening up the Bill in the way that I have suggested and as others will, I am sure, suggest, and then by monitoring closely what happens when the Bill and any amendments that are added to it are put into practice.

19:09

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

It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Paul Goggins), who drew on his experience and made some sensible contributions to the debate. I diverge from his view, however, on the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) made about communications. The point about allowing people to have access to mobile phones, the internet or fixed lines is that there are indeed some intelligent potential or actual terrorists, but equally there are some rather stupid terrorists who may use those facilities and make the sort of connections that would facilitate a prosecution. That might be one of the purposes of making communications available to them.

The Bill is welcome. It starts to tackle some of the grossest abuses of human rights that existed under the control order system, but I would like it to go further. For instance, on prosecutions, the right hon. Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East referred to the fact that there would be additional resources for covert surveillance and intelligence. My understanding is that that will be used to secure prosecutions, which is welcome. More could be done to secure prosecutions, and we may want to return to that at a later date. I am pleased that the Government are not afraid of improving Bills where and when that is necessary.

I do not agree with Liberty’s contention that the Bill is worse than the control order system that is currently in place. It is not; it is more targeted. Liberty’s argument seems to be centred on the fact that although control orders are continually on the political table because of the sunset clause that calls for an annual review and the associated parliamentary oversight, the effect of the Bill would be permanent. That is true. However, control orders have been debated annually and renewed year after year, whereas TPIMs are limited to a maximum of two years, following an initial period of one year.

The right hon. Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East argued that the Government should allow TPIMs to go beyond a two-year period. My understanding of one of the arguments deployed in favour of control orders is their ability to disrupt. One would expect that after a two-year period of a lack of communication or of controlled communication, the disruptive nature of control orders would have had an impact and broken down those networks. The right hon. Gentleman may have been arguing for TPIMs to be applied indefinitely to ensure that that disruption was permanent and took place over a longer time scale. My view is that disruption would have taken place within the first two years and the links would have been broken. To suggest that TPIMs should be extended beyond two years presents a threat from the civil liberties perspective.

[Mr Gerry Sutcliffe (Bradford South) (Lab)]

There is a case of somebody being subject to a control order that has been in effect for more than two years. If the advice of the Security Service is that it should continue, what would the hon. Gentleman say?

[Tom Brake]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. If there has been no evidence of any activity whatever during that period—TPIMs would allow for the measure to be imposed again if there was some sign of activity—and if there has been no activity, with the additional surveillance that will be provided, one must question the Security Service’s position. It might want to keep the person under a control order indefinitely, but if there is no evidence of activity surely the hon. Gentleman would agree that a line must be drawn. Given that the person had not undertaken any terrorist activities, the disruptive effect would have been felt and no further application of a control order would be appropriate.

As I said, control orders have been debated annually, and they have been renewed annually.

[Naomi Long]

Control orders having to be debated annually gives Parliament the opportunity to reconsider the situation before deciding whether to continue. The fact that up to now the control order system has been renewed on each occasion does not mean that it would be so indefinitely. Does it not make sense that we should continue to treat these measures as exceptional, rather than routine?

[Tom Brake]

I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention, which is a very sound one. I hope, and I am sure that the Minister will confirm this when he responds, that because counter-terrorism legislation is so essential, the Government will want to keep it under review, and that if, in future years, there is a need to adjust the measures, appropriate adjustments will be made.

What are the other objections to TPIMs? There is the question of whether there is any difference between reasonable belief and reasonable suspicion. It is my view that the Bill presents a higher evidential hurdle. The courts are aware of that, and they know the difference between those two. That difference is significant.

I acknowledge that TPIMs maintain a system of Executive-imposed measures that do not lie comfortably inside the judicial system. The Bill imposes measures that restrict freedom and human rights. As hon. Members know, those measures include but are not limited to overnight curfews, restrictions on travel, exclusion from certain places and buildings, and restrictions on electronic devices. It has been argued by the Opposition and by Liberty that these measures simply reflect the most offensive aspects of the control order system, but I do not think that that is the case. Clearly, in relation to relocation, internal exile, which the Soviet Union would have been very comfortable with, has gone.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

Does the hon. Gentleman not have some concerns about the successive non-debate of this issue by Parliament and the fact that a defendant with a two-year TPIM might never know why it was imposed and never have the evidence given to them? All they know is that they have a barrister who does know but is not allowed to tell them and that the judge knows but is not allowed to tell the barrister. Therefore, a circle of secrecy surrounds something that has a major impact on a person’s life, is career-changing, and so on. Is that really right in a liberal democracy?

[Tom Brake]

The hon. Gentleman might not be surprised to know that I agree with much of what he says. If my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) has an opportunity to speak, he might echo that very same point. That is why the Bill is clearly an improvement on what is in place now, but has scope for further improvement. I am sure that we will return to that in this place and perhaps in the other place.

[Pete Wishart]

Does not the hon. Gentleman understand and appreciate that those of us who cannot stand these things think that the Liberals have compromised too cheaply on these issues? I remind him that his leader said:

“A battery of curfews and tags, imposed in a legal limbo at the behest of politicians, is no surrogate for the aggressive use of the full force of the law.”

Why have the Liberals caved in so cheaply on these issues?

[Tom Brake]

I hope to explain why I do not think we have caved in cheaply, as the hon. Gentleman stated. First, relocation has gone. I accept that on overnight curfews I would be much more comfortable with what Liberal Democrats have referred to previously as residency requirements. An address would be identified at which the person would be expected to reside. I hope that the fact that there is no specific definition of overnight curfews will lead to a more flexible approach; that there might be a spectrum according to which overnight curfews may be imposed, going from what most would regard as overnight—eight or 10 hours—through to something much closer to a residency requirement. If overnight curfew was specified precisely, the risk is simply that that is what would be adopted in all cases, so there would not be the ability to consider each individual case in detail. In addition, the exclusions are specific, not geographic as previously, and there is access to telephones, computers and the internet, a matter that was raised by families in relation to their children and their ability to use computers for schoolwork, and so on. Those are real changes that are included in the Bill.

Another area of concern that has been flagged up and to which the hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) referred is the extent to which the person subject to TPIMs will know what they have been accused of. The Home Secretary said that the individual will know enough about the key elements of their case to enable them to act. That is worthy of further discussion and elucidation. I see the Minister nods and perhaps when he responds he will be able to say more about what this will mean in practice. Clearly, it is an ongoing issue for Liberal Democrats, the hon. Gentleman and others to ensure that people who are subject to control orders or will be subject to TPIMs know as much as possible about the allegations against them without revealing the confidential sources that could put at risk people in the field.

[Hazel Blears (Salford and Eccles) (Lab)]

Is the hon. Gentleman aware that there have been a number of legal decisions that now require the person subject to a control order to be informed of the substance of the case against them? It is not something new; that is the legal position.

[Tom Brake]

I am aware that there have been cases where that has been the outcome.

I am sure that the Minister will want to pick up that matter when he replies. I also hope that this will give him an opportunity to update us on intercept evidence. I understand the difficulties in balancing the operational requirements with the legal requirements and in balancing the scale of benefits with the associated costs, but I hope that he will update the House.

I referred to prosecutions in relation to surveillance evidence. It might be helpful to specify a time frame within which a prosecution must be brought. There may be some scope for moving on that in future debates.

I come now to a couple of subjects that I suspect will not necessarily boost my popularity in certain quarters, but having advocated the importance of voting rights for some prisoners my popularity might not be in the ascendant in any case. It is important to treat in a civilised way those who may wish to inflict death or injury on us in order to expose their barbaric nature. That is why we need clear safeguards for those who are extradited to the UK. If people have suffered torture abroad and are subsequently moved to the UK, on their arrival the UK Government have an important role in assessing any health or mental health implications that should be taken on board. There is also the ongoing issue with regard to the role of the control order review group, which the Government will ensure continues in operation under TPIMs, in reviewing the mental health of people subject to control orders and now to TPIMs. It has that role at present, but from the discussions that I have had with those who have been subject to control orders that have subsequently been quashed it does not seem to be working very effectively.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point about people who may have been subject to torture in other jurisdictions. This is a controversial issue, but does he agree that we should not deport people to a jurisdiction that has not signed the UN convention on torture, and that they should remain here until such time as that jurisdiction signs it, rather than the unfortunate arrangements that were made with a number of countries in the past?

[Tom Brake]

That is a difficult point to address. I know that there are concerns about how watertight memorandums of understanding are, if that is what the hon. Gentleman is referring to. It is a tough call. I am at risk of making policy on the hoof if I give an instant response. It is a difficult issue and the hon. Gentleman is right to raise it. Perhaps when the Minister responds he will say whether the UK Government are making progress in drawing up memorandums of understanding with other countries where we believe that the safeguards are sufficient to allow that.

There are some issues around how people subject to TPIMs are dealt with, and what sort of assessment is made, particularly of their mental health, and any torture that they may have experienced in the countries that they come from.

I will support the Government on Second Reading. The Bill is better than its predecessor. Its measures are more targeted, less damaging to individuals subject to TPIMs and more observant of human rights. But it is not perfect and can be improved, and I hope that it will be during its passage here and in the other place.

19:30

[Hazel Blears (Salford and Eccles) (Lab)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to contribute to the debate this evening and I think that all the contributions made so far indicate how serious the issues we are dealing with are and how difficult for everyone, whichever side of the House they are on, because it is a case of trying to weigh the balance and make some very difficult judgments. When dealing with matters of national security, it is important that we try as far as possible to reach a consensus, because these matters are incredibly important for the country, and that we try to start from the evidence base, which in my experience leads to better decisions on where the balance of judgment should rightly lie.

I want to think about the evidence we face at the moment. First, that concerns the nature of the threat. Sometimes these issues are discussed in the abstract and are not necessarily rooted in the reality of the threat that the country faces. For some years the threat level has been “severe”, which is only one step down from “imminent”. That means that this country faces a very significant threat from al-Qaeda and al-Qaeda-inspired terrorism, often originating abroad but also involving people who were born and brought up in this country and are enmeshed in a series of worrying plots. It is important to put on the record the nature of the threat that the country faces.

Secondly, we should consider the extent of the problem. People sometimes feel that, because we have been dealing with this threat for 10 years and have had the control order regime in place for the past six, the extent of that threat has somehow reduced. At any one time, the security services are dealing with tens of plots, which are often very complex and interrelated, with a web of international and domestic actors and many technologies, and involving incredibly complex organisations. Between 1,600 and 2,000 known terrorist suspects are involved in these plots, and those are the ones we know about. There may well be other organisations, other plots and other individuals who, as we speak, are intent on organising the kind of terror that can wreak mayhem and destruction on our communities. The sustained nature of the threat and its extent ought to be a backdrop to some of the difficult decisions that we have to make with regard to this legislation.

There is therefore a clear need for surveillance and the gathering of intelligence and evidence on the intentions and actions of those involved in planning and conducting terrorist operations. It is of course right, as my hon. Friend the Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) and others point out in an eloquent and genuine way, that in a free democracy such as ours we should always seek to bring those involved in terrorism before the criminal courts. That should be our starting point. We should bring prosecutions where the evidence can be adduced and tested, where witnesses can be cross-examined and where a jury can reach a verdict on whether the accused is guilty or innocent. That must be the starting point in any democracy—that we have a criminal system that allows all that to be done as openly and transparently as possible.

One of the reasons we brought in some of the new offences now on the statute book, such as committing acts preparatory to terrorism, was to enable us to interrupt plots at the earliest possible stage and still be able to bring a criminal prosecution and go through the conventional criminal system and bring those people to justice. Those offences have been very useful in giving the police powers to interrupt early and ensure that they disrupt the plot and prevent any damage while still using the conventional criminal justice system, which is obviously what we want to encourage.

However, we must recognise that there are—and, unfortunately, likely to be for the foreseeable future—a small number of people involved in terrorism who pose a serious threat to the safety of our citizens and country and who cannot be brought within the ambit of the conventional criminal justice system. Much as we may dislike it, that is the situation we face. For several years there have been discussions, or attempts at discussions, between various Home Secretaries and Ministers and the judicial system, and in many cases the judiciary have been reluctant to engage in any discussions on whether the way the criminal justice system operates can be amended. I understand their reluctance because of the separation of the Executive and the judiciary, and they want to avoid confusion, but I feel that the criminal justice system is not necessarily able to cope with the nature of the threat and the offences we face in the world we now live in.

Many of the suspects cannot be subjected to the traditional judicial system because to do so would mean bringing forward intelligence and evidence that could put at risk the lives of those who seek to protect us. We cannot allow that intelligence to be revealed as doing so would reveal those agents and their personal security would be jeopardised. Those people put their lives on the line for the people of this country and we have a duty to protect them. Bringing forward that intelligence would also reveal the surveillance methods and techniques that the security services often use to gain it, which would also undermine their ability to keep us all safe.

Control orders have been used in a small number of cases and I think that we should get that number to its irreducible minimum. We imposed only 48 control orders in the six years that they have existed and there are only eight or 10 now in place. It is a very tightly managed and controlled regime, so those powers are not sprayed around and used loosely as a way of rounding up the usual suspects. That is absolutely not the intention. I am afraid that the reality, which we should all be grown up enough to acknowledge, is that the threat we face is such that we have to have a system that, however distasteful we as democrats find it, can protect the people for whom we are responsible.

It was for that reason that in 2005 the then Home Secretary and I, as the Minister responsible for policing and counter-terrorism, brought forward the original control order legislation, which the Bill seeks to alter in some significant respects. I will never forget bringing forward that legislation. I remember being in this House at 4 o’clock in the morning debating that hugely contested legislation. In some ways that was very difficult, but in others it was very encouraging as it indicated the depth of commitment on both sides of the House to a free democracy in which people felt strongly about those issues. I was very glad when we finished at 10 o’clock that morning; nevertheless, it was an inspiring occasion and a good one for the House.

I want make it crystal clear to the House that, whatever some Members might say, that original legislation was not introduced in some kind of knee-jerk overreaction to the events of 9/11 or 7/7. It was a genuine recognition of the inability of the criminal justice system to accommodate the situation we faced. I am a lawyer and I have huge respect for the rule of law—

[Paul Goggins]

Steady.

[Hazel Blears]

Steady on, absolutely.

I also know how important it is to have a practical and workable system in place. We must ensure that those who pose a significant threat to ordinary people’s safety can be tracked and prevented from pursuing their plans to cause death and serious harm in pursuit of their warped political ideology.

We all want to achieve consensus where we can, but I have some serious concerns about some of the Bill’s proposals, with regard to their effectiveness, their ability to disrupt those who will be subject to TPIMs, as they are so elegantly called, and whether they will provide us with a proper level of security. Lord Carlile is always called in aid in these debates, and I want to place on the record my thanks to him for the fabulous job he has done over the years as the Government’s independent reviewer of terrorism legislation. He said just last year:

“In stark terms, the potential cost of losing control orders is that the UK would be more vulnerable to a successful terrorist attack.”

He does not say such things lightly. He has huge experience in trying to weigh the balance and get the judgment right. He also said:

“Unless control orders were replaced by some equally disruptive and practicable system… the repeal of control orders would create a worryingly higher level of public risk.”

We ought to have serious and close regard to what Lord Carlile has said and test the Bill against the concerns he has expressed.

In a powerful contribution, my right hon. Friend the shadow Home Secretary expressed her concerns about some of those issues, so I will not speak about them at length. The relocation issue is a genuine concern. It may be characterised as internal exile or a soviet-style imposition, but if it is necessary for someone to be located away from the networks that they have established in order to improve the safety of ordinary citizens, I do not think it should simply be ruled out on principle.

We have discussed whether access to mobile phones and computers might enable us to obtain further evidence for prosecution, but I am very doubtful that it will. I am concerned that people will have access not simply to one mobile phone: once they have one, it will be very easy indeed for experienced people not to dupe the security services, as I hope they are not capable of being duped, but to create the sense that it is normal to have access to a computer and a mobile phone. The prospect of a security risk is therefore higher than I would feel comfortable with, so I seek reassurance from the Minister on access to electronic equipment. We know how much terrorist business is done online and with technology. It is a massive issue for us, and this measure could present us with an increased risk.

[Dr Huppert]

Has the right hon. Lady spoken to the right hon. Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Paul Goggins)? He was concerned that those people simply would not use such equipment so we would not get any information. One cannot have it both ways. If those people are going to use such equipment and are capable of duping the security services, or whatever term the right hon. Lady wishes to use, they might be doing it now, just like those who abscond. Surely this is a more liberal measure that will also help with prosecutions.

[Hazel Blears]

But that is no reason to relax the powers. If there are fears that such activities could be happening now, I should be very concerned indeed and certainly would not want to go down the path of having less control over access to electronic equipment. I require further reassurance, as do the citizens of this country, that we are not going to give people access to mobile phones and computers so that they can maintain those relationships and networks that are the very reason they are subject to a control order or, indeed, will be subject to a TPIM. We require further reassurance on that issue.

I am very concerned about the inability to renew the TPIM after two years. In the case of AM in 2007, the control order lasted for more than two and a half years. When it came up for renewal Mr Justice Wilkie, confirming its renewal after two and a half years, said that AM was

“highly intelligent, calm, cautious beyond his years. He has replied and maintains this degree of calmness and self-confidence, which in my judgment is consistent with the view of the Security Service that he is a disciplined, trained and committed person whose commitment remains unimpaired, despite the length of the control order. He was and remains prepared to be a martyr in an attack designed to take many lives. He remains highly trained, security conscious and committed.”

I am therefore concerned that if there is a blanket prohibition, in any circumstances and without the addition of new evidence of involvement in terrorism such orders will come to an end. I require further assurance. If the reason for making the TPIM in the first place were of sufficient seriousness, I would be extremely concerned about our deciding simply to say that there is an arbitrary cut-off point, as the legislation does, irrespective of the threat that the person poses.

[Tom Brake]

What does the right hon. Lady think would be a reasonable period, if there had been no activity whatever, for a TPIM to apply to somebody?

[Hazel Blears]

These are matters for careful and balanced judgment, which is why we have constant judicial oversight, why we have to return to the courts to renew our orders and why we have a legal system in this country which is capable of making such judgments. If we are in the hands of a respected, experienced and knowledgeable High Court judge, who has heard submissions on the issues, I should feel slightly more content than if an order simply came to an arbitrary end as a result of legislation passed in this House.

[Pete Wishart]

If that individual is so dangerous, why do we not just arrest him, charge him and throw the full force of the judicial system at him?

[Hazel Blears]

I am delighted that the hon. Gentleman has asked me that question, because this is where we end up in a sort of tortuous circle. That individual has not been charged because the intelligence against him does not comprise evidence, has been gained by covert surveillance and cannot be revealed in court, as it will put at risk either the lives of the agents or their techniques. We know that this person, as Mr Justice Wilkie said, remains a trained and committed martyr to the cause and is prepared to carry out further attacks, but, because the individual cannot be prosecuted through the conventional criminal justice system, the hon. Gentleman’s decision would be to let him walk free.

That is the judgment that has to be made, and that is why these issues weigh so heavily on the people who have to make the decisions, people such as the Home Secretary, who has to make those decisions in individual cases. They weigh incredibly heavily on all of us and are not lightly taken, and that is why we need a system of checks and balances. An arbitrary limit of a two-year TPIM in every single case would cause me concern if the original threat still existed.

My final concern, on which I have not received reassurance, is the extra costs of surveillance, because there will need to be greater surveillance if TPIMs conditions are substantially lighter and less invasive than those of control orders. Next year we have the Olympics, which will be a massive drain on the resources of the security services. That is acknowledged throughout the system, so I want significant reassurance from the Minister about the ability of the security services to maintain the same assurance to the citizens of our country through TPIMs as they have through the control orders system. I am not satisfied that that is the case.

The control order system had more measures to disrupt people’s ability to organise their networks. Surveillance does not take the place of disruption, because it is a different technique of a different order, and, as Lord Carlile says, unless there is a system of disruption as well as surveillance, he has concerns about the effectiveness of the regime, as do I. The security services say that the extra resources would mitigate the risk, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Paul Goggins) has said, and it is incumbent on the Government to give us such reassurance.

We must remind ourselves that the people who have been the subject of control orders are not law-abiding, innocent citizens going freely about their business. By their very nature, they are dangerous people who pose a real threat to our safety, and the measures must be sufficient to reassure people properly that the system is sufficient to control the movements of such individuals. Surveillance is not as effective as disruption, so we need to do more to ensure that disruption takes place.

In all my years as a Home Office Minister, and through my work in the Communities and Local Government Department, control orders have represented some of the most difficult decisions I have had to make, because they go to the heart of our democracy. Our freedoms are incredibly hard won, and none of us wants to give them up lightly at all. I talked to a senior member of the judiciary a few weeks ago, who said passionately and in a very committed way, “Hazel, whenever there’s a decision to be made between liberty and security, I will always, always err on the side of liberty,” but it is more complicated than that.

We cannot simply say that we would always make the decisions in that way. We might do in theory, in academic practice and, certainly, in terms of our values, but we are faced with making a decision that must balance security and liberty, the security of ordinary people seeking to go about their daily lives, as against the liberty of people for whom there is a great deal of intelligence to say that they are dangerous and dedicated, because of their political ideology, to causing mass harm and death among the community at large. That is an incredibly difficult decision, but sometimes it is portrayed as an easy one.

Of course, we do not want to restrict people’s civil liberties or to introduce a punitive, repressive or oppressive regime, but the alternative is to allow people who pose a severe and dangerous threat to our country to walk our streets. Those decisions are hard to make, and I just ask the Home Secretary and the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (James Brokenshire), who is on the Treasury Bench tonight, to think really hard, as I know they will, about whether their proposed regime is sufficient to give the people of this country the reassurance that they deserve, and to ensure that that tiny minority of people who are subject to a regime are not able to continue to pose the threat of damage, death and destruction to the people of this country. I look forward in Committee to the Minister giving us a great deal more reassurance than I have had this evening.

19:49

[Patrick Mercer (Newark) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Salford and Eccles (Hazel Blears), who brings to this subject not only a great deal of common sense but a great deal of experience. As she said, our liberties depend on our security. The two are inextricably linked; we cannot have one without the other.

As the right hon. Lady also rightly said, we sometimes lose the sense of why we are here having these debates in the first place. Over the past few days, four of our fighting men have been killed in Afghanistan, and it is worth bearing in mind that a police officer was recently blown to pieces in Omagh. They died for two things: not only to guarantee our physical security and protection but to guarantee that our liberties remain pre-eminent in our society. I would therefore, with the greatest of respect, ask that we all lift our sights a little—that we stop arguing about telephones, computers, curfews and other technical things and remember why we are here. We are here to honour the memories of those young men and young women who have died for us so that we can have a debate such as this in complete freedom and comfort. The single most important freedom that I would iterate on this occasion is the freedom for the accused man or woman to be innocent until he or she is proved guilty. Control orders do not do that. Control orders deny the very liberty, the very freedom, the very values for which our young men are this evening facing death and destruction in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The right hon. Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Paul Goggins) and I remember the difficult times of the mid-2000s. I have jousted with him many times and always enjoy his contributions. He made a fascinating point when he said that there was no rule book; I think that “instruction book” was his precise phrase. Indeed there was not, but there was a history book; in fact, there were lots of history books. Over the past 60 years or so, this country has allowed itself to make two grave errors at times of serious national emergency. On the first occasion, we were in a war of national survival, when we banged up tens of thousands of people during the period of wartime internment and assumed that they were guilty without giving them any form of trial. Because of the circumstances, that was not as serious a mistake as that which we made in the early 1970s when we interned hundreds of people in Ulster. I do not want to try to drag the argument into a simple, narrow one about Irish republicanism. None the less, it is important that we understand that control orders fly in the face of every lesson that we learned in the ’70s, for which many of my comrades died and others, including me, shed our blood.

Internment was wrong for all sorts of reasons. It was a straightforward denial of liberty, but much more importantly, it left behind a legacy of hatred that continues up until this day. I do not need to tell the hon. Member for Belfast East (Naomi Long), who lives with this on a minute-to-minute basis, that we are currently facing a threat in Ulster that is no less than that which we face from Islamist fundamentalism on these shores. That is because we got the issues and arguments that we are discussing wrong decades ago, and we must now make sure that we get them right. There is no place for control orders in a civilised society that wishes to counter terrorism intelligently, thoughtfully, and based on practice from the past. I therefore say to the right hon. Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East that we should have used the history books before we started to compose these sorts of laws, which have done such damage and wasted so much time and so much life. We should have looked more carefully at where we got it wrong in the past.

Let us stop arguing about telephones, computers and all the technical things and ask ourselves what we can do to get rid of a pernicious system that denies the very thing in which we all believe—freedom and the ability to be innocent until proven guilty. Let us re-inject energy into our decision to negotiate memorandums of understanding. Let us talk to foreign Governments in more detail. Let us re-approach the European courts with greater energy. Let us try to insist that if an individual from another country commits a crime, or is thought to be about to commit a crime, or is even thought to be guilty of a crime, although not proven to be so, he or she is sent back to the country from which he or she originates. If it seems we cannot do that, let us then inject more energy into trying to do it—let us not give up. At the same time, let us look at the techniques that we can apply to make sure that intelligence on these individuals is turned into evidence that can be used in court to convict them and to get them behind bars if they are guilty, or, if they are not, to give them their liberty back.

I ask the Minister what has happened to the process of intercept evidence. Even as early as 1977, we were concerned about whether we could use that in court as evidence. To the best of my second lieutenant’s knowledge, it was being reviewed in the mid-’70s. Why can we still not use intercept evidence in court? I refuse to give in to the foot-dragging approach that the previous Government took on this issue. When I served on the Home Affairs Committee, we were told, “This is not a silver bullet, but by golly it will help.” What about questioning after charge? I think we have made some progress on that; the Minister can tell me whether I am right or wrong. Surely it is a tool that we can use, is it not?

Lastly—I have told people not to be too technical, and here I am delving into all sorts of technical things—there is plea bargaining, which the Americans and the Canadians use very successfully. Where do we stand on that? Have we given it enough thought? Have we had a refreshed insight and looked carefully at how we can use it? If we raise our eyes above the parapet of the specific argument, there are devices that we can use to produce evidence to get people into court and put them on trial. That has to be the aim rather than the current mish-mash of illiberal nonsense that we have within the democracy that we sometimes pretend to be.

My heart bleeds less than most people’s, but the fact remains that we cannot deal with these individuals improperly for two reasons: first, because of their basic human rights, about which I feel strongly; and secondly, for practical reasons. If we continue to subject minorities in this country to measures such as control orders, all of which are being applied to a very small number of people who come from a similar sort of background and believe in a similar sort of cause, we are bound to disaffect the wider societies from which they hail. We need look no further than what we did to the Roman Catholic population in Northern Ireland in the 1970s. We imposed not the same, but similar measures on those people—not entirely, but almost exclusively. The effect was that a military campaign by the Irish Republican Army that was pretty well over by the end of the ’70s extended itself well into the ’90s and killed hundreds more people than it needed to.

[Paul Goggins]

The hon. Gentleman has returned to the parallel between internment in the 1970s and control orders and TPIMs now. I acknowledge what he says about the impact of internment in Northern Ireland in the 1970s, but to draw a direct parallel between that and control orders and TPIMs is erroneous. The authorisation and oversight system is much more rigorous in relation to control orders and TPIMs than ever it was for internment.

[Patrick Mercer]

The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right and I accede to that point. I will go with him, sit on a Committee and talk about all that good stuff. However, that does not make a difference in the eyes of the violent republican and the Islamist fundamentalist. They will make the parallels completely and perfectly, and they will use them to twist the mind and to suborn the innocent. That is exactly my point, and I am grateful to him for making it, because we are in danger of becoming over-technical.

I will not extend the point much further. It is simple: if we are not careful, we will impose on the very people whom we are trying to recruit and to persuade to come to our side the same sort of measures that we imposed on the Roman Catholic population in Northern Ireland in the 1970s. I will quote a song that summarises the point:

“Being Irish means you’re guilty, so we’re guilty one and all.”

Irish republicans were able to write that line because of internment. Irish republicans were able to write that line because their society had been suborned by a Government who were misguided. The parallels are not exact, but they are there. This is illiberal, this is improper, this is impractical, and this is wrong. We must get rid of control orders as soon as we can.

20:02

[Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)]

I know that in this House we often say that it is a pleasure to follow the hon. Gentleman, but in this case I really mean it. That was a thoughtful speech that got to the heart of the matter. It showed the impact that control orders and TPIMs have on the wider community, and the way in which they are seen by the communities that are subjected to them.

When we make legislation that does not allow the defendant to see any of the evidence that is presented against them, we are getting into difficult and dangerous territory. I agree with the hon. Member for Newark (Patrick Mercer) that we have to tread carefully. There have been thoughtful speeches tonight and Members have made their points well, but I think that we are being a little too cavalier when it comes to the civil liberties of so many people in our nation. I know that these measures apply to only a few people, but the problem is how they are perceived. That is what we should consider before going any further down the line of introducing a new regime to replace control orders.

Control orders have failed more than any other measure. They have not worked. They have led to no convictions whatsoever. We must consider the fact that 15% of those who have been subject to a control order are now at liberty and we do not know where they are. Control orders have failed, they do not work, and they have a disastrous impact on communities and individuals throughout this country.

I say to the Minister that I have been quite impressed by the performance of the Conservative-led Government over the past few months. They have been as good as their word. They have helped to dismantle the rotten, anti-civil libertarian state bequeathed by the last Labour Government. I cheered them to the rafters when they introduced the Bill to get rid of the hated Labour ID cards scheme. I wish I could have been there at the bonfire of the equally detested national database, which Labour introduced. I welcome the progress that has been made on pre-charge detention. It is not perfect, but there has been massive progress, particularly when one considers that in the days of the right hon. Member for Salford and Eccles (Hazel Blears), we were approaching 90 days’ pre-charge detention. Thank goodness those days are gone. I also applaud the Conservative-led Government on their progress on all the other surveillance apparatus so cherished by the last Labour Government.

Why stop at control orders? We could have got rid of those too. This is the last remaining rotten piece of legislation from Labour’s anti-civil libertarian state. Of course, we saw this coming. We all heard the rumours of disagreements in the Cabinet and between the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister. We did not see the Bill for months, until a face-saving exercise was concocted to allow the Deputy Prime Minister a bit of dignity on the issue. However, it is a rotten compromise. It has done nothing. The only thing the Liberals have got out of it is a renaming of control orders. It is just not good enough. They could have got the whole thing, made progress and got shot of these odious practices, such as people being subject to curfews without any exposure to the evidence that is presented against them.

I am disappointed in the behaviour of this Government on control orders, and I expected better of the Home Secretary and her ministerial team. However, they are subject to pressures too. I can just imagine all the fine representatives of the security and intelligence industry wandering into No. 10 and telling them, “These measures are absolutely essential and have to be done. Civil liberties are all right, but this is about national security.” I can just imagine the files being presented and the Home Secretary being convinced that these measures are absolutely necessary.

I say to the Minister that when it comes to control orders, this Conservative Government are little better than Lord Reid and the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Mr Blunkett). It was new Labour that introduced these measures, and we have to consider the journey that we have taken on this issue. They were introduced in an absolute panic with emergency legislation, which was supposed to be temporary. They were supposed to apply only to foreign nationals. There are now no foreign national controlees—they are all UK residents. All the reasons why we had these things in the first place have gone. Nobody who has been subject to a control order has been prosecuted. Control orders have failed in bringing people to justice, because nobody has been brought to justice and there has been no attempt to bring anybody to justice under control orders.

Now we have TPIMs. What is the difference? There is not really any difference. I accept what Liberty says, although I know the Liberals do not. I believe that in some respects, TPIMs are worse than control orders, because they are permanent and will not be subject to yearly reviews. That is the great anti-civil libertarian flaw at the heart of the TPIMs regime. In other respects, there is no difference. Control orders are instigated by the Home Secretary with the permission of the High Court, except in urgent cases. TPIMs will be instigated by the Home Secretary with the permission of the High Court, except in urgent cases. There are closed proceedings under control orders and special advocates examine secret evidence forming the basis of the order. Under TPIMs, there will be closed proceedings and special advocates will examine secret evidence forming the basis of the order. There is no difference whatsoever. If there is a breach, there is five years’ imprisonment under control orders. Under TPIMs—surprise, surprise—it is also five years. There is very little difference.

Under the Bill, individuals who are branded as terror suspects will still be left at large in the community, unable to challenge the suspicion against them or prove it to be wrong. They will be subject to electronic tagging and curfews. Actually, they are not curfews, but overnight residence requirements. Who on earth made up that term? It sounds like a sleepover that kids would be involved in, only it is a sleepover with police surveillance and an electronic tag. It is no different from a curfew and it is a massive restriction on people’s liberty. There will be restrictions on communication, movement and the ability to work or study. As before, individuals who are subject to TPIMs will be prevented from leading any kind of normal life.

The TPIMs regime will prove to be as ineffective as its predecessor in fighting terrorism. It will continue to tip off suspects and prevent evidence from being gathered, while leaving potentially dangerous people at large in the community for extended periods. I have mentioned the fact that 15% of controlees have disappeared. That demonstrates that administrative community punishments that are used in the place of criminal prosecutions are as dangerous to security as they are to liberty.

Control orders were rushed through Parliament. After 10 years, I thought that we would come to this House, consider the issue and see whether they were still required. I have listened very carefully to all the speeches that have been made tonight, and I have heard no evidence to suggest that these things are still required.

In many ways the new orders are worse, because there is permanence to them. The powers will no longer be reviewed every year, and the labelling of people as terrorists without any sight of the evidence against them will now be made permanent. There is more, because the Secretary of State could unleash all sorts of concessionary measures that could make the orders even more unpleasant. There could be further restrictions, curfews and bans on communications and associations—it is all very subjective. I am implacably opposed to control orders, and I have seen no evidence that they are required.

[Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)]

I am very much inclined to agree with all the hon. Gentleman’s remarks, but what would he say about the argument from those who promote these measures that the people who will be subject to them are terrorist suspects against whom prosecutions cannot be brought?

[Pete Wishart]

That is exactly what is said, and we have heard from a number of contributors this evening that these are people against whom there is not sufficient evidence or evidence of good enough quality for a successful prosecution. We heard the example of an individual who has had a control order against him for two years. His liberty has been compromised for two years because he has not been able to prove his innocence in a court and the state has not been able to prove his guilt. That is at the heart of the matter, which was why the hon. Member for Newark was spot on in his observations about how control orders are operating.

[Naomi Long]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the debate has been framed in the context of whether we put security before liberty or liberty before security, but that in fact there is a fine balance between the two? By denying liberty we not only radicalise young people into terrorism—we have seen that in Northern Ireland, although I accept that the parallels are not perfect—but provide a concession to terrorists, who are out to remove our liberty.

[Pete Wishart]

The hon. Lady is spot on. I know that every Government do their best to balance the security requirements of the nation and civil liberties. I think that most of what the Labour Government did on civil liberties was totally wrong, and I opposed most of the measures that they took, but I believe that they acted in the best interests of security. However, with the invasion of Iraq they radicalised a generation of international Islamists and Muslims, and they took measures that seemed to be targeted against one specific community in the UK. They fostered resentment and created massive community divisions. They got that utterly and totally wrong.

I thought that the new Government would come in with a new broom. They have done a lot of good things in dismantling the apparatus that Labour put in place, but I wish that they had spent a bit more time on this subject. They still have the opportunity to improve the Bill, and I hope that they will do so in Committee.

20:12

[Dr Julian Huppert (Cambridge) (LD)]

It is a great pleasure to follow a number of today’s speeches, particularly the last two. I agree very much with what the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) said, and it is a particular pleasure to follow him because I spent some of the recess cycling through his constituency. It is great to find his countryside, as well as most of his opinions, agreeable. The hon. Member for Newark (Patrick Mercer) also made a fantastic speech.

I am in sympathy with both hon. Members, because this is a disappointing Bill. It does not live up to the aspirations that many of us had that this Government would come in and clear away much more of the vestiges of what Labour had set up. There is of course a balance to be struck, and nobody would dispute the fact that there is a real terrorist threat. The question is how best to deal with it. If we go the way Labour did, we will make it much worse as well as sacrificing civil liberties. That is why the balance needs to be struck. The Bill is a step in the right direction, but it does not go as far as it should.

My interpretation is that Home Office Ministers did not manage to stand up to officials who continued the groupthink that we saw for many long years under Labour and that we have heard in a number of speeches. There are, of course, some honourable exceptions—the hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) has been very clear on the subject—but most of the speeches that we have heard from Labour Members make it clear that they would like a more authoritarian approach. That is one of the problems that the new Home Office Ministers have had to deal with.

It is a shame that the shadow Home Secretary is not in her place, because I wanted to thank her for giving an excellent example of somebody trying to have their cake and eat it. She said at one point that there was a substantial difference between control orders and TPIMs, but then said they were essentially exactly the same. However, it was finally clear, although she would not admit it when I asked her, that it seems to be Labour party policy to keep control orders, with all the bad things about them. We have heard the arguments for relocation, secret evidence and further infringements of civil liberties.

I would like to go further in a liberal direction. As I have said, the Bill is disappointing, but it is not a disaster and can perhaps be saved. I hope that the Committee will do that. There is a new Minister responsible for security, who sadly is not in his place, and I am sure that he will be able to be very much more reasonable about issues such as this; he has been very reasonable about drugs policy in previous discussions.

Some of the Bill is great. I like clause 1, which is a really fantastic clause and one that I fought an election to try to achieve. However, the Bill goes downhill a bit after that. It keeps extra-judicial processes, which we should not wish to see. We have the rule of law for a reason. The Bill also keeps secrecy, as has been mentioned, with special advocates and secret evidence so that people do not know what they are accused of and cannot adequately brief a barrister to represent them.

Ultimately, the problem is that the Bill relies entirely on the good judgment of the Home Secretary. It contains a broad power allowing for anything that the Home Secretary reasonably believes to be necessary, which could be any of a long list. I have no doubt that the current Home Secretary is more liberal than some of the previous ones, but do we all have faith in all future Home Secretaries of whatever party making the right decisions? I am very concerned about that.

We expected some good bits in the Bill, and in her statement the Home Secretary talked about better focus and more targeted restrictions, which is a good step. She also talked about powers similar to those used in the civil justice system to prevent sexual offences and domestic violence, for example, and I would have liked to see those powers in the Bill. The Bill could have been much more like other parts of the law, but that opportunity was missed.

Another good part of the Bill that we expected to see is the idea that police will have a greater duty to look after prosecutions. One has to look carefully to find it: it is in clause 10(5)(a). However, the change is very little. We have heard that the police process has been very ineffective. Because the security services have looked after the case management of the people in question, the efforts to prosecute have been extremely weak. I have no faith that what is in the Bill at the moment will make a difference to that, so it absolutely must be strengthened.

It is very good to know that there will not be relocation. I am pleased to see that in the Bill. The change from curfews to an overnight residence requirement is a small step in the right direction, but it does not go far enough. I should like a residency requirement that reflects the situation of most people. Most people—I realise that MPs are not typical in this regard—have a home where they normally reside overnight. That does not mean that they are there every night, or that they are there for the same hours every night, but it provides a reasonable way to find somebody. That should be the standard approach if we must have restrictions of any kind.

There is another improvement in the Bill, which is the move from “reasonable suspicion” to “reasonable belief”. We have heard that it will probably have a minimal effect, but it is a bit better. However, I say again what I said in a debate earlier in the year about terrorist asset-freezing: it still means that there is a threshold below the balance of probabilities. We are not asking for evidence to be demonstrated to a level at which we can have even a 50:50 belief that somebody is involved in terrorist activity. Many of us would like a criminal standard and a criminal conviction, but under the Bill the evidence threshold is below the civil standard, which very much concerns me.

I am also concerned that we are losing the annual review. I agree with the comments that have been made about that. Control orders were introduced as emergency, temporary legislation, and I believe we are now past that emergency, temporary period. I would like us not to have an annual review, but only because we have got rid of control orders completely and their replacement does not arouse our concerns. However, I am worried about parliamentary scrutiny of the process.

I am also concerned about schedule 1. I am grateful to the Home Office for allowing me to have discussions about what might be in it, but it is much broader than I had ever anticipated. It mentions exclusions from particular areas, and the explanatory notes highlight that that could include a mosque. I hope the Minister will be able to tell me whether it could include an exclusion from all mosques, or from any other religious building for people from other backgrounds. It mentions association bans, on which there are very few constraints. Could they involve banning somebody from associating with their family? What safety is there in that measure? A long list of measures—I shall follow the direction of the hon. Member for Newark and not go through every single one of them—must be pulled out and dealt with in Committee.

The Bill is simply not good enough. The details need to change, but so do the principles. We can spend a lot of time haggling over phraseology, but the approach is wrong. Any alternative should be part of the normal legal process, and we must find a way to make that normal process work.

Effectively, there is a power for judicial review, but that is not the same as judicial oversight. That power relies on judges deciding that the Home Secretary has made obviously flawed decisions. That is quite a tough standard, and I would like the measures to be much more in the control of the courts. They should make decisions rather than have a weak power if the Home Secretary behaves excessively.

In 2010, the Select Committee on Home Affairs stated:

“It is our considered view that it is fundamentally wrong to deprive individuals of their liberty without revealing why.”

I hope all hon. Members agree with that. There should be more of a focus on prosecution. There are some measures on communications and extra money will be available for surveillance, but they are legislatively weak. We know that control orders acted against the interests of prosecutions. The Home Office counter-terror report stated that control orders can mean

“that prosecution and conviction…becomes less not more likely”.

Control orders make it harder to achieve what we want. If people have been involved in terrorist activities, we would like them to be convicted and put behind bars. The scheme is also expensive to run, because it interferes so badly with human rights and basic principles. Continuous wrangling over that leads to very large legal costs—about £13 million over a few years.

There are alternatives to control orders. Police bail, which has been discussed, is not a perfect system, but it fits much more with other measures that we use, which makes it a more normal and sensible way of running the system. We need to use much more evidence. If we have covert or intercept evidence, we should use it. We had an interesting discussion about people whom we know are terrorists but whom we cannot convict, even if we have evidence. Instead, we put them in limbo for a long period. The correct solution must be to change the system so that we can convict them.

In his evidence to the Joint Committee on Human Rights, on which I used to serve, Lord Macdonald of River Glaven, who has spent a long time analysing and reviewing such matters, was absolutely clear that intercepts should be used. He pointed out that one frequently uses informers, bugs and probes in respect of criminal offences, and that there are ways of managing and using such evidence. He said that he had

“never accepted the argument that its effect would be marginal.”

He continued:

“You simply have to raise that argument in Washington and see the reaction on people’s faces when you suggest that intercept would not be useful, or ask people in Canberra or Ottawa, or anywhere else. They simply cannot believe that people are making this argument.”

I, too, cannot believe it. We should ensure that we use intercept evidence.

We should also look again at other options that Lord Macdonald has proposed, such as giving the Director of Public Prosecutions the power to say, “We can prosecute, but not yet. We must hold this person for a while first.” That would give more control to the DPP. We should also give more control to the High Court. We could make the Bill better in a number of different ways to make it more a part of the legal system.

It has been said that the Government wish to have emergency legislation in case TPIMs are not enough. That worries me, because I think that TPIMs are too much anyway. What is that emergency legislation, when will we see it, and will it have pre-legislative scrutiny? I see no reason why the Opposition, whom we know are keen on stronger measures, should be the only parliamentarians to see it. All Members of Parliament should see it, so that it can be discussed. If there is ever a need to use something stronger than a TPIM, we should think about it carefully in advance, not at 4 o’clock in the morning in a panic. We should look at such a measure very carefully.

I can tolerate the Bill on Second Reading—I like clause 1 and am happy to live with it—and there is still time to improve the Bill in Committee. We should not wait for the other place to go through the Bill properly: this House should make it work. We should improve the Bill in Committee and on Report, but I would be uncomfortable supporting the Bill on Third Reading unless there are changes and reassurances.

I shall end with some final words from Lord Macdonald. On control orders, he said:

“The reality is that controlees become warehoused far beyond the harsh scrutiny of due process and, in consequence, some terrorist activity undoubtedly remains unpunished by the criminal law. This is a serious and continuing failure of public policy.”

He is absolutely right, and we should not let that situation continue.

20:24

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)]

I should first apologise to the House for missing the Home Secretary’s introductory speech, but I have been present for the rest of the debate. I welcome this opportunity to discuss anti-terrorism law. I think I am the only Member currently in the Chamber who has been here long enough to have voted against the Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005, which was seen at the time as the low point in the attack on civil liberties. Oh that we were only discussing such an Act these days!

I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Newark (Patrick Mercer), who spoke of the effect of internment in Ireland and other places. When a state decides to take away the liberties of large numbers of people, the consequences are felt for a very long time. He talked about what happened in Ireland in the 1970s and 1980s, but we can look back to the wholly irrational way in which British Jewish people were interned in 1940 at the start of the second world war. That was entirely counter-productive and an idiotic thing to do. There were also long-term effects on the attitudes of Japanese Americans to US society from the disgusting way in which they were put in concentration camps in California in 1942 because they were automatically assumed to be supporters of the Japanese in the war. If anyone had bothered to think about that, they might have asked why those people were living in the USA in the first place. The consequences of such actions go on for a very long time.

I am not suggesting that the Bill is equivalent to those measures, because it is not. It is much smaller and specifically targeted, but I have, nevertheless, some fundamental issues with it. Most states take unto themselves a power to override the judicial system in some way—most have some special security law or courts, or whatever. Without going into the whole history of this matter in Britain, the introduction of the Prevention of Terrorism (Temporary Provisions) Act 1974 was a response to the Birmingham pub bombings. The first person arrested under the Act was one of the Guildford Four, who spent 18 years proving his innocence and who was finally released as a result. That Act was repealed and replaced by the Terrorism Act 2000, which preceded the dreadful events of 2001.

I remember spending all night in the Chamber at that time discussing what we would do to beef up our counter-terrorism measures. At every stage, the argument was to go further away from open criminal courts and further in the direction of special courts and special measures, with lower levels of evidence gathering. We have now ended up with the obnoxious silent court mentality. The barrister probably knows the nature of the case against the individual whom he is supposed to represent, and the judge and the prosecution certainly know, but the defendant is not allowed to know and his barrister is not allowed to tell him. That is a dangerous road to go down. Anyone who has met someone who has been the subject of a control order or some kind of restriction will know that they are for ever changed by the experience. In some cases, they are subsequently prosecuted. In others, they are not: the control order is lifted, they disappear, and that is that. The corrosive effect on them, their families, their lives and their community is very serious, and we should be extremely careful about introducing legislation that gives courts the power effectively to act in secret, and the security services the power to present evidence that is heard in secret and used to punish people, when the security services are never publicly accountable for what they do. I understand that there are all kinds of dangers involved in all sorts of things, but if we legislate to allow an arm of the state to operate covertly with no public accountability for what it does, therein lies enormous danger.

The very least we can do is examine the Bill in great detail in Committee and, above all, ensure that the legislation is subject to regular parliamentary review. It is our duty as elected Members of a free Parliament in a free society to hold the Government, and the agencies of the Government and the state, to account. It is not good enough to pass this legislation saying that we will return to it and debate the issue again as and when a future Government feel it appropriate to introduce another form of counter-terrorism legislation. As well as the obvious parliamentary scrutiny through Select Committees, questions, Adjournment debates and all the other tools that are available to us to hold the Government to account, there ought to be a regular parliamentary debate and review of the whole arrangement on a six-monthly or yearly basis. The PTA was renewed on a six-monthly basis throughout its entire existence.

[Steve Baker]

I find myself agreeing with the vast majority of the hon. Gentleman’s remarks. Looking around the Chamber, I see that there is almost no one here. Does he agree that in the status quo, given the level of interest in this subject and the nature of the whipping system, regular parliamentary scrutiny of this matter would actually amount to very little?

[Jeremy Corbyn]

I have always had an interesting relationship with the whipping system in Parliament. We are here as MPs to represent the constituents who have been good enough to send us here, and we are here to answer for ourselves. We must be prepared to ask these questions and to take part in these debates. Like the hon. Gentleman, I am extremely disappointed that there are so few Members here tonight. I suspect that it is because word has gone round, by text message from the Whips on both sides, that there is not going to be a vote. Most of our colleagues are probably either enjoying themselves on the Terrace or have gone home, when they should be in here debating this Bill. We could say the same for almost any piece of legislation that goes through the House.

I mentioned in an intervention the fundamental question of international jurisdiction. If someone comes to this country from a jurisdiction in which they have been tortured, irrationally imprisoned or abused, or if it is likely that they would suffer such a fate if they went back, we have a clear duty of protection to them under international law. Under the procedures of anti-terror legislation, someone who is suspected of terrorist activity or of harbouring plans for such activity can be detained virtually indefinitely under immigration law. Under the memorandums of understanding that were made between the previous Prime Minister but one, Tony Blair, and a number of Governments, such people can be returned to jurisdictions that have not signed the United Nations convention on torture.

I have a real problem with that. If we support the principles of international law and the international jurisdiction of conventions such as that one, we should carry them out to the fullest extent. We should not deport people to places where there is no protection of their rights under treaties that we have taken for ourselves. Just as when someone goes to prison, when an individual is accused of being a terrorist or of planning a terrorist activity, they do not stop being an individual and they do not lose all their rights. They do not stop being a citizen at that point.

[Richard Fuller (Bedford) (Con)]

I could not agree more with the hon. Gentleman’s point about our deportation of people to countries that could torture them. Does he agree that it is a serious omission in the Bill that the bail conditions imposed by the Special Immigration Appeals Commission will be able to remain at the levels set out in the control orders that are being lessened by the Bill? Should not that omission be corrected?

[Jeremy Corbyn]

Indeed so; the hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. That matter should be looked at in great detail in Committee. I hope that the Bill will be greatly changed in Committee and that we will hear about those changes on Report. I hope we will move away from the principle of control orders and the conditions that he rightly says are associated with them. I understand that Liberty, whose briefing on this matter I have neither read nor seen, for which I apologise, describes these measures as “low-fat” control orders that have been dressed up to resemble something that they are not.

I represent a mixed, inner-city community constituency, as do many other colleagues, and I am very proud to represent that area. The events of 2001, the invasion of Afghanistan, the invasion of Iraq, the Bush-led war on terror, the axis of evil speech and similar things have had an enormous effect on community relations. They have also generated a degree of Islamophobia within our society and continue to do so, which is a very serious matter. The anti-terrorism legislation and the arguments surrounding the Prevent strategy, like so many other things, play into that agenda.

My borough suffered on 7/7: more people from my borough died than from any other borough—it was a dreadful, awful, terrible day. I do not believe, however, that counter-terrorism legislation that goes around the principle of the use of the criminal law or goes around the norms of parliamentary democracy and open justice will stop those things happening again. That whole process does not make us more safe; ultimately, it puts our society at greater risk and makes it more vulnerable.

Although we are debating a change in the legislation and the Bill is presented as being the end of control orders, the reality is that we are being presented with a different form of control orders. I look forward to the Committee asserting itself when the details of the Bill are debated and improving it a great deal by removing the whole principle of control orders.

Once we give away our powers to secret courts or give away accountability to secret services—I accept that only 48 control orders have been put in place—we are crossing a very big line. We should be very careful about doing that. Our job as Members of Parliament is to ask the awkward question; our job as MPs is to put very awkward questions to those employed by the state to look after law and order and protect us. Above all, our task is to ensure that our liberties are safe, our democracy is safe and that individuals will not be detained irrationally for a very long time on the basis of hearsay evidence that would simply not stand up in a criminal court. That is a bad thing for a democracy; it is a bad thing for us to do.

20:37

[Mr Dominic Raab (Esher and Walton) (Con)]

Like others, I would like to commend some previous speakers, particularly the hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn), my hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Patrick Mercer) and the hon. Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert).

Confronted by the terrorist challenge, the previous Government resorted to presenting a rather crude and blunt trade-off between freedom and security. Too often, it undermined Britain’s tradition of liberty without eliminating or even substantially reducing the threat to this country. In that context, I welcome the huge strides the Home Secretary and fellow Home Office Ministers have taken to defend and restore our freedoms by abolishing ID cards, halving pre-charge detention, tightening stop-and-search powers and the other measures they have taken in protection of freedoms legislation. I believe that Ministers have decisively reassessed how state power is used to protect us.

In many ways, if truth be told, the whole debate on control orders has been allowed to obscure the substantial progress made by this coalition and this Home Office. Nevertheless, the truth is that the control order regime presents a pernicious affront to our tradition of liberty. It undermines the most basic principle of British justice—of being innocent until proven guilty. Orders can be imposed on people who have not been found guilty of any criminal offence. That is wrong in principle, and control orders have proved to be an ineffective tool in practice. I shall come on to explain why I believe that to be the case.

In fairness, TPIMs are not as draconian as the old regime and again I want to recognise Ministers’ efforts to improve the conditions imposed by the Bill. In truth, however, TPIMs are only marginally less draconian and are certainly no more effective than their predecessor—and that is not much of a trade-off either. Liberty notes in its briefing that TPIMs

“mirror the most offensive elements”

of control orders. Under clause 3, the Home Secretary must demonstrate “reasonable belief” of involvement in terrorism as opposed to the old standard of “reasonable suspicion'”, but a criminal sanction of this severity should require proof of criminal conduct—not hunches, not opinions, but proof.

The potential restrictions on individuals set out in schedule 1 remain onerous—residency requirements, curfews, restrictions on communication and association, travel bans, electronic tagging and all the rest. Clause 5 appears to suggest a two-year limit for TPIMs, but they can be renewed if new terrorist activity is alleged. That is itself a worrying comment on the credibility of the new order as a counter-terrorism measure. Clause 21 retains the penalty of five years’ imprisonment for breach of an order.

In one important respect, which has already been mentioned today, the proposed regime is worse than its predecessor. Control orders had to be approved annually by Parliament in recognition of their exceptional nature and the urgency of the circumstances in which they were introduced, which ensured regular parliamentary oversight, but TPIMs will not be subject to such parliamentary reviews. A temporary emergency measure will thus become permanent and entrenched, and we will have crossed a line. It is worth our asking, with that in mind, what we will gain from such an affront to our tradition of liberty and justice. What will be the security dividend from this trade-off of our freedoms?

Of the 40 individuals formerly subject to control orders, seven absconded and five had their orders quashed by the courts. In 2009, each order cost the Home Office £135,000 to implement—quite apart from the costs of defending the orders from legal challenge and of policing. The number of control orders has halved in the last two years, from 20 to 10. Some will say that that shows that they are used only as a last resort, but in fact it demonstrates their irrelevance to the massive scale of the terrorist threat that we face. MI5 estimates that there are still about 4,000 terrorist suspects in the United Kingdom—10 controlees, 4,000 suspects. Let us not pretend that control orders have ever been anything more than the most flimsy and feeble of security safety nets.

Control orders are not just of dwindling relevance; they constitute a distraction from robust law enforcement and are actually a negative. That is why I welcome the Home Secretary's renewed focus on the Prevent strategy. I would welcome further still measures to strengthen our deportation capacity, which has been undermined by judicial legislation resulting from article 8 of the European convention on human rights, via the Human Rights Act 1998. The massively inflated rights to family life now allow the majority of deportation orders to be frustrated. That has nothing to do with article 3 torture grounds, which I would stand up for. More specifically, as Lord Macdonald stated in his report on the counter-terrorism review, control orders are an “impediment” to prosecution and conviction because

“controls may be imposed that precisely prevent those very activities that are apt to result in the discovery of evidence fit for prosecution, conviction and imprisonment”.

The wider evidence is stark and clear. This country now has a gaping prosecutorial deficit. The number of convictions for terrorist offences has fallen by 90% in the last four years, despite all the legislative hyperactivity of the previous Government, despite all the hubris, and despite the exponential rise in the terrorist threat, whose existence I think we all accept. Yet conviction in court and locking up terrorists constitute the only guaranteed way of protecting the public.

I find it worrying that we have heard so little about strengthening prosecution in real, core, concrete, tangible terms. We need a far more robust and proactive prosecution policy. We need to learn directly from experience abroad, particularly in Commonwealth countries such as the United States, Australia and Canada. We need much greater use of plea bargaining, although incidentally I do not see why the discount should be increased. I believe that if plea-bargaining were deployed effectively, it would almost certainly increase, not reduce, the number of dangerous people put behind bars. Indeed, that is the whole point of it.

As others have said, we must also overcome entrenched bureaucratic inertia and lift the ban on the use of intercept evidence in court, thus ending Britain’s virtual global isolation and giving prosecutors an invaluable tool with which to secure convictions. I know from my experience of working at the Foreign Office on information co-operation with international war crimes tribunals, along with all the Departments and agencies in the United Kingdom, what the limits are and how intercept evidence can be used discreetly, carefully and competently, and I am convinced that we can overcome the objections that have been presented.

The hon. Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) said that if we were to ask anyone in the United States, such as the FBI or the Deputy Attorney-General—I myself have talked to the counter-terrorism adviser in the George Bush White House—they would be aghast at the idea that intercept evidence could not be used as a powerful weapon to put more terrorists behind bars. It is absolutely critical. It is a mystery to me that we in this country have allowed so much surveillance of the ordinary law-abiding citizen, yet we adamantly and trenchantly oppose using intercept evidence to target prosecution against those engaged in terror.

Lord Macdonald offered a very credible alternative to the control order regime, with restrictions linked to bail in the active pursuit of prosecution. I regret that his proposal was not taken up in place of the old regime, or, indeed, of the new one presented to us today.

20:46

[Mr Tobias Ellwood (Bournemouth East) (Con)]

The war on terrorism has defined the current generation, as the second world war did the generations of the ’30s and ’40s, and as the cold war cast a shadow over those of the ’60s and ’70s. Terrorism has existed before in all sorts of forms, of course; in the ’70s and ’80s, there was IRA terrorism, for example. The shadow of 9/11 still hangs over the current generation, however.

The threat of terrorism affects every aspect of our lives. Every time we step on a train, we are reminded to be vigilant and watch out for suspicious bags. Every time we enter a Government building, we are obliged to have our bags—and, indeed, bodies—scanned. When we switch on the news, there will often be a report of another attack in one part of the world or another. It is therefore no surprise that we debate this subject and pass laws in this House with a view to containing or eradicating terrorism and protecting the public.

Terrorism is not a cancer that we can surgically remove, however, or a trend that can be outlawed. Terrorism is a violent form of communication, usually involving the killing of innocent people by a private group or individual in such a way as to create a media spectacle and pass a message or place pressure on a Government, while at the same time gaining publicity for that terrorist group, cause or individual. We must tackle the ideology behind terrorism, as well as prevent the terrorist attack itself.

Sadly, history has shown that Islamic radicalisation reached our shores a number of years ago. In 2002, the shoe bomber failed to bring down a transatlantic flight. In 2005, we had the 7/7 bombings, and just two weeks later there was a failed attempt to replicate that attack. In 2006, a transatlantic terror plot, which attempted to use 10 liquid explosives to blow up planes, was disrupted. In 2007, we had the attack at Glasgow airport, when two men driving cars full of propane rammed the main terminal building. Also in that year, two car bombs were discovered in the Haymarket, and, thankfully, disabled before they were detonated. In 2008, there was the Exeter café bombing by a radicalised 22-year-old, but, thankfully again, nobody was hurt. Terrorism has become part and parcel of our lives, therefore. What links all these events—and these are only the events that are in the public domain—is the deeply distorted interpretation of Islam that turns harmless citizens into radicalised recruits willing to cause other innocents harm.

It is important to ask why Britain is prone to this sort of attack. What makes the United Kingdom more of a target than, say, Austria or Germany? These are difficult, and perhaps controversial, questions, but they must be asked. We can ask: did our involvement in overseas conflicts such as Iraq or Afghanistan increase the potential for such Islamist attacks? Yes, it undoubtedly did. It has made us more of a target. Whether we think that such conflicts are right or wrong, that is a fact and we must come to terms with it.

Having weak immigration controls also makes us more of a target. If our borders are porous in some way, it makes it easier for those who wish us harm to get into this country to cause that harm. We also face a difficult question about our tolerance towards different cultures. If there is a lack of cohesion between different cultures, a failure of integration between those cultures in our communities and a lack of understanding of what it means to be British, that failure to bring communities together can lead to hostility in its own right. Given that so many Muslims live in this country and in the United States, we must ask why we have not seen the same radicalisation in the United States as we have seen in this country.

Controversially, one could also say that the way in which the pendulum of political correctness has swung is involved here; we might ask whether we tackle these difficult events as harshly as we should. Demonstrations have taken place in various mosques over a number of years, yet because we are cautious and do not want to make too much of a song and dance we have perhaps not been tough enough to send out the message that such behaviour should not be tolerated. These are difficult questions, but if they are not posed in this House where else can they be raised?

Developing a strategy to tackle this problem is complicated and it requires contributions from across Departments: the Ministry of Defence is kinetic and its contribution is about what we do in Afghanistan, first, to eradicate the extremism there and then to help stable democracy; the Department for Communities and Local Government has a role to play in encouraging forms of cohesion; the Cabinet Office is now responsible for cyber-security; the overseas aid budget should be targeted to help countries to tackle these issues themselves; and the Home Office has a role in focusing on prevention and security, which is what we are debating today.

Such a strategy involves understanding the motives of terrorists, how they are trained, how they are recruited and how they are identified as potential killers. It involves providing better support to vulnerable groups, such as those who are in prison, those who are unemployed and the youth. It also involves putting increased emphasis on community cohesion and ensuring that funding goes to properly targeted groups, rather than to those very groups that wish us harm. As a number of hon. Members have said, such groups have been funded in the past and I am pleased that that has been brought to a stop.

Such a strategy also involves the improved identification of those who might be targeted, which does require the assistance of universities and doctors. We need everybody’s assistance; we have a collective responsibility in our community to look after each other. Such is the scale of the problem we face that some individuals, including UK citizens, are successfully turned into potential terrorists. The Bill will play a small part in the wider strategy that deals with individuals who are known to be involved in terrorist activities but about whom the evidence is not yet sufficient to warrant a full conviction. We are talking about a small group of people—fewer than 50 or so—who cannot be deported but who are yet to be convicted. Our approach must be about making sure that we are aware of their movements, their accommodation and their travel, so that they are “looked after” in a way that means that they are unable to do harm in the future.

Many hon. Members have discussed the Bill in detail so I will not repeat many of the comments that have been made, but it is worth saying in conclusion that just as warfare has had to adapt to the changes in the battlefield, so must our counter-terrorism technology develop. I welcome the Bill, as it refines our ability to combat terrorism. I have been told that I would be delighted to serve on the Committee, should I be called, so I recommend the Bill to the House and look forward to serving, if possible, on the Committee.

20:54

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

It is an enormous pleasure, as always, to follow my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood). It has also been an enormous pleasure to listen to the contributions from other right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the House.

At the outset, I want to make it clear that the issues with which the Bill grapples are not, as I suspect many Members have found, necessarily easy. I have not found them easy. For my part, during my consideration of the measures proposed by the Government I have from time to time changed my mind, or at least changed the direction in which I thought I was travelling, before finally alighting on the position that I intend to set forth this evening.

What, then, is the dilemma for all Members? On the one hand, it seems plain from the responses to the Government’s consultation that there is general agreement among the majority of those who offered their views that in the case of a very few individuals there is a continuing need for the Government to have access to the sort of powers proposed in this Bill to protect the public from potential harm. One simple reason for that, as the responses make clear and as I, at least, am persuaded, is that in the case of some of those very few individuals prosecutions are impossible for either security or legal reasons. By the same token, not every threat to national security is or has yet become a criminal offence. Are such threats to be ignored, as some would urge us to do? I venture to suggest not.

On the other hand, the suggestion that the sort of powers that we see in this Bill should exist at all—they effectively permit the Executive to detain individuals without trial—is naturally abhorrent to Members of this House and is regarded as such on both sides, as it is by all right-thinking people. It is said with force that we now have, and that within the memory of this House we have always had, a system of open justice and it is legitimate to ask, as many Members have done, why in those circumstances we should make even one exception, no matter how carefully hedged about with safeguards, to the principles that have long underpinned our democracy and the rule of law in this country.

The question, then, is how that dilemma is to be resolved. That is essentially the question faced by the House in deciding whether to give the Bill a Second Reading. Differing from hon. Members of all parties and some people outside the House who advocate the complete revocation of any system of civil measures that interferes with the rights of the individual, I have come to the view that what the Government propose, subject to the amendments that will no doubt be made in Committee, strikes the right balance for reasons that I shall come on to. That is, I accept, my judgment. It is my opinion, consistent with the position that my conscience dictates, but that is not to say—and I do not say—that it is the only view that it is possible to take. This is very much one of those issues where reasonable people may come to completely contrary conclusions and where Members have come to contrary conclusions. My task, if I have one at all, is to explain in the course of this debate how I have come to my conclusion and my reasons for having done so.

The starting point—I suspect that all Members would agree that this should always be the starting point for any Government, but it is one which might perhaps have been lost sight of from time to time during the course of the debate—is that the primary duty of the state to its citizens is to keep them safe. National security and public safety are and must always remain the first duty of the Government, as my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State made clear in her statement on 23 May 2011 and as the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper), the shadow Home Secretary, acknowledged in her opening remarks in this debate. If one accepts, as I think one must, that that is the starting point, it must in my judgment follow that if there are circumstances in which those who threaten the United Kingdom from within her own borders cannot, for whatever reasons, adequately be dealt with by a system of open criminal justice, which I accept should remain the norm in the vast majority of cases, their rights cannot override those of the majority to the safety of their existence, which the Government are bound to protect.

In one sense, of course, this is a question of degree. Is the derogation from the ordinary principles of the rule of law and the rights of the subject that this Bill entails justified given the threat that we know we face at the beginning of the 21st century? In my opinion—I stress again that it is my opinion and that others are driven to a different view by their consciences—it is. We have merely to look at some of the events that we have witnessed during the past decade, such as the bombings of 7 July 2005 in London, to know what may happen when the balance is poorly or inappropriately struck. Of course I do not for a moment suggest that the mere existence of the measures in the Bill—of TPIMs—or even of the existing regime of control orders can ensure that such events will never happen. However, if one wonders, as I do, whether future atrocities might be prevented by proportionate derogations from generally accepted minimum standards regarding the rights of the subject—derogations that can and must be kept to a minimum, as I think all Members accept—it is my belief that they might. It follows that the existence of a regime that is necessary to protect the public, such as that contained in the Bill, cannot be avoided given the world in which we live.

The matter can be viewed in this way: many Members on both sides of the House will quite properly oppose the Bill’s Second Reading, or will at least have indicated that they will not give it a Third Reading in its current form. However, let me posit an eventuality that I hope will not occur—circumstances in which someone who might have been subject to a TPIM is instrumental in a future atrocity that results in our fellow citizens being maimed or killed. Would it, in those circumstances, be right that the Bill fell today or in future? I suggest not, for that would be to strike the wrong balance between the rule of law and the first duty of the Government, which I have already outlined.

I accept that none of this is easy. My view, I am perfectly prepared to accept, may be wrong. It may even, as the courts will be able to inquire given that there will now be no possibility of derogation from the law relating to the rights of the subject, be unlawful, although I think not as the Bill has been carefully drawn. However, it is the view to which I am driven by a consideration of the issues I have outlined and by the horrendous possibility of being wrong and, in being wrong, of failing to prevent a potential terrorist outrage.

The second argument that drives me to support the Government’s proposals and therefore to lend my support to the Bill’s Second Reading is the very fact that there are certain rights that I and the vast majority of people consider to be inalienable, the most important of which is the right to life. That this right is inalienable seems to me naturally to entail the proposition that it should, by the nature of the law as it should be framed, be protected—if necessary at the expense of other lesser rights, which are not necessarily inalienable. Schedule 1 identifies a series of measures that the Secretary of State may take, should the Bill become law, which would undoubtedly interfere with the second of those groups of rights. It enables the state to obstruct the liberty of the citizen, to oblige him or her to comply with the directions of those who exercise its authority and to disturb the free enjoyment of property rights. However, not one of those rights is, or at least should be, regarded as absolute and inalienable. The right to life and to security, in the sense of freedom from hurt or injury, is in a different category altogether. As the Bill makes clear throughout, particularly from the safeguards with which it is hedged, it is that right that is being protected and the other, lesser rights that are being obstructed. That cannot but indicate, as many Members on both sides have noted, that a balance is being struck. Whether it is the right balance will be a question that future historians will no doubt assess.

[Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)]

My hon. and learned Friend is making a powerful argument about the balancing of rights. Does he feel that this consideration should be reviewed regularly to ensure that the balance remains correct in future?

[Stephen Phillips]

I can see that there is a powerful case for amending the Bill in Committee to introduce some annual review by Parliament, but there are countervailing arguments, some of which have been alluded to during the debate. The first of those arguments, which was made by my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe (Steve Baker), is that with the whipping system being what it is, such an annual review may prove pointless. The second is that if the House forms a view in relation to TPIMs, which are not control orders, it will have reached a settled view, and that will not fade from parliamentary memory. I think that everyone on both sides of the House accepts that once the reasons why TPIMs or control orders need to exist have disappeared, this legislation should also disappear. In those circumstances, while I can see the case for an annual review, it is not something on which I have a conclusive view, and I look forward to debating it again in due course.

Returning to whether it is right in principle for the Bill to strike the balance that it seeks to strike, what finally has driven me to the view that the Bill must continue its passage through the House is the fact that the arguments against the balance being struck at all either misinterpret or only interpret semantically and without regard to its content what the rule of law actually means. We have created for ourselves, as have most other nations, a system of justice that involves the open trial of individuals for those things that we characterise as wrongs that deserve punishment. That system, however, is a fabrication of the society in which we live—no more, no less. It is not the only system that man could devise, but it has been found over the years to be the best system, even though we must occasionally alter or change it so that it meets the needs of the times in which we live. This is such a time, so the Bill seeks to fashion a different system from the ordinary criminal justice system, and it does so because, in my judgment, it must, for reasons that I have given.

Is the system contrary to the rule of law because it is different? No. It is contrary to the rule of law, if in any sense, because we say it is, yet the rule of law as created must be protected, as it answers so well to the circumstances of existence that we must not seek to undermine it any more than is necessary. Again, there is a balance to be struck—what is necessary is what is proportionate to the circumstances, and in my view that is the regime that the Bill seeks to create. The same cannot be said universally of the regime that will be repealed if and when clause 1 comes into force. While the Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005 sought to strike a necessary balance, in my judgment it struck the wrong balance, which is tacitly accepted by the Opposition Front-Bench team, given their acceptance that the control order regime was not necessarily the best way of dealing with the threat that the legislation that they introduced sought to deal.

I know, as I have said before in the House, new as I am, that it is the Opposition’s duty to oppose, but for those of us who have sat through this debate in its entirety it has been odd to note the opposition from their Front-Bench team, but the consensus among Back Benchers on both sides of the House that the Bill should at least complete its Second Reading.

The previous regime of control orders permitted the Government to derogate from the Human Rights Act 1998. The Bill does not do so, which is progress. While I am no fan of the Human Rights Act, I accept that it includes welcome protections that have existed in our law for generations, even if consistently misinterpreted or over-interpreted by the Court in Strasbourg. The previous regime of control orders likewise provided a non-exhaustive list of the way in which the rights of the subject could be hindered. The Bill, by contrast, tells the Home Secretary precisely what she may do, circumscribed by Parliament. I know which I prefer and which meets the need to tackle the mischief at which the Bill is directed.

The previous regime of control orders likewise allowed the Home Secretary powers overly and unnecessarily in effect to extinguish individual rights, the best example being the 16-hour curfew. The Bill, by contrast, limits the Home Secretary’s powers—again, always subject to review—to something which, to my mind, is more capable of justification, even though overnight detention orders require more definition. Most importantly, unlike the present regime, mere suspicion on the part of the state will no longer be enough to trigger the powers in the Bill—and rightly so. The Bill makes it clear that there must be reasonable belief that individuals can no longer be deprived of their rights merely on the basis of suspicion. Lawyers other than I have suggested this afternoon that there is little difference, but I disagree. Even if I am wrong, I am more content with a regime that requires some form of objective proof and justification than one that can be triggered merely on the basis of vague, subjective assertion on the part of the state.

For these reasons, and many others which there is now insufficient time to develop further but which will undoubtedly be explored in Committee if the Bill goes forward tonight, it is my belief that this is the right Bill to address the dilemma that I posed at the outset and which the Government face in striking a balance between the rights of the individual and the obligation to protect all the citizens of this country. If the House divides tonight, the Government will therefore receive my support to give the Bill a Second Reading, as I believe they should receive the support of the remainder of the House.

21:10

[Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)]

As I follow my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Stephen Phillips), I am reminded of something that I learned shortly after I arrived in the Chamber—that is, that some of the finest and most informative speeches are delivered after the glare of the media has departed from the Front Benches. I found his remarks very interesting, although I have not agreed with all of them.

I associate myself with the remarks of my hon. Friends the Members for Newark (Patrick Mercer) and for Esher and Walton (Mr Raab). Listening to the remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood), I found myself disagreeing with him somewhat. I hope he will forgive me if I say that I think the threat that we face today is not the same as the threat that we faced during the cold war. We do not face total nuclear war or mutually assured destruction. During the cold war we did not capitulate our highest values. Instead, we sought to emphasise them. As my hon. Friend mentions the cold war, I hope the House will forgive me if I quote Reagan in 1964:

“You and I know and do not believe that life is so dear and peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery. If nothing in life is worth dying for, when did this begin—just in the face of this enemy?”

I could go on, and I am sure some Members would enjoy it if I did. Just in the face of this enemy? No. Some values are higher than life itself.

I particularly associate myself with the remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley (Kris Hopkins). Like him, I have a large Muslim population in my constituency and I have come to be very fond of those fine people. I have found that we share a commitment to justice and to objective morality as the basis for our liberty. It is true that a very small number of my constituents have been convicted of terrorist atrocities, so I approach this subject with considerable care.

As a gallant Member of the House, Mr Deputy Speaker, you may recognise in me a sense of missing the clarity of serving in the armed forces. When I first considered the subject of the prevention of terrorism, I had just come out of university and the law of armed conflict in the UK and carrying firearms in the UK was being explained. It was made perfectly clear to us, fresh out of university, that the correct response to a terrorist caught in the act of committing a terrorist atrocity was a bullet—a single aimed shot at the centre of the chest. We were shocked and appalled when that instructor explained to us that he would be disappointed if any member of the armed forces did not take the opportunity offered by the rules of engagement to shoot a terrorist.

That is only the first category of ways we might deal with terror. The second is that which we are all perhaps more used to—investigation, arrest, charge, conviction, imprisonment. I think the mood of the House is that we would all prefer that standard criminal process to be followed. The final category seems to be the strange twilight which we have entered, the twilight of semi-guilt and shadow justice, where we cannot bring people to prosecution, yet we fear them. What has happened to us?

Some words are so powerful and represent concepts so important that people will lay down their very lives for them—words like “liberty” and “justice”, inseparable words, hooray words, which unfortunately, as I have discovered in my political journey, are subject to interpretation and political conflict. But our forebears laid down their lives for liberty and justice. I was asked once on my journey here if there was one thing I could change about the state that Britain finds itself in, what would it be? Before I was asked, I thought I would say we should leave the European Union, but on reflection and having read the brilliant book by my hon. Friend the Member for Esher and Walton, “The Assault on Liberty”, I found myself thinking briefly and saying, “I would repeal control orders.”

Control orders disgust me. They represent the capitulation of our highest values in the face of cowardly enemies. We should not tolerate them, so like some of my hon. Friends, I welcome clause 1. Clause 1 is a glorious and joyful clause, perhaps the finest I have seen in the House.

We face, we are told, a serious and sustained threat. I find myself returning to Pitt. We have come a long way since 1783 when he said:

“Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.”

I might go less far, but I would say that the response to fear and to threat is not the abandonment of our highest values; it is courage. It is to reach deep within ourselves and to find the courage to face down cowards. That is what I wish the Government would do.

I meet clauses 2 to 27 and the eight schedules with profound misgivings, but I can hardly vote against them as they represent a move in the right direction. The shadow Home Secretary, although offering us a confused analysis of the Bill, has said that they water down control orders, and I think that a good thing. Lord Macdonald said that this measure is

“an unmistakeable rebalancing of public policy in favour of liberty”.

I welcome that, and I will be supporting the Government tonight, but with a very, very heavy heart.

Finally, I should like to quote Benjamin Franklin:

“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”

I wish that we did not face such choices, but we do. We should reach within ourselves for that courage to face these fears, these threats, and move forward, keeping our values.

21:16

[Richard Fuller (Bedford) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe (Steve Baker), who said that the best speeches tended to come towards the end of a debate. As probably one of the last speakers I am about to show that that hypothesis is not always correct. How can I possibly match up to a Member who quoted not only Benjamin Franklin, but William Pitt and good old Ronald Reagan, in his speech in defence of his views on control orders today?

It was interesting earlier to hear the right hon. Member for Salford and Eccles (Hazel Blears) describe the original debates that went on until 4 am. I can imagine that at that time the Benches here would have been full with Members debating this important issue of liberty. We look around today and we see a lot more green Benches than people. Perhaps that is because most hon. Members are at ease with providing and continuing these regulations and powers for the Executive, and perhaps that is to be welcomed. But I think that ease comes largely because of our fear of the worst if those powers were taken away. I am not sure that that is the best way for us to set our laws, so I am not at ease with what is being proposed here today.

We have heard today from people who are learned in law and people with experience of making these tough decisions in the Executive. I have neither of those things, so I come from a simpler point of view, which is that in England we should not lock people up without telling them why. In supporting this legislation today, we are essentially denying that statement. It has been said that we should not trust all Home Secretaries—perhaps not all Home Secretaries—but I certainly trust and have faith in the current Home Secretary. She has brought a skill and effectiveness to an extremely difficult brief and has impressed Members on both sides of the House. As many hon. Members have said, the Home Secretary understands and bears the weight of more knowledge and has more access to knowledge and people with knowledge than we do ourselves.

The context for what is being proposed essentially stems from the events of the last 10 years. The hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) recounted some of those, from the rise of radical ideology, through the nurturing of terrorism, the convulsions after 9/11, the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, the attacks here on UK soil and those attacks that have been prevented. Those are indeed mighty issues for the state to handle, and I do not doubt the sincerity of Governments of any colour in how they wished to handle them. Those challenges certainly demanded a robust approach, but one that should have preserved our core values and freedoms, because they are beacons for a wider world that yearns for the freedoms that we have. We have a responsibility beyond these shores to ensure that, in setting our laws, we set an example that we wish other countries to follow. That should be the highest of examples we can set.

The previous Government’s response may now be judged to have been overreach and their actions to have done too much damage to our precious freedoms and to have been in some respects ineffective or counter-productive. Those measures included detention without trial, secret courts, special attorneys, hidden evidence, the imposition of high levels of restriction on people who were never charged and did not know the case against them, forced relocation, internal exile and the transfer of judicial authority to the Executive branch. We were told, “Don’t worry, because they are all temporary emergency measures, so they are okay.” Well, in my view they were never okay, and as the years passed they seemed less and less temporary.

For this Government, the test for how to change the legislation had to be set higher. The Bill before us declares it as such:

“A BILL TO Abolish control orders”.

As many hon. Members have said, it would have been fine if it had stopped there, but it went on to state that it would also

“make provision for the imposition of terrorism prevention and investigation measures.”

There we get into the weighing up of the freedoms on one side and the prevention of harm on the other. The details do not live up to the billing. In the absence of my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary, I must ask: when did we shift away from fundamental challenge based on principle? When did our assertion of centuries-old principles of English justice succumb to one more round of Executive caution? For me, there must be good, specific reasons behind the rationale for each measure and specific examples of their effectiveness. That will be the challenge in Committee and, if it is not met there, when the Bill comes back on Report, because general statements will not help. They will lead us to similar mistakes that we now see that the previous Government, even with the best intentions, may have made in their legislation.

I have two concerns, one of which I will talk about for most of my speech and the other I will mention briefly. My main concern to address to the Minister is the omission of the immigration bail conditions imposed by the Special Immigration Appeals Commission. Control orders were originally intended for UK citizens and non-UK citizens, but now they are exclusively for UK citizens. At the end of 2006, 18 people were on control orders, nine of whom were non-UK citizens. At the end of 2010, 10 people were on control orders, all of whom were UK citizens. My question to the Minister is this: have SIAC bail conditions been used as a proxy for control orders? Why are they not included in this review to bring those conditions to the same level as the Government now propose for control orders? SIAC bail conditions will still permit forced relocation, forced curfews, monitoring with the same level of secrecy and the lack of access, all without any charges being brought. They belonged in the Bill, so I look forward to hearing from the Minister why they are not there.

I will bring an example to the attention of the House. We have heard about CD and about AM, but I would like to talk about Y—Mustapha Taleb. I read about him in the book “Ricin”. Ricin was one of those footnotes in the approach to the Iraq war, with the “ricin plot”, or, some would say, the “ricin plot that never was”.

Mustapha Taleb came to the UK in 2001, having been tortured in his home country of Algeria. He was arrested in 2003 as part of the “ricin plot”, taken to court, tried and found not guilty of all charges. He was arrested again in 2005, after the 7/7 attacks, and SIAC imposed immigration bail conditions on him. Those conditions have been in place effectively for the six years subsequent to that point, so when people talk about one year or two years, they ought to understand that people in this country now have been living under conditions as severe as control orders for the past six years—and there is no relief for them in the Bill.

What does that say about British justice—forced relocation, imposed curfews, the monitoring of all communications and a denial of freedom for six years? For what? We do not know. Mustapha does not know, he has not been charged; his lawyers do not know, they have not seen the evidence; and I do not know why those conditions are not being relieved in the Bill. I strongly urge the Home Secretary to accept, and hope that she will do so in Committee, an amendment to bring them into the same form as control orders.

My second point, and quickly, is on temporary versus permanent. I mention it not only because I support the notion of many hon. Members that a review each year would be helpful, but because, having listened to the debate, it is quite clear that when someone goes from the Opposition Benches to the Government Front Bench the intention, the principle and the idealism are lessened—and lessened to the point of extinction. That position may well be right, but it is important that we challenge it every year here, where those voices of idealism can still be heard, even if today they make up a minority of the voices who were here six years ago. They still deserve to be heard every year on the matter.

I have great confidence in our Home Secretary and, of course, understand that as a Back Bencher I have only partial access to the information that she and Ministers have. I do believe, however, that we have missed an opportunity with this Bill to restore English liberty to its highest levels of respect. I urge the Government to consider a sunset clause and to align immigration bail conditions with the new control orders.

In the case of Mr Taleb, I just quote the members of the jury who acquitted him. When the SIAC conditions were put in place, they subsequently said:

“As three ordinary members of the public we have had our eyes opened to such an unfair and unjust sequence of events orchestrated by the authorities that we feel compelled to speak out. This is contrary to anything we thought could be possible in a democratic, free society. Since January 2003, ‘Y’”—

Mustapha Taleb—

“has been persecuted by our government beyond all realms of imagination.”

I urge the Minister to listen to that and to look for further changes.

21:28

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

May I first apologise to the House? I was present for the opening speeches, but I have been chairing the first 1968 dinner of the all-party armed forces group, 1968 being the only year when a British soldier, sailor or airmen has not died in combat. I apologise to the House for not being present for most of the debate. I apologise also if I repeat any arguments that my hon. Friends on both sides of the House might have made while I have been absent.

We are all aware of our first duty: to protect the people of our country. Getting that right is not a matter of politics—of one side of the House or the other. We must have a bipartisan approach to something as important as that, and it is our duty to get it right. Terrorists have no such duty. They adhere to no rules or laws whatsoever. I once spoke to a Mujahedeen terrorist and asked him what he was about. He said, “My aim is to frighten my enemies so much that they do whatever I want them to do.” We must bear in mind that that is a terrorist aim. The old Stalinist maxim—I think it was Stalin who said it—is “Kill one, frighten 10,000.” Our laws are designed to stop this happening. The terrorists aim to kill. Our security forces, as many people in all parts of the House know, want to kill nobody. They do not want to inconvenience anyone, either. They have to act within the law; terrorists do not. We all know that our security forces often operate in metaphorical handcuffs because they are tied by laws that do not apply to terrorists. In a way, terrorists operate freelance.

It is our duty to make fair, democratic, decent law. We need to balance the risks to the public, assistance to our security forces and, indeed, the human rights of terrorist suspects, because they are not guilty until they are proven to be guilty. This is the essence of today’s debate. Have control orders been too severe? Can their conditions be lessened without additional risk to the public, while perhaps increasing assistance to the security forces who are trying to stop terrorist operations at the same time as making sure that our decent traditions are upheld?

I quite like clause 2. Under clause 2, restrictions are imposed à la carte. They are not blanket restrictions; they are designed for particular instances. They are flexible and allow for more severe measures if necessary. The people in authority determine what those measures are in a balanced way because their primary duty is to keep society safe. They also have to maintain civil liberties. I am mindful that in the United Kingdom everyone is presumed innocent until they are proven guilty. I like the idea that someone who is not yet proven guilty can live as decent a life as is possible, but under control if we are worried about them. I like the idea that they can continue to work or study, under control if necessary. I am reminded, however, that seven out of 45 people on control orders have absconded—15%. We must not design a law that allows that percentage to increase.

I think that what we call TPIMs are better—just. The director general of the Security Service is apparently content with the change, but I suspect that that is largely because he or she will get increased resources in order to carry out surveillance given that the aim is to try to get these people into court as fast as possible so that we can determine whether they are guilty or innocent, which is a principle of our law. I have been part of a surveillance operation in my time. Surveillance is very manpower intensive and costly. The operation that I was involved in required 12 soldiers, and that is just the minimum. There have to be back-up people as well. That is just for the surveillance of one person. It is therefore unsurprising that the Bill suggests that there will be more resources for surveillance. I am up for that. Evidence is difficult to obtain. It is particularly difficult to obtain when one closely observes someone so that they cannot move. In a way, let them have enough rope to hang themselves. Let us watch what they do, make a decision and get them into court, which is what we all want. I was worried to learn that two terrorist suspects were on control orders for four years and then let go. That does not seem right to me.

I support the change from control orders to TPIMs—just. TPIMs have been called control orders-lite. People can call them what they like. I want us to have the most effective system to protect our society from people who want to do it harm. I want to ensure that the people investigating suspects have as many advantages as possible. Of course, Members from all parts of the House want to ensure that suspects have every opportunity to prove their innocence. The Bill will provide more resources for surveillance—great, I am up for that. The Bill, if and when it passes through this House and the other place, will have a duty to enhance public protection; to aid those who are charged to put away terrorists who aim to do us, our families and our friends harm; and to maintain the rights of suspects under a decent, civilised and democratic system. That is what this is all about and I hope that all parts of the House agree with that.

21:38

[Mr Gerry Sutcliffe (Bradford South) (Lab)]

This has been an important debate and I thank hon. Members on both sides of the House for the sincerity with which they have delivered their speeches on this important issue. We have had contributions from the hon. Member for Keighley (Kris Hopkins), my right hon. Friend the Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Paul Goggins), the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake), my right hon. Friend the Member for Salford and Eccles (Hazel Blears), the hon. Members for Newark (Patrick Mercer), for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) and for Cambridge (Dr Huppert), my hon. Friend the Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn), the hon. Members for Esher and Walton (Mr Raab) and for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood), the hon. and learned Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Stephen Phillips), and the hon. Members for Wycombe (Steve Baker), for Bedford (Richard Fuller) and for Beckenham (Bob Stewart). We heard a range of viewpoints, from those who think that control orders have no place in our society to those who feel that we must have something in place to deal with the small number of people who cause the immense problems that we have. As has been said, there have been 46 control orders over the six years in which they have been in place.

I think all hon. Members agreed that the safety and security of our nation should be the priority for any Government, and that that should rise above party political objectives, ambitions and gains. Perhaps, therefore, I should get the nasty business of politics out of the way at this point. We know why this Bill is here: it is a compromise between the two viewpoints that exist in the coalition. That is not just my point of view, because the hon. Member for Cambridge said that unless the Bill is changed substantially, he may not be able to vote for it on Third Reading. Clearly it is a compromise, but putting the politics to one side, we have to consider the details. Our view is that the new TPIMs regime is very similar to the control order regime that has been in place. I know that in his response tonight, and in his busy time in Committee, the Minister will take on board a lot of the viewpoints of hon. Members of all parties, and their concerns about the Bill’s various clauses.

The core reason why we are discussing this matter is that terrorism affects our country not only here at home but abroad, because unfortunately many of our citizens have been killed right across the world by terrorists who do not respect or believe in the sanctity of life. We all agree that we must applaud and acknowledge the work of our security services in protecting us. They have prevented atrocities from taking place at a more alarming rate.

I do not wish to attack any hon. Member’s integrity or the views that they have expressed. Having served as a Home Office Minister, I know the pressure that the Home Secretary and her ministerial team are under because of the information that they have and we do not. I know that in taking their decisions, they have to weigh up all the issues of which we cannot be aware.

Vigilance is always required in our position on terrorism. My right hon. Friend the Member for Salford and Eccles reminded us of the context of the current situation. We still have a “severe” threat alert, which is one level down from an imminent attack, so the country has to be vigilant. That is why the debate about the rights of the individual compared with the security of the many is important. She set out the background of why the control order regime was introduced. The debate about restoring the rights of the individual as against those of the majority is difficult, but it is the duty of the Government to err on the side of caution. That was why we introduced the control order regime.

We know that the Bill retains many items from the old regime. It retains closed hearings, and sanctions will still be imposed on terrorist suspects outside the criminal justice system. Groups such as Liberty are unhappy and have called the new TPIMs regime control orders-lite.

We need to consider in great detail the issues that hon. Members have raised. I was impressed by what the hon. Member for Keighley, who comes from the same area as me, said about the impact of 2001—not only the atrocities that took place but their effect in our communities in Bradford and Keighley. He was right that most right-minded people want the same things in life, but people felt threatened and frightened by different viewpoints and different ways of doing things. The Home Secretary talked about the Prevent strategy, and I am concerned about the different ideas about what Britishness is and how people from different backgrounds in our communities understand it.

The hon. Gentleman was right that in Bradford, particular attention was given to integration between the many communities, but there is anger among the Muslim community about some of the things that we in the west do. On a recent visit to Azerbaijan I heard about the problem with the Nagorno-Karabakh territory, on which there are outstanding UN resolutions that need to be enforced. There are also outstanding resolutions on Kashmir. Some of the Muslim community feel that our way of dealing with things does not recognise their interests elsewhere in the world. Rightly, people have different viewpoints and disagreements. That does not make them terrorists, and it is important to understand that people in our communities have different viewpoints.

The hon. Members for Keighley and for Beckenham said that the whole community needs to own this legislation. We must take party politics out of this. The whole of our community needs to understand why we need such regimes. Lord Carlile, the independent reviewer, said that control orders were a necessary evil.

The hon. Member for Bedford said that the original intention of control orders was to deal with foreign nationals who, for a variety of reasons, could not be deported, but that more UK citizens are now under control orders. However, the House should recognise what my right hon. Friend the Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East said because of his experience as an ex-Home Office Minister and an ex-Northern Ireland Minister—he has great experience of listening to the security services. He said that there was no book on the shelf to tell people what to do, and that the policy evolved and developed. He also rightly acknowledged that the debate creates great tension between the rights of the individual and the rights of the majority.

My hon. Friend the Member for Islington North has been consistent in his view that the rule of law should apply all the way through, and nobody has scrutinised counter-terrorism Acts more than he has.

It is perhaps right to review the situation after six years, but my right hon. Friend raised concerns about the overnight residency measures. In Committee, the Minister will have to come up with a definition of “specified residence”. What do we mean by electronic communications? What about the rules on disclosure of evidence?

The hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington said that the Bill did not go far enough. His view is that there needs to be greater freedom. He made the civil liberties argument, and spoke of exclusions, disclosure and the time frame of prosecutions. We all believe that we need prosecutions; the question is how to get them. How do we use information that is otherwise unaccessible? My right hon. Friend asked whether information from other countries would dry up if those countries thought that it would come out in open court. That is a realistic possibility, and we must consider it.

We must ensure that the control order review group is in place. We also need to consider mental health, torture and so on. My right hon. Friend the Member for Salford and Eccles tried to put us on the right course when she spoke of the need for consensus based on evidence, and put that in the context of the threats that we face.

None of us wants to be involved in such difficult decisions or in considering the threats that individuals pose, but the reality is that we must do so for the security and safety of our nation. The hon. Member for Newark, who is a long-standing supporter of civil liberties, set out what happens when the state gets involved in too much detail and used the example of internment in Northern Ireland. The hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire was very clear that he thinks that control orders have no place here and that the Bill is a rotten compromise.

The Opposition will ensure that we hold the Government to account in Committee. We will raise the issues of funding and resources. Will the Minister tell us whether the resources will be spent on surveillance or on prosecutions, which hon. Members raised earlier? We will look at a great number of the measures in the Bill in Committee, but we want to support the Government. The hon. Member for Beckenham was right about the need to ensure consensus, but it is the job of the Opposition to hold the Government to account. We will do so in Committee, and we look forward to that process.

21:49

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (James Brokenshire)]

We have had a constructive, serious and sober debate on this significant issue, and I am grateful to hon. Members on both sides of the House who have contributed to it. I apologise for the fact that, in the nine minutes that I have left to speak, I will not be able to respond in detail to all the points that have been raised, but they have certainly been listened to carefully. The debate has shown that hon. Members are committed to ensuring that we have the right legislation in place to deal with terrorism. We might, of course, disagree on some of the details, but there is a great deal of common ground between us.

It is clear that the threat from international and domestic terrorism is as serious as any that we have faced at any time, and that it is unlikely to diminish in the foreseeable future. The threat remains real and severe, and it is the duty of the Government to deal with it. It is essential that we look to the police and the security services to assist us in that regard, and I pay tribute to their work in keeping us safe and secure. In the context of the comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Patrick Mercer), which were amplified by my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart), I also pay tribute to the work of our armed forces overseas to provide that safety and security and to uphold the values that we hold dear.

We all understand the importance of the issues, and know how corrosive the threat of terrorism can be. Some hon. Members will have had more direct and, sadly, more personal experience of terrorism than others. There is no doubt that all of us in the House are steadfast in our condemnation of those who seek to destroy our way of life through violence. In providing the police and others with the tools that they need to deal with terrorism, we must take great care not to throw away the civil liberties that are at the core of our society. The ancient values of the rule of law and respect for individual liberties are the very things that terrorists seek to destroy, and protecting them is at the core of the Government.

This has been an interesting debate, in which a range of issues has been discussed. There has also been a feeling that we wished we were not here, and that it was not necessary to put in place measures such as these. Comments to that effect have been made on both sides of the House. Difficult decisions must be taken, however, as the contributions from the right hon. Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Paul Goggins) and my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Stephen Phillips) underlined. We must also protect our principles and values, as my hon. Friends the Members for Wycombe (Steve Baker), for Esher and Walton (Mr Raab), for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) and for Bedford (Richard Fuller) pointed out.

The Government set up a comprehensive review of the key counter-terrorism powers, the purpose of which was to correct the imbalance between security powers and personal freedoms and to ensure that our main counter-terrorism powers were focused, necessary and proportionate. It was from that review that the measures proposed in the Bill came about. Legislation, while important, is only part of our approach to terrorism, however. The threat from international and Northern Ireland-related terrorism is serious and will not diminish any time soon. In responding to that threat, we cannot take risks with public security. We must therefore continually adapt our approach to the evolving threat that we face, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood) said. That is why the Bill needs to be seen in the context of the Government’s wider strategy on terrorism and protecting the public. The strategy, known as Contest, is being reviewed to ensure that it remains effective and targeted against the threats that we face. A key part of the strategy, Prevent, has been discussed in the House earlier today, and was relevant to the contribution made by my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley (Kris Hopkins).

Prevent is only one strand of the Government’s approach, however. Strengthening aviation security and increasing our efforts to deport foreign terrorists under the deportation with assurances programme will also pay dividends in making this country safer. We have also ensured that the UK retains its capability to tackle the terrorist threat in a tight financial climate by providing the police and the security and intelligence agencies with significant resources over the next few years.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

Will the Minister give way?

[James Brokenshire]

I apologise, but I will not as I have a lot to get through in the five minutes remaining to me.

We are committed to prosecuting or deporting terrorists wherever possible, and our starting point will always be that terrorists should be behind bars; the rule of law and getting people to face criminal prosecution before the courts is where we want to be. That is very much our preferred option and I would certainly like to assure all hon. Members of that. It is widely accepted across the House, however, that there are and will be for the foreseeable future a very small number of highly dangerous individuals whom we can neither successfully prosecute nor deport. No responsible Government could allow such individuals to go freely about their terrorist activity.

Other steps should be advanced and we need to take them forward. That is why the comment of my hon. Friend the Member for Newark about post-charge questioning is so relevant. That is why the Government intend to make the necessary PACE—Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984—code changes after a statutory consultation before the summer recess.

Points were made about plea bargaining, and the review of counter-terrorism powers said that further work would be undertaken to ensure that full use is made of the provisions in the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 to increase the evidence and intelligence dividend from defendants and prisoners in terrorism cases.

Intercept evidence was also raised. The lawful interception of communications plays a critical role in tackling serious crime and protecting the British public. Almost all the highest priority counter-terrorist operations and many other serious crime investigations involve the use of intercept. Hon. Members will be aware from the written ministerial statement of 26 January of the ongoing work of the advisory group of Privy Councillors. We will report back on their work in due course.

Mention was made of the special advocates and the disclosure of secret information. The Green Paper is being worked on and we are very cognisant of the issues relevant to it as well as of the many cases relating to it. My hon. Friend the Member for Bedford mentioned the role of the Special Immigration Appeals Commission and the use of secret information in that context. We are considering these issues and the key concerns that have been flagged up, and we will come forward with the Green Paper in due course. I should add the assurance that we will continue to make progress on the issue of deportation. The hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) and my hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake) mentioned the assurances required on that issue, and we take our international obligations extremely seriously when it comes to assessing the pertinent issues.

Let me quickly address the point made about safety and security by the right hon. Members for Salford and Eccles (Hazel Blears) and for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Paul Goggins). The Government believe that the package of TPIM restrictions strikes the right balance between protecting the public and protecting the rights of individuals who have not necessarily been charged with any offence. The director general of the Security Service has told the Home Secretary that he considers the changes as providing an acceptable balance between the needs of security and civil liberties, and that the overall package mitigates risk.

Difficult issues arise here, and we are very cognisant of them, while remaining focused on the need to deal with the small number of people who pose a real threat to our security, yet who despite our best efforts cannot be prosecuted. That is why I say, regrettably, that the measures in the Bill are required to deal with this continuing threat in a more targeted and more tightly defined way. That is what we believe is appropriate; that is what we believe is necessary; that is what I think best reflects the needs of this country in giving that continued assurance. This Bill gives effect to those objectives. I commend it to the House.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time.

terrorism prevention and investigation measures Bill (Programme)

Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 83A(7)),

That the following provisions shall apply to the Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measures Bill:

Committal

1. The Bill shall be committed to a Public Bill Committee.

Proceedings in Public Bill Committee

2. Proceedings in the Public Bill Committee shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion on Tuesday 5 July.

3. The Public Bill Committee shall have leave to sit twice on the first day on which it meets.

Consideration and Third Reading

4. Proceedings on Consideration shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion one hour before the moment of interruption on the day on which those proceedings are commenced.

5. Proceedings on Third Reading shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion at the moment of interruption on that day.

6. Standing Order No. 83B (Programming committees) shall not apply to proceedings on Consideration and Third Reading.

7. Any other proceedings on the Bill (including any proceedings on consideration of Lords Amendments or on any further messages from the Lords) may be programmed.—(Jeremy Wright.)

Question agreed to.

terrorism prevention and investigation measures bill (money)

Queen’s recommendation signified.

Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 52(1)(a)),

That, for the purposes of any Act resulting from the Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measures Bill, it is expedient to authorise the payment out of money provided by Parliament of—

(1) any expenditure incurred by a Minister of the Crown by virtue of the Act, and

(2) any increase attributable to the Act in the sums payable out of such money under any other Act.—(Jeremy Wright.)

Question agreed to.

Business without Debate

Tuesday 7th June 2011 Commons Chamber

Delegated Legislation

[Mr Speaker]

With the leave of the House, I will take motions 5 to 7 together.

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

Customs

That the Export Control (Amendment) (No. 3) Order 2011 (S.I., 2011, No. 1127), dated 14 April 2011, a copy of which was laid before this House on 15 April, be approved.

Representation of the People

That the draft Representation of the People (Electoral Registration Data Schemes) Regulations 2011, which were laid before this House on 26 April, be approved.

That the draft Electoral Registration Data Schemes Order 2011, which was laid before this House on 26 April, be approved. —(Jeremy Wright.)

Question agreed to.

European Union Documents

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

European Contract Law for Consumers and Business

That this House takes note of European Union Document No. 11961/10, a Green Paper from the European Commission on policy options for progress towards a European Contract Law for consumers and businesses; supports the Government’s response to the Green Paper, sent to the European Commission on 10 February 2011; and agrees with the terms of that response.—(Jeremy Wright.)

Question agreed to.

[Bob Russell (Colchester) (LD)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I wonder whether you have received any requests from Defence Ministers to come to the House to try to clarify reports in the press of proposals to cut the wages of members of 16 Air Assault Brigade and the Parachute Regiment in general. Today, 16 Air Assault Brigade had its welcome home parade through Colchester, and tomorrow, at Bury St Edmunds cathedral, there will be a service of thanksgiving which will also be a memorial service for those who have just fallen in Helmand province. Do you agree, Mr Speaker, that Defence Ministers should come and explain what is going on? Are they seriously proposing to cut the wages of members of the Parachute Regiment?

[Mr Speaker]

The hon. Gentleman asks me a straightforward question, to which the straightforward answer is no.

Care Services (Older People)

Tuesday 7th June 2011 Commons Chamber

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

22:01

[Stephen Lloyd (Eastbourne) (LD)]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Before the hon. Member for Eastbourne (Stephen Lloyd) begins his speech, may I appeal to Members who are leaving the Chamber to do so quickly and quietly?

[Stephen Lloyd]

Thank you, Mr Speaker.

As an officer in the all-party parliamentary group for ageing and older people and an active member of the all-party parliamentary group on dementia, and as the Member of Parliament representing Eastbourne and Willingdon, an area that contains nearly 25,000 people over the age of 65, I called for this debate because the current system of care for older people is in crisis. The recent awful and shocking exposé by the “Panorama” programme is a desperate indictment of the worst in care provision, but it would be a naive mistake to believe that there are no other examples of bad practice out there. The growing age profile means that any Government will face difficult challenges for many years to come, and despite the growing demand, care provision has faced years of austerity with almost no net spending increase.

There are currently 291,000 people in residential and nursing homes in the United Kingdom, along with 6 million carers who allow people to live in their own homes. That means that an extremely large proportion of the United Kingdom’s population is directly affected by care service provision. Those who work in social care, or who care for someone on a voluntary basis, are the backbone of our society. They are the unsung heroes whose voices often go unheard, not least because they are simply too preoccupied with the enormousness of the task in hand.

A number of my colleagues who are present this evening will probably focus on several areas of care that affect older people, but I will focus mainly on dementia and on care service provision for dementia sufferers. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response.

[Penny Mordaunt (Portsmouth North) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate. He mentions the increased demand resulting from an older population, but does he agree that we are starting from a very low base? In Portsmouth there are 1,000 people with dementia who have no access to services. It is necessary not just to improve the quality of services that people are already receiving, but to give people access to services in the first place.

[Stephen Lloyd]

I agree. My hon. Friend’s important intervention is relevant to one of the key issues with which I shall deal in my speech. Not only have the dementia figures risen hugely over the past few years—and they will clearly continue to rise—but there are still many tens of thousands of people with dementia throughout the UK for whom there is no provision whatsoever.

Let me put some of the figures into perspective. There are currently 750,000 people with dementia in the UK, and the number is set to rise to over 1 million in the next 15 years. One in three people in the UK over the age of 65 will die with dementia. People with dementia are significant users of both health and social care services. For example, people over 65 with dementia are currently using up to one quarter of hospital beds at any one time. That is an enormous problem.

[Tracey Crouch (Chatham and Aylesford) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this important debate. We have served together for some time now on the all-party group on dementia, and we have spoken on many occasions about the impact of dementia patients on primary health care. Does he agree that one way of addressing the problems of dementia patients receiving care in hospitals is by making sure that the professionals on the wards have mandatory training?

[Stephen Lloyd]

That is an important point. My partner is a community matron, and a wee while ago I made a rather foolish comment by asking why, with all the skills she and her colleagues have, they do not cover dementia as well. She gave me very short shrift, and emphasised, in her splendid way, “Stephen, dementia care is a very specific need. We all need more and better training on it, and also, to be honest, we need more specialist dementia nurses.” I certainly agree that it is essential that there is training for all professionals dealing with dementia.

The exponential growth of this debilitating condition is a result of the growing age profile. Today, we are dying in our 80s. That is a good thing of course, as many older people lead full and productive lives, but it also brings its own set of challenges, one of which is that one in six people over the age of 80 suffer from dementia.

I am grateful that the coalition Government have stated their commitment to the national dementia strategy. I have had meetings on this issue with the Minister, so I am also grateful that he is present this evening. I also congratulate the Government on revising the implementation plan. Under this revised plan, dementia will be a major priority for the coalition, which I welcome, but I also look forward to hearing some of the specific detail.

I remain very concerned about provision on the ground. In my constituency of Eastbourne, we are desperately short of specialised dementia day-respite provision, and even more so of overnight and longer term respite. The funding to my local county council has not kept up with demand. That has been the case over the last 10 to 15 years, so it is not a recent phenomenon, but as a result of funding restrictions East Sussex county council has had to close a couple of respite care centres over the past few years, and I know that there are similar situations across the country. To put it bluntly, we in Eastbourne need at least three to four times more specialist dementia respite care provision, and I suspect that, broadly, there is a similar shortage across England and Wales.

This is not a new problem, and I am glad the coalition is recognising it by pledging an additional £2 billion. It is very significant that that extra money is being made available, especially in the current difficult times, so I am grateful for that, but I also want the detail, because I still have concerns about the pledges at the top not filtering down to the grass roots. Early diagnosis and intervention are essential to ensure taxpayers get the best value out of the substantial amounts the Government are spending on health and social care, and that will guarantee the best quality of life for dementia sufferers. This step will also reduce crisis admissions to hospital and release significant cost savings.

My hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch) and I are members of the all-party group on dementia, and the Alzheimer’s Society has been tremendously helpful in providing support to our group. Recent evidence collated by the Alzheimer’s Society shows that only 40% of people with dementia have been given a formal diagnosis, and the figure varies considerably across the UK. Where people do receive a diagnosis, it often comes late on in their condition, limiting the choices that people with dementia and their carers can make.

In addition to being given a diagnosis of dementia, people with the illness need to be able to access support and care early on in their condition, as my hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth North (Penny Mordaunt) was saying. Services for people with dementia are skewed towards those in crisis situations, and people in the acute and long-term care sectors. As I have indicated, there is a lack of provision of support and care for the people with dementia who live in their own homes.

Despite the projection that more than 1 million people will have dementia by 2025, dementia research is severely underfunded in comparison with research into other major diseases such as heart disease or cancer. For example, the Government spend eight times less on dementia research than they do on cancer research. Not in a million years would I want to reduce the amount of money spent on cancer research but, as we all know from our constituencies, dementia is a time bomb ready to explode. I know that the Government are investing more on research but I want to hear some of the detail. Clearly more money must be spent on research into this condition, as developing new treatments has the potential to reduce significantly the number of people with dementia. For example, delaying the onset of dementia by five years would halve the number of deaths from the condition, thus saving 30,000 lives a year. I therefore welcome the coalition’s commitment—this was also a pledge in the Liberal Democrat manifesto—to prioritise dementia research within the health research and development budget, and I look forward to reading the Department’s plan to improve the volume, quality and impact of dementia research.

The Dilnot commission, which is due to report next month, provides an opportunity to resolve the historic and unsolved question of whether, as a society, we are able and willing to support people to live well in later life. The Dilnot commission must propose a road map for the delivery of a long-term settlement on the question of who pays for care and one that delivers significant improvements in access and quality. The funding envelope for social care must be increased to meet the needs of our ageing population, including the increasing number of people with dementia.

So what would I like to see happen? First, I wish to see a long-term settlement for social care that offers good quality care for people with dementia at a fair price, along with a set of guarantees about what people can expect to receive. As a starting point, I challenge the Minister by saying that the state should provide a minimum level of care and support for free. Guarantees about the care to be provided should include access to early intervention services, regular short breaks for carers and a guarantee that the care will be of high quality. One of the things to come out of recent research is that the earlier dementia is identified, and the earlier interventions are made and people with dementia are supported in a respite care background, the more the worse rate of dementia appears to be delayed—already we know that it is delayed by a good two or three years. So this is one of those things that really would save money in the long term.

If we are to revisit the Health and Social Care Bill, as I believe we may well do very soon, I would also like to see something else that is important. I know that the Minister feels passionately about this, so I am glad to be pushing at an open door. I am talking about better joined-up working between health and social care. However many years ago it took place and for whatever reason, it was a catastrophe that we split social care from the NHS. That has been appalling because social care budgets have been trimmed repeatedly over the years. In Eastbourne, as in every constituency, the social care sector deals with the respite care provision and the money has been cut every year, whereas the NHS, where money has not been cut—a lot of investment has gone into the NHS in the past 15 to 17 years—is dealing with people with dementia right at the crisis stage. It is an incredibly inefficient way of dealing with a desperate illness and it does not make financial sense. Better joined-up working between health and social care is essential for people with dementia.

I believe that integration of care pathways across health and social care services should also be considered a duty, similar to effectiveness, safety and quality, and should be applicable to all health bodies from the Secretary of State downwards. I recognise the important role that health and wellbeing boards could play in encouraging greater integration between health and social care and I strongly endorse their inclusion in the Bill. Health and wellbeing boards can also provide a strategic oversight for the development of local health and social care services and the proposed boards in the Bill must have a strong focus on dementia.

Finally, we come to multi-disciplinary commissioning. Let me use my partner as an example again: she is a community matron and her job is to go out into the community and to help people, mostly older people, to retain their independence by living at home. A lot of her work involves liaising with social services, the primary care trusts and the acute trust and doing all the multi-disciplinary co-ordination that is so necessary. We need to bring it into commissioning. I am concerned that most GPs might not necessarily know enough about dementia to commission effective services, so it would be beneficial in my view if a range of health and social care professionals could also be involved. I am not against GP consortia in principle, but I merely want more professionals from the different areas of health and social care to be involved in the commissioning process, such as nurses, occupational therapists and old age psychiatrists.

I suspect that we have all been touched personally by the impact of dementia on someone we love. In my family, two of my aunts had dementia and one still lives with it every day. It is a desperate illness that affects hundreds of thousands of people and it has an impact on millions. My aunt is an example: she is a lady who rode a scooter from Nairobi to Johannesburg and climbed Mount Kilimanjaro in the ’50s. She is an amazing, great woman who was a teacher for 50 years in east Africa. The dementia she has now is desperately sad—thankfully not so much for her, but for all the family around her. It is a desperate illness that affects many people and it is not going away any time soon. As a nation, we need to move up a gear. We need to get better at providing care for dementia sufferers and their families and we need to do it now.

22:17

[The Minister of State, Department of Health (Paul Burstow)]

Let me start by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Eastbourne (Stephen Lloyd)on securing the debate and setting out the issues so clearly, as well as for his work as an officer of the all-party group on dementia. I suspect that many of his colleagues in the Chamber listening to the debate have been inspired to be here by their association with that group.

Social care is seldom in the news for good reasons and my hon. Friend was right to begin by referring to some of the most recent scandals that the House discussed earlier today, not least the terrible abuse at Winterbourne View. As I said earlier, the events that took place in that hospital were appalling and, as I explained, I am determined to do everything I can to ensure that the lessons are learned, understood and acted on swiftly.

My hon. Friend has painted a fairly bleak picture of social care, and although I am not quite so gloomy I am not complacent about what needs to be done. The system of social care that the Government inherited last year was and still is fragile. The legal framework that governs social care was written for a bygone era and is now so complex and byzantine as to leave people confused and frustrated. The way that we pay for long-term care is a classic wicked issue of politics—one that is occasionally taken out of the “Too difficult to deal with” drawer, only to be looked at and shoved firmly back in again—because most people in this country are blissfully unaware of how social care is paid for. They are blissfully unaware of the fact that it is not free, that it never has been free and that many people face the potential of catastrophic costs when they come into the social care system.

My hon. Friend has rehearsed his views about what future funding arrangements might look like. I am clear that there is no perfect solution—no solution that can possibly please and satisfy everyone—but we need to strive to reach a settlement that requires trade-offs but also secures the necessary change and sustainability of a system for the future. That is why the Government have been quick to put in place the building blocks of a reform system—quickly establishing the Dilnot commission to recommend reform of how we pay for care and support, and securing the current system by committing an extra £2 billion for social care by 2014.

My hon. Friend talked about the importance of integration. I can tell him that the unprecedented transfer of NHS resources to social care, which this year amounts to £650 million, is indeed fostering new relationships between local government and the NHS to allow the greater integration and closer working that are essential to enable us to deliver better services for the public whom we are here to serve. He also talked about the schism between health and social care. It is worth noting that that schism was set into the very foundations of the NHS under the National Health Service Act 1946 and then the National Assistance Act 1948, so we have to look back a long way to see when that split occurred.

The main focus of my hon. Friend’s remarks has been the challenge of dementia. Each year, about 65,000 people are diagnosed with dementia, which touches the lives of many families, as he has demonstrated by relating his experience with his two aunts. The number of dementia cases is set to rise by 38% over the next 15 years. That rise reflects the fact that many more of us are living for longer, but we should not cast that in the language of consternation. We should see it as a cause for celebration that so many more people are living for so much longer; the key is making sure that in those extra years we have quality of life as well. That is why we need the NHS, as well as social care and society, to rise to the challenge.

Let me offer some hope to my hon. Friend. We can do much better for people with dementia and their carers. In coming to office, I took the view that we should stick with the existing national dementia strategy and deliver it in full, because at our heart the coalition Government are committed to the notion of greater personalisation so that people have real control over the services that affect their lives and so that carers have a much bigger stake in the system. As he has said, commissioning is key to delivering that vision and the objectives in the strategy. Good commissioning can make a huge difference.

[Tracey Crouch]

The Minister mentions carers, who have a very difficult job—none more so than those who care for people with dementia. Next week is carers week. Will he join me in congratulating those who care for people with dementia, which is particularly challenging? Those people are often the unsung heroes of our society.

[Paul Burstow]

I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for making that very important point. The 6 million or more carers in this country are undoubtedly the backbone of our care system and save us a large sum of money—over £100 billion according to the most recent estimate by Carers UK. I will go beyond thanking them and make the point that the Government have committed £400 million extra to supporting the extension of respite support for carers. We are determined to make sure that that money gets through to those who need it.

My hon. Friend the Member for Eastbourne’s remarks about commissioning and the need for it to be multidisciplinary, involving social care and other expertise, is undoubtedly right. Indeed, my Department is in the process of developing a pack to support health and social care commissioners, particularly in relation to dementia commissioning. It will offer guidance on key aspects of dementia care and the need for early diagnosis and intervention. My hon. Friend was right to refer to the under-diagnosis and late diagnosis of dementia and how that can reduce life chances and the opportunity to plan for the progression of the disease. There will also be guidance on offering better support for people at home and in care homes and on providing better care in hospitals, which means addressing issues of training that have been mentioned.

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

Does the Minister agree that excellent examples of charities and social enterprises such as Castel Froma in my constituency that put social goals before short-term profit provide some of the best models for the future of care homes? Should the Government not do all that they can to encourage the provision of services by those organisations to the sector?

[Paul Burstow]

I am grateful for that point. Part of the Government’s growth strategy is about recognising the value that micro-enterprises and social enterprises can offer in delivering good-quality social care.

We are producing supporting guidance for commissioners on the reduction in the use of anti-psychotic medication, which is often overlooked by commissioners. Having spent a decade campaigning for an end to the inappropriate and over-prescribing of anti-psychotics, I was delighted when the previous Government finally commissioned an independent review that clearly revealed the cost of the use of those drugs—lives shortened, lives dimmed, and 1,800 deaths a year, which is truly shocking. That is why as a Minister I am determined to hold the system to account to deliver a two-thirds reduction in the prescribing of those drugs by November this year. That ambitious target was set in 2009, and it requires action by a number of agencies and the provision of the alternatives that my hon. Friend the Member for Eastbourne discussed.

To make that change, the Government need active support from the front line, the third sector and professional bodies, and we have worked closely with Dementia Action Alliance and many other organisations to support a national call for action to reduce the use of anti-psychotics, which will be launched later this week. My hon. Friend discussed the variation in services across the country, and it is worth saying that the NHS spends £8.2 billion a year on dementia. I do not think there is compelling evidence that it is all well used, which is why we are auditing service provision around the country to gauge progress, for example in the development of memory services. Taken with clear requirements on primary care trusts to publish their dementia plans and work with their social care partners, there will be more transparency than ever before, so commissioners will be held to account for delivery in that area.

My hon. Friend touched on a number of issues relating to NHS reforms, and discussed the need to improve research. I have the privilege of chairing the ministerial advisory group on dementia research, and one of the key issues in delivering more investment in dementia research is securing more quality bids for research funds in the first place. I am delighted that more than 121 new bids have recently been made and are being evaluated, making it very likely that I will be in a position later this year to announce good news about our moving towards significantly increased investment in dementia research. The key is not just throwing money at the problem but making sure that the talents in scientific skills in this country are brought to bear on it, and that expertise is brought into this area to make sure that we solve the problems effectively.

My hon. Friend made some important points about NHS reforms. Having just concluded the listening exercise, we are waiting for Steve Field and the NHS Future Forum to publish their conclusions next week. My hon. Friend discussed the role that health and wellbeing boards can play in integrating services. That is something that was part of the original legislation and which, I am pretty certain, will remain in the legislation. It is an essential building block in delivering more integration of health and social care.

In conclusion, health and social care reform is long overdue. My hon. Friend made a powerful case for acting swiftly on that reform. The Government have acted in a determined fashion to put in place the building blocks to enable that reform to take place. We have secured the funds to sustain the system while we put those reforms in place, and we are committed to delivering on dementia. I have no doubt that if we deliver good-quality dementia care services and model our services around the needs of dementia sufferers and their families, care and compassion will be built into the system, which will address many of the concerns that have rightly been rehearsed in the House over recent months. It will also enable us to get the very best out of the £8.2 billion that is already spent on dementia services, and ensure that the extra resources that this Government are putting into the NHS over the next few years get to the front line and deliver the improvements that all Members want to see.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Eastbourne for raising the subject this evening, and I look forward to continuing to work with him through his all-party group to make sure that we keep these issues firmly in the spotlight, driving forward the improvements that all our constituents expect.

Question put and agreed to.

22:30

House adjourned.

Ministerial Correction

Tuesday 7th June 2011 Ministerial Corrections

Tuesday 7 June 2011

Prisoners: Females

Tuesday 7th June 2011 Ministerial Corrections

[Mrs Grant]

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice how many female inmates on the prison estate have access to (a) games consoles and (b) television; and if he will make a statement.

[Official Report, 26 April 2011, Vol. 527, c. 170-71W.]

Letter of correction from Mr Crispin Blunt:

An error has been identified in the written answer given to the hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Mrs Grant) on 26 April 2011. The list of prisons that provide games consoles for shared use in women's prisons omitted one establishment. The full answer given was as follows:

[Mr Blunt]

It is not possible to the give exact number of prisoners who have access to televisions and games consoles, as this changes constantly. There are currently 4,241 (at 8 April 2011) women in prison in England and Wales, and most of them have access to television. Her Majesty's Prisons Askham Grange, Bronzefield, Eastwood Park, Holloway, Low Newton and New Hall do not allow access to television where prisoners have been placed on the basic level of the Incentives and Earned Privileges scheme (IEPS).

Prisoners on the enhanced level of the IEPS are allowed to have certain games consoles in possession if they pay for them themselves. The National Offender Management Service does not collect centrally the numbers of prisoners who choose to do this and there would be disproportionate cost in obtaining this number. In addition, a very small number of consoles have been purchased for shared use in association by prisoners on the enhanced level of the IEPS at the following establishments: Askham Grange, Downview, Eastwood Park, New Hall and Styal. At Bronzefield, there is a games console in the Healthcare Centre.

The correct answer should have been:

[Mr Blunt]

It is not possible to the give exact number of prisoners who have access to televisions and games consoles, as this changes constantly. There are currently 4,241 (at 8 April 2011) women in prison in England and Wales, and most of them have access to television. Her Majesty's Prisons Askham Grange, Bronzefield, Eastwood Park, Holloway, Low Newton and New Hall do not allow access to television where prisoners have been placed on the basic level of the Incentives and Earned Privileges scheme (IEPS).

Prisoners on the enhanced level of the IEPS are allowed to have certain games consoles in possession if they pay for them themselves. The National Offender Management Service does not collect centrally the numbers of prisoners who choose to do this and there would be disproportionate cost in obtaining this number. In addition, a very small number of consoles have been purchased for shared use in association by prisoners on the enhanced level of the IEPS at the following establishments: Askham Grange, Downview, East Sutton Park, Eastwood Park, New Hall and Styal. At Bronzefield, there is a games console in the Healthcare Centre.

Westminster Hall

Tuesday 7th June 2011 Westminster Hall

Tuesday 7 June 2011

[Mr Philip Hollobone in the Chair]

Dairy Farming

Tuesday 7th June 2011 Westminster Hall

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

09:30

[Dr Daniel Poulter (Central Suffolk and North Ipswich) (Con)]

I am pleased to see that, despite the recess, a number of colleagues are arriving, and more will join us later.

It is important that we debate the future of British dairy farming. It is an important matter throughout the country, but especially so for East Anglia, and particularly for Suffolk and south Norfolk and for Waveney valley in my constituency. All Members here today would like to see the re-establishment of a thriving, profitable and sustainable agriculture sector in the United Kingdom. About 15 or 17 years ago, the country produced 70% of its own food, but we now produce only 40%. There is a strong case for supporting the development of much greater food security and food sustainability, and the dairy sector has an important part to play in that.

Milk prices affect dairy farmers from time to time, but the dairy industry has faced a particular crisis over the past few months and, as a result, at least eight farms in East Anglia close to my constituency are no longer in business. The key factor is the price that dairy farmers receive for their milk. There is a tension between the price paid by the consumer, particularly given the current economic climate, and the price that retailers pay milk producers. Nevertheless, if we want to maintain a profitable and thriving agricultural sector, we need to ensure that milk producers receive a fair price. At the moment, Britain is third from bottom in the European league table for the price that our milk producers receive, which is unacceptable.

I know that the Minister is familiar with a number of these factors as they affect Suffolk, having originally been with AtlasFram farmers, but the point of this debate is to focus on what the Government can do to support the British dairy industry over the next few years, particularly in the current crisis.

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

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing such an important debate. The future of dairy farming is important to people throughout the country, as we need greater food security and must produce more of our own food. Does he agree that it is about not only the supply of milk, but the products that are made from it? Those products are important to the economy of Cornwall. They include not only our famous clotted cream but our ice cream, cheese and yoghurt, which all depend on healthy supplies of milk. Many dairy farmers in my constituency, like those in my hon. Friend’s, face the prospect of having to give up that important part of their livelihood, along with their farming traditions.

[Dr Poulter]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. I want to focus on milk, but others may wish to discuss other milk commodities and derivatives. Many retailers do not pay our dairy farmers a proper price for the commodities that they produce, as she has said so eloquently, but I shall focus on milk because, for producers throughout the UK, milk is the main produce of the dairy farm. None the less, I accept that the price that those farmers receive for yoghurts, cheeses and other milk-based products is a problem.

There has been increasing coverage of dairy farming issues over recent months, and I am sure that the Minister is aware that a key problem is the contracts that dairy farmers are tied into with the retailers. Before going into that aspect, however, it is worth setting out the background to the problem.

There is increasing concern that the milk industry is in crisis. Milk is a perishable product, as we all know, and farmers have little choice but to enter into contracts that often feature exploitative terms and conditions. These contracts contain no certainty about the price that will be paid from month to month, and producers are locked into contracts with notice periods of 12 or 18 months and with penalty clauses from the moment that they announce that they wish to move to another retailer. Such penalty clauses often include a section on price, which adversely affects the farmer.

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

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate. Both he and the Minister know that this matter is close to my heart, and I hope that my private Member’s Bill will receive his support on Friday—I am sure that it will.

My hon. Friend has mentioned contracts. Does he agree that the major problem faced by the dairy industry is that retailers regard milk as a loss-leading product, and that they use their superior position in the market to drive down the price in a way that has made dairy farming unsustainable for many producers? The Government need to tackle that issue.

[Dr Poulter]

I thank my hon. and learned Friend for his intervention. The point is that the framework around those contracts has helped to keep the market subdued. As I have indicated, Britain is third from bottom in the league table of what farmers are paid for their milk in Europe.

The average European Union milk price in March 2011 was 29.72p per litre, but it was only 26.59p in the UK. For most farmers, over an average year that 1p a litre amounts to between £80,000 and £100,000. On average, British farmers are being paid £300,000 less than the European average, which is unacceptable if we wish to support a thriving dairy industry. We need to drill down into why British farmers are not paid a fair price for milk, whereas a much higher price is paid by European retailers to their milk producers.

Various narratives are put forward by retailers and suppliers on what they pay our dairy farmers. They say that they pay a fair price, but according to the European average they do not. They say that consumers are under financial pressure and that they need to keep the cost of milk down, and there is some truth in that. Yes, we are in difficult economic times, consumers are under financial pressure, and we want the cost for consumers to be as low as possible. However, although the price of milk in the shops over the past few years has risen considerably—by 70% or 80%—the increase paid to the farmer has been disproportionately lower. There has not been the necessary knock-on for farmers, so although retailers and suppliers are benefiting from a rise in the price of milk in the shops, our milk farmers are not. That is not fair, and it is not beneficial to the dairy industry. If we do not support our dairy producers, more farms will go out of business, which will be bad because it will impact adversely on consumers given the perishable nature of milk.

The other argument often put forward by retailers and suppliers is that milk must be resourced exclusively from the UK. We all want to see retailers supporting British farmers, backing honest food labelling and buying from them whenever they can. However, given the perishable nature of the product, and given that unlike many European countries we have a particular market for fresh milk, British retailers and suppliers have no option but to buy from British producers. That is another spurious argument put forward by many retailers and suppliers, and it is not a good reason for them not to pay our British farmers a fair price for their milk.

I am pleased that the European Commission has identified the significant imbalance in bargaining power between farmers and dairies and the lack of certainty and control over the price that farmers receive for their milk. It has recognised that the problem lies with the contracts and has proposed a number of ways in which national Governments can address it.

As the Minister will be aware, the Commission’s proposals to improve the position of dairy farming include allowing member states to introduce minimum legal standards for milk contracts, which would include the price to be paid for the duration of the agreement and a proper arrangement for the termination of those contracts. At the moment, when a farmer seeks to end a contract, they have to wait 12 or even 18 months before it can be terminated, but the penalty clause kicks in immediately, which means a lower price for the milk that they produce. That does not seem to be a fair contract, and it should be investigated.

The EU has talked about permitting producer organisations to be established, which would allow dairy farmers to come together to improve their negotiating power with dairy companies, and that would be a good thing. It has also discussed introducing greater market transparency into the dairy supply chain.

The EU has identified a number of issues with the contracts, which, as my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Stephen Phillips) has said, are at the crux of this matter. The majority of milk contracts offer dairy farmers no certainty or clarity about the price they will be paid from month to month. They allow the milk buyer to make unilateral changes to milk prices, which often take place at very short notice. Dairy farmers have great difficulty exiting such contracts. All those issues imbalance the contractual relationship between the dairy farmer and the milk buyer.

I hope that the Minister will tell us that the Government support a fair code of practice and that they will give us a little more clarity over the role of the ombudsman. Unless we improve the current situation between milk producers, milk suppliers and retailers, more and more of our dairy farms will go out of business.

It has been a pleasure to flag up these key issues, and I look forward to hearing from the Minister and my colleagues.

[Julian Smith (Skipton and Ripon) (Con)]

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way just as he is ending his speech. Is he convinced that Government-led contracts are the way ahead, or does he see the potential for a halfway house, where there is a greater focus on transparency and a greater use of nudging for all parts of the industry? In other words, does he think that we need to legislate to address the contract issue?

[Dr Poulter]

Instinctively, I do not like unnecessary red tape. However, given that the National Farmers Union has already been involved in some considerable nudging and given that there is a considerable imbalance between the power of the dairy producers and of the retailers, perhaps the Government have a role to play. I agree that it would be good to see a mutually agreed solution that supports the code of conduct and the role of the ombudsman. However, if that does not work, I hope that the Government will intervene. To start with, I would like to see things being resolved without using unnecessary red tape. Hopefully, we will see many organisations taking corporate responsibility and backing British suppliers. We have seen that in the pork and meat sectors of the industry, with many British retailers beginning to show greater corporate responsibility in buying British meat and putting it on their shelves. In the dairy industry, we need to see our retailers taking a similarly robust attitude and showing such corporate responsibility as well. I want to see that first and then, if necessary, further action and intervention from the Government.

[Caroline Nokes (Romsey and Southampton North) (Con)]

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way and for having secured this important debate. Does he not acknowledge that there are a number of retailers who are showing greater corporate responsibility? Waitrose, for example, operates a partnership of dairy farmers, one of which is based in Leckford in my constituency. Can we not encourage a greater use of that model in the rest of the country?

[Dr Poulter]

That is a good point. Marks and Spencer provides us with another good example. Like Waitrose, it has already shown a high level of corporate responsibility. Indeed, Waitrose has a good attitude to supporting British farming in general. My hon. Friend is right to say that there is a need for a number of companies to support a profitable and sustainable agricultural sector. The crisis in the dairy industry at the moment highlights such a need.

A number of dairy farms are being forced out of business. The prices of commodities and fuel are making it difficult for farms to be as successful as they once were. My hon. Friend is right to say that retailers should show some support, and we hope to see the model that she has mentioned rolled out across the country. However, it is important for us to trust the retailers to show that greater corporate responsibility before the Government intervene.

In conclusion, the number of dairy producers in the UK is plummeting, and the price paid for milk is consistently low. At the moment, we are 25th out of 27 in the EU league table. Input costs have soared for producers in recent years, especially over the past few months. In 2009-10, milk production was at an all-time low in the United Kingdom.

The crux of the matter lies in the fact that contracts between suppliers and producers are skewed against the producer, so that prices can be changed arbitrarily while notice periods are often 18 months or more. Most contracts are exclusive, which means that a producer can be tied to one supplier for a long period. The penalty clauses in many contracts are detrimental to the producer and favour the retailer.

The Food Labelling Regulations (Amendment) Bill will help to address some of the imbalances, and I am sure that the Minister will discuss it. None the less, retailers need to show greater corporate responsibility. The Government must be prepared to intervene if retailers do not support the industry in such a way and if the current nudges in our regulations do not work.

I thank the Minister for attending the debate and look forward to hearing his remarks. Some colleagues may wish to add some remarks on bovine TB.

09:49

[Mr Geoffrey Cox (Torridge and West Devon) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich (Dr Poulter) on his informed and interesting presentation of the problems affecting the dairy industry. I do not propose, as the Minister would almost certainly have predicted when I rose to my feet, to tackle the problems, serious though they are and requiring pressing and urgent attention as they do, of the unfairness of the contractual situation between dairy producers and the processing and retail industry. It is manifest that the situation is crying out for action and I hope that after the 13 months of careful reflection that the Minister, who has responsibility for agriculture, has given the problems, ably assisted by those who sit behind him, we will see a courageous and powerful response from the Government to the legitimate interests and concerns of the vital industry that those of us who are in Westminster Hall today represent.

In standing up to speak today, I do so, as I have done many times in the past six years, to raise the subject of bovine tuberculosis in the House. I represent Torridge and West Devon, a constituency in the south-west that is probably the area of the country most densely affected and infected by bovine TV; it is certainly one of the three worst affected areas. I do not propose that the solution that I have long advocated for my own constituency should apply across the board to each area of the country where bovine TB is found. Manifestly, a solution that is appropriate to a densely infected hot-spot area will not be appropriate to an area where bovine TB is only found in widely scattered parts.

However, the Minister will know that I rise to speak with a sense of real concern. He, probably more than anybody else in the Government and possibly more than anybody else in the House, knows well the corrosive, attritional, distressing and unhappy effects of bovine TB. They not only affect the infected animals—the cattle that are slaughtered and the badgers that die appalling deaths as their lungs literally liquefy as a result of being infected by TB—but the farming families and communities who daily have to endure the strain, stress, upset and sheer unhappiness of watching their herds being destroyed, their livelihoods threatened and their farms placed under the sterilising restrictions required by the bovine TB regulations.

I know that the Minister appreciates the situation because he has visited my constituency on many occasions. I have seen him sit down in farm kitchens and I have seen him address larger audiences of farmers, doing so with an empathy and instinctive understanding that does him credit and wins the trust of those who listen to him. For the six years that I have been in the House, I have been intensely grateful to him—first while he was in opposition and now that he is in government—for those visits to my constituency and for the words of reassurance and the empathy that he has offered to the farming community that I have the privilege to represent.

Nevertheless, the Minister knows what I am about to say next; it is time to deliver. For six years, we have told farming communities in the UK that if the Conservative party reached the corridors of Government we would take hold of the situation and tackle this dire emergency that, like a flame slow burning, is consuming farm upon farm throughout the south-west. We have told farmers that we would not fail to have the moral courage to bring the only solution that will deal with the problem for the areas I represent.

The Minister knows what I mean. We cannot rule out a policy of limited, targeted culling; indeed, we must urgently embrace such a policy. It is the only way to tackle the issue in Torridge and West Devon and it is vital that the Government now firmly embrace that policy, as it is the only one that will yield results.

As the Minister knows, I was a member of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee in the last Parliament and consequently I do not propose for a moment that we apply a simplistic solution; nor do I suggest that culling alone is the only prescription that will bring success. As he also knows, I have long advocated, and I long criticised the last Government for not implementing, a full package of measures on the cattle side, biosecurity and all the areas of animal husbandry that need to be improved, including vaccination when we can see it. However, we cannot have a package of measures that does not include culling where it is necessary, such as those densely infected hot-spot areas where the risk assessment concludes that it is a necessary part of any prescription or solution. We cannot exclude a cull.

The Minister has sat with me and listened to farmers in Torridge and West Devon as they explained why they feel so strongly that a cull is necessary, how they have taken steps to prepare for it and how they feel it could be carried out. I know that he has been looking at the problem of bovine TB and that it has preoccupied him; it is probably one of the major priorities that he has been dealing with. Consequently, I hope that he will forgive me for expressing the real anxiety and apprehension of farming communities in the south-west that the Government may be losing their nerve.

I very much hope that that is not the case. I was at the Devon county show a couple of weeks ago, and, as ever, the exchange of views was frank and robust. The Minister had recently appeared on television and had apparently said that we may not even have a cull. I appreciate that at this stage he must be considering a policy that is based on evidence and that is carefully fashioned to the reflect the existing scientific knowledge of the subject, but there is growing concern among the farming community that the Government may not be living up to the height of expectations on this question.

I urge the Minister to take the opportunity this morning to deal with the subject by at least giving encouragement to the people I represent and those who are listening to this debate that he fully appreciates the importance of the problem, and that he understands the need to find a way to ensure that the policies that the Government implement to deal with this disease that is raging throughout the countryside of the south-west will include all necessary instruments.

Of course I understand that the Minister will have a judge looking over his shoulder and that any policy that is subsequently introduced will almost certainly be challenged in the courts by those who wish to suggest that it offends judicial review principles. The Welsh case, which is the only example that we have to go on at the moment, demonstrated that if one did not attach great importance to fashioning a policy that would pass the test of administrative and legal scrutiny, matters could be delayed even further. I have spent the past 13 months patiently explaining to farmers down farm lanes and at cattle markets that that is so. After 13 months, it is to be hoped that the Minister is close to a solution.

The Welsh case did not for a moment propose, nor did the judges ever say, that to make culling an instrument of policy was unlawful. As the Minister knows well, the Welsh case simply criticised a logical flaw in the way that the Welsh Assembly and its Executive had gone about consultation on that specific matter and that specific formation of policy. It would be relatively simply avoided with care and preparation by this Government.

I cannot be privy to the private discussions, the policy formations and the preparations that the Minister is involved in. Perhaps all the things I have said today are entirely redundant and superfluous—I very much hope that they are—because the Minister is about to cause a sigh of relief throughout the south-west by announcing a new policy on the control and eradication of bovine TB. When he does so, the feeling across the countryside—in Devonshire, in Cornwall and in all the parts so badly affected by this pernicious disease—will be of intense gratitude and admiration for the moral courage and consistency that the Minister will have shown. During my six years as an MP, the Minister has been a friend to the farming communities that I have the privilege of representing, and by announcing the policy that I urgently press upon him, he will prove himself, once and for all, to have been a friend who stood by them at a time of crisis and emergency.

I hope that the Minister will rise to his feet to deal, of course with the matters that my hon. Friends raise on the importance of fair contracts, but with bovine TB, which is probably even more important to the dairy farmers listening this morning in the places that I represent, waiting anxiously for what the Minister is to say. So deeply afflicted is the south-west—specifically the areas that I represent—that I urge him, when he rises this morning, to have in the front of his mind the families he has met, the farms he has visited, the herds he has seen and the pride in the eyes of those who look after them, and to reach out to them and give them the courage and encouragement that it is our duty to permit them—saying to them that the Government understand the problem and are coming forward with the solution that those families so fervently and expectantly await.

10:02

[Mr William Bain (Glasgow North East) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich (Dr Poulter) on securing the debate and on articulating the concerns of many people in the dairy industry about the operation of the UK milk and dairy market sectors. I commend the interventions made by hon. Members and the remarks of the hon. and learned Member for Torridge and West Devon (Mr Cox) who spoke very movingly about the impact of bovine TB on small farming communities in the south-west.

In the past six months, we have had several debates on this subject, both in this Chamber and in European Committee A. What has emerged from those debates and from the speeches this morning is the need for good intentions on the part of the Government to be turned quickly into firm action, and the Opposition believe that such action is needed in three areas. First, the Government need to signify their support for the EU’s adoption of standard contracts for the dairy sector—should member states wish them to apply in their territories—to ensure greater parity in bargaining power between producers, processors and retailers. Secondly, there needs to be a grocery code adjudicator with greater powers of market intervention and greater independence from the Executive than is proposed in the Dairy Farming Bill, with the adjudicator being allowed to impose fines and other sanctions on those operating anti-competitively in dairy supply chains. Thirdly, further incentives in innovation and in research and development are needed to ensure that the British dairy industry has a financially viable future in delivering the highest-quality products both for domestic consumption and export, while cutting its share of greenhouse gas emissions, as indicated in the “Dairy Roadmap” report published this year.

There is evidence that dairy farmers in Britain face problems because of the operation of milk supply contracts in the marketplace. Current milk contracts deny milk producers real stability in pricing and stifle competition and innovation. The National Farmers Union has established that average EU milk prices this March were 14% higher than they were a year ago, at 29.72p per litre, but in the UK the price was 26.59p per litre, which, at 10.2%, is the fourth-lowest increase among the five highest EU milk-producing member states.

The hon. Member for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich has pointed out that the UK has the third-lowest milk price per litre in the EU, beaten only by Slovenia and Romania. The “NFU Cost of Milk Production Report” states that the average cost of milk production was 29.1p per litre between April 2010 and March 2011, which represents a shortfall of 2.76p per litre between the cost of producing milk and the price that the farmer receives. Added to that, dairy farmers in the UK face rising input prices, and the greater demand for dairy products is leading to increased imports.

The European Commission proposals to introduce standardised contracts for milk producers across the EU offer the opportunity for greater stability, alongside an equalising of contractual bargaining power for milk producers. The plans would allow the establishment of collective producer organisations, which have proven successful in other parts of the world in securing fairer farm-gate prices for milk, and member states could create greater transparency in the terms of milk contracts by regulating duration and price, as well as rights of termination should member states see fit. Importantly, the plans would also require milk processors to declare information on milk deliveries. It is vital that the Government indicate—I hope, this morning—whether they will accept the Commission’s proposal to permit national Governments to introduce contracts across all milk supply and delivery chains and whether they will be prepared to enter into further collaborative work with the industry on the wider reform of contractual arrangements, including price variation and exclusivity of supply.

Another important point to address is the competition that the EU dairy industry faces from China and other dairy producers in south-east Asia and from some of the developing economies, as that will become increasingly important in the coming years. The annualised annual growth in the Chinese dairy sector between 1998 and 2008 was 10%, and the increasing demand for dairy, specifically milk, products in south-east Asia will further drive global demand.

On the environmental impacts of dairy farming, the Opposition’s view is that we need to further incentivise farmers who are doing the right thing—for example, recycling water from the milk cooling processes and harvesting rainwater. We know from the Foresight report published earlier this year that an increase in sustainable food production to feed 9 billion people across the world by 2050 will mean producing more food with less water and making better use of soil, so we ought to give fiscal and other incentives to farmers in this country who already do the right thing and simply need additional Government support to continue to do so. Energy efficiency across the dairy sector has increased by more than 27% over the past decade, thus leading to a reduction in emissions equivalent to 270,000 tonnes of CO₂.

We therefore face a number of challenges. First, on contracts, the retail sector might not be willing to make changes to give farmers a fairer price.

[Julian Smith]

May I ask for clarification about the Opposition policy? Is the shadow Minister saying that he now believes that we should have contracts in the UK, or does he agree with me and my hon. Friend the Member for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich (Dr Poulter) that we should begin by exerting significant pressure and by nudging the industry much more strongly in the first instance?

[Mr Bain]

I am not a great fan of nudge theory, but I believe that the Government could do a great deal by indicating that they support the broad thrust of the Commission’s recommendations. That could lead to changes in practice by the supermarket sector and other processors. The Opposition’s position is one of agreement between producers and retailers where possible and regulation where necessary. If it is established that even the most profound of nudges from the Minister has not brought greater fairness in the prices that the retail sector offers our producers, regulation may well have to be the answer. There is a great deal more consensus across the House than might have been immediately apparent.

On the future of the dairy sector, we must sort out the problem of contracts, because they are driving unfair prices. We must also continue to consider the environmental impact of the dairy sector. Some people want far less meat and dairy to be consumed in this country. I believe that one of the best ways to counter that argument is to show and deepen the dairy sector’s environmental sustainability and reduce its greenhouse gas imprint. The Government should work hard with the industry on that front. We must be aware of competition from overseas. We hope that the Doha round of World Trade Organisation talks can be resuscitated to end damaging subsidies and open the issue of animal welfare standards, to the benefit of milk producers in the United Kingdom and across the EU.

If the Government take those three steps and make great progress over the next four years, it will lead to a better, fairer and more financially viable dairy sector than we have at the moment. I hope that, in his remarks, the Minister will outline how he will deliver that.

10:09

[The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mr James Paice)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich (Dr Poulter) on securing this debate. It was widely discussed when I was at the Suffolk show last week, so I was given plenty of notice that I would be grilled on these issues. I also thank my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Torridge and West Devon (Mr Cox). I am not sure whether he was appearing for the prosecution or the defence, but his speech not only contained the gravitas that we expect but correctly conveyed the huge importance that the dairy and beef sectors attach to the issue of bovine TB, to which I will refer in a few moments. Finally, I thank the hon. Member for Glasgow North East (Mr Bain). As he has said, there is probably agreement among the parties about where we need to go.

I will address some of the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich. He said that our food production is 40% of our total food supplies; it is actually well over 50%, and we could produce more than 70% of our food indigenously. I do not want him to think that things are worse than they are, although I want to improve both positions.

It is worth making the point that we are the EU’s third largest milk producer, well ahead of the only country that we might reasonably say could do better than us, Ireland, which has the temperate climate and conditions to grow grass for more of the year and more effectively. With the exception of Ireland, we should be competing effectively with every other country in the EU.

My hon. Friend and others are entirely right that the industry is under huge pressure. Members who watched “Countryfile” on Sunday evening will have seen yet another auction of a large dairy herd by a farmer going out of business. However, we have a slight conundrum. Although the number of dairy farmers is decreasing significantly, by an average of 5% a year over the past decade, there has been no such dramatic reduction in the number of cows or in the amount of milk that we produce. In fact, milk production in the UK increased by 500 million litres last year, and it is now almost back to the level of three years ago. That is due to the expansion of herds by many farmers, as well as to genetics, better feed and so on, which cause individual cows to produce more milk. From the Government’s perspective, we are faced with a dilemma. Are we interested in supporting individual dairy farmers or the industry and this country’s ability—to return to the issue of self-sufficiency—to produce the milk that we need at home? It is a conundrum, and I do not pretend to have the answer.

The state of the UK market is easily clarified in some round figures. Roughly 50% of UK consumption of milk and dairy products is liquid milk, almost all of which is domestically produced—as my hon. Friend has said, carting liquid milk overseas is not common. Another 25% of the market is milk products such as cheese, yoghurt and so on processed from British milk. The other 25% is processed products imported from abroad. It is fairly easy to divide the market into those three.

To return to my point about the European market and competition from elsewhere, there is no doubt in my mind that we should be able to compete much more effectively with other countries, with the possible exception of Ireland, in the 25% of the market that consists of imported processed products. My hon. Friend made a great deal of the prices being paid by our supermarkets. I am not saying that supermarkets are without fault, but the real issue is the price being paid lower down the chain at the processed end.

The latest milk prices—they are published weekly, so this is open information—say that the highest price being paid for milk is 29.01p in the dedicated supply chain for Marks and Spencer through Dairycrest. The second highest is in another dedicated pool, for Sainsbury’s, through Arla. The lowest, at 23.8p, or more than 6p a litre less, is paid by North Milk Co-op. A little above that, the supplier First Milk pays 24.2p. The table that appears in the farming press each week simplifies things slightly, but the top half of prices mainly go to the liquid trade, while the bottom half go to the processed trade. There are exceptions, but that is a general point. Increasing the price paid for processed milk would improve the overall situation for everyone.

As my hon. Friend has said, the retail market is important. The average farm-gate price in March was 26.57p a litre, which is 10% higher than the year before, although, as several people have said, costs have rocketed proportionately or by even more. However, the retail price of a 4-litre carton of milk is about 55p a litre, which means that the processor and retailer take 28.5p a litre—that is more than the dairy producer, the guy who keeps the cow for 365 days a year, takes—just to bottle, distribute and retail the milk. There is no doubt, as the Dairy Council and others have shown, that the share of the overall retail price taken by the farmer has stayed the same or even fallen, the share taken by the processor has stayed roughly the same and the share taken by the retailer has rocketed. There are questions to be asked about that, and I will come back to them in a moment.

I will discuss the shape of the industry to demonstrate to my hon. Friends that the issue is not only about liquid milk or about supermarkets. Much has been said about the European package, particularly about contracts. The first thing to say in response to the hon. Member for Glasgow North East is that we are a long way from any decision, because we do not have the European Parliament’s decision yet. That is a post-Lisbon treaty event that involves the European Parliament. I will come back to the other points, but we support the issue of contracts as presented by the Commission. We support the proposal that individual member states should be able to make contracts compulsory in their own country, if they so wish. As far as England is concerned, I have already said publicly that, if that is what the end version looks like, we will consult the industry about whether to have compulsory contracts, but I have not hidden my view that I do not think that they will achieve what people believe they will.

That is the point that I want to address, because my hon. Friend the Member for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich paid great attention to the issue of contracts. Let me make it clear that, in the UK, virtually all farmers have contracts, which takes us back to what is in them. The main reason why this matter features so highly in the European dairy package is that most dairy producers in other countries do not have contracts, so for them it would be a great innovation. Although this is a devolved issue, it is relevant to the UK and, as far as England is concerned, it is clear that the proposal as it stands—we do not know how it will end up—does not allow individual member states to lay down minimum standards or terms in the contract. It says that the contract must address the issue of price, either by setting a price or a formula, but it does not allow the member state to set it. It will be open to negotiation between the producer and processor to decide the price or formula by which the price is arrived at.

Similarly, the contract must address the issue of duration, but it does not allow the member state to lay down a minimum duration. Some, including the National Farmers Union, seem to think that the contract should include a lot more. We can argue about whether it should, but it does not. The proposition from the European Union does not allow member states to lay down detail on standards, which some seem to believe that it should. That is why I do not think that it is the panacea that some have made it out to be.

[Stephen Phillips]

Given that, as the Minister has said, the package is not the solution to the problem, and given that he has identified the discrepancy between what is paid for liquid milk to, on the one hand, those who supply it as liquid milk and, on the other, those who process it, is the solution not for the Government to bite the bullet and set a minimum price for dairy products, at least in England? Will the Government therefore support my private Member’s Bill, which will receive its Second Reading on Friday?

[Mr Paice]

My hon. and learned Friend must be aware that it would be contrary to EU law for us to set a minimum price. The whole common agricultural policy has—with, I think, cross-party support—moved away from the idea of Government setting prices, whether at a member-state or EU level. That has been the big reform of the CAP over the past 15 to 20 years, and it is right that we move in that way. I do not think that the answer is to set a minimum price. The Government’s role—I will return to this in a moment—is to try to make sure that the market is working properly. There is parity of power, wherever possible.

Let me turn to an issue raised by the hon. Member for Glasgow North East. We fully support the proposition in the European dairy package that producer organisations should be allowed, although we are concerned about a point of detail regarding how big they will be allowed to get. However, the only two significant co-operatives in this country—Milk Link has about 13% of the market and First Milk has about 10%—are light years away from what we believe should be the maximum, namely 25%, or the EU proposal of 33%. To be honest, that upper limit is relatively hypothetical at the moment, because we are nowhere near it. Even if the two merged—it was once proposed that they should merge; the merger was approved by the Office of Fair Trading; but they decided not to—they would still not be up to the maximum. I need to make it clear, therefore, that nothing today prevents groups of dairy producers from getting together to become a producer organisation. Indeed, the Secretary of State, in her speech in Oxford, and I have frequently said that we strongly encourage them to do so. However, Government cannot force farmers to work together, and it is for them to do so.

The final point on the package concerns transparency, to which the hon. Gentleman referred. We strongly support a transparent marketplace. Obviously, there is a limit in terms of regulation and bureaucracy on how much information it is sensible to demand, but we support the principles of transparency in the package.

I am in the unusual position of having a bit of time to respond to the debate, so let me now address some other issues. The supermarket adjudicator takes us back to my point about parity of power. The Government have published their Bill, and I was interested to hear the Opposition’s concerns. I am not too clear on all of them, but one related to the adjudicator’s powers to impose fines and other sanctions, although I am not sure what they are. Let us be clear that the Bill provides the option for the Secretary of State to give the power to provide fines. In other words, if we find the adjudicator’s initial power, which might be described as the name-and-shame approach, to be inadequate, the Secretary of State can provide it with the power to impose fines. I do not think that we in this Chamber necessarily understand the relative import of that. The big retailers assure us that that is totally unnecessary, that they do not break the code, that there is no need for an adjudicator and that they are all doing the job properly. I am sure that they have assured everyone present of that. They all pay a huge amount of attention to their reputations. They want their good name to be known and seen. If we say, “We’re going to fine you instead,” what level of fine would make any difference to one of our big retailers? That is the question. The level would not be £10,000. I do not even want to guess what would actually influence their behaviour, but it would be many times that. We therefore have to consider whether that is really a sensible way forward, commensurate with all the other issues of fines, levels of fines and penalties throughout the country. I think that we underestimate the power of damaging somebody’s reputation in that way.

The hon. Gentleman also referred to incentives for innovation and development, particularly in relation to energy saving. He referred to the industry road map. I am not sure whether he or any other colleagues were present when I launched the industry road map a few weeks ago, but one of the most telling charts in the document—I do not take any credit for this, but it is worth making the point—shows that the dairy producers who had the highest margins also had the lowest carbon footprint. Fiscal incentive, to which the hon. Gentleman referred, is therefore built into the system. Of course, we can provide fiscal incentives from the rural development plan for England, but the real incentive is that it is profitable to conserve energy, which the report clearly shows

We are putting in place other things and taking action on them. My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Torridge and West Devon is looking at me with beady eyes—I have not forgotten his remarks. We hope that the Government buying standards will be published shortly. They will lay down particular criteria, so that the Government will lead by example. The Macdonald taskforce on regulation made a number of proposals about nitrate vulnerable zones, which are hugely important to the dairy sector. We are taking those forward as fast as we can. Indeed, at the outset, I was able to announce that we could accept one or two areas relating to NVZs immediately. I am looking across the whole of that issue and am considering how we can reduce its impact and cost.

I am trying to reinvigorate and revitalise the dairy supply chain forum, which was set up by the previous Government. I want to ensure that the only people who come to that forum are chief executives or board member equivalents and that it has an important role because, at the end of the day, the real future of our dairy industry lies not in the hands of the Government, but in the hands of the industry. I am trying to ensure that the retailers, the processors—whether they are bottlers or processors into commodities—and the producers are all around the table and that they are working together to iron out the problems and take things forward. Price is important and I wholly understand the dairy farmer who says, “I need more for my milk.” However, the Government’s job is to ensure that the whole chain is working. If we can do things to take costs out of the system, it would be equivalent to a price rise, although it may not be so readily seen as that.

On income other than that derived from price, let me refer to the two big groups that I have mentioned, First Milk and Milk Link. They are nothing in European terms but, in UK terms, they are pretty substantial producer-owned organisations. They got off to a rocky start, and there were big problems with paying low prices and members having to put up large sums of money. Of course, the third group—Dairy Farmers of Britain—fell by the wayside a couple of years ago. However, those two organisations are now making progress and have chief executives who understand the new world in which we are operating. For example, the chief executive of First Milk has opened up a global pool, whereby when the price of skimmed milk powder on the world market is equivalent to 33p a litre, farmers can say, “Why aren’t we getting it?” They can get that price, although perhaps it will not be quite as much as that. There will be a pool of milk targeted at global price commodities. Of course, there is a downside, because if global commodities collapse—they have done so in the past—so will the pool price. However, such an initiative allows that issue to be addressed and is an ingenious and innovative approach.

Milk Link—I hope First Milk will follow—is paying dividends to its farmer members, which is important. People who have invested in shares and through their commitment to a farmer-owned business are entitled to receive a dividend—a share of the profit. That is just as important to them as the price of their milk, and it is part of the return to their business. From what I have been saying, colleagues will not be surprised to learn that I am an enthusiast for farmer-owned businesses and think that they are the way forward. However, there is a limit to what the Government can do. We will exhort all we can, and if there are any barriers in the way we will do our very best to lift them, but we cannot force farmers to work together.

Finally, I come to the issue of tuberculosis. I am grateful for the words of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Torridge and West Devon about my personal commitment to the matter, which is completely and utterly undiminished. However, as he has said, we must get things right. A number of his presumptions about why we have not yet been able to make any final decision were accurate. We launched our consultation in September, and it concluded before Christmas. As I have said repeatedly in public, that consultation threw up some serious issues that must be dealt with because, as he rightly presumes, we would almost inevitably be faced with judicial review if we were to decide to go ahead with the badger cull. Several of those issues have taken some tackling. We are working with our own lawyers, and we have retained QCs to advise us. As he will know from his own eminent career, they have raised all sorts of issues to which we must have answers in the courtroom if the situation arises.

I can tell hon. Members that we are getting to the position whereby a decision can be announced and, as my hon. and learned Friend has rightly said, there will be an overall package of measures. This has been a good debate and I do not want to raise the politics of the matter too much but, apart from the issue of badgers, my other big criticism of the previous Government is the piecemeal approach that they adopted to tackling TB. They should have grasped the issue by introducing a comprehensive package and used every available tool in the toolbox, as many people in the industry have said.

I can tell hon. Members—this is not what my hon. and learned Friend wants to hear at this stage—that we hope to make a full announcement before the House rises in July. That will comprise a decision on the issue of badger culling as well as a wider package of measures. He picked up the point that I have been reported as implying that we might not be going ahead with a cull. As a lawyer, I am sure that he fully understands that if one has not made a decision, there has to be a question mark in both directions over what that decision might be. I say to him and hon. Members that, as I expect is blatantly obvious, that decision is not just for me, but for my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and, indeed, the Cabinet to make. Such a major decision is hugely important, and we must get it right. We need to ensure that the whole Government support the final decision, whatever it may be. As I have said, I assure hon. Members that the decision will be announced before the House rises in July.

As you have rightly said, Mr Hollobone, this has been a tremendously good and very important debate. I am grateful for the opportunity to take a little longer than usual to elaborate on some of the issues. I hope that I have impressed on hon. Members the Government’s determination to tackle a number of these issues and to move forward. As I have said, it is not all in the Government’s hands, but what we can do, we will do. I pay respect to my hon. Friends’ commitment—those who are here now and those who have been in and out of this Chamber during the debate—and to that of my hon. Friend the Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham (Daniel Kawczynski), who is sitting behind me. He was the founding member of the all-party group on dairy farmers, but now he cannot discuss the matter, because he is acting in another guise. Many hon. Members rightly feel very strongly about the importance of our dairy sector. It is the biggest sector of British agriculture and long may it remain so.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich on securing the debate and thank all those who have taken part. The sitting is suspended until 11 o’clock.

10:37

Sitting suspended.

Heritage Assets

Tuesday 7th June 2011 Westminster Hall

10:50

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

It is a pleasure to hold this debate under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone.

Local communities throughout the country face the challenge of joining up the powers that we give to them to act in their local areas with their ambitions for those areas. Many people are concerned about that situation, and many levels of frustration are experienced by a lot of people—in particular, by those charged with protecting our heritage, as they cannot do as much as they would like to support communities. Today, I hope to interest the Minister in some possible courses of action that would help to support the passion of such communities throughout the country.

This debate is not about planning policy per se, but about heritage and how we could revise the way in which heritage is defined and enacted to better ensure that our nation is not simply preserving its heritage but can enjoy and experience it. We have a large amount of time, for which I am grateful, to talk about what we mean by heritage, what that means for policy at present, the difficulties facing some of those who seek to use current powers and what can be done to address those difficulties.

It will not surprise any hon. Member in the Chamber, especially the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Tristram Hunt), that someone from Walthamstow is concerned about heritage. My part of the country has a long tradition, especially with the influence of William Morris, who founded the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings. Founder members back in the 1800s were deeply concerned that well-meaning architects were scraping away the historic fabric of too many buildings in their zealous restoration. Morris was worried about the danger of restoration. The Victorians plastered over beautiful interiors of mediaeval architecture, and he wanted policies to repair, rather than to reproduce, that fabric. He might have approved of the flowery way that modern policy has defined the concept of heritage, because it speaks to the feeling that it is more than physical infrastructure.

The Department for Culture, Media and Sport’s policy paper on the listing process says:

“In its broadest sense, the historic environment embraces all those aspects of the country that reflect the shaping hand of human history.

Today, I am concerned about the concept of heritage in that broader sense. We want a vision of heritage and history that is not just about the preservation and physical existence of buildings alone, but one that provides a progressive concept of heritage, involving the experience and enjoyment of all assets by all people. There is a lot of support for that vision of heritage among the British public.

Interestingly, in an era when the public will not join us in political parties, millions of them join organisations that campaign on and protect our heritage. The National Trust has a membership of nearly 3.8 million, and English Heritage has nearly 700,000 members. Many organisations that work with communities to try to protect heritage are reporting a stronger than ever passion for involvement in the preservation of buildings and restoring them to public use. The Heritage Lottery Fund has reported that, and it is not hard to see why. Countless surveys on the role of heritage in our cultural identity and sense of place reveal how important people believe those assets are. They help us to create a distinct sense of place and to know where we come from, and perhaps also where we are going.

People’s vision of heritage is not narrow. It is not just about buildings that are centuries old—75% of us believe that the best of our post-war buildings should be preserved, and that rises to nearly 95% of people aged 16 to 24. The concept of what is important, what markers help us to define the areas that we live in and why they matter to us is not confined to a small number of buildings, but includes a sense of place. When one talks to people about heritage, they say that local buildings are equally important as the grand sites that we might traditionally associate with heritage debates. A survey in 2000 found that, for most people, the concept of the historic environment was the places where they live, not heritage sites such as castles, churches and stately homes, and that reflects current heritage policy. Two thirds of all heritage assets are privately owned, which reflects the fact that they are often small houses and local sites, instead of just big public buildings.

We define buildings as our heritage, but turning our ambitions for what happens to them has always been a challenge. We make a comparison between campaigning in poetry and governing in prose, and there is a comparison between the poetry of our history—how we talk and think about our environment, and the passions and emotions that that evokes—and the practicality of how we act to preserve those buildings and assets.

At present, there are two ways of preserving our heritage through legislation—the element of prose rather than poetry. The primary way is through the planning process—30% of planning applications have heritage implications—particularly the role of development frameworks. I shall return to that, but they were most recently set out in planning policy statement 5 on planning for the historic environment. That very good document has been helpful to many of us who campaign on heritage in our local communities because of its breadth and specificity about what heritage is. It states that a heritage asset is a

“building, monument, site, place, area or landscape positively identified as having a degree of significance meriting consideration in planning decisions”

and includes

“valued components of the historic environment”.

The concept of value and significance gives strong powers to local authorities when determining planning applications about the value of an asset to a community in that broader sense of heritage as not simply preservation, but enjoyment and experience.

The second power is the listing process, and I want to talk about that today because it falls into the Minister’s purview. In this country, we differentiate types of buildings and their status and stature through that process. The guidance states:

“Many buildings are interesting architecturally or historically, but, in order to be listed, a building must have ‘special’ interest”.

I call that the Marks and Spencer approach to buildings, which needs a voice-over saying that they are not just any old building; they have a special role in a community.

With my constituency hat on, I point out that the listing process was introduced in the Town and Country Planning Act 1947 under the auspices of one of my predecessors. Clement Attlee, the former MP for Walthamstow, found time to introduce some important measures that we still support today. Walthamstow has a strong claim to being an area that promotes heritage in many different ways. The listing process has a range of grades covering 374,000 buildings in the country, whether grade I, grade II* or grade II.

The variation in what is listed reflects the sense that heritage is about more than simply the physical fabric of a building and includes its interest and contribution to our cultural identity and history. A wide variety of buildings are therefore listed, including the Birmingham New Street signal box, the Park Hill flats in Sheffield, and even some toilets in north London and the Elephant and Castle in south London. A wide variety of buildings and places are seen as significant, and we value them accordingly. What matters is not just the craftsmanship in the nave of a church or the detail on an architrave, but the way in which places have been a focus for activity for citizens for decades, if not centuries.

It is important that listing does not mean, as Morris might have wished, that a building is set in stone—pardon the pun; it is not a preservation order preventing change, but an identification stage when buildings are marked and celebrated as having exceptional architecture or historic special interest before planning decides their future. I strongly agree with that principle, and I want to make it clear that I am not talking about preventing progress and change in such buildings, particularly when that might lead to a greater ability to achieve our vision of heritage—the experience and enjoyment of a building. That raises an interesting question about which other areas of public policy have such wide potential to cover such a range of buildings, institutions and ideals, as revealed in the mystery of the listing process.

The criteria that can be used to make a claim include not just the architectural interest of a building, but its historical interest. A classic example is the Walthamstow dog track in my constituency—a listed building that has

“special historic interest as the best surviving and most celebrated inter-war greyhound stadium”

and is a

“nationally loved building type expressive of developments in inter-war mass culture and entertainment.”

That building, and its place in Walthamstow’s history, tells us everything about Walthamstow’s position in east London. As the local MP, “What’s happening to the dog track?” is often the first question that I am asked when I state which constituency I represent. People often regale me with stories about nights out at the dog track, or the things that they have heard about it such as when Brad Pitt visited, or the time that Winston Churchill was heckled. The best stories that I have heard come from a gentleman named Norman Roach, who still lives in Walthamstow and is now 88. Norman went to the dog track as a young boy and attended the opening ceremony when Amy Johnson was there. He carried on working at the track and met Lana Turner and George Raft.

For me, the dog track is not about heritage as nostalgia. The passion that I share with Norman comes from the idea that such buildings can be anchors around which our future is shaped, not just in Walthamstow but across the country. At present, Walthamstow dog track lies derelict. It is currently owned by London and Quadrant housing association, which bought it in a private sale in 2008, before the local community had time to offer an alternative plan when the site was put up for sale. London and Quadrant wants to turn the dog track into flats, and it has resisted proposals that have widespread community backing to sell back the track so that it can be restored. The proposal currently on the table, supported by a business man called Bob Morton, would bring 500 jobs to the local area at the London living wage. It would be run as a co-operative and the League Against Cruel Sports is working with campaigners on the animal welfare principles that would underpin the running of the track. That is the best experience that a heritage building could provide, and it would celebrate not only the culture of Walthamstow in the past, but that of Walthamstow in the future. It is an area that desperately needs regeneration, investment and local jobs.

Although London and Quadrant clings to the land and claims that it could develop the site in the face of local opposition, local people feel frustrated that they cannot make progress on the alternative proposal and the good that would come from that. I secured this debate because I wanted to look at ways in which we, as national representatives, can make progress on such issues, not only so that they involve people like Norman who remember the good times, but so that local communities can benefit from such heritage sites in the future.

There are countless examples of heritage assets that have been a focus not only for the local community but for the regeneration of a wider area. Stockport Plaza Trust has regenerated a listed cinema and been a motor for regeneration in the Stockport area. The Phoenix cinema in Finchley is another example of such an initiative. On a grander scale, many of us will have seen the developments at King’s Cross and the role played by English Heritage, which worked with the local council and local developers to use heritage assets to drive the regeneration of the local area.

The idea that heritage is not simply about preservation but about the experience and the enjoyment of assets can benefit local communities. Such benefits are not simply about tourism, important though that is. The heritage and tourism industry generates about £7.4 billion in the country—not an inconsiderable sum—and 80% of people who come to the country want to see British heritage. Heritage is also, however, about helping communities to change their localities for the better, perhaps through sustainable development. William Morris would find much in modern policy to commend; he understood the environmental implications of a heritage policy and that it is better to repair than to rebuild.

There is a social impact in using heritage sites as community anchors, and 90% of people who live in areas with historic environmental regeneration plans say that such projects have fundamentally improved the quality of their lives, whether by creating jobs, or bringing pride back to the local area. Public support for assets being used in that way reflects a sense that heritage is about the experience as much as the physical appearance of the building.

Nevertheless, despite the best efforts of planners and conservationists, such examples are often the exception rather than the rule. I know that English Heritage and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport are keen to do more in the area, which is what I would like to test today. Too often, heritage is defined in a certain way and change is secured only through the planning process and formal applications. Although planning policy statement 5 has many well thought-out powers and directions, the powers for intervention and what happens next need further work.

Currently, our only mechanism for intervention is for buildings that are on the at-risk register because they are in a poor condition or are not being made best use of. We highlight those deteriorating sites through the at-risk register, but as the law stands, and as the guidelines are interpreted, there is no sense of escalation and the register is not used as a stepping stone towards more intervention. There are just under 1,000 grade I and grade II* listed buildings on the at-risk register, half of which have been on it since 1999. They represent about 3% of all grade I and grade II* listed buildings, but about 45% of them could benefit their local communities. About 80 buildings a year are added to the list, and a slightly lower number are removed. There is, therefore, stagnation regarding the at-risk register and what it means.

Over the past 10 years, the powers available for the protection of heritage sites have been used on only two buildings on the at-risk register; the Minister will be aware of my parliamentary questions on that matter. An urgent works notice can be issued for emergency works to be carried out on a listed site, but it amounts to little more than forcing owners to put tarpaulin over leaking roofs. An urgent repairs notice is often the first step towards a compulsory purchase order.

Over the past 10 years, six urgent works notices have been issued, five of them for one building—Apethorpe Hall in Northamptonshire—and one for Harmondsworth barn in Hillingdon. Over the same period, only one urgent repairs notice has been issued, again on Apethorpe Hall. Crucially, both buildings remain on the at-risk register. Local authorities often try to prevent a building getting to the stage at which an urgent repairs notice or an urgent works notice is required. Nevertheless, the fact that those powers are enacted so rarely calls into question whether they are working properly and are appropriate.

A second example from my constituency and a cause that is close to me concerns a building on the at-risk register—the EMD cinema in Walthamstow. It is listed as the ABC cinema, but known locally as the EMD. It is a grade II* listed building and

“the oldest surviving of the cinemas designed by Komisarjevsky”

in London. It is

“one of the very few cinemas (in fact buildings of any type) designed in the Moorish style in Britain.”

It has a unique console; it contains the only organ outside Leicester square that is in situ in a cinema and can be played. The cinema has played a tremendous role in the history of Walthamstow. The Rolling Stones played there; again, we can lay claim to heritage because Keith Richard’s granny was the mayor of Waltham Forest, and I am proud to say that I followed in her footsteps. We in Walthamstow lay claim to many forms of heritage, including rock music. The Who played at the EMD when it was a centre for cultural activity in the local community.

The EMD was sold in 2003 to the United Church of the Kingdom of God, and has been on the at-risk register since 2004. Since then, the UCKG has sought planning permission to convert the building—the only cinema operating in Waltham Forest, the home of Alfred Hitchcock—into a church. Permission has been refused twice, including once by the Secretary of State.

In February this year, squatters gained access to the building for the second time since it closed. As the local MP, I spent a long, cold Saturday night trying to negotiate with them, asking them to leave the building and ensure that it was not damaged by any of their activities. During that process, I gained access to the building, and to my horror I saw the condition it was in. The cinema had been flooded because the pump that manages the underwater stream was not working properly. The central heating system was broken and water was dripping down the walls and coming through the roof.

Time and again, the UCKG has done the bare minimum to protect the building while the question of its future remains unresolved. Following the second planning application, which was refused a few weeks ago, the UCKG told the local community that the building belonged to the Church, and that it would continue to hold on to it until it gets its way.

The Waltham Forest cinema trust is a community-led project that seeks to bring the building back to its former glory. It hopes to ensure that we are able to capitalise on Walthamstow’s heritage in the British film industry, to bring the cinema back to Alfred Hitchcock’s borough, and provide a resource for the local community that will generate jobs, tourism and commerce for an area of east London that desperately needs that support.

The example of the EMD cinema flags up the problems with the listing and at-risk processes, because the rave there was not the first time that there had been concerns about the condition of the building and English Heritage had been asked to visit. Each time, the Church puts up tarpaulin, and that is enough; that is what it is currently asked to do. Many of us in the local community, including Norman Roach, who was also a regular visitor to the cinema and has spoken to me at length of his concerns about it, ask how much more damage must happen to the building before something can be done.

Determining what can be done is often a very difficult process for local authorities and English Heritage. Clearly, the financial risks associated with an urgent repairs notice and possibly a compulsory purchase order make councils wary of pursuing that course. In relation to the use of powers at national level, we are also seeing hesitancy about whether powers can be justified, and in which conditions.

That shows the disconnect between some of the ambitions set out in planning policy statement 5 and broader heritage policy that we need to address. Planning policy calls on councils to consider viable alternatives when deciding whether to reject a planning application at a heritage site. If an alternative is on offer that conforms more closely to the use for which a site was originally designed, that can be taken into consideration in rejecting an application. That is a very welcome step, because it reflects the belief that heritage is about the enjoyment and experience of a site as well.

However, what we are seeing with the two examples that I have given, and, indeed, across the country, is that even if an application for planning permission is rejected because the heritage importance of an asset is upheld, owners can hold on to a site in any case, which leads to stalemate and, ultimately, the deterioration of heritage assets. The assize court in Devizes has been on the at-risk register since the late 1990s, but its Dubai-based owners refuse to budge. As with the EMD cinema and perhaps the Walthamstow dog track, the property continues to deteriorate. I note that planning policy statement 5 talks about that problem. It recognises that the active deterioration of a site in order to challenge, perhaps, the listed status of a building should not be part of the consideration of planning permission. How we deal with that in heritage policy is a key concern and an open question.

I suspect that at this point the Minister might point me in the direction of the Localism Bill. However, I am slightly concerned that, if anything, some of the current proposals on planning guidance may inadvertently take away the existing protections set out in PPS5. I recognise that some of the earlier unintended consequences of the Localism Bill in this area have been resolved, but there is strong concern among heritage professionals about national planning guidance proposals and the consolidation of guidance. I recognise that that is not necessarily within the purview of the Minister, but I hope that he will take the opportunity of this debate to reassure us about it and the need to retain the clarity of guidance in PPS5 in the streamlining process. That would be welcomed by the National Trust, English Heritage and the Heritage Lottery Fund.

The Minister has written to me suggesting that the community right-to-buy provisions in the Localism Bill will allow local residents to act, but in situations such as those that I have outlined, the deadlock whereby developers sit on a building means that we cannot use the community right-to-buy provisions, because they exist only at the point of sale or the potential point of sale.

As the Minister has raised the Localism Bill with me in relation to this issue before, I would welcome his thoughts on whether the community right to challenge might be applicable in some of these circumstances. I am thinking not least of the conduct of a registered social landlord and whether, perhaps as in the case of the Walthamstow dog track, the community would have the right to challenge its actions as a publicly funded institution, given its behaviour towards our local heritage assets.

Above all, these instances suggest that we may be more dependent on case law and precedent than policy in order to make real our ambitions on heritage. I recognise that there has been a discussion about reinstating the measures that had cross-party support in the draft Heritage Protection Bill. I certainly agree that streamlining the process of listing will make it easier to start the process of protection and I await the Government’s next steps following the Penfold review. However, the challenge is to ensure that that does not just mean more buildings sitting on a list with no follow-up. It would be useful if the Minister outlined whether such proposals are being brought forward or, if they are not, what else we could do.

My concern is that if we do not act and nothing changes, there will be three consequences, not least of which will be the loss of such gems as the Walthamstow dog track; I think we all agree that that would be a travesty. It will also give a green light to developers who think long term and buy heritage assets with a view to waiting for them to decay so that they can be either demolished entirely or renovated in a way that destroys their original condition but ups the profit margin.

I certainly note with interest the suggestion that London and Quadrant might be looking to knock down the southern entrance to the Walthamstow dog stadium. That is listed, but frankly, it is unclear to me what difference it would make if it was star listed or on the at-risk register if the local community faced such a threat. That is only a suggestion at the moment; it has not been confirmed, as far as we know.

More important, the potential of heritage assets to do more than be mothballed will be missed. The contribution that a restored dog track or EMD cinema could make to my community will be lost. The ambition that many in the heritage world have for those assets to form part of the future of a locality as well as its past will never be realised.

With that in mind, I have three suggestions for the Minister about how policy could move forward. First, I think that the current powers around preservation need greater clarity. Planning offers a parallel process that is about use, not preservation. The heritage policy context would benefit from that. The Government should set out clear guidelines for existing policies. They should include a definition of heritage that can be tested in planning guidance, regeneration policy and the heritage world. They should encompass the concept of enjoyment and experience, as well as preservation. That might mean that fewer buildings pass the test, but it could be the foundation for being tougher about dealing with those that are on the list—that are covered by those guidelines. It could provide the ability to join up the aspirations that many people have about heritage buildings playing a role in regeneration, because grants and other forms of support could be offered that were more closely linked to such proposals, especially for tackling the relationship between deprivation and the restoration of the buildings. That is not just about planning, but about the role of development and the role that many businesses want to play in using those assets positively.

Secondly, we need to tackle what “at risk” means. If we need more clarity about what listing does for a building, we certainly need more explicit criteria for intervention when a building is at risk. I wrote to the Minister about the cinema in Walthamstow, and he wrote back to say that he felt that there was not such a case at this point in time. I disagree very strongly, as do thousands of residents of Walthamstow, and I will continue to petition for stronger measures to be taken than accepting that tarpaulin is an adequate response to the fortunes of a grade II* listed building. As I have said, the real concern for many of us in Walthamstow is what more the UCKG has to do to the EMD before English Heritage and the local authority have the confidence to intervene.

Many heritage groups want councils to have access to greater heritage expertise, which would give them the confidence to pursue compulsory purchase order processes with less fear of financial or legal risk. Surely there is a case for English Heritage not only to provide that expertise, but to be given more power to make these types of intervention. I hope, therefore, that the Minister will commit to a review of the powers and to further research on how and why local authorities have and have not used them and what lessons can be drawn from that. The inequality in use, which reflects social deprivation, suggests that it is not just the quality of the guidance as interpreted by conservation officers that is at issue, but the support and many different types of resources needed to be able do this work so that poorer communities are not at greater risk of losing heritage assets.

I also hope that the Minister will work with the Department for Communities and Local Government to publish criteria for intervention in cases when communities either suspect deliberate damage or recognise that stalemate over the future of a building would have such consequences, so that we can all have more confidence that intervention will occur—and will mean more than tarpaulin. I hope that the Minister will commit to considering whether the proposal could include owners who damage the historical interest of a building, as well as those who let the fabric of a building deteriorate.

I hope that the Minister will consider whether there are parallels in the power to call in a planning decision that could be reversed, so that on sites of special interest the decision of a local authority not to issue an urgent repairs notice could be contested. The Mayor of London has told me of his concerns for the Walthamstow dog track, but says that at present his powers to act are limited. I know that he would certainly be interested in looking at whether he could do more.

In addition to the question about current powers and processes, there is one about whether further powers are required. That is my third suggestion. The promises that Ministers have made about community empowerment in local planning need to extend to heritage policy and should not depend on a building being run down, or an owner being generous enough to sell, in order to be active. We know that people want access to heritage sites and that planning has already identified the concept of a viable alternative as a factor that can be brought into play in the management of a decision about the use of a building. If the Government are serious about localism and giving communities the ability not only to plan for but to actively achieve the locality that they want, they should consider how that concept of viability can be built into heritage policy.

If we are not to have a heritage protection Bill, the Minister may face an uphill battle getting time for new heritage protection powers. However, it is not too late to be creative about the Localism Bill and to make meaningful the talk of community participation and the principle of listing buildings. Two thirds of heritage assets are privately owned, but approximately half of those on the at-risk register are publicly owned. If the Localism Bill has teeth, there may be more opportunities for community ownership as local authorities seek to dispose of assets to balance their books. Such measures would, however, need to work for buildings that are not in the public domain as well as for those that are.

It cannot be beyond the realms of possibility to explore the idea of a trigger process to extend a community right to bid to all assets with a specific listed status. That would force private owners to respond seriously to community-led bids if an asset was deemed to be unoccupied and to require adjudication—perhaps at Secretary of State level—as to whether the refusal to accept a bid constituted intention to encourage disrepair. At the very least, the Government could set out criteria for offering a subsidy for a community right to compulsory purchase in instances where heritage is a factor. They could also use that possibility as a precursor to a heritage partnership agreement between the owner and the local community.

Such measures may be difficult and sensitive, but if listing can take place in the national interest, this cannot be only at a single point in time. The Minister could seek stronger powers to determine when such measures could be used in the public interest. Indeed, there is a parallel in the planning appeals process. When Ministers are so minded, there could be provision in extreme cases, such as those that I have set out, and when all other avenues have been exhausted, for the Secretary of State to have a direct appeal and direct involvement.

Furthermore, we could explore the guidelines on funding for heritage grants, which at present preclude any activity until a building is definitely committed for sale, and the conditions under which such grants could be used to further actions to restore buildings if there was substantial community support from thousands of local people. There is certainly public support for that, and MORI found that 87% of people think that it is right that there should be public funding to preserve the historic environment.

Of course, I recognise that the call for such changes would require heritage bodies that do not face substantial cuts in their budgets. The mass disposal of heritage assets may cause problems in terms of our ability to make real these proposals. The introduction of buildings-at-risk officers in London has made a real difference to dealing with some of the challenges, but it requires funding.

Critically, if we are to help communities to access their local environment, they will need more resources than just legal expertise. They will need financial support, and I pay tribute to the Heritage Lottery Fund, which is trying to help many communities, but it is hampered, as I explained, by some of the restrictions that it faces, which are preventing it from making real some of its ambitions.

Even if the existing powers were clearer, and the proposals being discussed in the Localism Bill were enacted, the time they will take to have meaning will be a barrier. I therefore hope that the Minister will consider applying a schedule of escalation, including a much tighter time scale for the exercise of urgent repair notices and for any community right to introduce a compulsory purchase order.

Not all those ideas require legislation, but they do require thought and, dare I say it, joined-up government. I hope that I have convinced the Minister that we need to turn warm words on preservation into something more meaningful for the benefit of our local communities. We must have a heritage policy that is about not simply mothballing buildings for future generations, but ensuring that future generations can experience those buildings.

Norman Roach is 88, and if we do not act to improve the way the Government, English Heritage and local authorities can support communities that want to protect buildings, Norman will become the sole record of our local community’s heritage in Walthamstow, telling stories of the old days and giving us just a glimpse of what those assets could have offered our local area.

I refer again to our famous son, William Morris, who said:

“I love art, and I love history, but it is living art and living history that I love. It is in the interest of living art and living history that I oppose so-called restoration. What history can there be in a building bedaubed with ornament, which cannot at the best be anything but a hopeless and lifeless imitation of the hope and vigour of the earlier world?”

People in Walthamstow share William Morris’s ambition. We want to live our history, not just to look at it, and we want our dog track and our cinema back. I hope that I have convinced the Minister that he should help us to realise that ambition, and I look forward to his response.

11:34

[Tristram Hunt (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab)]

It is a great pleasure to speak in the debate, and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy) on securing it. We can all agree that we have heard a wonderful history of Walthamstow’s inter-war cultural heritage, stretching from Clement Attlee to Keith Richards’s granny, via the dog track and the cinema. I can add to that oral history, because it is almost seven years to the day that I went to Walthamstow dog track in celebration of my forthcoming nuptials. I won successively and consecutively throughout the evening, so it was a very happy event.

It is good to have the Minister here. Over the past year, he has proved himself very open to the worlds of heritage and history. I pay tribute to the Government’s policy of returning to the lottery’s original causes and increasing funding to the Heritage Lottery Fund. Sadly, the Heritage Lottery Fund is now the only major funder in our heritage community, and although its resources are increasing, other resources are being cut. The achievement of putting money into the Heritage Lottery Fund is being undone by the terrible cuts to English Heritage, among others.

The Minister will travel south to Dover castle on Thursday to see the brilliant new installation exploring its role in the evacuation of the British expeditionary force from Dunkirk. Having had the privilege of seeing the installation yesterday, I can tell hon. Members that that work of scholarship, interaction and interpretation, which has been produced by Anna Keay and her team, is truly awe-inspiring. That shows what this country can do to manage its history and heritage.

However, English Heritage has had a 32% cut to its grant, which is higher than the cuts imposed on UK Sport, the Arts Council and Visit Britain. That leads Labour Members to question whether the Government share the enthusiasm and admiration that the Labour party has always shown for heritage. The Heritage Lottery Fund thinks that if we combine the cuts to English Heritage with the front-loaded cuts to local authorities, which often trickle down to conservation officers and heritage officers, we will see upwards of £600 million in funding extracted from the heritage sector, which could be very damaging.

However, we are here to talk about heritage assets. As my hon. Friend beautifully explained, it is important to recognise that buildings matter. There has been an interesting shift in heritage thinking over the past 15 to 20 years, with an extraordinary opening-up of the heritage vista and a reconceptualisation of what our past means, as we look beyond cathedrals, country houses and abbeys to the houses of the Beatles and even to public toilets in north London, although I might draw the line there.

As Britain has become a more complicated and diverse community, and with the success of television programmes such as “Who Do You Think You Are?”, the compulsion to look into our genealogy has accelerated. We have sought to explore ourselves, our histories and our identities. Although that is, in part, not connected to the built environment, I would suggest that it is often best explained through it.

As my hon. Friend said, the built environment is important for those of us on the left. We can point back to Hugh Dalton’s work with the national land fund, to the Town and Country Planning Act 1947 and, of course, to William Morris, who lived in my hon. Friend’s constituency. As has been explained, he set up the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings in response to what happened to Tewkesbury abbey.

For Morris, as for John Ruskin, progress meant going beyond the money-wage economy, spurning mass production and specialisation and rejecting some of the ethos of the industrial revolution. For Morris, old buildings—heritage—were signs of what freely given, unalienated labour could achieve. As Ruskin explained in “The Stones of Venice”, his wonderful account of the meaning of the buildings in Venice—you will remember, Mr Hollobone, his description of St Mark’s palace, which he compared to the Book Of Common Prayer—he was exploring history through the stones. Buildings were celebrations of work, faith and meaning—the very antithesis of a modern commodity—and protection was an act of defiance against commodification and capitalism; it was a defence of pleasure and humanity, a gesture of hope and possibly something of real, practical value for generations to come.

The shadow Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Ashfield (Gloria De Piero), will explain how, in our socialist future, historic buildings will be the germs from which socialist art will spring. In 1889, William Morris argued:

“It is degradation and not progress to destroy and lose these powerful aids to the happiness of human life for the sake of a whim or the greed of the passing hour.”

All of which makes the defence of our heritage assets so important. You will know, Mr Hollobone, that that is particularly the case in Stoke-on-Trent.

We have been greatly privileged to have had the publication of a wonderful book, which the Minister has no doubt thumbed conscientiously, entitled “The Lost City of Stoke-on-Trent” by Matthew Rice, partner of the celebrated potter, Emma Bridgewater, and owner of the wonderful Meakin factory in Litchfield street, which, in case the Minister has forgotten, is in south Hanley. As my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow explored, it is a celebration of the sense of place—what Matthew Rice calls “cultural anchors”—to defend the urban environment and continue our connection with place and history. The work brings to mind the history written in the 1960s and 1970s as the city of Bath was being destroyed. Even as the heritage of Bath was being knocked down, people were crying out that it was a destruction of our link to the past and to history. What has changed since then is the understanding of our industrial heritage. Cities such as Manchester, Liverpool and Birmingham have begun to lead the way.

Our hope in Stoke-on-Trent is that, having seen a swathe of devastation in the pottery industry—the loss of bottle kiln oven after bottle kiln oven—we are now beginning to think about the economic, social and cultural value of such heritage assets. If I may, I shall take a little bit of time to explore a few buildings—heritage assets—that illustrate the argument. The old Goss bottle ovens at the Falcon works are in Stoke town above the Portmeirion works, which now controls the Spode line of pottery. They are also known as the eagle works and have beautiful bottle oven brick kilns in front of a huge pot bank, which are falling into an advanced state of disrepair. They were sold by Portmeirion to a company called Connexa—no doubt, we shall not get to the bottom of how many companies are called Connex—in Crewe, which seems to have little connection with the commerce or history of Stoke-on-Trent or an understanding of the value of the asset to the area.

I have been in touch with Stoke-on-Trent city council to explore the possibility of an urgent repairs notice. As my hon. Friend suggested, such developments are expensive, but luckily we have a very good English Heritage team in the west midlands and there is some suggestion that the city council could apply for funding from English Heritage to support an application for a notice, but it is wary of going down that road, which is why my hon. Friend’s explanation of the reticence with which the laws are used is important. We need the laws to be used more regularly and more effectively, to make people unafraid of using them and to make them cheaper and more accessible, so that they become part of the armoury of defence for our heritage assets. We have lost so many kilns in Stoke-on-Trent; it would be a great crime to lose more. I hope that there will be action on that front. There are now trees growing out of them.

The old Spode site, which the city council has bought, is also in Stoke town. You, Mr Hollobone, will know the history of the kingdom of Spode and the great competition that it had with the Wedgwood family. Its huge, wonderful site, which went out of business only a few years ago, is in the middle of Stoke town. In one sense, it is not an at-risk site, in that to make such heritage assets work we must have a successful commercial model. The challenge in Stoke-on-Trent now is not simply about enveloping the buildings for their protection, but about working out how to use them. We are hopeful that with innovative thinking we will develop an economic model for the site, which will involve artists’ workshops, studios and second-hand shops. When the Minister comes to see the site, which I am convinced is only a matter of time, he will be excited by its new prospects.

What gives us hope is the recent success—we hope—of the Middleport pottery works, which are north of the city outside my constituency. If recent suggestions are to be believed, they may come within my constituency in future months, which would be a great boon, as we can imagine. The Middleport pottery works have received funding from the regional growth fund, the Prince’s Trust and the Heritage Lottery Fund to revive the site and lease it back to a functioning ceramics company, Burleigh. That is a model of co-operation, local leadership and Government and quango action, all of which have come together to save an historic site. I am not enemy of quangos; indeed, I declare an interest as having served as a trustee of the Heritage Lottery Fund. The results are absolutely vital for the economic regeneration of Stoke-on-Trent. As we build an economy based on our engineering businesses and ceramics sector, but also on tourism and heritage assets, having such cultural anchors and significant sites is important.

It would be remiss of me to stand here as an MP for Stoke-on-Trent talking about heritage assets and not mention the threat posed to the extraordinary asset that is the Wedgwood museum. A couple of weeks ago, it was announced that the collection inside the building was now UNESCO designated and part of the Memory of World register. That shows an understanding that the extraordinary collection is of world-class significance. The Minister knows that the complicated issue of whether the collection is a permanent endowment held in trust comes to court on 13 September. There remains intense concern in north Staffordshire about its future. I hope that his Department is working night and day to have plans at the ready in case the judgment goes against us.

We need a sea change in thinking to begin to think about heritage assets not as obstacles to economic regeneration that need, in that great Glaswegian parlance, “to go on fire”, but as cultural anchors, vehicles for meaning and identity and economic assets for the community, which is why Matthew Rice’s book is so important. I agree 100% with my brilliant hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow, who set out the policy options for the DCMS plan for the next four years on improvements to the at-risk register, the community right-to-challenge, local usage and restoration.

I shall end with the point that taking action on heritage assets should be more accessible and usable. We need to change the culture of use of heritage assets in the business world and in the community. We are enormously privileged to work in this environment. It is a make-believe environment, with which William Morris had certain problems because it was conjured up in the 1830s and 40s. Many of our constituents have had their connection to history, the past and their local communities taken away, sometimes for understandable reasons of economic growth, but we need to box slightly more clever when considering the value of heritage assets and what Government, business and communities can do collectively to preserve those things that matter to people.

11:49

[Gloria De Piero (Ashfield) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure, Mr Hollobone, to respond for the Opposition under your chairmanship.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy) on securing this important debate, and I commend the work that she is doing on both fronts for her constituents in relation to heritage. My hon. Friend spoke passionately, and it is clear how important the matter is for her constituents. It is obvious that I am not Brad Pitt, Winston Churchill or Norman Roach, but I once had an extremely good night at Walthamstow dog track, and I can see how important it is to the community that my hon. Friend represents.

The Labour party has a proud tradition of standing up for heritage, a tradition that I am determined to continue in my role as shadow Culture Minister. Since the end of world war two, Labour has recognised not only the historical importance of heritage sites, but the economic benefits that such sites can yield. Heritage is central for so many reasons. It goes beyond class boundaries. From Giant’s Causeway to Canterbury cathedral, it is central to our local and national identity. It is crucial in regeneration projects in towns and cities across the United Kingdom.

The Town and Country Planning Act 1947 was the first step on the road to establishing the system of listing buildings. Now, 64 years on, we are continuing the debate to reform and refine it, and my hon. Friends the Members for Walthamstow and for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Tristram Hunt) have important contributions to make to that debate. Labour then passed the National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act 1949, which helped to bring about the first 10 national parks. Our commitment to heritage continued in the late 1960s with the Civic Amenities Act 1967, which introduced conservation areas and allowed local authorities to administer loans and grants for the restoration of historic buildings and sites. Soon afterwards, Labour introduced legislation stipulating that anyone who is found to have destroyed a historic building can be imprisoned.

I am proud of Labour’s history in standing up for heritage, and I want a new and reinvigorated debate on the subject. We have clearly made a good start today, and the contributions to this debate focused on the ability of heritage to galvanise and organise local communities. Its importance in defining our cultural, moral, political, theological and social values cannot be underestimated. It incorporates the most special and valued remains and structures. These landscapes physically mark moments in history. Most importantly, people can relive them on a day-to-day basis, and they help to shape our beliefs and our passions. They have lived through the ages, and all elected to this place have an obligation to ensure that they are preserved for the next generation to be enjoyed and to be used as a tool for learning.

For each of us, there are treasured personal objects—a pair of spectacles or a particular chair—that instantly bring back the memory of a loved one. The physical remains from generations past—homes, schools, factories, and churches—are the equivalent for society, for entire communities and for the nation. Historic places are the repositories of our communal memory and identity, and as a result they are deserving of special respect and care. A society that ignores its past cannot embrace the future. We owe it to the next generation to preserve the best achievements of past generations.

A poll conducted last year revealed that 70% of Britons attend one or more UK heritage sites every year, many more than those who visit football games or art galleries. The sector provides work for just less than 500,000 paid staff and 500,000 volunteers. That is as many staff as are employed in the NHS.

In a recent speech to English Heritage, the Minister highlighted the fact that the industry has captured the nation’s imagination. Membership of the National Trust has risen by 33%, and membership of English Heritage has risen by a staggering 62%. The Minister has said in recent speeches that tourism is one of the nation’s fastest growing industries. The sector is set to increase by 3.5% between 2009 and 2018.

A central reason for tourists being attracted to the British isles is our heritage sites. In Yorkshire, for example, local councils were told a few years ago that they were taking a massive risk in pumping money into the tourism industry. However, they believed in the power of their local history and their heritage sites—sites such as Ripley castle and Harewood house, Roche abbey and the York cold war bunker. The “Welcome to Yorkshire” television campaign has heritage at its very core, and the county attracts more than 200 million visitors a year. In fact, a large percentage of heritage tourism in the UK is domestic, especially in recent years given the rise of the staycation.

Heritage is an industry, and Brits spend money on it as much as people from overseas, especially outside London. That is an important and positive aspect, because Government investment in our heritage can support other key agendas, such as quality of life, healthy living, lifelong learning and families spending time together. I am minded to ask the Minister what impact the heritage industry had on the Prime Minister’s inquiry into what makes the nation happy. I shall wait eagerly to see whether it features in his closing remarks. Of course, there are more advantages to the staycation. If Brits are spending their money on domestic tourism and in shops and restaurants near heritage sites, rather than abroad, that is of benefit to the Treasury.

[Mr Mike Hancock in the Chair]

We learned over the weekend that leading economists believe that we are on the road to ruin with the Government’s programme of cuts. Surely the Minister realises that schemes such as “Welcome to Yorkshire” are vital for local economies across Britain. These initiatives are having a positive impact on the region, but they are at risk because of the 32% cut to English Heritage and the overall 25% cut to the Minister’s Department. My hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central explained the consequences of such cuts in his wonderfully entertaining speech. He pointed out that without professional staff to care for, to open and to interpret historic places, the huge rises in visitor numbers we have seen over recent years would fall.

I know all too well the dangers that these heritage sites face. Eastwood in my constituency is the birthplace of D.H. Lawrence, something of which we are very proud. However, the D.H. Lawrence heritage centre, which contains exhibits of the life and times of Lawrence and the original court copies of Lawrence’s most controversial novel, “Lady Chatterley’s Lover”, was under threat of closure earlier in the year as the local council was seeking to make cuts. Looking through the visitor book, it is clear that the centre is a resource not only for the people of Eastwood but for people across the country and from all over the world—people who otherwise might never come to our area.

It was vital to save the centre so that we could preserve an essential source of tourist income for the area. The campaign to save Durban house was backed, at my suggestion, by a host of famous faces, including Salman Rushdie, Martin Amis, the Nottinghamshire writer Billy Ivory, Michael Parkinson, Lord Puttnam, Glenda Jackson and Ken Russell, as well as countless ordinary people. I am sure that the Minister will agree that celebrating local culture and heritage is a vital part of the regeneration of the ex-coalfields of north Nottinghamshire. I was thrilled that the centre was saved thanks to an eleventh-hour agreement with Nottingham university. I suspect that that may be news to the Minister who, of course, rejected my invitation to visit it.

The cut to English Heritage funding equates to roughly £51 million over the next four years, but the true consequence of the loss is not yet calculable. Rolling the dice with the UK’s most special treasures is not the action of a responsible Government. Thirteen years of Labour Governments saw an increase in the number of visitors to historic sites, a broadening of knowledge about our heritage culture and an increase in profits. The last Labour Government did some fantastic work, and although I accept that we may have done more, our heritage sites were safe in our hands.

The Minister has said that we tend to underestimate just how great the UK is. I disagree. Britons from across the country and around the world are rightly proud of our heritage sites, and they show their support with their feet and with their purses. It is the Government who have underestimated the true value of such sites, and it seems that they are content to put the future of such sites at risk.

What we know today is radically different from what we knew a century ago. Britain’s fascination with what went before will long outlive this Government’s reckless cuts. There is a real risk that our historic public buildings—built with taxpayer’s money with the sort of craftsmanship and materials that we cannot afford today—will simply be sold to the highest bidder. That will have two results. In prosperous areas, public buildings such as Victorian schools will become unaffordable, exclusive private apartments, yet in less well-off places such buildings will sit derelict and empty, blighting the town centre or the high street.

Some aspects of the historic environment are already worse off. The extent of Labour’s grant scheme to return to congregations the VAT paid on the repair of historic places of worship has been reduced under the coalition Government. What could be a better example of the big society than congregations coming together to raise funds to restore their buildings and open them to wider community use? Yet donations to these funds to pay for all church fittings and architects’ fees will now go straight to the Treasury.

Does the Minister truly appreciate his responsibility to protect the heritage industry? Does he appreciate the strain that local authority cuts are putting on the authorities’ ability to protect heritage sites, to offer grants to historic buildings at risk and to ensure that changes to listed buildings take place with the advice of expert conservation staff? Given his recognition of how far the tourism industry is set to go in the next few years, why was there no mention of the heritage industry in the tourism strategy?

Will the Government’s emphasis on localism undermine our tried and tested ways of protecting our heritage at a national level through organisations such as English Heritage? As local authorities begin to sell off their historic buildings, libraries, schools, swimming baths and town halls to make ends meet, how will the Government support community groups that want to preserve their public services in the beautiful and historic buildings that have served them well for centuries?

12:00

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport (John Penrose)]

Thank you, Mr Hancock, for taking over the Chair from Mr Hollobone in mid-debate. I am looking forward to completing this debate under your chairmanship.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy) on securing this vitally important debate. Although some hon. Members have been unable to resist making some party political points, there is, none the less, a great degree of cross-party agreement on the importance of heritage and on the generalised approach to it.

The hon. Member for Walthamstow is right to say that heritage amounts to a great deal more than just buildings. I can attest to that as I am the Minister who has just listed, among other things, a zebra crossing in Abbey road. As she said, heritage goes far wider than just structures. It encompasses all sorts of things from pre-historic archaeological sites right the way through to bang up-to-date modern pieces of architecture, which are tomorrow’s heritage.

The hon. Lady is also right to say that heritage is important not just for the undoubted tourism benefits that it brings, but for its own sake. It is about not just place making for those of us who are the current occupants of each community and each built environment, but a local and a national story. One reason why we have a listing system is to ensure that the crucial marks, illustrations or buildings along that national story are preserved for current and future generations. That applies to not just the grand sweep of history—the national story of kings and queens and grand social movements—but local communities.

The hon. Lady was right to say that in any local community there are people who take huge pride in a local building that may be listed at grade II or only listed on a local scheme—if I can call a conservation area that—but which is, none the less, an important piece of that local community’s past. Such a building can make a community feel special, and it explains to people who live there where they came from and why their surroundings are the way that they are. That is an essential part of our understanding of our roots. Britain is not a new country but an old one. We are a modern country, but we have a history and a heritage to be proud of and we lose that at our peril. Let me acknowledge in passing the point made by the hon. Member for Ashfield (Gloria De Piero) that pride in one’s heritage is an essential component of happiness—a nebulous but very important concept that the Prime Minister is currently trying to grapple with.

Incidentally, for future speeches, I will plagiarise heavily without apology the comment of the hon. Member for Walthamstow about the Marks and Spencer approach to heritage. She is absolutely right to say that it is not enough to recognise as historically important a building, structure or an archaeological remain; we need to have an explanation and a narrative. We need to have an exposition of why something is important. It is not enough to say, “This is an important building.” Explaining why it is important is an essential part of the heritage story. She will see her words cropping up in various speeches, but I am sure that she will claim credit for them whenever they do.

The hon. Lady mentioned a couple of points in passing, which I shall try to deal with quickly before moving on to the main meat of her comments. She mentioned that there is a degree of concern in the heritage world about the successor to planning policy statement 5. I have already made some comments about that in public, but perhaps I can repeat them here just for the record.

A couple of amendments to the Localism Bill ensured that we kept the statutory protections for listing and heritage preservation. However, the hon. Lady is right to say that that is only part of the story and that heritage protection requires many of the other points, which were elaborated on in PPS5, to be included in the new revised planning guidelines. We are working closely with the Department for Communities and Local Government to ensure that that happens. In the same way that we have already come good on our promise to maintain the statutory protections, we aim to ensure that they are read across into the new forms of planning guidance, too. The draft has not yet been published, but no doubt there will be plenty of comment from the many experts in the heritage world when it is.

We are trying to ensure that the heritage voice is heard while the draft is being compiled, and there is a great deal more to do to ensure that the details are done properly. I want to reassure both the hon. Lady and those in the wider heritage world that that is an ongoing process and that we are taking it very seriously indeed. It is also true to say that there is a great deal of admiration and affection for PPS5. It sounds rather strange to say that people like planning guidelines, but those are probably the only ones that people like. The heritage world feels that PPS5 contains some important protections and wants them preserved for the future.

[Stella Creasy]

Does the Minister see any reason why the intentions behind PPS5 in their entirety might not continue? There is talk today that an application might come forward for the Walthamstow dog track. The local community would welcome confirmation that, as far as the Minister is concerned, regulations in PPS5 about taking into account any alternative viable option for a heritage site will be relevant to that decision.

[John Penrose]

I need to tread a careful line here to avoid prejudging the ongoing process to produce the new guidance. There are important things that the new guidance will do to make the whole panoply of different planning guidelines—not just the ones for heritage—become shorter, simpler and generally less burdensome. Within that context, we absolutely want to make sure that the principles behind PPS5 are maintained and truly and faithfully carried across. I do not want to comment on the detailed wording. As in all such things, the devil can be in the detail. I hope that I have given the hon. Lady a direction of travel and a statement of principle that will be helpful to her at this point.

The hon. Lady also mentioned some points about the Heritage Protection Bill, which, as I understand it, the previous Government spent a great deal of time working on. Certainly, officials in my Department spent a great deal of time working on it. None the less, the poor thing led a rather peripatetic existence, wandering around different parts of Whitehall desperately trying to find a slot in the legislative timetable. As it did not manage to find one before the end of the previous Government, it fell without ever being debated in the House. There were some rather useful technical points in it which we shall try to take through. We are currently discussing them with the Ministry of Justice to see whether they might fit into the Repeals Bill that is coming up. Many of them are entirely technical but worthy and sensible, too.

I am thinking of ideas such as trying to make sure that if we amended the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 to try to ensure that listings apply not just willy-nilly to the entire curtilage of a listed structure but to the bits that are genuinely important and listable. Such a proposal will provide greater clarity to the current owners and potential future developers about which parts of a site could be important. Another of my favourite Acts is the Public Statues (Metropolis) Act 1854, which apparently requires the Secretary of State to assent to the erection of statues in public places in London rather than that being done through the planning appeals system. I am not quite sure of the reason for that, but all such things are sensible and worthy.

However, nothing is certain yet because we cannot find a slot in the current legislative timetable. As we are focused on dealing with the Localism Bill and all the other factors related to the deficit, we will not be able to get a heritage protection Bill on to the statute book in the short term, but we may be able to do one or two of those things if we can find other slots. We are working on that, but I can make no promises at this stage.

I think that the meat of the hon. Lady’s comments were about the heritage at-risk regulations and processes are whether or not they are currently up to the task that has been set for them. It is worth pointing out that the heritage at-risk register, which has now been in existence for more than a decade, has had quite a lot of success. Various speakers in the debate have quoted figures about the number of heritage assets that are on that register and about how many of them have gone through the register. I think that it is true to say that a very large number of the sites that are fairly difficult but not impossible to deal with have now been dealt with. A quite large proportion of sites have come on to the register and come off it again after three, four or five years; I think that the average length of time that such sites are on the register is about five years. They come off the register because they have been dealt with and a solution has been found for them.

The hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Tristram Hunt) put it nicely when he said that we need a sensible commercial model for an at-risk heritage site for that site to work. There is no point in simply transferring ownership of the site or making a temporary fix. If we do not come up with a sustainable solution, within 18 months, two years or a similar period, the site will start to deteriorate again and pretty soon we will be back where we started. I think that it was the hon. Member for Walthamstow who quoted William Morris, who said that we need

“living art and living history”.

It is vital that we all make that point as strongly as we possibly can.

What has happened is that a large number of sites have come on to the heritage at-risk register, sustainable solutions have been found for them and then they have come off the register after four or five years. However, we also have a hard core of sites that are much harder to deal with, which have been on the at-risk register pretty much since it was started. Many of them have been on the register for well over 10 years, and either they are very difficult to find an economically sustainable solution for or they will always be at risk for other reasons—for example, they are coastal sites suffering from erosion. Forces of nature, such as coastal erosion, may be harder to deal with than economic difficulties, which may be solved by changing a site’s use. I think that the hon. Member for Walthamstow also talked about sites that have been on the at-risk register for a long time.

I completely agree with the hon. Lady that we have a series of powers that are being used spottily at the moment. She quoted some figures on how few times various powers have been used either by English Heritage or by my own Department, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. As she rightly pointed out, that number is in the single figures. However, I should point out for the record that that is only part of the story; indeed, I think that she implicitly acknowledged that herself. There are many other occasions when such powers are used around the country, particularly by local authorities.

It is noticeable, however, that when we examine the figures for local authorities we find that some are much more comfortable with applying such powers—urgent works notices, compulsory purchase orders or whatever they may be—while others are much less comfortable and much less confident about using them and use them only rarely, if ever. As I say, there is a wide variety of practice by local authorities in the heritage sector. It is clear that some local authorities are comfortable about their ability to use such powers effectively to advance the cause of at-risk heritage assets and sites within their area, whereas other local authorities are a great deal more cautious or nervous about using them and are much more worried about the cost and other implications of doing so. Given that some local authorities are using such powers frequently while others are not, perhaps we can start to consider the reasons why the powers are not being used effectively in some cases and try to understand the issues involved.

I am happy to confirm to the hon. Lady that we are already addressing that issue and are trying to understand the reasons for that difference in the use of the powers by local authorities. Inevitably, given the huge variety of different heritage sites—all of which face an individual and entirely specific set of issues—and of political situations in local authorities, there is an extremely complicated patchwork. Therefore, finding answers that will raise the worst-performing authorities even to the standard of the average-performing authorities is not a trivial exercise. It is not easy to find answers that will work across that very complicated patchwork, but we are already looking at that issue.

I think that the hon. Lady and I have already made the important point to each other—in earlier private conversations about the local heritage sites in her constituency that she has mentioned today—that it is important to start looking at having a rather more nuanced and finer gradation of stepping stones or escalation of powers. At the moment, particularly in those local authorities where the use of a compulsory purchase order or an urgent works notice is viewed as a bit of a nuclear button—that is, as a last resort—there is nothing in between using those powers and having a nice chat over a cup of coffee with the owner of a site who is not necessarily doing what needs to be done with the site. Perhaps we need to consider whether there should be a collection of both carrots and sticks that can be used between those two extremes. At the moment, such powers do not exist. We do not have them at present, but we are considering whether it is possible to develop them.

Even if we can develop such powers, however, we would need to use them extremely carefully. If we just go for carrots—that is, incentives—for owners to plough more money into a heritage at-risk asset and that asset gets to a certain state of disrepair, we run the very real risk of creating a very sizeable moral hazard. We do not want to create a situation whereby the entire system is set up to encourage people to allow the assets that they own to fall into disrepair, until they reach a certain stage of advanced disrepair whereupon the state will come galloping to the rescue with a large wodge of public cash. Clearly, that would be an extremely perverse incentive, and it is not one that we want. However, we may want to have some incentives that are matched up with additional powers to push or prod owners who are not doing the right thing. At the same time, we must be very careful to ensure that we match those powers to avoid creating the type of perverse incentive that I have just described.

I must add a note of caution to my responses to the hon. Member for Walthamstow. When an owner of a heritage site wants to do something with it—say, x—and there is a community that wants to do something else with it—say, y—and those two things do not match and there is no overlap between them, it is very easy to end up with a degree of deadlock through the planning system. From what the hon. Lady has said this morning, it sounds as though that has happened in at least one if not both of the two heritage cases in her constituency that she referred to. However tempting it may appear, it would be a mistake to try to cast the heritage industry and the heritage world as some kind of deus ex machina that will turn up and solve such problems for the good of all concerned, by coming down either on the side of the owner or that of the community. It is not possible—indeed, it is not even desirable—for the heritage world to try to act as the court of appeal between those two parties, because coming to a conclusion that both the owner and the community can live with must be achieved by dialogue through the normal democratic process. That is what the planning system is set up to do.

The hon. Lady rightly said at the start of her remarks that this debate today is not about planning policy. The heritage world must ensure that planning policy is applied where necessary in a heritage-sensitive and heritage-sympathetic way. However, the heritage world cannot fix a fundamental democratic disagreement; such a disagreement must be dealt with through the mechanisms of the planning system. Even if we can come up with new and better powers and incentives, we would breach that principle at our peril.

A conclusion may be reached about the best use for a heritage asset, and that use might be the same type of use that the asset was originally designed for. The hon. Lady gave the example of a cinema, and a cinema might be brought back into use as a cinema. However, the heritage world is not too precious about whether or not a cinema has to be brought back into use as a cinema, for the very reason that the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central gave earlier: it is more important to have a viable, sustainable and ongoing commercial use for a building than that it should go back to its previous use. It is far better for that heritage asset to have a future that is workable, even if it is being used for another purpose than the one that it was originally designed for, than that it should have no commercial future at all.

Let me give an example. The hon. Member for Walthamstow referred to some of the excellent work that is happening in the area around King’s Cross. If one walks north of King’s Cross, it is possible to see a building that I believe is called the university of the creative arts in London. It is a wonderful combination of modern architecture and a couple of old train sheds that are being turned into a wonderful university campus. That building is an outstanding example of blending the old and the new—it is an absolutely gorgeous combination of the two—and it is something that I think the country will be hugely proud of. If I can venture an opinion, it will definitely be a piece of heritage of the future as well as a piece of heritage of the past, and it is being created right now. That, however, would be completely impossible if we were too precious and insisted that a railway shed had to be used as a railway shed. I do not think that anyone here would argue that re-purposing the sheds and giving them a new use is a bad thing. I accept that it is entirely reasonable and sensible for there to be a local democratic debate between residents and the owner of a site about whether it carries on as a cinema, for example, or is used for something else, but from a heritage point of view that is not part of the solution. The heritage solution is to achieve a sustainable answer that ensures that the fabric of the building and, if necessary, its cultural resonance—let us not forget that its use will have created cultural ripples in the local area—is preserved.

I am afraid, therefore, that I am going to slightly disappoint the hon. Lady by saying that it would be a mistake for heritage to intervene and say, “This is an unacceptable use”—within very wide boundaries. Heritage needs to say, “This is a sustainable use, which will preserve the heritage character and fabric of the building, and any further conversation about the suitability of the use has to be expressed through the local planning mechanism rather than through the heritage world.”

[Stella Creasy]

In the Walthamstow examples, there is a viable, commercially backed and community backed alternative for both buildings. The current planning process allows that to be taken into consideration, and the Minister has just very kindly confirmed that such an alternative should be taken into account if a plan comes forward for the dog track. What we do not see in heritage is a parallel ability to say that, if there is a viable alternative that is in keeping with the heritage listed status, we can make progress, and I want to press the Minister a little more on that. I understand his concern not to see a deus ex machina approach to heritage policy, but what confidence can communities such as mine have that he will not stand by and say that the heritage and sustainability aspects cannot be taken in account and that when owners sit on assets and do nothing, as they have in Walthamstow, we will not be left waiting, hoping that a planning application—as the only mechanism for expressing our heritage concerns—will come forward?

[John Penrose]

I understand the hon. Lady’s concerns, and I refer her to my earlier comments about the need for some interim and escalation powers. From the list of cases that have gone through and have come off the heritage at risk register, we know that we have conversations, discussions and expert advice at one end of the spectrum of existing powers and the nuclear button—as we discussed earlier—at the other. We need some interim steps, which we just do not have at the moment. The letter that I wrote to the hon. Lady a couple of weeks ago, which I think arrived just in time for her planning meeting, made the point that there is no opportunity to use or impose the current legal powers from the centre here in Whitehall, but if we came up with some interim steps—stepping stones—we could use some of them for an equivalent future case. A far better solution to the kind of problem that the hon. Lady is laying out would be to create those kinds of powers, with the right mix of carrots and sticks to ensure that we did not create perverse incentives.

The hon. Lady mentioned that there is a solution on the table that has the approval of many local people and an alternative investor waiting in the wings, but the missing third party is the existing owners, who either need to be convinced that the solution is in their interests or, with some interim or other stepping-stone powers, be given some opportunities and incentives. As I think the hon. Lady mentioned in her initial remarks, that is an aspect in which such policy crucially needs to develop, and I hope that we can do so on a cross-party basis. Putting aside some of the comments about whether individual quangos have done well, I hope that the broader collection of approaches that we will be able to take on heritage will have cross-party approval. Incidentally, and for the record, the overall funding for heritage as a whole is going down by only 2%, even though funding for individual heritage quangos is decreasing by a substantially larger amount. If we can get to that position, perhaps Mr Norman Roach will be able to stop being the only repository of knowledge, understanding and memory in Walthamstow about one or two of the local heritage assets and instead be part of a much wider and better elucidated and enunciated set of heritage assets and experience there.

[Stella Creasy]

I just hope that I can encourage the Minister to commit to coming to Walthamstow, to see the two sites and talk both to members of the local community and to the investors that we have for both sites, so that he can understand some of the challenges that we need to embrace in heritage policy. I would be very happy to show him the range of heritage that we have in Walthamstow. Perhaps he could even meet Norman, to understand how the examples in Walthamstow reflect the wider problems with heritage policy. I hope that the Minister will make at least that commitment, so that we can show him the work that we are doing in Walthamstow to try to make heritage not just preservation but experience and enjoyment.

[Mr Mike Hancock (in the Chair)]

I am sure that you will find that invitation hard to resist, Minister.

[John Penrose]

I have had an invitation to Stoke and now to Walthamstow. I think that I did go to Walthamstow dogs before it closed. I am afraid that I will, as the saying goes, have to look at my diary, but I appreciate both invitations and hope that we can advance this policy.

There should be agreement on both sides of the House on this, but we have to tread very carefully because the devil will be in the detail and we must make certain that, while enhancing opportunity for communities to ensure that their heritage is looked after, we do not traduce or ignore the very real and legitimate rights of owners.

[Mr Mike Hancock (in the Chair)]

It would be inappropriate for me to suggest that, while the Minister is in travelling mood, he select Portsmouth as a possible location, but we would welcome the opportunity to meet him there.

City Status (Reading)

Tuesday 7th June 2011 Westminster Hall

12:27

[Alok Sharma (Reading West) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hancock. I am delighted that we are able to have this debate in the week after Reading’s formal application for city status was submitted.

I am sure that the Minister has seen the excellent bid document, which was put together jointly by the local council, representatives of business, our local papers—the Reading Post and the Reading Chronicle—Reading’s voluntary groups and other excellent local organisations. The document encompasses the very heart and soul of Reading: an economic powerhouse with a distinguished past, a vibrant present and a bright future.

My hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper)is not only a very able Minister but an extremely fair individual. I do not expect that in his response today he will suddenly announce that on the strength of this debate Reading has been awarded city status. That would be nice, but I will not hold my breath. We all understand that Reading’s bid, along with all the others, will need to be properly evaluated. Nevertheless, I think that at the end of the evaluation process the Minister will find that if he takes the best bits from each bid—a long and varied history, deep links to royalty, excellent sporting, cultural and retail facilities, outstanding educational establishments, an active civic society and voluntary sector, economic leadership on an international scale and a self-confident people reflecting the cosmopolitan nature of 21st-century Britain—he will have Reading down to a tee. Reading represents not just cool Britannia but rule Britannia, when it comes to leading on international jobs, growth and economic activity. My home town of Reading, where I grew up and went to school, is a microcosm of all that is best, bold and bright about Britain today.

I will take the rest of my time to spell out the detail of Reading’s pre-eminent bid, and our powerful and persuasive case for city status. Reading began life as a Saxon settlement in the early seventh century and was first mentioned in written history in the “Anglo-Saxon Chronicle”. In 1121, Henry I, the youngest son of William the Conqueror, laid the foundation stone for Reading abbey. Over time, Reading became one of the most important religious and political centres in Europe. Henry was buried at the abbey, making Reading one of only a handful of towns where British monarchs are buried.

Reading’s association with royalty has continued through the ages. Reading abbey was consecrated in the presence of Henry II. Admittedly, Henry VIII put a damper on things by dissolving the abbey, and the last abbot, Hugh Cook Faringdon, suffered the occupational hazard of not recognising Henry as head of the Church and was duly executed outside the abbey gates. However, the outlook for Reading improved with Queen Elizabeth I’s ascent to the throne. She visited Reading on several occasions and granted the town borough status.

Fast-forwarding to today, Reading is the county town of the royal county of Berkshire and is the birthplace of our future Queen, the Duchess of Cambridge. Interestingly, there are no cities in the royal county. It would therefore be fitting, in the year after a magnificent royal wedding—the year of Her Majesty the Queen’s diamond jubilee—for Reading to be granted city status.

When it comes to sporting, cultural and retail facilities, Reading leads the way. We have a premiership football club in Reading FC, which temporarily finds itself in the championship. The club’s home, Madejski stadium, is a modern facility of which any city would be proud. Reading football club is a beacon, a community-based club that was named family club of the year in 2010. The stadium is also home to London Irish rugby club and was voted the best place to watch rugby in a 2010 survey.

The local council operates seven leisure centres. Rivermead centre is home to the nationally successful Reading Rockets basketball team. The River Thames is the base for many rowing and canoeing clubs, and the Redgrave Pinsent rowing lake, a purpose-built marina at Caversham, will be the training base for Team GB rowing before the 2012 Olympics. In addition, Reading has flourishing clubs and facilities for cricket, hockey, athletics, swimming, golf and gymnastics. I am sure that the Minister will agree that that represents a wide range of facilities to satisfy the most demanding of sportsmen and women.

To soothe the senses, Reading offers many parks and playgrounds spread across the borough, as well as riverside walks and beautiful vistas across the Thames. Reading is also a shoppers’ paradise. The town is one of the top retail destinations in the UK, and the Oracle shopping centre on the banks of the River Kennet, with more than 120 retail units, is the region’s premier retail and leisure destination, offering restaurants and cinemas as well as shopping. Reading attracts shoppers from as far afield as Bracknell, Newbury, Royal Windsor and Henley. In addition to the Oracle shopping complex, we have the popular Broad street mall and a large range of major national and international brand stores, with Apple recently announced. Of course, in keeping with tradition, Reading also operates a farmers’ market and a street market.

For the outside visitor, Reading offers a wide range of accommodation, ranging from chic boutique hotels such as the Forbury and Malmaison and luxury chains such as Hilton and Crown Plaza to high-standard independent guest houses. If the Minister has not yet made plans for his summer holidays, may I recommend a few days in Reading? As well as enjoying our sporting, retail and leisure facilities, he and his family will be able to check out our various museums and enjoy a play or concert at the famous Hexagon theatre. If he comes during the August bank holiday weekend, he will be able to visit the internationally renowned Reading festival, set on the banks of the Thames. I suspect that he is tempted by Reading’s offer. Perhaps he will tell me in his response whether he would like me to reserve some accommodation for him during August.

[Mr John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

I wish my hon. Friend every success. He is making an elegant case for city status for Reading, but will he reassure Wokingham that no extraterritorial demands will be made if Reading gains the honour of being a city?

[Alok Sharma]

I thank my right hon. Friend for raising that point. Our bid is clear. It is based on the document. Reading is a friendly town—its Members of Parliament are extremely friendly—and we will certainly ensure that whatever Reading does in future is on a co-operative and friendly basis.

Educationally, Reading offers a centre of excellence in many areas. We have a top-rated university that carries out internationally recognised work across various departments including cybernetics, meteorology, engineering and agriculture. The university’s Henley business school is an international leader. Some of our state schools, such as Kendrick school for girls and Reading school for boys, consistently top the national league tables for exam results, as do a number of our independent schools. There is also the excellent Avenue school in the heart of my constituency, a special school for boys and girls between the ages of two and 19 who have complex special educational needs. I have seen at first hand the work that Avenue staff do with pupils, and it is truly outstanding. The school is a benchmark of excellence for special schools throughout the country.

I am also pleased that some schools in Reading have already embraced the freedom that academy status offers. Several have converted to academies, and others are considering conversion. One of the first free schools in the country, All Saints junior school, backed by local parents and the community, will open its door to pupils in my constituency in September. The setting up of the school is a textbook case of go-getting, entrepreneurial Reading parents who want the best for all children in the town. It reflects Reading’s positive, can-do attitude.

The people of Reading are undoubtedly go-getting—I will talk shortly about the economic leadership that we provide—but ours is also a caring and compassionate town. We have one of the most active voluntary and community sectors in the south-east. Reading has more than 400 organisations that contribute to the town’s well-being, and many volunteers who put something back into the local community. Our Churches, in particular, are the backbone of many community organisations and provide support to all those in need of help and advice.

Some months ago, I was asked to address a conference organised by Reading Voluntary Action. The event was billed as a cross-sector conference involving all agencies interested in growing a genuine big society in Reading. The event was extremely well attended by voluntary groups from across Reading. The big society is flourishing in my home town. I hope that when all the bids for city status are evaluated, Ministers will reflect not just on the tangibles but on the intangibles, such as the generosity of spirit of a town and its people. I am confident that on that measure alone, Reading will be seen to lead the way.

On Reading’s economic prowess, thanks to the dire financial legacy that the coalition Government inherited from Labour, we must take action to eliminate Labour’s structural deficit. I do not want to turn this debate into an exposé of the previous Government’s mishandling of the economy, but the context is important. Last year’s emergency Budget was about rescuing the nation’s finances; this year’s Budget was about doing what was possible to help families with the cost of living and, importantly, reforming the economy to create jobs and growth for the future. The jobs and growth that will make our economy power ahead in the coming years will come from the private sector, and will be created in places such as Reading.

Reading is the commercial centre of the Thames valley and has 1,000 years of trading history. Historically known as a traditional manufacturing centre, it became famous internationally for its three Bs: biscuits, bulbs and beer. Huntley and Palmers biscuits, Suttons Seeds and, in its most recent guise, the Courage brewery all operated in the town until fairly recently. Indeed, the brewery survived until last year. For some towns, the demise of major traditional businesses can, sadly, spell economic decline, but Reading has had a continued, uninterrupted economic renaissance. Biscuits, bulbs and beer have given way to IT, industry and innovation. We are an undoubted economic powerhouse.

If we as a country are to compete successfully in the coming years against the likes of China and India, our knowledge-based companies and the value-added jobs that they create will be key. Reading is undoubtedly a leader in both home-grown and international knowledge-based companies. Yell, Premier Foods, National Grid, Prudential, BG Group, Logica, Procter and Gamble, Wipro, Cisco, Microsoft, Oracle, Verizon, Symantec, Rockwell Collins and Thales are just some of the companies that consider Reading home. Leading-edge innovation and research and development are now part of the DNA of Reading’s business sector, and the university of Reading works in close partnership with the business community. Reading is also a centre for finance, insurance and banking and provides many jobs in the town. Our work force is one of the most highly skilled in the country.

Earlier this year, the Centre for Cities, an independent, non-partisan research and policy institute, named Reading as one of the five “cities to watch” in its annual index, “Cities Outlook 2011”. The report noted that Reading has high potential to create private sector jobs and one of the highest employment rates in the country. There was clear recognition of Reading’s economic strength and, interestingly, it referenced Reading as a city.

Reading clearly punches above its weight on the international stage and, for many, is already regarded as a city. The greater Reading economic area is home to about 2,000 foreign-owned businesses, employing about 100,000 people, which reinforces our international position. Last year, Reading was named Europe’s top micro city for infrastructure, thanks to its strong road and rail network and unrivalled access to markets. Moreover, the foreign direct investment report ranked Reading eighth in the overall list of Europe’s top micro cities, based on economic potential and quality of life.

Certainly, Reading’s connectivity and closeness to London are key success factors in our economic dominance, and continued investment in infrastructure has played an important role. Recently, we have seen the remodelling and improvement of junction 11 on the M4, and we are in the middle of an £860 million upgrade to Reading railway station, managed by Network Rail. Already the second biggest interchange outside London, Reading station’s redevelopment assumes a doubling of passengers by 2035, from 14 million to 28 million. Reading is truly a gateway to the rest of the country and we are open for business.

Reading has also produced its fair share of authors, actors, musicians, entrepreneurs and scientists who have helped to put the town on the map. To name but a few: Jane Austen, Mary Mitford, Sam Mendes, Kate Winslet, Ricky Gervais, Jacqueline Bisset, Marianne Faithfull, Kenneth Branagh, Mike Oldfield, David Lean, Ross Brawn, John Kendrick, Alfred Waterhouse, Henry Addington, who was a former Prime Minister, and, most recently, Sir John Madejski, who has given so much to the town.

Reading is well represented in the current Parliament. At least eight Members were educated or grew up in Reading. It is said that Charles Dickens was asked to stand as MP for Reading, but turned down the request. Frankly, it was Dickens’s loss. We now have our own literary giant of an MP, my hon. Friend the Member for Reading East (Mr Wilson), who will speak in this debate.

In conclusion, Reading already has many of the attributes of a city. We are the largest town that is not a city in the country. Indeed, Reading is larger than more than 40 cities in the UK, including your great city of Portsmouth, Mr. Hancock. Reading is today a cosmopolitan place and our diversity is our strength. We are a town at ease with ourselves, a town that knows its time has arrived. We are the bookies’ favourite for city status and I hope that, after this debate, although he will not be able to say it, we will be the Minister’s favourite as well. I thank him for listening so patiently, and I look forward to his response.

[Mr Mike Hancock (in the Chair)]

Thank you. I call Mr Rob Wilson.

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

rose—

[Mr Mike Hancock (in the Chair)]

Order. I shall try to get you both in. Bear in mind that the Minister has to respond to the hon. Member for Reading West, so could you both take a maximum of four or five minutes?

12:43

[Mr Rob Wilson (Reading East) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hancock. I will do my best to fit my remarks into the five-minute limit that you have suddenly imposed.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Reading West (Alok Sharma) on securing this debate. He has set out, with great passion and in a compelling way, why Reading should become a city. He has covered an enormous amount of ground and has done a thorough job in doing so, so I will limit my remarks. To both viewers who are watching the Parliament channel at the moment, I say that my views on city status are set out elsewhere and have been aired in great detail.

As has been mentioned, this is Reading’s third attempt at becoming a city. I know a bit about the previous attempts, because I was around at the time and served on the local borough council on one of those occasions. What is noticeable to me is that this attempt feels different. I do not say that because we are the bookies’ favourite this time, as my hon. Friend has mentioned. In fact, I would rather that we were not the bookies’ favourite, because in politics the favourite has a knack of losing. The first two attempts to obtain city status involved top-down decisions to mount bids, which, if I am honest, were not supported beyond the local ruling elite. Indeed, I found them slightly embarrassing in some ways, as the local Reading public largely ridiculed them. The Reading public did not believe in the previous bids, because they were not in any way part of them. What they actually saw, for example, was the local council putting up signs directing people to the city centre when they knew it was a town centre. The public thought that slightly crackers, and so did I.

This time the bid feels very different. It has much more of a grass roots and groundswell feel to it. My constituents feel involved in what is going on, believe that the time is right and are behind the bid. They understand that Reading has changed and developed radically over the years and is now ready for the next step and for a new era. People who come to Reading tend to stay for a long time, because of the quality of life and the good jobs on offer. My constituents have, therefore, seen Reading change from a rather sleepy Berkshire market town to the capital city of the region.

My hon. Friend has already spoken about the strength and vibrancy of Reading’s economy. As he has mentioned, numerous research organisations around the country accept that Reading has huge economic significance. The influential Centre for Cities regards Reading as a “city to watch”, even though we are not yet a city, and one of six cities

“best placed to lead the UK’s recovery”

from the economic crisis and recession. People in Reading know and understand the economic contribution that they are making to the region and the national economy. They take pride in it and know that the town is ready to become a city. They are as confident and forward-looking as the Centre for Cities study says.

It is interesting to note what underpins Reading’s economic success. There are many factors, but I want to pick out two in particular. The first is transport. Reading has a railway station that acts as a national hub with connections that run the length and breadth of the UK. During the previous Parliament, I campaigned for and was pleased to secure, working with others, the £500 million investment that the station required. That investment recognised Reading’s strategic importance as a transport hub and reflects why it is a city in all but name. Reading is close to Heathrow; the M4 runs past its front door; and it has fast train services to Paddington. Whether travelling by road, rail or air, Reading has the connections required.

The second factor is education, which creates the highly skilled work force. Education is a passion for me, so I want to say a few things before I finish, although I know that the Chair would like me to speed up. According to Department for Education figures, Reading is the highest ranking authority for A-level and AS-level results. Of course, that has nothing to do with the local education authority, which has continually been hopeless on educational matters. It has much to do with Reading’s two state grammar schools—Kendrick school for girls and Reading school for boys. Both consistently lead the country in exam results. Reading school has been named the best state school in the country by The Times. I also have a fine crop of independent schools in my constituency in the Abbey school, Queen Anne’s and Leighton Park.

Reading is also taking advantage of Government policy on education, with Highdown school in my constituency becoming an academy and showing huge improvements. I am also hopeful that a bid in east Reading for a first-class university school, backed by world-class companies such as Microsoft, Cisco, BT and Blackberry, will be successful and lead to further improvement in the quality of education in Reading.

I also want to say a few words about Reading university.

[Mr Mike Hancock (in the Chair)]

Order. I urge the hon. Gentleman to be fair to his colleague, otherwise he will not be called to speak.

[Mr Wilson]

I will sum up by saying that I am proud of the fact that Reading university, which plays such an important role in Reading, is mainly in my constituency. As my hon. Friend the Member for Reading West has said, it has an international reputation. I have no time to talk about the thriving social, cultural, artistic and creative communities in Reading, which I would have loved to have addressed, although my hon. Friend has given a flavour of them.

Our university, schools, transport and economy give Reading enormous strength, but it is the people of Reading who make the place what it is. It is they who have prepared Reading for city status and it is they who now ask the Queen and Ministers to give them the recognition that they deserve.

[Mr Mike Hancock (in the Chair)]

I am afraid that you have very little time, Mr Howell, and you have your colleague to thank for that.

12:49

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to participate in this discussion under your chairmanship, Mr Hancock. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Reading West (Alok Sharma) on securing the debate. Reading is a neighbour to my constituency, but it is more than that. I do not wish to take issue with my hon. Friend’s geography, but the Olympic rowing lake—the Redgrave Pinsent rowing lake—is in my constituency, even though its waters practically lap over the rails as the train comes into Reading. The town provides all of the facilities that my hon. Friends have mentioned—both for their constituents and mine—so it would be churlish not to support this bid. However, my constituents and I need reassurance on some issues, to which my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Mr Redwood) has already alluded.

How different would a city be from the current Reading town in its territorial ambitions and in terms of building into my constituency, because the town has always seemed to have a very aggressive approach? How different would a city be from the town in tackling major emotive issues such as transport, including the long-running possibility of a new bridge across the Thames, which would throw lots of traffic into south Oxfordshire? Furthermore, how different would a city be from the current town in engaging sensitively with constituents on my side of the constituency border?

I appreciate that, for much of my time in politics, Reading has not been under a Conservative Administration, but I hope that that will change, because I am sure it will be to its advantage. I understand that the answers to the questions that I have posed are not necessarily in the gift of my hon. Friends the Members for Reading West and for Reading East (Mr Wilson) to answer, but answered they must be if they wish to have the unequivocal support of surrounding MPs and their constituents for a city bid. As has already been said, Reading has already exhibited many of the characteristics of a city and is an important hub for the wider area.

12:51

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Mr Mark Harper)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hancock.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Reading West (Alok Sharma) on securing the debate and on setting out Reading’s case clearly. During the course of the debates on city status, I have had some interesting offers. My hon. Friend the Member for Southend West (Mr Amess) urged me to be Southend’s valentine, because we had the debate on Valentine’s day, and my hon. Friend the Member for Reading West has urged me to holiday in Reading during the summer. I fear that I may have to disappoint him in the same way I had to disappoint my hon. Friend the Member for Southend West. I have to remain impartial, and holidaying in Reading may demonstrate a lack of impartiality. Therefore, I fear that I must decline his very kind offer.

My hon. Friend the Member for Reading West joins another of our colleagues, my hon. Friend the Member for Gillingham and Rainham (Rehman Chishti), who also secured a debate to set out the case for his area to become a city. As part of the bid, I have learned a large number of things of both of those areas and about the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Reading West and the town that he represents. Indeed, I suspect that other hon. Members whose areas are bidding for city status will have detected a pattern and that you and I, Mr Hancock—as well as your colleagues on the Panel of Chairs—will be treated to a continuing tour of our United Kingdom. I very much look forward to that.

My hon. Friend set out Reading’s case very well and was joined by my hon. Friend the Member for Reading East (Mr Wilson). I confirm that Reading’s entry for the diamond jubilee competition for city status has been safely received. It is one of 26 entries seeking city status, and 12 entries have also sought lord mayoralty status for existing cities. The level of interest and enthusiasm that clearly came across from the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Reading West shows how much the country is looking forward to celebrating Her Majesty’s diamond jubilee next year and how attractive such a civic honour is to local communities.

My hon. Friend spotted that I will not be able to agree or disagree with him in my response and that I must remain neutral and fair. At this stage, I can no more endorse Reading’s aspirations than I can any other competition entrant. Ministers must remain impartial to ensure that city status continues to be a real honour that is fairly bestowed and that the competition remains fair. My hon. Friend recognised that fairness is important, because there are no hard and fast criteria on becoming a city. City status continues to be an honour granted by the sovereign. Nowadays, it follows a competition and is a rare mark of distinction bestowed on a town. Reasons for success or failure are not given in these competitions and city status is not something that towns can gain by ticking off a list of pre-set criteria.

The reasons for that are obvious. Existing cities vary tremendously. As my hon. Friend has mentioned, some are large and some are small; some have wonderful cathedrals, universities, airports, underground systems or trams; and some do not have those physical features, but boast a vibrant cultural life. We have set out some of the qualities that we expect a city to have—a vibrant, welcoming community with an interesting history and a distinct identity. My hon. Friends the Members for Reading West and for Reading East have eloquently set out Reading’s claim in those and other respects. I assure them and their constituents—the people of their town—that Reading’s entry will receive a thorough and impartial appraisal, together with the many other entries in the competition. The process is just getting under way. My hon. Friend the Member for Reading West has waved his bid at me to secure my interest, and the plan is that we will announce the result early in 2012.

On the point about territorial ambitions made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Mr Redwood) and reinforced by my hon. Friend the Member for Henley (John Howell), let me reassure them and make the matter clear. The local authority is bidding for city status based on existing local authority boundaries. Nothing in what the Government will recommend to Her Majesty about city status will affect the powers that that town has. On that specific point, I hope that I have reassured by my hon. Friend the Member for Henley and my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham. I detected their qualified support for the bid, which has clearly stirred up interest not only in the town of Reading, but among its neighbours.

My hon. Friends the Members for Reading West and for Reading East have set out their case well. Ministers will assess that case along with the others in the process. As I have said, we look forward to announcing the results in early 2012 as we go into Her Majesty’s diamond jubilee year.

[Mr Mike Hancock (in the Chair)]

As a Member who has the privilege to represent one of our cities, I know what it means to people, so I wish Reading all the very best. The Minister and Member are present for the next debate, so we can move straight on. Will those Members who are leaving do so quietly and quickly?

Emergency Life Skills

Tuesday 7th June 2011 Westminster Hall

12:57

[Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)]

It is not often that the Government get the chance to make a decision that could simply, easily, cheaply and immediately save lives, but this Government have the opportunity to do so right now. They have a chance to do something positive and tangible for very little cost.

Hon. Members know how it is. Someone collapses or has a road traffic accident and we all stand around in a circle waiting for somebody else to act, because we are too frightened to intervene. Let us imagine what would happen if every school leaver could save a life. Every year, 150,000 people die in situations in which first aid could have made a difference, and 30,000 people have a cardiac arrest outside the hospital environment of whom less than 10% survive to be discharged from hospital.

Emergency life support is a set of actions needed to keep someone alive until professional help arrives. It includes performing cardiopulmonary resuscitation, putting an unconscious person into the recovery position, dealing with choking and serious bleeding, and helping someone who may be having a heart attack. Those skills are particularly crucial at the time of cardiac arrest where every second counts. Children are often present at accidents and emergencies, and if they are properly trained, they can be as effective as any adult in administering emergency first aid.

Our curriculum states that children should be taught many things but, frankly, learning the names of the six wives of Henry VIII is unlikely to save a person’s life, whereas emergency life support can. We know that the Government want to slim down the national curriculum, but surely learning emergency life support skills should be as important as learning the times table. The Government have stated that they want the national curriculum to reflect,

“the essential knowledge and understanding that pupils should be expected to have to enable them to take their place as educated members of society.”

Surely knowing how to save the life of a family member or a member of the public would enable children to have an impact on the health of society. Ensuring that life-saving skills are taught in schools provides the chance to instil in children how valuable life is and how important it is to be a good citizen. The Government, by putting emergency life skills into the curriculum, have an opportunity to leave a real, lasting cultural heritage.

Since 1996, the British Heart Foundation has operated the Heartstart programme, which helps to train children in emergency life skills. To date, it has successfully trained more than 2.6 million people in ELS, of which more than 760,000 were children. The British Heart Foundation has found that a significant number of children who have been taught life-saving skills have had to use them in practice. Approximately one in five schools registered with Heartstart reported, in 2008, that students have used ELS in real life situations, with an average of three students in each of those schools having done so. One of my local schools, Smithills, runs the British Heart Foundation Heartstart UK scheme with the full support of the head teacher, Chris Roberts. At Smithills, ELS are taught in a variety of ways—for example, as part of physical education.

[Justin Tomlinson (North Swindon) (Con)]

I commend this fantastic speech. I raised the same subject in a Backbench Business debate recently, and I know at first hand what a difference it can make. On the specific point about PE, the actual training required is the equivalent of just one PE lesson. Therefore, while we acknowledge that the Government are trying to streamline the national curriculum, we are not asking for very much, but it can make a real difference.

[Julie Hilling]

I absolutely agree with the hon. Gentleman. He has had personal experience of the need for emergency life skills, and I am very pleased that we can work together to try to get this issue higher up the agenda.

Smithills school aims to widen the scheme so that, during the school holidays, parents and siblings are able to learn these vital skills, too. The teacher responsible, Adrian Hamilton, told me that learning how to save a life in an emergency really engages the kids. He believes that ELS go a long way towards helping them become better citizens, and that learning ELS should be an expected part of what happens in schools.

The Government talk about wanting to compare themselves internationally, but ELS are already a compulsory part of the curriculum in France, Denmark and Norway. They are included in a number of states in Australia, and in the US they are part of the curriculum in 36 of the 50 states. Seattle is supposed to be the best place in the world to have a heart attack. It is impossible to get a driving licence or graduate from school in Seattle without being able to do CPR. Imagine a situation where one is rarely more than 12 feet away from somebody who can save a life. I hear, though, that there is a down side, because it is a very bad place in which to just faint.

Schools deliver ELS in a variety of ways and settings. Commonly, pupils enjoy the lessons, which increase confidence and self-esteem, and which are particularly important for children who have special educational needs. Sheringham Woodfields, a school for children with complex needs, told the Education Public Bill Committee about the enormous sense of achievement its pupils feel when they realise that they can save a life. One of its pupils received a bravery award when he saved somebody in the Norfolk broads. One of the most telling submissions to the Public Bill Committee was from Archbishop Ilsley Catholic technology college in Birmingham, which told us that it decided to teach ELS after a parent died from a heart attack in front of his family. The school felt that something positive should come from that tragedy. St Aidan’s primary school in St Helens told us about a year 6 child who was in a restaurant with her parents and 15 other adults when her eight-year-old brother started to choke on his food. He went blue and virtually collapsed at the table. All the adults stood around not knowing what to do, but the year 6 child jumped into action, put her training into use and saved her brother’s life. If she had not been there, 15 adults might have stood by and watched a little boy die in front of them.

I do not have time to list all the things that people have told me, but a common theme is that children who were taught ELS went on to practise them and either saved the lives of family members or helped in serious situations. A couple of weeks ago, I was in a meeting with Tabitha. When Tabitha was 17, a week before the summer holidays, she ran to join her friends and teachers during a fire drill. She does not remember anything else that happened, but apparently she collapsed with heart failure. She had been born with a congenital heart condition, but no one knew about it. Fortunately, her school secretary had been taught CPR, which they administered until an emergency responder and then paramedics arrived. Tabitha made it to hospital with all of her facilities still intact. She had emergency surgery and made a full recovery. Tabitha is now a voluntary emergency responder and is working hard to get ELS taught in schools.

I also met Beth at the same meeting. Beth is the mother of Guy Evans, who sadly died at the age of 17 in 2008. Guy was riding his motorcycle when he had a sudden cardiac arrhythmia. He fell off his motorbike and laid there while his friends stood around not knowing what to do. They were told by the 999 operator not to touch him—people thought that he had had a motorbike accident. If only they had been taught emergency life skills, they would not have faced the trauma of watching their friend die and experienced the trauma of living their lives with the thought that maybe, if they had known what to do, Guy would still be alive. Beth has been campaigning ever since to get ELS into the school curriculum and into driving tests.

Cardiac arrest does not discriminate between young and old, or between gender and race—it can happen to the very fittest of us. On average, heart attacks are suffered by men in their 50s, and so should be of keen interest to many MPs in this House. On average, it takes approximately five to 10 minutes for an emergency ambulance to arrive. For every minute that passes in cardiac arrest, the chance of survival falls by 10%. CPR increases survival and prolongs the time a person remains shockable. If a defibrillator is used to administer a shock, the survival rate increases to 50%. When we watch “Casualty”, it looks as though CPR is actually the thing that makes people suddenly wake up—it is not. CPR keeps blood and oxygen pumping around the body, which means that the heart can still be shocked back into a rhythm. All the time that people are not breathing and their hearts are not pumping, parts of their body and brain are dying. CPR keeps people alive and keeps them going until they can be shocked, and until they can get to hospital.

I have been told about a mother who collapsed at the school gates. Instead of everyone standing around not knowing what to do and watching her die, children sprang into action and administered CPR. The school brought out their defibrillator, which they had purchased for £1,000, and saved the mother’s life. Just last week, 15-year-old Patrick Horrock had a heart attack in Hindley leisure centre, which is just next door to my constituency. A member of staff performed CPR and another used a defibrillator to restart his heart. Patrick is alive and well because people knew what to do and had the tools available to do it.

I had a meeting with some local firemen last week. They are Heartstart tutors and deliver classes to adults and young people in the fire station. They told me that approximately 7% of people know any first aid. Together, we are going to take ELS into local schools. They told me that two young people had been involved in saving a dog. As their reward, they were invited to the fire station for the day. The thing that those kids enjoyed most during that day was learning how to do ELS. It is something that children enjoy doing—it enhances them and gives them the confidence to save a life.

The firemen told me something that really made me think. One reason why we do not act when someone collapses is because we are scared of making things worse. Has their heart really stopped? Am I going to do them damage? The firemen told me that if a casualty stops breathing, “They are dead, and you can’t make them any deader.” That phrase resonated with me. If we do something, we may be able to save that life; if we do nothing, they are dead.

As the hon. Member for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson) has said, CPR can be taught in two hours. That is the equivalent of one PE lesson—one cross-country run, or two hours a year. That is something like 0.2% of national curriculum time. Surely we can afford that amount of time to save lives.

I will end with a statement from Abbey Hill primary and nursery school:

“A lot of our children are brought up in an extremely deprived area and are not always adequately supervised. ELS gives them the confidence to deal with an emergency, should one arise, and no adult was around...The silence in the room when the children are watching the DVD from the resource pack is remarkable! They watch it avidly and are always keen to take part in the sessions. They are also very impressed when we get the dolls out to practise resuscitation and can't believe they get to have a go on a ‘real live’ doll!”

I could say a great deal more, but I will finish. I ask the Minister to put emergency life skills in the national curriculum. If he will not, what will he do to promote the teaching of emergency life skills in schools and throughout the whole of education, in youth centres, colleges and community colleges? Will he also encourage the Government to think of other ways of embedding such skills in society, perhaps as a compulsory part of the driving test?

It is frightening to think that something like 7% of the population believe they could save a life. Many of us have done life-saving—I did it many years ago—but do not feel confident about using those skills. However, having now had less than half an hour with a dummy and looking at what to do, I now feel that I could do something—I could get that defibrillator off the wall, because instructions on exactly how to use it are written on the packet.

We need people in this country to feel confident about being able to save a life. I ask the Minister to consider that we could save 150,000 lives a year—just think how many lives that would add up to over anyone’s political career. I hope that the Government will do something—they could go down in history as a Government for saving people’s lives—and I urge them to do so.

13:11

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Tim Loughton)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Bolton West (Julie Hilling) on securing the debate. She alluded to the recent Committee stage of the Education Bill, and I have read her comments in Committee, as well as in the early-day motion and at Education Question Time. In today’s debate, she has again emphasised the importance of teaching emergency life support skills to children. She has form, for which she is to be praised. Likewise, the interventions in debate by my hon. Friend the Member for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson) have shown his great interest. I praise them both; the subject is important.

Last night, at the end of the annual general meeting of my local hospital league of friends, we had a presentation by one of the hospital heart specialists. He talked about what a difference the hospital equipment financed by the friends would make, and about the huge improvement in the survival rates of people who suffer a heart attack, because of being to deal with them at the scene of their heart attack and getting them to heart specialist hospitals much more quickly, with the availability of stents, clot-busting drugs and everything else. He recounted an emergency case he had had just yesterday: the time between someone coming through the hospital door and being given a stent was 14 minutes, fantastically within the golden hour that is so important.

Survival rates have improved enormously, but the more we can do at every stage of the process—recognising the problem, getting someone to hospital and making sure they get treatment straight away—is important in achieving further improvements in the survival rates of the many people who still have heart attacks. The subject is important.

In the hon. Lady’s work with the Select Committee on Education, she has drawn attention to some of the excellent work done by schools, such as Smithills in her constituency, which she mentioned, and by programmes such as Heartstart, run by the British Heart Foundation, and others run by organisations including the St John Ambulance. I pay tribute to both those organisations. I did an infant first aid course with St John Ambulance in my constituency some time ago, and it was an eye-opener, showing me how little I knew until I did it. The more such courses are made available, and the more people take them, the better for everyone. The hon. Lady and others are raising their profile, which is important.

I was vice-chairman of the all-party parliamentary group for cardiac risk in the young, which is another important subject that people know little about. Every week, several young, fit, healthy teenagers were dropping down dead for seemingly inexplicable reasons linked to a genetic heart condition about which they had no knowledge. The charity CRY successfully raised the profile of the problem, urging testing if relationship links increase the potential, and spreading the availability of testing. That is another important way of preventing such avoidable deaths, which cause great distress and, out of the blue, completely disrupt families.

Such initiatives not only enrich education but, as the hon. Lady said, help to engage pupils and equip them with the basic first aid skills of which all citizens should have knowledge. Regardless of whether someone is in school, there should be greater awareness and confidence, such as she gained herself, in how to administer first aid at all sorts of levels, most importantly because it can help to save lives. Things can happen anywhere, to anyone, however fit they might appear.

The hon. Lady mentioned “Casualty”; no debate on health seems to be complete without such a reference, and people can actually learn quite a bit from it, as long as they learn the right stuff. The hon. Lady is absolutely right to raise the profile of the issue, although I am not sure whether the Seattle tourist board will compliment her on marketing that fine American city as the best place to have a heart attack—but she did her bit. I applaud all those involved in this area, as well as the campaigning of the hon. Lady and others.

Whether we think about swimming and physical education, or more broadly about the curriculum, it is important that we do everything we can to ensure that life-saving and first aid skills are part of what is taught in our schools. But, I fear, I must once more disappoint the hon. Lady and her supporters. I read about her proposed amendment to the Education Bill, in which she raised the issue; she alluded to the wives of Henry VIII then, too, and the Minister of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton, said in response that had Anne Boleyn known a little more about her husband, she might not have lost her own life—an interesting response. I will not go over that debate again.

We do not believe, however, that learning emergency life skills has to be a statutory part of the national curriculum. We do not take issue with the principle or with raising the profile, and we agree that awareness for more people, in particular children, is a good thing; our problem is making it a statutory part of the national curriculum. In recent years, the national curriculum has been bent out of shape, as it has been overloaded with too many subjects and too much content, often with the best of intentions but with damaging results. At the same time, there has been too much prescription, not only about what should be taught but how it should be taught.

The Government want to restore the national curriculum to its original purpose: a core base of essential knowledge that pupils need to succeed, and which stands comparison with what pupils in various age groups learn in the nations with the best-performing education systems in the world. We want to ensure that schools have greater freedom and flexibility to teach so as to encourage more innovation and inspire pupils. Those were the express aims of the national curriculum review, which we launched in January. The review team received almost 6,000 responses to the call for evidence—the most for any education consultation—including a number of representations about the teaching of emergency life skills. I received a number of letters from my constituents on the subject, as I am sure the hon. Lady did.

I cannot pre-empt the review itself, but one of the most important objectives set by Professor Tim Oates, who is leading the review team, is to ensure that the right balance can be struck between the core national curriculum and the wider school curriculum. In all likelihood, the smaller statutory content will take up less teaching time, leaving more time for the activities, topics and subjects, including emergency life skills, that we know are also important in preparing a student for the wider world. As the hon. Lady mentioned, many schools already manage to deliver such things imaginatively and effectively, in a way that best engages their pupils.

Recent findings from the British Heart Foundation demonstrate that many parents, children and teachers want young people to learn life-saving skills at school. The non-statutory programmes of study for personal, social and health education already include teaching young people how to recognise and follow health and safety procedures, ways of reducing risk and minimising harm in risky situations, and how to use emergency and basic first aid. The internal review of PSHE that we will undertake alongside the national curriculum review will look carefully at how we can improve the quality of teaching and at how external organisations such as the British Heart Foundation can support schools to do so. That and other healthy-living issues may be delivered by outside specialist bodies in a more imaginative way that will engage kids in school so that they do not feel that it is just another lesson. I am a big fan of bringing in outside bodies to teach in a different way—outside the box and often outside the classroom.

Equally, we know that it takes only a few hours every year for pupils to learn basic resuscitation skills. I do not know whether that is 0.2% of the national curriculum time, as the hon. Member for Bolton West said, but I acknowledge that it is a small part. There would thus be plenty of room in the school day for other important subjects and activities, such as learning about healthy eating, taking part in competitive team sport, and working on projects with local businesses. Such things are important and enjoyable for pupils but, most importantly, it is for schools and teachers to decide what to teach and when to teach it. The Government believe in the professional judgment of head teachers and teachers, and we are giving them the space to exercise that judgment, and to provide a broad and enriched curriculum for their pupils.

[Julie Hilling]

I am not clear how much steer the Government are likely to give to head teachers and schools about the importance of emergency life skills. As the Minister says, under PSHE, or whatever we want to call it, an enormous range of subjects may be taught—drugs, alcohol, sex and so on. Emergency life skills are a fundamental issue of citizenship, and involve not just individuals, but society. Are the Government prepared to give head teachers a steer and to say that they should consider teaching such skills?

[Tim Loughton]

I take the hon. Lady’s point, and I think she is hearing me loud and clear. My view, which is shared by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, is that it is good if more people and pupils learn about health and life-saving skills. There are good examples of that happening in schools already, regardless of what is in the curriculum, and of schools engaging and training their pupils. When that is done, pupils enjoy it, and it is a good way of engaging them in something that is useful beyond the confines of the school. I praise all schools that are doing that, and encourage them to do more, but I also encourage more schools to take it up. We are trying to free up time in the curriculum to enable them to do what they think will most benefit their pupils. Clearly, life-saving skills are way up at the top of the priorities.

The hon. Lady knows from our previous conversations that the Government’s approach is to be less prescriptive, but to encourage schools to do such things because they are right and will benefit their pupils, the community and society at large. The problem is that in opposition and now in government e-mails, letters or comments are sent to me every day saying that X, Y or Z should be a statutory part of the national curriculum. If we took just a fraction of those suggestions on board, something would have to give. The national curriculum is already completely overloaded, and my response to all those suggestions, however worthwhile, as life-saving skills clearly are, is to ask what should be taken out of the national curriculum or diluted to make space. That is the problem.

[Justin Tomlinson]

I thank my hon. Friend for his positive comments. I have often been guilty of sending in requests, and I understand what he said about being inundated, but surely there is no greater or more important skill to equip a young person with than the ability to save someone’s life. I am sure that replacing one cross-country run a year would be welcomed across the board.

[Tim Loughton]

I sympathise with my hon. Friend’s suggestion, and I want schools to implement it, but not because an edict from Ministers says that it should be part of the national curriculum so that they think, “Where can we fit that in?” I want them to do so because it is a good thing to do, and a good way of engaging young people who might be more difficult to engage. The subject might be a good way of enticing their interest in the classroom.

During the consultation, we received proposals that the compulsory part of the national curriculum should include chess, knitting and pet care, which I am sure are all worth while. I am sure that my hon. Friend and the hon. Lady would argue that they should not have the same priority as life-saving skills, but people argue that a whole load of things should be a priority. I want schools, and heads and teachers who know their children, to have the freedom to deliver the subjects that they believe are most important and that children will most relate to and benefit from. That is what the Government are trying to do.

[Julie Hilling]

I thank the Minister for giving way yet again. He is being very generous. The Government will prescribe some parts of the national curriculum. They will prescribe the core. The hon. Member for North Swindon and I are saying that emergency life-support skills should be part of that very small core, because they are about the future, saving lives, and being a good citizen, which are all crucial. Chess, knitting and so on may be good subjects to teach, but life-saving skills are vital and could transform the United Kingdom. I do not understand why that cannot be one of the subjects in the small prescribed core.

[Tim Loughton]

The hon. Lady has answered her own question. I entirely agree about the importance of the subject, but we are trying to make the national curriculum tighter and more concise with a smaller range of subjects, giving more freedom to teachers to take on that subject, which I agree is a priority. We want a slimmer curriculum, and we do not want to add more subjects to it. However important the subject, it would add to the national curriculum.

There can be no more important training than that which allows someone to save the life of another who is injured, ill or otherwise in danger, and we must do all we can to ensure that children learn the basic skills that they might need in case of emergency. We all agree on that, but the best way is not through the academic base of knowledge that the national curriculum contains, but through the broader curriculum. Just because the skills are not specified in the national curriculum does not mean they will not and should not be taught, or that the Government are downplaying or undervaluing them. The reverse is true. I implore all schools to ensure that their pupils develop the personal and social skills they need to become responsible citizens, and to lead healthy and safe lives, and that includes being able to encourage and enable others to lead healthy and safe lives.

[Justin Tomlinson]

On the specific point about outside organisations, such as the British Heart Foundation, surely the Government could play a role in providing information so that schools can access it. When I visit my schools, they agree that it is a good scheme to take up, but do not necessarily know how to do so. Perhaps the Government could be proactive in encouraging that.

[Tim Loughton]

That is the point that I intended to end on. It is a fair and practical solution. We are not proposing to make the subject, along with pet care, knitting, chess and thousands of other helpful suggestions, part of the core national curriculum, but there are other things we can do. The hon. Member for Bolton West asked me to look at other ways of promoting the subject, and we will do so, for example, by asking individual MPs and Ministers to go into schools and ask what they are doing to teach first aid, and whether they are part of a local appeal to install a defibrillator in the town centre, and are ensuring that their children know how to use it. We can also send strong messages in our work on the PSHE review.

I think the hon. Lady suspected that we would not be able to deliver her request today, but that in no way downplays the importance of the issue that she has rightly and usefully raised. There are many other ways of promoting the subject to ensure that we have a far better educated and engaged population in our schools who will take on those skills because they want to, because it is the right thing to do, and because they will all benefit.

Stonnall Road, Aldridge

Tuesday 7th June 2011 Westminster Hall

13:29

[Mr Richard Shepherd (Aldridge-Brownhills) (Con)]

First, I want to thank the Minister for meeting me yesterday, together with Mike Flower who is a local councillor from Aldridge and represents the views of councillors in that area. This debate is on a subject that is uncomfortable for most elected Members of Parliament, and for the public at large, who are the one ingredient that always seem to be overlooked in such discussions.

On Monday 4 March, a resident of what is still referred to as the bail hostel in Stonnall road came to my surgery. Although I had never met him, he was known to me. A couple of years previously, his partner had sought to have this individual moved from a distant prison well outside the west midlands. He is a convicted paedophile, and as the single mother of a small child, she found it difficult to make arrangements for child care to enable her to exercise her visiting rights. I wrote to the prison authorities, and the individual in question was moved.

A while later in June 2009, his partner approached me again. It transpired that the prison authorities had withdrawn visiting rights for his very young daughter, and subsequently stopped telephone calls. I had not understood that the partner wished to enable her daughter to have continuing visiting rights, and I was concerned. My office spoke to the prison, which explained that it had withdrawn visits and telephone calls as they thought that the man might possibly be grooming his child. The purpose of his visit to my surgery in March was to see whether I could help him re-establish contact with his daughter. I said that I could not, and the visit greatly disturbed me.

The probation service placed this man in a hostel less than two miles from the child whom the prison authorities suspected him of grooming—I have said, Mr Hancock, that this would be an uncomfortable debate. My anxieties about the case led me into correspondence with the Staffordshire and west midlands probation authorities. I also notified those councillors who were actively involved in managing the concerns of local people and trying to establish the closure, or removal, of the hostel.

The site was originally a Barnardo’s children’s home that offered secure premises for children with difficulties. Councillors Anthony Harris, Keith Sears and Mike Flower have written a letter to the Minister, and I shall read a couple of passages:

“The journey for the site currently designated as an Approved Premise on Stonnall Road has been a troubled one. The site has changed from being a Barnado’s Children’s Home caring for children to being an Approved Premise housing sex offenders. It is a journey of secrecy, deceit, judicial defeat and change of use by stealth. It stands as the polar opposite of the localism and transparency agenda being championed by the coalition Government. Now is the time for the new Government to re-evaluate the status of Stonnall Road Approved Premises and correct a long-standing historical wrong.

The Approved Premise has never been through the democratic processes of planning consent and therefore does not have a democratic mandate. Originally, to change from being a Children’s Home to use as a Bail Hostel, it was deemed not to require change of use in planning terms as there was no material change in its use—”

that dogs the history of those premises across the past 20 years—

“yet since that decision the building has moved from housing children in need to sexual offenders released on licence. This is unacceptable in a democracy and is a change of material use by stealth, contradicting the very spirit of planning laws and local engagement.”

In January 1995, the extension application to add yet more places to what was still a bail hostel was refused by Walsall council on the grounds that

“The residents of the area and adjoining properties now experience severe problems and material problems and incidents arising from the existing use of the premises, which are incompatible with the surrounding residential area. The further expansion of a use which, in the considered view of the local planning authority, is unsuitable for that area has the potential to further exacerbate these problems, to the detriment of the amenities which local residents could reasonably be expected to enjoy.”

The letter from the councillors continues:

“At no point has the community ever had a say on what this building should be used for and people have watched powerlessly as the use of the building has materially changed. This venture into the planning process proved on three levels—”

that refers to the High Court judgment and the defeat of the probation service’s appeal against the planning application—

“that the Bail Hostel was having a detrimental impact on the local community—the case paperwork proves this locality is inappropriate despite denial from the Probation Service. Why have the Ministry of Justice and West Midlands Probation Trust dismissed the view that the facility has a detrimental impact on the local community?

If this wasn’t evidence enough, the sad cases of criminal behaviour caused on occasion by residents of the Approved Premises has further proven that it is a very real risk to the public it is meant to protect, and a problem for our community. Local head teachers, who have experienced some residents engaging in illegal activity around their primary schools (later convicted in court), agree with us that this is inappropriately located and that the type of offender placed in this location is unacceptable.”

They wrote to the Minister:

“You will be aware that the Bail Hostel was turned into an Approved Premises by decree of the Secretary of State under the last Labour Government. The Ministry of Justice has confirmed in writing, in an email from Sean Langley to Councillor Mike Flower, that no process was undertaken and that no process is outlined by law. We believe that this is therefore a breach of natural justice on the following grounds.”

They gave three grounds. First:

“A person must be allowed an adequate opportunity to present their case where certain interests and rights may be adversely affected by a decision-maker.”

Secondly:

“No one ought to be judge in his or her case. This is the requirement that the deciding authority must be unbiased when according the hearing or making the decision.

As the Ministry of Justice contracts the Probation Service to allow Approved Premises to house offenders released from prison, is it not a conflict of interests if the same body decides where and who these places are?”

Thirdly:

“Administrative decision making must be based upon logical proof or evidence material. Evidence presented by one party must be disclosed to the other party, who may then subject it to scrutiny.”

That question of scrutiny will return again and again.

“The Ministry of Justice does not have a process for approving Approved Premises and therefore no proof or evidence has been considered. No evidence has ever been presented or disclosed to the community or their representatives for scrutiny.”

They asked the Minister—as do I—to explain

“how the decision to designate Stonnall Road as an Approved Premises met the principles of natural justice and the Wednesbury principles? We would be grateful to see a copy of the paperwork that officially designated Stonnall Road as an Approved Premise. We’d also like to know what weight was given by Ministers to the past planning and Court judgements as referred to above.”

The councillors expressed their immediate concerns:

“Whilst elected councillors remain resolved in our aim to close Stonnall Road Approved Premises there are a number of practical issues we also wish to raise on restricting the admissions policy and in building trust and scrutiny with the community and their democratically elected representatives.”

They then go into the case of the individual under discussion, and want to know how many sexual offenders are currently resident in the hostel. They asked:

“How many have been recalled to prison since the Hostel/Approved Premise were opened? How many offenders have been convicted of crimes committed during their stay at Stonnall Road and what crimes were they convicted of?

Regarding MAPPA”—

the multi-agency public protection arrangements—

“Who audits MAPPA to ensure the risks they are calculating and managing are reasonable?”

Very importantly, the councillors ask:

“Who are the lay assessors on MAPPA charged with representing the views of the local community, how were they chosen and why are elected representatives not informed?”

The councillors also want to know about the admissions policy:

“We request a copy of the admissions policy for Stonnall Road Approved Premises and ask that it be made public.

There is a Ministerially imposed restriction on admission policy at Bunbury House in Ellesmere port, Cheshire that excludes the residence of offenders who have committed any sexual offence against a child under 16. We request that Ministers consider and impose the same restriction on Stonnall Road”.

They also request other things in their submission to the Minister.

I verify almost everything that the councillors say in that letter. It has been a frustrating and long journey to try to wake up the probation service to a judgment that it took by deceit—that is what the councillors call it. The reason why I say “by deceit” in the end is the frustration of this. I raised a previous debate in the House of Commons on the nature of this hostel. I said that Miss Macdonald, who was the assistant chief probation officer for properties—buildings—had made a statement to the planning committees. I am not going to find the quote immediately, but the substance of what she said was that the magistrates had supported the bail hostel being placed in the former Dr Barnardo’s property.

This is what the then Home Secretary said:

“My officials are unable to find any papers to support your comment that the West Midlands Probation Service ‘misinformed local Councillors and residents as to the specific support of the Aldridge Magistrates for the location of the hostel in Stonnall Road’”.

It was not the Aldridge magistrates; it was the Walsall magistrates, and I had an exchange of correspondence on that very subject.

The Stonnall Road bail hostel came into being because the then acting head of residential services in west midlands probation service assured elected members of Walsall metropolitan borough council at a planning meeting in September 1989 that

“Walsall and Aldridge Magistrates were in favour of the proposed bail hostel in Stonnall Road”.

It subsequently transpired from my inquiries with the clerk to the magistrates, Edward Jones, barrister, in the course of an application to increase the size of the hostel in 1995, that the chairman of the magistrates had written that

“it has never been the policy of the Bench to comment upon the location of the facilities required by the Walsall district Probation Service.”

Mr Jones in his reply said:

“Once you have studied this correspondence you may be of the same opinion as I am that Mr. Baker’s response was misquoted by Miss Macdonald in the meeting before the Planning Committee.”

That application was refused by the planning inspectorate, as I have said, and that decision was upheld by the judgment of the High Court.

In the years since, the hostel has caused, as the councillors say, much concern to local residents, the head teachers of two primary schools and their elected representatives. We have come to believe that the bail hostel houses convicted offenders released on licence—a fact that was finally confirmed by the probation service in a letter to me dated April 1999. It stated:

“The Stonnall Road Hostel was opened and run as a provision for bail residents only. Since 1995 however, it has been the policy of the West Midlands Probation Committee that the hostel could also be used for men subject to Probation Orders, or on Licence after a prison sentence. I apologise if that change was never communicated directly to you.”

Despite my recent correspondence with the probation service, this latest case seems to me to fly in the face of its assurances that the Stonnall Road approved premise was the most suitable location for the sort of man whom I have brought to the attention both of the director of social services in Walsall and, with much difficulty, of the principal officers of the probation service in the west midlands and Staffordshire. They have assured me that this man offends only against children he has groomed and within the family. It was on that point that the director of social services, whose operation is of course part of MAPPA, wrote to the west midlands probation service. MAPPA had conducted two reviews, both confirming the original decision, in the knowledge that I was concerned and that the director of social services was also concerned. At the moment, the man has been moved from the Stonnall Road bail hostel, but there is no agreement that he could not be returned to those premises.

The probation service wrote back to the director of social services. I understand from councillors that that was not a very happy letter, and I understand that the Minister would use the phrase “outside the envelope”, yet these very probation officers have referred to councillors as part of the process—they are involved in it. Now, there is rage. I would not want anything to happen to the director of our social services, who was also concerned as to why the case of a child who was possibly being groomed by an inmate of Stonnall Road should not be examined with the closest possible attention to the implications for that child. How is it that this organisation does not have to come back and justify why it is convinced that the most secure arrangements are within 1.8 miles of the child?

The fear of the probation service is that the name of the man will leak. I have here letters that ask that the name not be leaked. The first is from Dr Gerard Bates, director of operations. He says:

“If his surname enters the public domain, then the most likely consequence would be the identification of previous victims and other relatives including a young child and his very elderly and vulnerable mother. This would cause severe distress and could compromise safeguarding arrangements.”

I have no doubt that that is absolutely true, and no one has put into the public domain this person’s name, but the very fact that people have to write that indicates to me the possible insecurity of the location in respect of this individual. Mr Maiden wrote to me on 3 June in anticipation of this debate. He says:

“A primary concern of all involved is that the families”—

notice that it is families, plural—

“connected with the offender are not identified and, given his…name, this is likely to occur should the information enter the public domain.”

Those people know that this name is such that that child was at risk, either through the man’s activities or proclivities or through the name leaking into the public domain.

We can go round this again, as I have so many times with the probation service, but at the heart of it is the continual denial in respect of a small unit that accommodates 12 people, for which the probation service sought an extension far beyond anything that people were told by Miss Macdonald. The planning authorities are alarmed and concerned that this could happen. However, we are also mindful of the fact that there are 2,100 such people in this country and that there are inadequate places for them. That is why, having seized on an opportunity 20 years ago, those involved have now moved to create this nightmare in a local community of small houses—that is described by the inspectorate and understood by the community at large. We are talking about open, vulnerable, small spaces, local schools with small children and a major secondary school. All those children are under the age of 18, and if this man’s proclivities and interests extend beyond just members of his family—who is god enough to say that that is his only interest?—every one of those children will be at risk.

13:50

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Crispin Blunt)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr Shepherd) for raising this important subject. The security of our citizens is the first priority of any Government, and public protection is a central responsibility of the Ministry of Justice.

I hope that I can demonstrate to my hon. Friend and the House that we take our obligations in this respect extremely seriously and that our arrangements for managing dangerous offenders in the community are robust and effective. Approved premises, including Stonnall Road, raise challenging questions about how the criminal justice system deals with its most serious offenders, but the view of successive Governments has been that such premises are an important part of those arrangements and ultimately perform a critical role in keeping communities safe.

As my hon. Friend said, it was my pleasure to meet him and Councillor Mike Flower yesterday. If my remarks do not answer in full the letter that my hon. Friend drew on in his speech, he will, of course, receive a full reply later.

I share my hon. Friend’s revulsion at the offences committed by the offender, whose case led my hon. Friend to secure the debate. However, the offender has now served the custodial part of his sentence, and our priority, as with all offenders, must be appropriately to protect the public from future offences. That can mean difficult decisions being taken by the agencies involved and overriding the wishes of those who have committed no offence, and my hon. Friend alluded to that. Tragically, it is not possible to eliminate entirely the possibility that a known offender will go on to commit further crimes—in some cases, serious ones—but the Government are committed to doing all that we can to ensure that the risk of an offender causing harm is managed effectively and robustly in the wider interests of us all.

The main topics that my hon. Friend raised were the multi-agency public protection arrangements and the approved premises in Stonnall road. MAPPA and approved premises are two of the key measures that the statutory agencies use effectively to manage offenders who are known on account of their previous offending to present an ongoing risk of harm. I was going to speak in some detail about MAPPA, but I suspect that my hon. Friend would prefer me to address more directly the issues raised by Stonnall Road in the time available. All that I would say about MAPPA is that the arrangements are being validated by studies and are at the leading edge of international practice in managing serious offenders. We will continue to make sure that we improve and develop our practices, but the United Kingdom is well served by the arrangements that we have.

I turn now to the approved premises in Stonnall road, in my hon. Friend’s constituency. I am aware, not least as a result of yesterday’s meeting, that there has been some local opposition to the approved premises over the years, and my hon. Friend laid out how long the issue has been around. However, those premises, along with others in England and Wales, must be understood in the context of a system-wide approach to the effective management of risk, so it might help if I explain briefly what approved premises do.

There are 100 approved premises in England and Wales, with a total of about 2,200 beds. They are the places that our most serious offenders go to when they are released on licence from prison, having served the custodial part of their sentences. Approved premises have 24-hour staffing and a structured regime, including overnight curfew. The principal aim of approved premises is to ensure that offenders are effectively supervised and monitored during the critical period immediately after release. During that period, the supervising agencies can best gauge how successful work in prison has been in addressing the underlying causes of an offender’s behaviour.

For certain offenders, such as child sex offenders, compliance with the restrictions in their licences, such as daytime reporting and exclusion from places such as schools or parks, can be more closely monitored in approved premises than if they are dispersed into alternative accommodation in the community. Residents in approved premises must take part in purposeful activity and in programmes designed to address their offending behaviour and to reduce reoffending. In addition, they are subject to drug and alcohol testing and are monitored on the premises by CCTV. Where the risk assessment deems it necessary, offenders can be escorted by a member of staff when they leave the approved premises.

The system is all about managing the risk posed by people who, having served their time in prison, are being returned to the community. If they remain a threat, approved premises are the best chance the system has to pick up their offending behaviour and to subject them, if necessary, to recall to prison. Staff working in approved premises are trained in risk assessment and to look for the telltale signs of risky behaviour. They work closely with offender managers and local police through MAPPA. They have daily contact with residents, so they are often the eyes and ears through which vital intelligence can be passed to other agencies. The whole idea is to monitor certain high-risk offenders much more closely than would otherwise be possible precisely, so that action can be taken promptly without the need to wait for a fresh offence to be committed.

Broadly speaking, the system is effective. Clearly, there will always be cases that slip through the net—risk can never be eliminated entirely—and each such case is one too many, but the available data show that offending rates for those held in approved premises are much better than for those who are not. In the last full year for which data are available, about 0.3% of residents were charged with a serious further offence. In addition, in many cases, prompt action is taken to recall offenders to custody before they can commit further offences.

The challenge is that communities where approved premises are situated understandably have concerns about being near offenders, especially those who have previously committed serious crimes and sexual offences. I hear and entirely understand my hon. Friend’s concerns that people are unhappy when they find they are living near somewhere where those who have done dreadful things are temporarily housed.

However, the alternative to offenders living in approved premises is not that they stay in prison. These people have been released from prison because they have served their custodial terms and they must be accommodated somewhere in the community. If they were not in approved premises, they would be somewhere else—somewhere less controlled and less suitable. The result would not be that there were no sex offenders in the community. Rather, there would still be sex offenders in the community, but not so obviously, so it would be much more difficult to provide effective supervision for them.

In the past, when we did not use approved premises as we do now, serious offenders leaving jail were much less effectively supervised. Too often, that included them being put in temporary accommodation, such as bed and breakfasts, alongside some of our most vulnerable families. Tackling that situation was the right thing to do.

My hon. Friend raised concerns about whether these approved premises are in the right place and about its history, so let me say clearly that the safety of the public is our first concern. Clearly, offenders returning to the community must go somewhere, but every offender is placed in every approved premises with a proper individual risk assessment.

Where any offender under statutory probation supervision, including one residing in an approved premises, is charged with a serious further offence, the supervising probation trust is required to undertake a rigorous review of the management of the case, but that was not the case in the circumstances that my hon. Friend raised. He told us that Walsall children’s services, no doubt prompted by his inquiry, became concerned that an individual was at risk. The director of children’s services wrote to the agencies involved and copied that letter to my hon. Friend and local councillors before there was a chance to review the case formally through MAPPA. She was clearly concerned that prompt action needed to be taken, and I am happy to look at the circumstances of the case to understand what happened. However, it is obviously of some satisfaction that necessary action was taken. The substantive result was that the offender was moved to another approved premises in the west midlands probation trust area, and no offence has been committed.

My hon. Friend may believe that the MAPPA process must have fallen short if the director had to behave in that way—

[Mr Mike Hancock (in the Chair)]

Order. I am sorry, Minister, but I have to interrupt you, because time has caught up with us.

14:00

Sitting adjourned without Question put (Standing Order No. 10(11)).

Written Ministerial Statements

Tuesday 7th June 2011 Written Statements

Tuesday 7 June 2011

EU Formal Competitiveness Council (30-31 May 2011)

Tuesday 7th June 2011 Written Statements

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills (Mr Edward Davey)]

The EU Competitive Council took place in Brussels on 30-31 May 2011. I represented the UK on EU internal market and industry issues on 30 May and the Minister for Universities and Science represented the UK on research and space issues.

On the first day, the Council discussed several issues directly relevant to the Prime Minister’s EU growth initiative. It discussed the Commission’s Single Market Act and issued a set of conclusions. There was a robust debate, in which a number of member states, including the UK, made the case for the conclusions to better reflect spring European Council language on open trade, services and reducing regulatory burden. Agreement was reached after the presidency tabled a number of compromise texts.

The Council also agreed a position on a proposal to revise the EU’s main accounting directive. The UK welcomed the fact that this will lighten administrative burdens on small firms (those with less than 10 employees). I believe this is a significant agreement, and perhaps the first example of ex-post exemption from existing EU regulation for very small companies.

An attempt to agree a proposal for a Council regulation on a European private company was made but none was reached. The Council also discussed the unitary patent (formerly known as the Community patent). An extra Council is now scheduled for 27 June to agree a general approach on the regulations for establishing a European unitary patent.

Member states agreed the Council’s conclusions tabled on smart regulation. While the UK continues to believe there is scope for much greater ambition in this area, we welcomed developments to lighten smaller company burdens and the Council commitment to conduct impact assessments on its own amendments. At the ministerial lunchtime discussion of administrative burdens, all member states supported the idea of exemptions for micro-entities and special treatment for small to medium enterprises (SMEs) in upcoming regulations.

The Commission welcomed the fact that member states have appointed so-called SME envoys to take forward national implementation of the to the EU’s Small Business Act. Points of any other business were a report held by Malta on the Euro-Med conference on 11 May and an outline by Poland on its presidency priorities.

On the second day of the Council, Ministers received updated progress on negotiations for the Euratom (European Atomic Energy Framework Community) framework programme 2012-13 legislation. The UK supported the presidency’s work to date to reach agreement on the legislation, and noted agreement would be needed shortly to ensure financial security for the ITER (International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor) and JET (Joint European Torus) programmes in 2012.

Some delegations, including the UK, suggested that the presidency could aim for political agreement on the Euratom decision at the extraordinary Competitiveness Council on 27 June. The Commissioner provided an update at the UK’s request on a separate proposal to find an additional €1.3 billion from the EU budget for ITER in 2012-13. Negotiations continue in the Council and European Parliament.

Over lunch Ministers discussed links between the future structural and cohesion funds and the EU’s common strategic framework for research and innovation. All agreed that research and development funding under the current structural and cohesion funds had a key role to play in building scientific capacity in Europe and it was generally acknowledged the successor to this programme should have distinct but complementary policy objectives to the successor to the excellence-focused research framework programme. Ideally, management processes between the two would be more closely aligned.

The Council adopted conclusions on the Eurostars and ambient assisted living programmes which combine EU and national funding to support R and D carried out by SMEs and R and D into technology for elderly people respectively, and on European research area governance. Under any other business the Commission supplied information on the European Research Council, Artemis and Eniac joint technology initiatives, the European Institute of Innovation and Technology plus a follow up to the Green Paper on the future of EU R and D funding. The presidency also reported on the recent informal Competitiveness Council in Godollo, Hungary.

On EU space policy the Council adopted conclusions and agreed that Galileo satellite navigation and global monitoring for environment and security programmes (GMES) should remain priorities. The UK supported the need to prioritise these programmes and welcomed Commission efforts at containing costs on Galileo, calling for cost effectiveness of new EU space situational awareness programmes and saying the Ariane programmes should remain projects developed by the European Space Agency and not be funded by the EU. The UK also noted the potential of EU involvement in a Mars sample return mission for European science and industry.

Council conclusions were adopted with minor changes to the presidency’s draft, such as amendments on GMES data policy calling for “free of charge access to certain public data and services” and removal of the Commission acknowledgement of the need for independent access to space for Europe.

Money Laundering Regulations

Tuesday 7th June 2011 Written Statements

[The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr Mark Hoban)]

Today the Government are publishing their response to the review of the money laundering regulations, copies of which have been placed in the Libraries of both Houses. This includes proposals for consultation and a request for information on the costs and benefits of these proposals to inform robust analysis and ensure they will make the regulations more effective and proportionate. This follows a review by the Regulatory Policy Committee and approval from the Cabinet Reducing Regulation sub-Committee.

There has been an extensive period of engagement with industry, supervisors, law enforcement, business customers, private individuals and across Government. While I have concluded that the regulations and their implementation are broadly effective and proportionate in practice, more needs to be done.

Businesses are overly focused on process and I want to strengthen the risk-based approach provided for in the regulations, in order to ensure they are as effective as they can be in helping to prevent and detect money laundering and terrorist finance.

Through this response and the proposals for consultation it includes, I want to give businesses the confidence to adopt policies and procedures that reflect their own assessment of risk. To help achieve this, I am consulting on removing the criminal penalties in the regulations. Those responsible within businesses should not be applying the same requirements to all customers regardless of the level of risk they present because of a fear of prison if they get it wrong.

In addition to proposing changes to the regulations, my officials will be working to strengthen the risk-based approach in a number of other ways from the development of global standards by the financial action taskforce to working with the supervisors and providing further support for industry guidance in the UK.

The consultation closes on 30 August, after which changes to the regulations will be finalised and proposed with a view to them taking effect during 2012.

Schedule 7 to Counter-Terrorism Act 2008 (Annual Report to Parliament)

Tuesday 7th June 2011 Written Statements

[The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr Mark Hoban)]

This report sets out details of the Treasury’s exercise during the calendar year 2010 of their functions under schedule 7 to the Counter-Terrorism Act 2008. Paragraph 38 of schedule 7 requires the Treasury to report to Parliament after each calendar year in which a direction under the powers is at any time in force.

The schedule 7 powers

Schedule 7 provides HM Treasury with powers to implement a graduated range of financial restrictions in response to certain risks to the UK’s national interests. The risks it addresses are those posed by money laundering, terrorist financing, and the proliferation of chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear weapons.

Direction given under the powers in schedule 7

The Iran (Financial Restrictions) Order 2009 (“the Order”) came into force on 12 October 2009. The order contained a direction by HM Treasury requiring persons operating in the financial sector to cease business relationships and transactions with Bank Mellat and Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines (“IRISL”).

The direction was given on the basis that activity in Iran that facilitates the development or production of nuclear weapons poses a significant risk to the national interests of the UK. Bank Mellat had provided banking services to a UN proscribed organisation connected to Iran’s proliferation sensitive activities, and been involved in transactions related to financing Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile programmes. Vessels of IRISL have transported goods for both Iran’s ballistic missile and nuclear programmes.

The order was approved by the House of Commons on 28 October 2009 and by the House of Lords on 2 November 2009.

The direction was in force for a period of 12 months from the day on which the order was made, and expired on 9 October 2010, in accordance with paragraph 16 of schedule 7. A further direction was not given on its expiry because the European Council, in Decision 2010/413/CFSP of 26 July 2010 (“the Council Decision”) had imposed restrictive measures against Iran, including designating both Bank Mellat and IRISL (among other entities) for an asset-freeze.

The asset-freezing provisions of the Council decision were implemented by Council Implementing Regulation (EU) No 668/2010 on 26 July 2010. The effect of the designation is that all funds and economic resources owned or controlled by Bank Mellat or IRISL in the EU were frozen with immediate effect, and it is prohibited to make funds or economic resources available to either entity. On 27 October 2010 Council Regulation (EU) 961/2010 came into force, implementing the additional financial restrictions contained in the Council decision, including a ban on providing insurance to Iranian persons.

Bank Mellat challenged the order in November 2009. The order was upheld by the High Court on 11 June 2010. Bank Mellat appealed to the Court of Appeal, which dismissed the appeal on 13 January 2011. Bank Mellat have been granted permission to appeal to the Supreme Court.

IRISL also challenged the order in early 2010. In March 2011 IRISL withdrew their challenge (which had been stayed pending the outcome of proceedings in the Commercial Court).

Licensing

Under paragraph 17 of schedule 7, the Treasury can exempt acts specified in a licence from the requirements of a direction requiring the cessation or limiting of transactions or business relations.

In operating the licensing regime in respect of the order, the Treasury’s aim was to minimise the impact of the restrictions upon innocent third parties, without compromising the objective of the direction. Licences were considered on a case-by-case basis.

The Treasury issued three general licences:

General licence 1 concerned the holding of accounts and funds of designated persons;

General licence 2 concerned payments to designated persons due under prior contracts; and

General licence 3 provided a seven-day grace period for the provision of insurance to designated persons, after which the prohibitions would apply.

Applications were made to the Treasury on a case-by-case basis for Acts not covered by any of the general licences. Between 12 October 2009 and 9 October 2010, 135 licence applications were received. Of these, 101 licences were granted and five applications were refused. The other 29 applications were either duplicate applications or for acts that did not require a licence.

Department's Work (Whitsun Recess 2011)

Tuesday 7th June 2011 Written Statements

[The Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Mr Eric Pickles)]

I would like to update hon. Members on the main items of business undertaken by my Department since the House rose on 24 May 2011.

Accountability

In August 2010, I announced plans to disband the Audit Commission and refocus audit on helping local people hold their council to account. Since then we have been examining the most cost-effective option for disbanding the Audit Commission, transferring audit into the private sector and allowing local authorities to appoint their own auditors.

On 2 June 2011, we provided an update on plans to secure a value-for-money transfer of the Audit Commission in-house practice into the private sector. In a letter from the Department’s permanent secretary to councils, we set out our initial view that outsourcing all the audits currently undertaken by the in-house practice to the private sector provides the best value-for-money option. We have asked the Audit Commission to begin substantive preparatory work for outsourcing the 2012-13 audits and to design a procurement process that allows a range of firms to bid, including allowing for the possibility of an employee-owned mutual. These measures set in train our goal to radically scale back centrally driven bureaucratic targets and costly inspection, saving the taxpayers money.

Transparency

The Department is continuing its commitment to deliver transparent and open Government, using transparency to help reduce unnecessary spending and help get more for less. On 1 June, we published historic details of the Department’s Government procurement card from 2008 to date, including all spending on the corporate charge cards—not just over £500. A copy of the dataset is in the Library of the House.

Promoting Growth

This Government want to create a new generation of enterprise zones across England that will encourage new business and stimulate growth. Following the announcement of the first 11 vanguard enterprise zones, on 27 May, I opened up the competition for the second wave of applications. Criteria and application forms have been issued to the 29 existing or prospective local enterprise partnerships that have expressed interest in establishing one of the next 10 enterprise zones. Applications will be assessed against their ability to deliver growth, the value for money they deliver and the robustness of implementation plans to ensure that the best possible sites are selected.

House building is a top priority for this Government and we believe that bureaucratic regional strategies slowed down the planning system and acted as an unnecessary impediment to growth. On 27 May, CALA Homes lost its second challenge against the Government’s intention to revoke regional strategies, first announced in July 2010. The Court of Appeal confirmed that planning authorities and inspectors can take our intention to abolish regional strategies into consideration in deciding planning applications and appeals.

The public sector owns 16,000 hectares of previously developed land. In the Chancellor’s “Plan for Growth” published alongside Budget 2011, we committed to accelerate the release of this land to encourage development. Work undertaken since March shows that by pushing harder we can unlock land to deliver up to 100,000 homes—and as many as 25,000 jobs by 2015. We are publishing the Homes and Communities Agency’s land disposal strategy, and this will deliver over 11,000 housing starts over the spending review period—an increase of nearly 40% over what was previously planned.

The Minister for Housing and Local Government has set out how we can get this asset working harder for us—supporting local growth and the construction industry and building more badly needed homes. And this autumn, Government Departments will publish plans to release thousands of acres of land to house builders, so they can get on and build the homes the country needs and raise revenue for the Exchequer.

Power to communities

My Department believes that communities should have the power to shape their neighbourhoods.

On 1 June, my colleague, the Minister with responsibility for decentralisation and planning, my right hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark) announced a further 40 communities to join the 50 already taking part in trialling the neighbourhood planning rights being introduced in the Localism Bill. Each of the 40 neighbourhood planning front-runners will receive £20,000 towards developing their plans and will be led by local authorities, working with community groups and parish councils to prepare draft plans and neighbourhood development orders.

On 2 June, my colleague, the Minister for Housing and Local Government, launched new guidelines on the community right to build. The guidelines offer information to communities considering taking forward a community-led scheme using the new power being introduced in the Localism Bill and encourage people to think about the development they would like to see in their area.

Auschwitz-Birkenau Foundation fund

Auschwitz-Birkenau is an important place of remembrance; it is our collective responsibility to ensure that it stands as a perpetual reminder of the pain and destructive force of hate. On 26 May, together with the Foreign Secretary, we announced a £2.1 million Government contribution to the Auschwitz-Birkenau Foundation fund to help ensure the lessons of Auschwitz live on for generations to come. The money will be used to ensure the long-term preservation and restoration of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp and its important place in educating people of the horrors of the Holocaust.

Horserace Totalisator Board (The Tote)

Tuesday 7th June 2011 Written Statements

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport (John Penrose)]

In my written ministerial statement of 31 January 2011, Official Report, column 28WS I said that the Government expected to be in a position to provide the House with a further update in the spring on the process for resolving the future of the Tote.

I am now able to inform the House that, after a thorough, fair and open process, the Government entered into a legally binding agreement to dispose of their interest in the Tote’s successor company to Betfred on 3 June 2011 for a total consideration of £265 million. This is an excellent price, and fulfils commitments made in Budgets 2010 and 2011 to resolve the future of the Tote by June 2011. The Government strongly believe that the terms of the sale, which include important commitments by Betfred both to racing and to staff, provide an excellent outcome for the key stakeholders, and also for the taxpayer.

As I said in my statement of 31 January the Government will also honour the commitment of the previous Government to share 50% of the net cash proceeds of the sale with racing. This amounts to over £90 million and will be made available over a number of years, reflecting the broader fiscal position and the need to spend the funds in a manner consistent with EU state aid rules. The Government will pay interest on the outstanding balance, as appropriate, in the normal way.

The Government now look forward to working closely with racing to discuss the detail and to design appropriate arrangements.

The Government expect to complete the sale after the conclusion of a four to eight-week TUPE consultation and wider information sharing process with employees of the Tote. The final consideration will be subject to a technical, market standard adjustment (upwards or downwards) after completion to reflect the actual level of net debt and working capital on the Tote’s balance sheet on the day the transaction completed.

Arm's Length Body Reform

Tuesday 7th June 2011 Written Statements

[The Secretary of State for Education (Michael Gove)]

I am committed to improving the transparency, accountability and efficiency of the education system, including slimming down the number of arm’s length bodies. This will allow more resource to be directed to the front line, where it matters most, and enable people to see more clearly who is accountable for what and to speak more directly to Government.

Partnerships for Schools (PfS) will be wound up and its functions transferred to the Department for Education policy directorates and the new Education Funding Agency (EFA), an executive agency of the Department. My intention is that this will happen in April 2012.

Following Sebastian James’s proposals for a new system for managing capital expenditure and the wider reform of arm’s length bodies, I have decided the time is right to bring together, in a single agency, the allocation and management of revenue and capital funding, including the delivery of capital programmes.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank Partnerships for Schools for its excellent work over the years. In particular, I am grateful for its support and advice on academies and free schools, contributing to the success of these priority reforms for the coalition Government.

I can also confirm that the post of chief executive of the Education Funding Agency will be filled by Peter Lauener, transferring from his current role as chief executive of the Young People’s Learning Agency subject to the passage of the legislation necessary to dissolve that organisation. The Education Funding Agency will take over responsibility from the Young People’s Learning Agency for the funding of young people’s education and training—including the increasing number of academies. Peter’s leadership of the Young People’s Learning Agency, since its inception, has made an invaluable contribution to the success of that organisation and I expect that he will make a similar contribution to the work of the Education Funding Agency.

Commercialisation and Sexualisation of Childhood (Independent Review)

Tuesday 7th June 2011 Written Statements

[The Minister of State, Department for Education (Sarah Teather)]

It is natural for parents to want the best for their children. It is just as natural for them to want to do what they can to protect their children from the potential risks to their health, happiness and safety. Among the concerns that parents have is that their children are under the twin pressures to grow up too quickly and to become consumers or sexualised adults earlier than is appropriate. These pressures on children today are greater than they were for previous generations. They reach children through all forms of popular culture, including television, film, magazines, newspapers, music and the internet. Children and young people encounter them in their homes, when they go shopping or out with friends and family, and on their mobile phones and games consoles.

This Government share the concerns of parents about these pressures. On 6 December 2010 the Government asked Mr Reg Bailey, chief executive of the Mothers’ Union, to carry out an independent review of the commercialisation and sexualisation of childhood. His review is the first step in fulfilling the commitment we made to take action to protect children from excessive commercialisation and premature sexualisation.

I am now pleased to announce that Mr Bailey’s review, “Letting Children Be Children”, was published yesterday. Copies will be placed in the Libraries of both Houses.

Mr Bailey has made a full and comprehensive report and fulfilled the remit he was given. He has built on the important work of other reviewers in this area, notably those of Professor David Buckingham and colleagues, and others by Professor Tanya Byron and Dr Linda Papadopoulos, and drawn on a review of more recent literature on the topic carried out by Dr Ann Phoenix of the Childhood Wellbeing Research Centre.

Mr Bailey has been particularly interested in hearing the views of the people most affected by the unwarranted pressures to grow up too quickly: parents and children. The review commissioned face-to-face surveys of the views of parents and children and qualitative research with parents, undertook a call for evidence from parents, and drew on the results of a survey of children and young people carried out by the Children and Young People’s Advisory Board of the office of the Children’s Commissioner.

In the course of his review Mr Bailey met representatives from retailing, advertising, marketing, broadcasting and internet service providers, their trade associations and their regulators. The call for evidence from industry and wider stakeholders drew 120 responses from businesses, trade associations and voluntary organisations. Mr Bailey also met experts in child protection, parenting champions and a range of academic and other experts in this field.

The voices of parents and children come through strongly in the four key themes identified in his report. Children and young people today are surrounded by sexualised imagery that has become an all-pervasive, ever-present backdrop to their lives, whether on television, the internet, in shops or public spaces. Parents find that goods and services for children in reputable high street shops are sometimes overly sexualised or needlessly gendered. Businesses in the children’s market too often treat children only as consumers and not as children. Parents find it hard to voice their concerns or make a complaint and fear they will not be listened to if they do.

Mr Bailey has listened to the concerns of parents and takes them seriously. He understands that they want to set the standards and values their children live by and that they want support from businesses and others in doing this. He believes that their views have a special status as they speak for children, not just for themselves.

That is why, in making his recommendations, Mr Bailey is seeking ways to make businesses and regulators more responsive to the views of parents and to give parents more direct influence on how the decisions affecting children are made. Mr Bailey’s view is that some businesses and regulators behave in exemplary fashion in their dealings with parents and children, but that those that do not need to step up and be as good as the best. Businesses of all kinds need to encourage feedback from parents and, where necessary, take heed of their complaints. Nor is it enough for businesses simply to comply with the relevant regulatory systems for their industry which were established to protect children: parents expect them to do their best for children, not simply stick to the rules. Where regulation is less prescriptive, businesses should play fair and not take advantage of children. And regulators too, need to connect with parents and take more recognition of their views on what is appropriate for their children.

The Government welcome Mr Bailey’s analysis and the thrust of all the recommendations he has made. We note that the majority of the recommendations are directed at industry and the regulators and we look to them to see that these recommendations are implemented as fully as possible, while remaining open to industry and regulators devising alternative or additional approaches to delivering the outcomes that the recommendations are aimed at achieving.

Two recommendations are directed to the Government themselves. Mr Bailey has recommended that the Government should consider strengthening the controls on music videos. The Department for Culture, Media and Sport will respond to this recommendation by consulting on the operation of the Video Recordings Act 1984 and 2010. The consultation will look at a range of options including consideration of whether it would be appropriate for the exemption that music videos enjoy from this legislation to be removed, and call for evidence in support of the costs and benefits of such a change.

This Government are committed to rolling back unnecessary regulation, but we will regulate where necessary, and in particular to protect children. By placing the responsibility for action on businesses themselves and, if necessary, their regulators, we believe that businesses will have the best opportunity and incentive to adopt policies and practices as proposed by Mr Bailey in ways which are efficient and indeed could provide new opportunities through connecting strongly with parents and children.

We will, as Mr Bailey recommends, take stock of progress in 18 months’ time and consider what further measures may need to be taken to achieve the recommended outcomes.

Agriculture and Fisheries Council

Tuesday 7th June 2011 Written Statements

[The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mrs Caroline Spelman)]

My noble Friend Lord Henley represented the United Kingdom at the Agriculture and Fisheries Council in Brussels on 17 May

The only item on the main agenda was the participation of the EU in negotiations on a legally binding agreement (LBA) on forests in Europe at the ministerial meeting in Oslo on 14-16 June. The presidency urged the Council to reach consensus on the two decisions required:

i) the Council decision on EU areas of competence; and

ii) the member state decision on areas of national competence.

The Commission wanted the two decisions treated as a package and agreed by consensus and the Council legal service’s opinion was that this mix of EU and MS competence required a consensus agreement. Most member states supported the LBA; the UK, Sweden and the Netherlands were opposed. The UK, while supporting the voluntary aspect of Forest Europe’s work, reiterated its objections on the basis that an LBA would involve both financial and policy costs. Sweden made a robust intervention which defended its national interests in the forest sector and rejected the LBA. However, there was general support for all decisions to be agreed by consensus and that further concessions might be required. The presidency referred the draft decisions back to Coreper for further consideration before the Oslo conference.

There were nine AoB points

Welfare of animals during transport—Sweden called on the Commission to consider reducing the maximum journey time for animals going to slaughter to eight hours. The Commission explained that its report, due to be published in September, would be to provide an overview of the implementation of the existing regulation. The Commission would then consider what actions were needed to address issues identified in that report. While a few other member states supported Sweden, the UK and others emphasised that existing EU legislation should be better enforced and that sound scientific evidence would be required to justify further legislation.

Animal Welfare in the Baltic Region—Lithuania explained that it had hosted a conference in to promote animal welfare in the Baltic region through the concept of responsible ownership. The Commission, a conference co-organiser, added that the conference had highlighted the importance of education and information campaigns to promote animal welfare standards.

Codex alimentarius negotiations—The presidency highlighted the importance of these discussions. The Commission urged member states to provide an adequate level of participation to ensure that the EU could maintain its leading role in setting international food standards.

G20 update—France updated the Council on the five pillar action plan it had drawn up, to tackle the volatility of agricultural commodity prices, for the June meeting of G20 Agriculture Ministers. The Commission would table specific proposals in reaction to the action plan which will be endorsed by the G20 Ministers in June. The importance of boosting the transparency of the agricultural commodity market and strengthening rules banning export restrictions was emphasised by the Commission.

Current drought situation and advance of direct payments —France, with the support from a number of member states called for an advance of 8% of direct payments and suckler cow premium to offset shortfalls in market receipts owing to recent droughts in northern Europe. The Commission observed that advances in direct payments were already permissible under the current rules and would work with France for a solution on suckler cow premium.

Conference on sustainable food consumption and production—The presidency introduced its report of the above conference, which had been based on the findings of the Standing Committee on Agricultural Research (SCAR). The presidency concluded that SCAR would adopt a declaration on research applications for agricultural sustainability in June, while the Commission noted that the future CAP would also need instruments to address challenges identified by the SCAR. To that end, it would be establishing an innovation partnership on agricultural research in due course.

Conclusions of the enlarged advisory group on pigmeat—The Commission reprised the conclusions, noting in particular that it would address the challenges faced by the pigmeat sector as part of the reform of the CAP. A large majority of member states intervened to lament the lack of immediate action. The presidency noted that delegations could continue to raise similar points at the informal Council on 30 May, when the question of sustainable animal husbandry would be discussed by Ministers.

Poland’s request for a 30% increase in intervention price for cereals—Poland justified this request on the basis of recent rises in input costs. The Commission rejected the call as cereals price were at record highs; intervention prices were being maintained at current levels during the CAP health check and it was important that intervention functioned as a genuine safety net for producers and not as a profitable alternative to market sales.

Sugar production quota—Poland, with the support of some member states, called for an increase in the sugar production quota for all beet producing countries to offset shortfalls and high sugar prices on the EU market. Germany, the UK and Portugal argued that balance needed to be maintained on the EU market between beet producers and cane refiners, in accordance with the 2006 sugar reforms. The Commission felt a longer-term view should be maintained, noting the structural changes that would occur.

Natural Environment White Paper (“The Natural Choice”)

Tuesday 7th June 2011 Written Statements

[The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mrs Caroline Spelman)]

This is the first Environment White Paper in years and sets out how we will deliver the coalition’s commitment to protect the environment for future generations, make our economy more environmentally sustainable, and improve our quality of life and well-being.

It follows a consultation which elicited a huge public response of 15,000 submissions and I am extremely grateful to all those who took the time to respond and share their ideas.

The White Paper also responds to two major independent studies: the National Ecosystem Assessment and the Lawton report, “Making Space for Nature”.

The White Paper offers an ambitious vision for the next 50 years: to be the generation that leaves the natural environment in a better state than we found it. Key aims of the paper are:

to protect and improve our natural environment;

to grow a greener economy;

to capture the benefits which nature has for our well-being; and

to secure a healthy natural environment overseas.

The NEWP aims to better engage and connect local communities with their natural environments, making it easier for them to get involved in protecting and enhancing nature in their area.

Alongside the White Paper we have also published a more detailed response to the “Making Space for Nature” review, which is available on the DEFRA website.

A copy of the White Paper is available at: www.defra. gov.uk/environment/natural/whitepaper/

Civilian Service Medal (Afghanistan)

Tuesday 7th June 2011 Written Statements

[The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr William Hague)]

I am pleased to be able to inform the House that Her Majesty the Queen has graciously approved a proposal for the issue of a Civilian Service Medal (Afghanistan) to recognise service by civilians employed by Her Majesty’s Government working towards a stable and secure Afghanistan. I am placing the Command Paper instituting the Civilian Service Medal (Afghanistan) in the Library of the House. It will also be published on the Foreign and Commonwealth Office website (www.fco.gov.uk) and on the Governments UK and Afghanistan website (http://afghanistan.hmg. gov.uk/). Further information on the criteria for eligibility, along with details on how to nominate individuals for the medal, will also be available on the Foreign and Commonwealth Office website.

Winterbourne View Private Hospital

Tuesday 7th June 2011 Written Statements

[The Minister of State, Department of Health (Paul Burstow)]

This Government believe that people with a learning disability have the right to lead their lives free from fear and discrimination, to receive the care and support they need, and to be treated with dignity and respect.

The abuse at Winterbourne View exposed by whistleblower Terry Bryan and documented by the BBC Panorama team, will be a cause of enormous concern not just to the families and patients affected but to all who are concerned about the care and support society provides to vulnerable people. The Department extends its deepest sympathy to those who have suffered abuse and all those who love and support them.

The responsibility for the quality and safety in care crucially depends on:

providers, who have a duty of care to each individual they are responsible for, ensuring that services meet individual needs and that there are systems and processes in place to ensure there is effective, efficient and high-quality care;

commissioners (both primary care trusts and local authorities), who are responsible for purchasing care which meets people’s needs and ensuring that they are clear about the quality and effectiveness of that care; and

the regulators (both the quality regulator and the professions’ regulators), who are responsible for assuring the quality of care.

Following an approach from “Panorama” on Friday 13 May, the national and local agencies involved have acted promptly and decisively to resolve the situation. Their first priority was ensuring the safety of patients at Winterbourne View.

A criminal investigation is also under way and the House will understand that I am limited in what I can say about particular events to avoid compromising police activities.

The steps taken since 13 May include:

South Gloucestershire council called an immediate multi-agency adult safeguarding meeting. This meeting included the local authority, the local NHS and the police, together with the Care Quality Commission (CQC) and Castlebeck Care (who are the providers of services at Winterbourne View). Immediate action has been taken to assure the safety of current patients, including the suspension of 15 staff and a decision not to accept further patients at Winterbourne View. NHS commissioners have also put in place independent clinical and managerial supervision, and commissioned independent assessments of all current patients. All people in Winterbourne View now have a personal advocate;

CQC is taking enforcement action;

all admissions to the unit have been suspended; and

CQC is working with others to vacate the unit and appropriately relocate the patients through a systematic search for suitable alternative placements, taking into account the specialist needs of the patients and the wishes of their families.

CQC has acknowledged that there were indications of problems at Winterboume View which should have led to it acting sooner. CQC has issued an unreserved apology to those it has let down. Jo Williams, chair of CQC, has also written to the Department expressing her regret for CQC’s failure to act in this case. She, and CQC staff, are fully committed to learning the lessons from this tragic case and to making sure that when there are signs of poor care, CQC acts quickly to protect vulnerable people. In seeking to strengthen CQC as a quality inspectorate, we will work closely with CQC to ensure it is able to carry out its functions effectively and efficiently.

In the light of incidents at Winterboume View, CQC has started an immediate responsive review of all services run by Castlebeck Care (a further 22 locations in England). Inspections will be completed within the next two to three weeks. Reports on these individual services as well as a summary report will then be publicly available on CQC’s website.

In addition, CQC will begin a focused inspection programme which will review care provided by hospitals for people with learning disabilities. The three-month programme of reviews will involve unannounced inspections at a sample of the 150 hospitals that provide care for people with learning disabilities. Where CQC identifies care that is not meeting requirements, it will be able to use its full range of enforcement powers to take immediate action to require hospitals to make necessary improvements.

Each patient at Winterbourne View has been regularly reviewed by a multi-disciplinary clinical team on behalf of the primary care trust that commissioned their care. In many cases, this process has involved conversations with patients and relatives. All patients had been reviewed in the last six months, most in the past three months. Those primary care trusts who commissioned the care for the patients who were resident in Winterbourne View are carrying out an urgent review of the processes used to commission and review patients in privately provided services. The outcome will be fed into the wider multi-agency safeguarding review.

On 1 June 2011 South Gloucestershire council announced that it will lead an independently chaired serious case review (involving all agencies) which will look in detail at the specifics of this case and we will consider its findings carefully.

I asked officials on 18 May to undertake an examination of the roles of all of the agencies involved in this case drawing together the key lessons from the reviews being undertaken by the CQC, the NHS and safeguarding boards. The Department will be assisted in that task by Mark Goldring, the chief executive of Mencap, who will not only bring an independent perspective but also a depth and breadth of knowledge of the needs of people with learning disabilities. Ministers will then report further to Parliament.

The planned reforms for health and social care should also increase our ability to drive up standards in services and to deliver joined-up services and optimal care to patients with highly specialised needs. Subject to the NHS listening exercise and the passage of the Health and Social Care Bill, the NHS commissioning board will commission specified specialised services, with commissioning consortia responsible for commissioning other complex services. Through consortia, general practitioners and other clinicians will have new opportunities to shape the way that health services are designed and delivered. Taking into account the increasing range of NICE quality standards, consortia will work closely with secondary care and other health care and social care professionals, and with community partners.

We will ensure that there is particular emphasis within the “pathfinder” programme on testing ways of ensuring that consortia quickly develop knowledge and expertise in relation to more complex and specialist services. This will include exploring joint commissioning with local authorities, for instance in relation to care and support for people with long-term mental health conditions, and people with learning disabilities, allowing people to remain in their local communities maintaining their relationships with family and friends.

We will ensure that the NHS commissioning board has a particular focus on promoting quality improvement in relation to more complex or specialist services.

We have also announced our intention to make safeguarding adults boards a legal requirement. This will strengthen the local governance and accountability of safeguarding arrangements. It will enable local partners in local authorities, the NHS and the police to work closely with their communities to safeguard vulnerable adults. Safeguarding adults boards currently exist in every local authority but are not mandatory. By legislating we intend them to make them stronger in their efforts to prevent abuse and to respond unequivocally where it does occur.

We will also take steps to support, and respond to, whistleblowers. Our proposals for Health Watch mean that local health watch organisations could ask CQC to investigate services where they have concerns. In addition, proposals for local health watch to signpost people to information about services and help them if they want to complain about NHS services would provide additional “early warning” of problems with particular services. This could lead to Health Watch being able to “enter and view” services and make recommendations about improvements.

Every part of the system must be working to drive up standards and take collective responsibility for minimising the chances of this series of events happening again.

National Health Service Modernisation Listening Exercise

Tuesday 7th June 2011 Written Statements

[The Secretary of State for Health (Mr Andrew Lansley)]

On 6 April the Government announced that they would take advantage of a natural break in the legislative process to pause, listen and reflect on the national health service modernisation plans and to make any necessary improvements to the Health and Social Care Bill. The NHS Future Forum, a group of 45 professionals from across health and social care, was established to help drive the engagement process. The eight-week intensive listening period came to its conclusion on 31 May.

In order to hear from as wide a range of people as possible throughout the pause, various methods of engagement were employed. Some 250 events were held and over 8,000 people took part directly in providing their views. These meetings and events were attended by Ministers and NHS Future Forum members and involved over 250 stakeholder organisations, including patient groups, professional bodies and unions, voluntary sector groups and local authorities, as well as patients and members of the public. In addition, strategic health authorities across the country supported the listening exercise by encouraging staff, patients and communities to share their views both online and at their own regional events.

In addition to listening events, people were encouraged to air their comments and concerns through digital channels. The modernisation of health and care website recorded over 2,400 public posts alongside a further 970 privately submitted comments. Feedback was also received through in excess of 500 engagement questionnaires.

The NHS Future Forum is reflecting on what they have heard and will be reporting to the Government shortly. The Government will then respond, setting out the improvements they intend to make to the modernisation plans and the Health and Social Care Bill. The forum’s report will be placed in the Library.

Southern Cross Healthcare

Tuesday 7th June 2011 Written Statements

[The Minister of State, Department of Health (Paul Burstow)]

The House will be aware of concerns over the future financial viability of the care home company Southern Cross Healthcare.

The Government understand that recent events and media speculation will have caused concern to residents in Southern Cross care homes, their relatives and families and staff

The Government’s primary concern in this matter is for the welfare of the residents living in Southern Cross homes. That must be paramount. For that reason, it is important that this matter is resolved in a measured and orderly manner.

Officials have been in frequent contact with Southern Cross’s senior management over the last three months and continue to be so. Ministers have been monitoring the situation carefully.

Through discussions with Southern Cross, its landlords and its lenders, we have ensured that everyone involved understands their responsibilities towards the residents.

Whatever the outcome of the restructuring by Southern Cross, no one will find themselves homeless or without care. The Government will not let that happen. The Department has been working with the Local Government Association, the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services and the Care Quality Commission, to ensure that all agencies are clear on our respective roles and responsibilities.

It is for Southern Cross, its landlords and those with an interest in the business, to put in place a plan that stabilises the business and ensures continuity in the operation of the care homes. That process is in hand and we must let it continue. We believe that the commercial difficulties that Southern Cross has encountered are capable of resolution within the sector. It is not the role of Government to interfere in these commercial negotiations.

All parties involved—including other Government Departments, local authorities and the Care Quality Commission—are ready to take decisive action if these plans do not create a viable platform for the future

There are clear and effective protections in place that cover this situation. No resident—whether publicly or self-funded—would be left homeless or without care. In an emergency, a local authority can provide residential accommodation to anyone who has an urgent need for it. A local authority would continue to provide care for any self-funding resident who was unable to find or arrange care for themselves.

The Government will continue to monitor the situation closely and reiterate to all parties that they have a collective responsibility to resolve the situation in a way that does not put at risk the continuity or quality of care of residents.

E. coli Outbreak (Germany)

Tuesday 7th June 2011 Written Statements

[The Secretary of State for Health (Mr Andrew Lansley)]

I wish to inform the House of how the Government are taking all possible measures to monitor the serious E. coli 0104 outbreak that is centred in Germany and to assess and deal with any associated risks should any arise for consumers in the UK.

Over the weekend the German authorities indicated the potential source of the outbreak is thought to be a sprouted seed mix consisting of alfalfa seeds, fenugreek, lentil and azuki beans from a farm in northern Germany. This link has been identified through epidemiological studies. However, initial test results reported yesterday (6 June) were negative. The German authorities are carrying out further tests and investigations to try to confirm the source of the outbreak.

I want to reassure the House that I am advised by the UK Food Standards Agency that there is no evidence that any of these products are present in the UK food chain. Information received to date indicates that all of the potentially affected produce was distributed locally in Germany and has been withdrawn from the German market. The 11 cases of illness we have in the UK apparently linked to this outbreak are all in people with a history of recent travel from Germany, and no new cases in the UK have been identified since Friday.

As soon as they heard of the outbreak in Germany, the Department of Health made sure that clinicians in the NHS were alerted to watch out for cases of this illness and the Health Protection Agency issued advice to people travelling to Germany. The Health Protection Agency is also liaising closely with the authorities in Germany and counterparts across Europe.

In addition to the 11 people who have fallen ill in the UK there have been 2,231 reported cases in Germany and 102 elsewhere in Europe, again associated with travel from Germany. The strain of E. coli associated with this outbreak has the potential to cause life-threatening illness and, unfortunately, 21 people in Germany and one person in Sweden have died. My sympathy and condolences go to all those who have suffered in this outbreak.

The Food Standards Agency is in daily contact with the European Commission to ensure that the Government have the most up-to-date information on the ongoing investigations into the source of the outbreak. The Food Standards Agency is also working closely with the Health Protection Agency, which is reporting immediately any cases of illness in the UK associated with this outbreak. Both agencies are in regular contact with the Department of Health, DEFRA and other key partners to maintain an up-to-date assessment of the risk to UK consumers.

I should like to assure the House that immediate action would be taken to alert consumers, withdraw food from shops, and ban imports should the Food Standards Agency suspect that contaminated product associated with this outbreak is in the UK or may be imported into the UK. In the meantime, the clear advice to consumers is that they should follow the usual best practice in preparing and consuming fruit and vegetables, peeling and cooking where this is appropriate or otherwise thoroughly washing fruit and vegetables where these are to be eaten raw. People should also be reminded that washing hands before eating and after handling raw food is always advisable.

I will give further updates to the House on this important issue as new information becomes available.

Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005

Tuesday 7th June 2011 Written Statements

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

In accordance with section 14(3), 14(4) and 14(5) of the Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005, Lord Carlile of Berriew QC prepared a report on the operation of the Act in 2010, which I laid before the House on 3 February 2011.

I am grateful to Lord Carlile for this, his final report as independent reviewer of CT legislation, and more broadly for the valuable contribution that he has made to this important area of work. Following consultation within my Department and with other relevant agencies, I am today laying before the House my response to Lord Carlile’s recommendations.

I am also laying before the House my response to the report on the renewal of the control order legislation by the Joint Committee on Human Rights (published on 1 March 2011).

Copies of the Government responses will be available in the Vote Office and a copy of each will also be placed on the Home Office website.

CDC Group plc

Tuesday 7th June 2011 Written Statements

[The Secretary of State for International Development (Mr Andrew Mitchell)]

In October 2010 I informed the House of the Government’s decision to reconfigure CDC in order radically to increase its development impact.

In my previous statement I set out the objectives of this reform and announced a public consultation, as well as the commissioning of a number of independent studies. The results of that consultation and the four studies have been published on the DFID website. The International Development Committee of this House has since conducted an inquiry into the future of CDC. Its report was published on 3 March 2011, and the Government’s response was given on 4 May.

I can now inform the House that the Government and the CDC board have agreed a new high-level business plan, published during the Whitsun recess on 31 May, which sets out how CDC will carry through the reforms I proposed last October.

CDC will be more focused on the poor than any other development finance institution, building further on its strong concentration on the poorer countries in south Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. In future, all CDC’s new investment commitments will be for the benefit of these two regions, where over 70% of the world’s poorest people live. In India, CDC will move to a concentration on the eight poorest Indian states.

CDC will not invest in regions or sectors which are already well served by private investors, such as large-scale mining in many countries. Otherwise, it will be responsible for selecting, on the basis of the strongest anticipated development outcomes, investments from across a wide range of sectors.

CDC will aim to reduce the proportion of its portfolio held in other countries outside the new focus regions over time, to 15-20% by 2015. It will not invest in the better-off developing countries, unless for the benefit of poorer countries in the relevant region.

There will be a new performance framework for CDC, focused on development impact rather than CDC’s own profitability. It will be a development-maximising, not a profit-maximising, enterprise. CDC will measure the impact of its investments on generation of incomes and tax revenues, broader private sector development, mobilising private capital, and improving socially and environmentally responsible management in beneficiary companies. Stretching targets will be set for these indicators for CDC to meet and they will be reviewed annually.

CDC will become bolder and more pioneering in its approach to innovation and risk: being more creative and accepting higher financial risks where these are justified by greater development benefits. It will reach the parts that other emerging market investors too often do not. But it will still ensure that it remains sufficiently profitable to offset the cost of the taxpayers’ money invested in it, as defined by Her Majesty’s Treasury. While development impact will be the driver, CDC will also look to build the companies in which it invests into commercially sustainable enterprises.

CDC will no longer exclusively operate indirectly, through private equity funds managed by others, but will work through a wider range of intermediaries—and importantly, build up its own direct investments. It will do this gradually and initially only through co-financing with other lead investors, as it redevelops its capacity to seek out and manage direct investments. Likewise, it will offer lending as well as equity financing, with the aim of increasing the share of loan instruments in its portfolio.

CDC will continue to make new commitments to private equity fund managers, and to support and develop suitable local investment management firms, but with the aim of reducing the fund of funds share of its assets to some 60% by 2015. In running down this part of its portfolio, the realisation of full value for money for the taxpayer will remain the primary consideration.

The remuneration framework agreed for CDC by the previous Government, which aimed to align CDC remuneration with private equity fund of funds firms in the City of London, has led to inflated remuneration. A study by independent consultants has indicated that in comparison with other publicly owned development finance institutions, and with private foundations doing similar work, CDC remuneration has risen far above the median levels elsewhere.

We must bring pay and bonuses down to a level that is fair and appropriate, but not excessive, for a publicly owned body whose very purpose is to reduce poverty. The CDC board will take immediate action to cut bonus levels by 50% for this year. Once a new CDC chief executive is in place, the Government will agree with CDC’s board how to restructure pay to attract, motivate and retain people with the attitude and skills necessary to take part in this exciting new phase of CDC’s existence. The new remuneration framework will prioritise development results rather than profitability and any performance-related pay will be largely deferred and based on long-term performance.

In response to the public consultation on CDC, CDC will publish a new disclosure policy aimed at making its work as transparent as possible. While observing the constraints of commercial confidentiality and the Data Protection Act, CDC will publish more information on the businesses using its capital, the funds investing it, and the economic impact of investments; and on CDC’s remuneration and operating costs. More of CDC’s evaluations will be conducted independently, going beyond the current 50%, and as much evaluation material as possible will be published that does not jeopardise commercial confidentiality. CDC’s investment policy, agreed with DFID, will also be published.

CDC will update its investment code to reflect the latest international standards and best practice and will continue to ensure, by means of independent external audit, that its compliance and implementation are properly monitored.

CDC has strengthened its policy on taxation: where it is within CDC’s discretion as originating or sole investor, CDC will not make new investments in or through harmful tax regimes, or regimes which do not comply with international tax transparency and exchange of information standards (as defined by the OECD and Global Forum on Transparency and Exchange of Information for Tax Purposes). Where CDC does not have such discretion, CDC will make a judgment on the merits of the proposed new investment against the nature of the tax regime—and be transparent about that judgment. CDC will also be transparent in its dealings from a tax perspective. Information will be published on taxes paid within CDC’s portfolio and, if specific information cannot be published, CDC will explain why.

DFID will work more closely with CDC, both at country level and at the centre. CDC’s business plan will be reviewed annually and CDC will report annually to the Secretary of State on achievement against its targets, which we will publish.

The board of CDC has responded willingly and constructively to the recent scrutiny of its work and to the changes that the Government have proposed. There is now the opportunity to strengthen CDC’s role as a leading instrument in the UK’s policy for accelerating poverty reduction in the poorer countries through enterprise and economic growth.

Disabled Persons Transport Advisory Committee (Public Bodies Bill)

Tuesday 7th June 2011 Written Statements

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

The cross-Government review of non-departmental public bodies, responding to this House in October 2010, decided that the public bodies landscape needed radical reform to increase accountability, cut out duplication of activity, increase transparency and discontinue activities that were no longer needed. Among the recommendations was that the Disabled Persons Transport Advisory Committee (DPTAC) be abolished.

The Public Bodies Bill is currently before Parliament. The Bill as drafted, would allow the Government to make an order abolishing DPTAC. If the Bill is passed with this provision in it, I am minded to make such an order. But before coming to a definite decision to do so, I intend to consult on the order and will make no final decision until I have taken into account the responses to that consultation.

In advance of this formal consultation I am inviting views from all those with an interest on what successor arrangements should be put in place if DPTAC is abolished. I am seeking to ensure that any successor arrangement will continue to provide my Department with consensual, pan-disability advice in a flexible way, and that any arrangement represents value-for-money.

I propose to invite comments on the options listed below:

Option 1—Rely on existing expertise in the Department for Transport policy divisions and agencies. Where ad hoc specific advice is needed, it could be sought by individual policy divisions from third party stakeholder groups, the transport industry, and experts. This would have minimal cost (although commissioned, consultancy advice could be expensive) but perhaps risks disability issues being overlooked.

Option 2—Establish a stakeholder forum, which could be convened and provide advice as and when issues arose. Again this would have minimal cost, but could again result in an increased consultancy bill. It might also be difficult to decide who to appoint to the forum. There are over 50 disability groups, and their interests sometimes conflict (e.g. the interests of the visually impaired, and those using mobility scooters). Achieving consensus could therefore be difficult.

Option 3—Rely on a cross-Government body to provide transport advice—for example the existing (non statutory) Equality 2025, run by the Department of Work and Pensions. This option should ensure that disability issues do not get overlooked. Equality 2025 is likely to be able to offer general advice—for example on transport access to the Olympics by disabled people—but would not be in a position to offer more specialist advice, for example the type of mobility scooter models suitable to be carried on public transport.

Option 4—Establish a non-statutory specialist body which would be flexible and accountable to Ministers. This may cost more than the options above, but should be less expensive than the current arrangements. However, a smaller body because of its size, may not cover all disability areas, and therefore could reduce the opportunities to provide pan-disability advice.

Option 5—A wide-ranging panel of experts from which members could be drawn, on an ad hoc basis, when specific advice is needed. A once a year meeting of all specified stakeholders could be held so that they all have the opportunity of voicing wider concerns.

My initial thinking is that option 5 would be the most appropriate path to take, but I would welcome views to inform my decision making in this area.

Grand Committee

Tuesday 7th June 2011 Grand Committee

Tuesday, 7 June 2011.

15:30

Arrangement of Business

Tuesday 7th June 2011 Grand Committee

Announcement

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Colwyn)]

My Lords, before the Minister moves that the first statutory instrument be considered, I remind noble Lords that, in the case of each statutory instrument, the Motion before the Committee will be that the Committee do consider the statutory instrument in question. I should perhaps make it clear that the Motions to approve the statutory instruments will be moved in the Chamber in the usual way. If there is a Division, the Committee will of course adjourn for 10 minutes.

Representation of the People (Electoral Registration Data Schemes) Regulations 2011

Tuesday 7th June 2011 Grand Committee

Considered in Grand Committee

15:31

Moved By

[Lord McNally]

That the Grand Committee do report to the House that it has considered the Representation of the People (Electoral Registration Data Schemes) Regulations 2011.

Relevant document: 20th Report from the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments.

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord McNally)]

My Lords, the order and regulations will together provide the legal basis for the electoral registration data-matching trial that my honourable friend the Minister for Political and Constitutional Reform announced in another place on 15 September 2010. These instruments will enable the sharing and matching of specified data between local authority electoral registration officers and public authorities that also hold certain kinds of specified data.

It might assist the Committee if, before going into greater depth about what the instruments will do, I were to supply some context and background to the order and regulations. The view that there is a need for change in our arrangements for electoral registration is, I know, widely shared. It is important that the register is as accurate and as complete as possible. We need to make sure that the system is not vulnerable to fraud, while ensuring at the same time that people are not prevented from registering to vote because the system is too difficult to use or because they are not aware of their rights.

In 2014, the Government plan to introduce individual electoral registration in place of the outdated system of household registration. Alongside that, however, we believe that there are other tools that we may be able to use to tackle under-registration and to ensure that people have every opportunity to register. Data matching is one of them.

Data matching involves comparing the electoral register against other public databases in order to identify people who are currently missing from the register. They can then be contacted by electoral registration officials and offered the opportunity to register if they are eligible to vote. We envisage that through data matching we will also be able to take steps to identify and remove any individuals who are on the register but are not entitled to be.

We believe that data matching has the potential to reduce the incidence of under-registration among specific groups in our society, but we do not yet know enough. We also believe that data matching has the potential to tackle inaccuracy in our electoral registers, but, again, we do not yet know enough. We need to test the effectiveness of data matching in this context and see what kinds of data are most useful in improving the accuracy and completeness of the register. We therefore plan to trial data matching over the next few months in a range of electoral registration areas in England, Wales and Scotland. The instruments before the Committee today will enable that to happen. The results of the trial will be evaluated with the assistance of the Electoral Commission and will help the Government to decide whether to seek to legislate to extend data matching permanently across all local authorities.

The order will enable specified data-holding public authorities, including the Department for Work and Pensions, HM Revenue and Customs and the Department for Education, to provide electoral registration officers with the data necessary for their planned data-matching schemes. The 22 local authorities planning to take part in the trial are listed in the schedule to the order and we are grateful to them and to the data-holding authorities that will be participating for the work that they are doing.

Members of the Committee may have noticed that there are in fact 23 local authorities in the schedule. This is because Cardiff has unfortunately had to withdraw since the order was laid. I am, however, very happy to confirm that Peterborough, which withdrew prior to the order being debated in another place, has since been able to resolve its problems and will after all be taking part. Cardiff’s withdrawal does not affect the validity of the order, because being included in the schedule does not compel an area to take part. Nor will it affect the validity of the eventual results of the pilot schemes. Even if another one or two of the pilot schemes were to run into unforeseen practical difficulties of the kind recently encountered by Peterborough and Cardiff, there will still be enough of them for the results to be useful.

The order stipulates that before any data can be transferred a written agreement must be in place between the electoral registration officer and the data-holding authority, setting out the requirements as to the processing, transfer, storage, destruction and security of the data concerned. It also sets 1 March 2012 as the date by which each of the schemes must have been evaluated.

For the information of the Committee, let me say that 1 March 2012—not the end of December 2011, as mentioned in the draft agreement attached to the Explanatory Memorandum—will now be the date by which all data created for the purposes of the pilot schemes must be destroyed, except of course where data have been added to the electoral register in the mean time. Since that version of the draft agreement was prepared, the Electoral Commission has told us that it would assist its evaluation of the pilot schemes if the data were still to be available, should the commission need to see it. We agree with the commission, so the final version of the agreement will reflect this change of date.

The regulations complement the order by enabling registration officers to supply a copy of their full register, or an extract from it, to another person for it to be compared with the information that is to be provided under a data-matching scheme. The regulations also provide that a person to whom the copy of the register is passed may not do anything with it for any other purpose or without the registration officer’s consent. This means that registration officers will not be given data relating to everyone in their area. They will receive only targeted information about particular individuals, thus ensuring that unnecessary personal data are not transferred to registration officers and that the data that they receive are provided to them for a reason.

Data-matching schemes may lead to greater accuracy and improved levels of registration in some electoral registration areas and among some groups within the next few months. If so, the schemes may be the key to greater accuracy and improved levels of registration on a much larger scale within the next few years. However, we need to know for certain and we need to be able to produce the evidence. That is why it is so important to put these trials in hand. The order and regulations will enable us to do that and I commend them to the Committee.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

My Lords, I declare that I am an electoral commissioner, having joined the commission on 1 October last year. I fully support the thrust of the commission’s views on these important statutory instruments.

I am sure that all noble Lords want completeness and accuracy of electoral registers. We want confidence in our democracy and our electoral system. We want confidence that you will be able to vote if you want to and if you are eligible. We want confidence in those who have been elected to serve at all levels of government.

It is important that clear and reliable evidence on data matching is produced and that the evidence is robustly assessed. It is particularly important that this assessment is done carefully and represents fully what can be achieved, not least because data matching is envisaged as the primary method of ensuring the continued completeness of individual registration in 2014-15. I should welcome a response from the noble Lord, Lord McNally, on that specific point and on the commission’s concern that the timing of the schemes will coincide with the annual canvass of electors. It is important that there is clarity about the design of the data-matching schemes, so that the impact and any follow-up activity can be demonstrated beyond what the annual canvass activity would normally achieve.

Can the noble Lord give any further information on the agreement to process the data? It is particularly important that personal data are handled carefully and are protected. The commission has specifically recommended that the approach to the delivery of each pilot area should also form part of any written agreement, so that the commission can fully evaluate each scheme.

Finally, the noble Lord will be aware that the commission is required to produce an evaluation report on the operation of the scheme by 1 March 2012. To achieve this, it will be important that EROs are able to provide the commission at agreed intervals during the schemes’ operation with the information needed. Clarity about the design and delivery of each scheme will ensure that the commission is able to undertake its statutory evaluation effectively and that the results can inform future policy development on electoral registration. I am of course happy for the noble Lord to write to me to clarify a number of these points.

[Lord Tyler]

My Lords, I am glad to follow the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, because I know that he shares the commitment that we have on all sides of the House to make the electoral register as comprehensive and accurate as we can.

In the debates earlier this year on the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill, there was a great deal of discussion about under-registration. That was not the first time that the issue was raised. The noble Lord, Lord Wills, gave a great deal of attention to this in the previous Government. I recall that on a number of occasions in Grand Committee on the Political Parties and Elections Bill we had considerable discussions about the right momentum and the right progress needed to improve the level of registration. On a number of occasions, previous Administrations—like the present Government—have looked at ways in which data matching could assist this purpose.

It is important to note that there was an improvement during the calendar year 2010; in the last few days there have been some interesting improvements, too, which I notice that colleagues on the other side of the House have also seen. The context of that was a very exciting general election at which, for the first time in some people’s political memory, it looked as though the outcome was not certain. In those circumstances, there was an increase, particularly—and this is encouraging—among the younger age group, which notoriously in the recent past has not registered. We should take encouragement from the fact that, if we can make politics more interesting and outcomes more indeterminate, we can increase registration. It is not only a mechanical operation but a political one to get as many of our fellow citizens engaged as possible.

The integrity of the register is a question of making sure that those who should be on are on and that those who should not be on, or are there in duplicate, are not on. Therefore, accuracy and integrity are the same thing.

The PPE Act, as the Bill became, set fair and square registration objectives. They are,

“to secure, so far as reasonably practicable—(a) that persons who are entitled to be registered in a register are registered in it, (b) that persons who are not entitled to be registered in a register are not registered in it, and (c) that none of the information relating to a registered person that appears in a register or other record kept by the officer is false”.

Obviously, the instruments that are before the Committee today seek to build on that responsibility, which lies not only on the Government but on all of us. I appreciate the clarity with which my noble friend introduced the instruments, which I welcome.

Those objectives are clearly uncontroversial and it is a matter of some puzzlement to our fellow citizens that sometimes the electoral register seems to be totally unrelated to the other information that has been gathered on behalf of local or central government. They find it peculiar; they think that we are all the same thing. They think that Parliament and the Government are the same thing, let alone local authorities and other parts of the state system. They think that we are all part of the same bureaucracy. For example, those who are accused of filing a housing benefit form inaccurately will often cite the presence of all members of their household on the electoral register as a necessary and understandable defence. Who can blame them? They think that that is an official document and therefore can be quoted as such.

Those kinds of situations raise the question of whether the flow of information from government departments into councils will be a two-way process. Will it work in both directions? The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions—this is in the order—might give information on the DWP’s database to the electoral registration officer in Blackpool, but will the DWP then use the comparison data to identify potential fraud on its own books? I do not expect my noble friend to answer on behalf of the other department this afternoon, but I think that this is a subject where our fellow citizens would genuinely like to know whether there is an answer.

15:45

Such an exercise is obviously a double-edged sword. For some, it is joined-up government; for others, it is the surveillance state. Getting the balance right is something that we in this House and indeed the other place must constantly take into account. No doubt Members of the Committee will take their own view as to how the balance is being addressed with this issue, but it would be good to know the facts about how information will be shared on a two-way basis.

The other issue that puzzles me is how exactly the local authorities concerned were chosen. My noble friend referred to the fact that there has been one in and one out and I should be very interested to know just how this process has been undertaken. Why, for example, were Southwark and Newham chosen but not Lambeth and Lewisham? Why are Colchester and Camden going to be privy to the Student Loans Company database while the Forest of Dean and Forest Heath are not? Have councils with a particular concern about the level of registration come forward to ask for data? Was it on their initiative or on some analysis by the department that areas with a good cross-section of experience were chosen as being particularly valuable at this pilot stage? Indeed, have the authorities that have been selected been hand-picked by Whitehall or have they been volunteered by town halls? In that connection, I was interested to hear what my noble friend said just now about Peterborough coming in and Cambridge going out. I hope that I have that right. Given that information, will there be a further tranche at some stage? If so, when, or will it happen when there is a full assessment by the Electoral Commission?

Most important on these general issues, information shared is information risked. The more places to which information is forwarded, the more people can put it on a USB key or laptop and then leave it on a train, in a taxi or at a station. That has happened too often in recent years for us not to take account of that risk. I know that the public are rightly concerned about these breaches, as is, it appears from its briefing, the Electoral Commission.

I want to refer quickly to the Electoral Commission, as did the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy. I am obviously not a commissioner but I have been an informal adviser to the commission in a cross-party group in the past and I should declare that. Obviously it is not a pecuniary interest but it simply ensures that I try to keep an eye on what the commission has said. I echo what the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, said about the rather tight timing that the commission has identified.

On the one hand, the commission is clearly concerned that the scheme should coincide with the annual canvass. That is entirely sensible and proper, but there is a need to move at some speed to do it this year. However, more substantially, making sure that the written agreement between the local authorities and the Cabinet Office is fully worked out in a speedy and well thought-through process so that the commission and the local authorities are all well briefed well in advance of the process seems absolutely critical if the evaluation programme is to be met on time. Going for 1 March 2012 is pretty tight timing. I recognise that the clarity with which my noble friend has presented the order this afternoon is encouraging, but there are so many other stages before we get to that that I hope that we can be reassured that the commission will get the full clarity that it requests in its briefing so that it, too, can make a speedy assessment of what is involved.

The safeguards that the Minister is putting in place to ensure not just that the timing problems are addressed effectively but also the other questions about sensitive data being properly treated, properly stored and properly destroyed when not required for further analysis are extremely important. Those safeguards will have to be secured not just by the government departments concerned but by the local authorities. I hope that my noble friend will be able to reassure us all that that will be very much the case.

Finally, Article 4(2) specifies that agreements between central and local government must make provision for the consequences of the failure to comply with requirements on transfer, storage, destruction and security of data. That will be incredibly important in assuring the public that we are not taking unnecessary risks with important and confidential information. What consequences does the Minister have in mind for future agreements made under this order?

[Lord Jones]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, and my noble friend on the Electoral Commission. I also thank the Minister for the clarity of his introduction. It is clear how, over the years, the register has ceased to be the reference source—the local bible—that it once was. That may be the reason for these regulations and the order. I have also noticed how, in parallel, turnout at elections has plummeted and how the ugly head of fraud has recently been so frequently in the news. Therefore, perhaps necessarily, these proposals must be and are bureaucratic. We have commissioners, commissions, the Cabinet Office, Secretaries of State, the Lord President and local authorities—all evidence of complications.

The ballot is a hard-won right. It is a secret ballot and it remains, I hope, a clean and fool-proof ballot. That is the bedrock of British liberty—the liberty of a free Parliament and of our perception of liberty, equality and justice. In that sense, what is before us is very important. It was right and proper that the Minister declared himself clearly in introducing the legislation and no doubt will do so in replying. We are all equal in the ballot and therefore I see these measures as an enhancement. They have to be good. I assume that every effort is being made by the coalition Government to protect the integrity of the ballot box. That signal needs to be sent out to the nation and to the whole electorate and I trust this Minister to do that. I appreciate the reference made by the deputy commissioner and director of data protection to inherent risks in security. David Smith makes a veiled promise of what seems to me a retribution. I do not cavil with his discretion there.

What of Wales in terms of a national ballot? The city of Cardiff and the county is a good place to go, as the schedule presages, but can the Minister indicate whether there were consultations and other bids? We have but one pilot in Wales. Why not in Northern Ireland? It may be that there is a simple answer that the Minister will give to your Lordships.

I have a question that arises from a recent contretemps. Are electoral registration officers subject to ministerial direction? I know that the Minister does not answer for Wales, but I put the question generally. I recently noticed that Wales Assembly Government Ministers were unable to persuade—I use the word advisedly— an electoral registration officer in the Wales Assembly election to do as they wished. I refer to the day and the time of a count. The Minister may say to me that that is way out, but I put the question to him also in a general sense across Britain—or perhaps it applies only to England. Can he give an answer now? If he cannot, will he please give me a detailed answer by letter? I wish the Minister well in attempting, on this important matter, to make this a better place.

[Lord Wills]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow my noble friend and all noble Lords who have made important contributions to an important debate. I do not intend to delay the proceedings for long, not least because the Minister made such a compelling case for these statutory instruments that there is little to add. I agree with almost everything that I heard him say. However, I have a few questions. Of course, if he is unable to answer them directly today, I should be grateful if he would write to me in due course.

I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, that it is crucial with this sort of legislation to strike the balance correctly between the efficient discharge of achieving desirable public objectives and protecting the liberty of the individual. As far as I can see, the Government, in this careful approach, have struck that balance well. The House and Parliament owe the Minister and his colleagues a debt of gratitude on the way in which they have approached the matter.

These statutory instruments can play an important part, as we have heard, in tackling the continuing and serious problem of under-registration. Until now, there has been general agreement that the figure of between 3 million and 3.5 million, based on work by the Electoral Commission some years ago, represents the number of people who are eligible to vote but cannot do so because they are not on the register. First, is the Minister aware of the report in the Guardian today that is based on the work carried out by Chris Ruane MP and suggests that the figure may not be between 3 million and 3.5 million but closer to 6 million? Will he commission his officials to contact Mr Ruane to investigate the validity of that figure and report back to Parliament on the findings?

Secondly, the previous Government, as I am sure the Minister is aware, felt that the power in the Political Parties and Elections Act to make such statutory instruments was necessary but was not sufficient. Had we been re-elected, we would certainly have brought forward further measures to improve registration rates. I should therefore be grateful if the Minister could tell us what measures this Government have considered to improve the electoral register over and above those brought in or presaged by the previous Government. Which of those measures that this Government have so considered are they planning to bring forward and when will they do so? If the Minister is unable to answer now, I should be grateful if he could write to me.

Will the Minister also explain why it has taken more than a year to bring forward these statutory instruments? I concede straightaway that, as I am sure he will immediately point out, the PPE Act received Royal Assent in July 2009 and that the statutory instruments that were necessary suffered in what is always the inevitable traffic jam of statutory instruments at the end of a Parliament. The Minister does not need to dwell on that point in his reply. However, this Government do not have that excuse. Given that when they came to power the cupboard was almost inevitably pretty well bare of such a logjam of statutory instruments, and given the importance that everyone who has spoken attaches to improving the electoral register, especially in the context of all the other constitutional reforms that this Government are bringing forward—the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, referred to our extensive debate on these matters in which the question of electoral registration has come up time and again on all sides of the House— please can the Minister tell us why it has taken quite so long to bring forward these statutory instruments? I am quite sure that I will not be alone in hoping for some sort of explanation.

I note that these statutory instruments have been coupled elsewhere with the Government’s intention to rush forward with the introduction of individual registration. I should like to put on record and conclude with my strong objections to this attempt to justify the unjustifiable. The previous Government put in place measures for the implementation of individual registration. That is undoubtedly desirable; there is now agreement, certainly among everyone who has spoken, about that. However, the previous Government tied individual registration to the achievement as far as reasonably practicable—I am again grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, for quoting the exact words—of a comprehensive and accurate register. This is crucial. All the analyses agree—I do not think that there is any serious disagreement about this—that the introduction of individual registration runs a serious risk of damaging rates of registration. Desirable as it is, that is a perverse consequence of bringing it in.

To rush forward before the register is complete, comprehensive and accurate, as the Government are proposing, risks rendering an already flawed system deeply more flawed. That would be bad enough, but such damage would have a partisan effect. Although the Minister may try to deny this, most analysts agree that the voters most likely to fall off the register in these circumstances would be more disposed to vote Labour.

16:00

[Lord Tyler]

My Lords—

[Lord Wills]

I thought that someone would challenge me on this and I am delighted to give way to the noble Lord, Lord Tyler.

[Lord Tyler]

I do not wish to challenge that. I want to draw the noble Lord’s attention to the fact—he is a very fair man—that what he has just said about individual registration and what he said previously about the fact that his Administration failed to bring forward these instruments after the PPE Act in 2009 are in direct contradiction. If it is so vital to improve data sharing so that the register can be more effective and more accurate and so that its integrity can be improved to enable us to move further and faster on individual registration, why did his Administration not bring forward these instruments immediately after the PPE Act?

[Lord Wills]

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Tyler. He is fully aware that we are talking about a matter of months. We considered all the advice that we received and we consulted widely. As the noble Lord has raised this point, it is worth reminding the Committee that, under the previous Government, the Front Benches of both the party of the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, including the Minister, and the Conservative Party agreed that the timeframe that was necessary to bring in individual registration could not be rushed. Therefore, we set a date of 2015. Everyone agreed with all the expert analysis that that time was needed to achieve a comprehensive and accurate register. That is the reason for the timeframe. There is no good reason for bringing this forward in the way that the Government propose—none.

We will return to these issues in due course, but I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, who is also a fair man, did not in his remarks pay credit to the Electoral Commission for the work that it did in improving registration rates in the run-up to the election. He may well be right that it was an interesting general election and that that motivated more people to register and, in some cases, even to vote. However, it was also the case that the Electoral Commission did first-rate work in targeting particularly hard-to-reach groups—groups that are traditionally under-registered—and achieved considerable success. This will give us all hope and the commission deserves credit for that.

The noble Lord, Lord Tyler, should have given the previous Government some credit for the measures that they put in place and implemented to drive up rates of registration. The encouraging figures that we have seen recently owe at least something to the work that we did in government. I hope that he is nodding in agreement with this. I am happy to give way to him so that he can put it on the record.

[Lord Tyler]

I give credit to all who can improve registration, but the noble Lord is again undermining his own case. If registration has improved over the past 12 or 24 months, the circumstances that he described of moving towards individual registration could also be accelerated.

[Lord Wills]

I am delighted that the noble Lord has made that point. We set up a process under which there would be an independent assessment of whether the register was comprehensive and accurate—not a guess by Ministers or politicians but an accurate independent assessment. As the noble Lord is aware, under the legislation the Electoral Commission has to report annually to Parliament on progress. Let us see what it says and not rush ahead before we have received such assessments, which are unlikely to show that. I do not say that they will not show it and, if they do, obviously this can be revisited. We put in the requirement for those annual reports to Parliament so that it could make that judgment on the basis of independent evidence and not on the basis of a ministerial whim. When the noble Lord’s party was in opposition, it was very much against that kind of executive whim. I hope that we will see that antagonism to arbitrary action by the state exemplified in its opposition to this legislation.

[Lord Tyler]

I am sorry, but we did not support the timescale that the noble Lord is now describing. In this very Room in Committee, my noble friend Lord Rennard and I argued that we surely could be in a position to accelerate the process in time for an expected election at some point in 2014-15.

[Lord Wills]

With all due respect to the noble Lord, we have to make that judgment on the basis of evidence, but the evidence is not there at the moment. I tried hard in government to put in further measures to improve registration, but for various reasons I was not able to get them all through. I want to know what this Government are doing to bring in new measures over and above what we brought in. That was my first question to the Minister. I have not seen any evidence that this Government are doing any more than the previous Government did, although I am happy to be proved wrong. The improvement of registration rates is vital for the health of our democracy.

The point that I was making, which the noble Lord overlooked, was that Parliament will have an opportunity annually to assess progress towards a comprehensive and accurate register. My concern is not about the speed of individual registration but that it should happen only when the register is comprehensive and accurate. The noble Lord seems to be saying that it should just be done whenever Ministers feel like it. That is the point of disagreement between us. If a comprehensive and accurate register, assessed independently by the Electoral Commission, can be achieved earlier than 2015, that is fine, but all the evidence is that it will not be. If it can be done, then I agree with the noble Lord that we can bring in individual registration sooner, but to rush ahead before the register is comprehensive and accurate will be very damaging. It will be damaging to the register and to the health of our democracy, because it is so transparently partisan to so many of us.

We do not see this as a benign oversight by the Government; we see it as another example of a Government trying to fix the system in their own electoral interest. I know that many people will just shrug their shoulders and say, “Well, that’s what politicians always do. What do you expect?”, but we and this Government really should not behave like that. That is why this matter is so important. It may sound like a technical issue to many people out there but it is not; it is about the integrity of the whole system. I hope that when we get to debate these measures we will hear the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, engage with these issues with his customary rigour, fairness and belief in the integrity of the system. He may come to the point where he is persuaded to vote against his Government on this measure because, in my view, that is what he should do.

[Lord Tyler]

The noble Lord is eloquent, but perhaps I may ask him to confirm one thing before he completely rewrites the history of the previous Administration. Am I right in thinking that the Electoral Commission recommended a staged move towards individual registration in 2003? Why did it take so long for him and his colleagues to get round to doing anything about it if it is as important as he says that it is?

[Lord Wills]

I agree. This was a particularly intractable problem, which Governments have looked at and tried to solve over a very long period. We were not in power for the whole of the past 50 years. Other Governments were in power and they, too, did nothing about moving towards individual registration. We tried to move towards it. The problem was that, every time we looked at achieving the desirable good of individual registration, we saw the problems with the register. We took necessary and important steps to improve the register, but I admit that they were not sufficient. I accept that and the noble Lord is right to criticise us for it. However, you cannot try to achieve one desirable good at the risk of creating what I would see as a greater ill, which is damaging a flawed register even more than it is already damaged.

It was not an easy process, but we found a way to do that. It took a huge amount of effort and negotiation with all sides, including the Electoral Commission, which had to be satisfied that it was proper. We found a balance by coupling the two processes. We coupled the improvement of the register so that it became comprehensive and accurate with individual registration. That, we hoped, would put pressure on everyone to drive up registration rates and move within a reasonable timeframe—and 2015 really is a reasonable timeframe; this is not long-grass territory. Therefore, we moved towards individual registration within a reasonable timeframe and, at the same time, tried to ensure that the register was not damaged, or, to be precise, damaged more than it was already.

I hope that the noble Lord will accept that that is a reasonable point of view. We have to be careful with this. I know that the Minister has not tried to do so, but it is wrong to claim—I am hearing this among the background noises—that these desirable and worthwhile measures that he has brought before us today, for which we are all grateful, on their own justify the partisan rush to individual registration. For all their merits, they do not.

[Baroness Royall of Blaisdon]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for his clear explanation of the instruments and I look forward to our future debates on the speeding up of the implementation of individual electoral registration by July 2014. Obviously, this is a hugely important issue and there is much more to be debated—I associate myself with everything that my noble friend said.

I believe that it is a citizen’s duty to vote and I welcome all efforts to maximise the number of people who are registered to vote. It is deeply depressing that there are 3.5 million people and perhaps closer to 6 million people—I, too, read the article in today’s Guardian—who are eligible to vote but who do not because they are not registered. This disempowers the individual and is damaging to democracy. The fact that a huge proportion of those unregistered are probably young and on lower incomes means that those who are perhaps most in need of a voice do not have one. Therefore, I welcome all measures to improve voter registration.

Effective mechanisms must be established to ensure that the maximum number of people are on the register, so I welcome the instruments that are before us today. I welcome the pilot data-matching schemes, especially the one in the Forest of Dean, which I shall watch with special interest. However, the pilots will be useful only if there is proper evaluation.

Like other noble Lords, I am somewhat concerned about the speed of this. Article 5 of the order specifies the date by which the Electoral Commission must produce a report on the operation of each scheme as 1 March 2012. The Electoral Commission tells us that its agreement to this date is on the basis that the pilot schemes will have been concluded by December 2011— I am not sure whether the noble Lord suggested that that had been put back—and that EROs will be able to provide it with information throughout that process. December is a mere five and a half months away and I hope that many of those employees will get some summer holidays, so will the Minister confirm whether he thinks that this timescale is practical? If the time does not prove to be adequate, will it be extended? I should also be grateful for some further information about the evaluation of the projects and for his assurance that he will report back to Parliament on the process. I will be interested to hear the answers to the questions posed by the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, about the way in which these specific projects were chosen.

I say as an aside that last week I had a meeting with one of the deputy election commissioners in India, a vast country where elections are organised for 750 million participants. I was interested to learn and see that the electoral registers there carry photographs of each person who is eligible to vote. I am not proposing that we should adopt that practice but, like my noble friend Lord Wills, I wonder what other ways the Government are exploring of increasing voter registration. Have they considered introducing a system whereby everybody is registered as of right and then opts out of the register should they wish to, so that the system is an opt-out one rather than an opt-in one?

I welcome the fact that no one who is on the register will be removed if they have not signed as an individual elector for the 2015 register, but I note that that will not be the case after the next general election. That could be a matter of concern if it leads to a greatly reduced number of people on the register and therefore weakens our democratic system, which I think is best nurtured by participation. I look forward to hearing the responses from the Minister and to our future debates on this issue.

16:15

[Lord McNally]

My Lords, in discussions on electoral registration, nothing causes the heart to sink so much as the sight in the Room of the previous Minister, a member of the Electoral Commission and the guru in my own party on these matters. That will in part explain why, in making this response, I now have enough notes to take us safely to six o’clock. I hope that the officials will take careful note if I manage to miss a number of the questions that were asked; I will ensure that I follow them up in writing.

Perhaps the innocent observer will have missed the fact that all contributions welcomed these statutory instruments. I am extremely grateful for the agreement. I share with the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, a lifelong belief that using your vote as a citizen is one of your most important duties and responsibilities. It is perhaps a sad fact that I was brought up in a household in a constituency that had a 15,000 Conservative majority, yet at every election my mother and father would go out resolutely to vote Labour. Indeed, in those days when having a car to deliver you to the polling station was something of a luxury, my mother used to take special pride in going there in a Conservative car to vote Labour.

I am grateful for the contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy. I am pleased to see him on the Electoral Commission. When it was first established, the noble Baroness, Lady Gould, I and others who had worked for political parties on all Benches argued strongly that in order to make it effective the Electoral Commission should contain people with direct experience of party-political organisation. His service on the commission, given his experience, is a plus, the change being carried through by the previous Government.

The exercise of the pilot and the annual register will be kept separate, so that it will be possible to make a comparison. It is our aim that electoral registration officers should provide information at intervals, so that pilots, and the format and frequency of the reports to the Cabinet Office and the Electoral Commission, will be agreed. There will therefore be regular reports. We have asked each pilot to pay particular attention to that point. Since development work began, we have emphasised the importance of the pilots doing everything that they can to distinguish the impact of data matching and related follow-up activities from the usual impact of the annual canvass. I doubt whether that will be perfect, but it will certainly be attempted.

The Cabinet Office and the electoral administrators already have well developed proposals to evaluate the impact of the pilots and we will continue to work together on them as they develop. With the assistance of the Electoral Commission, we will continue to offer help and guidance on appropriate approaches that we consider will be most likely to produce useful evidence. Therefore, I hope that we are keeping in close contact with the Electoral Commission and the electoral registration officers.

It is always difficult to respond to complaints about either speed or slowness, both of which the noble Lord, Lord Wills, managed to make in a speech that he said was intended to be supportive. We will do our best to make these things work effectively and, as I said, most of the participating organisations will do likewise.

The noble Lord, Lord Tyler, asked how the participating authorities were selected. All local authorities across England and Wales were invited to apply to take part in the data-matching pilots. There will be no data-matching pilots in Northern Ireland, which already has individual registration. The individual electoral registration system was introduced in Northern Ireland under the provisions of the Electoral Fraud (Northern Ireland) Act 2002. The Act replaced household registration with individual registration, whereby each eligible elector is required to complete their own electoral registration form.

The noble Lord, Lord Tyler, and others made a point with which I sympathise. I am, as I think was the noble Lord, Lord Wills, the Minister responsible for data protection and, when these proposals first landed on my desk from the Cabinet Office, alarm bells rang. I do not feel comfortable about government departments sharing data in a way that could have an impact on civil liberties unless provisions are put in place and I am happy to assure the Committee that we have taken the necessary steps to make sure that those protections are in place. We will follow the Government’s Information Assurance Standard 6 produced by the Communications-Electronics Security Group, the Government’s central information assurance experts. This standard governs the use, storage, transfer and destruction of data. We have consulted over our specific plans with the CESG and those responsible in the Cabinet Office for information security, as well as participating departments. Under Article 4 of the statutory instrument, all participants, including electoral registration officers, must sign agreements to comply with the standards. The Cabinet Office is also providing information assurance training.

The noble Lord, Lord Tyler, asked whether there will be a two-way flow of information. The answer is no. Departments will not receive information. This will be a one-way process. However, as I said, I think that when government departments, for the most honourable and meritorious reasons, start sharing information, there is a need for those concerned with data protection to be on their guard. I see in his place my noble friend Lord Thomas of Gresford. I usually refer to him by saying, “An old Liberal once told me”, but I think that in this case I can identify him—to be distinguished, of course, from the young Liberals. My noble friend once memorably said to me that there should be a limit on how much information the state holds on an individual in a free society. I think that that is true and I constantly worry about the capacity of new technologies to cross-reference information in a way that could undermine civil liberties. In this case, I can say that we are taking the necessary steps to ensure that this information is used specifically, in a one-way direction and with the necessary protections in place.

The noble Lord, Lord Jones, properly reminded us that, as in Northern Ireland, much of the exercise was to ensure that the system was fraud-free, secret and clean, and that the integrity of the ballot box was protected. I hope that successive Governments will make clear their intention in that respect. Indeed, people have recently been sent to prison for electoral fraud, and rightly so. Anyone contemplating electoral fraud should be well aware that we would use all possible means to ensure that they were prosecuted for it. Cardiff pulled out too late for us to make changes to the order and to find another Welsh example. As a strong supporter of devolution, I am always grateful that the specific matters concerning the responsibilities of Welsh Ministers are nothing to do with me.

Not surprisingly, today’s Guardian article was drawn to my attention. It is not possible to indicate with precision the registration rate in the UK because the size of the eligible population is not known, but the Electoral Commission will soon be conducting research into electoral registration levels in a project funded by the Cabinet Office. The study will check a statistically significant sample of electoral registers at local authority level against the people actually living at these addresses. The work will involve some 5,000 interviews in some 50 local authority areas across Britain.

I have noticed in debating previous Bills that a kind of victim culture has been growing up in the Labour Party that somehow the Government are wickedly keeping 3.5 million—“implied Labour”—voters off the register. No one is being kept off the electoral register. I have always been slightly suspicious of these figures and doubt whether at any time in human history there has been a 100 per cent completed electoral register. Indeed, I am old enough to remember when the register used to be updated twice a year and Harold Wilson used carefully to calculate the dates of elections so that the new register could be used, as the old ones became quickly out of date. Trying to put an electoral register together—

[Lord Wills]

I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. As he seemed to miss my comment, I want to stress that I am very supportive of him and these measures. However, is he aware that for all practical purposes, large parts of the country achieve 100 per cent registration and that their registers are comprehensive and accurate? It is not therefore some distant objective that we will never achieve, because some parts of the country are already achieving it. I accept that the Government are trying to reach that objective and I do not think that there is anything wilful about this. However, does the Minister accept that the task is to get all parts of the country up to that standard?

16:30

[Lord McNally]

Yes. However, I refer to one of the points that my noble friend Lord Tyler made in the most enjoyable exchange that he had with the noble Lord, Lord Wills. The trouble with my noble friend Lord Tyler is that not only does he know the facts but he knows the dates as well; he is a difficult man to grapple with. He made the point that voter registration is not only a mechanical issue but a political one. We all have to get out and knock on doors and convince people. I freely accept that in some areas it is more difficult to obtain registration.

I make no apologies for pushing ahead with individual registration because, although there may be problems initially in the transition—and we are trying to put in place measures that will mitigate some of the problems—we are convinced that individual registration is a way to both avoid fraud and encourage individual participation in our democratic process.

[Lord Jones]

I am grateful that the Minister is grappling. First, can a Minister direct the electoral registration officer? Secondly, was he confirming that the city of Cardiff has pulled out of the pilot? If he was, I should tell him that I did not know and that I have relied on the documents that he presented to your Lordships saying that it was part of the scheme. He may wish to answer those two questions.

[Lord McNally]

I shall write to the noble Lord on his first question. As I understand it, Cardiff withdrew but, again, I shall write to clarify the situation.

[Lord Jones]

The Minister will concede that we needed to be told in proceedings that the schedule was inaccurate.

[Lord McNally]

I will check, but I think that I said that in my opening remarks.

[Lord Jones]

I am grateful to the Minister.

[Lord McNally]

This has been a useful and question-filled debate, although we will have to wait for Hansard to find out whether it has been fact-filled. It is important that we have respect for the electoral register and for our democratic process. On balance, I have always been in favour of the stubby pencil inside a voting booth as a sign of the citizen’s commitment to making democracy work. These days, if you ever go checking numbers outside a polling station, it is sad to see elderly people struggling to make it to exercise that right and young people walking past. It is part of our task as politicians to reverse that process. We have to make democracy work and I hope that these instruments will make some contribution towards that. I sincerely thank all those who have contributed to a very well informed debate.

Motion agreed.

Electoral Registration Data Schemes Order 2011

Tuesday 7th June 2011 Grand Committee

Considered in Grand Committee

16:33

Moved By

[Lord McNally]

That the Grand Committee do report to the House that it has considered the Electoral Registration Data Schemes Order 2011.

Relevant document: 20th Report from the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments.

Motion agreed.

Export Control (Amendment) (No. 3) Order 2011

Tuesday 7th June 2011 Grand Committee

Considered in Grand Committee

16:35

Moved By

[Baroness Wilcox]

That the Grand Committee do report to the House that it has considered the Export Control (Amendment) (No. 3) Order 2011.

Relevant document: 21st Report from the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (Baroness Wilcox)]

My Lords, the order is being introduced under Section 6 of the Export Control Act 2002. Its effect is to control the export to the United States of America of the drugs sodium thiopental, potassium chloride, pancuronium bromide and sodium pentobarbital, when in a form suitable for injection. It prohibits the export of these drugs to the US unless the exporter has first obtained a licence from my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills. To ensure consistency, this new order revokes the Export Control (Amendment) (No.3) Order 2010, which controlled the export of sodium thiopental to the US and which was approved by this Committee on 20 December 2010. I would like to start by reiterating some of the background to the 2010 order, as this provides the key context for the extension of export controls to these other drugs.

On 28 October 2010, Leigh Day & Co, the solicitors acting on behalf of a prisoner on death row in Tennessee, wrote to my right honourable friend the Secretary of State requesting that he place controls on the export to the United States of the drug sodium thiopental. Sodium thiopental—also known as thiopental sodium, as the noble Lord, Lord Young, noted previously—is an anaesthetic which is widely used in medicine throughout the world, but it is also used by some states in the US to anaesthetise prisoners prior to execution. There has been a shortage of this drug in the US for some months, which has led at least some states to seek supplies of sodium thiopental elsewhere.

While affirming the Government’s opposition to the death penalty, my right honourable friend declined to impose export controls on the drug immediately. His primary concern was that he should not take action which might cause delays in the export of a medicine which could be needed by patients. Leigh Day & Co was granted permission by the High Court to judicially review his decision and the first hearing of the case took place on 17 November 2010. The court adjourned the claimants’ public law challenge, which was due to be heard on 29 November. In the course of the legal proceedings, it emerged that, under applicable federal law, it was not currently lawful to import sodium thiopental into the United States for medical purposes. Moreover, it was established that at present sodium thiopental is virtually unused for legitimate medical purposes in the US.

On 29 November, my right honourable friend decided that these new developments significantly strengthened the arguments in favour of a control order. Such an order would serve to underline the UK’s moral opposition to the death penalty without impacting on legitimate trade and without adversely affecting the health of patients in the US. He therefore decided to make an order under Section 6 of the Export Control Act 2002, controlling the export of sodium thiopental from the UK to the US. The order came into force on 30 November 2010. Since that date, any person seeking to export sodium thiopental from the United Kingdom to the United States has required a licence issued by the Export Control Organisation within BIS.

Following that decision, the charity Reprieve formally asked the Government to extend the controls to cover the other drugs that are currently legally defined in the execution protocols of relevant US states. Most states use three drugs—sodium thiopental as an anaesthetic, pancuronium bromide as a muscle relaxant, and potassium chloride to stop the heart. At least one state, Oklahoma, has substituted the anaesthetic sodium pentobarbital because of the shortage of sodium thiopental.

While these drugs are currently used by some US states for the purposes of lethal injection in this way, potassium chloride and pancuronium bromide are both ordinarily used in human medicine, whereas sodium pentobarbital primarily applies to veterinary medicine. Officials within BIS consulted relevant UK marketing authorisation holders, trade associations and wholesalers to determine the potential impacts of extending controls on the export to the United States of these drugs. This suggested that currently there are no exports of these substances from the United Kingdom to the United States for medical or veterinary purposes, nor did there appear to be any prospect of such exports. In addition, unlike sodium thiopental, there has not been a comparable suggestion of a shortage of these drugs in the US. It follows that export controls on these drugs would be unlikely to impact either on medical exports by UK companies or on medical or veterinary practice in the US.

The Government’s conclusion, therefore, is that an extended control is justified. It will guard against future exports from the United Kingdom of drugs for the purpose of executions, and it will do so without harming legitimate trade. I should stress that the order reflects the particular circumstances of the United States and applies only to that country. An order that controlled the export of these drugs more widely might have affected legitimate medical trade in a way that this proposed order would not.

The order came into force on 16 April. From that date, any person seeking to export from the United Kingdom to the United States any of these drugs that are in a form suitable for injection requires a licence issued by the Export Control Organisation, which will refuse a licence if the stated end use is execution or if it considers there to be an unacceptable risk that the drug will be diverted for use in execution. In the latter case, the organisation would assess the risks case by case in the light of all relevant factors. A breach of the order is a criminal offence. The control order covers both the direct and indirect export of sodium thiopental from the United Kingdom to the United States. The indirect control applies when the destination is not the United States but the exporter knows that the goods will be re-exported and that the ultimate destination is indeed the United States.

The order was laid before Parliament pursuant to the procedure in Section 13 of the 2002 Act and, unless approved by a resolution of each House within 40 days, will cease to have effect. Orders made under Section 6 last for a maximum of 12 months. On the basis of the facts that I have outlined, I commend this order to the Committee. The operation and effect of the order will be kept under review in the light of future developments. I beg to move.

[Lord Thomas of Gresford]

My Lords, nothing can be quite as stomach-churning as hearing one’s client being sentenced to death—as I have—and to know that the system of appeals will then follow. I was discussing only at lunchtime today one case where my client was condemned to death in Hong Kong. He won his appeal. There was a second trial and he was acquitted, but he ended up being executed in China by having a bullet put in the back of his neck. It is something which—old Liberal or new Liberal Democrat—I and my party have opposed for a very long time and I am delighted that this order has been brought forward.

I hope that I shall not again have the experience that happened not so very long ago when I received a phone call from someone on death row in a Caribbean country telling me that they were building gallows outside his cell and that he was due to be executed on the following Monday—this being a Friday afternoon. Fortunately, on that occasion we were able to save him.

The death penalty is a disgusting punishment. It is contrary to Article 2 of the European convention and contrary to all human rights conventions throughout the world, and I am pleased that this order takes it further.

[Lord Young of Norwood Green]

My Lords, we have been round this statutory instrument track before but I congratulate the Minister on a comprehensive report. I am now a lot more knowledgeable about sodium thiopental and pancuronium bromide—clearly a word with which the Minister had trouble. It was a comprehensive report. I was not aware of the precise usage of these particular drugs and we welcome the fact that there is both a direct and indirect control. That is important.

I have one question before I conclude. In paragraph 8—the consultation outcome—it rather strangely says:

“Following a short general industry consultation, the trade between the UK and the US on these products appears to be negligible”.

Does “appears to be negligible” mean that they were not satisfied with the process of validation? If the Minister cannot answer today, I would welcome a response in writing.

We on this side share the abhorrence of the noble Lord, Lord Thomas, of the death penalty. He reminded us in graphic terms what it is like for individuals facing that fate, which is unfortunately still too common in many countries around the world. The fact that we can play a small but important role in ensuring that we do not contribute towards a practice that all of us in the House abhor is important. Apart from my one minor question, we, too, welcome this statutory instrument.

[Baroness Wilcox]

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Thomas of Gresford for recounting his personal experiences as a distinguished lawyer on the subject of execution and I thank him for his support for the order. Yes, the noble Lord, Lord Young, and I have been round these statutory instruments before, but I am grateful to have his immediate support for this one. I apologise for my pronunciation of some of the drugs. I am not up on it—and I am very happy not to have been up on the names of those particular drugs.

As to the question of the noble Lord, Lord Young, about the words “appears to be negligible”, I have it here that there should be minimal if not zero legitimate trade in these drugs. Our consultation has shown that there is no trade. I am sorry, but my official could not understand what was written and I cannot read the reply, which is very embarrassing. I shall try again. It should be “minimal if not zero”; there is no trade.

I am sorry that I made such a fist of that when all I had to do was say that I hope I have dealt with the key points made by the noble Lord and that I commend the order to the Committee.

Motion agreed.

Taxation of Equitable Life (Payments) Order 2011

Tuesday 7th June 2011 Grand Committee

Considered in Grand Committee

16:50

Moved By

[Lord Sassoon]

That the Grand Committee do report to the House that it has considered the Taxation of Equitable Life (Payments) Order 2011.

Relevant document: 19th Report from the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments.

[The Commercial Secretary to the Treasury (Lord Sassoon)]

My Lords, to set this order in context, it may be helpful if I provided a little background on the development of the Equitable Life payment scheme. The Government have pledged to implement the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman’s recommendation to make fair and transparent payments to Equitable Life policyholders for their relative loss as a consequence of regulatory failure. We have made considerable progress towards fulfilling that pledge.

We introduced the Equitable Life (Payments) Bill in July 2010, giving HM Treasury authority to incur expenditure when making these payments. We published Sir John Chadwick’s advice on the financial losses sustained by Equitable Life policyholders, invited representations on this advice, and carefully considered them in our deliberations in advance of the spending review. Following that consideration, and refinements to the calculations of Sir John’s actuaries, we quantified the relative loss at £4.1 billion, based on a full acceptance of the Parliamentary Ombudsman’s findings of maladministration. In determining the level of payments through the scheme, it was important, as the Parliamentary Ombudsman herself acknowledged, to take into account the impact on the public purse. Therefore, at the spending review we announced that approximately £1.5 billion would be paid out through the payment scheme.

It is also important to note that even in the context of a very tight spending review, we still found a way to cover all the losses of the with-profits or trapped annuitants. This is possible because we will be paying their losses through annual payments that reflect the structure of their policies. These policyholders were particularly vulnerable to their losses because they were unable to move their funds elsewhere or mitigate the impact of their losses through employment. They are also generally the oldest policyholders.

We also established the Independent Commission on Equitable Life Payments, chaired by Brian Pomeroy, to advise on the distribution of the remaining funding among other policyholders. The commission reported in January, and its recommendations formed the basis of the Equitable Life payment scheme design document that was published on 16 May. The document sets out the detail of how the scheme will work, including who will receive payments, how they will be calculated, and how they will be made. In that document, we set out our intention to make first payments through the scheme by the end of this month, and we are on track to meet this target.

Noble Lords may be pleased to hear that that this brings me to the order itself. When we introduced the Equitable Life (Payments) Bill last year, we took a power to provide for authorised payments made by the scheme to be free of tax, and to enable them to be disregarded for the purposes of assessing eligibility for certain means-tested state-funded support. At the spending review, the Financial Secretary to the Treasury announced that the payments would be tax free. There are strong reasons for this, which were raised in the representations following the publication of Sir John’s advice. One key issue is simplicity. It would be an extremely difficult task to decide the appropriate tax treatment of a payment that represents loss suffered on an investment over the past 10 years, during which many policyholders’ circumstances may have changed. It would also be very challenging to explain any such treatment and associated reporting requirements to those in receipt of payments. This approach would also be extremely time-consuming. In light of our commitment to bringing the Equitable Life issue to a conclusion as quickly as possible, it is just not tenable.

Secondly, we have taken serious consideration of fairness. Of a total loss of £4.1 billion, £1.5 billion will be made available to the scheme, based on our careful assessment of what funding would strike a fair balance between fairness to policyholders and fairness to the taxpayer. Adding a tax liability to payments on top of this discount would disrupt this balance.

Let me take the Committee through the order. Articles 2 to 4 provide for authorised payments to be disregarded for the purposes of capital gains tax, corporation tax and income tax. All direct payments from the scheme to identified payees, as set out in the Equitable Life Payments Scheme design document, are authorised payments under the scheme. Where Equitable Life has only one set of data and no records of the individual members of a group pension scheme, the scheme will use the trustee of the group pension scheme as a paying agent. Onward payments from these trustees to their pension scheme members are also authorised payments.

Article 5 provides for inheritance tax. It ensures that a person’s right to, or interest in, an authorised payment will be disregarded in calculating the value of that person’s estate on death for the purposes of inheritance tax; and that such rights or interests are similarly disregarded in calculating the value of relevant property subject to a 10-year anniversary charge for inheritance tax, where an authorised payment is made on or after such anniversary. This means that no estate will have to be reopened in order for inheritance tax to be charged on payments received after death. But payments received before death will not be ring-fenced to give them ongoing relief from inheritance tax. Such ring-fencing is not practicable.

Article 6 provides that in calculating investment income for the purposes of entitlement to tax credits an authorised payment shall be disregarded. Section 9 of the scheme design document that we published last month sets out in detail how the tax relief set out in the order will work in relation to the scheme.

I hope that all present will support the making of this order today. Following today’s debate, the order is scheduled for debate in the other place tomorrow. This should ensure that the order is made before the end of the month, giving certainty and reassurance to those who will receive the first payments. The order reflects the Government’s principles of fairness, transparency and simplicity in our response to the Equitable Life saga, and I beg to move.

[Lord Newby]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for that clear description of the background and of the order. The whole Equitable Life saga is one of the least-savoury examples of public policymaking in recent years, and it was a great relief that the Government were able to grasp the nettle and reach a settlement so quickly last year. Therefore speed, which was so lacking for so long, needs now to be of the essence in getting payments made. The Minister explained that the payments will be exempt of tax because to have made them liable to tax could have been time consuming. One can think of other cases in which the payment of compensation has taken years because of the time-consuming procedures that were put in place. The pneumoconiosis saga among the miners is a classic example of necessary detailed calculations and assessment taking years, during which time inevitably a significant number of those eligible for the payments died. Given that we are talking here about pensioners, time is of the essence.

I have one question for the Minister. Once the order is passed, the Government hope to begin making payments by the end of this month. Do they have any assessment of how long it is likely to take for the whole process to be completed? That is of huge importance to the individual policyholders. It is great knowing that you are going to get some compensation, but you need certainty. It would therefore be very good if the Government could give some certainty in the timetable so that even those who will not receive payment in the first tranche will have some broad idea of when they will receive it.

16:59

[Lord Tunnicliffe]

My Lords, I, too, thank the Minister for his concise overview of the position and for introducing the order. We support the action that the Government have taken on this whole issue, and we accept that, although we may have different views about the approaches taken, speed is of the essence and the order should go through. We know that during the passage of the primary legislation there was some debate on the quantum, but ultimately Governments are in the business of making decisions and we recognise the decision to set the payment scheme at £1.5 billion.

In the original debate there was some concern about the allocation to the group of with-profits annuitants. The general principle that they should be protected against the comparison at 100 per cent was consensual. However, as my noble friend Lord McKenzie said in the debate:

“If relative loss is calculated on a gross-of-tax basis and the post-1992 with-profit annuitants are kept whole on this basis, will not the tax exemption go further than full reimbursement?”.—[Official Report, 24/11/10; col. 1152.]

I accept the case that has been made for simplicity but, in terms of the balance between the two pots, are the Government comfortable that this has not created an anomaly between the with-profits group and the non-with-profits group?

I join the noble Lord in seeking further information on the progress of payments but, aside from that question and perhaps the matter of an enhanced progress report, we support the order.

[Lord Sassoon]

My Lords, first, I thank my noble friend Lord Newby and the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, for their helpful contributions to this short debate and for supporting the order. The making of the order is a crucial step towards making the first payments at the end of the month.

I shall address the questions that have been raised by my noble friend Lord Newby, followed up by the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, about how the timetable will unfold. As I said, the first payments will commence by the end of this month. It is then expected that payments to all traceable accumulating with-profits groups and conventional with-profits policyholders will be made over the first three years of the scheme. Payments to with-profits annuity policyholders for past losses will be spread over the first five years of the scheme, while annual payments for future losses will commence in year one and continue for the lifetime of the policyholders. All individual policyholders can expect to hear from the scheme in the first year—that is, by June 2012. As I think I said, for certain classes of policyholder closure of the process will be within three years; for others, five years; and for one class, as I identified, over their lifetime. I hope that that makes the position clear in respect of the several different classes of policyholder.

In response to the question of the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, on why tax relief is being granted on payments to with-profit annuitants who will have received 100 per cent of their losses covered by the scheme, losses for with-profit annuitants have been calculated on a gross basis. As I have just said, unlike other policyholders, those annuitants will receive their payments over time and we will not be paying any interest on those payments between the date of the calculation—December 2009—and the date of receipt. Disregarding the payments for tax will offset the effect of that payment schedule and the absence of any interest. It is important to note that these payments are in respect of losses that go back over nearly two decades and it would be an incredibly complex and burdensome task to work out what the tax positions for individuals would have been at the relevant time. As has been recognised, the scheme needs to be simple and not unduly complex. In recognition of that, we have decided to make the payments tax free. In the round, we do not believe that this will result in overpayment for with-profits annuitants, given the offset that I have identified.

Briefly, as regards reporting on the progress of the scheme—an issue that was briefly touched on by the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe—progress will be tracked and evaluated throughout the lifetime of the scheme, and I envisage that a number of reports will be produced, including in relation to the management of contracts, operations and risks. I am happy to give reassurance that the Government will give Parliament regular updates on the progress of the scheme.

We have come a long way in the past year to redressing the losses that Equitable Life policyholders have suffered over the past decade. Following the coming into effect of the order, a communications strategy is in place so that all recipients will be informed that their payments are to be tax free, and that they do not have to report them for tax purposes. In addition, HMRC helplines, and the staff at payment scheme call centres will be provided with lines to take so as to answer any questions on the tax treatment of these payments. I am grateful for the Committee’s support.

Motion agreed.

Committee adjourned at 5.08 pm.

House of Lords

Tuesday 7th June 2011 Lords Chamber

Tuesday, 7 June 2011.

14:30

Prayers—read by the Lord Bishop of Derby.

Health: Multiple Sclerosis

Tuesday 7th June 2011 Lords Chamber

Question

14:36

Asked by

[Lord Dubs]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many multiple sclerosis nurses there are in England and Wales, and what proportion of people with multiple sclerosis do not have access to a specialist nurse.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Earl Howe)]

My Lords, the information requested is not collected centrally. In England, it is the responsibility of local health bodies to make decisions on the number of multiple sclerosis nurse posts and for local providers to ensure that they have a workforce skilled to deliver these services.

[Lord Dubs]

Does the Minister agree that the majority of patients suffering from MS do not have access to an MS nurse and that the absence of an MS nurse makes it very hard for patients to live independently? Does he further agree that the absence of an MS nurse puts enormously more pressure on consultants and GPs?

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, the Government recognise the very valuable contribution made by nurse specialists. It remains our view that local providers should have the freedom to determine their own workforce based on clinical need as they assess it. The commissioning consortia that will be in place subject to the passage of the Health and Social Care Bill and led by clinicians will recognise that nurse specialists have an essential role in improving outcomes and experiences for patients. That is part of the key to ensuring that these valuable posts remain in place.

[Lord Walton of Detchant]

Is the Minister aware that specialist nurses play an increasingly important role in the care not only of patients with MS but of patients with many other neurological diseases, including Parkinson’s disease and epilepsy? Is he aware also of recent reports to the effect that some such specialist nurses, even a few funded by charities, have been required by employing authorities to undertake general nursing care to the detriment of the specialist care that they should be offering such patients? Will he take action to prevent that?

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, I am aware of those reports. We have received concerns from most, if not all, of the neurological patient groups, as the noble Lord mentioned. He might like to know, however, that to help trusts develop specialist nursing roles, the department published some time ago a guidance document, Long Term Neurological Conditions: A Good Practice Guide to the Development of the Multidisciplinary Team and the Value of the Specialist Nurse. That was created in conjunction with a number of healthcare charitable organisations. It outlines why services for neurological conditions are important, it shows the importance of those multidisciplinary teams, and it clarifies the contribution of specialist nurses.

[Baroness Gardner of Parkes]

What is the position when a specialist nurse for MS or any other condition—I declare an interest as I have a daughter with MS—leaves a hospital and the hospital decides that it is not recruiting any more people? I know that local providers are independent, but can the department give some sort of guidance that specialist nurses should not be overlooked when they replace staff and that they should consider the special role that they have carried out?

[Earl Howe]

My noble friend makes an important point. The guide that I have just referred to in answering the noble Lord, Lord Walton, emphasises the important role of specialist nurses in the care of patients with neurological conditions. However, the key in the future will be better commissioning at a local level joined with better workforce planning at a provider level. If those charged with training and workforce planning tap into the commissioning plans that commissioning consortia determine, we will have a genuinely joined-up system that is also informed by the patient’s point of view.

[Baroness Pitkeathley]

My Lords, does the guide to which the Minister referred have anything to say about keeping records? MS patients, their families and carers always report that because it is an illness with long periods of remission—sometimes lasting years—the difficulty of keeping the records up to date causes them distress.

[Earl Howe]

The noble Baroness makes a very important point, and she is right. I will have to check whether the guide refers to that issue. I would be surprised if it did not. However, the central point that she makes is quite correct. The key to this, as so often, is good communication between those providing care at every stage of the care pathway. Sometimes, unfortunately, that breaks down.

[Lord Laming]

Can the Minister tell the House what means the Department of Health has for monitoring the reductions in these multidisciplinary teams to which he has referred? There is evidence, at a local level, of quite serious reductions at present.

[Earl Howe]

The problem is that, historically, there has been no requirement to publish information on the number of multiple sclerosis nurses. The NHS Information Centre for health and social care extracts data from the electronic staff record and quality-assures the data prior to publication in the non-medical workforce census. The qualified nursing, midwifery and health visiting staff group is broken down only by area of work, so it is quite difficult to keep a handle on this.

[Baroness Hussein-Ece]

My Lords, many people with a long-term condition such as multiple sclerosis are usually in their prime of life and in employment when they are diagnosed. It is therefore important to their well-being that they can continue with that employment as long as they are able to. Can the Minister say whether the government-led initiative Health, Work and Well-being is supporting these people and whether he is satisfied that all employers understand that those diagnosed with multiple sclerosis are protected by the Equality Act and the Disability Discrimination Act, depending on where they live?

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, I am personally involved with Dame Carol Black in a work stream under the Responsibility Deal, which covers health in the workplace. Under that banner, we are emphasising to employers how important it is to understand the circumstances and needs of employees with a long-term condition. I will, however, go back and see whether I can provide my noble friend with a fuller reply.

[The Countess of Mar]

My Lords, is the noble Earl aware that today I have received two letters, both from ME sufferers who have long-term neurological conditions? One of them has just been sacked by the National Health Service and the other has just been sacked by local government, for which she works. Can the noble Earl say what protection these people have in their workplace? Neither the NHS nor local government seems to understand that ME is a fluctuating condition and that the disability Acts require employers to make allowances for this.

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, I hope the noble Countess will allow that ME is a different issue from MS. I would be very happy to answer a question on ME on another occasion.

Health: Hospital-acquired Infection

Tuesday 7th June 2011 Lords Chamber

14:44

Asked by

[Lord Sheldon]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many hospital patients acquired an infection following their admission during 2010.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Earl Howe)]

My Lords, information on all healthcare-associated infections is not collected centrally. The best available information is from the mandatory surveillance system, managed by the Health Protection Agency. During 2010, 1,630 MRSA bloodstream infections and 23,208 Clostridium difficile infections were reported in England. Of these, an estimated 818 and 11,547 cases respectively were acquired after admission to an acute National Health Service trust. Data on other infections subject to mandatory surveillance are not yet available for this period.

[Lord Sheldon]

My Lords, according to the British Medical Journal, about 7 per cent of patients in hospital in Europe develop healthcare-associated infections. In the past there was a shortage of beds in hospitals, but what is the position now? Is there still a shortage of beds, and how many hospital patients acquired an infection in 2010?

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, we expect all provider trusts to have sufficient isolation units for those patients in whom an infection is identified. I am not quite sure whether this is what lay behind the noble Lord’s question, but there is no evidence to support a link between higher bed occupancy rates and higher rates of healthcare-associated infections. The number of beds occupied in a trust, in other words, should not have a bearing on the infection rate in that hospital.

[Lord Roberts of Conwy]

My Lords, could the Minister confirm that the best hospitals actually test patients in advance of admission for MRSA, for example—as I personally was tested but yesterday at the Royal Liverpool and Broadgreen University Hospital?

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, yes, and that is now a requirement on all NHS trusts.

[Baroness Howarth of Breckland]

Does the Minister agree that the length of stay that a patient has increases the risk, particularly among elderly patients? Can he tell me how many elderly patients are now staying in hospital for greater lengths of time because they are not being discharged into appropriate local authority provision?

[Earl Howe]

The noble Baroness is quite right that delayed discharge poses a risk, not only in terms of infection but in terms of mobility and other issues that affect the elderly. We are clear that if this problem is to be eased, further funding is required at local authority level, which is why we have made available up to £1 billion over the period of the spending review to ensure that the issue is addressed.

[Baroness Pitkeathley]

I declare an interest as a recoverer from MRSA. Is the Minister making any assessment of the effectiveness of preventive measures, such as hand sanitisers and making sure that doctors do not wear ties, which droop in wounds, and so on?

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, the noble Baroness will know that a code of practice was issued some time ago, which the CQC uses to ensure that the registration requirements of a provider have been complied with. It is clear that the decline in numbers of hospital-acquired infections has coincided with the issue of that guidance. We believe that it has made a material difference. I am not aware that there has yet been systematic evidence-gathering of whether the guidance has had an effect, but it appears that it has.

[Baroness Masham of Ilton]

Does the Minister not think it is about time that the figures for infections were kept nationally? Is he aware that some hospitals have got better and some have got worse, and the outcomes across the country are very patchy?

[Earl Howe]

The noble Baroness is absolutely right. The headline figures disguise considerable variations between the best and worst performers. Our approach has been to adopt a zero tolerance policy to all avoidable healthcare-associated infections. To support that we have introduced a number of specific actions, including establishing clear objectives under the NHS operating framework, which are requirements for all trusts to meet, and for primary care organisations, and extending to health and social care settings the regulations on infection prevention and control. We have also increased the requirements on publishing data trust by trust.

[Baroness Thornton]

My Lords, I welcome very much the fact that the Government have continued to bear down on this issue, which of course my Government made great strides on when we were in office. Can the Minister assure the House that the funding to continue bearing down on it will be ensured from a national level?

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, as the noble Baroness knows, we expect trusts and primary care organisations to utilise funds from within their global budgets to meet the requirements that I have just outlined, such as those in the NHS operating framework. These requirements are mandatory, and it appears that over the past few years, trusts and primary care organisations have really got to grips with this problem.

[Lord Patel]

My Lords, the Government are to be commended on insisting that all hospitals publish their infection rates for Clostridium difficile and MRSA on a weekly basis, which we can monitor on the website. It is interesting to note that one or two hospitals stand out by consistently having higher numbers while the rest make dramatic reductions. What is important, however, is that there has been no reduction in central venous line or other central line infections. I hope that the Government have a strategy similar to the one on MRSA and C. difficile to insist that hospitals reduce their rates of central line infections.

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, the noble Lord makes an important point. We have consciously limited the extent to which it is a requirement to publish data to the most prevalent infections that need to be addressed. That is not to say that other types of infection are less important; they are extremely important. However, we would expect a ward-to-board policy to operate within each trust so that the boards of trusts bear down on these infections as hard as on others.

Leader’s Group on Working Practices

Tuesday 7th June 2011 Lords Chamber

Question

14:52

Asked by

[Lord Tyler]

To ask the Leader of the House when he expects to respond to the recommendations of the Leader’s Group on Working Practices.

[The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Lord Strathclyde)]

My Lords, I will be leading a debate on the report prepared by the Leader’s Group and chaired by my noble friend Lord Goodlad later this month, following which I plan to invite the relevant committees of the House to take forward specific recommendations.

[Lord Tyler]

My Lords, I am sure that many Members of the House will welcome that positive response from my noble friend, but can he assure us that there will be an opportunity for the House as a whole to debate and decide some of these matters, some of which are not only timely but very urgent? The work that has been done by this group is, I think, broadly welcomed across the House—it has done a very good job—but some of it is, as I say, very urgent. Notably, there is the question of the role of the Lord Speaker, which is a matter that I hope will be determined by the House as a whole before the new Lord Speaker is elected. Can my noble friend give us an assurance that there will be a speedy timetable for discussion and decision on these matters?

[Lord Strathclyde]

Yes, my Lords. Of course, the final decisions on these matters will be entirely in the hands of the House, which is entirely appropriate. In particular, I confirm to my noble friend that there is no reason why decisions cannot be taken immensely speedily after the debate and when we have taken the views of the House into account and sent them to the respective committees.

As for the role of the Lord Speaker, the Leader’s Group concluded that successive Leaders of the House had acted with complete impartiality in their role of advising the House on matters of procedure and order, including at Question Time. None the less, I am conscious that some in the House wish to see a far greater role for the Chair—notably at Question Time—and that the Leader’s Group has made proposals in this area, to which I intend to give prompt and serious consideration once Members have had the opportunity to have their say.

[Lord Elton]

My Lords, the report will be differently received as regards different paragraphs by different Members of this House. What is the procedure by which we shall be able to pick and choose that which we wish and that which we shall not wish?

[Lord Strathclyde]

That is a good question. The purpose of the debate is a bit like a Second Reading speech; it is for different noble Lords to use their speeches to look at different parts of the report. After that, it will be dissected by the usual channels and the clerks and sent to the respective committees. Their reports can then be debated and approved by the House as a whole.

[Lord Cormack]

My Lords, I think that noble Lords will welcome what my noble friend has just said. Will he bear in mind that there is considerable disquiet in many parts of the House about the proposal that we should sit at 2 o’clock? Would he also bear in mind that there is considerable support for the proposal that we should have more Joint Committees? It is therefore essential that we have the opportunity to vote individually on these various recommendations.

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, I am aware of that and that is the point of the proposal that I laid out: namely, that the House will be able to take a view on individual recommendations, subject to the reports that emanate from the committees of this House.

[Baroness Royall of Blaisdon]

My Lords, I know that following the Question from the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, many Members of this House are anxious that some of the proposals at least should be implemented in the near future. May I therefore suggest to the noble Lord the Leader that perhaps the meetings of the relevant committees could be arranged for July in order that the House may take a view at the earliest opportunity? Perhaps some elements of the report could be implemented in September.

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, that, of course, will be a decision for the Chairman of Committees, but no doubt he will be listening to this exchange and will wish to take that into regard while he decides on the dates of the meetings of the relevant committees.

Care Homes

Tuesday 7th June 2011 Lords Chamber

Question

14:57

Asked by

[Baroness Bakewell]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to protect the interests of residents of care homes, such as those operated by Southern Cross.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Earl Howe)]

My Lords, the Government will take whatever action is necessary to protect the welfare of care home residents. Southern Cross has plans in place to restructure its business and is keeping the Government updated on progress. We will continue to keep in close touch with the situation and will work with local authorities, the Care Quality Commission and others to ensure that there is an effective response, which delivers protection to everyone affected.

[Baroness Bakewell]

I thank the noble Earl for that information. Given the latest revelations that Southern Cross traded the care of older people for short-term profit and that the Care Quality Commission so woefully failed to come to the help of suffering people in a home in Bristol, can I urge him to take the most urgent steps as soon as possible to relieve the suffering of people who are old, frail and dependent, and who are suffering much neglect?

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, I am sure the noble Baroness’s concerns will be echoed throughout the House. We have seen distressing reports in recent days of the treatment of certain patients in private hospitals, but the worry over Southern Cross relates much more to its financial situation and the future of its residents. I can assure the noble Baroness that we are taking this situation very seriously. We are in touch, as I have said, with all the relevant parties—and have been for the last several months. We are making sure that everybody is aware of their responsibilities in this area, not least towards the residents concerned. As regards Southern Cross, we are now in a critical period when restructuring is being explored, and we wish those efforts well.

[Lord Low of Dalston]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that the problems besetting Southern Cross are an object lesson in the dangers of market failure attending the privatisation of public services?

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, I do not agree with that. For many years, successive Governments have relied upon private care providers in social care. In general, this has been entirely satisfactory. It has given people wide choice in the care available and Governments have encouraged that. Financial issues for one provider—albeit a major one, I concede—do not undermine the entire principle of independent care provision.

[Baroness Knight of Collingtree]

Will my noble friend the Minister confirm that the original principle, stated to be the main aim of all these reforms, is unchanged in spite of the very necessary talks he is having with several different bodies? Is it still to be the case that nothing is more important than the care, treatment and curing of the patient, and the patient’s dignity and comfort, including being fed in hospital?

[Earl Howe]

I am grateful to my noble friend. That is entirely the aim of the modernisation programme for the NHS that we have laid out. It must be a much more patient-centred and user-centred service. As regards Southern Cross, we have said that there will be effective protection for the residents involved; no one will lose out. We are clear that we are putting the interests of residents first.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

My Lords, does the Minister recall that, on the wind-up of CSCI—which he will recall because he was involved in the debate—we were given absolute assurances that the new successor body, the CQC, would target with random and unannounced visits all those care institutions in the United Kingdom where it was thought that people might be at risk? In so far as Southern Cross had a very bad track record and the CQC has failed to fulfil that promise, should not people at the top of the new body—the CQC—now consider their positions and, indeed, resign?

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, that is a rather harsh suggestion regarding Southern Cross. The noble Lord will know that care providers must demonstrate to the CQC that they have the financial resources needed to continue to provide services of the required quality. Clearly, there are lessons to be learnt from this episode with Southern Cross, which we all hope will resolve itself successfully. I am sure the CQC will take on board the lessons. From the briefing that I have had on the financial model that Southern Cross adopted, it is extraordinarily complex even for an expert to understand. We need to get that right. I know that my right honourable and honourable colleagues in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills will be looking in general at business ownership and the issues surrounding that to see whether there are actions that we can take to prevent this kind of thing happening again.

[Baroness Hollins]

My Lords, with respect to Winterbourne View, could the Minister comment on why so much public money is being spent on placing people with learning disabilities in private hospitals, when government policy is to support such people in the community?

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, that falls a little way outside the Question on care homes and Southern Cross. I am sure the noble Baroness knows that Winterbourne View is a private hospital with completely different commissioning arrangements. However, I should be happy to write to her. A Written Ministerial Statement that sets out the full position on Winterbourne View is being put down in Hansard today.

[Baroness Barker]

My Lords, do the Government know how many of Southern Cross’s 31,000 residents are self-funders and therefore entitled only to information and advice? How many of them receive state care and are therefore entitled to alternative provision? Given the uneven geographical distribution of Southern Cross’s homes, do the Government know whether there will be any local authorities with no residential care provision should Southern Cross fail?

[Earl Howe]

On my noble friend’s last point, there is a national surplus of care home beds—the figure I have here is some 50,000. Therefore, there is, to my knowledge, in no area a shortage of beds. We are dealing here with a series of local markets. The point that I emphasised earlier remains important. Should it come to the closure of a care home—an event of which we should have reasonable notice if it happens—we will ensure that those in that care home are properly looked after.

[Baroness Thornton]

My Lords, does the Minister actually think that a Written Ministerial Statement is sufficient to deal with the gravity of the treatment of the learning disabled in Winterbourne View care home, as shown on the “Panorama” programme, although I realise that that is not the subject of this Question? I agree with him that it is absurd to suggest that there is no role for private, voluntary, mutual and social enterprise providers in social care. How will the Minister ensure, therefore, that in the private sector—none of these things can happen in any of the other sectors—regulation is extended to cover the financial stability, including asset stripping, of organisations which provide these vital services for thousands of elderly people? I invite him to agree with me that it is very distasteful indeed that older people’s care should be regarded as a commodity to be traded.

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, I cannot help but agree with the noble Baroness’s last comment. I am sure she will know that we have embarked on a wide-ranging programme of reform of social care. We are considering the Law Commission’s recommendations for modernising social care law, and the report of the Commission on Funding of Care and Support is imminent. As I have said, many lessons have to be learnt from the events of recent weeks. We will want to reflect on them as part of our wider reform agenda. The business model that underpins many of these issues is a legitimate area for the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills to be looking at, although it will do so in a general rather than specific sense in relation to Southern Cross.

Arbitration and Mediation Services (Equality) Bill [HL]

Tuesday 7th June 2011 Lords Chamber

First Reading

15:07

A Bill to make further provision about arbitration and mediation services and the application of equality legislation to such services; to make provision about the protection of victims of domestic violence; and for connected purposes.

The Bill was introduced by Baroness Cox, read a first time and ordered to be printed.

Draft House of Lords Reform Bill

Tuesday 7th June 2011 Lords Chamber

Motion

15:08

Moved by

[Lord Strathclyde]

That it is expedient that a Joint Committee of Lords and Commons be appointed to consider and report on the draft House of Lords Reform Bill presented to both Houses on 17 May (Cm 8077), and that the committee should report on the draft Bill by 29 February 2012.

[The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Lord Strathclyde)]

My Lords, given that my Motion has attracted an amendment, I should say a few words about it. The Motion proposes a Joint Committee on the draft House of Lords Reform Bill published last month, and does so in the usual way by referring the draft Bill and accompanying White Paper in their entirety to the Joint Committee for its consideration.

The noble Lord, Lord Cunningham of Felling, may shortly move his amendment and I have no desire to pre-empt him, but I hope that it is helpful to the House if I point out that Clause 2 of the draft Bill provides that:

“Nothing in the provisions of this Act … affects the primacy of the House of Commons, or … otherwise affects the powers, rights, privileges or jurisdiction of either House of Parliament, or the conventions governing the relationship between the two Houses”.

The White Paper includes several paragraphs on the powers of the two Houses, essentially providing,

“no change to the constitutional powers and privileges of the House once it is reformed, nor to the fundamental relationship with the House of Commons, which would remain the primary House of Parliament”.

It goes on to say:

“The Government believes that clause 2 of the draft Bill is the best way of achieving this because it does not attempt to codify the existing powers of the Houses in legislation but rather, as now, accepts that the position is a matter of convention”.

That, of course, is the Government’s view, but as I have already made clear, the Joint Committee will be able to consider each and every matter raised in the Government’s White Paper and may reach its own conclusions.

There is, therefore, nothing in the Joint Committee's remit to prevent it from doing exactly as the noble Lord, Lord Cunningham, proposes. I cannot possibly second-guess how the committee will choose to approach its work, but I imagine that it would wish to have regard not only to the conclusions of the report chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Cunningham, but to the exchange we are having today and to related points that will no doubt be raised in the debate later this month.

Therefore, although I am extremely grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Cunningham, for tabling his amendment, which concerns something which has the potential of being quite a controversial matter during the discussions in the Joint Committee, I hope that the House and he himself will accept that the amendment is unnecessary. I beg to move.

Amendment to the Motion

Moved by

[Lord Cunningham of Felling]

After “(Cm 8077),” insert “and, mindful of the need to protect the primacy of the House of Commons, that it be an instruction to the committee to take into account the conclusions of the Joint Committee on Conventions which was noted with approval by both Houses”.

[Lord Cunningham of Felling]

My Lords, I begin by thanking the noble Lord the Leader of the House for his comments and for the even-handed way in which he introduced the resolution. However, I am bound to say that there are some people—I do not ascribe this view to the Leader of the House—who propose a wholly or partially elected second Chamber in our Parliament who assume that their policy can be enacted and that nothing else will change. They believe that the de facto abolition of this House and its replacement by an elected Senate can be seamlessly accomplished and Parliament and Government will continue as before, completely unaffected by the change.

I believe that they are wrong. I believe that there is plenty of evidence from previous Joint Committees to enable us to come to the conclusion that they are wrong. I welcome the decision to establish a Joint Committee of Lords and Commons to consider the draft Bill, as long as that committee is balanced, of varied views and not a repetition of the committee set up by Jack Straw during the previous Parliament—in other words, not made up of people who all begin and end by sharing the same view of the future.

The purpose of my amendment is to ensure that the evidence, conclusions and recommendations of the Joint Committee on Conventions are fully taken into account. I cite the summary of the report, on page 3:

“Our conclusions, however, apply only to present circumstances. If the Lords acquired an electoral mandate, then in our view their role as the revising chamber, and their relationship with the Commons, would inevitably be called into question, codified or not. Should any firm proposals come forward to change the composition of the House of Lords, the conventions between the Houses would have to be examined again”.

It is a central conclusion of the unanimously agreed report of the Joint Committee—and, as I have said in this Chamber before, unanimously approved by both Houses of Parliament—that that would have to be considered again. Therefore, it is important that we get that established with the new Joint Committee.

An elected second Chamber with a mandate would assert its right to a view. The evidence in the Joint Committee report says that, as do the conclusions. The other House and the Government of the country could not escape the consequences, which would most likely be profound and unpredictable, but would probably destabilise the conventions of Parliament. If change is required, and I believe it is, the better alternative is set out in the case made by the noble Lord, Lord Steel of Aikwood, in his Bill, which I certainly support, and more recently the proposals—at least most of them, I had better say, in case of an early intervention—made by the committee chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Goodlad.

The Government should support those proposals, while still pursuing their right to establish a Joint Committee. I regret very much that in the previous Parliament the then Government consistently blocked the work of the noble Lord, Lord Steel, and his Bill. That was a mistake. We should take care that blind adherence to outdated thinking does not produce outcomes that make our Parliament less effective than it already is today.

[Lord Cormack]

My Lords, I support everything that the noble Lord, Lord Cunningham, has said. I believe that he has performed a signal service for the House this afternoon by putting down the amendment and by moving it so eloquently. It is crucial that this committee, when established, reflects the varying positions and opinions held in this House and in another place and that it is not a duplicate of the Straw committee, as the noble Lord has said. It is also crucial that it has plenty of time. Bearing in mind the approaching long Recess, the date of 29 February next year does not give it a lot of time during parliamentary Session to go into this extremely serious matter.

We are concerned about the abolition of this House and its replacement by something entirely different. It is right that the noble Lord, Lord Cunningham, should have moved his amendment because he touches on a crucial factor: conventions that apply between this House and another place apply between this House and another place. If this House becomes another place, they cannot apply. We talk of Parliament Acts or Salisbury conventions or the conventions into which the noble Lord’s committee looked in such great detail, but there will be two totally different Houses of Parliament if the Government’s intentions, as outlined in the White Paper, come to pass. Many of us will oppose those. Whether they are good or bad is for individual noble Lords to decide.

On one thing we can surely be united: if we are abolished and replaced by an elected Chamber, whatever conventions bind us or relate us to the other place will cease to exist because this place will have ceased to exist. We have to recognise that, as do the Government, and they cannot blithely say in their White Paper and draft Bill that all will be the same. All will not be the same because we will have changed something fundamental.

Although this is not the time and place to go into great detail, I recall a conversation which I had with the noble Lord, Lord Cunningham, yesterday. He reminded me that, when the founding fathers established the constitution of the United States, they had it in mind to have a powerful House of Representatives and a consultative body in the Senate. Look what happened there. Our colleagues in another place in this Parliament should bear in mind that if we are replaced by an elected Chamber, the new elected Chamber cannot be bound, “cabined, cribbed, confined”, by the conventions that currently pertain. I warmly support what the noble Lord has said and urge noble Lords to bear that in mind. I urge the committee, when it is established, to look at these points with extreme care and diligence.

15:15

[Lord Pannick]

Why do the Government consider it necessary to impose any deadline on completion of the work of the Joint Committee? Given the importance and complexity of that work, would it not be more appropriate to trust the Joint Committee to determine how long it requires? The Leader of the House said a few moments ago, “I cannot possibly second-guess how the committee will choose to approach its work”. Those were his words. The deadline does precisely that.

[Lord Grocott]

My Lords, I strongly support the amendment in the name of my noble friend Lord Cunningham. I do so because it goes to the heart of what the debate about reform of the second Chamber should be. It focuses on the powers of the two Houses and the relationship between them, which, in my view, should be considered before we discuss the composition of the second Chamber. My noble friend is a cautious man and he has put down a cautious amendment. I would like it to be stronger. I would like the Cunningham committee to be reconvened so it can consider the new set of circumstances—which is exactly what it suggested in its report unanimously adopted by both Houses— before we go on to the second consideration, which is what the composition of the new second Chamber should be.

I am alarmed by the position of this Government, just as I was alarmed by the position of the previous Government. We have the constant repetition of the mantra of the primacy of the House of Commons as if that in itself will deliver the primacy of the House of Commons. I have heard Jack Straw say time and again, “Don’t worry, you’ve got the Parliament Act and the financial privileges of the Commons”. I have heard exactly the same from Nick Clegg. With regard to fatuous clauses—I do not want to be too rude in this—I thought the Leader of the House quite wisely read out Clause 2 rather quickly. I will read it more slowly so it can sink in. It says:

“Nothing in the provisions of this Act about the membership of the House of Lords … affects the primacy of the House of Commons, or … the conventions governing the relationship between the two Houses”.

If that is not a clause which is wishful thinking, I have not heard one. Why not have a clause saying that the new House shall have a turn-out, at elections, of at least 60 per cent? Why not have a clause saying that the new Senate will cost less than the old House of Lords? If you have wishful thinking clauses, then the options are pretty wide. I support my noble friend’s amendment but I do not think it goes far enough.

Following the comment of the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, regarding the date, I have to speak through the Leader of the House to the Deputy Prime Minister, who has been the prime mover of these things, whatever his current position. When a date is set for the committee to report, the phrase “Physician, heal thyself” comes to mind, because we have the precedent of the Clegg committee, which was set up in May last year and took 11 months to report. It had essentially the same remit as the proposed committee, but it had the massive advantage of being much smaller—it had eight members—and if I may say so without causing offence, they were hand-picked to agree. If you have a committee of eight members hand-picked to agree, I would suggest that that is likely to lead to a more speedy conclusion than one of 26 members of widely differing views. At the very least, considering that the Clegg committee took 11 months to make up its mind before anything was presented to the House, I would suggest that anything less than 11 months for the committee that is being proposed would be wishing for something that is probably unattainable.

Why does not the Leader of the House revert to his own good sense? When he set up the Goodlad committee—which was a Leader’s Group—he very wisely did not give it a date when it should report. I was very fortunate to serve on it, and it took, I think, nine months. That was without a date. It did a good job—very busy, hard work—and to expect a committee looking at the future of half of Parliament to report in less time than the Goodlad committee took, and substantially less time than the Clegg committee took, is wishing for an awful lot. I would appeal to the Leader of the House not to set a date and to indicate that the date is by no means binding. I would also appeal to him in his capacity as Leader of the whole House. As he repeatedly reminded us when our positions were reversed, the Leader of the House is not just leader of a great political party, as our leader was and is in this House, but is Leader of the whole House. As such, does he not agree that his prime responsibility to this House on Lords reform is to ensure that the 12 Members who speak for this House on the committee accurately reflect the division of opinion in the House on Lords reform? It is not entirely within his power to do that, but he could give the House advice. In the last poll that I saw, 80 per cent were opposed to a directly elected House. I do not wish to overstate my case, but I suggest that it would be appropriate for nine of the 12 committee members to have the good sense to wish to keep this House free from direct elections, which we know would damage the relationship between the two Houses.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

My Lords, I will express a view that is shared by a minority in House—perhaps a very small minority. I start by saying clearly that I am in favour of a 100 per cent elected House. However, there are consequences to some words in the amendment of my noble friend Lord Cunningham about which we should draw out more information. He refers to the need for the committee to report on the draft Bill by 29 February 2012. In the event that the date were to pass and the committee had not reported but instead sought to report by February 2013, which would be distinctly possible because it will be in the next Session of Parliament, that would have implications both for the introduction of the legislation and the creation of the new constituencies. There must be a timetable. If one takes into account the fact that it is distinctly probable that the Parliament Act would have to be used to secure the passage of the legislation—because on the basis of what one hears, it would be impossible for this legislation to go through without the use of the Act—the Government must already have had in mind a timetable when they set the date of 29 February 2012. We as Members are entitled to know what the timetable is, taking into account the need to create the new constituencies and the fact that the Parliament Act may well have to be used.

[Lord Pearson of Rannoch]

My Lords, any proposed reform of your Lordships' House clearly puts the cart before the horse. Given that a majority—or at least a very great deal—of our national law is now made in Brussels, with the House of Commons and your Lordships' House irrelevant in the process, why do we not start by retrieving our democracy from Brussels for the House of Commons and your Lordships' House? We could then work out how the Executive will be held to account in the House of Commons by a new committee structure, perhaps with new powers for the House of Commons and your Lordships' House. When we have done that, we could work out the job that we want your Lordships' House or any second Chamber to do. Only when we have done that should we decide who we want to sit in the second Chamber and how they should come here.

[Lord Reid of Cardowan]

My Lords, I first make two declarations of interest. The first is that I was a member of the Government that consistently brought back proposals for 20, 40, 60, 80 and 100 per cent of Members of this Chamber or its replacement to be elected. The second declaration is that I voted against every such proposal on every occasion. I did so for two reasons. First, it was not self-evident that such a change would increase the efficiency of government. More importantly, as I had spent my life in the House of Commons, I wanted to protect the primacy of the House of Commons. It was obvious that it was impossible to bestow democratic legitimacy on a Chamber that was widely perceived as being slightly more mature, both in years and wisdom, and certainly more full of expertise, and in all practical terms to stop it becoming the senior Chamber. I still believe that.

15:30

When I look at Clause 2, which the Leader of the House has read out, it reminds me of the simple fact that you can have a clause that calls an elephant a camel, but that does not make it a camel. You can have a clause that defies all the practical circumstances of the world, but that will not change the world. Therefore, in a sense, we have to do a service, not only to this House, but to the House only 100 yards from here, by pointing out, in our wisdom and maturity, that it is inevitable that, if you choose a second Chamber by democratic means and those democratic means—that is, proportional representation—are considered at the highest echelons of this Government, meaning the Deputy Prime Minister, as being more legitimate than first past the post, and if the term of office of those elected by those democratic legitimate means are three times as long as those of the Members of the other Chamber and their constituencies are much bigger, you will not find 300 fools in this country who will, on that basis, come here and say, “We are lesser than the other Chamber”. Everyone who comes here, with the expertise and the maturity enhanced by democratic legitimacy, will say that it is they who ought to be the primary Chamber—and they will be right—just as the Senate in the United States, with the enhanced powers of democratic legitimacy, as was pointed out by my noble friend on the other side, became the premier House in the United States. That is the reality.

The second reason that I gladly support my noble friend’s amendment is—this is one thing that the Leader of the House forgot to highlight in the difference between the Motion and the amendment to the Motion—that the Motion currently before the House allows for the consideration of the previous report but does not require it to be considered. If the complexion of the Committee was such that it was inadvertently composed—I speak hypothetically—of people who supported these proposals, there would be no requirement on them to take into account the deep study and the full implications of that report. My noble friend’s amendment includes an instruction to the Committee that it must take that report into account. Therefore, there is not just a rhetorical difference between the two sides but one that would have huge practical implications for this House. The only way that we can ensure that the fundamental findings of the previous report—on which there was unanimity here and in the other House—are taken into account is to ensure that this amendment is incorporated. Outside of that, all is rhetoric, as nothing practical will be required; the members of the Committee could nod in assent and in deference to that report without taking it into consideration at all. The least that we ought to expect, on the basis of the report that was formed by that Committee, is that the new Committee will be required to take that report into account.

[Lord Redesdale]

My Lords, I would like to speak on this issue, although I must break a rule that I have had for many years, which is never to speak on House of Lords reform. In July, I will have been here for 20 years —it says something about this place that I am still one of the youngest people in the Building after being in the job for 20 years. Having listened many times to hundreds of debates on Lords reform, I want to mention that what convinced me many years ago not to take part in these debates was when a Peer stood up, 90th on the list, and said, “My Lords, everything that can possibly be said on this subject has been said, but not by me”.

If we agreed to this amendment, it is quite clear that we would be trying to kick this into the long grass. I have heard some fantastic speeches. When we discuss Lords reform, we do not mention these facts but I was one of those who voted for an entirely elected House of Lords—I am quite happy to say that and I will be voting for it again. We might be in the minority and we might lose—it has happened to us over AV—but we will happily go through the Division Lobbies. Some of us will be for it; some of us will take an opposing view. However, it is better that we have the ability to take this forward in a quick and judicious matter, rather than give the impression that we do not want to come to any conclusion at all. I very much hope we can move forward as quickly as possible on this. It is not for me to say that other people should not speak at great length on this, but I think that we all already know what the conclusion is, and therefore moving on to the next business would be very helpful.

[Lord Richard]

I will say two things to the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale. First, I do not share the view that the amendment proposed by my noble friend Lord Cunningham would kick this into the long grass, despite the fact that, as fair parts of the House know full well, I have been a supporter of a predominantly elected House for almost as long as the noble Lord has been a Member. It therefore seems to me that there are two things that this Committee will have to do. One is to look at the terms of the Cunningham amendment. Of course the Committee has got to look at the primacy of the House of Commons. It would be silly to try to produce a report without looking at that issue. The primacy of the House of Commons has to be preserved. The second point that the noble Lord made is also pretty fundamental and obvious: the Committee will have to look at the conventions that exist between this House and the other place.

For the life of me, I do not really see what the issue is on this. An awful lot of speeches are being made which, if I may respectfully say so to some of those who have made them, would perhaps be better made in the debate on 21 and 22 June, when we are yet again to look at the whole issue of Lords reform. No doubt we will have, yet again, the same sort of speeches made by, yet again, the same sort of people, which, I fear I must say to the House, will probably include me. The fact of the matter is that on any view of this Committee, it will have to look in detail and take serious account of what is in the Cunningham amendment. I do not share the noble Lord’s view that this is kicking it into the long grass. On the other hand, I share some of the misgivings that have been raised about the date. This is a big, fundamental, constitutional issue. It is not feasible that it can be done by January next year.

[Lord Elystan-Morgan]

My Lords, I shall speak very briefly. The British community has mulled over the question of the reform of this place for over a century. It is now the case that a Committee will be asked to exercise its collective wisdom within the short compass of nine months. It may well be that it can achieve that. If, on the other hand, it comes to the conclusion that it honestly and conscientiously would wish more time, will the Leader of the House confirm that it would be given that time with the blessing of both Houses? Secondly, all noble Lords who have spoken have made the point that the questions of powers and membership of this House are utterly intertwined. Is it not very strange that in 1911 the whole discussion was about powers, as it was in 1949, whereas since then the whole discussion has been about membership? I do not think for a moment that you can discuss one without the other, and I do not think that you can contemplate a reformed, elected House without the question of powers being revisited. Anybody who believes that that can be done is using a monumental self-delusion.

[Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton]

I hope the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, will forgive me for being quite angry about the aspersion that was cast on those of us who share the views expressed about the importance of the primacy of the Commons, about the conventions and about the future relationship between both Houses. If those of us who take the view that that must be done first, before membership, are going to be accused of kicking the issue into the long grass as blindfolded escapists on the issue, the tenor of all the debates that take place in your Lordships' House and in Committees will not be of the quality that they ought to be. Therefore, I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, will not imply that kicking the issue into the long grass is the only motivation that some of us have. I wish to leave a better system in the Houses of Parliament for my children and, particularly, my grandchildren, but jumping without looking at what is down the hole is not the way to do it.

[Lord Redesdale]

My Lords, I apologise if any aspersion was taken on board, which was not my intention. I did not mention powers or scrutiny. I just hoped that we could move on more rapidly because this already has been covered. I remember the extremely detailed Jenkins committee report, but many Members were not here for that. Perhaps reading that report would give an impression that this matter has been covered a number of times.

[Lord Wright of Richmond]

My Lords, I just want briefly to say that, as the sole surviving Cross-Bench Member of the committee chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Cunningham, I strongly support his amendment. If he decides to seek the opinion of the House, I shall vote for it.

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, this might be a good time for me to reply. My purpose in laying out the Government’s view at the outset was to try to pour some oil on troubled waters, a task in which I spectacularly failed. A number of key issues have been raised and perhaps I could deal with them. This is all part of an important debate and, as one or two noble Lords have rightly recognised, we are due to have a two-day debate starting on 21 June. I urge noble Lords to prepare their speeches for then. Therefore, we do not need to extend this debate much longer.

First, on timing, the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, rightly asked why, if we are not going to second-guess the Joint Committee, we are directing it as to by when it should report. I can tell the House that in a government Motion to set up a Joint Committee it is entirely normal practice that the Committee should be given a target date. It is equally entirely normal practice—in the past few weeks I have moved Motions to this effect—that, if the view of the Committee is that it needs more time, it is given that time, which would of course apply in respect of this Joint Committee.

Secondly, on membership, this Joint Committee cannot be set up without the agreement of this House to the names put forward. I know that different parties, including the Cross-Benches, have different processes as to how names are chosen, but those names will be agreed by the House. I fully expect them to reflect the wide variety of views that exist across the House, as I expect will be reflected in the names that come from another place. This will be a Joint Committee of 26 people, 13 from each House, including a Bishop and Cross-Benchers. In setting up this body, it would be inconceivable for it to have a unanimous view right at the very start.

Thirdly, and perhaps more importantly, is the question raised by the noble Lord, Lord Cunningham, and by the noble Lords, Lord Reid and Lord Richard, about the amendment in particular. I rather agree with the noble Lord, Lord Richard. It would be a most odd Joint Committee on this subject if it were not to look carefully at all the clauses, including Clause 2, or to look at the paragraphs in the White Paper that have a view on the subject of the primacy of another place and of the conventions that bind us.

The noble Lord, Lord Reid, said that this amendment would issue an instruction. In itself, that would not be useful if the Joint Committee chose to ignore it or not to take it sufficiently seriously. It would be far better for us to trust the Joint Committee to use its innate wisdom. The noble Lord, Lord Cunningham, characteristically offered a very good critique not only of the Bill but of the White Paper. Of course, we will hear much more of that in the debate to come. But overwhelmingly, I hope that the noble Lord and the House are satisfied that there is no intention on the part of the Government to railroad this Joint Committee to come to a preconceived conclusion. That would not be an easy thing to do, not least when we look at the history of the past 12 months and the committee that was brought together under the excellent chairmanship of the Deputy Prime Minister. He brought together all the parties, and they came to a consensus on reform of the House of Lords.

15:45

[Lord Clinton-Davis]

Is the Leader of the House saying, in other words, that the amendment moved by my noble friend Lord Cunningham is acceptable?

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, what I am saying is that, first, it is unnecessary, and secondly, everything in the noble Lord’s amendment will, I am sure, be taken into account by the Joint Committee.

[Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall]

Will the noble Lord tell the House how many times the committee led by the Deputy Prime Minister met in order to arrive at the conclusions that are now represented in the White Paper and the draft Bill?

[Lord Strathclyde]

The Clegg committee met nine times between May and December last year before the draft Bill and the White Paper were brought forward last month.

I hope that, having heard this, the noble Lord, Lord Cunningham, will feel that he has had a good outing on the subject and that he is confident, as I am, that the Joint Committee will look at these matters. We can leave it up to the Joint Committee to decide whether it can meet the deadline of the end of February next year.

[Lord Lloyd of Berwick]

If this matter is to be put to a vote—I do not know whether it will be—it is important that we should know what it is we are voting on. As I understand the amendment, it is to be an instruction that the joint body should “take account” of something. To my mind it is inconceivable that the Joint Committee will not take account of noble Lords. Again, it is inconceivable. So what are we worried about?

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, I think that we have had a useful debate because for the past few weeks there has been an air of controversy over what the conclusions of the report of the noble Lord, Lord Cunningham, meant when they were initially published. But I agree with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd, that the amendment to the Motion is not necessary. I therefore invite the noble Lord, Lord Cunningham, to respond and, I hope, to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Cunningham of Felling]

I am grateful to the Leader of the House. I have only one or two brief points. This amendment is carefully couched in terms that could engender cross-party, if not universal, support in this Chamber. It is not about kicking anything into the long grass, and I regard that intervention as complete rubbish. It is about trying to ensure that, as we move forward on the reform of our Parliament, we end up with a better system of governance—not a worse one—for our country and the people we are here to represent. There is no mention of the date in my amendment, and I accept what the Leader of the House has just said. On one occasion when I had the honour to chair a Joint Committee, it became obvious very quickly that the time as set down in the original resolution was not sufficient. We wrote to both Houses and the date was extended. There is no reason why that should not happen again if it is necessary.

I am still not sure why the Leader of the House has not said that he will simply accept the amendment because it seems that if I were to insist on dividing the House, there is little doubt about the outcome. However, I am content to say that on this occasion I will not press for a Division, although of course there will be other occasions. I conclude by making this statement: I believe that the amendment has been carried nem con, and I therefore beg to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment withdrawn.

Motion agreed.

Arrangement of Business

Tuesday 7th June 2011 Lords Chamber

Announcement

15:50

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns]

My Lords, 51 speakers have signed up for the Second Reading of the Localism Bill today. If Back-Bench contributions are kept to 7 minutes, the House should be able to rise at around the target rising time of 11 o’clock. Of course, the advisory timing excludes the Minister’s opening and winding-up speeches and the opposition Front-Bench spokesperson’s opening and winding-up speeches. It might be convenient for the House if I remind colleagues of our guidance in paragraph 4.32 of the Companion, which states:

“A Member of the House who is taking part in a debate is expected to attend the greater part of that debate. It is considered discourteous for a Member not to be present for the opening speeches, for at least the speech before and following their own, and for the winding-up speeches”.

I am sure that that will assist us all to keep to an advisory speaking time.

Localism Bill

Tuesday 7th June 2011 Lords Chamber

Second Reading

15:51

Moved by

[Baroness Hanham]

That the Bill be read a second time.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Communities and Local Government (Baroness Hanham)]

My Lords, the Localism Bill marks a turning point. For generations, different Governments have concentrated power in Whitehall. They have done so with good intentions, but as centrally dictated measures have accumulated, the result has been to tie councillors’ hands over what policies they can implement, to make public services everywhere similar and to limit the ability of local communities to influence what happens in their area. This Bill is designed to achieve an historic shift in power. It will devolve authority from Whitehall to town halls, create new rights for local communities to become more involved in local affairs, and free professionals on the front line of public services to do things in response to what communities need rather than to government demands.

The Bill was first introduced in the other place in December, but most of its measures have been the topic of debate for years. There has, I am glad to say, been widespread welcome for the Bill. The Local Government Association called it a “long-awaited and much-needed measure”. In the other place there was a strong majority in favour of its principles. During House of Commons considerations, parts of the Bill of course raised considerable debate—I appreciate that we will return to them again—such as aspects of the provisions on mayors, particularly shadow mayors, the impact of social housing reforms and the fine detail of some of the planning provisions. The Government consistently sought to build on common ground and consensus. In keeping with this, we will seek to make amendments, where they will improve the Bill, that arise from the discussion at each stage.

Already in response to concerns raised in the other place, the Government have brought forward a number of amendments—in particular, to strengthen strategic planning by bolstering the duty to co-operate and to widen provisions on neighbourhood planning to make neighbourhood forums more inclusive of both local people and local businesses. As we start our considerations, I can assure noble Lords that the Government will continue to listen and, where possible, make amendments that are justified and supported across the House. There will be parts of the Bill on which we may not be able to reach agreement, but I hope that they will be few. My colleagues and noble friends Lord Taylor of Holbeach and Lord Attlee and I will want to take account of what is said and to develop consensus where possible.

I shall now turn to the main provisions of the Bill. Noble Lords will know well the importance of local government in providing leadership and essential services to their local communities. The Bill seeks to give local government wider discretion to get on with that vital job. At the heart of the Bill is the general power of competence. Currently, councils can do only what legislation explicitly says they may do. With the general power of competence, they will be able to do anything that an individual can legally do. Concerns have been raised that the Bill means that local authorities will be able, for example, to stop providing valuable services. That is not so. Just as individuals have to obey the law, so councils will continue to be bound by their legislative duties. What the general power of competence will do is give councils freedom to formulate new ideas and to do things in different ways in response to what local people want without having to look over their shoulder for permission from the centre to do so.

Under the Bill, the Secretary of State will have delegated powers to remove legislative barriers that prevent local authorities exercising the general power. There was debate in the other place about the extent of these delegated powers, and amendments were made there to ensure that robust safeguards are in place.

The Bill will abolish the unpopular standards board regime, provide stronger sanctions against serious unethical behaviour by councillors and clarify the predetermination rules. It will lay the ground for a new generation of mayors in England’s largest cities. I am aware that this measure has generated a good deal of interest and some controversy. It is our view, however, that directly elected mayors have the potential to provide stronger leadership and enhance the prestige of their cities. It would, of course, ultimately be for local people to decide, via a referendum, whether they wanted an elected mayor for their city. The Bill will devolve to the Mayor of London greater powers over London’s housing, regeneration and economic development.

With central direction having been rolled back, it will also be necessary to ensure that local authorities are accountable for all the decisions they take. For example, where authorities fail to act in accordance with EU directives, and where this results in the EU taking infraction proceedings against the United Kingdom, it will be important that culpable local authorities take responsibility for their actions.

Localism does not mean simply that all power should rest in the hands of local authorities. Although the town hall plays a crucial role in local life, it is often local people—conscientious neighbours, responsible residents, volunteers and social entrepreneurs—who undertake the responsibility of making communities stronger. As a general rule, however, they can get involved in local decision-making only to the extent that their council welcomes and encourages their involvement, so the Bill creates new rights for local people and local community groups. Under the right to challenge, social enterprises, voluntary and community groups and parish councils will have the right to challenge the council to consider seriously their proposals for the improvement of local services.

Similarly, the Bill will give community groups the right to bid to buy assets of community value. Where buildings and businesses such as local shops, pubs and community facilities are listed under the Bill’s provisions as being important to local people and come up for sale, community groups will be given time to put together a credible bid to buy the facility that will have to be taken into consideration before the vendor can continue with the sale.

Local people will have the right to petition their council to hold a referendum on any local policy or issue that is contentious and important to them. Councils will be required to hold a referendum where they propose to charge a council tax in excess of an agreed percentage increase. Local people, rather than the Secretary of State, will therefore be able to veto the rise.

We turn now to planning. The trend towards central control has been particularly damaging in the planning system and the Government believe that it is now time to introduce far greater democratic and local control. The regional strategies, which set housing targets for different parts of the country and then had to be implemented by local authorities, will be abolished. They did not result in more houses being built. Indeed, last year, rates of housebuilding hit their lowest point in peacetime since the 1920s.

The Bill will transfer the power to make decisions on nationally significant infrastructure projects such as power stations, airports and major roads from appointees in the Infrastructure Planning Commission to democratically accountable Ministers. It will introduce a duty to co-operate, requiring local authorities to work together on strategic planning issues. At a more local level, it introduces a duty on developers to consult local communities before they put forward applications for large developments. Most radically of all, it will allow people to have a stronger say in the planning of their neighbourhoods. Under these provisions, local people will be able to come together to form a neighbourhood forum and produce a neighbourhood plan for developments in their area, such as where they consider would be most suitable for new homes, shops and businesses. As long as these plans are consistent with the national planning policy framework and the local plan, development can be granted through a neighbourhood development order so that construction can go ahead quickly. At the same time, the new homes bonus and the community infrastructure levy will benefit local communities where new development takes place.

Ultimately, it is right that local responsibility and local incentives replace top-down control, creating the right conditions for communities to welcome development and growth in their areas. The Bill makes clear that the use of financial incentives, such as the community infrastructure levy, can be a material consideration in the planning process, although they do not have to be.

Lastly, I turn to the Bill’s provisions on housing. Social housing will provide 8 million people in England with a home. The Bill proposes a much greater level of discretion for councils and social landlords to manage social housing more flexibly. New provisions will give social landlords more flexibility over the length of tenancy they may grant. The minimum length will be two years, although we expect that longer terms will be offered in the majority of cases. There is a clear acknowledgement that where tenants are likely to remain in need, long-term tenancies will be the norm. Vulnerable and existing tenants will not be affected by these changes. Councils will of course continue to be able to offer lifetime tenancies.

We have also discussed in depth in the other place, and with practitioners, the Bill’s proposals to let local authorities meet their homelessness duty by providing applicants with good quality homes in the private rented sector. This option could provide an appropriate solution for people experiencing a homelessness crisis at the same time as freeing up social homes for people on the waiting list. The Bill will also change the way in which social housing is funded, passing more power to a local level by replacing the complex and unpopular housing revenue account subsidy. Councils will be able to keep the rent raised locally to maintain their social homes. This will give them a more predictable and stable basis to plan for the long term.

Finally, the Bill will reform the way in which social housing is regulated. The Tenant Services Authority will be abolished and landlords will be expected to support tenant panels—or equivalent bodies—in order to give tenants greater opportunities to scrutinise the services that are being offered and that they are receiving.

This is an important Bill, with measures that will have a great impact on every aspect of the responsibilities of local government and the rights of local people in the future. As I said at the beginning, there has been much consensus already about its provisions. I hope that, when there has been such agreement in the other place, that will guide considerations here. We have much to do, and the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, and I look forward to the forthcoming debate. I commend the Bill to the House. I beg to move.

16:04

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, I congratulate the Minister on the customary skill and charm with which she has introduced this Bill. It was an impressive example of carrying out my ancestral trade of making bricks without straw. I am delighted that the noble Baroness’s long service to local government is about to be recognised by the conferment upon her of the freedom of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, of which she was such a distinguished leader.

This Bill, which purports to herald the renaissance of local government and shape a new localism, sprawls over 510 pages, with 215 clauses and 25 schedules. Together with 111 pages of Explanatory Notes, it weighs 2 pounds, 13 ounces, to which must be added impact assessments weighing all of 8 pounds, 11 ounces. As Churchill might have said, “Some impact, some assessment”. No wonder the Government have had second thoughts about their plans for forestry.

There are some welcome provisions. The local government world has long called for a power of general competence, although candidly when asked what difference it would make, many of us have had some difficulty in identifying what the practical effects would be, given the existing powers to improve the environmental, social and economic well-being of areas. However, changes to small business rate relief and the housing revenue account, the latter building on work initiated by the last Government, and the promotion of a duty to co-operate are also being well received, and few, except some estate agents, will mourn the passing of home information packs.

But overall the Bill, studded with populist gesture politics, is redolent of the prejudices—indeed, it would not be an exaggeration to say some of the obsessions—of the Secretary of State. I cite, for example, provisions about chief executives and pay, or the banning of charge and reward schemes for waste collection. The Secretary of State takes to himself 142 powers and, in what seems a remarkable echo of the Public Bodies Bill, powers to abolish or amend by order up to 1,296 statutory duties. Even the vaunted power of general competence is qualified by Clause 5(3), giving the Secretary of State power by order to prevent local authorities doing anything he specifies.

It is impossible in the 15 minutes available to me to enumerate, let alone discuss, all the concerns raised by the Bill’s provisions. I will concentrate on the issues of governance, and on the impact of the measure as a whole on local government and representative local democracy. My noble friend Lord McKenzie will speak to the planning and finance issues, and my noble friend Lord Patel of Bradford on housing and community engagement. I am sure that many noble Lords on all sides of the House will wish to raise many of the detailed provisions of the Bill and the accompanying documentation.

The Government's approach seems in many respects to be driven by a belief in an apparently inexhaustible appetite on the part of citizens to vote—for elected mayors or police commissioners, or in referendums called by a fraction of the electorate, a neighbourhood forum, or a handful of councillors. This assumed insatiable thirst for Athenian-style democracy—and Mr Pickles is, after all, only two letters short of Pericles—is matched in ministerial minds by a demand on the part of the public directly to manage local services. Let me be clear. There is, and must always be, space in a mixed economy of provision for voluntary and community organisations as service providers. Their commitment and capacity to innovate enrich civil society. But most of those engaged in the sector acknowledge that they complement the statutory services and neither wish, nor expect, to replace them.

I turn to some of the more problematic provisions of the Bill, rooted as they are in the philosophy I have just outlined. I begin with mayors. At any time in the past 10 years a mere 5 per cent of the electorate could have requisitioned a mayoral referendum in England's towns and cities. Few have been called, fewer still have approved the idea, and neither in referendums nor in any ensuing mayoral elections, except when they have coincided with general elections, has the result been higher turnouts than in traditional local elections.

I have always been sceptical of the argument that a direct personal mandate is a necessary condition of effective local leadership. The concentration of power in a single pair of hands is inherently undesirable, and it is also unnecessary; it diminishes the role of other elected members, and there is no reason why the grant of more powers to local authorities, which would be welcome, should be conditional on there being a mayoral system. But if sufficient people want elected mayors, they can easily secure the process, set it in motion and achieve their objective now. It is perhaps not without significance that Nick Boles, now MP for Grantham, succeeding my noble friend Lord Davies, urged the adoption of the mayoral system as potentially providing a ladder back to power for the Conservative Party in places like Manchester, where its prospects under the existing system continue to look a little bleak. The Bill, however, requires confirmatory referendums to take place in 12 English cities where the Government ordain that the mayoral system should apply. When she replies to the debate, perhaps the Minister would give a definitive answer to the question of whether and in what circumstances the Government would extend this requirement to other local authorities.

Much worse than that proposal are two further extraordinary provisions concerning shadow mayors, to which the noble Baroness made glancing reference, and the delightfully euphemistically termed “mayoral management arrangements”. Under new Section 9N in Schedule 2 the Secretary of State may order a shadow mayor to be appointed in an authority due to hold a referendum, in the first instance in the 12 authorities targeted for next May, who will be the executive leader at the date of the order. He will have the full range of mayoral powers until either the referendum fails or an elected mayor takes office. In Birmingham, for example, a Conservative council leader would be appointed shadow mayor and continue to hold office, assuming a referendum next year confirmed the mayoral model, for a further year from next May even though it is highly probable that Labour will take control of that council then. The nearest precedent that occurs to me, though absolutely without the horrific overtones of the original, is the Anschluss: occupy Austria first and have a referendum afterwards.

Yet that is not all. In those of the 12 authorities which end up with elected mayors, the positions of mayor and chief executive will have to be combined while other authorities with a leader and executive model will have to consider this novel, and in my judgment, wholly inappropriate conflation of the political and officer roles. It does not seem appropriate that the political head of a local authority should effectively be the head of paid service. Contrast this with the separation of roles prescribed by the Cadbury rules in the private sector. This is not local democracy but local autocracy. These two proposals are the most objectionable in what is in many respects a deeply flawed Bill. I trust that through today's debate, if it does nothing else, the House will send a clear message to the Government that those proposals are totally unacceptable, and an affront to democracy and good governance.

Less fundamental but still serious misgivings arise from other proposals. Take, as an example, the provisions for referendums. Non-binding referendums may be called by 5 per cent of the authority's total electorate or, in the case of a single electoral area—or two or more contiguous electoral areas or wards—by 5 per cent of the electors in that area or areas. They may also be called by one or more members of the authority, or in the case of a ward by a majority of members for the relevant area, or by one member if there is only one representing that ward. There are very limited grounds on which a council can decline to hold such a referendum. I fear that the potential for mischief here is simply enormous.

Political, religious or ethnic groups, possibly people with extremist views—perhaps even worse, disgruntled or attention- or election-seeking councillors in their wards—could generate referendums without limit, damaging community cohesion or effectively delaying the implementation of properly derived decision-making. There are better alternatives at present: for example, the councillor's call for action, citizen's petitions—the provisions for which the Bill, incidentally, abolishes—and the right to address councils. In any case it is the practice of most although, I have to submit, not all councils increasingly to engage their local communities about the decisions which affect them.

As the noble Baroness pointed out, the Bill provides for compulsory referendums on the council tax levy where it is deemed excessive by the Secretary of State. This is capping by the back door, applied perhaps in different ways to different classes of authority, but without any close regard to the circumstances of the individual authority and with no ability to modify the cap after a referendum, as would be the case under the present—and, in the views of many of us, still unsatisfactory—system. But why should a referendum on council tax, especially given the complexity of the local government finance system, displace the role of the ballot box and elections in holding councils to account?

When it comes to planning and what the Bill terms “community empowerment”, there are again many problems. In these areas, the impression is given that communities are inherently self-contained, able in large measure to determine their own preferences in isolation. Of course, for some purposes and in some areas—for example, parish councils—this may well be true, but if I look at my own experience in the ward I represent in the west end of Newcastle, I can count around 23 distinct areas in that ward alone, with a population of some 11,000. Those are in addition to communities of interest, based—as they might be—on age, gender, ethnicity, class or employment. It is the function of local government to mediate those interests and, with its partners, to shape the future not only of the individual areas but of the whole city or county.

The raft of propositions about neighbourhood forums—now expanded from the original three men and a dog in the first draft of the Bill to 21 people—the significantly named “community right to challenge” over the provision of services, and the provisions relating to community expressions of interest all have some potential for good. However, they also raise the dangers of nimbyism and the atomisation of local governance, which are of a piece with other government policies, such as those we see in education or the wholesale abandonment of regional or sub-regional structures, except for a vague duty to co-operate. Others will no doubt enlarge on these and other issues during this debate and in more detail in Committee.

I wish to conclude with two more worrying matters. The first relates to issues of propriety. I am disturbed—and so are some of the professional bodies—by the provisions relating to predetermination on the part of members in relation to planning matters. This appears to me to breach the quasi-judicial approach appropriate to such issues in planning and licensing. In addition to that, there is the proposal to make the existence of a community infrastructure levy a material consideration in planning. That could be regarded in effect as an inducement to sell planning permissions by the local authority.

The second concern is again a matter touched on lightly by the noble Baroness the Minister. It is the power under Part 2 of the Bill to require councils to pay fines levied by the European Union in respect of breaches of treaty obligations. I recently tabled a Question to ask what estimate had been made of the potential UK liability in this respect, rumoured to be in excess of £1 billion. The reply from the noble Lord, Lord Sassoon—who is not in his place—was that no such penalty had been incurred by the UK and none was anticipated. In which case perhaps the noble Baroness the Minister could say why there is such a provision in the Bill at all?

Finally there is one delicious irony in the Bill. Clause 28 repeals the duty to promote democracy which is established by Part 1 of the Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Act 2009. A Bill purportedly about local democracy repeals the duty to promote it. I need not—and your Lordships will be pleased to hear that I will not—say more.

16:19

[Lord Tope]

My Lords, I, like the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, begin by congratulating the noble Baroness Lady Hanham on receiving the freedom of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. I am not sure what privileges that confers upon her—she shakes her head rather sadly. Nevertheless it is a well-deserved honour. I also thank the Minister for the manner in which she introduced this Bill today. I welcome particularly her statement that the Government are still willing to listen and to try to address remaining concerns in the Bill where that is possible. That is certainly the approach that my noble friends and I will adopt and I hope it is one that will be shared on all sides of the House. To this end, it will be helpful if the Minister can agree today that any further amendments that the Government already have in mind will be introduced in Committee so that they can receive proper scrutiny and debate then and, if necessary, at later stages of the Bill.

As has been said, this is a huge Bill with many important and quite difficult provisions. I have half the time available to me that the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, had, and he began by confessing that he was unable to address most of those provisions. My 10 Liberal Democrat colleagues who will speak later in this debate will certainly refer to many of them, notably those on housing and planning. If time had permitted today, I would have dealt with some of those in the early parts of the Bill, such as why some councils will have to wait three or four years—until after their next elections—to implement the governance changes they may wish to make. I would also have referred to the imposition of the EU fines and the many issues that are raised by the provisions on local referendums. Above all, I would have wanted to know how the imposition by the Secretary of State of unelected shadow mayors can possibly fit in a Bill entitled “Localism”.

Instead, as this is the Second Reading, I shall confine my remarks to the principles of localism. I declare an interest as an executive councillor in the London Borough of Sutton. I have now been a councillor there for 37 years and was a Member of Parliament for exactly half that time. I was initially in the other place for a short time before I was first elected as a councillor. Shortly after I became a councillor, when I still had slightly longer service as an MP than as a councillor, the Conservative leader on my council, who was also the Conservative leader on the then Association of Metropolitan Authorities, told me I would find that there were really only two parties—the central government party and the local government party. In the years since I have found that he was absolutely right. I see that the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, who has similar experience, agrees with me. I suspect we will find this many times during the progress of the Bill through your Lordships’ House.

If I must declare myself as a member of either of those parties, I am firmly in the local government party. However, it is not as simple as that. My commitment is not particularly to a system, or a level—I prefer the word “sphere”—of government; it is to local democracy, and to local government only as the best vehicle for delivering local democracy. I am the first to say that local government is not always very good at doing that. Indeed, some local councils can be as controlling and reluctant to share their power as any central Government. Therefore, I was delighted when I first learnt that the coalition Government intended to introduce a Bill that would give effect to my party’s long-held commitment to localism, or rather to local democracy. I must admit that the same commitment from our coalition partners does not have quite the same long pedigree, but blessed are the sinners who repent and we should welcome the zealousness of the converts.

However, too many statements and some actions by some Ministers have led me to wonder whether we share the same understanding of the word “localism”. Indeed, parts of the Bill lead me to the same conclusion. I looked up “localism” in my dictionary, which defines it as,

“a pronunciation, phrase, etc., peculiar to a particular locality”,

or “another word for provincialism”—another word I had never heard of. I suppose that is a little better than “subsidiarity”, which is not in my dictionary at all. I will not attempt a definition today, but it seems strange that we should have a Bill with a one-word title that clearly means very different things to different people, and parts of which seem to contradict a common understanding of its title.

To me, and I am sure to all my Liberal Democrat colleagues, it means local democracy and subsidiarity: decisions being taken as closely as possible by and with the people they affect. That includes the right to make the wrong decisions or, more accurately, decisions with which some of us, including and perhaps especially central government, may disagree. We on the Liberal Democrat Benches will judge the Bill by the extent to which it enables and enhances local democracy, and the extent to which it reduces or removes central control and interference.

Here it is important to understand that local democracy is not populism. It is not rule by the best organised, the most articulate, those who shout loudest or have the greatest vested interests; it is a system that allows all voices to be heard and listened to with equal respect, allows the decision-makers to be better informed when they make decisions and ensures that such decisions are made in the interests of the whole community. Above all, it is a system that ensures that the decision-makers are properly and effectively accountable to all the people affected by those decisions. We might even choose to call such a system “local government”. For localism to work it is not necessary for central government to like local government, still less to like all that it does, but if central government is genuinely committed to localism it has to trust local government, and to demonstrate that trust.

My noble friends and I look forward to working with the Minister to ensure that by the time this Bill leaves this House it is truly worthy of its title as the Localism Bill, a Bill of which we can all be proud.

16:26

[Lord Best]

My Lords, I declare my local government interests as president of the Local Government Association and deputy chairman of Westminster City Council’s standards board. I declare my voluntary and community sector interests as a member of the NCVO advisory board and a trustee of the RSA and other voluntary and charitable bodies, my social housing interests as chair of the Hanover Housing Association, and my planning interests as vice-president of the Town and Country Planning Association. There go my seven minutes.

These interests sometimes lead me to take contradictory positions in the localism debate. One day I could be advocating more “power to the people” when arguing against an apparently high-handed central or local government decision; the next day I may be fearing that a so-called local community group really comprises self-appointed and self-interested individuals intent on blocking a much needed social or economic development for purely selfish reasons. I am a champion of decentralisation from Whitehall but, wearing my social housing hat, I can feel outrage when the Supporting People grants for local councils to help homeless and vulnerable people are siphoned off by some authorities for quite different purposes. I am concerned that stepping back from national standards in the planning system could mean poorer design. I am nervous about measures to remove national protections on rent levels and security of tenure for social housing tenants. I sympathise with those who decry the postcode lottery when a council uses its autonomy to cut disabled facilities grants that are so vital to helping people live independently at home.

There are inherent ambiguities and contradictions in the localism theme. By definition, fewer impositions of national requirements mean more local variations in services, and that inevitably means losers as well as gainers, especially when, as now, resources are being fiercely cut back. However, colours must be nailed to the mast; I for one accept that despite some discomfort and the inevitability of some local mistakes, the overarching intent of this Bill to move down the path of localism is sensible and worthwhile. Unless national government gives councils room to stand on their own feet and to learn to use their local knowledge, local ideas and local talent, the dead hand of centralism will for ever demoralise and disincentivise, national standardisation will suppress initiative and innovation, and Big Brother taking the decisions will deter local involvement and put people off participating as councillors and community leaders. Scrutiny in Committee will need to test whether the Bill really moves us in this direction, or whether for every step forward there is a step back.

My local authority colleagues argue that the 146 new central government powers—from processes for appointing local mayors to the powers for levying EU fines, the arrangements for referendums and the bureaucratic procedures for implementing new community rights—all mean that the Bill has tightened the grip of the Secretary of State. Others argue that double devolution to the neighbourhood level introduces a nimbys’ charter that will undermine the new financial incentives, through a new homes bonus and a community infrastructure levy, for councils to secure badly needed extra homes.

On the theme of housing, I want to address the proposals for the reform of the local authority housing revenue accounts. I fear that they have missed the opportunity to allow councils to act more like housing associations in their freedom to borrow private finance and to recycle proceeds from land and property sales. One step forward, one step back? At this stage of the Bill's progress, I have both fears and hopes. I fear that until greater financial autonomy is passed down the line, local authorities will remain ultimately the creatures of the mighty Whitehall departments. I recognise that at this moment it is particularly difficult for localists to argue against civil servants who say, “Yes Minister, but not now”. I hope that the Government will be a bit braver in letting go, supported by the noble Baroness, alongside many amendments on specific topics. I hope that your Lordships will remove some of the measures that undermine the Bill’s localising objectives and that we will end up with legislation that genuinely decentralises to democratic local councils and gives them confidence to devolve decisions to communities keen to play their part in resolving local issues.

If we are to stimulate a more empowered, more resourceful local government sector that will attract leadership of the highest calibre and to unlock the energy and good will of a big society, a good society, we must ensure that the Bill takes us two steps forward.

16:31

[The Lord Bishop of Norwich]

My Lords, I begin by saying that a family bereavement this morning means that if the House sits much longer than the estimated rising time I may have to leave to return to Norwich. I hope that that will not be necessary, but I apologise to the House if that proves to be so.

There have been frequent pleas from these Benches over the years to listen to the voice of local communities, so the overall aim of the Bill is certainly to be welcomed. Widespread disengagement from the political process is often linked with a feeling of powerlessness, and there is a need to restore a belief that the structures of our public life are not too complex to navigate or framed wholly in favour of those who already have power or wealth.

The Bill goes some distance in its effort to counter that widespread impression, and so wins my heart. It is my head that needs more convincing, because the Bill’s 400 pages—I see that they have grown to 500 pages according to what the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, said—are so complex. Will the very complexity of what we are being offered undermine the Bill’s good intentions? Will the politically literate, the well resourced, be likely to make the most use of its provisions; and do we need quite so many separate powers to regulate this, guide that or control the other?

As I attempted to navigate my way through the proposals, one of the episodes of “Yes, Prime Minister” came to my mind. Your Lordships may recall that, for a short time, Jim Hacker toyed with the idea of taking power away from the local government machine and returning it to the people. The proposal was to create city villages, each with its own little council, a sort of Hackeresque neighbourhood forum. At the time, Hacker was locked in almost mortal combat with a glamorous left-wing council leader, Agnes Moorhouse, but they eventually found common cause when they realised that plans for truly representative local democracy would entirely undermine the party-political machine. I could not help wondering whether some elements of the complexity of the Bill were not driven by a similar dynamic. Only about 35 per cent of the population of England live in areas where there is a parish or town council. The bulk of the population of this country, urban as it is, lives in unparished areas, as many noble Lords will know. Intriguingly, the only genuinely parished organisation is the Church of England. More people serve on parochial church councils than parish councils.

The power of the PCC, elected bodies all, is one reason why local decision-making is still so significant in the Church of England. It is one reason why it is almost impossible to get a clear answer when asking what the Church of England thinks about anything. There are around 16,000 answers to any question. There are very distinctive differences between one neighbourhood and another. Indeed, even defining “neighbourhood” is not without its problems. It is left largely undefined in this Bill, yet there is a vast difference in a diocese like mine between rural settlements of little more than 100 people—we still call them villages in Norfolk—and city parishes in Norwich with 20,000 people.

In “The Vicar of Dibley” you can never quite tell whether it is the parochial church council or the parish council that is meeting, such is the entirely understandable overlap between village and church affairs. Yet in an urban parish of 20,000 people, which likes to think of itself as a neighbourhood, a handful of activists can be the voice of the local community or church while the neighbourhood, such as it is, feels largely disengaged from them. In a complex Bill, that real complexity on the ground is not recognised.

The positive features of this Bill—neighbourhood plans, forums and development orders, as well as any potential for further directly elected mayors and local referenda—all require lively agencies of local democracy. These have traditionally included local newspapers and, in the past generation, local radio. The dramatic decline in advertising revenue in local newspapers has made that sector very fragile. It has meant that the number of young journalists cutting their teeth in the local and regional press has been dramatically reduced. Some cuts in BBC local radio now seem inevitable with the freezing of the licence fee. Local and regional commercial radio now carries very little news at all. Only community radio, staffed largely by volunteers, beats the trend and could serve the purposes of this Bill well if sufficiently funded.

The restrictions on councils producing their own newspapers may be understandable but, if they could afford it, is there anything preventing local neighbourhood forums from publishing their own local newspaper, or would they be subject to the same restrictions? I am not yet convinced that online communication, democratic as access to it is, fully replaces these other agencies of local democracy. I would be grateful if the Minister would comment on how this Bill relates to the Government's wider policy on the local and regional media. There seems to be some distance between them.

It is inevitable that passing authority to the local and neighbourhood level will create more local argument. Individuals in neighbourhoods speak with more than one voice. We should not fear this, and I presume this is why local referenda are included as a means of resolving local disputations. A closely fought referendum, although it may decide an issue, leaves a lot of losers. There may be some healing of wounds to be done in local communities if the good purposes of this Bill are fulfilled. The role of our church communities and their clergy and other community groups in the healing of such wounds might well be needed. However, we ought to recognise that more localism may not mean more harmony and unity in society. If we do not recognise that, we will be doing all the purposes of this Bill and the people it serves a disservice.

16:38

[Baroness Eaton]

My Lords, first, I declare an interest as chairman of the Local Government Association. That is a great honour which I will hold for only a few more weeks. However, after that time, I hope to continue to contribute on behalf of local government in this place. Having the pleasure of speaking after the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Norwich and other noble Lords, I am reminded of the wealth of experience and knowledge in this House that continues to benefit local government enormously.

As a councillor, I have represented the ward of Bingley Rural since 1986 and served as leader of a large metropolitan authority, Bradford, from 2000 to 2006. I have seen first-hand how local government makes a positive difference to the lives of local people, whether through involving communities closely in local planning and development or responding to local demand for new services, new facilities and new ideas. Councils and councillors really are at the heart of their neighbourhoods, but equally I have experienced huge frustration when, as a councillor, I have been told, “You don't have the power to do that” or “You can't stray outside Whitehall guidelines”. This gave the impression that local government was nothing more than the delivery agent for central government policy. This did a disservice to the excellent, innovative thinking from councillors and officers and led to a relationship in which councils felt compelled to wait for central government guidance on all sorts of issues in case they got a ticking off from Whitehall for being too keen.

That is why I, and so many others in local government, have welcomed the Government's localism drive. In October last year the Secretary of State said:

“The years of government interference and micromanagement are over. Instead, we're starting an era of genuine local leadership ... part of my campaign to replace the command and control approach to local government with genuine localism”.

This was cause enough for one of those street parties that the Government have been so keen on in recent months. There have been many positive moves in the past year that demonstrate a real commitment to localising and devolving power. We have seen the end of ring-fencing and the scrapping of the comprehensive area agreement, a barrier-busting exercise to scrap rules that block local government from doing its job. This is important work and it has been welcomed across local government. Now, in the Localism Bill, the Government have set out their radical vision for how local people will be much more involved in the decisions that affect their neighbourhoods.

The Bill is full of good ideas. Local government has particularly welcomed the general power of competence, something which we have requested for many years. The well-being power, which the general power will replace, was found to be wanting and left councils unwilling to use it for fear of their good work being overturned by the courts. A much stronger, more robust power of first resort has long been needed, and I am glad to see this in the Bill. The reform of the discredited and overcomplicated housing finance system is also very welcome, and I hope that the Government will look at expanding this reform to give councils the freedom they need to invest in social housing.

The Local Government Association has applauded the Government's intentions, but also expressed concern that in some places the Bill continues to use the legislative tools of times gone by, tools that have now been discredited. What we do not want to see—I am sure that my noble friend the Minister will agree—is an overly bureaucratic approach to localism that brings with it reams of Whitehall prescription and guidance. This approach can only block creativity and innovation.

Councils do not need more guidance to follow. In fact, this is the very mindset that we need to get away from. What works well in central Manchester will not be suitable for rural Cumbria, and centralised prescription takes no account of this. I do not believe that any council requires detailed rules on how to hold a referendum or how to keep a list of community assets. I am sure that this House will look closely at all parts of the Bill that give Whitehall powers to issue guidance and determine whether these are necessary or appropriate in the post-bureaucratic age we now live in.

It is also important that the Localism Bill does not allow for central government to force its will on to local people. This is antithetical to everything that the Government are trying to achieve and I do not believe that it was ever Ministers' intention. I am concerned that the policy on mayors, which will allow central government to require an area to have a “shadow mayor” and then hold a confirmatory referendum, is the wrong path to take. The change should come only after local people have decided that it is desirable, not before. I also do not think that elected mayors should be required to merge with chief executives. Their roles are resolutely separate, and the political impartiality of the chief executive is an important and long-standing precedent.

I also look forward to detailed discussion of the provisions on referenda. There are five different types of referenda, as the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, mentioned, that are legislated for in the Bill. Each comes with guidance and rules to follow. We will see local referenda on council taxes if a council suggests a rise above the maximum rate; referenda on any local matter, subject to determination by the Secretary of State as to what constitutes a local matter; and confirmatory referenda for shadow mayors and neighbourhood plans. I half expect to see a referendum on holding a referendum.

It is important that we do not sideline local democracy in the push for local action and that we remember that councillors are democratically elected to take decisions on behalf of the people they serve. It would not be right for a referendum to be held simply to please Whitehall when there was no local demand for it or when it negated an elected council's mandate. This would be expensive, damaging and wasteful, at a time when we in local government are doing everything we can to curb waste.

Councils are also very worried about the EU fine clauses that we have already heard about. The Local Government Association has argued that these are unfair and unconstitutional and noted that they give unprecedented powers to Ministers to fine councils without scrutiny by Parliament or by the courts. Certainly there is concern that this policy, if unamended, could lead to long, expensive court proceedings as one part of government seeks to pass blame to another. This is not a situation that any of us would like to see, and we should do all we can to avoid it. Councils have committed to working closely with government to ensure that we are not fined in the first place. I hope that the Minister will reconsider this part of the Bill in Committee.

I stress in conclusion that I entirely support the intentions of the Bill. Local government has spent too long ticking boxes and kow-towing to the demands of central government, and it is very clear that this must come to an end. We must then ensure that the Bill achieves its lofty aims. I look forward to continuing these enlightening discussions in Committee.

16:48

[Lord Patel of Bradford]

My Lords, in the short time available I will focus my comments on two areas of the Bill that will have a great impact on local communities and councils: community empowerment, covered in Part 4 of the Bill, and housing reforms, covered in Part 6.

I will start with community empowerment, which could be described as the “people power” element of the Bill. This part of the Bill gives a community the right to challenge a council over the provision of local services, and a new right to buy local assets such as libraries, swimming pools and community centres.

Make no mistake: I am in favour of giving people a greater say in the way their local communities and services are run. I have spent much of my career promoting this very issue and I have learnt that it is not enough to focus on removing suspected barriers, for example by increasing the powers of local authorities to commission services from the voluntary and community sectors. The issue is not lack of interest. We know that there is a great appetite in those sectors to do more, but they can do more only if they are given the right kind of support to make it happen.

We will see a transformation in the way that we provide public services in this country only if we provide investment to ensure that there is capacity building, including training, guidance and coaching, alongside support for infrastructure development, in place for the new commissioning arrangements to work. This is even more vital in these times of fiscal constraints and major cuts in core funding for local government. When this is considered in the context of a Bill that seeks to increase community involvement and service delivery, it leads me to question whether the proposals are a poor attempt to replace highly developed and expert services, which deal day by day with a variety of complex and challenging community needs, with an underdeveloped and poorly resourced alternative. This is not the way to empower communities.

And what of fairness? We have already seen the extreme differences in impact across authorities, especially between the north and south of the country, that the government cuts have produced—cuts that clearly are having a more profound effect in the most deprived and disadvantaged areas. The Government fail to recognise that not all communities have the same level of resources—either financial or professional. This Government have said that fairness is at the heart of their reforms. Would the Minister explain how the Government see fairness working in this Bill? What happens to minority groups that are excluded from the process? How will their voices be heard and how will the Government ensure that communities with fewer resources are not left disadvantaged?

The right to challenge, which is intended to put voluntary and community charities on the front foot when it comes to running public services, is meaningless without the investment to make it work. Words in a Bill will not empower local groups to challenge local authority bureaucracy and poor performance if they lack the support that will give them the time, the understanding and the skills to carry out this challenge.

This is not being condescending, but of course local people know more about what works and how things should be done in an area—they are the ones who experience services at first hand. In fact, there are many examples of this kind of community challenge and involvement taking place. We must ask, however, what would motivate people to want to do more, such as taking over services or assets rather than have the council deliver them. If community groups get involved in running these services, how will we ensure that they are properly accountable on service standards and use of public money? The right to challenge offers no redress to those communities. It simply does not empower them.

The Government seem to expect that the shifts in power from councils to local communities can occur without the right levels of investment. But without this investment, many of the essential processes will not be in place and this will place unintended new burdens on the community and voluntary sectors, which will have to navigate a way through this new system. Will the Minister tell me why the right cannot be used in reverse and why the direction of travel is only one way? Surely, what we need is a partnership between local government and communities rather than the one-sided and divisive approach in the Bill. If public services are not being delivered effectively, there is no right of challenge to redress that.

I want briefly to consider Part 6 of the Bill, which contains the housing provisions. I am deeply concerned by these provisions. The provision of social housing is one of the great and essential public goods of our society. For those on low incomes, social housing provides, through security of tenure, the means to continue working and to enjoy private and family life. It sustains cohesion in our communities.

The arguments put forward in defence of the housing provisions are that “flexible” tenancies should give more freedom to local authority landlords and allow them to manage their stock more effectively and should ensure that the occupation of social housing better reflects actual need. The provisions will allow local authorities to offer fixed tenancies for a minimum of two years, rather than secure lifetime tenancies, which are the norm at the moment. It is clear, however, that this provision has not taken into account the devastating impact that short-term tenancies can have on the most vulnerable in our communities. For example, having to move several times can have the most profound effect on the mental health of children—indeed, on the whole family.

What about the broader impact on the whole community? Short-term tenure reduces new tenants’ commitment to their neighbourhood and homes. It undermines their willingness to invest time and energy in the fabric of the housing, the garden and the local environment. There is also the very unpleasant suggestion behind these housing clauses that social housing is to be viewed as some kind of failure to move on and make the most of life. This ignores the fact that, throughout their lives, individuals and families already have pathways through which they can move into different housing types and tenures and through different styles of accommodation in different neighbourhoods.

In fact, by reducing security of tenure, this Government will bring about a much greater restriction on social mobility. Furthermore, I can envisage a situation where these provisions result in more people complaining and seeking to redress what will clearly be a more unfair and discriminatory process.

This brings me to one further issue that I can only assume is an error in a Bill that seeks to empower people. I refer to the reform of social housing regulations in Clause 158. Currently, any person who feels that a complaint has not received satisfaction locally is entitled to take the complaint to the Housing Ombudsman. People may choose, if they wish, to involve their local MP or elected councillors in this process. Under the new provisions in the Bill, this right is to be replaced by an additional layer of bureaucracy that will require people first to involve MPs, councillors or tenants panels in resolving complaints locally before they are sent to the ombudsman. Will the Minister say why this additional layer of bureaucracy is regarded as necessary for housing regulation? Does this mean that the Government intend to restrict all ombudsman services in this manner in future?

I move on to what I think is one of the Bill’s most potentially harmful provisions: the reform of the homelessness legislation. Under this provision, the local authority duty to homeless people and families will be changed so that its duty to house can be met by housing the homeless in the private rented sector. While to some this may seem reasonable given the numbers of people, especially in London, living in temporary accommodation while they are waiting for housing allocation, I believe that it will have a much more far-reaching and devastating impact.

Changes in the Bill to the homelessness duty raise serious questions about the rights of some of society's most vulnerable people. Homeless families will no longer be able to refuse unsuitable accommodation in the private rented sector. This could lead to vulnerable adults and children being housed in inappropriate and insecure settings where their mental health and well-being could be seriously threatened. As we are all aware, homelessness is an isolating and destructive experience, and homeless people are some of the most vulnerable and socially excluded in our society and include people with mental health problems, disabilities and alcohol and drug problems.

I understand that the Bill contains a safeguard whereby those made unintentionally homeless within two years of having their homelessness duty passed to the private rented sector are still entitled to housing assistance whether or not they are still in priority need. However, I do not think that this is sufficient protection. Although help will be offered to those who suffer repeat homelessness, a series of failed tenancies can be very damaging. For example, if vulnerable applicants are housed in the private rented sector with insufficient support, they may get into arrears, or their relationship with the landlord or other tenants may break down. In this case they may be considered intentionally homeless and thus not entitled to support. What protections does the Minister envisage will be in place to ensure that there is adequate support for those who are vulnerable and moved to 12-month private sector tenancies to prevent them descending into a spiral of repeat homelessness?

I have only briefly touched on two areas that I believe are essential for us to get right not just for the protection of the vulnerable and needy but for all our welfare in sustaining and strengthening communities. Alongside the funding cuts facing local authorities, this Bill runs a risk of deepening existing social inequalities, particularly in the north of the country.

16:57

[Baroness Scott of Needham Market]

In every speech on local government I have made in your Lordships' House in the 11 years that I have been here, I have called for government to introduce the power of general competence. I am going to have to think about something else now because I am really pleased to see that the Government have finally brought it forward. I am also very pleased to see the abolition of the Standards Board. It is a body which, while well intentioned, in practice led to a constant stream of vexatious and often trivial claims which were highly damaging to the individuals concerned and really bad for the reputation of councillors and local government as a whole. I am also pleased to see that the committee system is returning as an option for local councils, although I cannot for the life of me imagine why the Government think they should wait up to three years to be able to bring it in. It is important that local councils have an option on their governance models and can choose the model that suits them and their circumstances best. It is for that reason that I am utterly opposed to the imposition of the mayoral model in shadow form, as proposed in the Bill.

The idea of merging the mayor with the chief executive is quite frankly barmy. The whole rationale behind elected mayors is to have a high-visibility candidate, someone with quite different skills from the managerial qualifications that you would expect a good head of paid service to have. I have no doubt that it will go through, but if someone came to this House with a proposal that Ministers should become Permanent Secretaries, there would be an absolute uproar.

There is a sort of schizophrenia evident in the Bill. There are parts that are genuinely localist. For example, I was really pleased to see the dismantling of the provisions in the 2007 Act which told local councils how to receive a petition, but I saw with dismay an even more regimented system for bringing in referendums. Where I live in mid-Suffolk, we are having a referendum right now on whether to merge with the local council. The councils got on and did it. They did not need primary legislation to do it, and this provision should not be in this Bill because, as it is envisaged, I fear it will be divisive and I think it will be very costly. There is still a tendency to reach for regulatory answers to every question. If the Government are serious about localism they have to go far beyond the boundaries of just this department and create a localism audit on all new legislation coming forward.

We have a real problem here. Too often, local councils are frozen like rabbits in the headlights of the legal profession and tend to take the safest option on offer. The sparse use of the Sustainable Communities Act and the general power of well-being is testament to that. My fear is that the general power of competence will go the same way. With so much other regulation, both from this department and imposed by others, councils and citizens will simply be unsure about what they can do, a point so well made by the right reverend Prelate.

I am struck by the fact that, despite the general power, I have been deluged with requests from councils and other organisations to request specific powers and duties to be put in the Bill. Clearly, they share the same concerns that the general power of competence simply will not do the job. I was particularly struck by an approach made to me by councillors in Cambridge who, like councillors across the country, are seeking to protect the special character of a shopping street, Mill Road. They are not confident that the general power will give them enough power to override the 2,500 pages of existing planning law, which they believe prevent them from taking the steps that they need to take in order to preserve the special character of the street. I am not at all sure that the changes to the planning system in this Bill will give councils the flexibility that they need to manage their streets in the way that their citizens want. I am sure that we will spend a lot of time on this issue in Committee but it seems to me that if the Localism Bill does not allow councils to protect cherished local neighbourhoods and facilities, it will have failed.

The actions of local government are too often bounded by what they have a statutory duty to do and by what they are barred from doing by other regulations. We need to create more space in the middle, a discretionary space, where councils can do as they see fit. If one looks simply at the six clauses in this Bill relating to assets of community value, there are 54 things on which the Secretary of State will need to issue regulations. In my view, this is a massive job creation programme for CLG civil servants and for parliamentary draftsmen.

The elephant in the room of course is money. While three-quarters of local authority spend comes from central government, it is inevitable that central government will seek to impose control. The very complexity of local finance will mean that if there are referenda on council tax increases, they will become just a sort of shouting match between central and local government—a battle of percentages—which in the end will freeze and turn off local voters. Given the cost of a council-wide referendum, what we have here is capping by any other name.

Genuine local accountability is impossible while this system persists. It goes to the heart of a healthy local democracy. A lack of clarity about financial responsibility, the maze of statutory provisions and the demise of the local press in many areas combine together to work against a responsive local democratic system. To my mind, this is made far worse by the bundling together of elections on the same day. I fought, and won, two county council elections on general election day. I speak from experience when I say how hard it is to get any oxygen for local issues when elections are fought concurrently. Of course, turnout is higher but, if many of the people turning out are paying no regard to local issues, the cause of local accountability is not enhanced at all. The devolved Assemblies in Scotland and Wales have been given the option to choose whether to hold elections on a day other than that of the general election. Perhaps we should think about local councils being given the same option. There is nothing magical about the first Thursday in May.

This Bill has some good points but it is overly bureaucratic and remains overly centralised. Let us hope that the Government are prepared to listen to what noble Lords have to say today and in Committee and are prepared to make some changes.

17:04

[Lord Adebowale]

My Lords, I should declare an interest as chief executive of Turning Point, an organisation that provides community commissioning services in many local authorities; and as a member of the Audit Commission, which, as I have often said, is a struggle.

The Government’s Bill initiates a power shift; a shift of power from central government to local communities, and in my view that is a good intention. The experience of my own organisation in working with many local communities is that communities in the greatest need understand to a far greater extent than they are given credit for by their local authorities what those needs are and how they can be met in more imaginative and, indeed, cost-effective ways. Moves to further empower communities through the right to challenge public services should be welcomed. I want to say a bit more about that and then refer to the issues raised by the provisions in the Bill on housing.

However, my concern is that many of the local communities that would benefit from being empowered are often in the most deprived areas and are the most deeply affected by unmet needs, with the related unemployment, low skill levels and health inequalities that are the inevitable result. Communities often know what they want, but are denied access to the resources necessary to become empowered. It is true that all communities should have the chance to assert the right to challenge, but my concern is that there will not be equality in resource and social investment in these communities. This point was also made by the noble Lord, Lord Patel of Bradford.

Turning Point’s experience of supporting over 100,000 people in these communities to develop new services has led me to believe that, by empowering communities, a challenge to the local authority is often created. Generally, power is not given up without a fight. While I can see that the intention is to give communities the right to request, there is no duty to provide the resources necessary for communities in the poorest areas to gain the necessary skills, infrastructure and resources to fight the power. It should not be assumed that local communities, particularly in the poorest areas, are formed by some magical process, and it should not be assumed that such infrastructure and empowerment is free. Indeed, Turning Point has found that it is not a lack of money in many places, it is how the money is spent and who is making the decisions on behalf of communities. There is a risk of the Bill unintentionally exacerbating the inverse care law as it applies to power and power differentials between the poorest and the richest communities.

I turn to housing issues, which again were also raised by the noble Lord, Lord Patel of Bradford. There is of course a crisis in the balance between supply and demand for housing in the UK, and no more starkly are the effects of this imbalance felt than in social housing. I am concerned about the intention to remove lifetime tenancies while reforming the homelessness duty accorded to local authorities. These reforms are intended to free up the availability of social housing, but they will have the opposite effect. These proposals may have unintended consequences that will oppose what this legislation is setting out to achieve.

It is acknowledged that there is a need for a significant period of stability when someone is given access to social housing. I question whether the time limits set out in the Bill are long enough for individuals with entrenched and complex needs to make the changes required to create stability in their lives. Limited tenure is likely to obstruct the social good of mixed and diverse communities. The social housing population is likely to become more transient, which could lead to further alienation as the social capital which maintains healthy, resilient communities is lost. While these reforms will affect only new applicants, eventually it is likely that the people who access social housing are those with the most entrenched and complex needs. This will act to further increase the stigma already attached to social housing and those who access it.

Similarly, limited tenure may act as a disincentive for people to improve their situation, which would go against the intention of the Bill. Those who excel in education and employment opportunities, or who work to challenge their substance misuse or seek support in addressing their mental health difficulties, could actually be penalised, and the security of their home may be taken away. This uncertainty is likely to increase if local authorities are given the right to discharge their homelessness duty through offering a private-sector tenancy of 12 months without the prior consent of the tenant.

We all know that the private rented market is more unstable than social housing. There is also the increased risk that those with complex needs may become further alienated from the source of support that they should expect, which again is a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Patel of Bradford. The vagaries of some private landlords who put profit before tenants will be given free rein to take advantage of some of the most vulnerable in society. For instance, research by Shelter found that some landlords target those with substance misuse difficulties and other challenges in the belief that they will be more amenable to poor-quality, shared accommodation. The links between mental health and housing also show the wider effects of these reforms. Poor housing can contribute to mental health difficulties and, similarly, people who experience mental ill health can find it difficult to access quality accommodation. According to the mental health charity Mind, research suggests that people with mental health difficulties are twice as likely to be unhappy with their housing and four times as likely to say that their housing makes their health worse.

The impact of complex needs can mean that it is harder for some people to maintain private sector tenancies, especially without the increased support often available through social housing. Yet it is possible to have a situation in which the most vulnerable in society can be given private tenancies without their consent, which could exacerbate their problems and cost more in the long run. Housing is a crucial element of health and well-being—an agenda that is given increasing prominence. For the clients that Turning Point and other organisations support, stable, appropriate housing is well established as a key component in recovering from substance misuse, mental health and, indeed, managing issues such as learning disabilities. These reforms should not be allowed to endanger this hard-won progress and further obstruct government policy in other areas. I should like to hear specific remarks from the Minister on how those risks will be mitigated in the Bill.

To address that oversight, I should like assurances that those with complex needs who are given private sector tenancies will have the right to access social housing if they are again made homeless. It is important that any proposed reforms to social housing achieve a balance between accessible housing and ensuring that the most vulnerable people are not disadvantaged, and that their needs are met in resilient communities. There is no denying that this is a difficult balance to strike but it is crucial to the agenda of public service reform that the Government are pursuing.

17:13

[Baroness Andrews]

My Lords, I was quite tempted to address many different aspects of this Bill which have a curious familiarity, but I will concentrate on the planning sections. I am wearing two hats: first, as chair of English Heritage, I thank the Minister for what has already been done to improve the Bill in another place, and I shall come back to that at the end of my speech; secondly, I want to record my dismay both at the regressive nature of some of the proposed changes to planning and—in this rather curious combination of legislation—at the untested and confused nature of some of the more radical elements around neighbourhood planning. My fears are shared by many of the professionals and people outside this House who will have to make the Bill work.

Like many Members of this House, I can welcome some of the proposals, such as the specific proposals for a community right to buy and a community right to challenge, but the key question, which has been raised already by many noble Lords, is how we can guarantee that the Bill will work. The job of this House, in addition to guarding constitutional proprieties, relates to the workability test. At the moment, sadly, I am not convinced how the Bill, with its many good aspects, will achieve the ambitions for growth in planning and housing given the inherent contradictions in it.

The first contradiction is over what the Government want and expect from the planning system and these reforms. Planning is essentially about the best use of land and resources. It is about achieving a balance between all the things we need, whether that is about more jobs and affordable housing, energy security and green space or agriculture and high-speed trains. They all have to be accommodated, and the challenge for a modern planning system is to balance potentially infinite demands with finite resources. That is why the system must have the capacity to be strategic and it must be informed by a wider view of how things can fit together—a spatial view. That is precisely what we have lost in this Bill. With the loss of regional spatial strategies, we have lost the strategic content for planning and any means of mediating tensions between national, or even global, imperatives and local perspectives. Floods, minerals and housing have to be planned for across boundaries; they play out on wide spatial scales and they are contentious issues.

The Minister has already spoken about the duty to co-operate, but she will know from her extensive briefing that there is grave concern about the efficacy of a voluntary duty to consider co-operation which does not require local authorities to co-operate. We do not even know yet which areas of policy or which geographical areas will be covered. What is likely to happen when it comes to issues which divide local authorities and which have to be planned for beyond boundaries, such as waste incinerators or flood risk?

There are few more contentious issues than housing supply. Whatever the complaints about the regional spatial strategies, they had some merits: they were evidence based, independent and offered a coherent way of looking at where housing was needed and could be provided according to land resource. The regional spatial strategy also provided a mediating process for local authorities; now local authorities are on their own and face unforgiving housing pressures.

The Minister said that only 110,000 homes were built last year, but now that the national housing and planning advice unit has been abolished can she tell me how the housing needs for the nation as a whole will be assessed? How many houses does she think the country will need this year, next year or the year after? Perhaps she will refer me to the new homes bonus. I accept that that may act as a spur to housing in growth areas, but it will not help poorer communities where the need is for regeneration and renewal—take the case of Liverpool, for example. Indeed, the TCPA and the Joseph Rowntree Trust suggest that it will reinforce structural inequalities between regions. I am afraid that, on the analysis, the outcome is all too predictable. How would the Minister interpret that dichotomy?

My noble friend has already referred to Clause 124, on financial incentives. I and many others have grave concerns about the clause, because we have for the first time in planning legislation an explicit priority given to financial incentives in the planning system. This is a major distortion of what planning is there to do. It has set many alarm bells ringing, because it could lead to grave consequences. Where is the wider planning interest in this? Where is the interest which compensates for sustainability or affordability? Much wider issues should be taken into account.

I turn from the regressive to the untested elements of the Bill. We are told that the key planning document will now be the local development frameworks. Barely a third of them have been completed, but the neighbourhood development orders, these radical new powers, are required to conform with them. What will happen where there is no LDF in place? How many neighbourhood forums does the Minister anticipate? I have seen a figure of 25,000. Can she confirm what has already been put about, that some of them could cost as much as £200,000? But the crucial question is what exactly they will be free to plan for. If they do not cover housing allocations, waste or minerals, what are they left to do?

The lack of reference to sustainability opens up a second major contradiction. Whereas the Budget statement seemed to take a very simplistic view of planning in which growth and sustainability were at odds with each other, we now seem to have a default position in which economic growth is to be the principal determinant of planning.

The Minister in the other place was insistent that this and many other aspects of policy would be made clear in the national policy planning framework, which will be the key to getting the planning system right. Its purpose is to streamline all existing planning guidance, but we do not yet have the final version. We have only a draft version, apparently commissioned by CLG and produced by a group of “practitioners”, which has been described by the TCPA, for example, as falling short of the kind of guidance necessary to create an effective planning framework for England. So we are in a rather strange position. Will the Minister say why the draft was commissioned when work is already under way in her department on the official CLG version? Who will own the final draft and when will we have it? Without the authorised version—and this is very important—we simply cannot tell whether the degree of detail available will be clear or sufficient to guide local authorities towards making the right local decisions. I would refer noble Lords to the issue of sustainability, which is interpreted in the draft text in a way that suggests that economic factors are given more weight than social ones.

I come back, finally, to heritage protections. What concerns us in the heritage community is that the protections around the historic environment in this draft document are in fact weaker than existing protections in the recent, modernised planning document on heritage protection—PPS5—which was praised as valued and successful, only two weeks ago, by the Minister for Tourism and Heritage. Indeed, he expressed his concern that it must not be thrown out with the bathwater in order to make the NPPF an all-new document, because it is such a useful and clear document. I am sure that the Minister will want to talk to him. The problem is that this document, for example, fails to recognise the spectrum of heritage assets, which extends from undesignated to nationally designated assets, or how to find new viable uses for useable heritage assets. If these elements were to find their way into the final draft, we would be left with a weaker set of protections around heritage. We do not want to do that.

I will let the Minister have a full list of areas of concern, which will also include the problems raised by undesignated archaeology, which again is in a rather unfortunate position in relation to the NDOs. I know that is something she will want to know about. I know the Minister is going to respond to me in the very positive way that she has already done when we raised issues with her at an earlier stage of the Bill. Indeed, without her interventions, we might now be faced with a clause that explicitly removed protections around conservation areas and listed building settings in relation to neighbourhood development orders. I am extremely grateful that the Government have now corrected this and I am very grateful to her personally.

In conclusion, I hope that the Minister is able to respond to some of my concerns this evening. I have raised them in the wider spectrum: the increased uncertainty, reduced confidence in the objectivity of planning and abolition of the necessary ability to plan strategically—not least because we are at a time when we have never needed greater foresight, intelligence and objectivity in the planning system. The Minister began by saying she was willing to listen. I would expect nothing less from her and I am sure that, across the House, we can improve this Bill in the way we need to.

17:23

[The Lord Bishop of Derby]

My Lords, like many in the House, I warmly welcome this Localism Bill and the desire to empower communities and shift power to local communities. Many of us will be aware of the feeling of collapse of community and the undermining of democracy through apathy and non-engagement. This is a very timely measure to try to empower the local and I want to offer a very brief view from the ground; because if we are talking about empowering the local, we need to know who constitute the local and how people can be drawn into these processes and take part in the ordering of local society.

The clue comes in the language. The Bill uses the phrase “community empowerment”. As the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, said, talking about Athens and Pericles, you might just about imagine a community in Athens, which was, I think, about 5,000 people. You might also have a sense of community in a medieval town, with its segments of people living in different crafts. However, since the rise of 19th-century industrial cities, modern cities and now the mobility of people in rural areas, the physicalness that created community has disappeared largely from people’s lives. The Bill recognises this, in that although it talks about communities and community empowerment, it majors in its solution on the notion of neighbourhood, which is rather different. It talks about neighbourhood forums, neighbourhood plans and referendums—mechanisms for a neighbourhood to try to help community happen. But there are very important informal elements that create community and give people a sense of well-being and direction in life which need to be taken account of if these neighbourhood mechanisms are going to be inhabited as the Bill envisages.

I would like to share the results of research by the Church Urban Fund, which has looked at 232 faith-based projects working in the 10 per cent most needy areas of our country. It would seem to me that the test of any localism is how you include those normally excluded. This research looks at the 10 per cent of those in the most needy areas and the projects working with them. Sixty per cent of those projects report an alarming collapse in their capacity to engage with this local agenda—partly through the withdrawal of grants and partly through the collapse of the capacity of local government to be an agency in making communities. That is a very serious picture. If one test of localism is how we involve the most easily excluded, we have to think carefully about inhabiting this Localism Bill and how it can really work.

The danger in the way the Bill is couched is that neighbourhood mechanisms will most easily be inhabited by those who already have economic and social capital. There is a great danger that assets and services could be taken over and controlled by private finance and particular interest groups and not really draw on the local community. Research that the Church Urban Fund has done in my own diocese showed the struggles of a family centre trying to create families with stable lives and, in youth work, with trying to bring young people into society. We have to invest in these things. Besides trying to create the opportunity and structures that the Bill highlights, you will empower people’s participation only if you give them the resources to do it. There is a tremendous resource deficit, particularly in the most needy communities. There must be some joined-up thinking in government if we are really going to make this Localism Bill operate. It is a thing of its time and a very wise proposal, but it must be substantiated by serious investment—not just in the mechanisms and opportunities but in the resources to local communities. I ask the Minister to consider very seriously the litmus test of localism, which is including those most easily excluded. Can that be somehow taken very seriously in working the proposals further, with neighbourhood mechanisms being developed so that they can reach out to community life and help community life happen more seriously?

17:28

[Lord Wei]

My Lords, I start by declaring an interest as a voluntary adviser to the Community Foundation Network, a movement that seeks to improve society in the UK through philanthropy. I thank the Minister for sponsoring the Bill and for introducing it in such a listening manner—a Bill in which there is plenty to welcome as well as to discuss.

The Bill is an incredibly significant piece of legislation in that it sets out some of the key foundations for the big society, enabling a major shift by decentralising power and strengthening local initiative. In doing so, it creates a tangible empowerment of communities and neighbourhood groups. While community empowerment is only one ingredient in the big society recipe, alongside public service reform and encouragement of social action, it is a very important one. As those of us who have worked closely on local issues will be only too aware, for too long many communities have seen their hopes and ideas frustrated by an overly bureaucratic system or felt powerless against overbearing third parties, whether public, private or voluntary, which for whatever reason have, often unintentionally, overridden the wishes of local people.

This Bill and the big society itself are an attempt to redress that state of affairs, bring balance and help rebuild trust between those who have power and those who are subject to it. This Bill will bring together many provisions to eliminate some of the hurdles in local government planning and housing that make people feel powerless and apathetic. I want to highlight a few in particular and outline some areas that will need to be handled with care.

I eagerly greet the creation of a range of local community rights contained in this Bill: the right to challenge and propose alternative providers for local services; the right to buy or express an interest in assets of local importance to communities; the right to build much-needed housing or other small-scale community-owned infrastructure. Each of those has the power to transform communities, whether they are inner-city ones frustrated by the housing management provided to them as social tenants, suburban residents who want to save their pub, post office or library and turn it into a multi-use sustainable hub, owned and frequented by the community, or rural communities that I have visited that have wanted to create housing for their young people who are otherwise having to leave for the city because they could not afford to buy locally.

I also welcome the release of local authorities from Whitehall control by granting them the power of competence and the reforms of their governance, such as in the option of having city mayors or returning to the committee system, as well as a means to introduce direct democracy through various referenda. The key principle here is to provide flexibility, to move away from one-size-fits-all Whitehall control and, ultimately, to put more power into people's hands. These reforms will give local authorities real discretion to work innovatively and redesign their public services around their own local circumstances, in line with the wishes of those they serve. That is essential if we are to have a more responsive, efficient and accountable local service in future.

The provision for neighbourhoods, either as parishes or local forums, to create their own development plans will also produce a much-needed culture change in how communities interact with planning authorities. Rather than having an adversarial and expensive system where every little change needs to be argued over, the community is incentivised to come together to shape its own neighbourhood for the long term. In places such as Seattle, that has led to innovative solutions such as the community proposing creating much-needed housing over the local library and enhancing the character and community ties successfully within neighbourhoods.

As someone who has lived privately in social housing environments previously, I also welcome the measures designed to remove a number of unfair and bureaucratic barriers faced by existing and prospective social tenants. Waiting lists are too long and currently can force many people to live in a limbo-like state and in poor quality environments for years. It is unfair that so many will wait while others are given higher priority over them, sometimes for temporary economic or other reasons, in ways that can even destroy social ties between family members who rightly wish to live close to each other. Carefully thought through measures to make social housing tenancies more flexible and to widen the range of housing stock that people are provided with—subject to minimum standards, to include private rental options—are critical, in my view, to improving the lives of thousands of low-income citizens. Reforms to have more web-enabled swapping of homes and to strengthen housing association accountability are also welcome. We need more associations that are both responsive to tenants and can think out of the box when finances are tight.

However, like most good things, none of the new opportunities outlined in the Bill for communities and local authorities comes without some risk, which will need careful management at all levels. First, it is imperative that the new rights are designed to balance the need for due process without unnecessarily increasing bureaucracy. If the process is made too complex and given too many layers and tick boxes, there is a possibility that the new rights’ full potential is never realised and that people will frankly not bother, especially in more deprived areas. To this end, I welcome measures being introduced by departments and various civil society groups to help communities have the capacity to take up their rights.

Secondly, just as central government releases powers now, local authorities must also be incentivised to devolve their own powers and not hoard them, to fulfil themselves the principle of subsidiarity. If localism is really to work, it is crucial that councils understand that same aspiration within their own communities and take steps to meet it. The popular pendulum may otherwise swing back over time to central control, as it did in the 1980s, after the failure of overweening municipalism. The referenda and other direct accountability measures are therefore key to holding local authority power in check, even as central oversight is partly reduced.

Thirdly, it must be acknowledged that neighbourhood plans are big documents and likely to take 18 to 24 months to produce. Due to the considerable consequences of the plans, it is also crucial that they are designed properly. While local authorities have a duty to provide support and advice it will be vital that, on top of that, community groups have access to specialists and toolkits—provided by the likes of the Prince’s Foundation and others—to ensure that every community that wants to will be able to produce a worthwhile and workable plan.

The changes to social housing also need to be implemented with care. Others, I am sure, will pick up on that. When you have a country facing a chronic shortage of such a scarce resource as housing, there is always a risk of abuse. Poor decision-making can arise when those allocating housing are under pressure. Yes, we will need checks and balances and we will need to make changes in a phased manner, but the overriding issue here is a general lack of housing, which other measures in the Bill and the flexibility that it creates over social housing management should help to address. We must also understand that at times in this process, Whitehall may need still to play a role since healthy localism does not happen overnight. We will also need to watch carefully how different reforms take shape and gradually amend guidance and regulations as we go along. It will not be perfect straight away and control must be released carefully.

Finally, we must watch our temptation not to share power because we fear extreme groups taking over locally—that age-old tension between our desire for security versus our yearning for freedom. In my experience, such a blanket reaction is uncalled for. Instead of withdrawing, we should always push for the greater participation of those in the mainstream and those on the edge to drown out the extreme voices who would otherwise hold sway. The more we water them down out of fear, the more we will perpetuate the apathy engendered by bureaucracy and monopolistic abuse of local power, which have been so damaging to our country, democracy and public life. On the other hand, the more transparent, muscular and representative we make these reforms, the more likely that citizens of all kinds will participate as they realise that they have teeth. Let us therefore work together to make these reforms work on behalf of the millions of citizens who will benefit from them locally and enable them to help us to build the big society.

17:36

[Baroness Bakewell]

My Lords, I declare a peculiar interest which is that I do not have any interests to declare; I am simply a citizen and a ratepayer of Camden. I will not detain your Lordships long but I am interested in the idea of localism. People have struggled to define it, which I find quite interesting because it just means what we have all been doing. I thought that I would add, anecdotally, some stories that might indicate how I will be judging this Bill as it goes through.

We have struggled in Camden for well nigh a decade to keep local libraries open. We planned our meetings together and the word got round on the street and in the shops. We had meetings, made plans, invaded the council meetings and took them over. We organised a scheme whereby all the pushchairs and wheelchairs in the borough invaded the council chamber. That was quite impressive, because those were the users—the people who wanted their libraries to be local and not to have to travel, as the council wanted us to do, to some glitzy, vanity-project library which nobody could reach. We have prevailed and we go on prevailing. In the face of the current cuts, we are once more on the warpath. This is localism as we experience it in Camden.

On another occasion, the rumour went round—it was a good street rumour from the parents of children at the schools and the people in the shops—that Starbucks was going to move in on one of the properties on our street, which prides itself on having highly idiosyncratic and individual shops. We knew that we did not want a chain. We met and made plans. Some of us put a bit of money in the kitty. We lobbied the local papers, we put up posters and we frightened Starbucks away. Starbucks let it be known in the local press that it certainly did not want to go where it was not wanted—incidentally, there are Starbucks branches not very far from our street. This is localism. It had no referendums and no structure. It had no top-down plans to organise us. We organised ourselves, which seems to me to be the essence of localism.

Just in case your Lordships think, “Yes, well, Camden; that's all very nimby”, I have to tell you two things. The mums with the pushchairs and the old people in their wheelchairs were not nimby. In any community, it always takes certain vocal people to get things organised. Your Lordships will recognise that. However, once that is under way other people come on board, so we were broadly understood to be representative of the community. Also, once we had got rid of Starbucks we had a call from Richmond saying, “How did you pull it off? We want to do the same thing”. There is already a broad, grass-roots willingness to pitch in. I am not sure whether the passing of Bills with systems, with forums or with structures being offered to us by them over there is what true localism is about, so I shall be monitoring this Bill for every clause which appears to be top-down and does not play along with the bottom-up, grass-roots sense of this country.

17:40

[Lord Shipley]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, on defining for us what localism means. In debates like this it is helpful to have clear definitions of what we mean by words: from “localism”, through “community” and “neighbourhoods” to “nimbyism”. In the end, localism is about neighbourhoods and neighbourhood provision; and it is about the social inclusion and cohesion that derive from that localism agenda. In that respect I agree entirely with what the noble Baroness had to say.

I declare my interest as the vice-president of the Local Government Association and I am still a member of Newcastle City Council.

The Bill’s declared aim is to devolve and decentralise power to councils and communities locally; and where it does that, the Government should be commended. Not surprisingly, there is a concern that the Bill has not been drafted in the spirit of localism. That is because there are simply too many powers assigned to the Secretary of State and Whitehall to regulate and micromanage. The Government should not have powers to impose shadow mayors on local communities. The creation of an elected mayor should rest entirely in the hands of local people; and giving the Secretary of State the power to force a shadow mayor on to local people and then subject his decision to a confirmatory referendum is wholly against the spirit of localism.

Nor should central government legislate on what constitutes an excessive council tax rise. I find it interesting that the desire for localism in this Bill does not extend to allowing a referendum on putting council tax up. True localism would require not only an option to have the council tax rate below what the council says, but also one that is above what it says. As for referendums, councils already have powers to hold them, but the Bill will see Ministers in future regulating these more from Whitehall. In social housing, the Bill would lead to increased housebuilding and growth only if it frees councils to invest in social housing. So Whitehall should not be able to cap councils’ ability to borrow to invest in social housing.

In principle, the Government have made firm commitments to devolution, so the desire to devolve is apparently there. This Bill’s potential is for a legacy of empowered places, a more competitive and inclusive England, a rebalanced economy away from an overreliance on the south-east, and cities that have greater freedoms. This Bill provides further powers for London, transferred from the London Development Agency and the Homes and Communities Agency, with the power for Ministers to delegate further functions. The country needs London to do well and London—along with the devolved assemblies of Scotland and Wales and, through them, their cities—will have greater freedom to grow its economy than other cities in England.

Yet cities in England are also capable of delivering substantial growth and the country would benefit enormously from giving them the opportunities to drive prosperity. A recent report by Oxford Economics has shown that many billions of pounds in growth could be delivered by empowering English cities. For example, the urban areas of the eight English core cities —Birmingham, Bristol, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle, Nottingham and Sheffield—already account for 27 per cent of the UK’s economy. We need to seek ways to unleash that economic potential, create much needed investment, jobs and growth and enable those cities to compete on a level playing field internationally. I anticipate an opportunity to discuss this proposal further in Committee.

I have some further words on housing matters. Reforming the complexities of the housing finance system is very welcome, but it must lead to councils being empowered to do more—and being expected to do more—for themselves, with greater interdependence and more financial certainty. We simply must build more homes, given that new household formation is now more than twice the level of new housebuilding. So many of our housing problems relate to undersupply, particularly of social housing, and addressing this is central to preventing homelessness rising and the average age of first-time buyers being driven upwards to over 40. The Localism Bill offers us an opportunity to improve the duty owed to single homeless people and, in my view, it would be right for local authorities to provide suitable accommodation for a period that would give them a reasonable chance of finding accommodation for themselves.

There is a concern that some councils, when seeking to bring their ALMOs back in-house, are effectively excluding tenants from the process. I hope a clause might be inserted into the Bill that would oblige local authorities seeking to disestablish an ALMO to inform and involve tenants fully and hold a ballot. I also hope for an assurance from the Minister that the community right to challenge will be applicable to social housing tenants and ALMO staff who want to manage social housing by setting up an appropriate co-ownership structure.

This Bill will remove security of tenure for new social tenants and introduce a new form of short-term tenancy. There is a danger that the Government could be introducing legislation which will cause anguish for some very vulnerable families, while not delivering a great deal. Short-term tenancies run the risk of creating a cycle of repeat homelessness; and rather than create yet more insecurity for people and communities, reform should focus on long-term solutions that deliver the security that vulnerable people need.

Securing social mobility is a key agenda for this Government, but this is achieved through security and confidence, both at individual and community level. Reviewing tenancies every 24 months is too short a timeframe to secure that ability to build confidence and act on opportunities for employment.

One final point relates to the ballot box and representative democracy. This is an understated, undervalued issue in the Bill because the primacy of decision-making at all levels must lie with those who are elected to take those decisions. To take neighbourhood planning as an example, there has to be a democratic legitimacy. Some 40 years ago I was involved in pushing the case for urban parish councils. For a decade or so it was central to a lot of my thinking and to that of a number of Members of Your Lordships’ House. In the context of parish and town councils being available in many parts of the country, they are less so in concentrated urban areas. Securing democratic legitimacy may need part of this Bill to look at some form of elected urban parish councils to give force to neighbourhood planning.

17:48

[Lord Wigley]

My Lords, what a horrible title this is for a Bill, which is essentially about community—a much warmer concept. In the few minutes available, I will flag up some key issues, which I hope to return to at a later stage. The areas of main concern to me are how the Bill impacts on Wales and in general how it impacts on the well-being of disabled and disadvantaged people wherever they may live.

My party, Plaid Cymru, supports not only the devolution of power to the nations and regions of these islands, but also to local communities. For years, Plaid campaigned for the abolition of the ultra vires rule. Of course, enabling communities to do more for themselves does not guarantee that they have the capacity to do so. Some of the neediest communities also have the least capacity. JB Priestley once commented that decentralisation by central direction is a contradiction. That may be relevant to this Bill.

I am very aware that some of this Bill was rehashed substantially in its later stages in another place under a stringent timetable Motion, and that in March there was a yes vote in the referendum on the powers of the National Assembly in Wales, which significantly impacts on the application of parts of this Bill on Wales. Consequently, there is some lack of transparency which we will need to look at in Committee. An example is the lack of clarity regarding the Bill’s application to Wales. This arises in Part 1, dealing with the general powers, Clauses 1 to 8. This has to do with local government, and the term “local government” is defined in Clause 8 in terms that apply to England. The Explanatory Notes to the Bill say on page 97 that Clauses 1 to 8 apply only to England, yet Clause 5(8) refers to orders that have,

“effect in relation to Wales”,

and provides for consultation with Welsh Ministers. Similar problems arise elsewhere in the Bill, for example in Clauses 126 and 127 in relation to homelessness, and in Clause 145 in relation to the abolition of the housing revenue account subsidy, which has a significant knock-on effect for Wales.

Two other areas are of particular concern to the Welsh Local Government Association. The first is in regard to the UK Government passing down European fines and penalties to local government. If councils are liable for EU fines, they rightly feel that they should be able to influence the laws that lead to those fines. It is not clear how the EU fines that relate to councils in Wales will be handled. Part 2 does not appear to apply to Wales, but the WLGA fears that it will. The Minister Greg Clark suggested in another place that this will happen, although it is apparently not currently in the Bill. As most local government functions in Wales are devolved to the National Assembly, this raises the question of the Assembly’s right to interface directly with Brussels on these issues. There is also a danger of significant legal costs to the public purse from intergovernmental disputes over fines that may arise.

The second issue that the WLGA has flagged up is to do with planning. As the Minister will realise, Wales already has 25 local planning authorities, which enjoy substantial local engagement. Community councils have a key role as local sounding boards in Wales. Therefore, the question arises of whether localism as an approach in the Bill is as relevant to Wales. This leads to the question of whether the provisions of the Bill on nationally significant infrastructure projects are appropriate to Wales. The Bill does not reflect the reality of the devolution settlement in Wales. For example, Welsh Ministers and the Welsh Local Government Association have supported the aim that all energy developments of up to 100 megawatts should be devolved to the Assembly. The current dual approval process provides specific problems in Wales; so far Ministers appear to have been deaf to such pleas. I very much hope that we can return to this at a later stage.

Finally, I turn to issues of concern to disabled people. I declare an interest as joint patron of Mencap Wales. These issues include ensuring that security of housing tenure is maintained for carers and relatives of disabled people. This is an issue of considerable concern to many in the world of disability. There are also worries that people with learning difficulties will not be a priority group for social housing. This needs to be addressed. No doubt other such issues will arise in Committee; I very much look forward to participating in those debates.

17:53

[Earl Cathcart]

My Lords, I am a landowner and a landlord, and have been a local councillor for several years. I certainly support the thrust of the Bill, in that shifting power away from central government to communities is most welcome. I have three points to make.

The first concerns how the Bill will affect small businesses. The business community has welcomed the measures in the Bill that could stimulate economic growth and ensure the protection of the country’s high streets and town centres. I should like to look at how this might affect rural areas. It has long been argued that to save the village shop, pub and post office villages must have a critical mass of housing, so new housing must be built. I agree, provided that the new residents use the facilities in the village. Sadly, all too often the new residents will drive to the market towns or cities to work, where it is all too tempting for them to pop into the supermarket to shop. Villages then become dormitories.

Not only is new housing necessary but, just as importantly, jobs and small businesses need to be created in the villages so that the residents not only live but work in the parish. The residents would then spend their working week in the parish and be far more likely to use the village shop, pub, butcher and baker regularly, and would have to decide consciously to get into their cars to shop in the towns. Small and new businesses are vital to the economy and well-being of villages. As such, business, in particular small business, should be fully involved in the neighbourhood plans. It is therefore good to hear the Minister say today that neighbourhood forums will be strengthened by the business community.

My second point is about the requirement that a local authority must hold a referendum when it has received a petition that is signed by at least 5 per cent of local electors. Five per cent is too low and could give rise to a plethora of referenda. Five per cent of a market town with 20,000 electors might seem reasonable. However, in parishes with only 200 or 300 electors, 10 or 15 signatures would be all too easy to obtain. Just a handful of households could demand a referendum on any and every issue they choose, at no cost to themselves. That brings me to cost. Recently a referendum was held on a proposed incinerator near King’s Lynn in Norfolk, which cost West Norfolk Council £80,000—£80,000 for just one referendum. If the bar is set too low, and 5 per cent is too low, referenda will be called on every contentious issue at a huge cost to councils, which they can ill afford in today’s straitened times.

My third point concerns the requirement that local authorities maintain a list of assets of community value, which can be added to from nominations by members of the public. What is an asset of community value? Is it the farmer who allows the village to play cricket on his field or park cars next to the church? Those pieces of land are certainly of value to the community, but are they assets of community value? If they are, I can see many farmers withdrawing their facilities so as not to be caught by the Bill. This of course cuts across the ideals of the big society. Therefore, “community asset” needs a clear definition. The worry is that the Bill uses the words “disposal of”—not, as the Minister said, “sale of”—a community asset.

The Bill gives communities the right to bid for and take over the running of the community asset on disposal—that word again. Generally I support this idea, but I see problems. If a landlord wants to sell his pub to another publican, should the community have a right to bid? Undoubtedly, yes, but should that right be able to delay other commercial purchasers of the pub for up to six months, while the community gets its act together? I think perhaps not. The community’s right to buy is intended to safeguard the pub from closure, not to disrupt commercial landlord-to-landlord sales. Strangely, there is no provision in the Bill to allow the community to bid for a pub if the landlord applies for a change of use from pub to residential, because there has been no disposal or sale of a community asset—just the loss of it. This rather defeats the object of these provisions. I support a great deal in the Bill, and I look forward to Committee.

17:59

[Lord Filkin]

My Lords, I shall speak on just Part 5 of the Bill, which, although it was not referred to by the Minister, is one of the most substantial and concerning aspects of it. As the House may well know, the Bill abolishes the whole standards regime that has been developed for local government over the past 20 years. It does not simply abolish the Standards Board for England, it abolishes the national code of conduct for local government, which had to be picked by local authorities who could then add clauses to it. It abolishes the obligation to have standards committees in local authorities to investigate complaints. It also appears to remove independent members as chairmen of those standards committees, and independent members.

The House should be seriously concerned about these changes, for which the Government have made no clear or cogent argument, given the decisions that local authorities make. They have enormous power to create or destroy value through their planning decisions and award many large and small contracts. They are major buyers of goods and services in their areas and can award or withdraw grants affecting individuals and communities. They have extensive regulatory powers and are often the dominant employer in their community. This is a massive range of powers, which most of us welcome and support, but it is fundamental that the public have confidence that these powers are exercised with honesty, fairness and probity. For too many years, too many people in our society have not believed that that was the case, given the evidence that has emerged of occasional scandals. It is rash and foolhardy to behave in the way the Government are doing in demolishing this structure of standards, although that does not imply that there is no room for improvement and development.

Over the past few years we have seen a gradual improvement in public confidence that local authorities conduct their affairs by and large with decency and honesty, and that processes exist to investigate members who are alleged to have misbehaved. The Bill will, if unamended, destroy much of this good progress. It is opposed by the Committee on Standards in Public Life. That in itself ought to be sufficient reason for this House to take its recommendations very seriously indeed. It is also opposed by SOLACE and the Association of Council Secretaries and Solicitors. Classically, unfortunately, the Local Government Association has been split on the matter. The Conservative members feel that it is not polite to oppose their Government. However, other elements in the Local Government Association regard this as a foolhardy set of measures. We ought to be even more concerned, given the hamstrung nature of the Local Government Association’s voice on this matter.

The Committee on Standards in Public Life has commented:

“The lack of a national code of conduct and an independent complaints mechanism in the proposed new regime for standards in local government risks lower standards and a decline in public confidence”.

No one believes that the world will suddenly collapse, but clearly understood standards with clearly understandable processes provide a basis for investigating complaints and, more importantly, have a deterrent effect on misbehaviour. It is dangerous to allow a local authority to decide whether or not to have a code of conduct, as is proposed under the Bill, and if it does to choose what process to use to investigate complaints. It can no longer have an independent member chairing it. These measures will certainly reduce public confidence over time with the inevitable misbehaviour on the part of an authority or individual councillor, as human nature will not change as a result of localism.

Some councils will have codes of conduct, others will not. Some will have one code, others will have a different code, and most will have different processes. It is unclear from the Bill what sanctions are available to local authorities as it makes non-declaration of interest, or non-disclosure of a declared interest, a potential criminal offence but does not have clear sanctions or processes for addressing the vast majority of other forms of misbehaviour or alleged misconduct by members.

Most of us have had experience of local authorities in one form or another and most of that experience has been good, but some authorities are captured by one particular interest group. It can be a single party where a party is dominant for years, which can lead to the suppression of other voices or views, or it can be a cabal within a party. There certainly have been masonic influences in some London boroughs in the past. I hope that these things will never recur, but let us not destroy the processes, structures and standards that act as deterrents.

For all these reasons we have a national code of conduct that governs the behaviour of MPs, civil servants and others in public life. It is therefore self-evident that there should be a national code of conduct for local government as well. It is trivial of the Secretary of State to avoid this by using the localism argument. I hope that we will come back to these issues and consider them seriously. This is not, and should not be, a party political issue. The whole House, irrespective of party, should want to ensure that proper standards are put in place. To divide on party grounds in itself signals that there is something wrong with the Government’s recommendations. The Government should pause on these issues and go back and consult properly on them. There has been no consultation or pre-legislative scrutiny on these fundamental issues.

18:06

[Baroness Doocey]

My Lords, I must declare an interest as a member of the London Assembly. I have also previously served as chair of housing in the London borough of Richmond upon Thames. I wish to focus my remarks on Clauses 124 and 130, and how they will relate to housing in London.

The first of my remarks concerns the legal duty to the homeless. Clause 124 enables a local authority to discharge its main duty to the homeless with an offer of suitable accommodation from a private landlord without requiring the applicant’s agreement. Such offers of a private letting would require only a minimum 12-month fixed term, offering no long-term security. The Government assume that this provision will lower the cost of accommodation to the taxpayer; indeed, the cost of temporary accommodation for the homeless is unnecessarily high. However, given the shortage of housing, lower rents are unlikely. The market trend is in the other direction. Average London rents are now nearly £1,000 a month. FindaProperty and Savills both estimate that during 2010 average rents for new private sector lettings in London rose by nearly 17 per cent.

I therefore find it highly improbable that private sector rents will fall as a result of this legislation. It is much more likely that the quality of private rented accommodation will decline as profit margins are squeezed. Rents will not fall but conditions might due to a lack of investment. Even if rental costs were reduced, any savings are likely to be offset by the knock-on costs of repeat homelessness due to the 12-month minimum term. The people who are becoming statutorily homeless are increasingly the most vulnerable families. Placing them in private sector accommodation is unlikely to give them secure and stable homes. Indeed, they are likely to be forced to live in substandard accommodation and, much worse, forced to move at regular intervals even if they have been model tenants who pay their rent on time.

In addition, benefit changes in the Welfare Reform Bill may make it more likely that tenants are evicted for falling into two months’ rent arrears, so the Bill in effect undermines the legal duty of local authorities towards homeless people. We need proper safeguards. These could be established with a statutory accreditation system for the private rented sector rather than relying, as in London, on a voluntary one. Your Lordships may be aware that in London the mayor has established a voluntary accreditation system as part of his current housing strategy. He has set a target of 8,000 accredited landlords by the end of the year, and he is likely to meet that target, but let us put this into context; London has the highest number and proportion of privately rented housing in England. In 2009, there were nearly 700,000 private rented dwellings in London. That is 20 per cent of all London households, compared with an average for England of just under 13 per cent. Between 2001 and 2006, the number of private rented properties in London increased by a massive 25 per cent.

Currently, one in five households in London are privately rented. In some boroughs, the figure is much higher. In Newham, for instance, it is one in three households. In six London boroughs, private rented housing forms more than one-quarter of all housing stock. This is a sector that we need to be reputable, to be a genuine third pillar alongside owner occupation and social rented housing, but many landlords do not behave well towards their tenants in London's private rented sector. Four out of every 10 homes are non-decent or substandard. If more people are to be placed in private accommodation, it is essential that some form of kitemark is introduced to ensure standards.

My second concern is the proposal to remove security of tenure in social housing. Clause 130 proposes giving local authorities the power to offer flexible tenancies to new social tenants of not less than two years. The clause provides for the circumstances in which a new tenancy will be a flexible tenancy. The basic principle of flexible tenancies is sound, but if the minimum duration of a tenancy is only two years, that will almost certainly become the norm. That is what local authorities will offer, and the minimum will, in effect, become a target.

People living in social housing are entitled to reasonable security of tenure. They need to be able to settle into communities, to put down roots and to make friends. They also need to be able to find work within reasonable travel distance and to secure continuity in their children's education. If they are forced to move continuously, they will find it harder to stay in employment, their children's education will almost certainly be disrupted, and they will have less incentive to maintain their homes in good order. As a result, we are likely to see a greater concentration of deprivation and worklessness in social housing. Surely that is the last thing that anyone wants, but it will almost certainly be the direct consequence of providing such limited security of tenure.

Social housing is designed to help the most needy in our society. They must be given some form of continuity rather than a lifetime of transient housing. Transient housing serves no one well—certainly not the families, especially the children concerned, and not the local communities in the long term. I shall return to these issues when we reach Committee.

18:12

[Lord Cameron of Dillington]

My Lords, I must first declare an interest as a landowner and farmer and as chairman of the Charities’ Property Association. This is a large and complicated Bill, and there are many sentiments behind it of which I approve, but today I shall restrict my remarks to the chapters on planning and communities. Here, there are opportunities but also, I believe, considerable dangers. The Bill is what Sir Humphrey might call “very brave”. It is in its very breadth and complexity that the biggest bravery lies. I believe that the average businessman encounters the planning system once every eight years. After the Bill, he will find that he has to learn a completely new language. That will almost certainly lead to uncertainties and delays in development, and thus economic growth. Frankly, I cannot think of a worse time for delays in development and economic growth. In this context, I worry about our national housebuilding programme, especially affordable homes and, in particular, rural affordable homes.

As I said, it is a brave Bill. It is brave because not only will the system be different from top to bottom, but no one quite knows how the links between the different new bits will work, nor how the transitional phase will work. What happens to a contentious planning application during the 18-month phase it takes to get a neighbourhood plan in place? Surely the tendency must be to delay it, at a time when, as I said, we cannot afford to delay.

Starting at the top, I was dismayed but not surprised to see the abolition of the IPC, which is only 12 months old. We will now no longer have the democratic will of Parliament being implemented by a time-limited and precedent-conscious body, giving certainty and confidence to potential builders of and investors in our infrastructure. Here, again, such development will be controlled by the uncertain, personal whim of whatever Secretary of State is in power at the time. That is a retrograde step in my view and, in terms of getting long-term investment in to our infrastructure, a bad idea.

Coming down a layer to the abolition of the regional spatial strategies, I can quite see why that is being done. I was never a great admirer of the regional agenda, but it had a rationale in supra-local strategic planning. The proposed duty to co-operate seems to me to be a bit of a wing and a prayer. It is certainly brave. Would not a formal supra-local strategy, perhaps in line with the local economic partnership boundaries, be a better solution? In ideal circumstances, everyone knows that unpopular developments have to go somewhere and, in most instances, decisions will be taken amicably. It is possible to co-operate yet not accept your share of so-called bad neighbourhood developments, particularly if you know that, back in your patch, expectations have been raised by the new neighbourhood planning process and a whole series of well organised communities have vetoed such developments in the area.

On that last point, one of the answers could, unfortunately, be to place bad neighbourhood developments in communities which lack the capacity or the funds to develop the neighbourhood plan or to hold a referendum. That would be a disastrous result for the legislation. We must therefore ensure that capacity building and funding are available to help those neighbourhoods, particularly those who do not ask for it. It must involve far more money than the mere £3 million being transferred from the planning aid budget.

I fear that “brave” also applies to the whole concept of neighbourhood plans. It would be fantastic if they worked—if they do not become nimby charters—but, again and again, I have come across seemingly reasonable groups who point-blank refuse even to have affordable housing in their village to help their youngsters, let alone something that might be difficult to live alongside. What is to stop the process from getting into the hands of the articulate narrow-minded? The answer must be processes that instil responsibilities as well as choices. It would be helpful if we could see the new national planning policy framework before our deliberations are over.

Finally, I have a word about community assets and the right to buy. The idea that one can save cherished facilities such as a shop or pub sounds good and, from a rural community's perspective, highly commendable, but when all the representative organisations of those facilities are doubtful about those proposals, you know that things are not quite right. The point that they and others make is that those assets are part of a business. Businesses are often bought and sold, and often thrive and are rejuvenated because of it. Delays in that process could be disastrous not only for the business but also for the community—say, in the event of the death of the publican or the shopkeeper. To have a six-month delay at that stage would mean that customers might wander elsewhere.

To echo the sentiments of the noble Earl, Lord Cathcart, it is not the transfer of assets that deprives the community, especially when it is going harmlessly from one generation to the next; it is the change of use. Surely the moratorium to allow for community purchase would be much better implemented when a change of use is applied for through the planning process. At least then the two long-winded processes can run simultaneously and save everyone a lot of bother.

I have much more to say on the community assets as currently proposed, and many other aspects of the Bill, but I will save that for Committee.

18:18

[Baroness Smith of Basildon]

My Lords, I agree with the Minister when she introduced the debate by saying that this was an important, wide-ranging Bill with a great deal of consensus. Both those things are true but, as we have heard during the debate so far, there is also great concern about some of the principles and detail of the Bill. I welcome her comment that she is prepared to consider amendments in further debates. The number of speakers in the debate today reflects the experience and expertise in your Lordships' House on these issues. It is a shame that, with extraordinary discipline, so many noble Lords had to curtail their comments to just seven minutes. With the number of speeches, I am sure that we would have benefited from hearing more from those noble Lords. It is a shame to do so much in one day when perhaps a two-day debate would have been better for a Bill of this importance and interest.

On several issues, I share the concerns that have been raised, notably around the sale of community assets, the governance arrangements in local government and on social housing. It is worth reflecting that when we debate social housing and flexibility of tenure, we are talking about someone’s home. People want security of tenure; they want to ensure that they can bring up their children, that they can go to work and that their children can be secure in their school in long term. We need to understand the concern that that has raised with so many people who are currently in social housing or who long for social housing and spend years on the waiting list.

I want to comment on issues, not yet discussed in your Lordships’ House, in Chapter 2 of Part 1—Clauses 9 and 10—on the fire and rescue service. I wish to comment on three aspects and, as the Bill progresses, I shall seek clarification from the Minister. Two of those aspects are in the Bill: the powers being given to fire authorities and the limitations placed on those powers and the charging for services, other than core services, and the implications of that. The third issue is not in the Bill, but I hope we can look at it during our debates and deliberations. It is whether the existing scrutiny and oversight measures for fire authorities are adequate, in light of new powers and responsibilities.

I have a long-standing interest and commitment to the work of the fire service. In my eight years as a county councillor, I was a member of the fire committee and of the fire authority and I have also been the Fire Minister in England and Northern Ireland. I fully understand the reasons for the new provisions in Clauses 9 and 10, and the need for greater clarity for the fire and rescue service so that it can carry out the full range of duties expected of it and entirely appropriate for it. It is clearly not acceptable that the fire and rescue service should be unclear about whether it has the proper authority to carry out functions that it deems to be part of its responsibility to the community. I am broadly supportive but I am concerned that, although this is heralded by Ministers as an extension of powers, the Secretary of State will have new powers to prevent the service doing something that he does not want it to do.

The Bill states that the power allows the fire and rescue service to do anything that it has statutory power to undertake, or anything it considers appropriate for purposes incidental to its statutory responsibilities, however incidental that may be. The Bill makes clear that it cannot do anything that it is explicitly prohibited from undertaking. But certain subsections allow the Secretary of State or Welsh Ministers to restrict what a fire and rescue authority may do under the general power or make its use subject to conditions. Within the Bill there is no need for justification or explanation by the Secretary of State; there are no criteria on which the judgment will be made; there are no criteria on which the service or authority can rely to make an assessment about whether the Secretary of State is likely to use his or her powers to prevent them taking on a specific role; and there is no guidance for the Secretary of State about when it would be appropriate for him or her to use those powers.

Neither the Bill nor the Explanatory Notes is helpful in this regard, so how can an authority possibly have confidence that it really has the powers that the Bill initially outlines? The Bill both states that it is a matter of judgment for the fire and rescue authority, and then overrides that use of judgment with special powers for the Secretary of State. It would be helpful to have further detail from Ministers of what powers the Government envisage the fire and rescue service taking on, or at least some indication of when and why the Secretary of State will stop them using those powers. Would it be the same for all authorities, or would it depend on the Secretary of State's assessment of the level of competence of that authority?

The second issue is charging. The Government have helpfully been clear that in effect core services cannot be charged for. The Bill then outlines those areas that cannot be charged for, but anything not specified can be charged for. However, there are still some areas that could be deemed grey areas and, as the Bill progresses, clarification will be required.

The 2004 Act emphasised the provision of community safety and fire prevention work, but this does not appear to be in the Bill as an area that cannot be charged for. Many of your Lordships will have seen at first hand the work undertaken to educate the public about fire prevention and fire safety, including provision of smoke alarms, particularly in multiple-occupancy houses. Is it the intention of the Government that the fire and rescue services and authorities should have the power to charge for these services in future?

At present, flooding is not a core service, as I understand it. It is explicit that an emergency resulting from a direct result of severe weather or an event of widespread significance could not be charged for, but what about the five houses that are flooded by a burst water main, or a blockage in a sewerage system? Could the fire and rescue service charge those households for those services? I suspect, and I hope, that it is not the Government's intention that they should, but that is not clear in this Bill.

I can understand the Government wanting to allow charges for responding to a fire alarm where there is no fire, although I have concerns about that, and further clarification is required there as well. It must be clear what the Government consider to be a false call, as opposed to a malicious or hoax call, and what is considered to be malfunctioning equipment.

There is a serious issue here about additional burdens on business. Already business has responsibility for undertaking fire assessments, and the costs of installing and maintaining fire detection and alarm systems. Statistics show that 80 per cent of businesses fold within 18 months of a fire and we need to ensure that any action taken does not increase risk or overburden businesses.

My final point is on the issue of scrutiny. This Bill places heavier burdens and responsibilities on the members of fire and rescue authorities, both in terms of responsibilities and the issues relating to charges. The scrutiny and overview process must be able to match those responses. Unfortunately, my own recent experience of scrutiny and overview in the fire service has left me extremely concerned about the robustness of the current arrangements and whether they are fit for purpose for the new powers.

Following a number of local and national press reports, I recently received a number of complaints and allegations of mismanagement and financial mismanagement of the Essex fire and rescue service. It would not be appropriate to outline those allegations in this debate but I want to refer to the process. I was so concerned that I passed the documentation to the appropriate authority for examination, which was the clerk to the Essex combined fire and rescue authority. I am not in any position to make a judgment on the accuracy or otherwise of the allegations, but I need to be reassured that those matters will be investigated robustly, independently and transparently. If they are found to be inaccurate, misleading or just plain wrong, I thought that I would receive an explanation that would satisfy my concerns, or, if any of the allegations were accurate, that appropriate action would be taken.

I have been bitterly disappointed and my confidence in the process is being severely tested. I have been informed that much of the information has already been investigated, but I have not been told which issues or the result of any such investigations. I am told that there is a report going to an appropriate committee, but I have not been informed of which allegations are going to the committee, what information they have received, or how the judgment will be made. I know that the meeting will be in private and will not be open to public scrutiny at any stage. I am not convinced that the authority of elected councillors which is charged with the effective management of the fire and rescue service is aware of the detail and nature of the complaints, and the response that I have received from the county solicitor is far from satisfactory.

I am in the position of having received information that gives many people, including me, cause for real concern but there seems to be no way for these matters to be fully investigated in a robust and transparent way which gives confidence to the complainants. That is unacceptable. The public need to be reassured that the management, including financial management, of all public bodies is at all times above reproach and can withstand scrutiny. Being a long-time supporter of the fire service, particularly in Essex, I want to have full confidence in the service and the authority. That means having confidence that issues of concern will be robustly and transparently investigated.

With new powers and new charges being introduced, with certain constraints, the public will need to be satisfied that there is proper and effective scrutiny. I regret that my experience to date has not given me confidence in the current system. I do not ask the Minister to respond today, but I hope that this is an area that we can examine during the passage of the Bill. In brief, there is much in these clauses on the fire service to commend them to your Lordships' House, but the devil is in the detail and I hope that we can address these issues as the Bill progresses.

18:29

[Lord Jenkin of Roding]

My Lords, I declare my interest as a joint president of London Councils and a vice-president of the Local Government Association. I say to my noble friend on the Front Bench that I welcome a great deal in this Bill. I particularly welcome the general power of competence. When I was Secretary of State in charge of local government, I remember addressing an audience of local authority chief executives and seeking to justify the Government’s tight control over what local authorities did. They were totally unconvinced, not least, I suspect, because I did not convince myself. So I am delighted to see this change in the law.

I also support the wider use of elected mayors, which will be subject, of course, to the successful referendum by the authority concerned. What I am not convinced about, although my noble friend referred to this briefly in her opening speech, is why it should be necessary—why it should be the role of Ministers—to set up mayors in shadow form, by order, before the change has been approved by the electors of the authority concerned. My noble friend will have to do a great deal more to convince me that those proposed new clauses in the schedule are justified.

I also welcome, in general, the proposals for community empowerment in planning matters, but as other noble Lords have said, the devil will be in the detail, and we will need to examine it carefully in Committee. It has been suggested, and I have heard more than a number of assertions to this sense, that it will lead to “busybody, middle-class nimbys” looking after themselves—one noble Lord described them as “the articulate narrow-minded”. However, the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, and I served together as trustees of the charitable arm of the British Urban Regeneration Association, and he will be as aware as I am of the hundreds of projects up and down the country, of local initiatives, by all kinds of communities, to regenerate their neighbourhoods. There is huge potential out there, and as we go through the Bill, I will want to be sure that it does make it easier for things to happen on the ground. There has been a huge amount of frustration—we have heard some of it during the course of the debate—and I want to be sure that this Bill removes some of the obstacles.

I also welcome the clauses on planning. For many of the changes, again, the devil will be in the detail, but I would like to take up something the noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Dillington, said when he spoke about the Infrastructure Planning Commission. I am in no doubt whatever—and when we debated the Planning Bill I made these points—that it is far better for the decision on major infrastructure projects to be taken by a Minister, who is accountable to Parliament, than by an appointed quango. That is the heart of these proposals. It has been extremely encouraging to see how the IPC chairman, Sir Michael Pitt, and his colleagues, have accepted that this will be their new role. They have stayed in office, and they are getting on with the job. I greatly admire the way that they are doing this.

I have, however, two significant worries. I am worried by the clauses giving Ministers power to distribute EU fines for breach of directives to local councils and other authorities. Yes, of course, if a council is failing to obey the directive on the treatment of waste and of recycling, it should bear the fine. But what are individual local councils supposed to do about atmospheric pollution in London that owes itself to Heathrow airport, or to the M25? To take one particular example, Westminster finds itself as the focus of traffic congestion from all over the country, and of course therefore has a high rate of atmospheric pollution. There must be some form of independent scrutiny of the proposed allocations, not least—and this is a point which really needs to be taken on board—because the Minister is directly interested in the result. Some of the blame may lie with Ministers. They should not be free simply to shovel it out to local authorities and other public authorities around the country. It is a complete conflict of interest, and therefore there must be an independent form of scrutiny.

My other worry relates to London, and a number of noble Lords have spoken about that. Most of the Bill is concerned with devolving powers down from government to local authorities and local communities. Much in London is going the other way, up from the boroughs to the mayor and the GLA, diminishing the influence of the London boroughs. I mention just one example: the Bill has powers for the mayor to establish what are called mayoral development corporations. There is an obligation in the Bill to consult the boroughs, and a lot of other people, but that does not give the boroughs appropriate protection against unwanted and damaging MDCs in their area. We must build in better safeguards to protect the boroughs. Of course, the Olympic Park Legacy Company is one of the central purposes of this, but there could well be others, and we need to make sure that that protection will happen.

One final point is that the Bill contains the right for the public and organisations and neighbourhoods to challenge local authorities, with the possibility of taking over some of their services. Why has the opportunity not been taken to allow the same people—indeed, local authorities—to challenge central government over services that they deliver in their areas, much of which could be much more effectively done locally, by local people, responding to local needs and circumstances? This is another thing which I shall want to see whether we can write into the Bill.

I congratulate Ministers on bringing this forward, and this House, with all its experience, must try to make this a still better Bill.

18:37

[Lord Berkeley]

My Lords, this is a very interesting Bill, as the noble Lord has said. I wonder how much it really has to do with localism. I sometimes think that it is more to do with moving the deckchairs of Treasury control, which wants to charge for anything that it can see that is chargeable or that can be moved, but we shall see. We will have some interesting debates on this in Committee stage. I will confine my remarks to two things: the issue about EU fines, which the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, has just mentioned, and the issue of planning for major projects.

As the noble Lord has just said, the ability that the Bill will give Ministers to require local authorities to make a payment for an EU financial sanction imposed on the UK—if the Minister is satisfied that the authority caused it—is quite a serious issue. Interestingly, in the Starred Question which I raised on 23 May, I asked whether the Government were likely to be fined, or to have deducted from their money, £180 million by the International Olympic Committee if the air pollution did not achieve the EU limits. Of course, there is also the threat of the £300 million fine from the EU if the air pollution in London exceeds the PM10 level. In considering who should pay either of those fines, it is interesting that when I asked the noble Earl, Lord Atlee, who was responsible for this pollution, he answered:

“Everyone is responsible: the Government, the mayor, TfL, LOCOG, the ODA and, most importantly, individuals who make their own transport decisions”.—[Official Report, 23/5/11; col. 1583.]

I can see some real fun occurring when the Government try to finger any of those people for £180 million or £300 million, especially when of course, as the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, said, the Government are not a disinterested party. Perhaps they will put tolls on the roads—I do not know. There has to be some independent adjudication, whether it is the High Court or an independent arbitrator, to determine a fair apportionment of the fine. Government cannot be the one to make the decision. We will have to pursue this in Committee stage, but it really has to be tightened up dramatically to see who really was at fault and whether they could be fingered for any of the money at all.

My other concern, which the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, mentioned earlier, is about the ability of major projects to get permissions, and the uncertainty that this will cause for investors. I am talking about airports, ports, wind farms, freight terminals, nuclear power stations, railway lines and anything else that comes under the auspices of the national Infrastructure Planning Commission, which was set up under the Planning Act 2008. The purpose was to ensure that national policy statements would set national policy for these issues, which would avert the need for the promoter —whether in the private sector or the Government—to demonstrate a need for the project.

We have national policy statements for nuclear power stations, and we think that we know where they are going to be. We have national policy statements for waste water—one project is for an 8 metre diameter tunnel from Hammersmith to Beckton Alp, under the Thames and following its line. Those who wish to oppose it may find it difficult to oppose the principle if it is covered by an NPS. However, where are the other ones? If there is no NPS, how can promoters have any confidence that they will get planning permission, even after a big inquiry?

Further issues include how the national planning policy framework fits in to the jig-saw, and Ministers rather than NPS officials making final decisions. We may have a view on that—over the years some Ministers have been better than others at making such decisions—but my concern, apart from where all the documents are to encourage developers to go ahead with projects, is that anyone who lives near the locations of some of these planned projects can ask for a referendum. I worked for many years building the Channel Tunnel, and I worked with the Channel Tunnel rail link. It was difficult persuading local people that these were good things for the country and might even create a few local jobs. A local referendum in those places would have killed everything. Gatwick airport has a similar concern if it ever wants planning permission to make changes.

We can debate whether we like these things or not, and try to take a line through the middle, but my concern is: what company is going to invest in such projects, at a cost of £10 million, £20 million or £50 million—it is very expensive to get these projects through planning procedures—if there is a greater risk that it will be rejected by a referendum? I feel sorry for the Secretary of State for Transport, who is trying to push through the high-speed passenger line from London to Birmingham and beyond. How many referenda will he have in the middle of the Chiltern hills, and what will be the result? Will he ignore them, try to stop them happening or try to get the line through before the Bill becomes law? I trust that it will be the latter, but I do not know.

Finally, I believe that it will be possible for people in London to have a referendum on the level of tube or bus fares. Does anyone believe that people will vote for higher fares? It would be ridiculous for TfL to have to spend £2 million or £5 million for a referendum on a question that it already knows the answer to—that would not help its finances. Therefore, there must be exclusions, possibly for applications for planning permission for a much wider range of projects than I have talked about, and for fares. These are all things that I and others will raise in Committee, and I look forward to long and detailed discussions.

18:45

[Baroness Parminter]

As a former West Sussex district councillor and a former chief executive of the Campaign to Protect Rural England, I think that it will come as no surprise to noble Lords that I will confine my remarks to the planning provisions in the Bill. It is fair to say that there is much that we can welcome, both in the provisions that help local communities to shape themselves and their environment and in the potential to deliver sustainable development. Having said that, I think that it is also very clear to me and other noble Lords that there is much left to discuss during the progress of the Bill in Committee, with concerns about matters that may limit those very good intentions. I will flag up three concerns that I hope to raise as the Bill proceeds through Committee. The first is that planning permissions should not be unduly influenced by financial considerations; the second concerns the need for strong, strategic planning to respond to the environmental and climate change challenges that we face; and the third is the need to introduce a limited third-party right of appeal.

On Report in another place, the Government introduced an amendment to include local finance considerations in planning decisions. Like the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, and the noble Baroness, Lady Andrews, I am concerned that this could encourage local authorities to base decisions on short-term financial implications rather than on the land-use merits of the proposed developments. I cannot agree with the Minister that Clause 124 was an “incidental measure for clarification”. The noble Baroness, in her opening remarks today, confirmed that financial considerations can be a material consideration in planning. The clause elevates finance above all other material considerations, including social and environmental well-being, because no other material consideration is specified in statute. The relative status of financial considerations in the planning system must be clarified by the Government in order to safeguard the fundamental principle that planning permission should not be unduly influenced by financial considerations.

Secondly, having abolished regional planning, and in order that we can deliver strategic planning, the Bill introduces the duty to co-operate—as a number of noble Lords mentioned—between local planning authorities and other prescribed bodies. It is to be welcomed that, on Report in another place, the Government strengthened considerably that duty. However, questions remain about how the duty will be enforced, as there are no sanctions if local authorities fail to co-operate, and there is insufficient clarity about whether such joint planning should cover anything beyond infrastructure planning for housing and economic development. The Bill creates no specific duty to plan jointly for a strategic, low-carbon energy infrastructure to ensure that this country can meet the challenge of climate change. If we are to meet the scale of the energy challenge confronting us, we require a step change in the UK, from having less than 7 per cent of electricity generated by renewables in 2009 to having more than 30 per cent from renewables within the next 10 years. Nor does the Bill make clear a duty to develop joint solutions to issues such as biodiversity protection, climate change adaptation measures or delivering landscape-scale conservation, which are important features of the Government's natural environment White Paper, launched just this morning. Greater clarity is needed about what strategic matters are part of the duty to co-operate, and about the sanctions for failing to co-operate, if we are to deliver on the need to meet the environmental challenges that face us.

Thirdly, the Government are right in the Bill to create greater opportunities for local neighbourhood planning. However, if they accept the importance of local people having a direct say in the planning of their communities and environment, how can it be right for local people to have no redress when a planning application is approved that drives a coach and horses through everything that has been agreed? A limited community right of appeal could be triggered where a decision to grant planning permission is not in line with the adopted local plan. Recent government figures make it clear that the number of such departure applications is extremely small. To introduce a limited third-party right of appeal, however, would build public faith in decision-making and encourage further participation in the planning process. As significantly, it would help to make a reality of what the Minister confirmed on Report in another place, when he said that the reforms were

“all geared towards making the plan prominent and, indeed, sovereign”.—[Official Report, 17/5/11; col. 273]

There is much in this Bill that we can welcome and for which the Liberal Democrats have long campaigned—giving local people more of a say about their own environment and introducing measures to deliver sustainable development. That is, as I say, to be welcomed. Clearly, however, as this Bill progresses, as other noble Lords have indicated, there are many issues where greater clarity and, perhaps, revision are needed, if we are to deliver on the welcome intentions of this Bill.

18:51

[Baroness Valentine]

I declare an interest as chief executive of London First, a not for profit business membership organisation that includes property companies, energy providers, retailers and others who may have an interest in the practical implications of this Bill.

I support the Government's philosophy of empowering individuals and communities. I also support policy that brings growth and jobs. One of the biggest challenges is to marry these two things. I feel a responsibility, when considering this Bill, to endeavour to do that.

This Bill is just part of the localism picture. The Government are letting a thousand flowers bloom. A review of local government finance is expected, as is the reform of other governance structures such as local enterprise partnerships, enterprise zones and more besides. Like the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Norwich, I too am reminded of the “Yes Minister” series and the cautionary response of Sir Humphrey Appleby to a new idea from the eager Minister: "That's very brave, Minister”.

The carrot of local government funding reform is dangled elsewhere. However, new financial responsibilities on local authorities, such as the costs of local referenda and EU fines, will be all too tangible. Prospective local referenda are a serious concern in London. They are expensive—between £5 million and £12 million each—and too low a threshold might allow for abuse of the system. I share the concern of the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, about whether a referendum calling for free Tube rides would gain popular support. Probably. Would the mayor be able to agree? Probably not. Given that referenda are advisory, they would seem a very expensive pressure valve if let off too frequently or too freely.

I also remain concerned about how much-needed local infrastructure is to be funded and built. The public purse is already stretched, but this Bill suggests that a slice of the community infrastructure levy be passed straight to neighbourhoods. This is a worrying fragmentation of a key source of investment, which should be targeted more effectively at broader strategic priorities, leveraging private sector investment.

I support other efforts to drive regeneration and growth. Devolving more focused planning governance—as the Bill proposes for the mayoral development corporation in the Olympic park, for example—is welcome, but good governance is no supplement for poor funding.

The concept of neighbourhood is an important part of this Bill. We should be clear that a neighbourhood is not automatically synonymous with residents. Bloomsbury, for example, has residents, educational institutions and businesses, all of which should have a say in formulating a neighbourhood plan. The Bill has already made some progress on this front. Government changes now allow for businesses to get involved in shaping the plan by sitting alongside residents on a neighbourhood forum. I welcome this.

As the saying goes, however, there should be no taxation without representation. Businesses pay their fair share through business rates, and should be given fair representation if the issue of a neighbourhood plan goes to a ballot. I welcome pilot schemes that inform how best this might work. Splitting communities into neighbourhoods or business neighbourhoods, however, misses the point. Communities are complex and not easily pigeon-holed. In some cases they are home to critical pieces of national infrastructure—airports, power stations or motorways, for example. While the Bill exempts this vital infrastructure, it does not clarify whether necessary associated development should be subject to neighbourhood planning. We need a process that accounts for the make-up of any given neighbourhood as well as allowing that community as a whole to approve or reject a plan.

I make one final plea to the Minister for a rigorous review process to be built into the Bill. There are so many “don't knows” across this policy area. Outside this Bill, local government funding is unresolved. Governance structures such as LEPs and enterprise zones are unformed and untested. Under this Bill, we genuinely do not know how neighbourhood plans will work in practice. For example, they have no time limit, but must be at least as permissive as local plans. If a local authority changes tack, must all neighbourhood plans be redrafted, with further referenda? Similarly, the community right-to-buy scheme is based on sound principles, but must be sensibly constrained to avoid vexatious attempts to stop or delay development.

Joining up government may be a thankless and endless task, but the formation of a national planning policy framework, including a presumption in favour of sustainable development, will give clarity to planning policy and is welcome. It should perhaps be mentioned in the Bill. On the other hand, the Government have embarked on yet another overhaul of the planning system before the property market has fully shed the overhang of the credit crisis. The coalition agreement put growth at the top of its priorities, and while I support the aspirations of the Localism Bill we must not allow well meant but poorly tested legislation to unhinge our fragile recovery. We should keep this Bill under review, pilot more difficult aspects of implementation and be willing to reverse measures that generate unintended economically damaging consequences.

To return to Sir Humphrey Appleby's words, being “very brave, Minister” is all well and good, but let us not be foolish.

18:57

[Lord Marlesford]

My Lords, I congratulate the Government on bringing in a Bill to spread localism and must say how charmed we all were by the way in which the Minister introduced the Bill.

I, too, want to focus on the planning sections of the Bill. In 1928, a remarkable book was published called England and the Octopus. It was written by Clough Williams-Ellis, the outstanding architect who, among other things, gave us Portmeirion, and who, along with Professor Patrick Abercrombie, was one of the earliest campaigners to prevent the urban sprawl and squalor and the ribbon development that threatened to extinguish forever the rural beauty of Britain. The book was republished in 1996 with a foreword by Jonathan Dimbleby, who at that time was the president of the CPRE. I at the time was the chairman. I recommend noble Lords who are interested in this subject to have a look at it.

I should at this point declare my own interests: as a Suffolk farmer with a number of let houses in Marlesford, some of which could be described as social housing, as president of the Suffolk Preservation Society and as chairman of the Marlesford parish council. In view of what the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Norwich said, I should also say that I am a member of the Marlesford parochial church council,

Having served for 12 years as a countryside commissioner and eight years as a rural development commissioner, I am hugely aware of the dangers that there could still be to our countryside. It was 20 years after England and the Octopus that the Labour Government of Mr Attlee produced the 1948 planning Acts, together with the creation of national parks. The planning Acts, together with the National Health Service, were some of Labour's greatest legacies to this country—and they came just in time.

This is a very important Bill because it could have an impact on what England looks like, not just during our lives but right through the lives of our grandchildren, too. So we have to get it right, however much time it may take. Mistakes on paper can be corrected; mistakes on the ground seldom can be. The breadth and diversity of experience assembled for this debate to offer support and guidance to the House of Commons and the Government are perhaps an example of the value and function of the House of Lords as it is.

I suppose that the most dramatic example of what is at stake is illustrated by the National Trust which, through the spectacular success of Project Neptune, saved a huge part of our most beautiful coastline. If it had been lost, it would have gone for ever, and I do not believe that the planning system on its own could have saved it; nor, certainly, could ownership by local authorities, which have sometimes been among the great desecrators of our landscape. The Government are right to abolish the unelected Infrastructure Planning Commission and to sweep away the discredited regional strategies. Our counties are quite large enough to interact directly with Whitehall where national or regional policies are required.

The ownership of land, the stewardship of land and the use of land, whether for farming, recreation or development, are what the planning system is there to influence. Planning policy has been nourished by decades of casework and experience. It is neither possible nor desirable to seek to oversimplify the planning system. The core of the system has been the evolution of the series of policy planning guidance notes—PPGs, as they were known. Most of them have now been redrafted as planning policy statements. The PPG and PPS system is excellent and full of experience and expertise. I have the gravest doubts about the wisdom of replacing it with an overarching new planning policy framework that could, in its attempt at simplification, send a whole generation of babies down the plughole.

However, parliamentary scrutiny depends on having full details of the draft regulations that will implement the Bill. To move power downwards is always attractive, and certainly parish councils are the grassroots of our democracy, but there must be a balance between different local levels. Planning officers can, of course, be insensitive and bureaucratic, but they are needed to overrule arrogant or selfish developers who are not really interested in anything except the quick buck. Planning inspectors can get it wrong, although in my view they have been a most effective defence against unreasonable planning refusals and populist politicians who seek to impose inappropriately national policies at a local level.

Like my noble friend Lady Parminter, I am worried that the Bill as drafted will give fresh opportunities to big companies to get their way when they should not by using planning gain to bribe local communities. I recognise the difficulty of introducing a right of appeal against planning consents. None the less, I think that communities should have the right to challenge decisions that go against locally agreed plans or where local authorities have a conflict of interest. I fought a long battle using Parliamentary Questions and the media, eventually successfully, to stop Braintree District Council repeatedly giving itself planning consent, totally contrary to public policy, to erect advertising hoardings, from which it got some £30,000 a year, along the A12 trunk road. I think also that the proposals for a right to buy or right to bid for community assets said to be of community value could be fraught with dangers. This part of the Bill will need the most careful scrutiny and, I suspect, considerable clarification, if not amendment.

I would say that by any standards this Bill is much too long. I hope that if in Committee we find that some parts of it have not been properly thought through, the Government will be prepared if necessary to remove them for a future occasion. Finally I very much share the concerns already expressed over the European dimension. It is now 19 years since the introduction of subsidiarity under the Maastricht treaty as a guard against an overreaching Brussels, and it has had only limited success. May I suggest that localism could become the new shield against EU involvement?

19:05

[Viscount Simon]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Marlesford, has spoken a lot about all kinds of things with which I totally agree, and I will expand slightly on some of them. This Bill covers a great deal of ground, but my comments, like those of many other noble Lords who have spoken, will focus mainly on Part 5, which makes changes to the planning system.

The post-war Labour Government are often remembered as the Government who created the National Health Service, yet another of their initiatives, the Town and Country Planning Act, has become one of the central cornerstones of our democracy. This Act established the principle that public bodies should have powers in deciding issues of land use in order to protect the wider public interest and not for any particular sector or short-term interest. Since that Act's passage, although Governments of different parties have reformed the planning system, none has departed from this key principle. It is this principle that needs to be upheld in our current debates over planning reform arising from the provisions of the Localism Bill. As with the NHS, the planning system currently faces an uncertain future as a result of significant reforms proposed by the Government.

The central theme of localism that runs through this Bill is to be welcomed. The Bill hails the end of the regionally imposed, unrealistic and arbitrary housing targets for local councils, which had few friends, and introduces a new system for neighbourhoods to create plans for their areas that will form part of a local development plan if they are approved by referendum. However, I am concerned that, in a move signalled in the March Budget Statement, which described the planning system as a chronic obstacle to growth, the Bill has been amended to give short-term, economic interests undue weight in the planning process. This is instead of ensuring that the planning system makes decisions that are in the public interest and places equal importance on economic, social and environmental considerations, as it has since the 1947 Act. The Government have picked on the wrong target. The planning system might have its faults, it might sometimes be opaque and slow, but it is wrong to present it as an obstacle to growth. For instance, high house prices and low house building rates are not due to obstacles in the planning system but are largely a consequence of restricted credit availability.

Perhaps I can give some examples of the shift in the Government's approach and propose some remedies and safeguards in the hope that the Minister will respond at the end of this debate. Alongside the Budget, the Government produced a plan for growth. This document, produced by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and the Treasury, states that the Government are,

“introducing a powerful new presumption in favour of sustainable development so that the default answer to development is ‘yes’”.

This presumption will be outlined in the national planning policy framework, a document we are yet to see.

The planning system should not act simply as a tool for economic growth, and we should all recognise that it should be perfectly acceptable for the planning system to say no to inappropriate, unnecessary or unsustainable development. The planning system is a means for gaining popular support and agreement for necessary development. As we have seen with regional housing targets, trying to force development on communities frequently results in antagonism and delays. It will not always be possible to achieve agreement, but it is crucial that the system is one that the public can trust to be fair. To do this effectively, it cannot have a presumption in favour of economic growth.

The purpose of the planning system is already to achieve sustainable development; that is set out in the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004. I support the addition of a definition of sustainable development in the Bill so that there is clarity about what is meant by sustainable development for councils making plans, whether they are county, district, parish or town councils. If Clause 124, which was added at a very late stage and with no fanfare, is to remain in the legislation, we must ensure that it will not enable non land use-related financial benefits provided by the state to be a material consideration in determining planning applications. An example of one such benefit is the new homes bonus, which the Government have created to provide incentives for new housebuilding.

The CPRE finds this new clause somewhat alarming. It states:

“We believe that as currently worded this clause could fundamentally distort the planning system by encouraging local authorities to base decisions on short term financial implications rather than the land use merits of the proposed development”.

Leaving aside the merits of the new homes bonus scheme—the effectiveness of which in delivering the right sort of homes where they are needed remains to be seen—giving financial considerations this sort of weight in the planning system challenges more than 60 years of political agreement. I recognise that challenging long-held positions of agreement is not always a bad thing, but in this instance I suggest that the Government have got it wrong.

The Minister may say that existing payments, such as Section 106 agreements or the community infrastructure levy, already have a certain weight in the planning system, but these are both very different in that the money can be spent only in relation to the development for which planning permission is granted. The new homes bonus is not ring-fenced and the receipts for councils will be significant. I also understand that material considerations have never before been referred to in legislation, and that practitioners are concerned that by singling out financial considerations in the Bill they will become the “first among equals” among material considerations. This clause should be removed or substantially reworded to provide clarity and equity.

On neighbourhood plans, I have already said that the strengthening of the neighbourhood voice in planning is a welcome development. This process should be accessible and unnecessary complexity should be stripped from the proposals. However, again as a result of the Budget, the Government have amended the purposes for which neighbourhood forums can be set up so that they can be established to further purely economic goals and business interests. It may be the Government’s intention that these powers are used only in business districts. Nevertheless, this move again departs from the long-held agreement on land use planning and sets a worrying precedent. Wherever neighbourhood forums are set up they should have to aim to promote economic, social and environmental well-being, and I hope that this section can be changed back to its original form.

Finally, I should like to make the case for a safeguard that should be in the Bill but is not. I believe that there is a strong case for a limited right of appeal for communities to be added to this legislation—not least because both government parties pledged to introduce one before the election. These circumstances should be limited. Communities should be able to ask the planning inspectorate to reconsider a development only where it has been approved by a local authority, even though it departs from a locally agreed plan or where a local authority has a vested interest. All of us will have come across situations where supermarkets or other large developers have in effect bullied councils into approving developments, which were not part of a local plan, by submitting appeal after appeal until the resistance or finances of a local council or community are worn down. Either by limiting the applicants right of appeal in some way or by giving communities a right to appeal in some circumstances, action should be taken to tackle the unfair planning appeals process and ensure that sufficient weight is placed on local and neighbourhood plans.

The Localism Bull appears to have the right intentions but it has been blown somewhat off course by the current economic storm. However, like all storms, no matter how fierce, this one will pass, and it is important that we are not left ruefully eyeing the wreckage when the bad weather abates.

19:14

[Lord Palmer of Childs Hill]

My Lords, first, I declare an interest as a councillor in the London Borough of Barnet for 25 years and as chair of its audit committee. For many years, I was a director of an arm’s-length management organisation managing Barnet Homes housing. Currently, I am a member of the standards committee—so I felt that I should speak at Second Reading of the Localism Bill. Clauses 129 and 130, which refer to the duties of homeless persons, take us back to the very dark days of limited offers to homeless people. My noble friend Lady Doocey mentioned this, and I should like to expand on what she said.

The idea that local authorities will be able to discharge their duties to the homeless by providing one offer—I repeat, one offer—from a private landlord, without the applicant having any say in being able to reject that offer, is horrifying. For those who have been in local government for many years, it takes us back to the days of two offers. Now we are talking about one offer from a private landlord.

What will be considered suitable accommodation may well fall short of what is considered to be decent accommodation. Many of us have seen people housed in private properties that are not decent. With the cap on rents, particularly in London, properties available to local authorities to house their homeless may well be of a lower standard than we would like. Allocating one property, without a choice, from a private landlord will take no account of children’s schools, where people work or the wider family. That will put further onus and cost on the social services because those supports are not there. These clauses do not seem to say where the property will be. I am old enough to remember when London boroughs short of places to house people gave them the fare to seaside resorts where the rent would be paid to those landlords. These clauses are reminiscent of that time and need to be substantially amended.

Clause 142 is welcome in that it appears to give tenants of housing associations limited security. Tenants of less than two years must get at least six months’ notice, but what happens in real life? Recently, I was made aware of tenants of a very reputable housing association. They were happy, as was the landlord, but the lease to that private landlord from the housing association had come to an end. The landlord was happy for the lease to continue under the same terms, but the social landlord said that it was its policy that tenants should move to new premises because it did not carry one lease over to another. Under the Bill, we must give stability to people housed by housing associations.

Clause 145 to 153 are welcome. They will enable councils that own properties, which are often managed by arm’s-length management organisations, to keep their rental income. That will be a great benefit for many people, such as in my local authority where a lot of rental income does not stay with the local authority but goes back to the centre. However, I have a cynical suspicion. If local authorities are allowed to keep all their rental income, are we guaranteed that they will keep their current grants and standard spending assessments or will there be a formula? I understand that one man in Whitehall knows what it means.

Clauses 172 to 176 concern me. I am far from convinced that we want mayoral development areas. I am talking as a London borough councillor and that is the flavour of how I look at it. It appears to be the opposite of localism. The power in London in particular should be with the local authorities. Mayoral development areas, which perhaps are where the mayor is the mayor of that local authority, may be allowable.

If the aim is to get more empty land into use, such land should be taxed to encourage hoarders of land to bring it into use or there should be land auctions. There is a lot of private land for which people are waiting for the right price. In the mean time, many thousands of people are not housed, which is a disgrace. That can be linked to the announcement made only this week by the Government. They are to bring unused government-owned and local authority land into use by encouraging it to be sold off—but, sadly, not necessarily for social housing. A lot of land out there is privately owned, as well as that which is local authority owned.

Clause 158 deals with complaints to the housing ombudsman. I should like this to be a righting of the wrongs for the benefit of the tenant. I read this part of the Bill a few times. It gives me the feeling that like many complaints to an ombudsman the result will be the fining of the so-called offender. It talks about the determination of the ombudsman. The Bills needs to say how the tenant will benefit. After reading it, I cannot see any guarantee that that ombudsman’s decision will not be purely a fine on the culprit rather than a benefit for the tenant.

Turning away from housing, paragraph 9L of Schedule 2 allows a local authority to change its system from an executive back to a committee system. I come from a local authority where I was part of the administration. I was a cabinet member for development and regeneration, and I would give little speeches saying that it is a dreadful system because I have unparalleled power to do almost anything I want, but it is not democratic. That is the case with the executive system where the member of the executive without portfolio has the power while the rest of the council has little of it. I serve on a council with 63 councillors, of which 10 members are on the executive. They are all from one party, not my party, but it has been mine. Those 10 members have interesting jobs managing and running the council, but jobs have to be found for the remaining 53 members as chairs or members of scrutiny committees that have little or no value.

I would like to see, as the Bill suggests, a move back to the committee system with a chair of committee for housing, social services, adult education and so on. The Bill would enable this, but states that it will happen in London after the next local elections, which are three years away. I would like the Bill to be amended so that local authorities are given the opportunity to bring about this change in the way councils are run sooner rather than later.

Finally, as a serving London borough councillor, I welcome localism and this Bill, but we must be careful to ensure that localism does not just mean devolving power from Whitehall to the city hall or the town hall. This Bill is a leap forward—I originally wrote that it is a huge leap forward, but I shall now say only that it is a leap—but there is room to improve it while it is in your Lordships’ House on its way through Westminster.

19:22

[Lord Ouseley]

My Lords, I looked forward to the arrival of this Bill. It is clearly based on good intentions, some of which, as we have already heard in the debate, will be subjected to extensive scrutiny and challenge during its Committee stage. It is different from what I expected, and having read it through, it is complex and takes some navigation. It will have a huge impact on local government and people’s aspirations for their communities, localities, neighbourhoods and quality of life. But this Bill was trailed rather differently, with exaggerated claims of what it would deliver, and that is why I am hugely disappointed with it.

This is a very important local government Bill, but let me give noble Lords a taster of what I had envisaged we were about to get. Back in December last year, the Secretary of State, Eric Pickles, said that the Bill signalled the start of “a new era of people power”, and added that it would be the end of the era of big government. Andrew Stunell, at the Report stage in the House of Commons, stated that:

“The Government are committed to the radical decentralisation of power and control from Whitehall and Westminster to local government, local communities and individuals”.—[Official Report, Commons, 17/5/11; col. 204.]

That sounds laudable and supportable, but it is difficult to envisage how the Bill as it stands will enable it to happen. Whatever happened to the promise of decentralisation, devolution, enhanced citizen empowerment and local control in a radical way when, in fact, we are getting substantial reserved powers for the Secretary of State to be interventionist and directional? From my own experience of working with communities in local areas, particularly in London, I have never known a situation where the central state or local authorities have ever handed meaningful power over to local people. Power, control, decision-making and resources have always been withheld, often for good reason and particularly to intervene when things go wrong, as they do from time to time. Someone in authority has to be held responsible and accountable.

An example of continuing centralist micro-management is the setting of an annual budget and council tax to be levied by the local authority. This is a local matter. The local elected members make those decisions and are answerable to their electorates. Why should the Secretary of State insist on having the power to determine what he considers to be excessive? Is that not a matter for local determination? Why should a Secretary of State be determining the circumstances for local referendums to be held, and who will be responsible for the additional costs? What of the additional bureaucracy and delays in processing and decision-making that will be created? We have to be certain, as we go through the Bill, that we are not staring at the prospect of reinforced centralist power and control, as well as increased bureaucracy, which the Government claim they want to reduce. There will be increased costs at a time of reduced resources.

Another example is the imposition of shadow mayors, which again is central government determining what is best for local people. Surely locally elected and accountable councillors, along with their local citizens, are the most appropriately placed to determine what is best for their locality. Why undermine local democracy when it works well most of the time and is more about localism than what this Bill purports to be? Clause 5(1) gives the Secretary of State far-reaching powers to,

“amend, repeal, revoke or disapply,

other statutory provision if he considers that it,

“prevents or restricts local authorities from exercising the general power”.

This is particularly distressing in the context of all local authorities having to conduct their business with due regard to their duties and responsibilities under the current equality legislation. Given that the Government have to date shown scant regard for the public sector equality duty, and indeed have recently canvassed public opinion on restricting the functions of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, there is much concern that some local authorities will slip back into institutional discriminatory policies and practices, with encouragement from a bullish Secretary of State. We must have assurances on this matter and ask the Minister for a clear statement of commitment and compliance with the legislation.

The Bill’s approach to localism in London is perplexing—I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Palmer, on this point—because it extends regionalism through the Mayor of London while at the same time it reduces localism by marginalising local councils and their communities in the process. There must be oversight and scrutiny by locally elected councillors and their communities of the operations of the proposed mayoral development corporations for this to be genuine localism. The same concerns arise with the Greater London Authority taking over the housing and regeneration functions for London from the Homes and Communities Agency. It is not genuine localism to suggest, as the Government have done, that the London Assembly, a regional body with regional representatives, can offer the local involvement and participation that is required.

The retention of ministerial powers to delegate functions to the Mayor of London without local electorates and councillors having their say and some involvement, participation and engagement, is a further drift away from genuine localism. The so-called community right to challenge is limited to local authority services and facilities, but other authorities and agencies provide services locally. Those services should also be challengeable by local communities. Radical devolution cannot be administered in a piecemeal and half-hearted way. If this is to have any meaningful impact, local communities must be inspired and empowered to challenge all locally provided services. I believe that the community right to challenge should be open to all, regardless of a community’s expertise or level of social infrastructure. Expanding the right to challenge is a welcome first step, but there must be co-ordination and leadership to challenge all the different agencies operating at the local level. It should not be restricted to locally provided services. Such a co-ordinating role is best led by the local authority. The Bill should therefore enable local authorities to challenge, with and on behalf of their communities and in partnership with other agencies, the provision of services delivered by national public bodies within their area.

Undoubtedly, town and country planning would benefit from the streamlining of administration and speeding up of decision-making. However, close examination of the provision for neighbourhood planning suggests that there is likely to be greater complexity, more bureaucracy and risks to community cohesion if radical groups and nimbyism contribute to divisiveness, paralysis of decision-making and conflicts across communities.

Let me conclude by saying that there is much in the Bill to be commended in its attempt to increase community involvement in local decision-making and local service provision. Our fundamental aim should be to strengthen local government and to seek to enhance its localism credentials. Power is vested in those people we elect to represent us and to be responsive in serving and meeting the economic, social and cultural needs of the local inhabitants. We must improve the Bill to help local government, working with local providers, to improve its performance and effectiveness and to assist local government to enable communities to feel empowered about all local services being theirs even if they are not the direct beneficiaries therefrom. The noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, described localism perfectly as it now happens in her local community through direct action. I believe that if we are to realise genuine localism we have to do much more than this Bill will achieve. Above all, for this Bill to become a successful stepping stone for localism, we would need to have less central control, less Whitehall direction and interference, less bureaucracy and reduced costs, less regulation, less prescription and guidance and no micromanagement from the centre.

19:31

[Lord Reay]

My Lords, I am most concerned with the planning aspects of this Bill and I declare an interest as a landowner. Does the title of the Bill and the rhetoric used to support it conform to the reality of what the Bill will bring about? I have doubts. It does so in the case of the abolition of the regional tier, of which I heartily approve. It tries to do so in other aspects, including local referendums, but with adverse consequences, which other noble Lords have well described, in costs to local authorities and possible abuse, which mean that we need to look at it very carefully in Committee. In other instances the Government seem to have shied away.

Take the community right of appeal. Before the election, both coalition parties believed in it. They evidently recognised then that our planning system in one way is most unfairly balanced in favour of the developer. A developer will take the matter to public inquiry when a planning decision goes against him. When the decision goes against the local community or parish council, where true localism resides, they can make no appeal. Like the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, and my noble friend Lord Marlesford, I would welcome a limited community right of appeal.

In addition, public inquiries are hugely expensive. The local community against the developer, when it comes to raising the funds to fight an appeal, is David against Goliath. Moreover, today’s cash-strapped local authorities are very likely to be intimidated by the prospective costs of a public inquiry and, to avoid them, grant planning permission when they would prefer not to. At Report stage in the other place the Minister recognised this problem and said it was something that should be looked at. Can my noble friend the Minister say what the Government now intend to do about that?

The situation becomes completely outrageous in the case of wind farm planning applications where the developer is funded entirely by public subsidy, paid for by the electricity consumer. Yesterday I attended a meeting of the Lancaster district council planning committee when, for the second time, it turned down unanimously a planning application for a wind farm six kilometres within an area of outstanding natural beauty. I may say that that was a unanimous decision by the planning committee of a Labour-Green-controlled council. In fact, anticipating defeat because of the planning officer’s strong recommendation to reject the application, and not waiting for the committee’s decision, the developers had already applied to take the matter to public inquiry, betting their money—or rather betting the money they would receive from the poor electricity consumers—on the hope that the planning inspector allocated to them might decide to give priority to the Government’s renewable energy targets over a consideration for local feelings and the preservation of landscape.

I ask the Minister: is that localism? Is that an example of matters being decided by the community and not by planning inspectors? Or is it an example of the Government trying to drive their own policy—in this case, their renewable energy policy, which I believe is misguided—through the planning system? In any case, daily practice is making a mockery of the Government’s flagship localism policy. I think that there is a strong case for developers to be required to pay the appeal costs of the local authority, and also those of the local protest group, when such a group has notified the Secretary of State of its intention to appear at the inquiry as a so-called rule 6 party, and most certainly in cases when the developer is enjoying public subsidies.

Something else which concerns me is the new Clause 124, introduced at a late stage in the other place by the Government. Several noble Lords opposite have expressed concern about that. This puts into statute the ability of councils to take financial benefits into account as a material consideration when dealing with planning applications. Currently, Section 106 agreements, if I understand the position correctly, must relate to the nature of the application in some way—for example, provide necessary related infrastructure —and may be concluded only after planning consent has been granted. Clause 124 would bring financial payments far more to the fore and would make it much less convincing for the Government to claim, as they like to claim and should be able to claim, that planning permissions are not for sale. With Government withdrawing funding from local authorities, the suspicion might even gain ground that developers were expected to take their place as a provider of finance to local authorities.

Lastly, I want to express my concern about the obligation placed on local authorities in Chapter 4 to maintain a list of assets of community value. That was dealt with very well by my noble friend Lord Cathcart and the noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Dillington. I thought also that this was meant to deal with the threatened loss of use of a pub, shop or other facility which has been communally enjoyed. That is how Ministers talk about it, but in fact it is framed so widely, as far as I can see, that any piece of private property, field, park, house or other building, which it could be imagined the community might ever like to have the use of, whether or not it ever has had the use of it, might be listed. Any sale of such listed assets must be held up while the community decides whether to bid or not. Whether I am right or not about that, this is a new interference with private property rights. It could reduce the value of listed property and disincentivise owners from making property available for public use in case that should stimulate an appetite for listing it as a community asset.

I look forward to the Committee stage and to combining with other noble Lords, I hope across party, to help try and amend the Bill.

19:38

[Lord Boyd of Duncansby]

My Lords, I declare an interest as a Scottish solicitor who is registered to practise in England and Wales. Part of my practice is in planning matters and I am also a legal associate of the Royal Planning Institute. My noble friend Lord Beecham drew our attention to the size of this Bill. In those circumstances it might seem perverse of me, and unwelcome to your Lordships, to address an issue that is not in the Bill, but it relates to the planning assumptions that underpin the assessment of compensation on compulsory purchase.

Let me tell the House why I am addressing this issue at this stage. In 2002 the London Borough of Wandsworth served a purchase notice on a company called Greenweb Ltd for a small piece of land to preserve its status as a public open space. Both the local authority and Greenweb were agreed that the market value of the land was £15,000. Greenweb had in fact paid £30,000 for this piece of ground. Greenweb contended that under the statutory rules it was entitled to considerably more. Indeed, it said that it was entitled to £1.6 million—over 100 times the value. The issue went to the Lands Tribunal and from there to the Court of Appeal, which, with great reluctance, upheld the landowner’s claim and Greenweb Ltd found itself with a windfall of more than £1.5 million in profit for a £30,000 outlay. Though that case may be an extreme example of the perversity of some of the rules on compensation and the injustices that can be created, it is an example nevertheless.

The injustice is not just on the side of local government. Another case, decided by the House of Lords in 2009, Transport for London v Spirerose Ltd, arguably produced an injustice on the other side. In that case, the House of Lords said that the landowner was entitled to £400,000 for the land that was the subject of the compulsory purchase order. The Lands Tribunal and the Court of Appeal had valued the land at £608,000, the difference being in the assumptions that were made about the planning permission that was granted, the House of Lords saying that all that the landowner was entitled to was “hope value”.

The law on compulsory purchase and compensation is a minefield of complexity, a mixture of statute overlaid with judge-made rules and again overlaid with statute. In 2002, the noble and learned Lord the then Lord Chancellor referred both the procedural and the compensation issues to the Law Commission. In 2003, it published its final report on the compensation issues. That report was well received. Regrettably, the previous Government did not find time to implement the report’s recommendations. This is not the time or the place to try to implement all of them, but there is a need to address one aspect which underpinned both the cases that I have mentioned and produced the most difficult results: the planning assumptions that are made in assessing compensation.

In Committee in another place, Barbara Keeley moved amendments which would rewrite the planning assumptions in the Land Compensation Act. The amendment had the backing of the Compulsory Purchase Association and the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors and was in accordance with the recommendation on planning assumptions contained in the Law Commission’s report. In response, the Minister, Greg Clark, very helpfully said that he would reflect seriously on what had been said and consider representations with an open mind. Since then, I am pleased to say that—as reported to me at least—good progress has been made. There was a meeting between the CPA, RICS and officials of the government department, and they have been encouraged by the positive nature of the exchanges. An impact assessment has been drafted, and there seems to be general agreement that no concomitant changes or amendments are required, an issue which concerned the Minister in Committee.

I hope that this matter can now be addressed. There is widespread agreement as to the nature of changes that are required and the need to effect them now. In the Court of Appeal judgment, all three judges expressed the hope that parliamentary time would be found to address these issues. Lord Justice Buxton said that if government were not prepared to act, local authorities, faced with uncertainty and deprivation of scarce funds, must exert political pressure to correct the anomaly.

We will return to this issue in Committee. Those who have promoted the change in the law have been greatly encouraged by the Government’s response so far. I hope that that will continue. Certainly, if the Government decide to bring forward amendments to the Bill, they will have my full support in doing so.

19:45

[Baroness Kramer]

My Lords, in this debate, if I may, I shall speak with something of a London perspective. It is London that I know; I hope that what I have to say about London will often have some broader application, but I do not pretend to that broader knowledge myself. As the 31st speaker in the debate, I shall inevitably repeat comments made by others, though I shall attempt to limit the extent to which I do so. I shall handle that perhaps by saying that I wish strongly to associate myself with many of the comments that have been made on housing. I have a great fear of there being created within social housing a sort of transitory, transient community, which does no good to families, especially to children, and very little good to the communities in which those people are resident.

The issue of EU fines is pertinent particularly to London, which faces potentially £300 million or so in fines for its failure to deal with air quality and the consequences of PM10, which takes between 4,000 to 8,000 premature lives a year. It is crucial that there is an independent body to allocate that fine and responsibility to central government, which has certainly played a role, to the GLA and to local government. Along with that point, there are many other comments that have been made with which I wish to associate myself.

I shall refer to two issues which perhaps have been less covered, following in a sense the strategy of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Boyd, of addressing issues which should have been in the Bill but are not. The first—again, I speak from a London perspective though not limited to it—is infrastructure financing. Many people will be aware that it cost some £3.5 billion to build the Jubilee line in London. But those who owned land fairly close to the stations saw a great increase in the value of property, the estimate being something of the order of £13 billion.

In other countries across the globe, that kind of increase in land value is captured to finance the project in the first place. It does not happen here. There were great hopes that it could be achieved for the Crossrail project, particularly given that those associated at that point with TfL were Americans who were used to this form of financing elsewhere. It fell apart, as I understand, because the Treasury did not want control of finances to slip away from central government towards a more local government, in this case London government. It saw the potential for financing off land value gain as a mechanism that would take control away from it. We ended up instead with London businesses paying a flat tax to fund London’s share of Crossrail, which was a retrograde step.

The Bill presents us with a real opportunity to see that release of power from the Treasury towards local communities. It is certainly true in London’s case; I suspect that it is true in the case of others. New infrastructure is fundamental to our being able to function and to grow. It is an issue that is not addressed in the Bill and, as near as I can tell, it never seems to be addressed in legislation that comes wandering between these two Houses. Here would be a great opportunity to try to capture it.

The second issue is government’s trying still to keep inappropriate control of all kinds of bits of strategy—again, I am talking about transport. As your Lordships will be aware, Transport for London is the strategic planning authority for the Tube, the buses, the trams and the couple of overland rail lines that are contained entirely within the London area, but most of London’s commuter services in south London are provided by overground rail, which comes under the national strategic planning authority—in other words, the department. One can see the argument: all these rail lines are part of a national network that ends in London. But the greatest usage and demand is for the commuter services that they provide in the last stretches once they hit the environs of London and the south-east and come on in.

Surely this Bill is an opportunity to say we are switching the balance between central and local power, and let us add strategic planning power to Transport for London to cover these rail lines that end within this city. Of course it will have to take very serious and fundamental note of national rail aims but let us recognise that the Bill is meant to be shifting that balance and recognising local importance and responsibility. That would seem to be a great example. If people think that you can do this kind of planning nationally, just remember it has taken nearly 10 years to get the Oyster card on national rail services—a very good illustration of how little notice national strategic rail planning has taken of the London issue.

Comments have been made about the Mayoral Development Corporation. I am not opposed to mayoral development corporations, as others might be, but I am very aware that when the GLA was first set up, there was a real focus on ensuring the transfer of power from central government to London and an absence of conflict between the boroughs and London government. On the whole, that has been the case, despite there being many different political colours and issues—there has, on the whole, been co-operation. It is really important that we do not suddenly start to build in conflict to this sort of mayoral development corporation. As you will know, London Councils has said—and I think the mayor is in agreement—that it would be comfortable making sure that something like 50 per cent of the board places for these corporations were allocated to local boroughs. Using those kinds of mechanisms, let us make sure that conflict is not built in.

I have an underlying frustration when I read this kind of legislation, which assumes that economic development is regeneration and regeneration is economic development. There is so much more involved in economic development. Culturally at least, I am not sure yet if there is a way to provide some sort of carrot within the legislation; but we need to look at these re-energised local communities as mechanisms to bring in and develop new businesses within their communities. An American mayor, if you want the honest truth, would be looking at unemployment within his city and touting to every major corporation that could put together a business facility to match that employment need, trying to drag it, tooth and nail, to his or her community. We do not use that kind of potential here. I am not quite sure how to build that into this legislation, but surely it is part of the dynamism that should be inherent in localism.

19:53

[Baroness Young of Old Scone]

My Lords, I declare an interest as a vice-president of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, president of a local wildlife trust and president of the British Trust for Ornithology. I want to talk, in common with others today, about the planning system. I believe that the planning system is a jewel in the crown of our democratic processes. It has been honed over the past 60 years to form a level playing field arena, in which rational decisions can be made between competing needs, demands and interests. It has sustainable development at its heart, is local enough but not too local, and is pretty accessible to all. This Bill, which sets out to revolutionise the planning system, must not throw the baby out with the bathwater. There are three elements of the current planning system that I stress need to be preserved and safeguarded.

First, there is the whole concept of what the planning system is there for, bringing in sustainable development to the heart of the system and making it the prime purpose. During the period of reform that we are going through, it is important to remember that the purpose of the planning system is not just about economic development. It is also about a whole variety of sometimes conflicting challenges, such as climate change, loss of biodiversity, the pressures of increased land take and urbanisation, and the need for greater social equity. The spatial planning system really is fundamental in providing that arena in which rational decisions can be made in a very transparent way to tackle these issues by trying to deliver and integrate economic, environmental and social issues at the same time—not by enabling choices to be made between them but by delivering all of them.

The Bill needs to reaffirm what the whole purpose of planning is: to achieve sustainable development. We should build into the Bill one of the many definitions of sustainable development that are current and indeed occur in other Bills and Acts—that sustainable development meets the social, environmental and economic needs of the present generation without compromising the needs of future generations.

The second element we ought not to lose sight of is almost at odds with the current title of the Bill, because it reminds me of the prayer that says, “Lord, make me good, but not yet”. The prayer for the planning system is “Lord, make it local, but not too local”. I sometimes think that there are areas of planning decision-making that are not best made at local level. Under this Bill, we are seeing the demise of regional planning and spatial strategies—but there needs to be an ability to plan at a scale above local. That is important for two reasons. There are some activities subject to the planning system where the decisions can only be made at the scale above the local scale, like waste management, flood risk management, the management of river basins and some of the biodiversity issues that are about international considerations. Many of these cannot simply be resolved on the spatial scale that is often offered at a local level. For example, if you make flood risk management decisions on too fine a scale—as I know to my cost as the former chief executive of the Environment Agency—you run the risk of simply flooding the folk downstream.

However, there are also some decisions that are simply too difficult to make at a local level. Waste management is a prime example. Our waste management infrastructure was stultified until we started to look at making decisions about the location of waste management facilities on a level higher than the local level. Decisions had to be made about these very important facilities, but no local community was going to accept them voluntarily. The same applies to difficult decisions between important wildlife sites and economic regeneration that will create jobs. For local people, it is very difficult to take wise decisions about longer-term interests and intangible values that increase our sustainability and quality of life, like biodiversity, when it may mean that you are actually voting against a job for local people.

We need to make sure that we do not see localism as the sine qua non of the whole planning system and recognise that some issues are best not dealt with on a local basis. The duty to collaborate between planning authorities and other bodies that is in the Bill is a bit woolly—it is only about strategic priorities and they have not yet been defined. We have to question whether that will deliver the clear strategic framework, on a scale greater than local, that businesses, developers and investors are crying out for. There are no sanctions if local authorities fail to collaborate and there needs to be a reserve power of intervention by the Secretary of State where they are, quite frankly, not getting on with the job.

The third issue I want to make a plea for is not in the Bill, but is integral to all the provisions that are—the whole question of planning guidance. I very much support the words of the noble Lord, Lord Marlesford, in this. We are waiting for the emerging national planning policy framework and I hope a draft will be available for us to look at soon. It will replace a wealth of wisdom and expertise that currently resides within the planning policy statements. If it removes that wealth of wisdom and expertise, which has been honed to be fit for purpose and useful over the past 20 years, and replaces it with something rather less adequate, that will be a backward step.

I am conscious of time, but there are two other issues that I will want to comment on during the Bill’s proceedings. I very much support the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, regarding limited community rights of appeal; and we must do something about this weasel clause on local financial considerations that came in late and I hope will leave early. I am deeply suspicious of something that needs to be spelt out as a prior consideration.

Let us not forget what we have learnt over the past 60 years of the planning system—it is a jewel in the UK’s crown and is much admired in other countries. Let us not throw the baby out with the bathwater. We should keep the best.

19:59

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

My Lords, a Bill that seeks to provide new freedoms and flexibilities for local government and new rights and powers for communities or individuals, makes the planning system more democratic and effective and where decisions about housing are taken locally is to be warmly encouraged. The main premise of this legislation is soundly based, and one which I believe in its fulfilment—and, from what noble Lords have said today, with refinement—will be of great benefit to the people of this country. Trust, and trusting people, must resonate throughout what I have described as this great tome. All too often, legislators have decided that they know best. I do not seek to make a party point, because I believe that Governments of all colours have had the penchant for centralising power, but this Government have brought forward a very considerable proposal to reverse this tide and give people in their own communities a greater say in how best to run them.

I should declare my interest as a landowner, but also as executive director of the Countryside Alliance. A truly local agenda has long been a main thrust of the alliance's manifesto. Nowhere is this more true than in the areas of housing and planning in the countryside. The policy of imposing top-down housing targets on local government has failed. Last month, a report from the Institute for Public Policy Research suggested that England faces a shortfall of 750,000 homes by 2025. Not only would this mean that there would be insufficient housing, but it would also lead to a further 1.2 million people requiring social housing. There is already a shortfall, with nearly 1.8 million households on social housing waiting lists. This is a particular concern for rural communities where young families represent their future sustainability. Some 11,000 new affordable homes per year are needed over the next five years in settlements of fewer than 10,000 inhabitants. As there are some 16,000 small towns, villages and hamlets across England, this should be an eminently achievable target.

There are numerous examples of communities working together to develop housing schemes. I was extremely fortunate to open one last month at Whitchurch in Buckinghamshire for Hastoe Housing Association. The parish council was closely involved and an attractive development was built next to the village school. There are now at least a further five children from the development on the school roll.

I very much hope that the Government will find a way forward in this Bill to deal with vexatious village green applications, which have been used as a means of stopping or delaying much-needed rural housing. These applications have been made despite planning permission being granted and the parish council enthusiastically backing the housing scheme, and sometimes the houses have even been built and occupied. My experience has been that communities are opposed to new housing if they feel it is being imposed from outside, is not meeting the needs of local families and all too often has been unsympathetic in its design. This Bill provides many opportunities for progress.

We should enhance the role of the parish council, which should be trusted more to take local decisions. These councils already produce parish plans, which in turn form part of supplementary planning guidance. The proposed neighbourhood development plans could build on and use these existing parish plans rather than carrying out further expensive consultations. Communities will be given the ability to save local assets threatened with closure, by allowing them to bid for ownership and management of community assets. This is to be welcomed; there are already many positive examples. Indeed, in 2006 one of the Countryside Alliance Awards winners was Sulgrave village shop and post office. When the village shop closed, it was purchased by the village, through the parish council, and is now run by 60 part-time volunteers, aged between 16 and 80.

I express some considerable reservations, which have already been aired by a number of other noble Lords, about the consequences—and I emphasise the consequences—of the right to buy initiative as currently in the Bill. This by my reading suggests that local authorities will acquire the right to put anyone's land or buildings that can be called community assets, on a list, with no right of independent appeal. The owner of anything on this list cannot then sell, give away, or transfer to his or her family that land or building until the local community has had a chance to raise the funds to bid for them, which could take up to nearly a year. We must find a way through so that this strong disincentive for owners to make their land available is avoided. I use just one example to highlight this: if an owner wishes to transfer his farm to the next generation and in the middle of the farm is a field which he has permitted the local cricket club to use, this Bill’s provisions as currently drafted could come into operation. I cannot believe that this is the intention of the Bill, but I fear this may be the consequence. I ask the Minister to reflect on this as to how best this unintended consequence can be resolved.

Overwhelmingly, this is a Bill is intended to strengthen local decision-making, placing trust in local communities to take responsibility for themselves and to take decisions which affect them and their future. For these reasons, I support the principles which underpin it.

20:06

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara]

My Lords, I want to focus on the concerns raised earlier by my noble friend Lady Andrews and other noble Lords about the proposed changes to the planning system, particularly as it affects our historic and cultural environment. To quote from the DCMS website:

“The historic environment is the physical legacy of thousands of years of human activity in this country, in the form of buildings, monuments, sites and landscapes. It reflects our history as a maritime nation, of trade, population movement, architectural endeavour, economic, political and social development and the use of natural resources from prehistory to the present”.

I have managed to correct in my speech—and I hope that it is picked up by Hansard—the spelling mistake that unfortunately adorns the website.

Following the noble Baroness, Lady Young, I believe that a robust presumption in favour of sustainable development should be at the heart of the Bill to ensure that the new planning system truly allows the present generation to meet its development needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs.

I would like to make three specific points. First, safeguards for the historic environment, currently contained in PPS5, should not be undermined. PPS5 should be incorporated within the proposed national planning policy framework and a draft of that document should be available, alongside the Bill, before the Bill is considered on Report. The composition of neighbourhood forums needs to be clarified, and the neighbourhood plans should not supersede the powers of local, democratically elected bodies. Protection for the settings of historic houses and for those in conservation areas should not be reduced, and the remit of the independent examiner should be strengthened, particularly in respect of the national planning policy framework

Secondly, following the noble Lord, Lord Gardiner of Kimble, who is my neighbour, the proposals around the community asset register have some unintended consequences. As any private or public building may be nominated for the register, this provision may well have the effect of reducing rather than encouraging the provision of private land for community use, because of the fear of nomination. Also, problems are likely to arise from the inevitable delays in making sales of registered property. There is, in the original Bill, no provision of a right of independent appeal against listing in the community asset register, and I would like to suggest to the Minister that this might be a sensible provision.

Finally, supporting infrastructure costs and local finance considerations are an important part of the Bill. A fair share of the community infrastructure levy needs to be secured for projects involving heritage by permitting local authorities to spend the levy on supporting our heritage and cultural environment. Clause 100 permits local authorities to pass CIL funds to other parties, which gives the flexibility for the funds to be spent by a neighbourhood forum. However, it would be helpful if the specific case for supporting our heritage environment could be included in the Bill.

As other noble Lords have said, the late amendment to the Bill which makes local finance considerations a material consideration in planning applications is of considerable concern. Financial considerations arising from a proposed development should not be considered alongside planning applications and this aspect of the Bill should be withdrawn.

20:11

[Lord Redesdale]

My Lords, that was a very brief and extremely erudite speech. I will be equally brief, which will move the debate on quite considerably. I first must declare an interest as chairman of the Anaerobic Digestion and Biogas Association, which has been put in place to promote the development of an AD industry. I have one issue that I wish to raise: the subject within the Bill that I ask the Minister to look into is clarity on the issue of sustainable development. I believe that issue is a central tenet of what this Bill should be about. Looking at other legislation, including the Climate Change Act 2008, I think that most legislation should be looking at the carbon implications of development in a low-carbon economy.

In a debate at Report on the Bill in the Commons, the Decentralisation Minister, Greg Clark, agreed to produce a definition of sustainable development and planning policy through the national planning policy framework. It is quite possible that that planning policy framework will not be in existence during the whole course of this Bill. In developing much of the low-carbon economy which we are trying to build, therefore, we are being asked to accept that a central issue which will guide the thought processes will be up to scratch. We will be left in the situation of this House not being able to debate the nature of what sustainable development should be about.

Sustainable development is of course a difficult term. “Sustainable” now often means carbon-based; in the past, it came from the international development area. It was almost impossible to get officials to agree on being sustainable because there was no indication of the cost of what “sustainable” meant. That has now moved into the carbon aspect. However, we are being asked to look at this Bill without understanding the implications. The starting point of sustainable development in carbon terms should be looked at. That has major implications because planning should not just be looked at in terms of individual properties; we now have to look at planning in the future, in a low-carbon scenario, as a holistic issue.

The waste review is about to come out and the issue of waste is of primary importance. In talking to many local communities, there is an absolute fear of waste processing plants being developed next to individual properties in areas of outstanding natural beauty or in historic areas. However, there is the problem that we have to start understanding the carbon implications of not having a well thought-out waste policy. Transportation is one of the highest forms of carbon intensity, which means making sure that we understand that waste parameters are important. If we do not therefore understand sustainable development in carbon terms and what priority it is to take, we will have a problem in that we will not be able justifiably to say that we are coming up with an efficient carbon technology.

I hope to put down an amendment at a later stage of the Bill. However, if the Minister could indicate at what stage the Government could give some information on the development of that planning policy framework and what sustainable development might mean in that, that amendment would obviously not be necessary.

20:15

[Earl of Lytton]

My Lords, in addressing the House for the first time in nearly a dozen years, I first express my appreciation and gratitude to the Cross-Bench electorate for having readmitted me and for the warm welcome that I have received from many noble Lords since I arrived back. As recycled material, I hope that my utility and usefulness will not be too limited. Like many other noble Lords, I have many interests to declare: I am the president of the National Association of Local Councils, which represents parish and town councils, and of its Sussex county associations; I am a landowner and a practising chartered surveyor—I am afraid that planning and development, valuation and all those other things form part of my general remit; and I have recently been involved with the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors land and society commission, which has just reported its findings on community issues and property.

My comments will necessarily be general but, first, I thoroughly welcome the Bill and the localism agenda. It is high time for them. The realignment of the way that society manages its affairs, possibly for future generations, is very important. We need to trust communities more and to connect the citizen with government at all levels. However, this sort of cultural change in attitudes will need a long timescale to bed in. We have had decades of social, economic and political underinvestment, which have to be reversed. I consider that the parish and town councils, with community and voluntary organisations, are more than up for this and I pay tribute to the superb examples of collaboration already taking place—the noble Lord, Lord Gardiner, referred to one of those. The Bill is full of good ideas but little detail. I have to share the concerns about something claiming to empower communities but having the immediate effect of handing substantial powers to Ministers.

On the power of general competence, the recognition in the Bill that parish and town councils are particularly well placed to take on much of the localism challenge is enormously welcome. Those councils are essentially creatures of place and locality—homogeneous they are not—and they range from very small parish meetings to huge town councils. Numerically, there are about 8,500 of them across the country but their statutory status, neighbourhood roots, principles of independence and democratic and financial accountability have been much underrated. Their precepting power puts them firmly in the category of local government. The general power of competence will up their game and provide a catalyst for renewed vigour. Yet they work on relatively tiny budgets and, however one organises non-parished areas in future, the neighbourhood equivalents are going to need to be based on some of these principles and have some of the resource implications to contend with. Assuming, of course, responsibility for taxpayers’ money, objective service delivery and public confidence are the aims, then those sorts of benchmark are important.

As for standards, while agreeing with a light touch, I would certainly support the suggestions of the Committee on Standards in Public Life that its seven principles be embedded overly, and perhaps more enforceably, in this Bill than appears at the moment.

The plans for local referendums, by contrast, look top-heavy and bureaucratic at parish level and they risk undermining the very purpose that they set out to achieve. This part of the Bill needs to be reconfigured on a more local scale.

Many noble Lords have mentioned assets of community value. All I would say—I do not wish to repeat what others have said—is that I do not believe that this was asked for by the parish and town council sector. Local people want the ability to secure those things, especially services, that make their community vibrant, cohesive and viable; they do not need much anything more than that. There will be an impediment to market processes and that is greatly to be regretted. However, the right for these communities to bid for functions where principal authorities do not or cannot economically provide them is welcome, and I think that the Bill needs reinforcing in this area.

I will skate over the spatial strategies issue, except to follow the noble Lord, Lord Reay, in saying there is already a vacuum, with developers taking pot-shots at the system through the planning appeal process. That needs to be dealt with quickly if communities and the whole principle of planning are not to be subverted.

There is a huge issue of resources. We need to build social capital and a results-based process that will drive greater individual and collective engagement in local affairs. We also need things to be local in scale in terms of their complexity and bureaucracy and, of course, we also need accountability.

20:21

[The Earl of Caithness]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to welcome the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, back into the Chamber. He is a fellow chartered surveyor and we missed him when the plague of 1999 took him out temporarily, but he has proved that there is still life after death. He will be a great asset once again to our debates on local government.

Listening to our debate today, I was reminded of when I was a Minister in the Department of the Environment and I was about to start on a housing Bill. My noble friend the late Lord Whitelaw said to me, “Legislate on local government at your peril”. I wonder whether my noble friend Lady Hanham would agree that those were wise words. I certainly thought they were after trying to take a Bill through this place.

There is a lot to welcome in this Bill. Clause 161 will get rid of Part 5 of the Housing Act 2004 and the dreaded home information packs—what a waste of time they were. It is so good that they have gone. However, having got rid of home information packs, why have we not got rid of the community infrastructure levy? That was another thing that we argued against and was one of the sillier bits of socialism. Hopefully that might be looked at again.

Localism is not a cheap and easy option. It is nice in theory and it is often very good in practice, but it is expensive and it is not going to be easy to put back what has been centralised. For example, referendums involve costs, which a number of noble Lords have commented on, and neighbourhood planning requires local neighbourhood plans, which are dynamic and change rapidly. That does not fit into the administratively convenient plan-making structures that we tend to put into Bills—the two do not coincide. The whole system has got to be made much more flexible and easy to update. At the same time, such plans have to blend in with the plans of the big national infrastructure programmes, such as airports or ports, which need certainty. Once decisions have been made on what to do within the national structure, people must not be messed about because these are important businesses.

I shall focus, as have several of my noble friends, on Part 4 of Chapter 4, which is concerned with community assets. My noble friend Lord Cathcart asked, “What is a community asset?”. We need to define it. The principle of this is good but it needs to be looked at in much more detail. There is confusion over whether there is a right to buy or a right to bid. The consultation paper said that there is a right to buy, but the Bill says that it is a right to bid. The two are very different. That needs to be clarified.

There are two aspects to this. There is the community-owned land and the local authority-owned land. Will my noble friend confirm that all public bodies should be required to publish details of their non-operational land, alongside a strategy for its disposal that actively identifies the land with potential community use or benefit? That would be helpful. Then there is the other aspect, which is privately owned land. I agree with much of what has been said about shops, pubs and post offices, but it is their use that is important, not necessarily the buildings themselves.

It is a fundamental mistake for the Bill to include land. When you include land, you bring a whole new ambit to this, as my noble friend Lord Gardiner of Kimble mentioned in the examples that he gave. If there was a wood next door to a village where people were allowed by the landlord to exercise their dogs, would that be classed as a community asset? If the landowner then wanted to dispose of that estate, he would find that bits of the land were subject to a community asset designation order, which would delay the sale of the estate. There is much here that is intentionally quite good but, in practice, will not work well. Will my noble friend also confirm that if a community asset is purchased, it must be by a community organisation and not one of the national voluntary bodies, such as the RSPB, which can use a local designation for its land-grabbing purposes?

It is interesting to look at what is happening in rural and urban areas. Rural areas are much better at community projects. There are almost 10,000 rural community-owned buildings, with an asset value of £3.1 billion. Most of those are run with no paid management at all. The average turnover of a rural community building is less than £9,000 as a result of volunteer input. However, the real problem is the cost of refurbishing or enlarging the building. If, under the Bill, public funds will now be given to a community organisation, why are they not given to the landlord in the first place? It seems totally ridiculous to take an asset away from a landlord, who would like to maintain it but cannot spend the money, to give it to a community group only for it to get the grant to do so.

We shall have lots of fun and spend a lot of time in Committee. I look forward to it as much as the rest of your Lordships.

20:27

[Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe]

My Lords, I share many of the concerns about the Bill that have been expressed across the House during this debate. Many of these reflect noble Lords’ particular interests and I do not propose to repeat these, except to say that they have given the House real cause for anxiety about many of the Bill’s provisions. I shall restrict my remarks to some general points that strike me as particularly worrying.

First, however, I make it clear that I support the concept of localism. I agree with the principle that those elected in a local area should be able to do what is in the interests of the communities they serve, rather than do only the things that Parliament specifically authorises them to do. I certainly believe that local groups, so often supported by dedicated volunteers, are perfectly placed to take decisions that will make a difference to their communities. Long before we became familiar with the phrase “big society”, these groups were working to care for older people, run nurseries and playgroups, manage co-operatives and give families and parents much valued support and advice. Devolving power to local communities and giving people a real say in how their local area is run makes sense. Indeed, my party has long believed this. As has been highlighted already in this debate, when in government it took important steps in that direction.

I am concerned that the potential benefits of the new powers that the Bill proposes giving to councils will be at risk because of the massive cuts in local authority budgets. The Government’s rather bombastic barrier-busting rhetoric means little when councils are facing a total funding shortfall of £6.5 billion in the next two years, putting many council services under threat. Coming at a time when the Government are reviewing all duties of local authorities and talking in terms of demands, burdens and restrictions, it is vital that we have a list of protected council duties. I am particularly concerned about the need to protect services such as libraries and duties towards children in care and the homeless. Will the Minister give us an assurance that this issue of protected services will be addressed?

Although the Bill in its current form gives local community groups and council employees the right to bid to run local services, the cuts which the Government are simultaneously imposing on local councils will hit community and voluntary groups particularly hard. As others have already observed, far from doing more, as the Government assert, they may be able to do rather less. As I and others in this House have said on previous occasions, vital services cannot simply be shifted to voluntary groups as a way of cutting spending.

Although I would have liked to see Amendments 36 and 37 that were proposed in the other place go through, as it would have set out the statutory provisions to be protected under the Bill, I realise that we have to deal with the Bill as it is. But therein lies my deeper concern. It is difficult to be persuaded that this Bill can deliver genuine localism when it confers so many powers on the Secretary of State to curtail it. Although these powers have received some amendment in the Bill’s passage through the other place, notably to ensure proportionality and to achieve a fair balance between the public interest and the interests of any person adversely affected, I am nevertheless still deeply worried by the wide-ranging nature of the Secretary of State’s proposed new powers.

I particularly share with many others a view that it is not desirable for the Secretary of State to be able to,

“amend, repeal, revoke or disapply”,

any duty on local authorities. In this regard the Bill has worrying echoes of the Public Bodies Bill, which so exercised this House in recent months. I spoke to amendments on that Bill, declaring my interest as chair of the Human Tissue Authority, and we made some reassuring progress. As was pointed out by noble Lords during that debate, amending primary legislation by simple affirmative order is a device which Governments must use with care. This House was urged from all sides to reflect on the strictures of the Constitution Committee, which clearly stated: “Departures from constitutional principle”, such as these Henry VIII clauses,

“should be contemplated only where a full and clear explanation and justification is provided”.

That explanation and justification are needed equally in our discussion of the Bill before us today.

We have had much discussion this afternoon on what real localism may look like. Real localism will allow local communities to decide for themselves whether or not they want a mayor, and who their shadow mayor should be, and will require local authority pay policy statements to include the lowest paid as well as the highest paid so that local communities can see for themselves that there is fairness in local government pay. But most importantly, a Localism Bill that delivers will be one that clearly protects the vital duties of local councils—those duties which were created by legislation and which provide services on which people rely. Those duties must be protected from the powers being proposed for the Secretary of State by this Bill.

20:33

[Lord Teverson]

My Lords, I decided to take part in this debate as I wanted to congratulate the Government on the clause in the Bill headed “Predetermination”. That measure would be unacceptable to me as a parliamentarian in the European Parliament and in this House. However, when I am involved in local government I am restricted in the way that I speak about issues. I am absolutely delighted that the Bill addresses that issue head on and abolishes the problem, or that is certainly the way that I read it. When I became involved in local government two years ago, it seemed strange to me that as a local representative I was unable to talk about what I believed ought to happen regarding, for instance, an important planning issue in my electoral division.

Last week when we were in recess, I caught up on some of my council work and attended a meeting held by a local pressure group on the Cornish eco-town in the St Austell area. I was not the local councillor for that area, but one of my colleagues, who was, was present. Because he was on the planning committee that would consider the application in two or three weeks’ time, all through that meeting he had to say to his local electors and residents, “I can’t say to you what I want to happen, because of a thing called predetermination”. Of course, to his local electors, that was barmy. The person who represents them, who they want to give strong leadership, one way or the other, cannot say what he believes. I am delighted that, under the Bill, that will change.

It would be amazing if, say, under Lords reform, which was debated before this debate, we could not go on to the radio and say what we felt or the way that we would vote on that issue. That would be unacceptable to us as parliamentarians. I am glad that the Government say that that will be unacceptable for councillors as well.

I also congratulate the Government on another small area, which is how, when people are about to have planning enforcement placed on them, they suddenly apply for retrospective planning permission. I have experience of that in my electoral division. After the whole process, all the time that has been put in by enforcement officers and the legal work, it all goes back again. Local residents have found that those who have been seen to cheat local planning decisions have yet again put off the day—perhaps for ever—when justice will be done.

I would be interested in hearing a comment from the Minister on one area of the Bill which has been mentioned by one or two noble Lords. It concerns European Union fines. I do not understand how it would work. It relates to the European Court of Justice. I find it strange that there does not seem to be any proper way in which the Secretary of State would decide whether a local authority was guilty or how the fine would be imposed. It seems to be a classic case of judge, jury, prosecutor and executioner. That worries me. I can see how it might apply in certain areas, but can the Government assure me that it would not apply, say, to commission, which could become subject to an ECJ fine if it was not met on regional policy where some genuine mistakes had been made in allocation of EU regional funds? Some fines, penalties and repayments from that can be substantial and could disincentivise local authorities from getting involved in European regional funding.

The usual topics that I speak on in this House are energy and climate change. On that, I mention local referenda. What concerns me about the 5 per cent threshold is that that may include the nimbys but not a lot more. Will we have a real problem here with social housing, which has been mentioned, renewable energy schemes and other things which are part of government and national policy—usually, all sides of the political debate in this country? The implementation of those policies, which are important to local people generally, could be restricted by that provision. I have great concern there and I wonder whether the Minister can reassure me that, in matters such as renewable energy schemes and social housing, it will not be possible to freeze developments in those areas because of a fear of local referenda or because turnout is so low that only those who really do not want those schemes vote. That is a concern.

Reading the papers produced by the Library, I noted that the Secretary of State, Eric Pickles, described centralisation creep over the past few decades. To me, it seems more than creep. The thing that delights me most is that, throughout my political life, when I have been mostly fighting against Conservatives, I have always accused them of being the centralisers. They have started the creep back towards localism. I congratulate them and the Government on that. I look forward to the Committee stage of the Bill, and I hope that the principle of localism will apply also to fines in relation to rubbish collection, impositions as regards pay structures and local tax referenda.

20:40

[Baroness Greengross]

My Lords, I declare an interest as a vice-president of the Local Government Association. Any Bill which devolves more powers to councils and neighbourhoods and gives local communities greater control over local decisions must be a good thing. I cannot praise the Government too strongly for going down this path. For far too long there has been a relentless move towards centralisation and I am delighted that, at long last, we have a Government who are not merely talking about it, but are setting out to do something about it.

Unfortunately, as currently drafted, the Bill would leave us with a local government system that is too complex, too prescriptive and in some ways even more centralist than the system that it replaces. For example, there is the power of the Secretary of State to direct, to control or to take over various powers himself or herself. Having some 30 pages of the schedules governing neighbourhood development and planning alone seems to undermine the entire principle of passing real power to the people. I can see the need for some parameters. Clearly, where there is a need for national standards or a national framework, such safeguards are essential but, as it stands, the Bill seems to go far beyond that. Maybe the Minister would be prepared to give an undertaking that powers will be invoked only where local decisions can affect such regional or national matters. Even with such an undertaking, I realise that there might still be much discussion about what is rightly national or regional and what is not, but at least the underlying principle would be clear. Unfortunately, even with all this length—or more likely because of it—much is still far from clear.

The Government have decided—I congratulate them again—to rip away years of creeping centralisation. It would be a shame if it was a missed opportunity to sweep away at least some of the complexities and confusions that have grown within the system. Unfortunately, in some areas, new and seemingly unnecessary complexities have actually been added. Is it, for example, really necessary to have five different referenda processes, with different rules and differences as to their binding power?

Again, if 5 per cent of the local electorate express the wish to have an elected mayor, the local authority must hold a referendum. That seems to be quite clear. Why on earth then does the Secretary of State, in some instances, want the power to tell an authority that it must have a referendum whether or not the wish has been expressed? Surely, the idea is that, in local matters, local people choose. Even more worrying is the Secretary of State's power to install a shadow mayor. That has been mentioned several times, but seemingly the Secretary of State will have the power to force the authority to put a shadow mayor, and the whole mayoral mechanism, in place even though not even 5 per cent of the voters have asked for a referendum. That does not exactly sound like the acme of devolution.

In the case of fines imposed on the UK by the EU, I can see no problem with a principle that says that, if the actions, or lack of actions, of a local authority can be shown to be the direct cause of an EU fine for the breach of an EU regulation which is binding on this country, the authority that caused it should carry the responsibility for that breach. Why not? If they rightly want to be treated as grown ups they must—and I am sure would—accept their responsibilities. However, they are rightly worried about the fear that central government will see this as a possibility to transfer what are clearly their obligations on to others. A clear statement from the Minister that authorities will bear the burden of actions only to the extent that they have caused the problem, would be a clear and welcome statement that the Government understand the worries of many local authorities.

However, as I started by saying, the Government are to be congratulated on addressing what has been a growing problem: that of centralisation. This is an opportunity that must not be wasted. I and, I am sure, many others will be pleading throughout the passage of the Bill for something that really delivers what it promises: to devolve everything reasonably possible. I hope that the Minister will give us a clear assurance on that, and that it is her desire to see that enacted in the simplest way. It would underline a principle which most of us—including the Minister, with her distinguished career in local government—hold close to our hearts.

20:46

[Lord Lucas]

My Lords, I do not doubt for a moment that my noble friend will do exactly that. I look forward to a stream of accepted amendments over the course of the next month or two.

I welcome this Bill. I share some of the reservations that noble Lords have expressed this evening, but I will not dwell on them, as I want to concentrate on my own points. The principle of the Bill—reconnecting people with place, and giving free rein to local choice in the context of a wider strategic vision—seems to be absolutely the right way to go. The Bill also contains a substantial shift in power and value from landowners to local communities, which is going to be an engine for change. Let me give the example of my local town in Hampshire, where maybe a dozen sites around it might be developed in a substantial way. When they come to make their local plan, they will talk to those landowners to see who will give them the best deal. With proper advice, they should be able to make some pretty cute bargains. The idea that the landowner takes 90 per cent and the community takes 10 per cent is history. We are going to see something much closer to equality.

In rural communities, there is real opportunity for development. We are going to find that landowners get used to receiving much less of the planning gain than they do now. It will be seen much more as a collaboration between them and the community that they are part of, with a lot of the gain flowing to the community. To my mind, this is as it should be, because the adoption of the burden which will be caused by the development falls on the community, and they deserve recompense for it. They should be in a position to absorb that recompense. It is also the way in which planning permissions for telephone masts, windmills, and other things which place a burden on the local community will be settled. It will not just be the landlord battling to keep everything for themselves; it will be very much a negotiation with the community, to say, “We want a better telephone service here; who is going to have the mast? We are going to share in the revenue from that”. I see a fundamental shift in the balance of power between landowners and communities, and I welcome that. I think that that is absolutely the right way to go.

I hope to make some substantial proposals on the back of that. I think we need an intermediate stage, between where we are now and a full neighbourhood plan. Neighbourhood plans are going to be difficult and controversial things to get to. They have got to be crowned by a referendum which can overturn all the work that has been put into them. Even in a relatively rural community it will be a chancy and difficult business. In the context of a city or a large town it will pose great difficulties, with very diverse communities, as both right reverend Prelates have said this evening. The whole question of how this works within a city will take a lot of careful working out. Therefore, I would like to see an intermediate stage in which the plans begin to become understood and are widely canvassed in the community, and in which it would be possible for the local authority to accept an informal plan as a material consideration in coming to its planning decision. That would be a much easier thing to put in place in cities. Getting to a point where a community is united behind a plan is years away. It would be great to create those communities in cities, but it will not be simple or quick. I would like to see something that will give the community a voice in its own affairs short of having to go through the whole rigmarole set out in the Bill.

Secondly, I would like to see a real emphasis on openness. Communities will have a great deal to gain from the Bill, and wherever there is gain on that scale there is the possibility of corruption. I would like to see it made absolutely clear that any transactions to do with a neighbourhood plan will be open and will remain open; it must always be clear exactly what has gone on. In that context I very much share the concerns of the noble Lord, Lord Filkin, about the abolition of the standards committees and the associated arrangements. Why should a citizen now have no redress against a bullying councillor? That is a very retrograde step and I look forward to addressing it in Committee.

We must be careful that neighbourhood plans are free from attack by all the influences and rules that we have allowed to grow up in the context of local authorities that are big and strong and capable of dealing with them. I refer to things such as strategic environmental assessments. No neighbourhood will ever be able to deal with that; the burden must remain at local authority level, and we must make sure that a neighbourhood plan cannot be attacked on that basis by anybody. There are very powerful collective interests, whether historical or environmental, which are well funded and capable of taking a neighbourhood plan to pieces if they are allowed access. They must be confined to local authority level. Their influence must be strategic and must observe the rules that apply to neighbourhood plans. We must not have a system in which a neighbourhood defending its plan can find itself suddenly faced with a lawsuit from an outside pressure group.

I will pick up many other things in Committee; I suspect that my noble friend will grow tired of seeing my name on amendments. Many points have been made all round this House that deserve to be listened to. We have eight days in Committee; it will not be enough.

20:53

[Baroness Whitaker]

My Lords, I hope that the Minister will not think me churlish if, in the interests of time, I focus only on points not yet covered about parts of the Bill that would benefit from amendment. I say in passing that I very much welcome the potential for elected mayors. I have spent time in mayor-led cities in France and their achievements in design, amenity and economic success are a revelation. It seems to work best if the mayor is a former senior Minister, such as Monsieur Chaban-Delmas in stunning Bordeaux, which has been beautified by the work of the noble Lord, Lord Rogers of Riverside, or someone on the way up. This might apply to the Mayor of London.

I hope that noble Lords will turn their revising mind to two areas. Both stem largely from the abolition of the regional tier of government. The first is design. The regional development agencies that are about to be abolished were crucial in championing good design and in providing invaluable advice and expertise, both for buildings and for the whole environment—the community space. The RDA-funded network of regional design review panels has been particularly important in advising local authorities on important design considerations in planning applications. I hope that the noble Baroness will reassure me that this important resource will be maintained in some form, and that she will take the opportunity provided by the current round of planning reforms to strengthen the design review process for the future.

To the uncertainty over design review must be added the cessation of funding for planning aid, which stepped in to help small organisations with little capacity. Although some of this funding has been reallocated and is to be used to support communities in the development of neighbourhood plans, it is not clear how such an ambitious policy can work, given the cost and complexity of developing such plans. Meanwhile, we welcome the presumption in favour of sustainable development, which is, of course, allied to good design. We need to acknowledge the profound impact of design on the way we live our lives, from the local transport system to the provision of wholesome amenities, from our economic role to the all-important sense of well-being.

There is plenty of evidence that people will accept, or even welcome, new development when they are involved in its planning and design—but this needs an expert steer. How are neighbourhoods going to cope with this? Ministers' acknowledgment that the design requirements in the housing and planning Acts will be honoured is encouraging, but I ask the Minister why these provisions do not, as the Bill stands, apply to neighbourhoods and how the Government intend to ensure that good design will be promoted and upheld under the new system.

My second area needing a close look relates to the Secretary of State's statement of compliance with human rights. The basis of the problem lies in the abolition of the regional targets for Gypsy and Traveller sites and the drastic reduction of the capital funding. This means, in reality, that local authorities will have much less incentive to grant planning permission for private sites or find land for their own. There is already a shortage of authorised sites and that is the cause of illegal occupation and traumatic evictions. A very high proportion of local authority officials have said that they expect the community-based planning system in the Bill to make accommodation for Gypsies and Travellers more difficult.

What has happened to the provision for local authorities to set up panels which must include under-represented groups to promote the sustainability of their local communities in the Sustainable Communities Act 2007? What monitoring arrangements will there be, in fact, to check the number of sites relative to need? What will be the role of the unelected neighbourhood forums in dealing with site applications—and parish councils?

The Government's summary impact statement refers to the,

“potential for a negative impact on supply”,

And to delay in “processing of planning applications”, which is alarming, but the equalities impact statement that I read does not refer to Gypsies and Travellers at all. Is the department not aware that Gypsies and Irish Travellers are an ethnic minority? It is surely discriminatory to have a practice of allocating, say, one-third of the homes in a new estate for affordable homes, but ignore the need, equal in worth, for transit and permanent sites for caravans. We have not decided, and could not decide, that the small number of nomadic members of our population have fewer rights than the settled majority; so we must arrange that they have a fair settlement. The enforcement impact statement omits the likely increase in eviction costs, each one of which can run into millions, which will arise from the dearth of legal sites and consequent stopping on unauthorised sites. Can the noble Baroness provide an estimate?

In sum, there are a number of clauses in the Bill, principally those dealing with the abolition of regional strategies, local referenda, the withdrawal of reporting on local development schemes, development plan documents, monitoring reports, neighbourhood development orders, community right to build orders, and retrospective planning permission, which could impact very adversely on Gypsies and Travellers. I cannot find any mention of this in the impact statements, but perhaps the Minister can tell me where it is. So may I ask her what account was taken of the likely effect on Gypsies’ and Travellers' rights under the Human Rights Act in drafting the Bill? In conjunction with these concerns, I agree with my noble friend Lady Warwick about Clause 5. The power to repeal could include the public sector equality duty with barely any parliamentary scrutiny or consultation and could adversely affect minority communities already suffering prejudice. How can fairness be safeguarded with such sweeping powers?

There is one further part of the Bill which I mention as needing a hard look, and that is an aspect of the community right to challenge in Part 4. This provision opens up public services to bids from community groups. If such a group is a religious organisation, it is exempt from the Equality Act requirement not to discriminate in employment or in the provision of services, and there is nothing to prevent it including proselytisation as part of its service delivery. I think this is inappropriate. We would not want—indeed, we do not allow—the public services themselves to discriminate or to include a plea for a particular religion as part of their package, so we should not allow an organisation performing a public service to do so either. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

21:01

[Lord Greaves]

My Lords, I declare an interest as a member of Pendle Borough Council. In view of the contents of the Bill and the likely debates as it goes through, I also declare an interest as vice-president of the Open Spaces Society, and I remind the House of my relationship with the British Mountaineering Council. We have had an astonishing number of erudite speeches, many of them about planning. I was going to talk about planning, and I promise the ministerial team that I shall be heavily involved in the planning section of the Bill when we get to Committee, but most of what I would say now has already been said, so I shall just make a few discursive remarks about how I see the Bill in general.

For a start, I shall tell the House what I was doing last night. I went to a meeting in the ward I represent on Pendle Borough Council, Waterside ward, of a body called the NAG—the neighbourhood action group. It consists of residents, ward councillors and local agencies and groups who are doing very valuable work within the ward, including an organisation called Open Door, which has just won The Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service and does brilliant work. People come together with a couple of officers from the council who are part of the new locality working team, which I shall mention in a minute. It is an area of very considerable deprivation. Under the census categories—the super output areas, as they are called—depending on which indices you take, it variously comes within the top 10 per cent to the top 1 per cent of deprived areas in the country. The top is the most deprived. It is not a posh, middle-class area at all. It is an area which has had active residents’ groups of various sorts for all the 40 years that I have been associated with it.

If you go back 10 years, a series of residents’ groups in different parts of the ward came together in a group called the Waterside Community Network, which put a lot of pressure on the council, the county council and other public bodies, campaigned against problems in the area and for better facilities and ran local events. Six or seven years ago, the then Labour Government set up the housing market renewal scheme, and Waterside was part of it. As part of that, they put a lot of resources in to set up a neighbourhood management scheme and, as part of what in those days was known as double devolution, attempted to move decision-making and involvement below the level of the local authority. There were lots of pilot neighbourhood management schemes around the country, including in the HMR areas. The resources were council staff and council community development workers who have done a great deal of really good work. It is interesting that, as a result of putting in council staff and resources, the original voluntary residents groups, which relied entirely on voluntary involvement, atrophied and it all became part and parcel of the council-run scheme.

All that money has been stopped now. It was always going to be stopped. It was not just because of the Government’s cuts, although perhaps it has stopped a bit more quickly than it might otherwise have done. As a result, we now have the NAG meeting where these people come together, but there are far fewer resources than there used to be. We have all got to start again. That is a lesson of governments spending a lot of money perhaps in very good ways and then suddenly pulling it out again. Most of the areas of neighbourhood management in Lancashire have closed down. Throughout Pendle, including in my ward, we are keeping it going because, despite the present budget difficulties, the council has been able to put some mainstream resources into what it now calls its locality working team.

On Thursday evening, I am going to a meeting of the Colne and District Area Committee, an area committee of Pendle Council, which takes a lot of decisions about what happens in our town and in our part of the borough. It consists of all the councillors in our part of the borough. It does all the planning applications in that area but takes lots of other decisions as well, has resources to spend and makes decisions quite independently of the central council setup. The important thing about these meetings is that people can turn up and take part in the meeting. They can speak on any item on the agenda, tell us what they think and very often change for the better the decisions that are made.

All that was done without any national legislation. There are no local government Acts, localism Acts or whatever telling our council how to run area committees or how to involve residents in the working of the council in various ways. We have done it because it was thought to be the best way to do it. At the time, there was a lot of opposition. Now, you could not tear the councillors and the council away because it works very well.

There is a lesson to be learnt here: under the previous Government, the Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Act came into being. I think that there are six pages of detailed primary legislation about how councillors should deal with petitions. During the passage of that Bill, I detained the Committee for quite a long time, as the noble Baroness, Lady Andrews, will remember, when I tried to point out that it was all nonsense. Councillors are perfectly able to make up their own minds about how to deal with petitions. If they cannot, and do not, they can be turfed out and councillors with more sense can be found.

One of the good things about this Bill is that it scraps all that petition nonsense. Instead, we have all this new referendum nonsense, which is far worse. It is far more complicated and time-consuming, and will be far more costly. I hope that the House of Lords will kick it out. It is exactly the same kind of nonsense; that is, the only way to get councils to behave reasonably when residents in an area want to put forward their views is to produce detailed, national legislation, along with reams of guidance and regulations. That is not localism. It is top-down legislation.

The noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, said something really interesting when she explained what happens in her area when residents are “on the warpath”. That is the other side of localism. It is people campaigning, agitating and deciding something for themselves, not the council saying that it has got to be done this way or whatever. It is about going out and occupying a council chamber with wheelchairs, which takes me back to my youth. It is a political rather than a bureaucratic and administrative process—not party political, but politics with a small “p”. People decide to do something about a problem, they get organised and put the pressure on.

This is the sort of thing that the kind of people who have written this legislation do not understand at all, but I think that some Ministers understand it only too well. I hope that we can bend the legislation a bit so that people who want to agitate in this way will find it easier to do so. We can provide structures for people to gain access more easily, just as we have provided structures to allow people access to our area committee. What we cannot do, of course, is force people to act. However, the way to really get them involved is to make them angry by closing something down or doing things they do not agree with, but that is the way of the world.

21:11

[Lord Mawson]

My Lords, I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate the Government on bringing this Bill before the House. It holds important opportunities for local communities to take hold of their assets and use them to mould their own futures. In my view, particularly in the inner cities, too many people’s lives have been controlled by the state, with disastrous results for some of the poorest communities in the country. The state has often been responsible for creating dependency cultures which breed poverty, apathy and a lack of ownership. The human spirit, which always seeks to create and take responsibility for life, has been dulled, and the taxpayer has paid the price. It is time to begin to pass the ownership of and responsibility for local assets to local people. This Bill represents a small first step forward by boldly handing over public sector assets directly to those individuals and organisations who wish to help build their local communities’ future. I believe that the Bill will be welcomed by many communities and forward-thinking local authorities. For example, the mayor of Newham, Sir Robin Wales, is currently leading a debate on how his council can help residents take control of their lives and improve their situation and stop delivering services in ways that sustain and encourage dependence.

I would like to focus my comments on Part 4 which is concerned with community empowerment, and particularly Chapter 3 which enables voluntary and community bodies such as churches and charities, as well as public sector employees delivering services, to express an interest in running a local authority service. This is an important step forward. If we truly want to empower communities, they need to take responsibility for their own future by building enterprises and taking ownership of local assets. This very practical activity can, in my experience, not only develop entrepreneurial skills but also, in diverse communities, create community cohesion and build new relationships. One of the ways to ease racial tensions is by investing money in practical projects where people from different communities have to come together to take hold of their futures as individuals. We would see greater unity in the divided communities of Bolton and Bradford if the Government began to hand over physical assets to those local communities, apply funding streams in a way that brings people together, and demand the input of community practitioners and activists. Practical projects, if managed well, can be game changers in local communities if the public sector gets out of the way and gives local people the space to be entrepreneurial.

Innovation in health and education will not come through speeches, policy papers and strategy documents. Change will come through local leaders, be they doctors, teachers, social entrepreneurs or residents, taking ownership of land, buildings and services and running them. As I have repeatedly pointed out in your Lordships’ House, there are nearly 50,000 churches in Britain which, along with other faith communities, would be interested in playing a key role in the big society by stimulating an enterprise environment. There can be real social and economic benefits if local social enterprises are encouraged to run integrated services. This works in practice because social enterprises, like churches, can look at the totality of the local context, the experience of the individual and the family, and not just one bit of it. I and my colleagues have done this for many years now in all of our projects, especially in East London, with some success. It is essential for us to create across this country a culture of learning by doing. Part 4 of the Bill begins to give local communities the tools to do just that. Let none of us be under the illusion that this is easy and that a few lines in the Bill will make change happen. There are real challenges here.

The Bill in its present form asks for two extremely unequal parties—the local authority and the local partner—to work through complex community issues. This disproportionate relationship will result in the local authority holding all the cards and, if it is opposed to the novel ideas presented in this Bill, it will use its full hand to prevent change despite any paper reassurances that the Bill can offer to the contrary. I had direct experience of this problem some years ago. Let me describe what happened in practice.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Tower Hamlets had a new Liberal Democrat council. In a bid to bring decision-making closer to the community, the Lib Dems divided the borough into seven neighbourhoods which would have some semblance of devolved control over the decisions that affected them. Although this sounded innovative at the time, we soon came to realise that the fundamental concerns behind the thinking was wrong. This approach, in common with the ideas of other parties which would follow, cared more about implementing structures than about working with local leaders and the agents of change. The frequently shifting political landscape was tough on the people of Bow. Every political change seemed to be followed by at least three years of chaos while new structures were implemented and old ones taken down. During these chaotic years, my team and I decided to forge ahead and encourage people from the voluntary sector to work with people from the public sector on a joint project which could, we hoped, offer an intelligent response to some of the so-called intractable social problems.

The chief executive, Bill Tomlinson—a good man—wanted to take the localism agenda further and explored the transfer of local authority services to community organisations, a somewhat radical idea at the time. The Bromley-by-Bow Centre decided to look at each area of council activity in our local area and see which services could be contracted out to us. We were proposing a long-term contractual relationship instead of one based on short-term grants. Every Friday afternoon my colleagues would sit down with Bill and one of his heads of services and attempt to come to an agreement that would move the project forward. Some of the conversations were positive and some were straightforwardly hostile, but eventually we agreed a contract comprising three elements of responsibility that we—at that time a small voluntary sector project—would take charge of. The services to be transferred to us were agreed as: running community education classes; providing care services for local elderly and disabled people; and running the local park. We believed that we had the capacity and experience to now take ownership of these services and run them well; the council thought so, too.

Unfortunately, one week after the ink was dry, the Liberal Democrats lost control of the borough to Labour even though our ward remained Lib Dem. As usual, structures had to change. The infrastructure of seven neighbourhoods was swiftly removed and, in its place, Labour invented seven committees to run the borough instead. It took another five years until we were able to start having a coherent conversation again with the local authority. In 2000, a more dynamic relationship began to develop between the centre, the council and the health service. New, more business-minded leadership teams were thankfully appearing in these public sector bodies. For 10 years we worked well together.

How will the Government address the imbalance in this relationship so that two unequal partners, operating with different scales of resources and responsibilities, can achieve a desired outcome? Will this Bill actually be practicable for a local social enterprise to successfully challenge its local authority and seek to run a service? The key, I believe, lies with who decides the specifications of the service and the cost. Will that person be independent and local so that the devil in the detail is understood? There needs, of course, to be provision for the possibility that a community organisation, like any part of the public and business sectors, can fail and that a service contract or community asset will need to be recovered by a local authority. Again, getting the detail of this right will be important.

My question to the Minister is: does anybody currently drafting this legislation have personal experience of challenging a local authority when trying to deliver a service? If the Minister would find it helpful, I would be willing to share our considerable experience in this area and explore together how we might make this piece of the legislation workable in practice.

21:20

[Lord Black of Brentwood]

My Lords, I warmly welcome the Bill. I have some specific points to raise on certain aspects of it, but, before doing so, I shall make a brief observation about what I believe will be the highly beneficial impact of the legislation on local authority members.

I was a district councillor in Brentwood in the late 1980s. Although I have played no subsequent role in local government, I know that public service and the burdens that go with it have changed considerably since then and not always for the better. I may be a little dewy-eyed about it, but, back then, it seemed that councillors were relatively free to campaign on issues, to talk openly about planning issues and to work with their local communities free from burdensome regulation. In recent years, that freedom has been seriously eroded. Councillors are far too often warned off pursuing particular policies because of a possible clash with other laws and regulations or the threat of judicial review, as my noble friend Lady Eaton outlined earlier. This has been compounded by the real danger from no-win no-fee arrangements and the menace of the compensation culture. This is particularly true in the area of planning where overly burdensome rules on predetermination make it impossibly difficult for citizens to engage with their local representatives or to seek to get them to campaign on important local issues. I agree wholeheartedly with the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, on this.

Along with the welcome abolition of the Standards Board regime—I know that we have heard different views about that today—which encourages trivial complaints about local councillors and has become something of a busybodies’ charter, the clarification in the Bill of the rules on predetermination and the introduction of the general power of competence will return much needed freedoms to local councillors to act in the best interests of their communities.

When I was a councillor, I learnt from the pages of the Brentwood Gazette about the vital importance to local communities and to active citizenship of a vibrant and informed local media. By that, I mean not just the local newspaper—which is highly significant in any community—but also local radio and the local advertising community, an equally important part of the civic tapestry. In a few small respects, there are issues in the Bill which impact on this local media landscape and I want briefly to highlight them. In doing so, I declare an interest as executive director of the Telegraph Media Group and as a director of the Advertising Standards Board of Finance, which funds the work of the Advertising Standards Authority.

The vast majority of the objectives contained within the Localism Bill pertaining to advertising, including restrictions on the placement of advertising trailers in fields as well as on fly-posting and graffiti, are to be warmly welcomed, but there is one minor exception relating to outdoor advertising and to Clause 111. Outdoor advertising sites play an important role in the life of a community. Around 30,000 large roadside billboards nationwide advertise local services, liven up derelict areas and often act as important points of public information. The vast majority of these advertisements comply fully with the law and with the codes of advertising practice policed by the Advertising Standards Authority. Very occasionally, however, a local planning authority finds it necessary to take enforcement action against a site where the media owner has not apparently complied with relevant legislation in obtaining planning permission.

At the moment, outside London, an advertiser has the right of appeal against that decision to a local magistrates’ court, which can weigh up the issues and reach a swift decision without too much cost to the local authority or the advertiser. Disputes can be resolved without fuss where they should be: in the community involved. That is localism in action. It is a different matter within London, where, under Section 11 of the London Local Authorities Act 1995, there is no right of appeal and an advertiser can challenge a decision, at great expense, only by judicial review. This is a power which in two judgments of the High Court, most recently by Mr Justice Irwin in Clear Channel v London Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham in 2009, has been described as “draconian” because of the lack of an appeal process and because media owners are often deterred from challenging a possibly erroneous use of a power by a local planning authority because of the costs involved.

It therefore seems quite wrong that a Bill dealing with localism should seek—as it does in Clause 111—to remove the common-sense, local right of appeal within local authorities outside of London and replace it with this draconian, anti-local and unfair regime that exists in the capital, clogging up the valuable time of the High Court in the process. That is completely the wrong way round. Surely we should be respecting the rights of local communities to deal with such matters within those communities rather than in a far off court by importing into London the system that works so well outside rather than the other way around. That would be real localism.

Dealing with this point would also cover off an important point of principle. As far as I can tell, Clause 111 appears to be extremely unusual in the context of this legislation in that it is the only provision within Part 5 relating to planning that lacks any right of appeal. That cannot be just and I hope we can deal with this constructively in Committee, as it is at heart a technical not an ideological issue and one that I believe has cross-party support.

I will make one very quick point about local newspapers and their scrutiny role in the local community, a point touched on by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Norwich earlier. As this House has discussed many times, local newspapers have a vital role in scrutinising local authorities and the way in which local taxpayers’ money is spent. If localism is to mean anything, and this legislation is to work in practice, it must mean that local people have access to information about how decisions are taken. How else can they take advantage of the exciting new powers this Bill offers them, which my noble friend Lord Wei outlined earlier?

In recent years this has become more difficult with the move to cabinet-run councils taking secret decisions behind closed doors. The provisions in the Bill on the establishment of oversight and scrutiny committees to hold the local authority executive to account can help roll back that tide and allow such committees to become a valuable addition to public access rights. However, this is not a substitute for a free and vigorous local press, which must be allowed rights to attend the actual local government meetings at which decisions are discussed.

That is why I am concerned that the Bill does not more clearly limit the fairly widespread ability of local authorities to exclude the local media from access to meetings. This can be remedied if the Secretary of State is prepared to issue robust regulations under paragraph 11 of Schedule 2 to the Bill and the new Part 1A of the Local Government Act 2000, which are predicated upon openness. I am sure that this is the instinct of the Secretary of State—it certainly fits in with the spirit of this Bill—and I hope that at some point during the passage of the legislation the Minister will be able to reassure us on those points.

I hope these small points I have raised can be tidied up in Committee because this is an excellent Bill, which I believe has the potential to be as significant in handing real powers to local people and energising them in their local communities as the right to buy was in the 1980s in creating a property-owning democracy. In doing so it will have my wholehearted support.

21:28

[Baroness Thornton]

My Lords, since the Government have completely failed to provide me with a health Bill this summer, I thought I might keep in legislative shape by taking a look at the Localism Bill; and indeed the person responsible for it. Eric Pickles was in my younger years—and indeed his, because we are the same age—infamous as the leader of my home town, as well as that of the noble Lord, Lord Patel: Bradford. We bear the scars, I have to say. He managed to wreak significant damage on the fabric of the city before he lost an election.

If noble Lords will bear with me, I would like to take a small trip down memory lane with Mr Pickles and then I will address my remarks to the community right to challenge and right to buy. I expect the Prime Minister believed that Eric Pickles’s time as a councillor and leader in Bradford qualified him for this job. However, I wondered if the Prime Minister had read a book called The Pickles Papers by Tony Grogan. I recommend it to your Lordships’ House; I recommend it to David Cameron, to the coalition partners and particularly to the civil servants at the DCLG and perhaps the Bill team. It tells the story of what Eric Pickles likes to call the Bradford revolution. As my noble friend Lord Beecham has suggested, there are parts of the Bill that reflect the obsessions of Mr Pickles, and, if I might add, it feels to some Bradfordians that there are parts of the Bill that are about settling some old scores.

I remember the so-called Bradford revolution well, as I am sure the noble Baroness, Lady Eaton, would too, were she in her place. This period had all the ingredients of a soap opera rather than a council chamber: intrigue, double-dealing, ambition, power, sex, money, conspiracy, corruption, betrayal and blackmail. They are all in the book. I have to say, my Lords, do not get too excited about the sex or blackmail.

What we actually saw was a city leader in Bradford who was mostly financially supported by Conservative Central Office and using Bradford as a Thatcherite experiment, with the slimmest of majorities. Indeed, with the casting vote of our lord mayor, whom Mr Pickles confirmed in his position for two years instead of the usual one, he then revealed a plan to wipe out what he called the municipal socialism of Bradford for ever and to transform Bradford Metropolitan Council into Bradford plc, with himself as chairman of the board of directors. He did significant damage to the city—and I am very much aware of some of this, because members of my family worked in the voluntary sector. He tried to kill off the voluntary sector, including organisations which promoted racial harmony. His cuts created huge hardship in the poorest communities. He closed down the youth services, and he raised the prices of meals on wheels not once but twice in a year, and so on.

This may seem familiar to noble Lords. Just think about the cuts that Mr Pickles volunteered local government for with great alacrity. Just think about the 142 extra powers in the Bill and the toxic Henry VIII powers in Part 5. As if to add insult to injury in Bradford, we are in line for a shadow mayor. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Wei, that he should beware—this is not a politician to whom the words “big society” come easily, I suspect.

I turn to the right to buy and the right to challenge, because I am an optimist. In a nutshell, the right to buy is intended to facilitate the takeover of public buildings and other assets by community groups and local charities. The right to challenge would allow local groups to express an interest in running a local service which they felt they could provide better. The noble Lord, Lord Mawson, spoke about the poetry in the value of these proposals, but I intend to be slightly more prosaic.

Could the Minister confirm that, although we are merely starting to consider this Bill—and this House may have serious and substantial amendments to make to this part of the Bill, on the issue of asset locks or whatever—the DCLG has launched consultations on the detail of supplementary regulations that will govern how these new rights are supposed to work? In terms of policy-making and parliamentary scrutiny, this seems not so much to be putting the cart before the horse as trying to bake the cake with only half the ingredients.

With regard to assets of potential community value, currently it is not clear whether the asset listing can include assets which are of potential community value, as well as those that have had community value in the past, or currently. The Bill indicates this would be possible, but the consultation paper actually indicates otherwise. This seems to be of obvious and a lot of importance. Often community organisations can find new and transformative uses for assets which otherwise are underused or even liabilities. Will the new powers encourage creative and innovative community action? For instance, derelict land is a good case in point, and there are very good examples of this.

One consequence of not allowing the right to apply to assets of potential community value would be to create a disincentive for landowners to allow informal use of property by the community, as the Countryside Landowners Association complained about, which has already been raised today. If, however, the right also applies to assets of potential community value, then the fact that a landowner had previously allowed community use would become of less consideration for local authorities in determining which assets should be listed, so the disincentive would be diminished.

The Government need to address the issue of the moratorium period, as they need to strike the right balance between the interests of property owners and the challenges facing community groups. A period of three to six months may not be enough, and Locality—previously the Development Trust Association—which has been working with community groups on community asset transfer from both public and private property for nearly 20 years, tells me that three months would be wholly inadequate for this purpose, and even six months might be too short. This is one issue that we will need to discuss.

There are a lot of issues about the community right to buy. For instance, there is the right of first refusal, wanting to avoid the bureaucracy that has made the Scottish model cumbersome, and the right of first refusal being workable without additional bureaucracy. I suggest to the Minister, given that this issue has been raised several times, that we should have a meeting to discuss the issues of first refusal and asset locks. This is such an important issue, around which I think there will be a great deal of consensus.

There are several issues with the community right to challenge. Briefly, can the Minister confirm whether in determining who makes an expression of interest to run a service the priority should be given only to local community groups? It seems important that the local authority should have the option of procuring the service directly from the organisation submitting the expression of interest, if it considers that desirable, yet that would obviously need to take place within the regulatory framework of commissioning. I recognise that in some cases the EU rules or other requirements will necessitate an open tender approach but that is not always the case.

It would be helpful if the Government could encourage commissioners to procure services from community groups who submit an expression of interest and, in some cases, use a grant rather than a contract approach as a suitable way forward. However, is that one-way traffic? In other words, what happens if there is an electoral mandate to continue to provide a service in-house, perhaps based on the unsatisfactory experience of an out-of-house provider? It seems that the Bill looks at it as one-way only. Perhaps the Minister could clarify that issue for me.

I am concerned about how the right to challenge will manifest itself and I will be seeking reassurance that there is a proper test of community and accountability. I fear that we may have a case here of the old-school Conservative “councils should meet once a year to hand out contracts” faction engaging in an awkward dance with the new-wave “radically devolve powers to local communities” faction. The result could be that the right to challenge would look less like a tool for community empowerment and more like a lever to accelerate access to the private sector. I am sure that is not the intention, but we need to make sure that the safeguards in the Bill mean that it cannot happen.

21:37

[Lord True]

My Lords, I declare an interest as leader of a London borough that, under successive management, has practised localism and is vigorously practising it now without Parts 4 and 5 of this Bill. I strongly support the Bill’s principles. It is a sea change, as others have said, from the old top-down ways in its inspiration. Good local government is certainly, in the old cliché, close to the people. I also believe that it should be ready to yield power to communities and the people and I agree with a lot of what the noble Lord, Lord Mawson, said.

If people genuinely believe that becoming involved will make a difference, they will turn out at elections, come to meetings, go on demonstrations, yes, and express intelligent views and run things. The Bill rightly wants to encourage that but the mechanisms for people to do so must be accessible, comprehensible and transparent and I cannot say that about everything in the Bill. In fact, probably only Whitehall could think localism and write a 430-page government Bill to deliver it, as the noble Lord said at the outset. The essence of localism is infinite variety. We must not chew up creativity and variety in an overheated word processor and I know that Ministers do not want that to happen.

Your Lordships will not be surprised that I, like others, regret that the elixir of localism evaporates in London—the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, made this point. London boroughs cannot initiate development corporations under the Bill; the mayor must decide. Our regional planning strategy is not being abolished and we are still under City Hall. When our local authority agrees that a three-bedroom house may have up to two parking places, London regional government instantly intervenes to say that it can be only 1.5 spaces. Try explaining half a car space to a local resident. The point is that there is not much localism there, and where London is concerned there is not enough change in the Bill. In fact, regional government gains authority and, by Clause 199, it could get even more. I would like to explore that in Committee.

One answer might well be that there is a general power of competence. Like others, I welcome that and thank Ministers for it. But how far will the system let this good idea go? I hope a very long way, because local government and local communities need change and experiment in an age of technological change and limitations on resources.

Already I hear some calling for more restrictions on the general power of competence. The problem is that even now the general power will not trump some other legislation. We are trying to set up social enterprises from within our local authority, but European procurement rules obstruct the creation of viable large-scale social enterprises freed from council control. We are spending quite a lot of money on lawyers for this at the moment. Perhaps I could have better advice from the noble Lord, Lord Mawson. So I appeal to Ministers to resist attempts to confine this general power of competence.

On the core aim of promoting public involvement, I appeal for simplicity. Give local authorities the incentive to involve people and I believe many more will do so. Some parts of this Bill still assume that local authorities will not listen. As a result, they offer challenge procedures that risk being complex and costly, as other noble Lords have pointed out, and potentially far more open to use by political parties or lobbies than the average citizen. I applaud the intentions, but some effects could be perverse, and I think we can improve them in Committee. I support referendums on excessive council tax rises, but, as other noble Lords have said, the plan to unleash referendums where just 5 per cent of local people in an electoral area ask for one—it might be 300 people or so or even a couple of perhaps disgruntled councillors—may be highly time-consuming and vexatious. It could be a licence for politically organised single-issue campaigning, which will not encourage mature and open decision-making or help local communities. If we go down this road—I agree that referendums have value—the triggers should be higher.

Like others, I am sceptical about the complex machinery for neighbourhood plans and neighbourhood forums. There are good ideas there, but they need more exploration. If neighbourhood planning is already happening at local authority level, why duplicate it? In our borough we are trying to do neighbourhood planning already, and I believe that to be effective it needs to be dynamic, open, almost anarchic, as the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, said, and not on a rigid model. People come in the doors and put their points of view for different reasons and in different ways. It needs a changing cast of people involved as the questions in different areas evolve. To work, it has to involve far more than 21 people who cannot be moved on for five years in some cases.

We must not create a disincentive for local authorities to take a lead. What would happen if—as in our case—having invested years working informally to design neighbourhood plans in concert with thousands of people across the borough—up pop groups of campaigners or, worse, civil servants, waving this Act and demanding it be done again. Like others who have spoken, I believe it would be simpler to allow some limited public third-party appeal where a local authority did not follow its own plan. I am sorry that promise was dropped by the coalition Government. In essence, while strongly supporting the Bill in principle, and I believe it can be made an outstanding and historic Bill, a good Localism Act might well be permissive, not prescriptive. It must treat local authorities as part of the solution, not part of the problem. It should let local authorities whose adopted local development framework does not reflect local views and neighbourhood plans tear up that framework. It is not clear to me that Clause 97 allows that. It should.

In conclusion I would say that I also worry about procedures on the lists of assets of community value. Here is a really excellent idea to protect local pubs, post offices and resources, but it has been expanded too far and it is potentially invasive of rights. We will have to adjust that in Committee. As a local authority leader, I also welcome the community right to challenge, which is very important. As my noble friend Lord Jenkin said, why can local authorities not challenge to do things? For example, a local authority could replace a lazy RSL or, in London, perhaps run our high streets, instead of a remote body such as TfL.

The Bill will improve local communities in many ways. In essence, we need to be more experimental and supportive, and less prescriptive. Parts of the Bill will need to be pared down and it must not be made more complex. I hope it emerges from this House thinner but no less focused on the vital objective of involving local people in decisions that affect their lives.

21:45

[Lord Boateng]

My Lords, localism has many friends on all sides of this House. I suspect that, as we consider the Bill and seek to improve it, we will approach that task in a friendly way. We all believe in localism because of our own experience, with so many of us having grown up, as it were, in local government.

There is, however, a problem. For localism to be delivered effectively on the ground requires two things in particular: trust and risk taking. In my experience of government, Ministers do not much trust anyone with their pet projects—those policies that they have been striving to bring to fruition for so many years, particularly those bitter wilderness years in opposition. Now that they have the opportunity to do it, they are being asked to cede power. The Treasury trusts no one. I say that with hand on heart. Civil servants are not prone to risk taking. I say that having been one. Therefore, in those circumstances we have a problem—something that has contributed to the schizophrenia that lies at the heart of the Bill, as has been exposed and shared with us by several colleagues, again on all sides of the House. They point on the one hand to the Secretary of State giving and on the other to the Secretary of State taking away, or holding close to his own chest. That is something that we will have to deal with in Committee. We must engender a little more trust and create space for risk taking, recognising that, from time to time, localism will go wrong. We have to be prepared for that.

Reflecting on the comments of the noble Lord, Lord True, one person’s variety is another person’s postcode lottery. The challenge, therefore, is to create a context in which it is possible to unleash and unlock the potential that comes from local communities; and to give people an opportunity to have a go, feel engaged and have a sense that their activism counts for something and can go beyond mere protest to the tough, rough business of delivery, which many of us who have been local councillors know something about. How can we achieve that when, at the same time, there are huge restraints on public spending and resources are a real issue out there in the field? That will require all the ingenuity and good will that can be mustered across central government.

We are also faced with the challenge that the Bill is being introduced alongside the restraints on spending at the same time as the Government are rolling out their big idea. However, I argue that it ought not to be seen as the big idea of any one Government as it is something that we all ought to be able to recognise as having real value—that is, the concept of the big society. If the big society is to be made a reality, it has to be about empowering individuals and communities. If that is to happen, we are going to need more than strong, active local government; we shall need strong, active communities because localism is not just about getting the balance right between central and local government but about enabling individuals to come together at grass-roots level to take responsibility for their own lives and communities, and to do so within a legislative context that is truly enabling and empowering. That is the trick that we have to pull off in Committee and as the Bill goes through Parliament. We should welcome the opportunity to do so.

In some ways it is a pity that we did not have this opportunity at a more auspicious time in terms of the public finances because the reality for so many groups on the ground—we are grateful to ACEVO, the Association of Chief Executives of Voluntary Organisations, and to many other organisations representing the voluntary sector for giving us the relevant statistics—is that some councils are responding to spending cuts by looking after their own and are passing on disproportionate cuts to the voluntary sector and to community groups, thereby reducing the very community capacity to build the big society that we need.

The Minister will recognise the importance of small community groups in promoting good practice. For example, the Pepper Pot Day Centre—an organisation that she will know well because she was a strong supporter of it when she was a distinguished leader of a local authority—has pioneered innovative ways of caring for the ethnic minority elderly. The fact of the matter is that such small voluntary groups up and down the country are threatened by the cuts. I am afraid that we do not always find sympathy in local government for such groups or a willingness to cede power. We do not always find a willingness to protect such groups, some of which are rather difficult and challenging—they are all the better for it—from the impact of cuts. The prime example of the big society to which the Prime Minister referred when he was asked what he understood the big society to mean was the citizens advice bureaux. Those bureaux are bearing the brunt of local authority spending cuts.

I hope that during our deliberations on the Bill, the Minister will have her civil servants brief her on the report of the Commission on Big Society. I declare an interest as I was a member of that commission. It was chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, and included among its number the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of London and a Conservative member of the other place, but perhaps even more significantly, members and leaders of voluntary sector organisations from all over the country. The commission made three recommendations which I should like to share with the House, and which I hope the Minister will consider as we move onto the next stage.

The commission’s first recommendation states:

“That the Government amend the Public Services (Social Enterprise and Social Value) Bill so that it requires commissioners to consider not just the full social, environmental and economic impact of their decisions in awarding contracts to different potential providers, as it does currently, but also explicitly to consider the impact of their decisions on individual and community empowerment, and to do so when decommissioning or cutting a service as well as when commissioning one”.

That would make a real difference and concentrate the mind in a way that would enhance, rather than detract from, the big society and localism.

The second recommendation states that, given the threat to so many smaller voluntary organisations up and down the country, the Government should,

“shorten its consultation period, and make its proposed guidance on local government funding avoiding disproportionate cuts to the voluntary sector”—

that is, through the impact of the statutory sector’s decisions on the voluntary sector—

“with immediate effect”.

That would provide some immediate relief for some of the organisations who are currently bearing the brunt of so many of the cuts.

Finally, the Government should,

“require local councils to publish their spending on the voluntary sector, as the Minister for Decentralisation has previously called for, and … the Treasury collate, quality-assure and publish the information, so that councils can be held to account by civil society groups”

and can be subject to proper public scrutiny.

All of that is doable in the context of the Bill. None of it requires additional public expenditure, but it would make a reality of the localism that we all seek, the localism that truly enables and empowers.

21:56

[Baroness Hamwee]

I should declare an interest as joint president of London Councils, vice-president and past president of the Town and Country Planning Association, and, as I remain a member of what my noble friend Lord Tope calls the local government party, as an ex-member and chair of the London Assembly and a past member of a London borough council.

I find myself torn over the Bill. The Government acknowledge and seek to address ingrained centralism. I acknowledge that I have talked tediously over the years about seeing power not as granted from the centre but as coming up from citizens. I say citizens, because citizenship is an important concept and community, which is also important, begs almost as many questions as it answers. Community empowerment, as others have said, reflects a rather top-down attitude.

I am sad to say that I read the Bill as rather anti-democratic. Representative democracy, to which other noble Lords have referred, is about the vesting of trust in representatives at a local level: representatives who are in a position to raise their sights, to make connections between issues and assess priorities. That is to be bolstered. I would like the Government to exercise a self-denying ordinance and get away from the mindset that they need to protect people against their local authority.

The Secretary of State at CLG could play a big advocacy role within Whitehall on behalf of local government—I suggest education and taxation for starters. I share the view that the provision for referenda on council tax increases above a centrally set ceiling is capping under another name.

There is also an obligation on local authorities to rise to the challenge. I hope that the power of general competence will not be so constrained that local authorities and members will be tentative about its use. We are told that the Secretary of State does not intend to use the wide-ranging powers to limit the power of general competence and that he will use it lightly, but being told that may not be enough. I am with the noble Lord, Lord True, here.

The Bill does not go back to first principles. In grafting this power on to existing provisions, is the Minister satisfied that there has been a thorough trial of pre-existing legislation which will constrain local authorities?

One of my first principles is that power is best shared. I have always had a problem with the model of the elected mayor and I have an even greater problem with the concept of shadow mayors. I am very puzzled about how that can be described as anything but: “We at the centre know best; we know you have mechanisms now for a directly elected mayor, if you wish, but let us show you the error of your ways”. I think the Minister will have got that message from the House this evening.

A lot is going on in the local scene. Over the past few days, we have had long debates in this Chamber on the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill. Reference has been made during those proceedings to this Bill and, among other things, to possible confusion between mayors—the post-holders—and police and crime commissioners. If we have coincidental elections, we shall make the problem even worse.

I am also concerned about the costs to local authorities inherent in this Bill. I am not concerned about the costs of democracy, but do we need legislation for the referendum on the council tax and the other referendums? The need to manage local expectations worries me considerably. On the community right to challenge, anyone who has been in the private sector knows the costs for everyone when there is a beauty parade of who can pitch the most persuasively. On the provisions about community assets, is it just the lawyer in me that stumbles over restrictions on the disposal of one’s own property? Will there be an unintended consequence that property will not be developed in the widest sense for the good of the community because of a fear by the owner of losing out in the longer term?

The neighbourhood fora are self-selecting, unaccountable, without proprietary rules, and so on. The noble Lord, Lord Lucas, alluded to that. The local authority will have a lot of shepherding and support in this area for neighbourhood development orders which will, in effect, give planning consent. They seem to me to contain the seeds of real difficulties beyond resources.

The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Derby referred to the advantaged position of those with social capital and, if I were a resident of a village which wanted to keep it just as it was, I would recruit like-minded neighbours and make sure that we had no additional housing in the neighbourhood and I would shift the issue on to other villages that were not so quick off the starting block. I think that was the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Cameron. If a local authority does not have up-to-date, adequate housing assessments, how will an examiner, who looks at a local plan, consider it in terms of housing numbers?

I would like to put in a word for the strategic, following the noble Baroness, Lady Andrews. Should planning not be a strategic activity? The regional tier has gone, essentially, I think, because of the politics. What failed? Was it the concept or the practice? We need meaningful, effective strategic planning. The duty to co-operate does not deal with, for instance, the spatial boundaries of a catchment area. It seems to me to be quite circular. If everyone has to co-operate with everyone else, but there are no shared objectives and no shared priorities, how do you start or how do you get off the merry-go-round? Like my noble friend Lady Parminter and others, I am very unclear about how local finance becoming a material consideration will work. I am struggling to understand whether this runs counter to Clause 106, which deals with the impact and the consequences of a decision—not the catalyst for it.

The NPPF has been mentioned and the concerns are recognising the links between the built environment, health, well-being, climate change, adaptation and so on. Echoing the noble Baroness, Lady Valentine, the notion of sustainable communities is really important and it is important that we see the framework very soon so that we can be reassured that it is not in danger of going down the plughole mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Marlesford.

There is a purpose to planning and it needs to be stated. I do not see that sustainable development and planning for prosperity need to be in conflict because I do not think sustainable development is necessarily anti-growth.

It has not been possible to touch on all parts of the Bill. I congratulate the Minister and other noble Lords who covered so much ground with so much expertise and wisdom. Finally, I will pick up the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Filkin, about standards. My noble friend muttered to me, rightly, that we must not overreact to problems with the Standards Board and let those distract us from the issue. There is a lot to address in Committee, and our duty will be to ensure that the legislative basis is there for the cultural shift to which the noble Baroness, Lady Eaton, referred, not just job creation for the regulation drafters.

I said I was torn over the Bill; maybe the grand old man, Mr Gladstone—not particularly a loyalist, I think —was right when he talked about,

“trust of the people, tempered by prudence”.

22:06

[Lord Walpole]

My Lords, I declare my interest as a rural landowner, with various houses and workshops and things. I am a Cross-Bencher, and the important thing about Cross-Benchers is that we are not whipped. We listen to the facts. I have been here all day, listening to facts, and they have been quite fascinating. Like many Members of this House, I spent several years in local government before I came into the House, first of all on the Erpingham rural district council, and then on the old Norfolk County Council. I continued after that particular local government reorganisation, as a member of Norfolk County Council, and was involved with taking the structure plan to public examination. In fact, I think I knew more about Norfolk for 10 days than anyone ever has apart from the chief planning officer. I was also on the East Anglian Economic Planning Council, until the noble Baroness, Lady Thatcher, decided to get rid of us.

I looked at this Bill, when I first got it, in absolute amazement—the sheer size of it is daunting. However, I do agree with some of its objects. I hope that it will enable co-operatives to be able to run local shops, such as we do in our village at Itteringham. It is a very good shop and responds to local needs. On the other hand, there are some objects which this Bill includes about which I am more doubtful, such as the Norfolk Museum Service discussion about using a trust to run museums. Possibly this may help spend more money, but I am not sure they will spend it on the right things. The whole thing is sad, and we have got to watch it.

I would like to thank all those people who have contacted me by phone, letter and e-mail about the Bill; that gives me some idea of what people outside this House think about it, which is very useful. I will make two or three remarks about what has happened today. As my bishop is still here—and I did warn him that I would say this first—he pointed out that there is a difference between a parish that is urban and a parish that is rural. I hope that the Minister will remember that; it is very true. Also, the noble Baroness, Lady Scott of Needham Market—I should not choose all my local friends, should I?—was getting this mayor and chief officer to be sorted out properly. With regard to having elections, but not on the same day, one of my friends from Northern Ireland asked me if I realised that the last time they had elections there, some of them were first past the post and some were under the other system. How can you get people to vote two different ways on one day? To get them to vote for two people on one day is quite an achievement.

The noble Baroness, Lady Valentine, was right to ask for a review as soon as possible, perhaps a year after whatever happens, starts. I also enjoyed the remark of the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, about the difference between Pickles and Pericles. They are not quite the same person, but I enjoyed it. The last thing I noted, and I hope that the Minister noted it as well, were the remarks of the noble Baroness, Lady Whittaker, about regional things, such as regional design. That is more important than people realise: otherwise, there will be bits of London all over Norfolk and I do not want that.

There will have to be many changes to the Bill. I look forward to the Committee stage, and I thank the Minister—all in four minutes.

22:10

[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, for the manner in which she introduced the Bill and for her expressed willingness to engage in discussion on amendments in areas of difficulty. This has been an extensive and knowledgeable debate on an important but still flawed Bill. It was late in arriving at the other place and it was significantly rewritten in its final stages there, which puts a particular onus on this House to hold the Government to account.

Amendments notwithstanding, there remains a massive inconsistency at the core of the Bill, which the Government heralded as having the intent to transfer power to local authorities and local communities, but which is everywhere fettered by constraints and regulation-making powers held at the centre. The powers that will be wielded by the Secretary of State under Clause 5 were referred to by my noble friend Lord Beecham and by many other noble Lords, and are simply not acceptable. The Bill was described by the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, as not written in the spirit of localism, and referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, as antidemocratic. It also caused the noble Lord, Lord Tope, to question his understanding of “localism”.

We support localism, which gives communities greater opportunities to shape their future and the nature of their local environment, and how services are to be delivered. Where the Bill facilitates this, we will support it. However, such opportunities must not be simply nominal. As my noble friend Lord Patel of Bradford and others asserted, they must be real for all members of our communities, not just for the well resourced and articulate. This is especially relevant for neighbourhood planning. As my noble friend Lord Beecham explained in his brilliant opening speech, I will concentrate my remarks on the Opposition's position on planning proposals and comment on some of the finance and tax provisions of the Bill.

As we have heard, the Bill gives to local communities the power to veto, through a referendum, excessive council tax increases; it is a one-way option only. The Secretary of State will determine the benchmark for what is excessive; how the referendum will be conducted; the question to be put; the publicity to be permitted; expenditure levels that will be allowed; and how the votes are to be counted. They can direct that the referendum provisions do not apply and decree the council tax requirement that must operate. Effectively, the Secretary of State will set the maximum level of council tax increases each year, but will also set the terms on which it can be debated with local communities—so much for localism. We will seek to get on the record how it is proposed that these powers will be used. We do not oppose the provisions for changes to the business rate supplement, but it seems that apart from that introduced by the GLA for Crossrail, which is unaffected by the changes, none is currently in contemplation. The noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, made interesting comments about infrastructure funding; perhaps we will have an opportunity to debate that in Committee.

As to the broadening of powers for local authorities to grant discretionary non-domestic rate relief, we note and concur with the impact assessment that, though welcome, there will be little appetite for funding such discounts when there is no new government money, and where the local source of funding will have to come from council tax payers at a time when threatened referendums will constrain what can be raised. Obviously, different considerations would apply if the Government were to deliver on their commitment to the localisation of business rates, and we must scrutinise these proposals against that prospect. Perhaps the Minister will take the opportunity to update us on progress in this matter, and explain how the Bill will ensure that the commitment can be accomplished, together with ensuring that all authorities have adequate resources to meet the needs of their communities. Have the terms of the resource review finally been set, and can we still expect the report in July, before we finish our Committee deliberations?

As my noble friend outlined, notwithstanding amendments, we remain implacably opposed to the proposals to levy EU fines on local councils, and will work with other noble Lords to have them removed from the Bill. As the noble Baroness, Lady Eaton, and others rightly said, the LGA has designated these clauses as unfair, unworkable, dangerous and unconstitutional—again placing too much power in the hands of the Minister.

We support the thrust of the changes to housing finance, building as they do on the work of the previous Government. However, true to form, the Secretary of State cannot resist holding powers to reopen a settlement payment and to determine the overall indebtedness of a local authority, thereby undermining the new self-financing freedoms for local authorities.

The noble Lord, Lord Best, pressed the point—and we agree with the LGA—that in the prudential code the sector already has an effective approach to managing borrowing, and that the ongoing risk of changes to the settlement creates an uncertainty which is unhelpful to the planning of new investment. Many noble Lords referred to the planning system and the changes that the Bill encompasses. They are a major untested upheaval, made worse by the blundering approach of the Secretary of State, who had to be restrained by the courts but not before creating confusion and chaos for the local planning authorities, developers and communities alike.

We heard some powerful input from my noble friend Lady Andrews, the noble Lords, Lord Cameron, Lord Marlesford and Lord Redesdale, and the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, among others. The demise of regional spatial strategies and pronouncements to ignore housing allocations have, according to the National Housing Federation, already caused dramatic reductions of some 200,000 housing units being planned for in local development plans.

The regional spatial strategy regime is to be replaced by a duty to co-operate. There are to be changes to the process of local development frameworks and a new neighbourhood planning regime. Of course, alongside this sits—although not part of the Bill—the incentive of the new homes bonus. The abolition of regional spatial strategies will leave England as the only country in Europe without a regional planning framework, with, in our view, the duty to co-operate as an inadequate substitute.

In scrutinising these provisions we might start by borrowing from the Town and Country Planning Association, which says:

“At its best, the planning system can create the certainty to secure long-term investment and growth, address housing need, secure sustainable development and help local people to have a real voice in the future of their community”.

It is a good yardstick by which to evaluate the Bill.

Do the Government still adhere to the five principles of sustainable development set out in 2005? We await the promised draft national planning policy framework, where apparently all will be revealed including the promise that sustainable development will remain at the heart of the planning framework. But the omens are not good. We have had budget pronouncements—change of use and promised land auctions, for example—which suggest other considerations might prevail. We have Clause 124, which elevates financial receipts in the hierarchy of material considerations. This clause was introduced with no consultation, dialogue or debate and should surely not survive our deliberations. We have the recently published draft NPPF of the advisory group, which has a weak and inadequate definition of sustainable development. Perhaps we can be told the status of this document. The Minister will understand that in the absence of an acceptable draft of the official NPPF, the level of concern will continue to feed attempts to get definitions of sustainable development and the presumption in favour of sustainable development on the face of the Bill—a move which we will support.

Given its significance, I do not see how we can reasonably complete our Committee stage deliberations without a chance to scrutinise a draft NPPF. We will also continue to pursue amendments proposed by our colleagues in another place, focusing on putting the heart back into our high streets by requiring local planning authorities to include a retail diversity scheme within its local development framework.

The duty to co-operate is the Government's attempt to recognise the need for co-ordination at a spatial level higher than individual local planning authorities. Despite amendment, it falls short of an effective strategic approach to planning. Assessment of whether co-operation has taken place will be made retrospectively at the local development plan soundness test, but there are no effective boundaries to shape the extent of co-operation and there is no clarity on what is to be covered. Our concern is that the duty is essentially voluntary. As in the other place, we will seek to amend the Bill to ensure that sustainable development is a core objective of the co-operation, with obligations specifically to cover climate, housing, biodiversity and transport and to base the co-operation on a spatial area rather than just on neighbouring authorities.

I believe we would all support the concept of community-based planning and the opportunity for communities to shape their neighbourhood and local environment, but this will have to be accessible to all. It seems to us that the Government are still struggling with democratic legitimacy in cases where the neighbourhood is not defined by a parish council. The processes involved are incredibly bureaucratic and raise issues of capacity both for local authorities, which have a duty to support neighbourhood planning, and among the communities themselves. Neighbourhood forums, even with the need for an increased membership, need transparency and accountability and should have the involvement of elected councillors. The prospects for disputes seem high with potentially competing bids for recognition, disputes over whether someone works in an area and the status of a neighbourhood plan when the local development framework has not been completed.

We welcome the provisions for pre-application consultation. We also welcome the Government’s change of heart in continuing with the community infrastructure levy but will use the opportunity in Committee to explore further the issues raised with us and, doubtless, other noble Lords concerning the interaction with Section 106 money, its implications for affordable housing and the consequences of widening its use to the maintenance of infrastructure. Central diktat about how local authorities are to apply the levy is certainly outwith the spirit of localism.

The new planning system also has to be considered in the context of the new homes bonus, which, it is asserted, will be a powerful incentive for local authorities to pursue housing development. However, we do not consider this to be fully fit for purpose. We know it is going to be funded in large measure by top-slicing revenue support money. It is payable in retrospect and on the basis of net additions to the housing stock, so rather than being a plan for addressing national need, it will disadvantage regeneration projects and cause resources to be redistributed in favour of areas where demand for housing, particularly high-value housing, is strong. It can be no substitute for the necessity for local authorities to undertake a robust assessment of housing need. However, such assessments of themselves will only by chance aggregate to what at national or sub-national level amounts to overall need, including the social housing needs of those on low incomes.

There is plenty in this Bill to keep us busy in the coming weeks. We will scrutinise it rigorously but responsibly. I doubt whether eight days will be enough, given the debate we have had today. We will work with others and in particular will seek to: roll back and constrain the raft of powers to be held at the centre which imperil vital services, particularly those in Clause 5; to delete the abomination of imposed shadow mayors and the merger of roles; to remove provisions which allow EU fines to be visited arbitrarily on local authorities; to amend its housing provisions to protect those becoming homeless and in need of secure affordable housing; to support the LGA in seeking to improve the changes to housing finance; to put the presumption of sustainable development and a robust definition in the Bill; to strengthen the duty to co-operate; and to challenge some of the bureaucracy and lack of democratic legitimacy around neighbourhood planning. There is much else: the Welsh dimension, the issues around nationally significant infrastructure projects, London governance, the role of the MDC and the Standards Board, not to mention compulsory purchase and the compensation provisions.

In short, we want this Bill to be truly about localism where individuals and local communities are empowered, supported and resourced to shape and influence their neighbourhoods. To achieve this, we will need to change the Bill. We look forward to working with the noble Baroness to that effect.

22:25

[Baroness Hanham]

My Lords, when I woke up this morning, I thought to myself, “I am going to have seven hours or so of this Bill today. How on earth are we going to get through it?”. I have to say that I got through it with enormous enjoyment. There have been immensely good contributions. On just listening to what has been said and the way in which it has been said, people should take heart that legislation gets properly scrutinised and is taken really seriously in this House. Across the piece, I should like to thank everyone.

I am going to recommend to the Chief Whip that we stick to seven minutes for every Second Reading speech. The amount that noble Lords have packed in to their seven minutes is probably just as good as when someone goes on for 15 minutes. I thank all noble Lords for the effort that they have put into their speeches and for the strength and depth of knowledge that have come through. I genuinely say again that we are willing to talk and to listen. We were asked for meetings on a number of subjects, which we will have if people want them. I ask noble Lords to get in touch and we will see where minds meet. Where they do not meet, I am afraid that they do not. We will be looking forward to that in Committee.

We have about 15 minutes—the noble Lord opposite had 15 minutes—which is not a lot of time to deal with the major issues that have been raised. Nor is it long enough to mention every Peer who has spoken. Therefore, I am going to use a sort of self-denial and not mention anyone other than the two Front Benchers opposite, whom I thank for their kind opening remarks and for their closing remarks, my noble friend Lord Tope who opened for the Liberals and the noble Lord, Lord Ouseley, if he is in his place, who opened for the Cross-Benchers. That is it, and now I am not going to make any more comments about people. I am going to go, I hope, straight to what we have been talking about.

I sense that, while there is not complete agreement on the measures in the Bill, there is enough recognition of the need for localism and for a lot of the measures that we will be able to discuss sensibly at subsequent stages. I realise that there are issues to which people will want to come back. I know that many amendments will be moved in Committee but we now have a sense of where the thoughts of noble Lords are going on this.

Perhaps I may try to deal with some of the major areas which have been raised. The general power of competence is meant to be just that. It goes wider than the well-being power that was there previously. It is there to try to ensure that local authorities can, without feeling too fettered and without having a statutory framework around them, do some of the things that they want to do in terms of services and how they provide them, as well as do what they need to do in other areas.

In my opening remarks, I tried to deal with the powers of the Secretary of State. By and large, under the safeguards being built in, the Secretary of State is really going to deal just with taking away barriers to the power of competence. If things are standing in the way, he will be able to remove those legislatively without us having to come back to Parliament all the time. I hope that we will be able to move on on that.

On the governance issues, I understand that there are still concerns over the shadow mayors and those concerns were widely expressed. I know that we will come back to that, as we will to the combination of mayor and chief executive. I will wait with bated breath for that. While we want to look at the detail, it is important that we put mayors into the context of the overall package that we feel will be good both for cities and local democracy, and how decisions will ultimately be put into the hands of local people, which of course is the basis of the Bill. The purpose of the Bill is to pass power down. This is not a Bill that is going to constrain or be constrained by and large by the centre. It aims to pass as much as possible down to local authorities to deal with.

I hear the concerns about EU fines, but I think they may be a little bit over the top. The intention is only to deal with areas where this country is in danger of being infracted—I think that is the word—but I am bound to say that that does not happen very often. In fact, I do not think it has ever happened. However, there is a possibility, albeit remote, that a local authority just might be the cause of an infraction or of infraction proceedings being taken. It is for that reason that this provision has been inserted into the Bill. Clearly there would be discussions and decisions to be made about where the responsibility lay and how much could be taken by the centre. It is a power to get local authorities to watch EU legislation carefully so that they do not trip over it and end up with us all facing huge fines. I know that we shall come back to that one because I can see it in the faces of noble Lords opposite.

Let us look at the right to buy assets of community value, which has clearly caused a lot of concern—indeed, I have had discussions about it today. The list of assets will be constructed by the local authority, and people can ask for something which they consider to be an asset to be put on the list. The only time that that asset will come into public view is if the owner wants to sell it. If they wish to sell it, time will have to be given to a community group to put in an initial bid. It will have to be something that the community needs. We have talked about pubs and shops, and we heard about shops that have been taken over and run by communities. This gives a statutory back-up to what people have been doing in a voluntary way. It will provide a break between the sale being put forward and it taking place because a community group will be given the right to take some time for a bid. The time periods are under consultation at the moment to work out how long groups will be able to have to see whether they can put in a bid. Having done that, if a group achieves the right price, which they might not necessarily do, they will then have the right to buy. I do not think this is quite as heavy a burden as some have made it out to be. However, some of these aspects are still out for consultation, and we shall come back with more detail for the House by Committee stage or perhaps just after.

On rural communities, I understand and accept that there may be difficulties, particularly over vexatious village green applications. We shall want to look at that more closely to see whether there is a real impact. There are also other aspects to do with rural assets, and we shall be having further discussions about those.

We are now introducing neighbourhood plans. They are going to have to fit in with local development plans and national policy frameworks and to conform to those. There are anxieties that things will go awry because local councils will have no control over them, but they will have that control because the local development plan will already have laid out the parameters into which neighbourhood plans can fit. Again, this brings in the community, perhaps more strongly, into saying what it would like within its local area. Someone asked about housing, but it will not be able to frustrate housing development if the local authority has already put in a plan that it wants something in that neighbourhood.

With regard to sustainable development, the five principles are still accepted. A definition of sustainable development is being produced as we speak. I hope that we will have that for the next stage. Someone asked what a neighbourhood would be made up of. By and large, we expect them to be parish councils and/or wards in boroughs. The NPPF is being drafted and again I expect and hope that we will have that before we finish deliberations in Committee.

There was a lot of discussion on housing tenure and reform. The proposals for flexible housing tenure are just that. Concern was expressed that the flexibility will start at a minimum of two years, but that is a minimum. As I said in my opening remarks, the expectation is that, by and large, it will be much longer than that. Social landlords need to understand that if someone does not need social housing for longer than a certain length of time—or for a short time—they do not have to give them a long tenancy. If they think and it is accepted that they need a lifetime tenancy, that is available. If a social landlord decides to put all his properties on to lifetime tenancies, that is acceptable. They have the option of flexibility on what they can do.

On the issue of homelessness and whether it can be discharged by having an offer of private accommodation, homeless people are not always homeless for life. Some of them have short-term crises and some of them do not desire or need accommodation for a lifetime. They need short-term help along the way. One way in which they can have short-term help is to give them accommodation in the private sector. They may have to go into the private sector if no other accommodation is available, which is often the situation. It is a way of ensuring that they are housed somewhere. Whether the standard of the accommodation is decent and whether they can afford it will all be taken into account at the time. The provisions are not dismantling the homelessness safety net. We want to be really clear on that. Local authorities will still have a duty to secure suitable accommodation for those who are eligible and in priority need. As I said, critically the accommodation must be suitable, which covers a wide gamut of issues, including affordability, size, condition, accessibility and location.

I have covered almost all aspects raised—I hope noble Lords will forgive me if I have not—but the only other one that I want to touch on quickly is the concerns that were expressed about the standards regime. As was pointed out, many of the complaints made to standards boards are extremely frivolous. They put councillors under the most enormous pressure. I know that because I have sat on a standards committee, and you know and see what comes before you. It will not be a disaster for this power to be taken away. Most local authorities will and can have their own system and code of conduct. We would expect them to have such a code of conduct; indeed, we have said that if they make any changes, they will have to publish them widely so that local people understand what they are doing. The great panoply of bureaucracy associated with standards can now be wound up.

I think that it is 10.41. I can probably wind up very shortly—I apologise if I have stretched a little bit beyond what I should have done. I thank all noble Lords for taking part. My noble friends Lord Attlee and Lord Taylor and I will look forward to the next stages of the Bill and to taking it forward.

Bill read a second time and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

House adjourned at 10.42 pm.