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Oral Answers to Questions
(13 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Julie Elliott (Sunderland Central) (Lab)
1. What assessment his Department has made of the potential effects on other Government Departments of his planned reductions to legal aid for social welfare law.
Graeme Morrice (Livingston) (Lab)
4. What assessment his Department has made of the potential effects on other Government Departments of his planned reductions to legal aid for social welfare law.
The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Kenneth Clarke)
The impact assessment published alongside the Government’s response to consultation lays out the best estimates of the costs and benefits of the legal aid reforms. Ultimately, costs to other Departments will be driven by behavioural responses to the changes, and these are very difficult to predict with any real accuracy.
Julie Elliott
I thank the Secretary of State for that answer. Is it his Government’s view that it is acceptable for a whole swathe of the population to have no access to justice in the area of social welfare law?
Mr Clarke
We are not denying access to justice for anybody, but obviously a huge swathe of the population find it expensive to obtain justice and we have to ask ourselves for which people the taxpayer should pay for access to justice. We have concentrated on the most important issues, in which there is a general public interest in having people represented. It is wrong to represent changes in the way we pay lawyers and the amount that we pay as if we are somehow barring people from access to their legal rights.
Graeme Morrice
Does the Lord Chancellor not feel that the cut in the civil legal aid budget, which will clearly have a detrimental impact on the citizens advice bureau and law centre network, will hinder the notion of the big society?
Mr Clarke
Legal aid is not the principal source of public funding support for citizens advice bureaux, and legal aid changes will not take effect until 2013. Those and other voluntary bodies are taking a big hit from the reduction of local authority and other grants. For that reason, the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills has already announced £27 million of continued funding for citizens advice bureaux, and we have set up a transitional fund for the voluntary sector to manage the transition to a tighter funding environment. We have £20 million set aside this year to support voluntary bodies through their present difficulties, which are mainly because of local government cuts.
Sarah Newton (Truro and Falmouth) (Con)
I very much welcome the Government’s commitment to the extra funding for welfare and benefits advice, but will my right hon. and learned Friend update us on what progress he has made with the Cabinet Office about the allocation of those funds?
Mr Clarke
My hon. Friend has rightly been chasing me on this subject, and with her I have approached the Cabinet Office. My right hon. Friend the Minister of State, Cabinet Office, hopes to make an announcement shortly about the distribution of the money. As the sort of people we are talking about need the general advice offered by such voluntary bodies, I very much hope that he will soon make an announcement on behalf of the Government.
Sir Alan Beith (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (LD)
Is it not clear that what most people will need with these changes is well-supported advice services, a user-friendly tribunal system, and Government Departments that give people what they are entitled to in the first place?
Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)
Last week the Secretary of State confirmed that he was taking legal aid away from brain-damaged children and disabled people unlawfully denied benefits. In answer to questions from my hon. Friend the Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Angela Smith), the Minister with responsibility for legal aid, the hon. Member for Huntingdon (Mr Djanogly), admitted that the Department of Health pays up to £183 an hour for legal advice, Work and Pensions pays £201 an hour and Communities and Local Government pays £288 an hour. Some of those well-paid Government lawyers will be up against our unrepresented constituents, especially on appeal. Does the right hon. and learned Gentleman think that that is fair?
Mr Clarke
Most of those do not get legal aid now, and most personal injury cases are not brought using legal aid. They are brought using no win, no fee arrangements. As the hon. Gentleman knows, in the new proposals for how no win, no fee ought to work, we have made special arrangements for particularly difficult cases and the insurance of the costs of medical reports.
Greg Mulholland (Leeds North West) (LD)
2. What steps he is taking to ensure the provision of adequate legal advice in young offender institutions.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Crispin Blunt)
The training requirement to carry out the Prison Service order requiring legal services officers to be available in every prison, including young offender institutions, could not be delivered. In future, governors will be required to give prisoners information on how to access legal advice as part of their induction into custody. The Prison Service order will be promulgated before the end of the year. Juvenile offender institutions have discrete advocacy services available for prisoners under 18 years old.
Greg Mulholland
I thank the Minister for that answer. Last year a study of 25 young offender institutions and 300 requests for legal help from young people showed that 80% of those struggling to access legal advice were from a black and ethnic minority background, and 9% were female, which is disproportionate when compared with the general population. What plan do the Government have to tackle that?
Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)
Will the Minister agree to meet me and other interested groups to discuss the issue? The only way to combat the high level of discrimination is to be able to discuss it with those concerned.
Simon Wright (Norwich South) (LD)
3. What plans he has to increase the scope of the Freedom of Information Act 2000.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Jonathan Djanogly)
This month we extended the Freedom of Information Act to a further three bodies—the Association of Chief Police Officers, the Financial Ombudsman Service and UCAS. Additionally, we intend to extend the Act to over 100 more organisations through the Protection of Freedoms Bill. We have also begun consultations with more than 200 further bodies about their possible inclusion. Next year we plan to consult 2,000 housing associations and the housing ombudsman.
Simon Wright
I thank the Minister for his response and for the progress made by his Department. As he knows, Network Rail is responsible for spending billions of pounds of public money each year. Will he ensure that that organisation is brought within the scope of the Freedom of Information Act?
Mr Djanogly
The Government are committed to making Network Rail more accountable to its customers, and believe that there is a strong case for its inclusion in the FOI.
Meg Munn (Sheffield, Heeley) (Lab/Co-op)
Community organisations often have a great deal of trouble getting information out of local councils via the Freedom of Information Act. What plans does the Minister have to make the Act as currently drawn, with the organisations currently included, work better?
Mr Djanogly
If the hon. Lady has problems to be addressed, she should write to the Ministry of Justice and we will take them up.
Sajid Javid (Bromsgrove) (Con)
5. What steps his Department is taking to provide support for victims; and if he will make a statement.
The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Kenneth Clarke)
In the current financial year the Ministry of Justice is providing funding of approximately £50 million to voluntary sector organisations that support victims of crime. Before Christmas we intend to launch a consultation on proposals that will ensure that victims of crime are supported in the best way possible.
Sajid Javid
Too many victims of crime in my constituency feel that their rights are put behind those of criminals. Will my right hon. and learned Friend please share with me what measures he proposes to take to correct that sense of injustice?
Mr Clarke
Apart from continuing to give support to victims organisations, as I said, we are about to implement the Prisoners Earnings Act 1996, which will see up to £1 million taken from prisoners’ wages going into victims’ services. We have given Victim Support its three-year grant for the first time. It has never had such assured support—£38 million a year. We have honoured our coalition commitment to place rape support centres on a secure financial footing, giving them long-term funding, and we are about to open four more.
Alun Michael (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)
Does the Secretary of State agree that the most important thing for victims is the prevention of further offences and reoffending, since what victims want is to know that they are not going to become a victim a further time after a bad experience?
Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)
Does the Secretary of State agree that restorative justice can be key in helping victims, both in their hearing an apology from the offender, and in some cases hearing an explanation as to why the crime was committed?
Mr Elfyn Llwyd (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)
Can the Lord Chancellor imagine a more needy victim than a child brain-damaged at birth whose parents are unable to sue for its financial security?
Mr Clarke
It is not true that they are unable to sue. We have a dispute about how much the lawyers should be paid in the event of a successful claim, which is an important matter, but I do not accept the assertion that none of these actions will be brought unless we leave the present no win, no fee arrangements completely untouched.
Robert Flello (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Lab)
On 12 October the Prime Minister announced that he had appointed Louise Casey to a new job. The Secretary of State has had at least a month to arrange for a new victims commissioner to take up his or her role. A month on, not only is no one in post, but the position has not been advertised and the Government have not said what plans they have. Victims charities and organisations and the Opposition have urged the Government to move swiftly, so who is it to be? Sadly, we have seen empty words on victims’ rights, and in this case we also have an empty post.
Mr Clarke
I am extremely grateful to Louise Casey for the work she did and the discussions I had with her while she was in office. I find the hon. Gentleman’s question amazing. The post of victims commissioner was created by Act of Parliament in 2004, but the previous Government failed to appoint anyone for five years and a fresh statute was introduced to revise the post in 2009. Louise Casey was appointed in early 2010. We are reconsidering—again—the basis on which we make the appointment, but to be accused of tardiness by someone who was in the last Parliament is positively farcical.
Guy Opperman (Hexham) (Con)
6. What assessment he has made of the causes of reoffending. [R]
The Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice (Nick Herbert)
Based on a survey of nearly 1,500 adult prisoners, we found a number of factors associated with reoffending on release: negative childhood experiences; poor educational backgrounds; low employment prospects; and poor health prospects, including drug usage. Research has also shown that criminal history, age and gender are strong predictors of future reoffending.
Guy Opperman
I thank the Minister for that answer. Almost half of all serving prisoners have very basic literacy and numeracy skills. What steps is he taking to transform the literacy training that offenders receive in prison?
Nick Herbert
I agree with my hon. Friend about the problem. The majority of prisoners do not have the necessary reading and writing skills to do most jobs in the labour market on release. That is why assessing literacy and numeracy skills is a priority in prisons and why those with a need are offered classroom-based courses and individualised support, but there is also a role for the third sector, with organisations such as Toe By Toe providing mentoring for prisoners and by prisoners to help them learn reading skills.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
The Minister has not mentioned young people, and high numbers of them continue to reoffend. What strategy is in place to give them guidance and support so that they do not reoffend when they come out of prison or young offenders institutions?
Nick Herbert
I agree with the hon. Gentleman that reoffending rates by younger people are particularly high and that that is where we need to focus attention. The guidance he mentions is particularly effective when it comes in the form of mentoring, which can be provided by third sector organisations, and we have seen some very effective examples of that. It is a question not only of statutory supervision and support, but of what others can bring.
Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con)
May I urge the Minister to take an even closer look at the voluntary sector’s work in that area, especially the charity KeepOut, which I have recently become aware of? It is a crime diversion scheme delivered by teams of serving prisoners that aims to steer young people away from the conveyor belt to a criminal life and represents a positive step for many prisoners on their rehabilitation journey.
Nick Herbert
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for drawing attention to the work of organisations such as KeepOut that provide exactly the type of mentoring service I was talking about, helping those who are or have been prisoners to dissuade young offenders from pursuing a life of crime.
Mrs Jenny Chapman (Darlington) (Lab)
I have listened to the Minister’s answers. We were promised a rehabilitation revolution, but unfortunately the chief inspector of prisons can find no evidence of it. In the interests of looking at outcomes, can the Minister let us know when we can expect to see this decline in reoffending and by exactly how much it will decline?
Nick Herbert
I think that the whole House agrees that reoffending rates are too high. They have been persistently high, and we need to tackle that issue. That is why the rehabilitation revolution is important, and I am sorry that the hon. Lady does not appear to support it. We have particular proposals on payment by results, and we are now seeing them extended throughout public sector and private sector prisons, where we will ensure that we pay for what works and incentivise providers to reduce reoffending. We are determined to reduce reoffending by using innovative means, not the familiar means that Labour always proposes, which involve simply spending more public money.
Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)
8. What estimate his Department has made of the future size of the prison population.
The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Kenneth Clarke)
The latest projections of the prison population in England and Wales, published last week, modelled three scenarios. These track, as is the usual practice, the impact of three different sentencing trends on custodial convictions. By the end of June 2017, the prison population is projected to be 83,100 on the lower projection, 88,900 on the medium projection and 94,800 on the higher projection.
Nick Smith
The prison population is at a record high, and some 60% of the prison population have speech, language and communication needs. How will the Justice Secretary address communication disability as part of his rehabilitation revolution?
Mr Clarke
I am sorry, but I missed the second point. Is the point of the question communication disability? [Interruption.] Prison projections are very difficult to make, and that is why we have the equivalent of the fan-shaped projections that the Bank of England produces on inflation forecasts. It has always been the same with prison forecasts.
The future prison population will depend on all kinds of things beyond the control of the Government, but the prison estate is well placed to meet the demand. Eventually it will all depend on whether we have long and protracted youth unemployment, how far the recession has retracted, and how successful we are with our rehabilitation revolution, workplace reform, skills training, education reform and so on. The Prison Service is there to meet the demand, but we expect the demand to be reasonably stable.
Gavin Williamson (South Staffordshire) (Con)
I am sure that my right hon. and learned Friend is aware of the importance of the construction of the Featherstone 2 prison, which is currently being built in my constituency, but can he assure the House that he will do all he can to encourage G4S, the operator, to employ people locally, so that we have not just the disadvantages of a prison being built, but some of the advantages?
Mr Clarke
Featherstone 2 is one of two new prisons that we have coming on stream in 2012, and I am sure that it will provide a very valuable source of local employment when it opens, as it is quite a large prison. It will also, of course, contribute to our battle against crime and to the need to punish serious criminals.
Sadiq Khan (Tooting) (Lab)
I know the Justice Secretary does not like being reminded of this, and that is clearly why I am going to do so. He had a target to reduce the prison population by 3,000 by 2015, and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Blaenau Gwent (Nick Smith) helped to remind the House, it is now 87,747, which is about 3,000 more than when the right hon. and learned Gentleman became Justice Secretary. As a consequence of this Government’s policies, which projection does he believe will be the case? Will the prison population in May 2015 be the same, more or less than it was in May 2010?
Mr Clarke
It is simply not the case that I have ever had a target for prisons, because as I have just explained it is not within the control of Ministers. That is why Ministers in the previous Government used to produce these various scenarios. I do not have a target. We make an estimate of the effect that legislative changes will have on the future prison population, and as the right hon. Gentleman knows, the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill that the House has just passed will, other things being equal, which they never are, reduce the prison population by about 2,600.
Sadiq Khan
We have a complacent Justice Secretary who, one third of the way through this Parliament, has no idea whether the prison population will go up, down or stay the same. He has cut our prison building programme, cut capital investment in prisons, he is cutting probation officers and cutting prison officer numbers. Is he surprised that the chief inspector of prisons has seen no evidence of a rehabilitation revolution and thinks that there should be a rocket up this Justice Secretary’s backside?
Mr Clarke
The future level of crime depends on a huge number of variables, which are not within the control of any Government or Minister. What one does is to make sure that one does not exacerbate any problems, and that one accommodates those who come in. I am trying to establish in prisons a more intelligent regime that will achieve some improvements in reoffending rates for those who have to be punished by going to prison. If any of my predecessors ever gave an exact forecast of the prison population, two or three out, that predecessor was in my opinion an idiot. I do remember, however, that the previous Government so miscalculated things that they had to let 80,000 people out of prison, short of their sentence, because prisons were bulging at the seams and they had nowhere to accommodate them.
Mrs Helen Grant (Maidstone and The Weald) (Con)
9. What steps he is taking to reduce the level of reoffending by people sentenced to one year or less.
The Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice (Nick Herbert)
We are supporting local areas to develop integrated approaches to managing offenders and testing payment-by-results arrangements for providers working with short-sentenced prisoners.
Nick Herbert
I suspect there is a consensus across the House about that issue. It is worth reflecting on the fact that, 15 years ago, there were only 1,800 women in prison. The Prison Reform Trust has pointed out that:
“During one year more than 11,000 women are imprisoned and almost 18,000 children are separated from their mothers.”
Some women need to go to prison, and it is important that custody remains available. However, we are focusing on developing suitable, intensive community sentences that can prevent such a flow into the custodial system wherever possible.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
Is the Minister aware that stalking is a pernicious crime that often attracts short sentences? Those sentences are no good at all if the quality of the treatment for stalking is not up to a good standard; those people are free to go back and stalk usually the very women they were stalking before.
Nick Herbert
That is an example of the fact that prison plainly plays an important role in relation to both punishing and incapacitating offenders. It must also play a role in the rehabilitation of offenders. The system has too often failed in that third role, including for the most serious crimes.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
The way to stop foreign national prisoners who serve a sentence of a year or less from reoffending is to return them from whence they came to their country of origin. Will my right hon. Friend assure the House that that is being done on each and every occasion?
Nick Herbert
I know my hon. Friend’s long-standing interest in that issue. It is absolutely right that those prisoners who have served a prison sentence should expect to be returned to their country of origin. We are returning more than 5,000 a year, and we will continue to make every effort to do so.
Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)
The hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Mrs Grant) is right about women prisoners. Under the previous Government, an inter-ministerial group was set up to try to implement the recommendations of the Corston report. Will the Minister describe what efforts he is making to maintain that work in Government?
Nick Herbert
We do seek to maintain it. The focus must be on developing suitable community sentences that can satisfy the courts, address the causes of reoffending and also be sufficiently punitive. It is important that the public have confidence in such sentences, so that we can ensure there is a satisfactory alternative for women who do not need to be sent to prison. The absence of satisfactory alternatives in the past has been part of the problem.
Stephen Barclay (North East Cambridgeshire) (Con)
10. What steps he is taking to increase the amount of time probation officers spend with offenders.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Crispin Blunt)
We have already taken steps such as reducing the number of targets and revising national standards to increase the time spent face to face with offenders. The Ministry is taking forward the offender engagement programme of work further to cut red tape and give probation officers back their professional discretion.
Stephen Barclay
In July, the Justice Committee found that, under the previous Government, just 25% of probation service staff time was spent with offenders. I welcome the fact that, in Cambridgeshire, that figure has improved to more than 60%, but I urge the Government to take further steps, given that that has a crucial role in tackling reoffending.
Mr Blunt
I am delighted to hear of that excellent performance in Cambridgeshire. That is evidence of the good practice now flowing from freeing probation officers from the highly prescriptive target setting and performance management that led to that 24% figure. That is what happens when 60 pages of national standards are reduced to three, and professionals are supported with decent guidance and allowed to get on with doing the job to the best of their ability in the public interest.
Paul Goggins (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)
Ministers have already acknowledged that probation officers will have to spend more time monitoring dangerous offenders on licence in the community as a result of introducing the new extended determinate sentence. What estimates has the Minister made of the additional costs of this extra supervision?
Mr Blunt
It will be some time before prisoners are being released from the sentence framework that we have just introduced, because those sentences apply to people who receive sentences of more than six years’ imprisonment, and the extended sentences will be many years ahead, so we have not yet done a detailed assessment.
Andrew Griffiths (Burton) (Con)
11. What steps he is taking to increase prison tariffs for people sentenced for carrying knives.
The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Kenneth Clarke)
Sentencing guidelines provide that the starting point for an adult convicted of knife possession is a custodial sentence. Where immediate custody is given, the average sentence length increased between June 2010 and June 2011. We are creating new offences so that those who carry a knife in a public place or school, and go on to threaten and cause immediate risk of serious physical harm to another, can expect to face at least a minimum custodial sentence.
Andrew Griffiths
Constituents in Burton will applaud the statements just made about sentences for the type of crime that is covered today on the front page of the Burton Mail, in which a young man was frogmarched to a cash point and forced to hand over money at knifepoint. They want to see that kind of tough sentencing as a deterrent. Will the Secretary of State back the Burton Mail campaign to make Burton a knife-free zone and to prevent these kinds of activities happening again?
Mr Clarke
If the newspaper report is accurate, then whoever carried out that crime committed quite a number of criminal offences, most of which carry very serious penalties, so I hope that the local courts deal with it with appropriate seriousness, having obviously considered all the circumstances. We are sending out, we hope, a strong message that we will not tolerate the use of knives. Threatening with a knife and putting someone in fear of injury is a very serious matter. I wish my hon. Friend every success in working with his constituents to try to reduce the scourge of knife crime in Burton.
Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)
12. What steps his Department is taking in respect of prisoners serving indeterminate sentences who have completed their minimum tariff.
The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Kenneth Clarke)
Tariff-expired indeterminate sentence prisoners will be released from custody only if the independent Parole Board is satisfied that they may be safely managed in the community. We are seeking to identify further improvements to the progression of those prisoners through effective sentence planning, which will require the engagement of the offenders themselves.
Steve McCabe
As I understand it, under the Lord Chancellor’s proposals a judge will be required to hand down a mandatory life sentence the second time someone is convicted of using a nuclear weapon. Allowing for all the Lord Chancellor’s wisdom and guile, would it not be an awful lot smarter to hold someone indefinitely the first time they committed that offence?
Mr Clarke
Certainly, the Government take a serious view of the use of a nuclear weapon; I hope that not too much of that breaks out in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency. We discussed these proposals in the House only last week, and we achieved the House’s approval for them. There is an indeterminate sentence called a life sentence, which is the best and most established form of indeterminate sentence. Having got rid of the failed indeterminate sentences for public protection, we expect that quite a lot of people will get life sentences who hitherto would have been given the rather unsatisfactory IPPs.
Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)
Will the Secretary of State consider the problem of pre-release of prisoners where insufficient preparation is made for training or, particularly, for somewhere to live or some kind of community support? That means, in turn, that they either stay longer in prison or are released into the community, where they are inadequately supervised and end up back in a whole regime of crime.
Mr Clarke
We are looking at that problem very seriously, and we hope to produce a substantial improvement on the present situation. In particular, I am working with colleagues in the Department for Work and Pensions to try to ensure that offenders leaving prison can have instant access to the work programmes that we are developing for other people seeking work. Enabling people to get back into employment is one of the best ways of improving the chances that they will not offend again.
Mr Mark Spencer (Sherwood) (Con)
13. What assessment he has made of the effects on reoffending rates of his policy of payment by results to companies.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Crispin Blunt)
The first results against which payment will be made in the two pilots at Her Majesty’s prisons Peterborough and Doncaster will be available in 2014. I am visiting Peterborough prison on Friday to make my initial assessment of the ONE service. I will look in particular at the methodology and evidence from case studies as it is too early for statistical data to be available.
Mr Spencer
The Minister may be aware of a case close to my constituency in which a paedophile was allowed out from a secure health unit on unescorted day release, only to commit a crime against a 10-year-old constituent of mine. I support the Minister’s plans to make improvements when these companies get things correct, but what plans does he have to deal with such companies when they get it wrong?
Mr Blunt
As my hon. Friend has made clear, that case involved a patient who was detained under mental health legislation, under which unescorted leave requires the approval of the Secretary of State, a risk assessment and a recommendation from a responsible clinician. There are no proposals for companies to make such decisions.
Gavin Shuker (Luton South) (Lab/Co-op)
The Minister talks about payment by results for companies. It is clear that in his review of probation and payment by results next year, there is significant uncertainty about the role of smaller probation trusts. Bedfordshire probation trust is one of the smallest but best performing trusts. Can he give an assurance that its role will be upheld in any subsequent review?
Mr Blunt
The hon. Gentleman needs to understand that we are piloting payment by results in six ways in 20 different pilots to see what is the most effective way of delivering it. It might be by putting the responsibility on probation trusts, prisons, local authorities or chiefs of police. We are looking at all those things and will see what is the most effective way to take payment by results forward in the interests of us all.
Mr James Clappison (Hertsmere) (Con)
14. What progress he has made in implementing his plans for the rehabilitation of prisoners.
The Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice (Nick Herbert)
We have started piloting payment-by-results models to drive what works and drug recovery wings. We are supporting the piloting and roll-out of mental health liaison and diversion services in police custody and courts. We are also developing plans to make prisons places of hard work.
Mr Clappison
Would not the task of the employment and work programmes to which my right hon. Friend has referred be improved if prisoners actually worked while in prison? Is it not the case that far too few prisoners are given the opportunity to work in prison workshops for a full working week? Would that not be of benefit to prisoners and their victims?
Nick Herbert
I strongly agree with my hon. Friend. The Government are committed to ensuring that prisons are places of work and restoration. We are focused on a programme to ensure that, wherever possible, we introduce work into prisons. There are problems with the physical estate, but we are determined to make that happen wherever we can.
Mrs Madeleine Moon (Bridgend) (Lab)
Parc young offenders institution in my constituency had a report from the chief inspector of prisons recently that revealed that 60% of the 64 inmates were admitted with drug-related problems, that 25% had alcohol-related problems and that 89% had truanted from school repeatedly. What steps are we taking to ensure that rehabilitation is a real possibility in private sector prisons?
Nick Herbert
Rehabilitation is important, whether in a public or private sector prison. The movement to payment by results will ensure that providers are focused on what they need to do to reduce reoffending. Ensuring that offenders get off drugs and deal with their alcohol problems is an important part of that. That is one reason why we are piloting drug recovery wings in prisons. We will maintain our focus on those areas.
Richard Harrington (Watford) (Con)
I congratulate my right hon. Friend on the work that has been done to introduce work for prisoners. However, my constituents and I are concerned that local companies that are full of honest, hard-working people may lose contracts to prisoners, who are effectively subsidised by taxpayers’ money. Will he assure me that that will not be the case?
Nick Herbert
I appreciate my hon. Friend’s concern. We will design the schemes in a way that ensures that that does not happen. However, we must not lose sight of the importance of ensuring that prisons are places where offenders are not simply idle, but where they are rehabilitated and introduced to the world of work and responsibility.
Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)
One factor that means that prisoners are less likely to be rehabilitated on coming out of prison is the lack of access to housing. Many prisoners are released with just a cash voucher and no chance of anywhere to live. What is the Minister doing about that scandal?
Nick Herbert
I agree with the hon. Lady that that is one of the very important factors that determine reoffending. That is why it is important that we have a concerted effort to ensure that on their release, prisoners, and particularly short-term prisoners who are not the subject of statutory supervision or support, receive the necessary support and entitlement to services. That can be done through the integrated offender management programmes that we are supporting, and also through the payment-by-results schemes that we are piloting, which the Under-Secretary of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Reigate (Mr Blunt) described.
Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)
15. When he next expects to meet the Magistrates Association to discuss the recruitment and retention of lay magistrates.
The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Kenneth Clarke)
I do not currently have any plans to meet the Magistrates Association to discuss the recruitment and retention of magistrates.
Tony Baldry
Is my right hon. and learned Friend aware that lay magistrates are feeling a bit unloved at the moment? They feel somewhat squeezed between the police increasingly allocating non-court disposals at one end and deputy circuit judges doing rather more work at the other end, and there are court closures and bench mergers. There has been no recruitment to the Oxfordshire bench for several years now. What can he do to ensure that lay magistrates feel appreciated?
Mr Clarke
I will heed my hon. Friend’s warning, but I think we probably all agree that the lay magistracy is one of the distinctive strengths of our justice system. It certainly makes a very valuable contribution, and I am glad to say that it is a popular form of volunteering. We obviously have to appoint strictly on merit, but we recruit more than 1,000 new magistrates every year and magistrates dispose of about 95% of the criminal justice work that goes through our system. I will take on board his points, and I hope that we can encourage people in Oxfordshire to carry on the essential work that they are doing for the good of the community.
Mr Robert Buckland (South Swindon) (Con)
16. What steps he is taking to increase the use of restorative justice.
The Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice (Nick Herbert)
We are committed to delivering more restorative justice across the system, ensuring that more victims have a chance to explain the impact of crime upon them and that offenders face up to the consequences. Many areas already use restorative approaches, and we are considering how we can increase capacity to enable local areas to provide more effective responses to crime and disorder.
Mr Buckland
I thank my right hon. Friend for that response. Both the youth offending team and the police in Swindon are using restorative justice procedures to very good effect, particularly in the sentencing process and as an alternative to prosecution. What specific plans does he have to support that invaluable work?
Nick Herbert
I agree with my hon. Friend about the value of that work, which can both provide enhanced victim satisfaction—victims are otherwise too often an afterthought in the process—and reduce reoffending rates. That was why the coalition agreement committed us to introducing neighbourhood resolution panels, which we intend to take forward. We have invited expressions of interest and had good interest in them, and we will set up pilots in the new year.
Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)
What steps will the Minister take to support restorative justice programmes in prisons, such as that offered by the Prison Fellowship’s “Sycamore Tree” programme?
Nick Herbert
It is important that we support restorative justice as a principle that applies across the criminal justice system, not just in any one part of it. The idea that offenders should make amends and, when victims want it, be required to confront their victims, is good, and where such schemes are successful we want to see them extended.
Katy Clark (North Ayrshire and Arran) (Lab)
17. What assessment he has made of the level of support available to families of people who have been victims of corporate manslaughter; and if he will make a statement.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Crispin Blunt)
In England and Wales, victims of corporate manslaughter are eligible to receive the same support as victims of homicide from the national homicide service, which provides tailored and intensive one-to-one support to bereaved families for as long as they need it. Support for victims of crime in Scotland is a devolved matter.
Katy Clark
I am very grateful to the Minister for that answer. My constituents Dorothy and Douglas Wright recently received an apology from the Director of Public Prosecutions following the failure to take corporate manslaughter action when their son Mark died. They did not get access to such a service, and their experience is that families of those who die in such circumstances do not get such access. Will the Minister consider that issue?
Mr Blunt
Of course, this is a devolved matter for the hon. Lady’s constituents in Scotland, but I am quite happy to consider the development of the whole doctrine of corporate manslaughter. It is very important that the families of those who may be corporate manslaughter victims receive the necessary support, even if a prosecution cannot be successfully secured. That means that Victim Support needs to be notified that there is a requirement of support, which is sometimes not completely clear when someone dies in circumstances that might or might not lead to an investigation or successful prosecution for corporate manslaughter. However, I am very happy to consider the matter.
John Robertson (Glasgow North West) (Lab)
19. What steps his Department is taking to provide compensation for victims of overseas terrorism.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Crispin Blunt)
The issue of compensation for victims of terrorism overseas is being considered alongside the Government’s review of victims’ services and compensation, at the conclusion of which we will publish a consultation document. We plan to make an announcement on victims of terrorism overseas at the same time as we launch the consultation, which we intend will be before Christmas.
John Robertson
Déjà vu, Mr Speaker: on 28 June, when my hon. Friend the Member for Derby North (Chris Williamson) asked a question on compensation for victims of overseas terrorism, the Minister replied:
“In the coming weeks we intend to launch a public consultation on victims services”—[Official Report, 28 June 2011; Vol. 530, c. 749.]
Nineteen weeks down the road, we are still waiting for it. Will the Minister please tell me this: will he put the victims first and forget about his petty differences with the Opposition?
Mr Blunt
I can assure the hon. Gentleman that I have no petty differences with the Opposition. There are a number of difficult issues to resolve, but the delay is absolutely in the interests of victims, as we identify greater resources so that we can wrestle with the wretched situation that we inherited from the criminal injuries compensation scheme, which was £750 million in debt. We must sort those things out, and once we have done so, we will be able to come forward with a satisfactory policy for victims of crime.
Simon Hughes (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (LD)
May I say to the Minister—[Laughter.]
Simon Hughes
May I say to the Minister that this is an inherited matter that has now lasted for 18 months? There is an obligation on the Government to sort it out soon. Can he give a commitment that victims will get their answer before the end of this calendar year?
Ian Swales (Redcar) (LD)
T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.
The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Kenneth Clarke)
Yesterday, the UK took over the chairmanship of the Council of Europe. Our key priority is reform of the European Court of Human Rights, for which there is widespread support. We are pressing for consensus among all 47 member states on a package of reforms that will make the Court more effective. The Court is struggling under a growing backlog of almost 160,000 cases, which is undermining its authority. The aim will be for the Court to concentrate on the most serious issues of alleged failure to comply with the convention by a member state. The primary duty of compliance with the convention in individual cases should rest with democratic Parliaments and national courts.
Ian Swales
Teesside suffers from arguably the worst coroner service in the country, with families now waiting an average of 43 weeks for a verdict. How is the coroner service held accountable, and what can the Minister do to ensure that my constituents get the service they deserve?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Jonathan Djanogly)
Ultimately, coroners are independent judicial appointments, and as such, complaints must be made through the judicial appointments service. Having said that, I have been in contact with people in Teesside and I shall continue to take an interest in this matter.
Sadiq Khan (Tooting) (Lab)
One cannot help but notice the good mood that the Justice Secretary is in today, which I am sure has nothing to do with the spot of bother the Home Secretary is in. May I ask him a question on a similar issue—foreign prisoners? He will be aware that in 2007, the Labour Government negotiated with the EU a prisoner transfer agreement, which comes into force next month, which will mean that no prisoner consent is required, and that the other country must comply with a request for a transfer. The Prime Minister promised the repatriation of thousands of foreign prisoners by personally taking charge of negotiations with individual countries. We all know that he likes to keep his promises, so can the Justice Secretary tell us how many new prisoner transfer agreements have been successfully negotiated with individual countries in the past 18 months, and how many foreign prisoners does he expect to be repatriated this year?
Mr Kenneth Clarke
First, I want to put the right hon. Gentleman’s mind at rest: I agree with my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary in her handling of the current problems, so it is just my usual bonhomie; there is no particular cause for it today. It is true that this important transfer of prisoners agreement is about to come into force, and it will make a difference to our problem with foreign prisoners, although, of course, there are derogations to some important countries, such as Poland and Ireland, where it will not come into effect for a few years. The right hon. Gentleman hits on a serious problem, though: we need to find a way of reducing the foreign prisoner population. At the moment, we have only one international bilateral agreement near to conclusion, but we are continuing to work on it, because foreign prisoners take up more than 10% of places in our prison system.
Gordon Henderson (Sittingbourne and Sheppey) (Con)
T3. At Swaleside prison in my constituency, the Kainos Community programme has an 87% success rate in reducing reoffending by inmates taking part in the scheme. Will my hon. Friend acknowledge this success, and extend the scheme across the prison estate?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Crispin Blunt)
I have seen the Kainos scheme in other prisons, and I am looking forward to visiting my hon. Friend’s constituency to see it work at first hand. Of course, we will want to learn the lessons and apply them, so that we can begin to achieve those kinds of reoffending rates—if they are as described—on a sustainable basis.
Mr Speaker
May I encourage Ministers to face the House, so that we get the full force of their eloquence head-on?
Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)
T2. Has the Minister done an impact assessment on the effect of the legal aid reforms on women?
Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)
T5. According to a written question that I asked the Minister earlier this year, in 2009 the disciplinary punishment of additional days for bad behaviour in prisons was imposed on 11,550 occasions. What steps are being taken to improve discipline and behaviour in prisons?
Mr Blunt
There is a zero-tolerance policy for any violence in prison towards staff, visitors or other prisoners. In addition, one should not underestimate the importance of our proposals on work in prisons. If we can put in place a much more useful prison regime under which far more prisoners are engaged in useful work, it will aid the delivery of discipline in our prisons.
Michael Connarty (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (Lab)
T4. Could I ask whether the Secretary of State will identify the amount of savings he will make in his planned reductions for legal aid in social welfare law and identify the amount of knock-on cuts to the Scottish budget through the Barnett formula? Could he confirm that, if there are cuts, the Scottish Parliament does not have to follow the savage cuts in welfare law legal aid?
Mr Kenneth Clarke
We debated all this last week. We are still spending £50 million on legal aid for welfare law, even as we have revised and cut it back, and cut out areas where, frankly, legal assistance is not necessary, appropriate or justified. Our proposals affect England and Wales only, and the provision of legal aid in Scotland is not a matter for me.
Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)
T9. Do the Government agree that magistrates are a vital and integral part of the justice system, and that they must be supported and encouraged to play a part in neighbourhood justice?
The Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice (Nick Herbert)
Yes, we do. As we develop our proposals, including for the neighbourhood resolution panels that I described earlier, we want to consider what role magistrates may play in that. They are, as my right hon. and learned Friend said, an important lay resource, and we should think of new ways to make use of them.
Rushanara Ali (Bethnal Green and Bow) (Lab)
T6. How does the Secretary of State plan to fill the nearly £280 million gap in social welfare law in respect of the provision of crucial advice and support on housing, debt and employment issues to some of the poorest people in our country, given that there is little to no evidence that the voluntary and charitable sectors will be able to back-fill that gap? The £20 million referred to does not seem to go far enough.
Mr Djanogly
First, it is important to appreciate that we are keeping £50 million of legal aid in social welfare law for the most urgent and vulnerable people who need it. We need to appreciate that, at the moment, legal aid is often used as a sticking plaster for matters that should properly be dealt with under general advice from citizens advice bureaux.
Mr Aidan Burley (Cannock Chase) (Con)
T10. After the riots in the summer, courts such as Cannock magistrates court in my constituency sat late and ensured that the surge in work was dealt with smoothly and efficiently. These late-night sittings have been widely regarded as a huge success, not least by those magistrates who have full-time jobs that require them to work during office hours. What plans does the Secretary of State’s Department have to roll out these evening court sittings on a permanent basis?
Mr Kenneth Clarke
The work done after the riots is a tribute to the public spiritedness of all who sat on the bench—all the court staff, probation staff, police and duty defence solicitors. There was a widespread feeling that people should do their bit to restore order, and I am glad to say that the courts rose to the challenge. Normally, on an ordinary day, we do not have a shortage of court space, so there is no general need to have night or evening sittings. We can certainly improve the efficiency with which the more straightforward cases are dealt with. They can be brought on at an ordinary hour more quickly than they sometimes are now. We are working on that. It was a tribute to the court service and everybody who works in it that they all worked as well as they did.
Gloria De Piero (Ashfield) (Lab)
T7. I wrote to the Justice Secretary six weeks ago on behalf of my constituent Gary Thrall, but have not yet had an answer. May I ask him again to look at this case and at the fact that 16 months on from a vicious knife attack, Gary has yet to receive a final settlement from the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority or to be advised of the likely time scale for the settlement, which is preventing the family from moving on?
Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)
According to figures from the Department, 10% of all crimes are committed by people on bail and 20% of burglaries are committed by people on bail. When the provisions in the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill come into effect, which will make it harder for courts to remand people in custody, what estimate has the Department made of the number of crimes that will be committed by people on bail then?
Mr Kenneth Clarke
The changes we are making are to get rid of the anomaly whereby bail can be refused to someone who is charged with an offence in circumstances where it is quite obvious that they are not going to be sent to prison, even if they are found guilty. It is a reform that should have been made a long time ago. Serious offences are sometimes committed by people on bail, and we have committed ourselves to introducing a right of appeal when someone is given bail in the Crown court. There have been bad cases where serious offences have been committed. We hope to introduce an amendment in the other place that would allow the Crown Prosecution Service to challenge the granting of bail in the Crown court when a potentially dangerous prisoner is involved.
Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)
T8. Constituents of mine with serious health conditions who have been turned down for employment and support allowance are still having to wait up to nine months for a tribunal appeal hearing. With more than 40% of them being successful on appeal, what is the Minister going to do to end this unacceptable wait?
Mr Djanogly
This is relevant to a number of Departments. We are working with them to ensure that the procedures are such that better determinations are made at the outset so that we get fewer appeals. This is taking up a significant amount of my time. The hon. Lady makes an important point.
Alun Cairns (Vale of Glamorgan) (Con)
When a magistrates court is forced to close, does my hon. Friend agree that every effort and flexibility needs to be shown to accommodate those magistrates in alternative courts?
Mr Djanogly
Yes, and they are. So far as I know, no magistrates have been forced to resign because of any court closure. They are normally encouraged to join the successor court, although some take the opportunity to resign at that point for their own reasons.
Huw Irranca-Davies (Ogmore) (Lab)
The Secretary of State will no doubt share my respect for those who carry out pro bono work, which makes a big impact in my communities and throughout the UK. What does he make of the assertion that cutbacks are going to have to be made in pro bono services because of the cuts to overall provision?
Alok Sharma (Reading West) (Con)
One of my constituents who was witness to a burglary and theft in the local area has made me aware that the youth defendant who pleaded guilty on two counts was required as part of his rehabilitation order to spend three weeks at summer arts college. Does the Minister believe that it is time to review some elements of the community sentencing framework?
Mr Blunt
We are going to look at the community sentencing framework, as I announced to the House last week. We are absolutely clear that the whole framework has to carry public confidence that there will be effective punishment in the community, while at the same time delivering effective rehabilitation. A sentence that protects the public and delivers restoration to the victim is a key part of our consideration.
Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)
We have an excellent community legal advice centre in Hull. What are the Minister’s views on the future funding of CLACs and community legal advice networks?
Mr Djanogly
These will have to be looked at in the context of all not-for-profit organisations—citizens advice bureaux and so forth. If the hon. Lady wishes to discuss her particular concerns relating to her particular CLAC, I would be happy to discuss them with her.
Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)
Following the publication of the Norgrove report, will my hon. Friend reassure anxious fathers in my constituency, including Mr Colin Riches, and will he make every effort to ensure that parents have equal access to children?
Mr Djanogly
We have every intention of ensuring that both parents have a meaningful relationship with their children, and we will look carefully at the Norgrove report in order to develop a Government approach to the matter.
Hugh Bayley (York Central) (Lab)
The convictions of three world-class cricketers last week shows that even cricket is not immune from corruption. In his role as the Government’s anti-corruption chief, will the Secretary of State look into the problem of corruption in international sporting bodies such as FIFA, and see what Britain can do to drive corruption out of international sport? There has also been controversy involving the Olympics and Formula 1.
Mr Kenneth Clarke
I share the hon. Gentleman’s concern, but the issue of corruption in sport is primarily the responsibility of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport. I know that he is working with his European Union opposite numbers on specific measures to tackle it, and I am following his progress very closely. The recent convictions show that there are problems that need to be tackled in the interests of everyone who believes in the value of sport—but honest sport—to a community.
Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)
The Government are committed to ensuring that women are not sent to prison in disproportionately high numbers. May we have an update on the Corston report?
Mr Blunt
The Government support the objectives of the Corston report, as did our predecessor, and as we did in opposition. There are only one or two elements of it that we are unable to deliver, such as the recommendation for more smaller custodial units. As was made clear in the exchanges that followed the question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Mrs Grant), one of our main priorities is to make progress on the Corston agenda and to learn some of its lessons in how to deal with not just women prisoners, but all prisoners.
Yvonne Fovargue (Makerfield) (Lab)
The Money Advice Service has sacked 100 front-line staff in order to spend more money on publicity. Does the Secretary of State now regret removing nearly all debt advice from the scope of legal aid, and what cross-departmental discussions is he having about the future of such advice?
Mr Kenneth Clarke
I am very sorry to hear what the hon. Lady has said, but I am not sure whether the issue is the responsibility of my Department; it may be the responsibility of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. However, I will certainly check, because it is extremely important for advice to be available at what is a difficult time for many people. Advice on debt is, unfortunately, one of the things that many people require—not only foreign Governments, but a fair number of our own citizens.
Sheila Gilmore (Edinburgh East) (Lab)
A few months ago, the Minister said that the backlog of appeals on social security matters would be resolved through the employment of more people. That was before the summer, but the waiting times seem to be as long as ever. Why is that?
Mr Djanogly
There is still a significant number of appeals, but the number is now being stabilised and the delays are being reduced.
Mrs Mary Glindon (North Tyneside) (Lab)
Given that probation trusts are experiencing major cuts in their budgets, can the Minister explain how he expects them to do more for less?
Mr Blunt
Probation trusts have been relatively well protected given the current environment. The additional cuts are at least 13% less than the overall cut in the Ministry of Justice budget, which shows that we are making the protection of the front line a priority in order to ensure that services are delivered effectively. However, like everyone else, probation trusts will have to make their contribution to rescuing our nation’s economy from the wretched mess in which it was left by the last Administration.
Mr Speaker
Order. I apologise to colleagues. I should be happy to allow these exchanges to continue all day if there were time, but there is not.
Points of Order
Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. May I ask for your guidance? Item 4 on today’s Order Paper, under the heading “Backbench Business”, is entitled “Publication of a Select Committee Report”. Below that is a motion in the name of the hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs Ellman), which states
“That this House notes the publication of the Tenth Report from the Transport Committee on High Speed Rail”.
As you know, Sir, a number of us are concerned about that issue. Below the motion is a note which says
“Proceedings on Mrs Ellman’s Motion are expected to continue for approximately 20 minutes.”
I have never seen such a provision on the Order Paper before. Will you give the House some idea of what you expect to happen? Will the hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside be allowed to speak for 20 minutes about the Select Committee’s report? Will those of us who have quite a lot to say about the report have any opportunity to intervene or to make a contribution, or does the note merely constitute guidance meaning that the business can continue until any hour?
Mr Speaker
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his point of order, and I hope to be able, at least in part, to satisfy his curiosity.
First, I am sorry the hon. Gentleman has not noticed such an item on the Order Paper before; that is uncharacteristically unobservant of him, as in my current recollection there have been at least three occasions on which similar items have been placed on the Order Paper.
Secondly, the hon. Gentleman seeks a steer as to the nature of the proceedings in question. It is an occasion upon which the Chair of the Select Committee presents a statement about the report, and it is customary on such occasions for Members to intervene on the Select Committee Chair, if they wish to do so. There are no other speeches, however.
Thirdly, I should inform the hon. Gentleman that this is a relatively recent development, and he may wish to look in the direction of his right hon. Friend the Leader of the House—who is currently sitting on the Treasury Bench—if he is curious as to whether it will be a temporary or an enduring phenomenon. I shall leave that little teaser in the mind of the hon. Gentleman.
Mary Creagh (Wakefield) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I informed the Environment Secretary of my intention to make a point of order today. Yesterday, the right hon. Lady published a written ministerial statement on the results of the European Union Agricultural Council, in which she states that
“the laying hens directive…comes into force on 1 January 2013.”—[Official Report, 7 November 2011; Vol. 535, c. 5WS.]
As Members on both sides of the House will be aware, the laying hens directive, in fact, comes into force on 1 January 2012. The Secretary of State also states in that document, however, that the Commission plans to uphold the ban on battery cages and to start inspection visits at the start of 2013. There is therefore some confusion about what action the Commission will be taking and in which year that will start.
This is not the first time that Environment Ministers have slipped up. They had to correct the record on the new British Waterways charity, and there is also the now-legendary legal case that was supposed to be proceeding in Europe on the use of wild animals in circuses, but which transpired not to exist. Will you advise the House, Mr Speaker, on when the Secretary of State might come to the Chamber to correct the record? I see that the Leader of the House is in his place; I wonder whether he can assure us that such unfortunate episodes will not become custom and practice.
Mr Speaker
I am grateful to the hon. Lady, the shadow Secretary of State, for her point of order. The matter to which she has referred is certainly of intense, and probably of enduring, interest to a great many, including the hens themselves. The other matters to which she referred will have been noted, doubtless at a distance by the Secretary of State, and here in person, in the Chamber, by the Leader of the House. If the hon. Lady were minded to pursue the matter any further, I might—unfairly—conclude that she was seeking to establish a point not of information, but a political argument; but I am sure she has not got the latter in mind in any way.
Grahame M. Morris (Easington) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. The Prime Minister and the Health Secretary have both claimed that UK cancer survival and death rates are poor by international standards, and they have referred to that as a justification for the NHS reforms. It has become clear from a study produced by Professor Pritchard-Jones—
Mr Speaker
Order. The hon. Gentleman should resume his seat. I fear that points of order might be in danger of transmuting into comments on past ministerial statements on a range of matters. If the hon. Gentleman is seeking to prove to me and the House what an assiduous member of the Health Committee—and of the previous Health and Social Care Public Bill Committee—he is, he has succeeded in his mission.
Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)
Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. I just wonder whether you are keeping any score of how many mistakes, misquotes or misdirections to the House Cabinet Ministers are allowed to make before there is some attempt to call them to account.
Mr Speaker
The short answer to the hon. Gentleman’s question is no, but he has made his point. If there are no further points of order, we can come now to the ten-minute rule motion, for which the hon. Member for Lewisham East (Heidi Alexander) has been patiently waiting.
Internet Regulation (Material Inciting Gang Violence)
Heidi Alexander (Lewisham East) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to give courts the power to order internet service providers to remove certain material which incites gang violence; and for connected purposes.
I am introducing this Bill because I am appalled by the proliferation of online videos glorifying gangs and serious youth violence. The police, via the courts and internet service providers, need to be given explicit power to get these videos taken down or to get access to them blocked. These videos act as a recruitment mechanism for gangs. I believe they lead to an increased number of young people in our cities who feel the need to carry a knife for protection and they terrify any ordinary human being who watches them.
I first came across these videos last year, when a constituent contacted me after his son had been the victim of a gang-related mugging. He sent me links to a video that was up on YouTube of the gang that had robbed his son. The video was filmed in broad daylight in a car park in the heart of Catford. It contained images of 10 to 15 young men—perhaps I should say boys—rapping, swearing and waving knives around as if they were cigarettes. The video boasts about violence; it is menacing, sickening and frightening. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of these sorts of videos on the internet, not just on YouTube, but on sites such as Spiff TV. If someone types “Brixton gangs”, “Hackney gangs” or “Lewisham gangs” into any online audio-visual search facility, they will find these videos. Not all contain images of knives, but the narrative is the same, “Mess with us and we’ll stab you.” These videos have been viewed tens of thousands of times each—sometimes hundreds of thousands of times.
Over the past year, I have attempted to interest the Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice in this issue, but my letters and contributions in debates have fallen on deaf ears. Last week, the Government launched their report into ending gang and serious youth violence, but it contains almost no mention of the internet. I find that remarkable, short-sighted and out of touch. We know that the internet is increasingly central to people’s everyday lives—that applies to young people in particular. Indeed, some research suggests that teenagers spend as much as 31 hours per week online. The popularity and accessibility of the internet means that it is inevitably one of the ways through which young people get caught up in the madness of youth violence, yet this Government seem to be ignoring it.
These videos frighten me and they will frighten young people too. Every one of us here today knows that carrying a knife is wrong. Some of us will also know that if a young person carries a knife, it is probably as likely to end up injuring them as anyone else. But we also know that many young people carry knives out of fear. They may not start out to stab someone but, as we all know, too often that becomes the tragic reality. As Patrick Regan says in his book “Fighting Chance”:
“The truth is that, for many, the everyday fear of gangs and what they can do to you is far greater than the fear of being caught and going to prison”.
Do we not owe it to the young people who are viewing this stuff online to make them feel safer? These are not videos filmed in some make-believe American gangland. No, these are videos filmed in our own communities—in our car parks, our town centres and on our housing estates. They are filmed in easily recognisable locations where my constituents will walk on a regular basis.
Currently, one of the only ways that this material is removed from the net is if enough people flag the video, via YouTube’s online community policing mechanism, as having inappropriate content; if enough people report the video as being unacceptable, it will ultimately be taken down. That is clearly a start, but it is not good enough. The police should have the power to get access to these videos blocked by the courts and internet service providers. I am not so naive as to think that would be a panacea, but it strikes me that when the police know that this kind of material is freely available to anyone with access to the web, they should be empowered to take action against it.
We should not have to rely on voluntary community censorship in relation to this important issue, not least because the majority of people viewing the material are probably those least likely to want to report it for fear of reprisal. I recognise that policing of the internet will always be incredibly difficult, but unless we start to grapple with the online manifestation of gangs, I question our ability to tackle the problem. We can talk about gang injunctions all we like, and there might be a need for them, but should we not also recognise that the same individuals might cause an equal amount of fear by their actions when sat at a computer at home?
In the time that remains, I shall turn my attention to the existing legislation. Although the Communications Act 2003 does not provide a solution to the problem, the provisions in the Digital Economy Act 2010 might be a useful template for what I propose. Section 127 of the Communications Act, entitled, “Improper use of public electronic communications network” makes it a criminal offence to send
“a message or other matter that is grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character”.
It might be possible to use that measure to deal with the perpetrator of the gang video—the camera man—but it does not provide a means of requiring that the violent material be removed from public view on the internet. Clearly, we need to go after the gang members themselves, but we also need to be able to remove what is effectively their advertising material. The Communications Act does not seem to be of any use in that regard, whereas the Digital Economy Act contains a potentially useful template in respect of the power it grants to courts to order internet service providers to remove web content that infringes copyright. I put it to the House that the removal of material inciting gang violence could and should be dealt with in a similar way.
I understand that in the new year, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport is going to publish a Green Paper on a new communications Bill. In the hope of joined-up government, I urge the Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport, the hon. Member for Wantage (Mr Vaizey), who is present, to ensure that DCMS and the Home Office work together and look carefully at the options for addressing this important issue. If the Government are serious about addressing the problems of gangs and youth violence, they need to wake up to the role of the internet and the way in which young people become involved in gangs and knife crime.
As things stand, I fear there is a real danger that the Government are leaving the need for an internet strategy to tackle gang crime, and indeed other forms of crime, in the “too difficult to tackle” box. That simply is not good enough. Gangs may not be a new phenomenon but the casualisation of violence associated with them is. The speed and reach of the internet in propagating and glorifying that violence is also something new and we must not ignore it. We must find a way to address it.
Question put and agreed to.
Ordered,
That Heidi Alexander, Mr David Lammy, Ms Karen Buck, Joan Ruddock, Bob Blackman, Siobhain McDonagh, Meg Hillier, Bill Esterson, Teresa Pearce and Mr Lee Scott present the Bill.
Heidi Alexander accordingly presented the Bill.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 16 March, and to be printed (Bill 246).
European Budgets 2014 to 2020
(13 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr Mark Hoban)
I beg to move,
That this House takes note of European Union Documents Nos. 12478/11 and Addenda 1 and 2, 12474/11, 12480/11, 12483/11, 12475/11 and Addenda 1 to 3, and 12484/11, relating to the Commission’s proposal on the next Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF), 2014-20; agrees with the Government, that at a time of ongoing economic fragility in Europe and tight constraints on domestic public spending, the Commission’s proposal for very substantial spending increases compared with current spend is unacceptable, unrealistic, too large and incompatible with the tough decisions being taken in the UK and in countries across Europe to bring deficits under control and stimulate economic growth, that the next MFF must see significant improvements in the financial management of EU resources by the Commission and by Member States and in the value for money of spend and that the proposed changes to the UK abatement and new taxes to fund the EU budget are completely unacceptable and an unwelcome distraction from the pressing issues that the EU needs to address; and supports the Government’s ongoing efforts to reduce the Commission’s proposed budget.
Yesterday, the Prime Minister made a statement to the House following the G20 meeting in Cannes regarding the ongoing crisis in the euro area. As his statement made clear, it is vital that the euro area sticks to the deal agreed to two weeks ago by the European Heads of Government to resolve the ongoing crisis. A resolution to that crisis is vital to UK, European and global economic interests. It is equally important that, over the longer term, the euro area and the wider EU take the necessary steps to tackle the deficits that are the root cause of the crisis.
The ongoing instability in the euro area vindicates this Government’s decision to get ahead of the curve, cut our deficit and impose strict fiscal discipline on our budget. It is vital that EU member states demonstrate the same resolve, and we welcome commitments by Italy and Spain, among others, to do so. However, the European Commission must also lead from the front in a drive to impose financial discipline across the EU institutions. That is why it is unacceptable for the Commission to propose a 4.9% increase in the annual budget for 2012. The UK and the European Council have agreed that we could not approve such an increase at a time when member states are facing tough decisions to impose fiscal discipline and consolidation. We will be taking a firm stand on the 2012 budget when we meet in the budget ECOFIN later this month.
Let me turn now to the principal subject of today’s debate: the multi-annual financial framework that sets out how much the Commission wants to spend in 2014 to 2020 and how it will fund it. The Commission’s proposals seek to increase both its revenue and its spending. It wants new taxes to expand the Brussels coffers, and proposes inflation-busting spending increases. That is simply not acceptable. The answer is not to raise more and spend more; it is to control spending. The best way to restrain EU annual budgets is to set—
Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)
On a point of clarification, the Minister mentioned inflation-busting increases, but am I right in thinking that what is being proposed is a 5% cash increase in the ceiling over the seven-year period? If so, that would be less than the rate of inflation in real terms, and therefore not an inflation-busting increase.
Mr Hoban
No, let me continue.
The best way to restrain EU annual budgets is to set tough multi-annual framework ceilings. That is why, at the European Council in October 2010, member states agreed that the
“forthcoming Multiannual Financial Framework must reflect consolidation efforts being made by Member States to bring deficit and debt onto a more sustainable path”.
Rather than following that path, however, the Commission has meekly bowed to pressure from the European Parliament to increase the budget, thereby returning to the extravagance and irresponsible spending that sowed the seeds of the current global economic crisis. Just as we cannot accept the Commission’s 2012 budget, we also cannot accept the Commission’s proposal, as set out on 29 June, to increase the multi-annual framework budget for 2014 to 2020 by 11%. Such an increase is incompatible with the tough decisions being taken in the United Kingdom and in countries across Europe to cut spending.
Instead of consolidation, the Commission proposes expansion. It has ignored the calls made in December last year by the UK, France and Germany for a real-terms freeze in spending. The Commission claims to have done as we have asked, but let me make it absolutely clear to the House that it has not. On average, the spend in each year of the next framework would be about €14 billion higher than it is today.
Mr John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)
Given that the Government are now studying the powers and duties that can be brought back to the House for national and local decision, surely we should be taking big lumps out of this budget? If, for example, we repatriated agriculture, industrial aid and regional aid, we could cut the budget by two thirds. I think that the members of the public to whom I answer would be very pleased with that.
Mr Hoban
My right hon. Friend makes an important point. In parallel to the debate about the ceilings for the budgetary framework over the course of the period between 2014 and 2020, debates are also taking place on the individual lines of expenditure within the EU budget, and we are proposing significant reductions in cost to underpin our strategy of curbing overall spending by the EU.
Mr Hoban
May I make a little progress? I am conscious of the number of hon. Members, perhaps on both sides of the House, who want to take part in the debate.
In addition to the on-budget spending increases proposed by the Commission, the Commission has earmarked an extra £18 billion in off-budget spending. That is an alarming lack of transparency that brings added risks of poor oversight and control. In a further lack of transparency, the proposal fails to focus on levels of cash payments—actual expenditure that the multi-annual financial framework will allow in each heading. Instead, it opts to use commitments—planned expenditure—but frankly the cost to UK taxpayers is not how much is planned to be spent but the actual cash going out of the door. This should be the starting point for the higher control over spending, and we and our allies have made that clear to the Commission.
Mr Hoban
Let me make a bit more progress and I will take the right hon. Gentleman’s intervention in a short while.
The Commission also asked us to use as our starting point for a freeze—this is perhaps where the hon. Member for Swansea West (Geraint Davies) has been confused by the Commission’s numbers—the level of spend planned in 2005, but we cannot ignore the fact that the global crisis has taken place since then. Every country has had to scale back its spending from pre-crisis days and the European Commission is no different.
The Commission can also do more to ensure that money is spent more wisely. We are leading the way on reforming financial management in the EU. For the first time in 17 years, we have refused to support the sign-off of the EU accounts. We are pushing for simpler, clearer rules on spending programmes that make it easier to spot fraud and error, and we have also raised our game at home to ensure that EU money spent here is spent properly and wisely.
Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) (Con)
Will the Financial Secretary give way?
Mr Hoban
Let me finish a couple of sentences and then I will give way.
Tackling financial mismanagement in the EU can help meet spending commitments, so our message on spending is clear. There should be a real-terms freeze on spending, a focus on the amounts actually spent, not plans dreamt up over five years ago when the world was different. Let us tackle waste and financial mismanagement across the EU. I give way to my hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom).
Mr Speaker
Order. Before the Minister gives way to the hon. Lady, I emphasise that, of course it is in the gift of the Minister to give way as he thinks fit, but the total time for the debate on this matter is only one and a half hours, and it would be a pity if Back Benchers were disappointed. I am sure that the Minister will tailor his remarks and his giving way accordingly.
Andrea Leadsom
Thank you, Mr Speaker. I shall bear in mind your comments. I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. Does he agree that one of the most ridiculous wastes of money in this day and age, with tight budgets, is the European Parliament continuing to move between countries during the week, at enormous expense to British taxpayers?
Mr Hoban
We could spend all one hour and 30 minutes detailing the ways in which the EU wastes money. My hon. Friend has raised one. The EU spends more on buildings in Luxembourg than on vital expenditure. So, conscious of your strictures, Mr Speaker, let me make some progress.
Curbing European spending is not the only priority for the UK. We need to tackle how the EU funds its spending, too. The Commission is trying to increase its control over funding by introducing new EU-wide taxes and amending the correction mechanisms such as the UK abatement or rebate. Now, this Government have been absolutely clear. We will defend our rebate. Last time the UK negotiated the multi-annual financial framework in 2005 the then Labour Government gave ground on the rebate in return for reform of the common agricultural policy. What has happened since then? The value of the rebate has fallen, but the spending on the CAP has not budged. We will not fall for empty promises; we will resist any change to the abatement. Our rebate remains absolutely justified. The structure of EU spending means that we get less per capita than any other member state. Without the rebate, the UK’s net contribution as a percentage of national income would be the largest across Europe and twice as large as the contributions made by France and Italy. Our rebate is fully justified, and we are not going to give it away.
Mr MacShane
Can the Minister confirm that, for the six years, the proposed increase is 11%. Eleven divided by six is 1.85% or about 1.9% each year. Is that factually accurate?
Mr Hoban
This goes back to some of the challenges in the Commission’s presentation of its numbers. The budget proposed by the Commission is £100 billion larger than the real freeze in spending that the UK and its allies have proposed. [Interruption.] The right hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr MacShane) says that I have not answered the question. It is clear that the way in which the European Commission has structured its budget, by having some things on or off-budget and by talking about commitments rather than actual spending, confuses and clouds the position, leaving some to think that the Commission has embarked on a freeze on the budget, whereas in reality the EU is proposing a real-terms increase in the budget.
Let me move on to the second issue in relation to the funding of the EU budget. The Government strongly oppose the proposal for new taxes to fund the European Union budget. They attach considerable importance to the principle of tax sovereignty. Tax is a matter for member states to decide at a national level. We oppose any new taxes or changes to the existing system that increase the UK’s contributions or pose a threat to our long-term position, including a financial transactions tax to fund the EU budget. We cannot accept a budget which asks for more and asks for a greater share from taxpayers and from the UK.
A year ago, the Government set out their plans for the consolidation of public expenditure at the spending review. Supported by the International Monetary Fund and OECD, the Government set out plans to reduce the deficit. We have shown our resolve by keeping the UK out of the storm that has engulfed the euro area, and we will show the same resolve with the European Commission. The inflation-busting increases proposed by the Commission are out of touch with the realities felt by taxpayers across Europe, and out of touch with the views of José Manuel Barroso, who in June argued that many states
“need to show more ambition when it comes to fiscal consolidation”.
We as a Government believe that the Commission needs to show much more ambition, too, when it comes to fiscal consolidation. We will continue to press the European Commission and member states to deliver a multi-annual framework that delivers real fiscal consolidation. This will be a challenging negotiation.
Mr Hoban
There will always be pressure from others to spend more, and a failure to agree the framework would shift the focus to the annual budget process which, unlike the framework, is decided by qualified majority voting. It is an uncertain prospect that we are eager to avoid. That is why we will work tirelessly to seek the best deal on the multi-annual framework, but a deal on our terms—a deal that curbs EU spending and puts a brake on the Commission’s plans for EU-wide taxes and seizing some of our rebate—
Mr Cash
This gives me an opportunity to put one thing on the record, not necessarily in a spirit of cynicism. Last year I moved an amendment, which was accepted by the House, that we would have no increase in the budget. By the end of the convolutions that took place, the Government accepted an increase of 2.9%. May I be absolutely assured that on this occasion, given the robust nature and the tenor of what my hon. Friend has said, that there will be no increase whatsoever?
Mr Hoban
My hon. Friend is well versed in the intricacies of the European Union. As he knows, the budget negotiations later this month are done on a QMV basis. We do not have a veto on the 2012 budget and we will be seeking to build a coalition of allies who are as committed as we are to curbing the expenditure of the EU, and who are as committed as we are to opposing the inflation-busting increase proposed by the European Commission. I am sure that when we reach that deal later this month, my hon. Friend will seek to hold the Government to account on that. I can assure him that we are doing everything in our power to ensure that we curb the EU’s plans and reduce the spending levels proposed by the Commission.
Mr Hoban
I will not, as I was about to end, bearing in mind Mr Speaker’s strictures.
We are committed to seeking the best deal for the United Kingdom, a deal that curbs EU spending, puts a brake on the Commission’s plans for EU-wide taxes, and seizes some of our rebate. I urge the House to support the motion.
Chris Leslie (Nottingham East) (Lab/Co-op)
The Minister started the debate by referring to today’s news about the eurozone crisis. Despite the failures of all leaders at the G20 summit, including the Prime Minister, and the continued failure of the eurozone to put flesh on the bones with regard to the dimensions of the European financial stability facility and the role of the European Central Bank, we hope that some leadership will eventually emerge across the European stage to get to grips with the problem. I am sure that the Minister will want to take back the message from both sides of the House that far sturdier action is needed on these issues.
It is important that the House recognise the difference between the issues we would like to discuss today and the specific issue addressed by the motion. The Minister referred to the Council of Ministers’ proposal in the summer for a real-terms freeze in the EU’s annual budget for 2012—in other words, a cash rise of over 2%—yet the European Parliament voted on 26 October to back a package even higher than the Commission’s proposal for a 4.9% increase. Labour Members of the European Parliament voted against the package, which would have amounted to an increase of more than 5%. We were prepared to support only a real-terms freeze in the budget.
I am told that there will now be a 21-day negotiation period among the three EU institutions. If the 2012 budget is not passed by December, it will be worked out on a monthly basis, based on 2011 levels. We believe that the proposal to increase the budget by more than 5% will strike most people as unjustified and wrong-headed. The last time we saw the Government negotiate an annual budget, the Prime Minister started by promising a freeze but ended up claiming that an increase was a victory. This time he needs to do better and must not support another inflation-busting rise in the EU budget.
Chris Leslie
I will come to that in a moment.
If that means the Government need to stand firm for the full 21-day negotiating period, so be it. The UK should not allow the 2012 budget to rise beyond a real-terms freeze.
With regard to the snappily titled “Multiannual Financial Framework 2014-2020”, we rarely have an opportunity to debate a subject while the Chancellor is talking about it at an ECOFIN meeting, so this is a useful sign that Parliament is in tune with the issues of the day. Defining the main budget priorities over the seven-year period is a process that began in 1986 but was changed in the Lisbon treaty so that there was greater involvement for the European Parliament. It is important to explore the detail, but in our view the notion that there should be any significant overall increase in expenditure is perverse, given the strictures being placed on mainstream public investment projects at home. The Government must ensure that they deliver on their rhetoric in the motion and secure a much better deal than the one currently on the table.
There are two crucial areas on which the Government need to focus: the Commission’s proposal for new revenue powers and the UK rebate. With regard to the Commission’s proposals to change what it calls its “own resources” method of calculating the income it received from each member state, it is suggesting two new direct revenue streams. The first is a top-slice process for domestic VAT revenues, which I would like to ask the Minister about specifically. I am very sceptical about the proposal and would be grateful if he addressed it when summing up, because I do not think he touched on it adequately in his opening comments. Will he tell the House what proportion of our domestic VAT would be diverted to EU institutions if the change was proceeded with? The Commission seemed to suggest that it is a replacement for the VAT element of the funding formula used to calculate contributions from each member state, but how would the existing arrangements and the new arrangements compare?
With regard to the Commission’s proposal for a new EU financial transaction tax, can we at least be clear that it twists the notion of a Robin Hood tax so wide of the mark that it is barely recognisable from the global FTT, which has received so much support from charities, campaigners and leading economists worldwide? Revenues from any FTT must surely be destined for jobs, growth and carbon reduction at home and in the developing world. Pouring those revenues into the EU budget or EU bail-out funds instead would be the wrong thing to do and totally contrary to the spirit of a genuine Robin Hood tax. Instead, the starting point ought to be the proposal that Labour put forward at the 2009 G20 summit, which is that all countries should agree to work together to establish a tax, set at a fraction of 1%, that could be levied on financial transactions, millions of which happen in the City everyday. We want to see a financial transaction tax—but one that is implemented with the widest possible international agreement.
Mr MacShane
In 1995 I moved an amendment to the Finance Bill proposing exactly what my hon. Friend suggests, but an hon. Friend who later became the Chancellor of the Exchequer and is now my right hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh South West (Mr Darling) wrote through it with red ink, “No new taxes”, so the idea died the death some 15 years ago. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham East (Chris Leslie), but let us not make the best the enemy of the good. If we get this thing going, we are getting something going that will help people. Waiting for everybody in the world to sign up to it will involve a very long wait.
Chris Leslie
I understand my right hon. Friend’s frustrations, but I really do not think that the proposal on the table from the Commission would achieve the outcomes that he or I seek. We have to make concerted efforts to broker a deal where any FTT applies in any of the world’s big financial centres, all of which by the way have much to gain from a new and reliable revenue stream that supports jobs, growth and the developing world.
The Commission’s proposal falls short, especially because of its intended destination for the revenue, but I think that the difference my right hon. Friend seeks is this: we felt that there was a real window of opportunity to steer the agenda on a financial transaction tax and to persuade other countries that it was something seriously worth considering, but our Chancellor is out there at the ECOFIN meeting today, resisting under all circumstances. Indeed, he wrote a private letter to bankers the other day in which he indicated that he was not in favour of it at all—even though that contradicts some of his statements in this place. He is wrong to block wider discussion among the G20 and beyond.
The BBC’s Nick Robinson reported this lunchtime that our Chancellor asked what was the point in even having a conversation about the financial transaction tax and, apparently, whether it was
“the best way to spend our time”.
It is important that we address those issues, because the Government’s weak and defeatist attitude is an abdication of leadership and a total abandonment of the gains made for the cause at the G20 meeting in 2009. It is time that Britain stepped up to the plate and showed the leadership needed to broker a better deal by being open to the idea that it is possible to win the argument for a different approach. That is why we call on the Government to engage internationally—beyond the EU proposals alone.
The second major proposal in this multi-annual financial framework is for the Commission to change the correction mechanisms for countries that are the most significant net contributors to the EU. In other words, it proposes to end the UK’s permanent rebate. The rebate returns about two thirds of the difference between the UK’s contribution to the EU and the money we receive back. Let us be absolutely clear: the Commission’s proposals are totally unacceptable. Of all the 27 countries, only Germany is a higher net contributor to the EU budget than the UK, and we have the lowest per capita receipts from it. The common agricultural policy is a far bigger distortion of the EU budget than any correction mechanism such as the UK rebate.
This is a key test for the Prime Minister. He needs to put up a strong defence of our rebate if the language that he uses here in the House is to be matched by his deeds in those negotiations.
Chris Leslie
Everybody will be watching closely, including the right hon. Gentleman, to whom I am happy to give way.
Mr Redwood
What promises did the previous Prime Minister but one receive when he gave away a chunk of our rebate? I thought we were promised a reduction in agricultural spending, which would be very welcome.
Chris Leslie
I was not a Member at the time to which the right hon. Gentleman refers, but it is true that there have been changes to the UK rebate, although not to the majority of it. My understanding is that, in terms of money returned, the total amount of rebate has actually gone up, with €5.8 billion in the previous MFF round compared with €2.8 billion before, so the rebate is still a very significant gain for the UK.
There were changes to the common agricultural policy, although—I accept—not as many as people would have liked, but until we have further proposals from the Commission on reforming the common agricultural policy I am certainly not going to get into the business of urging the Minister to change the UK rebate. It is very important that the Government put up a defence of the current position and, indeed, try harder to engage with further proposals on the CAP. That is by far the bigger distortion. We need to pursue a stronger reform agenda and to have a CAP reform that is fairer to small farmers but does not lavish as much on wealthier players in the wealthiest countries. We need to tackle that anomaly as it is an outdated relic.
I am grateful to Business for New Europe’s pamphlet entitled “Rethinking the EU Budget,” which suggests some very important changes to EU competitiveness deficiencies, such as boosting research and development. It is also important that the Minister address the deficiencies in the structural funds. Few of those are helping to boost growth, when they ought to be getting investment moving into the economy. Above all, the MFF ought to contain far greater emphasis on a strategy for jobs and growth, where we know the Government have a blind spot.
The Commission and the European Parliament also need reminding that, without growth, we cannot solve the debt crisis, the banking crisis or the jobs crisis. Energy infrastructure projects, high-speed broadband and transport link improvements could all be brought forward within the MFF envelope and prioritised to boost employment and economic activity. [Interruption.] The Minister shouts from a sedentary position that that involves more spending, but we are talking about within the limitations of the budget. We do not wish to see the increases proposed by the Commission. The Minister should be out there arguing for a proper strategy for growth, and his failure to do so betrays Ministers’ and the Treasury’s blind spot on these issues.
The motion before us tonight talks tough on some of these issues and we will not oppose it, but it is important that this time Ministers do not flunk the tests when they get into the negotiations.
Mr Speaker
Order. A considerable number of Members are seeking to catch my eye. I remind the House that the debate is due to conclude at 19 minutes past 5 and that it would be seemly and courteous to allow the Financial Secretary five minutes to reply to it. Members can do the arithmetic for themselves. There is less than an hour for Back-Bench speeches and, as a consequence, I have imposed a five-minute limit on Back-Bench contributions with immediate effect, beginning with Mr John Baron.
Mr John Baron (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)
I have added my name to the motion because I very much support the Government’s attempts to reduce the Commission’s proposed budget. We must rein in the Commission’s spending, which is excessive, above inflation and goes against the direction of travel of Government budgets generally, as my hon. Friend the Financial Secretary has made clear from the Dispatch Box.
Taking into account changes to the rebate, our net contribution suggests that the increases are far worse for this country. In the previous Parliament, the total net contribution was around £19 billion. In this Parliament —over the next four or five years—it is set to rise to more than £41 billion. We often talk about big figures in this place, but what does that actually mean in terms of people’s perception of such expenditure? Let us consider the average starting salary of a police officer or a nurse, which is well below £30,000. For that £21 billion or £22 billion increase, we could have an extra 750,000 police officers or nurses, or, at less then £300 million each, we could have a further 80 hospitals.
Alternatively, if we were really interested in spurring on and encouraging growth in this country, given that a 1p cut in basic rate income tax brings around £4 billion into the Treasury, we could have a 5p cut in the basic rate of income tax. That certainly would encourage growth and make a real difference to this country’s economic outlook. Speaking of that, given that a 1p cut in small business corporation tax equates to £500 million, one could eliminate small business corporation tax for the increase we are talking about. If we really are serious about growth, I hope that that gives everyone an idea of the scope of the packages we could introduce, instead of just acquiescing in this monumental increase in the EU budget.
Mr Baron
No, because I do not have time and I want to push on. I do apologise.
The situation is made even worse by the fact that the European Court of Auditors has still not signed off the accounts after 16 years. It is unbelievable. Such a situation would simply not exist in the private sector. We would not be more than doubling our contribution to an organisation that has not signed off its accounts. We have no precise idea of how the money is spent. We need to take cognisance of the fact that it is a dire situation when auditors have not been able to sign off the accounts. It proves the lack of transparency that exists when it comes to EU spend.
I suggest to my hon. Friend the Minister that we have to be careful about the position that the Government take. Although our first position is that there should be no net increase at all in absolute terms, our fall-back position seems to be that we do not want any increase in real terms—in other words, that we will match inflation. At the moment, inflation is a touch over 3% across the eurozone. However, there is a risk that inflation could rise, and we should be careful what we wish for when talking about pegging our contribution to inflation.
This recession is unusual in that it is a de-levering recession caused by too much debt. The options available to Governments are to reduce spending, which is difficult in the present environment, to create growth—again, difficult, because people are paying down their debts—or to create an element of inflation in order to inflate the debt away. I suggest that the European Union, or certainly the eurozone, will explore that possibility and is currently exploring the option of quantitative easing on a massive scale. Despite the economic outlook, higher inflation is not an impossibility, particularly looking 12 months out. I ask the Minister to be careful what he wishes for when he talks about pegging our contribution to inflation, because inflation could very well rise shortly.
Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)
Although we are all going to acquiesce in this motion—I understand that there will not be a vote—and although I support the conclusion that we should not increase our spending on the European budget, and, indeed, that it should be reduced, I do not support some of the wording in the motion.
I agree that we should not increase our UK contribution to the EU budget, now or at any time. We have to look towards a world where we reduce our contribution very substantially. The right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr Redwood) and others have mentioned the common agricultural policy. Many times, when sitting on the Government Benches in previous Parliaments, I have called for the abolition of the common agricultural policy. If it were abolished and we carried on subsidising our own farmers at the level they are subsidised now, we would have a massive reduction in our contribution to the EU budget.
The proposed changes to UK abatement and new taxes are unacceptable. We should decide what our level of taxes should be. The UK abatement was wrongly reduced in a previous negotiation on the common agricultural policy that did not result in anything beneficial for Britain. At the time, The Economist said that the deal was so bad that it could have been better to have had no deal. I agree. I support the Government’s efforts to reduce the Commission’s proposed budget. The numbers that are being talked about are clearly unacceptable. It is regrettable, too, that all these things are governed by qualified majority voting instead of unanimity, but there we are.
I do not care for the wording of the motion. It refers to “economic fragility in Europe”. Yes, the situation is certainly very fragile at the moment, and we will not recover from that fragility until we have more common sense about the eurozone. Certain members should be allowed to recreate their own currencies, find an appropriate parity for their currencies, and then reflate behind those currencies. That is the way forward for those countries, and it will benefit the eurozone and the European Union, and indeed the world economy overall, when that is allowed to happen.
Mr Cash
I should like to correct the hon. Gentleman on something. The multi-annual financial framework is governed by article 312 of the treaty on the functioning of the European Union, under which:
“The European Council may, unanimously,”—
in other words, we could have imposed a veto—
“adopt a decision authorising the Council to act by qualified majority when adopting the regulation”.
That means that it is unanimity first, and then QMV.
Kelvin Hopkins
I would like to see Governments, and in particular our Government, using their veto from time to time in a more bold and radical way.
The wording that I am particularly concerned about is that which talks about
“tough decisions being taken…to bring deficits under control and stimulate economic growth”.
Those things are incompatible. If one wants simply to bring down budgets by cutting, that will not stimulate economic growth, but reduce it. The wording should be the other way around. If one wants to bring deficits under control, the best way to do so is to stimulate economic growth. Economic growth would bring down unemployment, increase tax revenues and reduce the burden of benefits.
If we encourage all the member states of the European Union to deflate collectively, that is the route to depression. There are lessons from the 1930s on that. I hope that we will quickly come to our senses and realise that we are in a pre-1930s situation. If we do not reverse it, we may head towards depression.
In questions to the Chancellor the other day, I talked about the Labour Government of 1945, who had a gross debt much larger than we have now. They chose not to cut spending, but to create the welfare state, bring in the national health service and run a full-employment economy. Full employment was sustained for two and a half to three decades. That is what brought the deficit under control, and that is what we should do again.
There are other bad examples from history, which I have mentioned before. After the first world war, there was the Geddes axe. There was a deficit after the war—there are always deficits after wars—so we thought that we should cut our way back to a lower budget. What happened, of course, was that for a decade we had low growth, high unemployment and the deficit got worse, not better. We are in danger of doing that again.
In the short term, we have to spend. We could reduce our contribution to the European Union budget and spend some of that money on areas of labour intensity with low import content. Those areas are obviously construction and the public services—precisely the areas that are being cut. Cutting is exactly the wrong thing to do and we should do the opposite if we are serious about bringing the deficit down. That would be beneficial for everybody because the people who do not have jobs would have jobs, the public services that are now suffering would not suffer, and the people who are dependent on public services would not be hurt.
I agree with the objective of reducing our contribution to the European budget and constraining it in the short term, but I do not believe that we should emphasise simply cutting deficits without recognising that that could make unemployment rise and the deficit get worse in the long term. That could lead us into a very serious economic situation.
Mr Brian Binley (Northampton South) (Con)
I welcome this motion and the Government’s efforts to trim back the grandiose desires of the European Commission.
With your permission, Mr Speaker, I will take the Minister back to the Maastricht treaty because it is a pretty good place to start. In 1992, that treaty created the European Union. I am sure that the Minister has read it on many occasions. Article A states:
“This Treaty marks a new stage in the process of creating an ever closer union among the peoples of Europe”.
Would Members believe that the sentence continues by saying
“in which decisions are taken as closely as possible to the citizen”?
The European Commission has clearly recognised the great strength of the first part of that sentence, but I fail to see where it has recognised the import of the latter part.
It seems to me that our Government have not really got behind the spirit of that part of the Maastricht treaty. Perhaps it is time that they looked at that sentence again, for democracy is about connection with the people and we have seen a little less of that than I would have liked over recent weeks in this place.
For too long, the European Union has failed to recognise that edict. The very fact that the European Commission could propose a 5.9% increase this year shows just how out of touch it is, at a time when Europe is raging under the constraints of a defunct EU currency. The whole European people face a future that could well be made much more difficult by the arrogance of those who created a currency for political reasons without considering the economic constraints.
Every time I go to Europe, I come back with the view that the European Commission does not live on the same planet that most of us live on, that it is out of touch with the people and that it needs to be told again and again about article A. It does not understand what my grandmother would have told it—that when someone is in financial trouble, there are only two things to do, which are spend less and earn more. There is no other way out of any financial difficulties.
The Government suggest that there is another way—mediaeval coin clipping. I say to the Minister, who is looking quizzically at me, that that means financial easing. People went around cutting little bits of silver off coins, and so devalued the currency. That is exactly what the Government are doing. I point out that there is a cost to pay for coin clipping, and it will be borne by our children and grandchildren, which I find totally immoral. It is about time that we faced up to the real purpose of adding to our inflationary burden. The Government think it is a cheap and easy way of getting out of our deficit problems, but have no doubt, there will be a cost to pay in the future.
I want to come on to the role of this Parliament. I welcome what the Government have done to get the 5.9% additional contribution down, and I congratulate them. However, I believe they have to do more in Europe. They have to point out article A of the treaty to the EU, and particularly to the eurozone. They have to point out that if democracy is to succeed, we have to make every effort to get closer to the people, not to take government away from the people. The truth is that the whole European adventure has achieved the latter, and it is about time that our Government got the point that they ought to aim for the former.
Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)
I will keep my comments brief. I believe we all agree that we do not want to see an increase in the European budget. We all understand that a €1 trillion fund is being established to bail out the euro currency, and if push comes to shove we all understand that we are being asked for more money for the International Monetary Fund. We all understand that we in Britain are facing massive constraints on public spending. However, we should get our facts clear.
As I said in my intervention, I understand that what is being proposed is that the 2013 budget will be higher, and will become the fixed 5% cash increase ceiling between 2014 and 2020. However, it is said the total amount of the budget as a share of EU gross income will fall from 1.12% to 1.05%. I support what the Government are saying, but let us be fair about what is happening. There will be a cash increase ceiling, and the budget will fall in real terms as a share of overall EU income.
Stephen Williams (Bristol West) (LD)
Will the hon. Gentleman recognise that one reason for that fall as a proportion of total European income is that some elements that are currently within the budget are being taken out of it and accounted for in a different way?
Geraint Davies
No, I do not accept that, but I do accept that there need to be structural changes in the budget, such as a reduction in common agricultural policy funding and more focus on growth, investment and tooling up Europe to compete with emerging markets. All those factors are important. Government Members who think this is all a complete waste of money and that we would be better off spending it at home on chip shops miss the point of having a commonality in research and innovation, and of making Europe more successful for the future. The Government seem to be completely ignorant of any strategic undertakings or documentation that come out of Europe on how to push smart, sustainable and inclusive growth. That is missing from the Government’s armoury—they focus always on cuts and never on growth, and they are missing the wood for the trees.
On the Tobin tax, I clearly do not support a tax when 80% of it would fall on Britain and when it would undermine Europe’s competitiveness. I share the view of the shadow Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham East (Chris Leslie), that we should look for an international basis for such a measure. That said, we need to understand that an international Tobin tax would fall primarily on the US and the UK.
My understanding is that the rebate has been frozen at £3.2 billion a year for the next seven years, but we need to realise that if the gross contribution is increasing, our rebate is going down proportionately. The Prime Minister should argue harder for the rebate to increase at least at the same rate as the increase in our gross contribution. Without further ado, I shall come to a conclusion, because I know that many hon. Members wish to speak.
Mr William Cash (Stone) (Con)
First, I should like to demonstrate the extent of the documents that I will discuss in the next five minutes, just to give some indication of what is going on.
Secondly, as Chairman of the European Scrutiny Committee, I had the opportunity to go, on behalf of our national Parliament, to a conference on the multi-annual financial framework. It was a complete farce. Mr Barroso, our Minister for Europe, Ministers from other countries and their permanent secretaries and so on were all there. I was completely staggered by their inability to have the faintest idea of what was going on. I said to them, “You are living on another planet!” Somewhat unusually, I ended up being congratulated by our UKRep representatives on at least spelling that out. It is devastating how far removed those people are from the realities of life, as my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton South (Mr Binley) said.
On the structural questions, the proposals—the financial transactions tax and the change to greater own resources—are fundamental changes. The chairman of the European parliamentary committee, Mr Alain Lamassoure, who gave us the benefit of his many speeches, and who has written a huge pamphlet on the subject, is living on another planet. In the meantime, a meteor has hit planet Europe and huge chunks are falling off it, but it is still spinning, even when the whole thing is disintegrating in front of our eyes. These people are astonishing.
With respect to the Minister, I look to the future with some concern, if only because we could end up with another increase in spending despite the blandishments of the motion. Delighted as I am that right hon. and hon. Friends have signed the motion, I issue that cautionary note.
Mrs Main
I would like to test the resilience of the proposal about whether we have to pay more, and say, “No more will we pay,” and see what happens. We for ever capitulate when we are pressed to the point. I would like to say, “This is the will of this sovereign Parliament, and we will not pay any more”. We should test that
Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
The Prime Minister said at the Dispatch Box that he wanted to gain more reductions, but seemed to imply that he was held back by qualified majority voting. Does my hon. Friend believe that the Prime Minister has a veto, or is it down to QMV?
Mr Cash
I have already quoted article 312. There is no doubt that the whole process can be blocked by unanimity, but once the European Council has made a decision to go ahead, the decision reverts to qualified majority vote. I think that is right, but the Minister will correct me if I am wrong.
I want to deal with one fundamental question that came up over and over again. That conference was regarded as important because it supposedly carried the national Parliaments with it. That was partly the case, although it did not apply to the United Kingdom Parliament—certainly not to me in my capacity there. Growth is the key question, but, over that too, they are living on another planet, because their idea of growth simply means more investment of public money. I had to ask them, “Where is the money coming from?” There were about 300 people there—I was a little bit in the lions’ den, but it was worth doing simply to see the unreality. As T. S. Elliot said:
“humankind cannot bear very much reality”.
When I asked, “Where’s it coming from?”, they said, “The taxpayers”, but it is not coming from the taxpayers; it is coming from small business men all over Europe, who, when running their businesses profitably, can then be taxed. But what if they cannot run them profitably? Here we have the problem with social employment laws, and I had the temerity to mention to them things such as paternity and maternity leave, the working time directive, the temporary agency directives and the rest. I told them about the scale of redundancy payments. We saw the Channel 4 programme the day before yesterday on pensions in Greece. Apparently, when people leave work, those pensions remain, for the rest of their lives, equivalent to what they had earned per year when working.
The growth must come from the small and medium-sized businesses. I have here another of these documents—none of them ever see the light of day, but I have the pleasure of being able to tell the House about it today. This one is entitled, “Towards a European Consensus on Growth”, but it, too, is completely and utterly unrealistic. There is no serious understanding of where the money comes from or of the fact that the result of having no growth in Europe is that there is no growth here either, because 40% of our economy is tied in to Europe. But these people will not change the structural system or the labour laws.
The EU representatives are talking and talking, but they are doing and doing nothing, and as a result, this black hole, whether Greece, Italy, Spain or wherever else in the EU, is condemned to getting deeper and blacker, simply because there is no realisation of where the money comes from in the first place. That is the problem at the root of this multi-annual financial framework. The whole project is based on a con trick of monumental proportions. They believe that they simply need to spend money on infrastructure and bridges—I would like to know where the contracts are going and how they are composed—but that does not solve the problem of the small businesses that simply cannot operate in the kind of environment that Europe now represents. That is all I need to say. This is a dead parrot.
Mr Nigel Dodds (Belfast North) (DUP)
It is always a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Stone (Mr Cash). I well recall when the House, not that long ago, passed an amendment in his name under which there was to be no annual increase in the EU budget. It was a wise amendment, and I was delighted that the House supported it.
I want to reflect on what happened last year—the Financial Secretary mentioned this—when the proposal was for a 6.2% increase in the annual budget. Despite all the tough talk, we ended up with an increase of 2.9%—at a time when budgets are being slashed in many areas vital to our constituents—and people were mystified about why, after all the tough talk, we had agreed to an increase. Today the Financial Secretary has spoken those dreaded words—“qualified majority voting”—and I am worried that we will end up in a similar position this year, despite all the tough talk. I am particularly concerned because I recall the tough talk not just on last year’s increase, but when the question of the European External Action Service came before the House and we were told that it would mean no increase in the budget. It transpired, however, that there would be a £400 million spike increase in the budget for that.
I was also worried when I saw that, after the European Parliament debated the matter on 26 October in Strasbourg, 52 of the 120 MEPs who voted against the annual increase were UK Members. It does not augur well for gathering together a coalition of those who are prepared to stand against this increase, when more than 420 MEPs voted for it.
I am glad to say that the Democratic Unionist party Member of the European Parliament was among those who voted against, and I am delighted that, on this occasion, every single member of the UK delegation to the European Parliament who actually voted, voted against. I have to note, however, that five Lib Dems, one Plaid Cymru Member and two Greens abstained, which I think is amazing on a vote that attracts such consensus in this House. I am sure that their colleagues here will want to ask their European colleagues exactly why they decided to abstain rather than vote against.
The proposal for an increase of £834 million in the UK contribution, which would bring our overall contribution to more than £14 billion indicates just how out of touch are the Eurocrats and many in the European Parliament. It also illustrates why we need a referendum on our relationship with the European Union. We have a situation in this House today where we are going to agree to what I think is an excellent motion signed by many excellent Members and it will be passed unanimously. People in the country will think, “That’s it, then. The sovereign Parliament of the United Kingdom has declared its position.” Yet, there have been hints, and the Financial Secretary is already paving the way for a further statement at some point, about some increase because we are subject to a qualified majority voting process. We are not masters of our destiny in respect of something as vital as the spending of almost £1 billion of taxpayers’ money.
That goes to the heart of the debate about our relationship with Europe: the incapacity of this House, of Members on all sides, even when they agree, to implement something on which the vast majority agree —virtually everyone apart from a few Lib Dem and Green MEPs, it appears—and yet we cannot do anything about it. This illustrates far more eloquently than anything any of us could say why we need this referendum sooner rather than later, so that we can address these fundamental inadequacies in the entire process, which leaves us sitting here today, talking about an issue, passing resolutions but powerless in this sovereign Parliament to do anything about it. I hope that the Government and all Members will take that on board.
Richard Drax (South Dorset) (Con)
What a pleasure it is to follow the right hon. Member for Belfast North (Mr Dodds). It is an honour, indeed, and I entirely agree with everything he said.
It is encouraging to hear our Front-Bench team mention words such as “resolve”—a word that seems to have disappeared from the English dictionary for a while. I wish they would follow up their words with action. What further evidence do we—the Government, the country, the world—need to see to show that this whole federalist nightmare is not working? It is undemocratic and corrupt.
I have people in my constituency who are trying to borrow £10,000, £20,000 or £30,000 to keep their businesses and jobs going. They simply cannot get it. Yet we are prepared to give Greece—and, I suspect, Italy—billions and billions of euros to a cause that is lost. It is quite beyond me, quite beyond my constituents and quite beyond most people in this country.
Both motions being debated today will, in their own ways, grant further powers and resources to the EU —despite our best intentions. We have heard that the Government have succeeded in reducing the annual budget increase from 2011 from 6% or thereabouts to 2.9%. I welcome that. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr Cash), I hope that it will remain at that level.
As to the multi-annual financial framework, these words are marvellous, are they not? The MFF—a slip of the tongue could get one into all kinds of trouble—now commands our attention. I am relieved that the European Scrutiny Committee has recommended that these documents are seen in this House. Only here can such decisions be taken. The absence of precise details about the Commission’s proposal is concerning, and I note that because of that absence, the European Scrutiny Committee has suggested that we focus on the Commission’s expenditure ambitions and revenue proposals.
The Government estimate that the overall MFF budget represents an average increase of £13.5 billion a year over the period. The UK contribution to the MFF between 2014 and 2020 is provisionally estimated to be 14.5% pre-rebate and 11.5% post-rebate. I agree with the Government that such extravagance is completely unacceptable, particularly when the level of public debt in member states will be 50% more than it was in 2007. The Commission argues that much of the increased expenditure is already committed to EU-wide projects, and suggests that there will be no increases in administration costs. That is hard to believe, given that the Government identified £1.1 billion of administration costs in this year’s budget alone. I am glad to hear that there is no possibility of the UK’s agreeing to the level of expenditure contained in these documents.
The revenue proposals are equally serious. For obvious reasons, the EU’s ultimate aim is to finance the budget entirely from so-called “own resources”—which are, of course, nothing of the sort, and will become so only after the EU has levied a series of new duties, taxes and tariffs on member countries for its own benefit. The documents suggest a financial transaction tax, a financial activities tax, the auctioning of revenue from the EU emissions trading scheme, an air transport tax, a new VAT, an energy tax, and an EU corporate income tax. That is utter madness. It is for us in this House to decide issues of national sovereignty. The European Commission deludes itself in stating that such measures do not affect our right to rule ourselves. Document 12478/11 states:
“It should also be stressed the proposals for new ‘own resource’ have no impact on national sovereignty.”
I strenuously disagree.
Finally, there is the question of the rebate. Perhaps most important is the suggestion that the current financing system must
“simplify the existing correction mechanisms”.
In plain English, that means the UK rebate, which is now in the Commission’s sights. Our relative prosperity is held against us, as is the open-ended nature of the rebate, but without it our net contribution to the EU as a percentage of national income would be twice as large as France’s contribution and 50% larger than that of Germany.
In these dying seconds, I urge the Government please, please to begin to stand up for our country and our future.
Mr Denis MacShane (Rotherham) (Lab)
I stand as a resolute Thatcherite on this question. In 1940, Polish pilots came and grappled with the enemy, getting much closer than our pilots while risking their lives, and shooting down proportionally many more planes. Forty years later, Polish Solidarity helped to dig the grave of European Communism. What is our response? Today Poland is the fourth larger contributor to the UK rebate, despite being a much, much poorer country.
That is why, in the 1980s, the Prime Minister—now Lady Thatcher—was happy to see Britain’s contribution to the European Community budget, as it was then, rise from £656 million in 1984 to £2.54 billion in 1990. During the same period, the EC budget grew threefold. When taxed by Labour Members of Parliament—including my right hon. and good Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw), who said, “She has come back from Brussels, hauled down the Union flag and hauled up the white flag of surrender to Europe”—the Prime Minister said “No, no, no: we must help our new friends and encourage growth in the economies of the countries that are joining Europe.” Well, we are a different Britain now. We do not like the Poles, and we do not like Poland. We are saying to the Poles, “Keep signing a very large cheque for our rebate.”
There has been much talk about unaccountable transfers of money. May I draw the House’s attention to one very unaccountable and huge transfer of money? I refer to the £40 billion that it is proposed that we should give to the International Monetary Fund, which is unaccountable and secretive and whose staff salaries make the average EU salary look like pauper’s pay. That sum—£40 billion—is more than the entire amount raised in corporation tax in Britain each year. It is bigger than the combined budgets of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the Ministry of Defence, the Department for International Development, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, and all Departments except for the big spenders who have responsibility for costly areas such as the NHS and social security. We are happy to send that £40 billion to Washington with barely a nod or a debate in this House, but it is a far bigger sum than any amount being imposed in respect of Europe.
I agree with the points about maintaining budget discipline, but I ask the Minister to confirm in his winding-up speech that from 2014 to 2020 the EU budget is due to increase by 11%, which is a rise of well under 2% per year—far below current inflation rates in this country. I have every sympathy with the Minister, because I have done some of this work in Europe myself and, frankly, dealing with EU budget questions makes the Rosetta stone translation look like child’s play.
The bottom line is that the EU budget will not go above 1% of Europe’s gross national income because it cannot do so. There are debates to be had about how this money should be spent, and 85% of it comes straight back to nation states, including Britain, to spend on agriculture subsidies and structural and regional funds. If we did not have a common agricultural policy, we would have to have a British agricultural policy, and I can assure colleagues that our farmers’ lobby would extract a far bigger share of taxpayers’ money than it does under the CAP.
Mr MacShane
No, because I want to conclude.
This is not just a European question. The signal we are sending around the world is that we are open to business but are closed to foreigners, and that we want inward investment but want to disconnect from Europe. We are sending a very negative and dangerous signal that we do not like the biggest single market in the world and we do not want to be full partners with the rest of the 500 million people living under the rule of law and democracy.
I understand Front-Bench colleagues’ interpretation of the Robin Hood tax—the fair trade tax—but I feel a lot happier in the current economic crisis standing with the spirit of St Paul’s rather than the spirit of bean counters.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Many Members still wish to speak, so I ask Members to be as brief as possible.
Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
It is a great pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr MacShane), although I did not agree with a single word he said.
I rise to support the motion in the name of the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, which is signed by me, my hon. Friends the Members for Kettering (Mr Hollobone), for Bury North (Mr Nuttall), for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron), for Worthing West (Sir Peter Bottomley), for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy) and for Harlow (Robert Halfon), and my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Mr Redwood). It is disappointing that no Member from Her Majesty’s official Opposition or any Liberal Democrat felt able to sign the motion. How can anyone disagree with a motion that says that the EU budget proposed by the Commission is
“completely unacceptable and an unwelcome distraction from the pressing issues that the EU needs to address”,
that declares it
“supports the Government’s ongoing efforts to reduce the Commission’s proposed budget”,
and that states that
“the Commission’s proposal for very substantial spending increases compared with current spend is unacceptable, unrealistic, too large and incompatible with the tough decisions being taken in the UK and in countries across Europe”?
Mr Bone
No, I am not giving way.
How can anyone disagree with a motion that states that the
“proposed changes to the UK abatement and new taxes to fund the EU budget”
are “totally unacceptable”?
Why on earth did Opposition Members and our Liberal Democrat coalition colleagues not support the motion? May I suggest that Labour did not do so because of embarrassment, as—
Mr Bone
I must go back to talking about Labour, and I suggest that its approach arises from embarrassment, because in its 13 years in power it rolled over to each and every command put to it by the European Union. The lack of Members on its Benches just goes to increase Labour’s embarrassment. Labour does not understand how a Government could put British interests first and stand up to the European political elite. I suggest that the approach of our Liberal Democrat partners does not arise out of embarrassment; it arises because they love European bureaucrats spending British money without any proper democratic accountability to the British people. If the Lib Dems had their way, we would be in the euro and in a complete financial mess. Of course they represent 8% of the British electorate, but they are likely soon to be overtaken by the United Kingdom Independence party, which is at 6% in the polls.
We have a British bulldog of a Prime Minster who is taking the fight to Europe and putting British interests first, second and third. At least on the Conservative Benches there is unity on wishing the Prime Minister success in reducing the budget. We have a superb Minister, and we want the message to go out that our Prime Minister is going to Europe to get a reduction in the budget and to explain to the Europeans that they cannot spend and spend and spend. My speech goes on to say that “the Deputy Prime Minster thinks”—well, actually that is where it ends.
Stephen Williams (Bristol West) (LD)
I am glad to have the opportunity to speak, especially after that generous build-up. We are having a curious discussion. We have had many European Union discussions in the past few months, and I cannot recall my hon. Friend the Financial Secretary being received with such warm accolade on every occasion as he has been on this one. I am sure that must have cheered him. We saw the curious alliance of Conservative Eurosceptics and Labour Eurosceptics when there was discussion of the possible demise of the eurozone. However, on this issue we might actually have tri-party agreement. May I assure my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone), even though I am a Europhile within the Liberal Democrats—that phrase must make him shudder—that my party has usually been at the forefront of calling for reform from within the European Union? We do that because we want the European Union to work. We want it to be a success and we are certainly not blind to its shortcomings.
Chris Leslie
Will the hon. Gentleman therefore confirm that Fiona Hall, the leader of the UK Lib Dems in the European Parliament, posted an article on 15 July that said:
“It’s time to consign the UK rebate to history, along with the rest of Thatcherism”?
Stephen Williams
That is not a position of this coalition Government at Westminster. As a good democrat, the hon. Gentleman will recognise that decisions that we make in local councils or in the European Parliament, where people have their own electoral mandates, do not bind parliamentarians in this House. That is the way in which our democracy works and we take a different stance on the matter here.
The European Commission has asked for a 5% budget increase, from €966 billion to just over €1 trillion, for the second half of this decade. Most of our constituents would find it extraordinary that a request is being made for the EU budget to wax while people in every member state are having to endure the waning of their budgets. It was right that last December five large net contributors to the EU budget—the UK, Germany, France, the Netherlands and Finland—called for a freeze in the EU budget for the second half of this decade. I would like the Minister to tell us whether the Government are seeking a cash freeze or a real-terms freeze.
Whatever the level of the budget, it certainly is a budget in drastic need of reform. The common agricultural policy still accounts for more than 45% of the European Union’s spending, whereas research and development accounts for only 6.7%. The Commission is actually proposing a switch between those budgets, but that switch is made possible only by the Commission’s call for a larger budget. It is simply ludicrous for the European Union to continue to have agriculture as its largest area of expenditure, rather than the industries of the future—industries where the UK is well placed. We are currently the largest recipient of EU funds for research and development, and that is the budget that should be expanded. The priority for the United Kingdom coalition Government should be to negotiate a major shift within the EU budget and certainly within the existing level of resources. To clarify the issue for the hon. Member for Nottingham East (Chris Leslie), I say that our budget rebate should remain while the EU budget remains in its current unreformed and out-of-date state.
On sources of revenue for the European Union, I share the sentiments expressed by the Opposition Front-Bench team that it would not be right for the EU to take on the personality of a federal state and have taxes paid directly to it, whether that be VAT or the proposed financial transactions tax. There is a very good case for a financial transactions tax being levied once we can have international agreement among the global financial centres, many of which lie outside the European Union, but there is no case at all for the European Union itself to pinch that money, which the people who have campaigned for the Robin Hood tax have earmarked for other purposes. May I reassure my colleagues that the Government are right to call for a freeze in existing EU budgets? However, they should also vigorously press the case for reform.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. There are three speakers and eight minutes.
Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)
It is a great pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol West (Stephen Williams). I am tempted to say that there is more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repenteth than over the 99 who are not in need of repentance.
I have very little time, so I shall address the veto briefly. It is crucial to be clear that there is a veto on the multi-annual financial framework, which applies from 2014, but not on the annual budgets between then and now. The Government are therefore in a very strong negotiating position for that framework but not necessarily for the annual budgets. They are also in a very strong negotiating position regarding the own resources issue, which is also subject to the veto.
I must confess that I rejoiced at the Minister’s speech because we have been hearing for the first time since 1997 a proper and solid view on how we should interact with our European friends and neighbours. However, there is one issue to which I should like to alert Her Majesty’s Government. The budget is drawn up in euros and we have to be careful about what currency that might actually be in the lifetime of the budget. It is of concern to me that the euro might collapse between now and the end of the budget, and that if it were to be a German euro it could be substantially higher in sterling terms than the current euro. We ought therefore to get some acknowledgement of the currency risk in any budget negotiations so that we can protect our position in sterling. That really is a crucial point.
I want to mention own resources, because, as my hon. Friend the Member for South Dorset (Richard Drax) said, they are not own resources. As Margaret Thatcher once said, it is our money, and we must not let the EU get at our money if we need it for our own purposes.
Finally, as time is short and you want me to wind up, Mr Deputy Speaker, let me mention the financial transactions tax. This is the work of the devil and it must be opposed. We have heard a lot of wishy-washy stuff about “If we get global agreement.” Well, thank God for Lee Kuan Yew, because I think we can be confident that the good people of Singapore will say no to this awful nonsense. A financial transactions tax would not tax invisible, non-existent people: it would fall on the citizens and subjects of the United Kingdom. We must oppose it. We must be robust in opposing it and we must not let the European Union get its grubby little hands on it.
Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg), who made a fantastic speech. I wanted to address the dangerously pro-European speech of the right hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr MacShane), but sadly he has left the Chamber. We heard from him the usual nonsense about how anybody who opposes the European Union in some way hates foreigners, which is not the case at all. I was going to say to him that he should ask the people of Rotherham what they want their money to be used for and put that to a referendum. They might keep re-electing him out of some sort of strange fondness, but I strongly suspect that they do not agree in the slightest with his views on the European Union.
I was intrigued by the words of the hon. Member for Nottingham East (Chris Leslie). Obviously, we on the Government Benches are most grateful for his support for the motion. I was not quite sure whether he was suggesting that, had he been here during the previous Parliament, he would have made sure that the rebate that the previous Government gave away without any reform would not have been given away. He certainly seemed to be making a pitch for a better job, if nothing else.
I was happy to sign this motion for the simple reason that I listen to the constituents of Brigg and Goole. I am not the brightest individual, as anyone who has heard my speeches will confirm, and I have not read through all the relevant documents. However, when I speak to my constituents about what they want to have done with their money, they tell me that the last thing they want is for it to be sent off to an institution with massive bureaucracy whose accounts have not been signed off for 16 years, only for large parts of it to be spent elsewhere. I am a passionate advocate of our withdrawal from the European Union, and I have listened to my constituents. Following the recent vote, I received hundreds of messages telling me that I had done the right thing, and only one from an individual telling me that I had done the wrong thing—
Andrew Percy
No, it was a constituent who informed me that we could not have a referendum on the European Union because the people do not understand the arguments—the usual patronising guff that comes from pro-Europeans.
I fully support the motion, which is why I put my name to it, but we should be going much further. Apart from leaving the European Union, we should be going much further while we are in it to ensure that our budget contribution is substantially reduced. My constituents simply cannot understand why an ever-increasing amount of their hard-earned money is being sent off and spent by that institution.
Andrew Bingham (High Peak) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend agree with my constituents who have written to ask me why the European Commission just does not get it? They point out that, when they are keeping their own budgets under close control, the Commission should be doing the same, instead of proposing these continual increases.
Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)
As ever, it is a great pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy), who speaks straightforward common sense. I also rise to support the motion. We have had a good debate, and I want to make some brief points.
First, we must not lose sight of the fact that, under the proposed new EU budget, there remain very few net contributors to the budget. Perhaps if more EU nations contributed to it, the EU might become a more prudent organisation. Secondly, I agree with the wording of the motion that states that the Commission’s proposal for an increase is
“unacceptable, unrealistic, too large and incompatible with the tough decisions being taken in the UK”.
Those words would be a good candidate for the winner of the understatement of the year competition.
The Government state, in paragraph 97 of their explanatory memorandum on the EU budget, that their provisional estimate of the UK contribution to the next EU financial framework is 11.5%, after the UK rebate has been taken into account. The Commission’s proposed ceiling for EU payments within the financial framework over the period from 2014 to 2020 is €972 billion, so a UK contribution of 11.5% on that level of EU payments would see this country paying in almost €112 billion, which is about £96 billion at an exchange rate of £1 to €1.6.
Mr Cash
Is my hon. Friend aware that, according to the European Commission’s proposal for the lump sums “adjusted for relative prosperity”—the annual lump sums relating to the period from 2014 to 2020—Germany’s would be adjusted to €2.5 billion and the United Kingdom’s to €3.6 billion, which is more than Germany’s?
Mr Nuttall
No, I was not aware of that, and I am grateful to my hon. Friend for bringing it to the attention of the House.
This country will need to contribute about £70 billion to the EU budget during the Parliament that will run from 2015 to 2020. Finally, the EU is proposing a substantial extension of its ability to collect its own revenues by introducing new, EU-wide taxes—the so-called own resources decision. It is also proposing a new, dedicated EU VAT and a new financial tax. And, just to rub it in, it is proposing to end the UK’s rebate.
EU officials should spend more of their time ensuring that eurozone nations start to live within their means and less time devising new ways to tax my constituents. The EU wants to spend more and wants the UK to pay more. The EU wants to scrap the UK rebate, and the UK wants to bring in new Euro-taxes. To each of these, and to echo the words of Baroness Thatcher, it is absolutely right that our Government should say no, no, no.
Mr Hoban
This has been a helpful debate. It is good to see that harmony has broken out on the EU budget—something that some of us thought was unlikely. There has been a clear expression of view across the House that the EU Commission’s proposals for increases, not just in the 2012 budget but in the multi-annual framework, are excessive and need to be curbed. I welcome the support for the Government’s approach to building a coalition of allies to curb the increases and seek to restrict the increase in budget to no more than a freeze in real terms.
I want to correct the misconceptions of one or two Labour Members. The hon. Member for Nottingham East (Chris Leslie) lectured us on the need to stay firm on the rebate. That was an extraordinary position, given what happened under the previous Government. He said that the UK rebate had gone up in cash terms since the 2005 deal, but let me tell him that the OBR’s forecast says that, thanks to the giveaway by the previous Government, our rebate falls from £4.2 billion in 2009-10 to £2.7 billion in 2010-11. That is the cost of having a Labour Government in office when these debates are being held in Europe.
The right hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr MacShane), who I notice is not in his place, said that Poland was the fourth largest contributor to the UK abatement. Well, he should get his facts right; it is actually the sixth largest. But of course Poland is the largest net recipient of funds from the EU, and our support for developing the Polish economy far exceeds its contribution to our rebate.
In this settlement, we are looking for a rebalancing of funds to help economic development in those accession countries to give a spur to the economy, and that is in the long-term interest of the UK economy. The right hon. Member for Rotherham said that the EU budget was capped at 1% of EU gross national income. It is not. If one looks at what is on and off-budget, one sees that on average, over the course of the financial framework, EU spending is 1.11% of European GNI, in breach of that condition. He and the hon. Member for Swansea West (Geraint Davies) were also misled by the presentation of the numbers. It is clear, and the information in our report demonstrates clearly, that the EU Commission proposes a real-terms increase in spending, and that is simply unacceptable when countries across the EU are trying to curb their deficits and tackle their public spending.
We will take a tough line in the negotiations on the budget and the financial framework. We want to ensure that Europe lives within its means rather than seeking to expand its means with new taxes and expanding its own resources. Europe should spend the money it has wisely and well. I hope that the House will support the motion before it today.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House takes note of European Union Documents Nos. 12478/11 and Addenda 1 and 2, 12474/11, 12480/11, 12483/11, 12475/11 and Addenda 1 to 3, and 12484/11, relating to the Commission’s proposal on the next Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF), 2014-20; agrees with the Government, that at a time of ongoing economic fragility in Europe and tight constraints on domestic public spending, the Commission’s proposal for very substantial spending increases compared with current spend is unacceptable, unrealistic, too large and incompatible with the tough decisions being taken in the UK and in countries across Europe to bring deficits under control and stimulate economic growth, that the next MFF must see significant improvements in the financial management of EU resources by the Commission and by Member States and in the value for money of spend and that the proposed changes to the UK abatement and new taxes to fund the EU budget are completely unacceptable and an unwelcome distraction from the pressing issues that the EU needs to address; and supports the Government’s ongoing efforts to reduce the Commission’s proposed budget.
Credit Institutions and Investment Firms
(13 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr Mark Hoban)
I beg to move,
That this House considers that the draft Regulation on prudential requirements for credit institutions and investment firms (European Union Document No. 13284/11 and Addenda 1-4) does not comply with the principle of subsidiarity for the reasons set out in the Annex to Chapter 1 of the Forty-second Report of the European Scrutiny Committee (HC 428-xxxvii); and in accordance with Article 6 of the Protocol on the application of the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality, instructs the Clerk of the House to forward this reasoned opinion to the presidents of the European institutions.
I am pleased to have the opportunity to discuss the European Union’s proposals on prudential requirements for the financial sector, and I welcome the Scrutiny Committee’s thorough report on the issue. I find myself in a slightly odd position today, in that the motion before us today, which stands in my name, was tabled by the Committee. The Committee has done a fantastic job in identifying this issue around subsidiarity, and we shall be supporting the motion.
Mr Cash
My hon. Friend would need to be only half a minute in for the point that I am about to make. There are some recommendations sculling around in the Procedure Committee and the Liaison Committee that the Minister would not necessarily have to reply to the questions put forward by the European Scrutiny Committee and by the Chairman. Is my hon. Friend aware of that?
Mr Hoban
I am indeed aware of that and I think it is a good thing. Although my hon. Friends and I see eye to eye on many of these issues, there may be an occasion when a reasoned opinion is put forward which the Government do not quite agree with. That would put the Government and the Committee in a strange position.
I agree with the Committee that the Commission’s co-proposals on prudential requirements raise serious concerns over subsidiarity and, as drafted, the proposals seriously undermine the efficacy of the Basel reforms in the EU. As argued in the Committee’s report, the proposals for maximum harmonisation will severely restrict the ability of member states to conduct macro-prudential policy. They limit the ability of member states to respond to the unique characteristics and risks of their market, and where necessary, go beyond minimum standards to ensure financial stability in their own jurisdiction.
We cannot risk being straitjacketed into a one-size-fits-all approach in setting prudential levels. Across Europe, no two financial systems are the same, and in a system where euro area banks face the same centrally set interest rate, it is even more important that member states retain the flexibility to use other tools for financial stability. Let me deal with these issues in a little more detail.
As hon. Members are aware, the Commission’s proposal on prudential requirements is the mechanism by which the EU will implement the Basel III agreement to strengthen capital requirements and introduce minimum liquidity and leverage standards, changes that are absolutely necessary to correct the failures that preceded the latest crisis. Basel III is an ambitious agreement, a strong demonstration of collective endeavour and ambition, and an agreement that will fundamentally reform the global financial system. As we agreed with our international counterparts at the G20:
“We are committed to adopt and implement fully these standards”.
There are those who would seek to use current economic circumstances to row back from full implementation of Basel III—those who argue that full implementation would undermine growth at a time when we need to do everything we can to support a global recovery. We disagree. At a time of instability and at a time when bank balance sheets are under intense scrutiny and pressure, now is not the time to row back from strengthening those balance sheets. Stability is in itself a vital precondition for growth, and Basel III sets out the vital reforms that we need to increase stability in the banking sector.
Earlier this year the Commission published its draft regulation on prudential requirements for the financial sector. Despite the G20 commitment to implementing Basel III in full, the draft regulation deviates from that agreement in crucial areas. In doing so, the proposals significantly dilute the minimum standards agreed internationally for global banks and increase the taxpayer’s potential exposure to future losses. As the Scrutiny Committee highlights, the draft regulation also seeks to embed maximum harmonisation of prudential requirements.
I share the Committee’s concern that the draft regulation will severely limit the ability of member states to conduct macro-prudential policy, and where necessary, go beyond minimum standards to ensure financial stability in their own jurisdictions. We believe that it remains the case that member states are best placed to identify risks to financial stability in their jurisdiction. This is particularly the case when it comes to taking action concerning their own financial stability. Given the considerable experience, expertise, information and knowledge available to member states, it is difficult to see how the Commission can be considered to be better placed to assess macro-prudential conditions, systemic risks and appropriate policies for each member state than the member states themselves.
Furthermore, it is not clear that the Commission would be able to respond faster than the competent authorities of member states to risks as they arise. Therefore, I share the Scrutiny Committee’s concern that the inclusion of article 443, which contains a delegated power for the Commission to adopt delegated acts to impose stricter prudential requirements on member states, is entirely inappropriate. Not only is subsidiarity a matter of economic principle, but it is a matter of past experience. The financial crisis taught us that it is vital that national authorities retain discretion to react decisively and speedily to economic developments. It is vital that member states retain their flexibility to adjust prudential requirements to respond to emerging systemic risks and cyclical variations in economic activity, which, as we have seen in the build-up to the eurozone crisis, can be very large.
The crisis also taught us that we were not alert to those systemic risks, and not just at the firm level. It is vital that we are not caught out again. National authorities must retain the tools and flexibility to tackle those risks. Therefore, although Basel III provides an historic and coherent set of minimum standards, the ability to go beyond them if necessary and deploy macro-prudential policy to tailor our response to idiosyncratic macro-financial risks is in our vital economic interest.
We are not alone in making that judgment. The previous head of the European Central Bank, Jean-Claude Trichet, has said that
“the Basel requirements are minimum, and they have to be considered as minimum.”
Likewise, the IMF argued in its UK spillover report:
“UK financial stability will be weakened (with adverse spillovers) if EU rules constrain UK financial regulations at insufficiently ambitious levels or if they limit the ability to use macro-prudential instruments to address emerging risks.”
Retaining that flexibility will not, as the Commission has suggested, undermine our commitment to the single rule book. Of course, a single rule book helps to reduce the burdens on cross-border firms, but that cannot come at the expense of a member state’s ability to implement higher prudential regulations. Instead, a single rule book that establishes harmonised definitions and minimum requirements would protect the flexibility to allow member states to adjust their prudential requirements as necessary, while at the same time helping to reduce burdens on cross-border firms.
Indeed, recommendation No. 10 of the Larosière report on financial supervision states that
“a Member State should be able to adopt more stringent national regulatory measures considered to be domestically appropriate for safeguarding financial stability as long as the principles of the internal market and agreed minimum core standards are respected.”
It is interesting that we have an agreement here. My hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr Cash), Jacques de Larosière, who is the architect of the financial regulation, and the Government all agree with that we must have the flexibility to go further if that is appropriate.
I believe that we have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to reform financial services and ensure that we embed a system that works in the interests of consumers and underpins stable and sustainable economies. The Government have neither dithered, nor delayed in implementing fundamental reform of our financial sector and our system of regulation. We are reforming the failed tripartite system, leading the debate on the future of the financial sector through the Independent Commission on Banking and leading the international agenda for full and fundamental reform across the global financial system.
At a time of instability, the European Commission will inevitably come under pressure to delay, obfuscate and pander to vested interests across the EU that want to soften standards. It is critical that the Commission stands firm against those pressures and, with respect to the prudential requirements legislation, implements the Basel agreement in full. We must ensure that the Basel requirements are implemented as harmonised definitions and minimum requirements, not a maximum, that member states have the flexibility to respond to the unique risks and characteristics of their own markets, and that we implement regulations that are effective, credible and consistent. I commend the motion to the House.
Chris Leslie (Nottingham East) (Lab/Co-op)
The capital requirements directives have sought to translate the proposals of the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision and apply them across the EU. Today’s proposal, CRD IV—another acronym that is familiar to many of our constituents—attempts to update those arrangements so that they fit the circumstances of today’s banking system and learn the lessons of the global financial crisis. As the Minister said, no one disagrees that the quality and quantity of capital that banks hold in order to absorb losses should be increased, and there is broad consensus on that.
CRD IV will make four changes. It will, first, introduce sanctions to ensure that all EU banks comply; secondly, prevent over-reliance on credit rating agencies, which should not substitute for proper internal due diligence; thirdly, improve corporate governance in the banking sector; and fourthly, address the pro-cyclicality of lending, which can accelerate the expansionary tendencies of an economic cycle. The difficulty comes when the Commission proposes “maximum harmonisation” in order to achieve a single EU rule book for banking, preventing member states from setting higher standards beyond the levels proposed in the directive.
I am aware that many City institutions also favour a harmonised international approach to regulation, but such an approach could render many of the recommendations of the Vickers commission, for example, redundant as we would simply be unable to introduce tougher standards here in the UK. The EU says that the directive is to prevent a race to the top, but we need to ensure that our financial services industry—by far the largest and most systemically important of any EU country—has a regulatory system that can protect UK taxpayers and UK consumers. After all, when domestic banks fail, domestic taxpayers have to come to the rescue, so we need domestic regulation that has the room and flexibility to go beyond any internationally agreed minimum standards.
Mr Cash
The hon. Gentleman acknowledges, I am sure, that the real reason why we are in the situation we are in—I shall make a short statement about it later on behalf of the European Scrutiny Committee—is that we have transferred such jurisdiction to the European Union. As I said in a letter to the Financial Times the other day, we are fighting back against the background not only of the City having moved against the proposals, but of our having opened the sluice gates and allowed it to happen.
Chris Leslie
The hon. Gentleman’s work on the European Scrutiny Committee has been useful in respect of the proposals before us, and it would have been helpful if the Minister had clarified where we stand in terms of qualified majority voting versus any veto options that we might have. I would be grateful if the Minister could set them out.
Chris Leslie
Which proves the point that we need to ensure that we negotiate firmly.
The motion before us is worded correctly. It focuses very much on subsidiarity, and on article 443 and the proposals that would give the Commission the right to vary national regulations, even though it would prevent member states from changing their own rules beyond the maximum harmonisation arrangements—a step, I believe, too far. I agree with the draft reasoned opinion and, therefore, with the motion that the Clerk of the House forward this view to the presidents of the European institutions.
Article 443 does indeed go too far, and it would not be appropriate. Paragraph 18 of the European Scrutiny Committee’s report sums that up well, stating there is no evidence to prove that
“the Commission is better placed than the competent authorities of Member States to address national prudential concerns. Indeed, there is a strong argument to say that national authorities are not only better placed, but can react more quickly than the Commission can by means of delegated legislation, thereby enhancing financial stability.”
Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton) (Lab)
Does my hon. Friend agree that the Commission almost certainly knows that it would not be better at that than the regulatory authorities, and that what is behind this regulation is an attack on the City in order to up the game of Frankfurt and Paris? It must be resisted at all costs. It is much more malevolent than just a bureaucratic mistake.
Chris Leslie
It is difficult to ascribe motives to the Commission in all circumstances. My hon. Friend may well be right, but then again I have also talked to some of the City’s large banking institutions, which have in some ways argued in favour of harmonisation, so it is a mixed picture. I agree with the Government on the point before us, however, and it is important that we stand firm and retain the flexibility of higher standards if we possibly can.
Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)
Is it possible that those banks that seem to favour harmonisation think that they might have an easier time under Europe-wide regulations than under more stringent regulations from the British Government?
Chris Leslie
My hon. Friend may well be correct. “Who knows?” is the ultimate question, but his cynicism has been proved right in the past and may well be right today.
The motion is a sensible assessment, and asking the Clerk to send a reasoned opinion to the presidents of the European institutions is absolutely right, but what happens next? Will the Minister set out in a little more detail the consequences of today’s motion, and whether we would have any prospect of shaping our own financial regulatory agenda if, indeed, many of the changes in the directive went through regardless of the opinion that we sent? The mismatch between the Commission’s view and the UK’s position is only the tip of the iceberg or, to use a better metaphor, only the beginning of the story.
I am afraid to say that the Government’s proposals for financial regulation have not been properly thought through and clash so much with European regulatory arrangements that they just will not be able to stand up adequately to their strength and power. Ministers knew very well that the EU supervisory institutions would be split across thematic groups around banking, pensions and insurance, and markets. Yet according to the Minister’s legislation, we are choosing to split our arrangements between prudential and conduct regulation.
I agree completely that we need a greater focus on prudential regulation, but there is a growing risk and increasing evidence that our UK institutions may leave us in a tangled mess unable to engage effectively with those very powerful EU structures. That concern is shared not only by Opposition Members, but across the City and other financial service sectors. If our voice is not adequately heard, we may be unable to be represented properly in the right meetings at the right time.
It is not just the Opposition who are saying that. Last year, the Financial Services Consumer Panel said that
“the current European structure under the ESMA would be a poor fit with the proposed new UK arrangements and that this could potentially weaken the UK’s voice in the European Union.”
In September, the British Bankers Association said that
“little has been related on how the regulators will go about ensuring…that UK representation around the European table is second to none. There has not, for example, been acceptance of the suggestion made by the industry that consideration be given to maintaining a single international secretariat across the relevant authorities as a common shared service and the establishment of cross-authority teams to ensure that UK representatives at the three European Supervisory Authorities and other European and international committees are in a position to draw upon all relevant expertise and knowledge.”
The Association of Independent Financial Advisers—incidentally, I am attending its annual dinner this evening—said in September:
“The AIFA is concerned that the twin peak approach to UK regulation is not consistent with the developing European sectoral approach. We must ensure that the UK system is able to efficiently interact with the European system and does not lead to significant confusion for regulated firms and cost inefficiencies, or damage the competitiveness of the UK.”
Indeed, two weeks ago, the Chairman of the Treasury Committee, the hon. Member for Chichester (Mr Tyrie), said in a letter to the right hon. Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr Lilley):
“How will the PRA and the FCA co-ordinate their interaction with the new European Supervisory Authorities which do not neatly match the twin-peaks model—particularly where both financial stability and consumer protection outcomes may be considered together at an EU level? With an enormous amount of EU legislation under way, how will the EU regulatory authorities ensure that UK interests are represented with one voice?”
So there has been a barrage of anxiety about the Government’s proposals and how the design of their domestic regulatory arrangements will fit with those European supervisory structures. The Minister has time to think about those matters before introducing the Bill. If we try to persuade EU regulators to comply with our approach to financial regulation retrospectively, it will genuinely be like shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted.
Mr Cash
The shadow Minister is perhaps being rather disingenuous when he says that the Minister may have time to think before the Bill comes through. I am sure the hon. Gentleman understands that, under the arrangements for the European Union, where a qualified majority vote is being applied and the measure becomes part of our law, we implement it under section 2 of the European Communities Act 1972. There is absolutely nothing we can do on the Floor of the House to reverse that unless we apply the provisions of my sovereignty arrangements notwithstanding the 1972 Act. It is about time we started to do so.
Chris Leslie
I am simply highlighting the anxieties felt across the City, the financial service sector and by many hon. Members, who are worried that we are stepping into a new set of financial service regulation structures domestically within the UK that are far away from those bodies we need to be influencing, steering and having our voices heard by. It may well be that we are stepping in the wrong direction. That is the anxiety I am voicing today.
Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)
I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman for allowing me to interrupt his characteristically thoughtful speech. Given what he is saying, does he think that this would be a very good, if not ideal, area in which to repatriate powers?
Chris Leslie
I do not think it is wrong to try to have some level of co-ordination on financial services regulation across the EU. This is a global industry, and that is broadly sensible. However, we now know very well how those supervisory institutions of the EU are to be structured, and yet we are designing new arrangements for the post-Financial Services Authority world that do not match very suitably with those. There may be different approaches to how we can make the fit more effective and improve Britain’s voice. However, there is genuine concern that even though we knew about these arrangements 18 months ago, the Government have not yet provided the capability to adapt the regulatory reforms to ensure that we do not lose influence—and, in fact, build our influence.
As regards the capital requirements directive, it is clear that for the time being we need to resist the Commission’s challenge to proper subsidiarity and give our reasons for retaining national discretion to have safer and higher standards for financial regulation here in the UK.
We support the motion but hope that Ministers will take the opportunity to think more strategically about how best to address the structural mismatch between their proposed reforms and the European arrangements, because that risks marginalising the UK’s voice time and again.
Mr William Cash (Stone) (Con)
Before I go into the question of subsidiarity, I want to raise some matters that relate to what the shadow Minister said. He made some extremely important remarks. I am sorry that our own Front Benchers did not address those questions, because they know that they are very much on my mind and have been for a very long time.
The Minister said I would be glad to know that he and Commissioner de Larosière were ad idem as regards the de Larosière report. I have to say that I have been anything but ad idem with Mr de Larosière and his report for three or four years. The moment I saw the report, I wrote a letter to the Financial Times in which I pointed out that it was a very dangerous move and that its consequences would lead to jurisdiction over the City of London being transferred to the European Union. With all due respect to the shadow Minister, his Government were in power at the time this was under discussion. He has been issuing strictures about negotiations, but I am not interested in negotiations when 20% of our GDP is at risk in relation to a legislative system that will completely and totally undermine and annihilate our ability to maintain that strength in the financial services sector. I directly blame the previous Government for their total failure to do anything about this.
I will go further. I also blame those on our side of the equation who allowed this to happen, because it is, at the very least, acquiescence in a system. Before the general election, my hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow (Mr Dunne)—my own Member of Parliament—convened a meeting in the Grand Committee Room relating to these matters. Some very distinguished people were present. There were people from the City of London, the City institutions and the City of London Corporation, as well as the rapporteur, or lady in charge, of the financial services arrangements for the European Commission. It was a very high-powered conference. Despite the fact that I put up a very strong case for ensuring that this nonsense, from our point of view, did not continue, I found—not unusually, I have to say—that I was completely and utterly outvoted. At least, I was out-manoeuvred by a number of people, not on the quality of their arguments but on the sheer force of their attitudes, which amounted to saying, “This is a global marketplace, this is what we have to do, we must engage in a situation where the rest of the world works together.” We now hear the same talk about the dreadful proposal for a financial transactions tax.
The reality is that the City has woken up. The hon. Member for Nottingham East (Chris Leslie) mentioned the British Bankers Association. I have not examined every document that has come from these great and august bodies, but I fear that they did not do the right thing at the right time and that they allowed this situation to happen. The Government and the Opposition of the time went along with the idea that it would somehow be beneficial to the United Kingdom for it to be put in this peril—and peril this is. The House is fairly thinly attended this afternoon, but I venture to suggest that these documents, which are six inches high on just the one issue of European Union prudential requirements, are a dagger pointing at the heart of the City of London.
The Minister rightly said that the proposal severely undermines Basel. He said that we will negotiate firmly. However, as I asked the Prime Minister yesterday, how will the Government be able to do anything about it in the context of the fiscal union that they propose, which must include voting solidarity among the members of the eurozone, who have long wanted to take the City of London away from us, when this issue is governed by a qualified majority vote? I have taken the trouble to look this up and my best recollection is that there are 231 votes for the 17 members of the eurozone compared with 130 votes for the rest. We are in a permanent massive minority. That is what is going on. It is a kind of economic warfare. This is not just about Euroscepticism; this is an issue that goes to the heart of our capacity to deliver revenues and prosperity in this country.
There may well be cases for reform. I have great sympathy for those who think that the City has gone off beam recently in many respects, including on salaries, pay and remuneration. Some of those points are exaggerated, but some are justified. I think that we should go back to a system of regulation that is more along the old Quaker lines, whereby one knew what one’s capital was and how to use it properly, and through self-regulation people who were out of line were put back into line by common consent. That is for another day, but I am deeply worried.
My hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) raised the question of repatriation. Why is it that I have argued consistently for the repatriation of powers, not just in social and employment legislation, which again is for another day, but in the kind of powers we are discussing? If the City of London goes down or is severely diminished, it will do nobody any good. Those who vote for the Labour party would also be affected because we need that money. For three and a half centuries, the City of London has been at the heart of our financial system and our revenue base. We cannot afford to have that money redistributed, like so much chaff, among the other member states.
Graham Stringer
The hon. Gentleman is making the powerful case, with which I agree, that this is malevolent legislation that is directed at undermining the City of London. I suspect he will agree with me that the Government should use the fundamental crisis at the heart of the European Union to be as brutal and as determined as possible in bringing back as many powers as they can, because the European Union is not a benevolent body when it comes to the UK’s interests.
Mr Cash
I very much agree with the hon. Gentleman. The more I have heard from him over the past few years, the more I have admired his determination to speak the truth. That is the position. This is not a party game; this is serious and it is deadly. This move is determined and deliberate. That is what people need to know.
Roland Vaubel, the famous economist from Mannheim university, talks about the use of the qualified majority voting system in the Council of Ministers as a form of “regulatory collusion”, and mentions the strategy of deliberately raising rivals’ costs. Particular groups of countries—there are no prizes for guessing which—enter into arrangements behind the scenes, and vote accordingly. Both France and Germany use that system to their advantage, and as I said in the Financial Times the other day, we are being outmanoeuvred.
Despite all the time, money and effort being put into the Vickers report, there are, as the shadow Minister made clear, serious worries that Vickers may yet be undermined by the very proposals that we are discussing. The problem goes much further, but I do not need to enlarge upon all that any more.
Some people tend to sneer at the idea, which I occasionally put forward, that our sovereignty is the most important issue of all. I say that for one reason and one reason alone—it is only by exercising the sovereignty of this House on behalf of the British people that we have any chance of being able to return and repatriate powers if the other member states are not prepared to negotiate.
I am prepared to listen to the Prime Minister telling me that he will fight hard, or whatever answer he gave me yesterday, but I remain totally unconvinced. We are at risk as a result of proposals such as these, so it is absolutely essential that we get things right. When I wrote a pamphlet for him—in fact, for the general public—called “It’s the EU, Stupid”, I set all that out, so I do not need to enlarge on it any further.
I have got out of the way the general points that I believe are necessary to put the whole matter in context. I see the Foreign Secretary laughing a little. I do not hold that against him, but I have to say that this is no laughing matter; it is a very serious question. We are reduced to having to argue about reasoned opinions and subsidiarity. Important though those are, as I have said, there is a dagger pointing at the City of London. Not just this particular draft regulation but an accumulated vast array of weaponry is being aimed at the heart of our economic system.
Mr Andrew Turner (Isle of Wight) (Con)
Could my hon. Friend help by reminding me how much is owed to the City of London as a proportion of national income?
Mr Cash
It has been declining, and that is another reason for concern, but the latest figure is something of the order of 15% to 20% of our gross domestic product. Take that away, and where would we be? The draft regulation is a deliberate attempt to do that, and it is only one document of many.
The aim of the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision is to
“enhance understanding of key supervisory issues and improve the quality of banking supervision worldwide.”
I hope that it succeeds. However, the various directives in question relate to the taking up and pursuit of the business of credit institutions and to capital adequacy, and they are collectively known as the capital requirement directive or CRD. They introduce a supervisory framework within the EU, designed, it is stated, to
“ensure the financial soundness of credit institutions (banks and building societies) and certain investment firms.”
I take a slight interest in that, because my family founded the Abbey National building society back in the 19th century and the National Provident Institution in 1835. Those institutions were run on sound grounds and lasted until very recently, but have unfortunately now been mopped up as a result of some of the international goings-on in the financial sphere.
In 2011, the European Commission proposed a draft regulation—the document referred to in the motion—and a draft directive, known together as CRD IV. They would incorporate the Basel III agreement on prudential requirements for credit institutions and investment firms into EU law. How often have I said that the danger is that when a matter is transferred to EU jurisdiction, we lose control? Because of section 2 of the European Communities Act 1972, we cease to be able to control it. We hand over control of the drafting, method and interpretation of the law, and its effect on our own institutions, our own initiative and our own ability to be innovative and succeed.
The proposals are still before the European Scrutiny Committee, pending the receipt of further information from the Government. Meanwhile, the Committee has recommended that the House submit a reasoned opinion on the draft regulation to the European Commission, the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament. A draft is annexed to the Committee’s report. I mention that because if enough member states issue a reasoned opinion, we will be able to stop the proposals. I strongly urge the Government to get as many member states as possible together, and I am sure they are doing that, if only to retrieve the situation as best they can.
Of course, as we all know, other member states will know what we are up to, and they will not enter into an arrangement to submit a reasoned opinion. We have seen that in the past—we do not get the requisite number of member states, and the proposal goes through. This is a test not just of the Government but of the integrity of the system. If a reasoned opinion is required because the Commission has exceeded its powers in relation to subsidiarity, nothing should prevent that from going ahead on an objective basis. I am not trying to pre-empt the decision, but I am anxious, on the grounds that I am about to mention, for other member states to understand that a reasoned opinion is necessary. It is in their hands to prevent the proposals from going through.
I turn now to the argument about the objectivity of a reasoned opinion. When the Commission makes a proposal for legislation, it is now required under the European treaties to produce a “detailed statement” that makes it possible to appraise the proposal’s compliance with the principles of subsidiarity. I do not for a minute demur from what I said during the Maastricht debates—that subsidiarity was a con trick intended to establish hierarchies, not true subsidiarity. We shall see.
That detailed statement is not just a bureaucratic procedure for its own sake, although one might be forgiven for thinking that some in Brussels think it is. It is the principal means left whereby national Parliaments and electorates can assess the basis on which the Commission considers legislation to be necessary at supranational rather than national level. The presumption underpinning subsidiarity is that decisions are best taken as close to the citizen as possible. Amen to that, providing that it happens.
It is not sufficient to underline the importance of those detailed statements. I remind, or inform, the House that no piece of European legislation has ever successfully been challenged in the Court of Justice of the EU on the grounds that it breached subsidiarity. Not one. That sends a very powerful message. There is not a little suspicion, therefore, that subsidiarity is just something to which lip service is paid. It strikes the democratic gong, but is not followed by any lunch. One of the jobs of national Parliaments—that is us here in the Chamber—is to try to change that position.
Kelvin Hopkins
I suggested yesterday in European Committee A that, as the hon. Gentleman suggests, subsidiarity has not functioned well. In fact, I do not really understand it myself. I suggested that it was a political decoration, to overcome a difficulty. The reality that I would understand is opt-outs and opt-ins, with member states having the independence to do what they thought was right for their interests.
Mr Cash
I very much agree. All that I can say is that on this occasion, there will be a very good test of whether subsidiarity can win the day. Let us see.
Given the importance of the detailed statement, the treaty makes several stipulations about what it should contain, which include an
“assessment of the proposal’s financial impact…in the case of a Directive, some assessment of the proposal’s implications for national and, where necessary, regional legislation; and…qualitative and, wherever possible, quantitative substantiation of the reasons for concluding that an EU objective can be better achieved at EU level.”
When the European Scrutiny Committee looked at the draft regulation, it found—not by any means for the first time—that neither the Commission’s explanatory memorandum nor its impact assessment contained a detailed statement to make possible an assessment of its compliance with subsidiarity. Hon. Members should bear it in mind that the draft regulation, which is of immense importance, amends the capital requirements directive by removing the discretion previously given to member states to impose stricter prudential requirements where national circumstances require that. That is a significant change. Indeed, the Government argue that it could lead to greater financial instability and, as the Minister said, could severely undermine Basel. It will be seen from the draft reasoned opinion that the Committee concluded that the Commission failed to discharge the treaty obligation placed upon it to provide quantitative and qualitative reasons for that change in the form of a detailed statement.
Putting the procedural failures to one side, the House will gather from the draft reasoned opinion that, on the substance, the Committee agrees with the Government that the objectives of the regulation were not better achieved by precluding member states from imposing stricter prudential requirements when they considered that necessary. The Committee came to that conclusion because it was clear from the Government’s explanatory memorandum that there continued to be a need for a flexible approach to address prudential concerns at a national level. That reality was reflected in the fact that the Commission proposes in article 443 of the draft regulation that it should be able to adopt delegated Acts to impose stricter prudential requirements for member states where necessary. The Committee could not find sufficient evidence to demonstrate that the Commission was better placed than member states to address national prudential risks that suddenly arise. Indeed, there was a strong argument for saying that national authorities were not only better placed, but could react more quickly than the Commission by means of delegated legislation, thereby enhancing financial stability.
I also have grave misgivings about the Commission having such powers delegated to it—ever. EU delegated legislation is not unlike our own: it affords considerable Executive power with far less oversight.
Finally, the Commission’s approach to the consideration of subsidiarity is a matter of concern not only to the European Scrutiny Committee, but to every national Parliament of every member state. I hope that they take note and do something about it, because a great deal is at risk. At its last meeting, COSAC—the bi-annual conference of the EU Committees of national Parliaments, which I attended—concluded that the Commission was not complying with the treaty obligations placed upon it to provide sufficiently detailed statements. That was on the motion that I proposed, which was accepted by COSAC. This was good news, because the Committee had been pushing for it. We await a response from the Commission, but we need support from other member states.
I repeat: I urge the Government to use all their diplomatic and persuasive powers, because we are put at a significant disadvantage as a result of the transfer of functions to the European Union. If there is sufficient opposition from enough member states, we can defeat this proposal.
Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)
I shall be brief in following my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr Cash) and in supporting the reasoned opinion. I also hope to strengthen and add to some of the arguments made by the Minister and the Opposition spokesman from the Dispatch Box in favour of subsidiarity in banking regulation.
If there is one over-arching lesson that we learned from the financial crisis of the past few years, it is the importance of having the primary banking regulator close to the financial market. I welcome the direction of travel on financial regulation in our national life, which will place much more importance on the role of the Bank of England, because the Bank follows what is happening in this country’s financial markets on a day-to-day basis.
It is instructive that the United States—a country that has had monetary union for the past century—is also caught up in the financial crisis. That subsidiarity in banking regulation continues to apply in the US in that each state is responsible for banking licences and supervision in its jurisdiction.
Mr Cash
I am fascinated by my hon. Friend’s line of argument, because she has raised the question of commercial states’ rights, which are embedded in the American constitution—they are inviolable. Countries in the EU have no such rights. When legislation at EU level goes through—this is why I so strongly attack and resist the idea of transfer of jurisdiction to that level—we are required under the 1972 Act to implement the law. We do not have commercial states’ rights.
Harriett Baldwin
Indeed, and to continue with my example, the US Federal Reserve is very much a system of individual reserve banks—the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco all play important and distinct roles, recognising that different banking markets have different characteristics, and recognising how vital subsidiarity is in banking regulation.
My heart sank when I asked at the Vote Office for papers relevant to today’s motion and was handed this 1,200-page document. We discussed earlier how the EU could save money on its budget, but the document is a prime example of where money could be saved. It is completely unnecessary.
I opened the document at random and found that one proposal is to start dictating quotas for women on the boards of financial institutions in the EU. Page 1,132, which I am sure my hon. Friend the Member for Stone will want to read in detail, is on quota laws for the number of women who sit on the boards of financial institutions in different countries. I noted that in the table of a survey of governance arrangements, Iceland and Norway are included, but the last time I checked, they were not even member states. I put myself firmly in the camp of people who think that the more diverse range of views one has on boards, the better, but I certainly do not think that that should be laid down in 1,200 pages of EU guidance.
Mr Cash
To give another example, article 218 refers—incomprehensibly—to the so-called financial collateral comprehensive method. To illustrate how far away we have moved from the notion of running a capitalist and financial system sensibly, we are now down to formulas. I shall try to quote it. The document states:
“Institutions shall calculate the volatility-adjusted value of the collateral (CVA) they need to take into account as follows …CVA = C (1 - HC - Hfx)…where…C = the value of the collateral”.
That is absolute gobbledegook, but that is the manner in which our system is run. It is completely mad.
Harriett Baldwin
I can see that if I carry on giving examples, I will only encourage my hon. Friend to find more passages of gobbledegook to read into the record, but it is indeed the most appalling document.
Mr Nigel Dodds (Belfast North) (DUP)
The hon. Lady makes powerful points on subsidiarity. We have had some fun at the expense of the document, which is long, convoluted gobbledegook, as the hon. Member for Stone (Mr Cash) said. However, the reality—this makes my heart sink too—is that unless we get enough countries in Europe to agree with us, the document will become directly applicable law in the UK. That is how serious the matter is. When one considers the amount of scrutiny that we rightly give to legislation in the House, one realises that the amount of scrutiny given to the document is appallingly low.
Harriett Baldwin
What adds to the power of the right hon. Gentleman’s argument is the fact that this week, of all weeks, we have seen how completely inadequately the euro countries have managed the governance of their budgetary arrangements and affairs over a matter that is causing serious problems for the world economy.
I wish to conclude by making one further point. I was completely gobsmacked by the chutzpah—if that is a parliamentary word, Mr Deputy Speaker—of the Opposition spokesman, the hon. Member for Nottingham East (Chris Leslie). Although I welcome the fact that he agrees with the motion, I noted that he did not refer to the previous Labour Government’s role in signing us up to the Lisbon treaty without a referendum. It displayed a stark lack of acknowledgement of his party’s role in getting us to this position.
I have spoken briefly because there is important business to follow, but I want to reiterate how important it is that the Financial Secretary be armed with the maximum political support for his trip to argue our case against this ridiculous 1,200-page document.
Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for West Worcestershire (Harriett Baldwin). I agreed with practically every word she said.
I want to focus on subsidiarity in relation to the bank capital requirements. It seems to me that those capital requirements must rest with the lender of last resort, because the organisation that will be best informed about the requirements of banks within its system will be the bank to which they report. This regulation might therefore be an area where it is suitable for the eurozone to have a single regulation, but where those outside the eurozone ought to have regulations referring to their own currencies and central banks.
That works both ways. There has been much concentration on the need to raise bank capital rates when an economy is booming, as part of efforts to calm down an economic expansion, and that is obviously true: had bank capitalisation rates been raised during the last boom, the effects would have been lessened, the degree of gearing, particularly in the Royal Bank of Scotland, would have been lower and the problems that followed would have been fewer. However, it is equally important, when an economy is turning down, that bank capital requirements might need to be lowered, and that might well be the case now.
When banks face large amounts of bad loans and write-offs, we might need our central bank to say, “Well, at this point, we cannot enforce a high bank capital adequacy ratio because, if we do, our banks will not be able to continue in business, or they will not be able to make loans to good-quality borrowers now coming forward.” The key argument of subsidiarity, therefore, is that bank capital adequacy regulations have to relate to the currency at issue, and that comes back to the central bank at issue—in our case, of course, the Bank of England. Those ratios must be flexible beyond international agreement, because if the lender of last resort is willing to lend to a bank with low capitalisation in a time of crisis, that is a decision for that central bank and its risk-taking decision makers; it does not need to be decided at an international level.
My final point is the one made by my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr Cash): there is a danger, under the qualified majority voting system, of regulations entirely suitable for the eurozone being passed through for the whole of the EU. Her Majesty’s Government need to be alert to that and to make every effort to prevent such regulations from being forced upon us. I hope, therefore, that this motion, when passed, will be taken seriously by the EU, and that we will be allowed to regulate our banks in our way, as appropriate.
Mr Hoban
This has been a helpful and thoughtful debate, and it will give the Government immense support in making the arguments over the coming months about the need to get CRD IV right; about recognising that it should be the responsibility of competent authorities in member states to set appropriate levels of bank capital beyond high minimum standards; and about the fact that we need the flexibility to do so in order to protect the stability of our financial system. That recognises the fact that banking structures and systems vary between member states. The complexity of those banking systems manifests itself in the extraordinary length of the document before us. These are complex issues that we need to tackle.
I want to make a point about engagement with Europe, picking up on the comments made by the hon. Member for Nottingham East (Chris Leslie) about trade bodies. The same comments were made to the Treasury Select Committee today. There is nothing new about regulators co-ordinating the views of others when representing the UK on regulatory bodies. At the moment, the Financial Services Authority is our representative on the European Securities and Markets Authority, and in its representative role, the FSA must also reflect the views of other regulatory bodies not represented on ESMA. For example, it must take into account and reflect the views of the Financial Reporting Council and, on takeovers and mergers, the Takeover Panel.
Furthermore, the European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority has to represent the views of the Pensions Regulator. If I am right, at one point, the UK’s representative on EIOPA’s predecessor body, the Committee of European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Supervisors, was not the FSA, but the Pensions Regulator itself. There is nothing new, therefore, about one body representing the views of other regulators in the UK on these European bodies, and it would be wrong to suggest that this is something novel or different.
We need to ensure that, under the new regulatory architecture, we are clear about who speaks for the UK on these matters. On the European Banking Authority and EIOPA, the Prudential Regulation Authority speaks for the UK, so it will want to gather the views of the Pensions Regulator and the Financial Conduct Authority on insurance issues, for example. It is clear that the FCA will represent the UK on the board of ESMA, and it will have to gather the views not only of the FRC and the Takeover Panel, as it does now, but of the Bank of England, on clearing houses, and the PRA on prudential issues relating to securities firms.
I do not therefore see this as some great novelty or innovation. It needs to work. However, surely no one in the House is suggesting that UK regulatory bodies should be driven by what is happening in Europe, rather than meeting the needs of businesses and consumers in the UK. I do not think that anyone is seriously suggesting that we have sectoral regulation in the UK, rather than functional regulation. If the Opposition want to go down the former route, let them say so, but we should find a way of ensuring that the current system works.
Chris Leslie
What is the Financial Secretary’s assessment of the British Bankers Association’s suggestion for a properly resourced international secretariat to ensure a better single interface with those European institutions? He might be right that we should not necessarily follow those European arrangements, but surely he accepts that a complex existing arrangement could be made even more complex by the proliferation of financial regulatory bodies that he is proposing.
Mr Hoban
The hon. Gentleman has just recommended such a proliferation of bodies—with this co-ordinating secretariat. The PRA and the FCA are more than capable of talking to each other about these matters. We need to ensure that they gather people’s views and that the interests of the FRC and the Pensions Regulator are reflected. However, I do not consider it to be the huge problem that he is inflating it to be.
It is also the case, of course, that the negotiation of level 1 instruments, such as the directive before us today, is the responsibility not of the PRA, the FCA or the Bank of England, but of Her Majesty’s Government and, in particular, the Treasury. It is very clear where the focus is; we do not seem to have any problem at all in co-ordinating the views of others for that process.
This has been a helpful debate. It will help strengthen the Government’s hand in negotiation with Brussels. It is very clear that it is not just the UK Government who believe that we should have the freedom to go further beyond minimum standards if necessary, and the freedom to set our own macro-prudential strategy. That is the view of the International Monetary Fund, the view of Jean-Claude Trichet and the view of Jacques de Larosière. There is a consensus around this. What is important, I think, is that the Commission listens to that consensus and takes the right action to enable member states to tackle financial stability. I am grateful for the support for this motion and commend it to the House.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House considers that the draft Regulation on prudential requirements for credit institutions and investment firms (European Union Document No. 13284/11 and Addenda 1-4) does not comply with the principle of subsidiarity for the reasons set out in the Annex to Chapter 1 of the Forty-second Report of the European Scrutiny Committee (HC 428-xxxvii); and in accordance with Article 6 of the Protocol on the application of the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality, instructs the Clerk of the House to forward this reasoned opinion to the presidents of the European institutions.
Backbench Business
Transport Committee Report (High Speed Rail)
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
We now move on to the first of two items of Back-Bench business. I shall shortly call Louise Ellman to move the first motion—and, indeed, she will move the second. As I said to the House just over a year ago when we debated the first item under this relatively new procedure, the Chair of a Committee speaks for about 20 minutes, during which time interventions may be taken, but after he or she concludes there will be no separate speeches and we will move on to the next business.
Mrs Louise Ellman (Liverpool, Riverside) (Lab/Co-op)
I beg to move,
That this House notes the publication of the Tenth Report from the Transport Committee on High Speed Rail, HC 1185.
I am grateful for the opportunity to present on the Floor of the House the Transport Select Committee’s report into high-speed rail. Our inquiry attracted widespread interest and considered strongly contested and diverse views on the Government’s proposal to build a dedicated, high-speed, Y-shape network, with trains running at up to 250 mph.
Phase 1 is proposed to run from London to Birmingham, opening in 2026. Phase 2 would add two legs to the line, with one going to Manchester and the other to Leeds, operating from 2032-33. The total projected costs are £32 billion, with £16.8 billion for phase 1. The former Secretary of State for Transport, the right hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr Hammond), told the Committee that, spread over 17 years, this was affordable and amounted to an average of £2 billion a year—very similar to the current costs of building Crossrail. Should this proceed, Parliament would consider a hybrid Bill from October 2013 to May 2015.
Our inquiry included consideration of more than 200 pieces of written evidence. We held five oral evidence sessions, with more than 40 witnesses. We travelled on high-speed rail in Frankfurt, Paris and Lille, and spoke to business and civic representatives there, so that we could make some assessment of the impact of high-speed rail on continental Europe. We commissioned a report on High Speed 2 from Oxera Consulting and asked for its analysis of the case put for High Speed 2. We appointed specialist advisers, Bob Linnard and Richard Goldson, to work with our excellent Committee staff. We took those steps because we recognised the importance of this inquiry and we wanted to listen to the greatest possible number of people with different views and different experience, and we wanted the highest level of advice and support in assisting us to analyse the validity of the project before us.
It is regrettable that people expressing sincere and legitimate concerns about what they fear would be the local impact of high-speed rail on their environment have been castigated as “nymbys”. People are entitled to express their views, and while a decision on a major investment of this nature should be taken in the national interest, people are fully entitled to express their concerns about what they believe might be the impact on them, their community and their local environment. Abuse does not help debate.
What are our conclusions? We conclude that there is a good case for proceeding with a high-speed rail network linking London and the major cities of the midlands, the north and Scotland, principally because it will provide a substantial and necessary step change in capacity and a dramatic shift in connectivity not offered by any of the alternatives proposed. This investment will assist passengers and freight. We reject a policy of ever-rising train fares in an attempt to suppress peak-time passenger demand. Current overcrowding is a consequence of a current failure to provide necessary capacity at a time when people want to travel and often need to travel.
The number of long-distance rail journeys more than doubled in the 15 years to 2009. Some of the highest growth has been on the west coast main line, where the number of journeys has increased by about 10% per annum for the past three years. The west coast main line passenger demand levels forecast by HS2 for 2021 have already been overtaken and are projected to increase.
Mr Andrew Turner (Isle of Wight) (Con)
Will the hon. Lady help me by explaining how much money from the Government and how much from the customers or the users of the railway is involved? May I add that, as a representative of the Isle of Wight, there is no benefit whatever for me or my constituents if a lot of money is spent on a railway in the north of England?
Mrs Ellman
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his comments. Currently, the proportion paid by the traveller or fare payer is increasing and is now about half of the cost. That is very different from what applied in previous years.
We were told clearly that the west coast main line will be full by the end of this decade, which means that additional required routes and services for passengers and freight could not be made available. Our specialist advisers were clear that HS2 is needed for capacity reasons if the pattern of growth continues or if peak demand cannot be spread.
The step change that HS2 would bring does not apply only to people who would use the new line. It would enable expansion on the existing classic line for more local and regional services and for freight. Places such as Milton Keynes would benefit; freight on rail would expand—and demand for freight on rail is anticipated to double. When an assessment of the impact of High Speed 2 is made, it is important to look at what services could be made available on the existing classic line, as well as what would run on the new line.
Ms Gisela Stuart (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab)
As a Birmingham MP, it always strikes me that we focus on the benefits from London to Birmingham, but what about trade between Birmingham and cities in the north-east and north-west—another benefit that should not be ignored?
Mrs Ellman
I thank my hon. Friend for her comments. It is evident that the debate on High Speed 2 is often cast solely in terms of access to London, but this is also about access between major cities. For example, if and when the line is completed as planned, Manchester and Leeds would be brought within 80 minutes of London, travelling from Manchester to Birmingham would take 49 minutes, while Birmingham to Leeds would take one hour and five minutes. It is as much about the connectivity between the cities of the United Kingdom as it is between cities and their access solely to London. Indeed, a high-speed line offers a dramatic shift in connectivity between the UK’s major cities as well as improved access from the regions to Heathrow and, through linking with High Speed 1, to continental Europe.
A high-speed network could be a catalyst for economic growth, supporting jobs and investment. It could help to rebalance the economy and address the north-south divide.
Mr Andrew Turner
At present half the money comes from the Government, and a new railway costing about £18 billion is proposed. It is not clear whether people who can currently afford to travel would still enjoy the same benefits. Would the money that is being spent continue to be spent, or would the amount be reduced?
Mrs Ellman
Those are matters for Government policy. When we raised that specific issue with Ministers in the Select Committee, we were told that the current assessments were based on existing Government policy. That could, of course, change; it would be a matter for the Government of the day.
Many local authorities and business representatives, especially in the west midlands and the north, were extremely enthusiastic about the potential economic benefits of High Speed 2, and many referred to specially commissioned studies that showed what could be achieved. We do, however, have a number of concerns, which must be addressed during progress on High Speed 2 to ensure that the potential of a new high-speed rail network is realised and informs decision making. The Government must commit themselves to phase 2 before phase 1 is agreed.
Eric Ollerenshaw (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Con)
I congratulate the Select Committee on its exhaustive report. Would it not be useful if the Government found some technical way of including in the Bill provision for services to Manchester and Leeds, so that the north could give its full support to the railway?
Mrs Ellman
I agree with the hon. Gentleman. Indeed, if he reads our report, he will see that we suggested a specific form of words enabling the Government to do just that. I hope that the Government read the report very carefully, particularly the section to which I have referred.
The case for a high-speed line between London and the west midlands depends largely on the assumption that the Y-shape network will be completed. To provide a high-speed line that went solely from London to Birmingham would be to abandon the north, which I do not think many Members would want. Indeed, in the longer term the line could extend to Scotland, Wales and other parts of the United Kingdom.
It is important that local and regional economic strategies are drawn up and supported—that includes support from Government as well as the private sector—to maximise high-speed rail’s potential to rebalance the economy, but it is equally important that investment is maintained in the existing classic line, including initiatives such as the northern hub. Continued investment in the classic line is important for the purpose of local improvements, and people travelling on local lines must be able to benefit from the maximum possible access to the high-speed line.
Stuart Andrew (Pudsey) (Con)
I congratulate the hon. Lady and the Committee on the report. She raised an important point about connectivity in the north. If people are to travel from London to the north and vice versa, once they have reached the north they will need to be able to travel effectively and efficiently, which they cannot do at present. I therefore believe that the northern hub is crucial to the success of High Speed 2.
Mrs Ellman
I agree with the hon. Gentleman. I hope that he will put his weight behind the views of the Select Committee, which is already working hard to ensure that the northern hub is delivered.
The Committee considered that further information was required to inform decisions on access to Heathrow and terminals in London. We felt that there was not enough information in the public sphere, particularly in relation to Heathrow. We also felt, strongly, that environmental concerns should be properly assessed in a revised business case. High-speed rail is likely to have substantial impacts on some local communities and areas along the route, and we need to be satisfied that full consideration has been given to an assessment of what those impacts might be.
Dan Byles (North Warwickshire) (Con)
I join those who have welcomed the report, which contains a very thorough analysis. The Committee has entered a number of caveats alongside its support for High Speed 2. In the summary, the Committee calls on the Government
“to consider and clarify these matters before it reaches its decision”.
Does the Committee believe that the Government should not make a decision until all the points raised in the report have been clarified?
Mrs Ellman
If the Government decide to proceed, they should issue a statement of their intention to do so. We have already been told that more information will be made available before a statement is issued. Following that, intensive work should be done to deal with some of the issues that we have raised before the House considers a hybrid Bill in 2013. It is proposed that proceedings on the Bill should take place over 18 months, so if the Government decide to go ahead there will be plenty of time for consideration to be given and for more information to be produced before any final decision is made.
Ms Gisela Stuart
If the Government think it right to go ahead—and I agree with them—what will change between now and 2013? Surely the hybrid Bill can serve as a framework Bill, and it will not be necessary to wait until next year.
Mrs Ellman
While we are committed to the necessity for high-speed rail, we think it important for the detailed issues that we have raised to be considered fully.
Christopher Pincher
The hon. Lady says that the Committee’s report raises important points, and she says that the environmental impact has not been properly assessed. Does she believe that that impact will have a significant effect on the net cost-benefit ratio in the business case?
Mrs Ellman
That is an important point. I cannot anticipate what the impact would be, but we think that other factors, including the importance of reducing current overcrowding, should be assessed as well. Ultimately, any cost-benefit ratio would have to take account of the findings in regard to those factors, and possibly others as well.
The significance of the 250 mph maximum speed should be explained in relation to the choice of route, and the value of time-saving per individual should be reconsidered. The importance of reducing overcrowding should also be assessed. Much more progress must be made on decarbonising fuel before High Speed 2 can be seen as an essentially green project. Any reduction in carbon emissions that is attributable to high-speed rail should be determined by the extent to which the UK’s energy is decarbonised, although it is certainly true that travelling by high-speed rail is greener than travelling by car or plane. The information that we currently have does not make clear the extent to which high-speed rail would replace air travel, particularly in phase 1. We repeat our call to the Government to publish a transport strategy so that the role of rail and aviation, including high-speed rail, can be assessed in a national context.
Those are our major concerns. We believe that they must be addressed if the High Speed 2 legislation is to complete its passage through Parliament in what, as I have explained, would be a lengthy and detailed process. A decision to invest in a new dedicated high-speed rail network would be the single most important transport infrastructure investment for generations. Our report supports high-speed rail, and identifies important matters that must be addressed before final decisions are made on High Speed 2. I call on the Government to respond constructively.
Question put and agreed to.
Cost of Motor Insurance
(13 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
The procedure for this motion will be as follows. Louise Ellman will speak for around 10 minutes. We will then move to full debate, which can last until 10 o’clock. Ministers will indicate when they wish to speak, which need not be at the beginning, and Louise Ellman will be afforded five minutes in which to wind-up at the end.
Mrs Louise Ellman (Liverpool, Riverside) (Lab/Co-op)
I beg to move,
That this House expresses concern over the large increase in the cost of motor insurance in recent years, including in relation to young drivers; welcomes the report by the Transport Committee on the cost of motor insurance (HC 591) and its continuing inquiry into the reasons for this increase; notes that factors explaining the cost of motor insurance include the number and cost of personal injury claims arising from road accidents, assessment of risk, fraud, and uninsured driving; notes that the Government has taken some steps to deal with these issues, including a ban on referral fees in personal injury cases, but that more could be done; further notes that Ministerial responsibility for these issues is split across several departments; and calls on the Government to establish a cross-departmental Ministerial committee on reducing the cost of motor insurance and to publish a plan for dealing with the different aspects of this problem during this Parliament.
Members of the Transport Committee are signatories to the motion, and I thank the Backbench Business Committee for allowing me to move it.
Many Members will have received letters complaining about the rising cost of car insurance. People with clean records who have driven for years without incident have suddenly found themselves facing big increases in their premiums, and young drivers are now being asked to pay about £3,000 for insurance, effectively forcing them off the road.
The Committee started looking into this issue in November of last year, and we published a report in March. It generated massive interest. People are extremely concerned about their premiums, but serious questions about how the insurance industry works were also raised, and, unusually, we decided to reopen our inquiry.
It is, perhaps, fair to say that motor insurance was not the Minister’s highest priority before our inquiry began, but I hope it has become a higher priority now. Many Members have campaigned on the cost of motor insurance, and I single out for tribute my right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw), who has campaigned strenuously for the abolition of referral fees.
The AA’s regular survey of the cost of motor insurance shows that quoted premiums have more than doubled since 2006, reaching an average of £921 last month. The premiums faced by young people, and especially young males, are significantly higher—in many cases, about £3,000.
Jonathan Evans (Cardiff North) (Con)
Did the Committee also look at the impact of the recent Test-Achats judgment on gender discrimination? At present, there is a significant disparity between insurance rates for young women and young men, but that case argues that the rates should, in fact, be the same.
Mrs Ellman
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question. The Committee did not look specifically at that point, but I fear that if there is to be equity, it will be equity upwards, rather than lead to a lowering of premiums.
High premiums have a major impact on the lives of our constituents. Motor insurance is rightly compulsory, but for many people driving a car is a necessity, perhaps for getting to work, to college or to hospitals for appointments, as well as for visiting friends and family, doing the shopping or taking children to school.
I and other Members have received a great deal of correspondence from people wanting to give examples of the problems they have experienced. I received a letter saying the following:
“My partner has just tried to insure me again on our vehicle which is not a sporty flash car, to be told that it would cost him an extra £1,370.”
A lady from Birmingham wrote:
“My car was involved in an accident where a lorry collided with my car. The driver accepted it was his responsibility…My renewal was due and my premium had increased from £700 to over £2,000.”
These stories illustrate why the Government must act.
Surprisingly, the recent increase in premiums has coincided with significant improvements in road safety, which is part of a welcome trend of falling numbers of deaths and serious injuries on the roads. Why have premiums risen so much, therefore?
There is better access to justice, with no win, no fee arrangements. Those arrangements are being changed, but we must not return to a situation in which justice is available only to the rich.
There is also cold calling, where claims management companies canvass for claims, often using personal information obtained from unknown sources. Where is the regulation of data protection that is supposed to be in place? Claims management firms deserve special scrutiny. They encourage people to claim, and to make multiple claims when they might not otherwise have done so. Premiums in the north-west are 50% higher than the national average, apparently because of the activities of these companies.
Referral fees have been in the news. They are paid to a number of players in the industry as a reward for passing on business, thereby encouraging claims and sometimes inflating bills. They are not paid to insurers alone; a number of bodies are involved, including insurance companies, solicitors, car hire firms, claims management companies, medical experts and vehicle repairers. Although the Government have started to act on referral fees, what they are doing does not encompass all those sectors of the industry, and neither does it take into account how companies might try to get around the abolition of referral fees. There are now alternative business structures, where non-lawyers can buy legal practices. How will the Government ensure that companies do not get around the ban on referral fees through taking such steps?
Fraud is a major concern, including the staging of accidents by criminal gangs. That adds £80 to the average premium.
Julian Sturdy (York Outer) (Con)
The hon. Lady is making some powerful arguments on issues that the Transport Committee has addressed. Does she agree that we need greater transparency in the industry if we are to drive down the costs of motor insurance?
Mrs Ellman
Yes, and the Committee has called for greater transparency, but the Government did not comment clearly on that point in their response to our report. As we did not get a clear answer then, I shall repeat the question now: what are the Government’s views on greater transparency?
Some criminal gangs commit fraud by staging accidents, but fraud can also include giving false information. We commissioned a survey with Young Marmalade, an insurance company specialising in young people, and a third of young drivers said they had considered giving inaccurate information to insurers in order to try to get a lower premium. There are plans to give insurers access to Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency data, but when will that be implemented? Whiplash claims are another source of increased costs and premiums. We need to find a way of identifying when such injuries are genuine.
One of the reasons for the high premiums faced by young people, and in particular young males, is the high accident rates among them. The accident rates for young males are 10 times higher than those for older people. Some years ago, the Committee looked into this issue and made a number of recommendations, including changing attitudes and enforcing a graduated licence scheme, but we are still waiting for the Government to respond. We support the “black box” idea developed by some insurers to monitor and assess the driving standards of young people so that that information can, perhaps, be used to calculate their premiums.
I am glad that the Office of Fair Trading is looking into the industry, and that the Government have started to act by starting the legal process to ban referral fees, but do we truly have any confidence that premiums will come down? I do not believe we have seen any evidence of that.
A great deal more needs to be done and that involves a number of Departments: the Department for Transport; the Home Office; the Ministry of Justice; the Department for Education, which springs to mind immediately when one thinks about road safety and attitudes; and perhaps some others. Diverse Departments are involved and responsible for this area, so a cross-departmental working party is required, and that is why I have brought this motion to the House. I hope that the Government will be able to agree to setting up such a working party, so that insurance premiums can become affordable and the growing outrage of people forced to pay extortionate rates can be addressed.
Karl MᶜCartney (Lincoln) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs Ellman), who made many points with which I agree. I congratulate her and hon. Members across the House on securing this debate and putting forward this motion. May I declare an interest as both a justice of the peace and one of 32 million drivers who pays insurance for the family car? Like many, I am dismayed that the previous Labour Government did nothing to dissuade the estimated 1.5 million uninsured drivers still on our roads or to halt the rise in fraudulent claims and insurance scamming which plague drivers and our courts.
Like many colleagues, I am aware that it can often be the issues that never make the front pages, or those that receive little, if any, attention, that can irritate people the most and can undermine and shake their belief in the rule of law and a responsible society. Normally, this occurs when people have done the right thing yet their fellow citizens who have purposely done the wrong thing somehow get away with it and the law-abiding are left to pay the penalty. The menace of uninsured drivers is one such issue. If that and the so-called insurance scammers were effectively tackled, the costs of motor insurance would be significantly reduced for the law-abiding drivers of our country.
In September, I conducted an online survey regarding uninsured drivers, the fines and punishments currently handed down, and what respondents felt should be the punishment, given the rising costs of premiums that most law-abiding drivers have had to pay in recent years. There is a widely held view that there is a need for far harsher penalties for uninsured drivers and other people who, aided and abetted by the claims industry, lie about the extent of injuries caused to them and, in some cases, wilfully manufacture the circumstances in which accidents occur. There are also about 1,200 claims per day for whiplash, each case averaging a payout of £3,500, and hire car charges for replacement cars are also eye-wateringly high. That is not sustainable, or, I believe, a true representation of accidents on our roads.
My interest results not only from what my constituents or friends and family tell me, but from what I have seen with my own eyes and experienced personally. As a magistrate, I have found that our hands have for some time been tied by rules and by the ring-fencing of the level of fines and type of sentences we can impose on the same old faces that come before us, often three or four times in a few years. These people include those who drive without insurance, and often without tax and MOTs for their vehicles too. It is also a proven fact that many of those convicted of vehicle crime are involved in other law-breaking activities.
Moreover, my family and I have been the victim of three car insurance scams, and the police forces in both Kent and St Albans have shown no interest in following them up, despite judges and courts finding in favour of us and our insurance company. But they should, because how many fully insured drivers have the time and bullishness to see through such action, and challenge the system and the fraudsters? The system relies on this lack of willingness.
Kwasi Kwarteng (Spelthorne) (Con)
How extensive does my hon. Friend think the problem of fraud is in relation to rising premiums?
Karl MᶜCartney
It is very extensive, and I shall discuss it later in my speech. It is something we have to deal with.
The system relies on a lack of willingness to contest such fraudulent claims. After the judge’s decision in our most recent case, it was revealed in court that these scammers had tried it on—successfully—six times in the past five years from the same registered address of the vehicle. Unpunished, they are probably trying it on again as I speak. Not only do uninsured drivers increase the insurance premiums of law-abiding insured drivers, but we taxpayers are being fleeced a second time, as our courts are seeing similar claims cases taking up large amounts of court time, whereas 10 to 12 years ago that was not so. Typically, the courts, those working in them and the legal system suspect that the true number of fraudulent claims is at least 10 times that which reaches our courts.
To gauge whether my views were in tune with others—I feel that there is an appalling lack of appropriate punishments for uninsured drivers and accident scammers—I conducted an online survey, as I said. It was predominantly of local people in Lincoln and asked their views about uninsured drivers, given that the average fine for driving uninsured in the county of Lincolnshire was £213 in 2010, a reduction from £233 in 2008. I was not surprised to find that the vast majority felt the fine level was too low. It is especially galling for insured drivers to note that while their average insurance premiums have risen by up to 40% in recent years, the fines for uninsured drivers have decreased in the same period. We can see why this situation has occurred. The average comprehensive premium for the Lincoln postcode was just over £603 at the end of September 2011, which shows that someone has to be caught 2.8 times or more in a year for it to be more expensive than to drive with insurance.
However, as we have heard, insurance is about risk and age, and those key factors also matter. For example, the estimated cost for comprehensive insurance for a male in Lincoln aged between 17 and 20 is £2,733. It is £1,338 for a 21 to 25-year-old and £765 for a 25 to 30-year-old. That means that anyone from those age groups caught driving uninsured has respectively to be fined 12.8, 6.5 and 3.6 times per year before the fine exceeds the insurance cost.
Jonathan Evans
But this is not only about the financial penalty that may be imposed on uninsured drivers. If the uninsured driver is involved in an accident, the significant costs of personal injury have to be borne by all the people who are doing the right thing, and that then adds to the insurance costs to which my hon. Friend has referred.
Karl MᶜCartney
My hon. Friend is correct, and that is something else that I will discuss later in my speech.
For many, the risk of driving without insurance is attractive. The “getting away with it” factor is too enticing. As hon. Members on both sides, and you, Mr Deputy Speaker, may know, I like being positive, and there have been many changes recently that I warmly welcome: the reported fall, by a claimed 25% in the past five years, in the number of people driving while uninsured; the recent clampdown on people owning uninsured cars; the seizure of uninsured vehicles; and the coming prevention of insurance companies and other agencies selling on personal data, which has fuelled insurance scamming. That move followed the welcome recent Motor Insurance Regulation Bill sponsored by the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw). I hope that my ministerial colleagues will ensure that this applies to all referrals of personal data following vehicle accidents, and that the insurance industry and associated agencies will not look for any loopholes.
However, I believe that more needs to done, and the survey that I conducted through my website shows that the vast majority of local people who responded think so too. Unfortunately, I suspect that much of the insurance industry’s claimed recent fall in uninsured driving has come in London, where of course there has been a proliferation of number plate recognition cameras, in the City and, more recently, with the congestion charge area. Across the country a frightening statistic is still in force, which is that when we drive on UK roads in some areas every 12th car we pass has an uninsured driver at the wheel.
Having taken my views and those of my constituents into account, I have come up with a 10-point plan to clamp down further on the scourge of uninsured driving and phoney claims. First, as part of the need for a far more zero-tolerance attitude to be taken against supposedly low-level crimes, driving without insurance needs to be treated as a higher priority by the police. Like drink-driving, uninsured driving needs to be no longer socially acceptable.
Simon Hart (Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend agree that things are a load easier for enforcement agencies in other countries, because the certificate of insurance is displayed on windscreens there?
Karl MᶜCartney
Remarkably, my hon. Friend picks up on the second point of my plan. Secondly, we should have an insurance sticker on every windscreen, just as we do for the current tax disc, that proves that a car is insured. Thirdly, we need far tougher sentences for those caught driving uninsured, with the minimum fine in each area being the double the average insurance cost in that area for the age and gender of the person caught. Fourthly, where someone is caught and prosecuted for driving uninsured, they should automatically lose their driving licence for a set period, perhaps at least one year. That should certainly be the case for a second offence and perhaps the period should be longer—say five years—for subsequent offences. Fifthly, when someone is caught and prosecuted for driving uninsured for at least the third time, they should perhaps go to prison—only for a short time—and be given a lifetime driving ban. Sixthly, if someone causes a serious accident while driving uninsured, they should go to prison and be given a lifetime driving ban. Seventhly, juries and magistrates should be made aware of whether false vehicle insurance claims had been made by those making a subsequent vehicle insurance claim that has reached the court.
Eighthly, those making false insurance vehicle claims that reach the courts should be prosecuted and actively pursued by the relevant police force. My penultimate point is that the names and addresses of those prosecuted for driving uninsured should be published widely. Finally, we must support both the clampdown on insurers being able to trade personal data of those involved in accidents and the regulation of the monopoly and sharp practices currently engaged in by insurers and the legal profession that see the motorist paying through insurance premiums and general taxation for their unwillingness to stamp out fraudulent and speculative claims, such as personal injury and hire car charges. These moves are just the start, and throughout my time in Parliament I am going to continue to campaign for justice for the insured drivers of our country.
Julian Sturdy
I agree with my hon. Friend that tougher action is required. Is he surprised to hear that 10% of drivers aged under 34 do not realise it is compulsory to have motor insurance?
Karl MᶜCartney
I have heard that before and I am still surprised considering that I was brought up knowing that one had to be insured and given that one has to show one’s insurance documents to tax one’s vehicle. However, the point is well made.
I am going to continue to campaign for justice for the insured drivers of our country and for heavier punishments for those who are uninsured. The law-abiding majority—in this case drivers who, in many cases, struggle to pay large car insurance premiums but who rely on their car for work, for transporting children to school in rural areas or just to access local services and amenities—must always come first. I am also wary of the claims made by insurance companies and their insurance bodies and organisations, along with some parts of our legal system—the legal firms and operators in this field—that they are doing their best to reduce uninsured driving and scamming claims. They patently are not doing what they claim to be doing. They are complicit in passing on the cost of fraudulent claims and the £400 million to £500 million a year that the Motor Insurers Bureau fund pays out, which is taken from our premiums rather than their profits, to insure drivers who are involved in accidents with uninsured drivers. That is too much. They do not mind what our premiums are, as we have to pay the figures they quote. They have a monopoly.
I hope that my right hon. and hon. elected colleagues in government and honourable members of the judiciary and legal system will actively seek to reduce the financial burden of motor insurance on law-abiding drivers, particularly on new and young drivers, by ensuring that uninsured driver numbers are further reduced. That will ensure that young drivers in particular, at what should be an exciting time when they are able to have some independence, will be able to afford to drive legally on our roads. Further, older drivers who are struggling to afford motor insurance should find that premiums are reduced not just marginally but heavily if the insurance industry and legal system help to clamp down on the cost of uninsured drivers and on the cost generated by fraudulent and inflated claims. Those involved in the legal system that is currently in place are happy to see those claims passed through the system because they generate work, fees and profits at no cost to them, with drivers’ insurance premiums rising instead, as they have by more than 40% in the past year, to cover those costs.
The points I have made are based on the views of law-abiding respondents locally and on the view I have always held that the law-abiding majority should come first and the criminal should come last by a long way. The irritating system under which people may break the law knowing that the penalties for being caught are minor compared with the cost of complying with the law cannot continue. The situation has to be rectified to ensure that the law is on the side of those who uphold it, not of those who break it. Tackling uninsured drivers and insurance scammers will be a good step in the right direction.
Anything that will help to reduce the cost of insurance premiums for the law-abiding 32 million-plus drivers in our country has to be a good thing. Ensuring that there is a truly competitive insurance industry can only help drivers, especially if moves are made to ensure that it is no longer viewed as a rip-off for the motorist—or highway robbery, as some have termed the recent 40% rise in premiums. Perhaps regulating and removing the absolute monopoly enjoyed by the sector will also, along with appropriate levels of punishment, help to eradicate the despicable practice of uninsured driving on our roads. I support the motion.
Jim Dowd (Lewisham West and Penge) (Lab)
May I apologise to you, Mr Deputy Speaker, and to my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs Ellman) for missing the first few moments of her introduction to the debate? I commend her and the Committee for the excellent work they have done in this timely report. As she mentioned, the motor car has moved a long way from being a luxury to being, although not quite a necessity, something that is critical to the economic and social well-being of many millions of people across the country. Issues relating to cars clearly have a wide impact in every constituency.
The issue of young drivers concerns everybody. The difficulty that many of them have in obtaining insurance is only one part of that. I remember when I bought my first car back in—
Jim Dowd
No, it was not a Model T—it was a Mini, back in 1968. It was six years old and it cost me just over £100. By the time I had got my insurance, which was £60, plus four-months’ road tax—as it was then and as the rest of the world calls it, or vehicle excise duty as we call it now—and an MOT certificate, I had spent as much on those three items as the car had cost me. I was quite young at the time and that was probably reflected in the premium, but none the less it was a shock to have to spend as much on ancillary costs as on the vehicle itself.
Today, we hear stories of young people having a vehicle costing a few hundred pounds and insurance premiums of more than £1,000. It is not the cost of the vehicle that is the issue; it is the risk of using it on the road. Effectively, motor insurance is a public liability insurance; one does not necessarily have to insure one’s property but one does have to insure against damage to other people’s property and, indeed, to other people. It is the scale of the problem that we need to look at. As has been said, there are more than 30 million cars on the road and it does not take a genius to work out that as the number of cars on the road rises, so the likelihood of accidents rises in similar proportion. However, I believe that this country has a very good, but still improvable, record on reducing road accidents and certainly road casualties.
One shock that I had in 1992 when I was first elected to the House—apart from having been elected to the House—was the fact that for the first time in more than 20 years I had to buy my own car. I had experienced the comparative luxury of having a company car in the intervening 20 years and precisely because I did not have a personal insurance record—a no-claims bonus, as everyone knows it—at that time, the first insurance quote I got was more than £1,200 for a very medium-range car, which my former company kindly sold to me. It was only when I got the company to provide me with a certificate saying that I had had blemish-free motoring for 10 years or more that the insurance company reduced the figure, but it still only came down to £800—and that was the better part of 20 years ago. The problems with increased costs in insurance and the increased likelihood of people driving uninsured, as well as the risks posed to those people and, more particularly, to everybody else, are intolerable.
Motor insurance is a curious entity in that it is one of the few examples, although not the only example, of a statutory obligation to purchase a product from a private supplier. There may be far more than one supplier, but one has to have motor insurance to drive on public roads. That places on the motor insurance industry particular responsibilities that it should meet but that would not otherwise arise. I think the situation implies that the industry should have the most stringent, open, transparent—I think a Government Member said that transparency was a key issue—and fair standards of behaviour towards customers because it has a captive market. I accept that people can move from one provider to another, but one thing they have to have to drive on public roads is motor insurance. If one’s household contents insurance premium becomes unsustainable or extortionate, one can either go to another supplier or take the risk on oneself. One can say, “The premiums are not worth what I’m paying: I’ll take the risk on myself. I don’t have to have it,” but the same is not true of motor insurance. If one wants to drive on a public road one has to be insured.
The industry is confronted by a number of problems, to which others have referred. For example, there is the rise in personal injury claims, almost all of which seem to include claims for whiplash injury, as well as the issue of referral fees, which the report has looked at and which others have mentioned. There is also the growth of the no win, no fee—or ambulance chasing, as it is known in some circles—industry, and the business of downright fraudulent claims. All these issues have to be grappled with by the industry, which is an extensive one, and I am sure that people will have different views about how well it is dealing with them.
The report covered a number of areas, including personal injury claims, referral fees, uninsured drivers and fraud, but it did not cover an area that I want to make particular reference to on behalf of one of my constituents. He is 73 years old, and he has been working as a minicab driver for a number of years. He has a state pension, although not a full one, and that is his only other income, so he is keen to carry on working. In August this year, his then insurer advised him not that it was putting up his premium but that it was cancelling his hire and reward cover. It gave no other reason than the fact that he was now 73, as though he had just gone across some magical threshold. It was not even prepared to take on the risk at a higher price.
My constituent quite understands that, as people grow older, so they might become a bigger risk and therefore have to pay a bigger premium, but the insurer would not increase the premium. It simply would not accept the risk, for no other reason than his age. His wife is somewhat younger than him, but she, too, is past retirement age. She is still working, however, so his recourse to benefits would be somewhat limited. He contacted other insurance companies and brokers, but to no avail. He got no offers at all to renew his hire and reward cover, which is essential for anyone wishing to work as a minicab driver.
My constituent’s social, domestic and pleasure policy was unaffected, except for a marginal increase in price. I could understand if the insurer felt that he was a danger to the public and should therefore not be on the road. I would not agree with such a proposition—I do not think that any sensible person would—but it would at least have the characteristic of consistency. As things stand, however, it is perfectly legal for him to drive on the roads as a private citizen in his very unglamorous minicab, but it is no longer possible for him to pursue his livelihood as a minicab driver.
The majority of the population have a driving licence, and I quite understand why they expire on the licence holder’s 70th birthday. The assumption is that we need to consider whether people are still fit to drive on public roads. The primary consideration must be safety, not least the safety of other road users, and it is perfectly reasonable to check people’s eyesight and reaction times more as they get older, to ensure that they can still drive safely. We are told that we have an increasingly ageing population, so this is going to become more and more of an issue. There is no question but that everyone who drives on public roads should be deemed fit to do so, but I cannot understand the distinction between my constituent driving as a private individual and driving for gain as a minicab driver.
After my constituent had been to see me, I wrote to the Chancellor of the Exchequer and to the director-general of the Association of British Insurers. I got a reply from the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, in which he states:
“Some age-based practices, such as the use of broad age bands combined with significant price increases between age bands, may appear arbitrary. Insurers, however, use age bands as a means by which to price the risk of insuring a variety of individuals, and the transaction costs involved. The effects of age bands will, however, be reflected in the premium charged to an individual should they enter a new band.”
As I have said, my constituent has been denied that opportunity, as he has not been put into a new band. His premium has not been increased; it has been refused.
I also received a response from Mr Otto Thoresen, the director-general of the Association of British Insurers. I will read out a point that supports exactly what the Committee says in its report. He says:
“In 2010, motor insurers paid out £1.21 in claims and expenses for every £1 received in premiums. A combination of high legal costs, rapidly increasing personal injury claims, fraud, and a stubbornly high level of uninsured driving have driven the industry to a point where, after price stability and, in many cases, falling premiums in the middle of the last decade, they have now had to rise.”
The Committee makes that point as well. Mr Thoresen went on to say that there were issues relating to the taxi insurance business, and that
“evidence across the market has shown that the probability of being involved in an accident worsens as drivers reach their mid-70s”,
as my constituent is now doing.
One of the objections to the way in which insurance companies conduct their business is that, when it suits them to do so, they treat people as individuals, and if an individual has a particularly poor record, they will suffer the consequences. However, when it suits them, they also treat people as part of a group that has an alleged poor record, and increase the premiums accordingly. This never seems to work in the opposite direction.
Mr Thoresen suggested that my constituent continue to try to secure insurance through a specialist broker, and he very kindly gave me the details of four specialist companies for him to approach. My constituent contacted me again in the middle of October, having contacted all four companies. Of the four, three would not offer him insurance at all, and the one company that did so wanted about £750 a month. That amounts to well over £9,000 a year. I have absolute confidence that my constituent is an excellent minicab driver, and I am sure that his customers must be among the happiest in south London, but I am also fairly certain that he does not make enough money to pay £9,000 a year in insurance costs.
In the Financial Secretary’s response, he also said:
“Research has indicated that no age groups are specifically excluded from the insurance market”.
I suggest to him that it is unnecessary specifically to exclude anyone if they are being offered a price that is completely and utterly unaffordable. Theoretically, everyone in this country can go and stay at the Savoy—there is not a sign outside saying “No riff-raff”—but most people would not consider doing so because they cannot afford it. Similarly, in this case, that insurer made the cover so unaffordable that it might just as well have banned my constituent from having it. He and I have no objection to the need for an increase, but we object to the scale and disproportionate nature of that increase. All he wants to do is continue to pursue his livelihood and not have to depend on benefits.
David Rutley (Macclesfield) (Con)
The hon. Gentleman is making some important points. Does he agree that there might be scope for some new products in the motor insurance industry that could be tailored to older or younger drivers and perhaps designed around themes such as pay as you go? Such products could be made more affordable if they were tailored to specific age segments that have different risk profiles from those of the average driver.
Jim Dowd
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that suggestion. I said earlier that the insurance market should be more personalised, rather than more generalised. Companies should certainly look into that. I fear that, because the motor insurance sector is a captive market, we do not get the level of service that we would get from, say, the home insurance sector, because it knows that everyone has to have insurance if they want to drive on public roads. I agree with the hon. Gentleman, however, that products should be tailored more specifically to the individual.
As I said, my constituent wants to continue to work. He does not want to become dependent on benefits. Some years ago, the then Secretary of State for Employment was famously misquoted as saying that people should get on their bikes to find work. The present Secretary of State for Work and Pensions advised people in south Wales to get on the bus and go to Cardiff to look for a job. My constituent wants to get in his minicab and work, but the insurance industry will not let him.
Roger Williams (Brecon and Radnorshire) (LD)
I welcome this opportunity to speak in the debate. I want to say a few words about young drivers, the insurance industry and Government policy. I have some sympathy with the excellent points about why the industry is being pushed into charging ever higher premiums, but the premiums young people are charged are very high indeed. Many would argue that that is for good reason. Premiums have been quoted this evening of £2,700 for a newly qualified male driver. I shall quote a few statistics that might substantiate that.
One in five young drivers will have an accident in their first six months on the road, and 17 to 24-year-olds make up 12% of insured drivers but 25% of claims. An 18-year-old is three times more likely to be involved in a car accident than a 48-year-old, and young drivers tend to be involved in more serious accidents than older people, with the average claim for a younger driver being three times more than that for older drivers. Men between the ages of 17 and 20 are seven times more likely to be killed or seriously injured on the road than all male drivers. I thank the road safety charity Brake for supplying me with that information. There is a clear cost to insuring young drivers.
More tragically, every year 3,300 young drivers and passengers are killed or suffer life-changing injury as a result of road crashes. In rural areas there is a lack of public transport so young people need to drive, and I am absolutely not discouraging them from doing so. Many wish to have the opportunity of independence from their parents and, not having public transport, take to driving, but we must ensure that young people are as safe as possible, not just for their sake but for passengers and other road users and pedestrians.
In my constituency in 2006 we had the tragic loss of life of four young girls on Llangynidr mountain, and this summer a young girl from Hay-on-Wye was killed in a neighbouring village in Herefordshire. Many of these tragedies can be avoided. I have worked with Brake and with Sarah Jones of Cardiff university on graduated driving licences, whereby restrictions are placed on newly qualified drivers. The proposals supported by Brake are, first, a restriction on the number of young passengers in the car. Often the excitement of first going out and having friends in the car leads to reckless and ill-considered driving. There should be no driving for young newly qualified drivers between 11 pm and 6 am, unless for work purposes. There should be zero tolerance of alcohol, and no driving on motorways. This is not a radical plan. Countries with a form of graduated driving licence include New Zealand, Australia, much of Canada and 48 of the American states.
Mrs Ellman
Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the Transport Committee considered this issue in the previous Parliament and made precisely the same recommendation as he is making now? The then Government did not respond positively; perhaps this Government will.
Roger Williams
I was aware of the report, and I have met the Minister in this Government. While he understood my good intentions, he was not able to reciprocate positively.
Jonathan Evans
Rather than go down the route of legislation, might it not be a helpful preliminary step if the insurance industry reduced the premium provided that people accepted the proposals he has made on driving behaviour? That would not require legislation and might ultimately encourage better driving habits.
Roger Williams
That was precisely the comment that the Minister made to me. I commend the work of Co-operative Insurance and other insurance companies, which have come up with their own graduated driving licence scheme. A smart box in the insured car monitors many aspects of the driver’s habits, including speed, cornering and the time the car is driven. The driver is given a quarterly cashback payment according to their driving score. The data collected from a sample of 1,300 young drivers show that almost four in five consistently drive within the speed limits, and 40% of males and 41% of females achieved the top score in all categories.
So either through Government policy or by persuading insurance companies to take up similar measures, we can reduce the number of accidents on the road. That will not only bring down the costs of everyone’s insurance premium but, far more important, prevent many fatalities on our roads.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs Ellman) on introducing the debate. Car insurance and premiums is a big issue in Northern Ireland. Just two weeks ago the hon. Member for South Down (Ms Ritchie) secured an Adjournment debate on insurance in Northern Ireland, for which Northern Irish Members were present. It is good to be involved in the bigger issue for the whole of the United Kingdom, because we are part of the UK and as such we are concerned about the issue.
The Consumer Council for Northern Ireland has produced figures demonstrating that the cost of car insurance is comparatively higher in Northern Ireland than in England and Wales. It is accepted that there is a disparity, and the insurance companies and many other people understand that to be the case. There is, however, a lack of understanding and analysis of the factors that have resulted in the higher costs.
There has to date been a lack of informed discussion about the cost of car insurance in Northern Ireland. The premiums for us are clear, and those of us who pay their insurance are aware of that.
Mr Nigel Dodds (Belfast North) (DUP)
On average, premiums in Northern Ireland are 84% higher than in other regions of the United Kingdom—a startling figure given the high cost of insurance premiums across the UK as a whole. My hon. Friend is right to point out the particular problems in Northern Ireland.
Jim Shannon
Clearly, the fact that premiums are 84% higher shows what we in Northern Ireland have to bear. Part of the role of the cross-departmental ministerial Committee is to address that issue.
Premiums are high in Northern Ireland, but the number of compensation claims is falling, whereas in England and Wales it is increasing. The number of claims notified to the compensation recovery unit has reduced by 23% in Northern Ireland over a nine- year period, and over the same period it increased in England and Wales by 17%. It is a clear disparity—84% dearer insurance to start with, despite the fact that our claims are reducing. We have to ask why premiums are so high in Northern Ireland.
In 2009 the CRU was notified of 29,467 claims for compensation. In 2010 the county court of Northern Ireland made awards in only 768 civil bills for personal injury claims. The vast majority of claims are dealt with without the need for determination by the court. Again, claims are down but we are paying extremely high premiums.
In England and Wales a claim for damages arising from personal injury will routinely involve detailed claims for future caring costs. In Northern Ireland, these costs are reduced as injured persons will often be cared for by family members. That is perhaps the nature of us in Northern Ireland, but it is a factual example. In 2010, 87% of awards for personal injury in the county court were for less than £5,000. When there are claims, the average claim is small. That is important to note.
Karl MᶜCartney
Does the hon. Gentleman know whether the reduction in Northern Ireland is a result of insurance companies still having plenty of assessors who look at claims and make sure they are not fraudulent or as high as they are in England and Wales?
Jim Shannon
I am not aware of all the details. I am aware only that compensation claims are down. The value is down, as well as the numbers. That indicates that we deserve consideration when it comes to premiums. That is the point I am making.
A number of the factors that are thought to have contributed to the rise in the cost of insurance premiums in England and Wales are absent from Northern Ireland—again, it is important to draw the comparison. The absence of no win, no fee agreements means that those in Northern Ireland who are seeking compensation must invest their own funds—perhaps that explains the previous point—before a legal claim can be brought. Alternatively, a solicitor’s practice may be willing to fund the outlays. This dissuades unmeritorious litigants. Furthermore, in England and Wales a successful plaintiff’s solicitor can claim a success fee, which can increase legal costs by up to 100%. There is no provision for success fees in Northern Ireland.
The insurance market in Northern Ireland shares a number of characteristics with England and Wales. The same advertisements are shown on TV. Admiral Group advertises on TV, as does Churchill, but underneath, the wee small print says, “Not available in Northern Ireland.” So although Churchill says, “Oh, yes” to every question he is asked, that does not apply to Northern Ireland, so there is clearly an issue to be addressed. The insurance market in Northern Ireland shares a number of characteristics, but not the price. That is the point we want to make.
Some time ago I had the opportunity to go with some of my constituents to meet the Department of the Environment in relation to a suggestion we were making. Perhaps the Minister in his response, as well as the Committee, will take this on board to see how we could reduce premiums and fees in Northern Ireland. One of the suggestions that was made concerned a new scheme that exists in parts of America and Europe, whereby a gadget, for want of a better word, is put in cars that monitors the speed and the mannerisms of the driver. That feeds back to a central place. That reduces fees because if drivers transgress, on the principle of “Three strikes and you’re out,” they lose their premium reduction. That might be a way of addressing some of the issues.
Mike Penning
It is not for me to publicise which companies do that, but, as we heard from the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Roger Williams), at least one of them does, and there are several available on the market.
Jim Shannon
It is not for me to advertise those firms either, but I understand that they do good work and there are good possibilities for young drivers.
We want to make it clear, first, that the number of insurance providers operating in the market is lower than in England and Wales, restricting choice for consumers and reducing competition within the market. Secondly, there is a small number of accident management companies operating in Northern Ireland. There is some suggestion that costs are higher when accident management companies are involved. Despite the point that was made earlier, that may be a contributing factor and requires consideration. Lastly, the fact that Northern Ireland is a rural community with a dense road network and high levels of social need requires specific consideration.
Northern Ireland Members of Parliament have a duty tonight to highlight the imbalance in insurance premiums between Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom. We believe that, as the hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside said in her submission, a review is needed. Northern Ireland needs to be part of that cross-departmental ministerial committee. We look forward to its conclusion and to a reduction in fees for car drivers and for those who have to pay such high insurance premiums in Northern Ireland. I support the proposal.
Iain Stewart (Milton Keynes South) (Con)
As a member of the Transport Committee, I am pleased to have an opportunity to take part in the debate. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs Ellman) for introducing the Committee’s report so ably and comprehensively. I do not intend to speak for long, but having spent a considerable time examining the issues, there are a few points that I would like to place on the record.
Two weeks ago two events happened to me that crystallised in my mind the facts that we are debating tonight. First, I received in the post my motor insurance renewal notice from my insurance company. I can assure the House that it was not a happy moment in the Stewart household, because my premium had shot up by the order of 25%. I shopped around a little and got a slightly better quote, but it was still a substantial increase on last year, despite my having had no accidents.
Secondly, no sooner had I signed up to the new policy than I got a text message suggesting that as I had had an accident in the past three years, perhaps I required assistance to claim compensation. As I said, I had had no such accident. It strikes me that those two experiences, which I am sure have been shared by thousands, if not millions, of people up and down the country, are not unlinked.
Although I accept that, as the Select Committee’s report sets out, there is a range of reasons why insurance premiums have gone up considerably in recent years, from the evidence that I saw as part of our inquiry, together with private discussions that I have had with some insurance companies, I am convinced that it is referral fees for personal injury claims and the activities of some claims management companies that have been a significant contributor to the growth of those premiums.
I do not doubt that there may be perfectly respectable claims management companies, but I am of the view that the current arrangements whereby lawyers and others can pay and receive fees for referring personal injury claims has created an industry that pursues claimants for profit. Although I do not want to see anyone who has a genuine claim denied proper compensation, far too often those proper boundaries are breached and there is a financial incentive throughout the system to exacerbate claims or make fraudulent ones.
It has been difficult to obtain exact figures, but there is certainly an average sum of several hundred pounds in each claim which sloshes around the system in ways that are very opaque. The cost, of course, is picked up by the policyholder. This creates a double problem. For the honest motorist, that pushes up premiums at a time when many households are struggling to meet the cost of living.
Dr Sarah Wollaston (Totnes) (Con)
Further to the unfortunate shock that happened in the Stewart household, may I tell the House about the unfortunate shock in my household when I received a notice saying that I did not need to take any further action to continue my insurance with Tesco, but the small print indicated that the premium had gone up from £900 to £5,700 as I am the parent of a 17-year-old boy? It is a further sharp practice that the small print is not there, and it would have been very easy to miss the fact that I could have spent nearly two months’ salary on insuring my 17-year-old boy. I think everybody in the House would agree that it would be entirely unreasonable and very difficult for anyone living in a very rural area, as I do, for my son not to be able to drive.
Iain Stewart
My hon. Friend makes a powerful point. The shock in my household cannot even begin to compare with that in Totnes. She raises an extremely important point. Many of us will pay our motor insurance premiums by a monthly direct debit, and among all the paperwork that we receive it is very easy to say, “Yes, we’ll continue with that policy,” and then suddenly the premiums that we are paying shoot up. I echo her call for much more transparency and explanation on the renewal documents about what the new cost will be.
The first problem I identified is that the premiums go up, placing a strain on households that have tight incomes, but another problem is that premiums are pushed up to such a level that other, less honest motorists seek in some way to evade paying their insurance, and other Members have alluded to that. They will either not have insurance at all, or they will in some way make fraudulent claims on their insurance policies to try to minimise payments. That creates a vicious cycle; the more people evade payment or misclaim on their policies, the higher the costs that honest motorists have to bear.
The destination of those fees and the routes by which they travel are far from clear, but I have been surprised to learn of some of the organisations that potentially gain a sizeable income from referral fees. For example, it has been suggested to me that trade unions receive significant income, either directly or through benefits in kind, from referral fees. I have been unable to quantify that, but Lord Justice Jackson states in his review of the cost of civil litigation:
“Trade unions refer the personal injury claims of their members to solicitors on union panels…For example, one union informs me that it receives a referral fee of £200 for every case which proves to be “worthy of investigation”. Other trade unions do not charge referral fees as such, but instead receive certain free legal services from solicitors for their members.”
I am in no way suggesting that that is wrong, but it illustrates the opaqueness of the system and the fact that money can be distributed in ways that people might not first realise. For that reason, I am glad that the Government have taken action to ban referral fees through the amendments made last week to the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill.
I would be grateful if the Minister could clarify one point on that—I appreciate that it was not his Bill and that he might wish to speak with the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon (Mr Djanogly) about it. The new clause added to the Bill last week defined payment for referral fees as “any form of consideration”. I presume that that will include the offset models to which I have referred, where legal services are traded rather than cash, but I would be grateful for clarification.
I strongly believe that the ban on referral fees will help to strip out some of the unnecessary costs in motor insurance. There is a balance to be struck between providing fair access to justice and having a system that is wide open to abuse in a “something for nothing” culture. I believe that the pendulum has swung too far in the latter direction and I am glad that the Government have taken action on referral fees. However, as the Transport Committee’s report recommends, there are many other causes behind the rising cost of premiums and they often cut across Government Departments.
In conclusion, I urge the Government to take on board the motion’s final recommendation, which is also set out in the Committee’s report. A cross-departmental ministerial committee should be set up to consider further ways of reducing the cost of motor insurance.
Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)
As a member of the Transport Committee, I, too, pay tribute to our Chair, my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs Ellman), for leading the debate. The ever-rising cost of motor insurance simply cannot continue, and it is the only insurance that is compulsory. It is up to an individual, and perhaps their mortgage company, to insure their house, their holiday or anything else, but the law states that we must insure our cars and motorbikes; we are a captive audience. That is why it is absolutely right to debate the issue this evening.
Insurance premiums are bad enough for mature motorists, but for young drivers they are frankly ridiculous. They lead to young people finding solutions that are against the law. Research from the AA shows that more than a fifth of drivers under the age of 25 are prepared to break the law to avoid high insurance premiums. It shows that 21% would consider driving without insurance, 42% have changed the information they provide to an insurance firm to qualify for a cheaper policy, 22% have added another driver to their policy, 15% have changed whether they were the main driver, 3% have changed their employment information and 2% have changed information about their address.
All over the UK, otherwise law-abiding citizens are breaking the law to get affordable car insurance. For example, cars belonging to young people are being insured by their parents, with the parents registered as the main driver even though they never drive the car. Tragically, if one of those young people has an accident, their claim might not be met by the insurance company. It is bad enough to lose their car and possibly be prosecuted, but what about the person they might hurt?
Some young people are finding unique ways of overcoming the problem. For example, 18-year-old Chris Berry from Bolton was quoted £17,800 to insure his P-reg VW Polo. He is now using a 1953 Fordson Major tractor to get around, with an insurance premium of £57 a year. He said:
“If I had the choice, I’d have my car—I can go further in it and it would be much better in the rain. If you are image conscious, I don’t think you would drive the tractor…but it can go 40 mph on a good day”
He also told The Bolton News that the insurance company rang him up after he received the quote for nearly £18,000 to ask him whether he wanted to take it out. He said:
“I told them they were having a laugh—it’s a Polo, not a Ferrari”
Of course, no insurance company would offer him any sort of quote if it was a Ferrari.
Julie Hilling
I do not think so, although perhaps that is worth investigation.
We have heard much over the past few months about referral fees, which the hon. Member for Milton Keynes South (Iain Stewart) mentioned. I am sure that other hon. Members will talk about that in detail, so I will confine my remarks to just a few points. I believe that referral fees must be stopped, but they should be stopped for the whole of a motor claim, not just the personal injury part. I also believe that the money paid to solicitors in the motor insurance portal should be reduced to an amount that simply covers the true cost of dealing with a case. While there is spare money in the system, there will always be a tendency to find another way of bypassing the ban. For instance, there is money to be made in referring claims for vehicle repairs. The Committee also heard about how credit hire cars are supplied to accident victims, rather than normal hire cars, which are much cheaper. We heard how insurance companies will pass claims to claims management companies, thereby building more costs into the system.
Although I agree that referral fees should be banned, the insurance industry should do more to tackle the situation. I challenged a number of insurance companies and their professional bodies to look to themselves for solutions. Whenever I have been involved in a claims situation, my first port of call has always been to my insurance company. Perhaps naively, I have expected it to sort the situation out. In times gone by there was the “knock for knock” policy; one’s insurance company funded the repairs to the vehicle, even if the fault was with another driver. I am told that the increased number of insurers in the industry and its internet basis stopped that policy.
The last time I had to use my insurance, I was clearly sold to a claims management company. Instead of the normal car hire company, I had a credit hire car, although I did not know anything about that at the time. I was contacted many times to claim for the “injuries” I had received, even though I had been sitting in my living room when someone drove into my car. Why did my insurance company not provide the necessary services itself and charge the other person’s insurer, or pass my case on to the other insurer to deal with?
I also believe that insurance companies could do far more to reward good drivers. The Pass Plus scheme was introduced to give additional post-test instructions to novice drivers, such as motorway driving, driving at night, town centre driving and so on. Initially that reduced premiums, but it seems that people with Pass Plus are no longer being rewarded. We have been told of schemes that can introduce technology into cars to show if a person is driving safely, for example when they are driving within speed limits and whether they accelerate and brake gently. I believe that the insurance companies should do more to promote such schemes.
We have been told about the very high propensity for young drivers to have serious accidents, but in truth it is not young drivers but young, male drivers, and I regret the European ruling that insurance premiums should be equalised for men and women. Insurance has always been based on risk, and it seems perverse that the ruling will end up costing women a great deal more because of the risky behaviour of men and, particularly, young men.
More regulation should therefore be introduced for novice drivers, and I should welcome a mandatory “newly qualified” plate, which exists in other European countries, because it would have two advantages. First, it would warn experienced drivers that the person in front just might do something a little out of the ordinary. Indeed, I remember the first time that I drove alone, along a country road, and a lorry decided to overtake me. I was absolutely terrified, but I am sure that the driver would have thought twice if he had realised that I had passed my test only the day before.
Secondly, the plate could be used to identify drivers on the road in order to enforce other restrictions that should be in place. We hear tragic stories of young people losing their lives or having life-changing injuries after car accidents, and normally the driver is found to be alcohol and drug-free, but I suspect that they are fired up on testosterone. Young drivers should not be allowed to carry backseat passengers, and we should investigate other restrictions to make our roads safer.
I hope the Government make rapid progress on making the driving test more rigorous and on ensuring that all drivers are prepared for many more of the situations that they find on the roads.
I was alarmed to find out recently that about 10,000 people are driving on our roads with more than 12 points on their licences, so I urge the Government to investigate that urgently and to take action. Previously, there was an effective carrot and stick: if someone built up their no claims bonus, they got cheaper car insurance; if they got endorsements or points, their insurance premium went up; and if they got three endorsements or 12 points, they lost their licence. We need to do more to ensure that good drivers can afford to drive, and I hope that the Government will take urgent and comprehensive action.
Mr David Ward (Bradford East) (LD)
Just after I was elected, I was asked to go to a local mosque to meet a group of young men who wanted to talk to me about various issues in the BD3 area of Bradford. It soon became apparent, however, that the main issue that they wanted to discuss was unaffordable motor insurance. Tales were told of people having to give up the ownership of vehicles used for family purposes and, more worryingly, of people having to give up the ownership of vehicles such as taxis, which were used for businesses and as part of their livelihoods. Even more worrying, I guess, were tales of friends who used Leeds postcodes when applying for insurance, despite living in Bradford, as the only way—fraudulently, of course—to obtain affordable motor insurance.
I undertook to determine the extent of the problem locally, and to see what proceedings had already taken place in Parliament to address the issue. It quickly became clear that Parliament did indeed take the issue seriously, especially through the work of the Transport Committee. It was useful to see the work that took place during the previous Parliament, and I am delighted that it has continued into this Parliament on such an important issue. Indeed, I welcome the Committee’s dogged and persistent pursuit of it.
We distributed about 15,000 local survey forms, and incredibly almost 2,000 were returned. In fact, they are still coming back. The respondents to the survey have seen their premiums rise by more than 60% in the past two years, at an average of just under £900, and their responses show that many Bradford residents are well aware of the role that personal injury claims play in pushing up total claims and, therefore, premiums. Many people have reported being pressurised to make bogus claims, and often by reputable firms of solicitors.
We carried out interviews with the police, insurance brokers and companies, driving instructors, GPs and, of course, numerous affordable-insurance-seeking drivers in order to get their views, and we produced a report and held a summit meeting to report back on the work that we carried out. What became apparent was that almost everybody we talked to had their own pet reason why insurance premiums were high. Whoever we talked to, they would say, “This is why they are so high.”
Many members of the public blamed uninsured drivers, and unfortunately we have the dishonour of topping the hit parade for uninsured drivers. I think that we have held it for several years in the BD3 community, and during our survey we often heard the question, “Why don’t the police do more about it?”
The police pointed out that the cost of uninsured drivers—the Transport Committee covered the point, but not a lot of people know this—is about £30 per premium, and it plays a part in high premiums but not a tremendously large part in excessively high premiums.
I went out with the police on a dawn patrol—all very exciting—in a vehicle impressively equipped with the latest, unbelievable technology for automatic number plate recognition. We have a ring of steel in Bradford—fixed cameras—but the technology in our vehicle enabled us to see all the number plates coming towards us and going away from us. They pinged up as information came through about vehicles that the police had an interest in, not necessarily just those that were uninsured.
Within 60 minutes of leaving the police station, we had identified an uninsured driver, the car had been seized and it was on the back of a trailer on its way to the compound. The car probably ended up being crushed. It would have been held for a period, but probably the owner just went to the next car auction and replaced the vehicle—and off he went again.
The police do impressive work—they seized 2,000 vehicles during the previous 12 months—but the level of fines has to be investigated. There is a difficulty for magistrates, because they have to take into account the ability to pay of the person being charged. It seems a simple solution just to increase the fine, but if the person cannot pay the penalty it does not really matter whether it is £300 or £3 million because it is not going to be a deterrent.
Karl MᶜCartney
The hon. Gentleman may have heard my speech, in which I made precisely that point. Fines have to be such that uninsured drivers definitely insure themselves. Unless they are increased in the magistrates courts and elsewhere, such drivers will not be forced to do so. What does the hon. Gentleman think?
Mr Ward
Absolutely. When the fines are so much lower than the premiums, there are bound to be people who take the risk of getting caught, and it completely undermines the public’s confidence in the system and, indeed, the police. If fines are to be a proper deterrent, surely they should at least reflect the amount that the driver would have had to pay had they not avoided paying insurance.
Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)
Given that the fine system is clearly not working, does the hon. Gentleman agree that one way we could deal with the issue would be to ensure that when someone purchases a car, whether from an auction, a dealer or wherever, they need to have proof of insurance before they can leave the premises? In that way we would have someone checking before the car ever got on to the road.
Mr Ward
Absolutely. I mentioned all the survey returns that we received, and we asked for people’s suggestions on how they would improve things. Several respondents suggested a gibbet in the centre of Bradford, but the hon. Gentleman’s point is useful, because there is no shortage of suggested solutions. I am not aware of the processes and protocols of the House, but, rather than relying all the time on the Transport Committee to resurrect and pursue the issue, we could establish a small all-party working group to consider many of the ideas that are coming forward and constantly keep up the pressure. For a number of years, there has been a spiral of ever-increasing insurance premiums, and we need to reverse that. We need to keep constant pressure on the system until we bring premiums down.
We considered the issue of road accidents. Our initial, intuitive position was that there are a lot more accidents and that that explains the situation; but of course the opposite is true. Road safety experts revealed that the number of car accidents had fallen dramatically. Driving instructors called for more stringent testing—I suppose they would—and, indeed, for post-test tests to take place perhaps a year or six months after the original test to deal with some of the issues involving young drivers. However, that did not seem to offer a solution to the murky world of personal injury claims that became apparent. There is an increasing number of claims and the cost per claim emerged through discussions with brokers, who candidly told us that £3,000 was the going rate for a personal injury claim. It is widely known in the community that insurance companies are willing to pay out because it is a quicker and less costly course of action than challenging claims, even when they suspect claims of being opportunistic and fraudulent.
One driving instructor was full of genuine, deep sympathy for young drivers. He said that many good drivers simply cannot afford vehicles. There is a problem when a young driver passes their test and cannot afford to drive for probably a year or 18 months but they then jump into a car. Putting that to one side, the driving instructor was sympathetic to young drivers who had passed their test, but who were unable to afford insurance. However, he then said, “I did it, you know.” I said, “Well, what exactly do you mean?” He said that he was giving a driving lesson to a young woman and that they were involved in an accident that was not their fault. There was minor vehicle damage and no personal damage at all—or so he thought.
The next day, the woman returned after a discussion with family members who were clearly more streetwise than her. She told the instructor that, over night, she had developed a neck pain. They both ended up claiming and received more than £2,000 each plus £3,000 for the car repairs—simple as that. I went to see the police and said, “Well, surely you can do something about the matter.” The police said that it is very difficult to prove fraud in such cases. In fact, they had managed to catch only one person who was guilty of fraud. That case involved an accident after which somebody had immediately jumped out of the car, lain on the floor and called for an ambulance. The person then realised that they were not insured, so they rang their brother and got him to lie on the floor. That fraud was, in fact, detected, but that example shows the difficulties.
People talk about the compensation culture, but what is interesting—I am fascinated by this—is the immoral stance taken by many people who are otherwise good and honest. They would never drop a sweet wrapper or let their dog foul the pavement, and yet they get involved in this world of fraud. Many people believe that they should not have been asked to pay so much for their insurance in the first place and that it is not wrong to try to get some of that money back through a fraudulent claim. It is almost as if people feel they are getting back something they are entitled to. Good people are, sadly, doing bad things.
Sammy Wilson
The hon. Gentleman is right: there is that culture, which is encouraged by people’s experiences, their friends’ experiences and sometimes the advice they are given by their legal advisers, solicitors and so on. However, does not the fact that insurance companies almost appear to roll over if a personal injury claim is set below a certain level encourage people to make such a claim? The hon. Gentleman is right to point out that fraud is sometimes hard to prove, but one thing insurance companies perhaps ought to be doing is to fight more of these cases, so that if people want to get this money, they have to put up some evidence in court. That might deter some of these applications.
Mr Ward
That is absolutely right; we need someone to take on and challenge the system. Over the years it has clearly become easier just to recoup the money by doing the same to someone else. That is what has happened in the system. Insurance companies have been guilty of such an approach and they have had to respond to what other companies have done. Those other companies have then also had to do it, and so the cycle goes on.
We considered the various component parts of the matter: whiplash injuries, referral fees, personal injury lawyers’ costs and many of the things that have been covered in great detail by other speakers and the Transport Committee. The overall conclusion was that there was not a simple solution to the problem of unaffordable car insurance and that, in fact, it is a complex and deeply flawed system. None of the component parts can be removed: they all fit together to create the system and they all need to be dealt with individually. We need a batch of measures, each one designed to deal with the component parts of what has become a crazy, crazy system.
Our work over the summer generated a number of case studies, some of which would be funny if they were not so serious. I was contacted in January by a teenager who had been quoted £26,000 for third party insurance on a 1.1 litre Citroen Saxo. When I raised that with the local paper, I was contacted by other young people who had received even more ridiculous quotes. One young woman was quoted a figure of £53,000, which was the record. I think we can take it that the insurance company did not want to insure that person. Clearly such premiums are unaffordable for anyone, even those with an extremely high disposable income.
The young seem to be particularly affected, but they are not the only ones experiencing problems. The hon. Member for Lewisham West and Penge (Jim Dowd) mentioned an incident concerning an elderly gentleman, which shows that the issue affects everyone. During the summer, I was visited by various reporters and journalists as part of my investigation. The comical thing was that invariably, after the interview or the filming, the journalist or the cameraman or woman gave me their story or that of their nephew, niece, son or daughter. They all had a tale to tell and were of the opinion that something had to be done.
A recent case study is worth considering because it is about an ordinary person. A gentleman and his wife owned a 2007 Vauxhall Corsa that was in decent condition. He had held his licence for 17 years and had had no accidents, and his wife had held her licence for five years and had had no accidents or claims. He had a nine-year no-claims bonus. In 2009-10, he paid £600, the next year he paid £800 and the next year £6,200—no accidents, no claims, no difference. Another sad thing about that case is that the gentleman has recently become unemployed, and because of that his insurance premium has gone up. How does that make sense?
That case study reveals the impact of the postcode lottery, which is an issue that has not been raised because it is difficult to do so. I mentioned that my very first meeting was in a mosque. There is a huge community cohesion issue because people say, “The reason we are paying a lot is because of those people over there.” That is why I was so keen to get involved in this campaign at the beginning. The young men I met were living in an area with ridiculously high insurance premiums.
Graham Jones (Hyndburn) (Lab)
People such as taxi drivers have been particularly hit. As other Members have said, taxi drivers’ premiums have risen exponentially and they are suffering greatly—far more in fact than the constituents who write to me because they are suffering. In my constituency, there is a second issue with taxi drivers, and I wonder whether it is the case elsewhere. Very few companies now want to insure taxi companies, and that is probably why the fees are more exorbitant. In my constituency, only one or two insurers will insure taxis in my postcode area. Is that something that the hon. Gentleman is familiar with and would like to comment on?
Mr Ward
The hon. Gentleman makes a good point about the branding of people. Whether it is taxi drivers or all those who live in the BD3 area, the assumption is that because they are from that area they are all contributing to the high insurance premiums that we are paying. That is very unfair and also very dangerous as regards the cohesion of the wider community.
The report that we prepared concluded with a whole range of measures, and many Members have come up with additional measures. I conclude by again paying tribute to the work of the Select Committee, which needs to keep driving this. The title of our report was “It can’t go on like this”, and we all know that it cannot go on like this. If we all work together across the House we can slay this monster.
Ms Margaret Ritchie (South Down) (SDLP)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs Ellman) on tabling this motion for debate. As the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) said, some two weeks ago I had an Adjournment debate on the cost of motor insurance in Northern Ireland. A Minister from the Treasury responded on that occasion, and I found that useful, but many issues are involved in the rising cost of insurance premiums in Northern Ireland.
Drivers in Northern Ireland are subject to excessively high insurance costs that are rapidly rising year on year. I appreciate that the problems are not unique to Northern Ireland, but they are particularly striking in our case. We have found in our research that consumers in Northern Ireland have less choice of insurance providers, with three times fewer companies offering car insurance. In August, as the hon. Member for Strangford stated, the Consumer Council for Northern Ireland launched a campaign to highlight the cost of car insurance, and I fully support that. The Minister is no doubt aware that the Office of Fair Trading subsequently agreed to undertake an investigation into the car insurance market with a specific focus on Northern Ireland. We must robustly establish why premiums have increased by a reported 40% in the 12 months to March 2011 and why insurance costs are significantly higher in Northern Ireland than in comparable regions of Britain. Indeed, we must not only assess that but redress it. The findings from the OFT must be robustly addressed and the resulting measures must have teeth.
Some of the evidence produced has suggested that car insurance premiums in Northern Ireland have increased by almost 73% in the past two years. The situation is even worse for younger drivers, whose premiums, according to research, have increased by 112%. Young people face severe difficulties in entering the job market, and the prohibitively high cost of motor insurance is yet another barrier to their finding work. Only yesterday, I received a letter from a constituent who highlighted a problem he had encountered with his son. He said that approximately three weeks ago he received a quote to renew his insurance with his 18-year-old son on the policy, and to say that he was shocked at the price would be a gross understatement. The price quoted was £2,488.92, which he simply could not afford. He rang a number of insurance companies and was quoted between £2,800 and £4,000 to cover his son. The first company told him that it would drop the price to £2,200, but it was still beyond his means to pay such an amount.
My constituent said that the sad part of the situation is that his son has now been forced off the road due to the exorbitant price of car insurance in Northern Ireland. He will not be able to stay on in his part-time job, as his father’s working schedule does not allow him the time to leave and collect him when he requires transport. My constituent feels strongly that something needs to be done to help young drivers to stay on the road and travel to their jobs, even if they are part-time, or even if they are students pursuing their studies, and thereby do their bit to help get the economy in that part of the world up and running again. He says that it was tough to have to sit his son down and tell him that as from 15 November he will not be able to allow him to drive. That young boy not only showed remarkable courage but is a very sensible young adult, and he is being penalised by insurance companies for the actions of others. It has been suggested that those companies are quick to label some young drivers as boy racers, and that needs to be addressed.
All these problems are compounded by the restricted range of companies offering premiums in Northern Ireland, which limits competition and drives up prices. I urge the Minister to address and where possible, working with others, to remove any barriers to companies that wish to enter the market, particularly those in Northern Ireland. Obviously, that means working with Ministers in the Northern Ireland Executive.
Two fundamental arguments are put forward to justify the high costs of motor insurance in Northern Ireland: first, that Northern Ireland is a case apart because its demographics and road layouts bring an increased risk of incidents on our roads; and secondly, that Northern Ireland’s legal system places a higher burden on insurers. The evidence that Northern Ireland has a very young population is greatly exaggerated; indeed, we have a proportion of young people similar to that found in many regions in Britain. Likewise, a lack of motorway coverage has been cited as a reason for increased premiums, because statistically motorways are the safest road type. However, maps show that Northern Ireland has a relatively consistent motorway density compared with regions in Britain and in Europe. Moreover, some of the fundamental actuarial evidence regarding the number of accidents, claims and casualties on our highways weighs against any of the debatable factors regarding demographics or road layout. Those facts must be kept at the forefront of our minds when considering the claimed justification for the increased cost of premiums, which are rising at a time when we in Northern Ireland are experiencing a decline in the number of road traffic accidents. The numbers available for the latest year, 2010, show the lowest number of road deaths since records began in 1931. Naturally, every death on our roads is a tragedy, but we must commend the work done to improve safety.
There are some basic facts that are hard to reconcile with rising insurance costs. The number of road traffic accidents reported to the police service has dropped over the past decade from nearly 40,000 per year in 2000 to about 30,000 per year in 2009. The number of compensation claims is decreasing, whereas in England and Wales the numbers are rising. More specifically, according to a National Audit Office report published at the beginning of the year, the number of claims reported to the compensation recovery unit fell by 23% in the decade up to 2009.
In short, the trend is clear: although accidents and claims are decreasing, the cost of insurance is increasing. I ask the Minister again to give detailed consideration to this fundamental point. All these facts weigh heavily against the argument that the demographic or topographical factors in Northern Ireland justify the increasing cost of insurance. Those factors are difficult to relate to the draconian rise in the cost of insurance premiums.
Sammy Wilson
The hon. Lady has done some impressive research into the fall in accidents. It is clear from the statistics on road accidents and deaths that there has been a dramatic improvement even since four or five years ago. For that reason, we should agree that this issue is not about the number of accidents, the demography or the level of claims, but about the lack of competition in the market. It therefore needs to be addressed by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and the Office of Fair Trading. They must find out whether collusion between the insurance companies has increased the price of insurance in Northern Ireland.
Ms Ritchie
I thank the hon. Gentleman for that helpful intervention. I agree that the research shows clearly that the lack of competition in Northern Ireland has driven up the cost of insurance premiums. That is an area that the Office of Fair Trading should focus on in its investigation. It should drill down on the nature and cost of insurance premiums in Northern Ireland. We, as Members of Parliament for Northern Ireland, will look at that. The hon. Gentleman, wearing his other hat as a member of the Northern Ireland Executive, is no doubt working with Ministers in Whitehall to address those issues. The hon. Member for Strangford has highlighted the legal issue, so I do not need to elaborate on that.
Many people living on low incomes or in rural areas can simply no longer afford to keep a car on the road. As I have said, many young people and their parents in my constituency have told me of their struggle to secure affordable insurance. They are understandably concerned about the discrepancy in insurance prices between Northern Ireland and other regions in Britain. Households feel that by having to pay excessive insurance fees, they are being unduly discriminated against. That unfair practice has been in place for too long. It adversely affects the young and the old who depend on their cars for work, particularly in areas where public transport provision is limited. Essentially, that means rural communities. There are, shall we say, certain locational issues.
The broader context is that the economy is suffering, with record numbers of young people out of work. That is exacerbated by people’s use of motor vehicles being restricted. At this time of economic recession, we need a dynamic, mobile work force. Car insurance being so expensive puts up a barrier to economic success, especially for the young. The unemployment rate among young people is estimated to be 18%—almost one in five cannot find a job. That compares with an overall unemployment rate in Northern Ireland of 7.6%. Excessive insurance premiums adversely affect young people and prevent them from offering the skill of driving to potential employers. In these extremely challenging times, I ask the Minister to consider any measures that would make insurance more affordable for young people, particularly when driving relates to their employment.
In conclusion, insurance costs have a real impact on people, both young and old, who need to be mobile for social and economic reasons. I hope that my short contribution has made clear the scale of the problem faced by motorists. I hope that I have given examples that illustrate that parents are suffering from the undue burden of being quoted high insurance costs for their sons and daughters. They are not able to pay those costs because of the limited financial means that they now have. I believe that the insurance industry must stabilise its premiums so that hard-pressed motorists get a fair deal when they purchase their motor vehicle insurance. I seek assurances from the Minister that he recognises the problem and will act on a cross-departmental basis, as the motion suggests. Supplementary to that, in the case of Northern Ireland, I ask him to work directly with Ministers in the Northern Ireland Executive to address its particular problems in light of any recommendations that come from the Office of Fair Trading report later this year.
John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)
I will be as brief as I can be, because my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) is clearly keen to speak early and at length on the subject of his Adjournment debate, and because everything has been said. Anybody reading this debate in Hansard will be impressed by the amount of work and time that individual Members have spent performing research in their constituencies. This subject is close to many of our hearts.
I wanted to speak because when constituents approach us, particularly young constituents, we have a duty to ensure that their voice is heard in this Chamber. I was approached by a young man called Joshua Deacon, who lives in the London borough of Hillingdon. He has experienced high insurance costs. He did a mini survey and a petition on the internet because he thought that the same must be happening to his friends. He found costs ranging from £2,000 up to about £20,000, which is ludicrous. His survey showed that a number of young people, particularly in my area, which is quite a geographical expanse, used their cars for work or to seek work, but that such costs were preventing them from travelling and driving them off the road.
The other concern that emerged, which has been expressed by other Members, is that the higher the cost, the more people there are who just do not insure themselves. Like the hon. Member for Bradford East (Mr Ward), I went out with my local police, and the first arrest was of an uninsured young person. He was not driving particularly dangerously, but it was obvious from his driving that he was young. When he was pulled over, he was found to have no insurance. The worry, given what is happening in my constituency, is that as unemployment increases and incomes decrease, more and more people will be unable to pay their insurance costs. As a result, there will be an increase in criminality.
As a result of my young constituent’s efforts, a number of months ago I put down an early-day motion on this subject. The responses that I received from the insurance companies were exactly as have been reported here. With regard to Northern Ireland, I think that there is a cartel in operation. One particular area of the country is being exploited as a result of the insurance companies working together to produce higher rates. In fact, I believe that is happening more broadly as well.
I have received the same responses from insurance companies as are mentioned in the report. They say that the figures are based on actuarial valuations and on the high level of accidents involving young people. We all understand that completely, but we cannot understand why the situation has not changed despite the fact that we have been knocking the subject around for so long in the House. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs Ellman), who has persisted with it through the Transport Committee. Time and again, we have come up with a list of suggestions, many of which the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Roger Williams) listed. We have suggested graduated licences, restrictions in use, curfew arrangements, limits on the number of passengers and where they are located, and alcohol restrictions. In addition, we raised some time ago the idea of black boxes and speed limiters being inserted into cars.
Sammy Wilson
I can fully understand the hon. Gentleman’s point about the cost of insurance premiums for young people, but does he not feel that imposing restrictions on freedom such as curfews on top of high insurance premiums would be unfair, even if it were enforceable? For many young people, getting their driving licence is their ticket to freedom. To tell them that they cannot go out at night or have their friends in the car is not fair, especially when most young people drive responsibly and do not race around the roads causing accidents.
John McDonnell
I fully agree, and that was why, when the proposal for black boxes came up, I thought it was the ideal solution. It would enable someone to demonstrate that they were driving carefully and not at speed. I thought that could have been the technical solution, or at least could have moved us a bit further on. I cannot for the life of me understand why it has not been taken up by the insurance industry as well as it should have been. So far, Co-operative Insurance and others have offered some voluntary schemes, but they do not seem to have had the take-up that they should have done.
The question, then, is how we move forward. We know that a range of solutions could be put in place, and that a technical solution could be introduced on a voluntary basis to give people incentives and reduce their costs. I believe that the next stage is to bring the matter back to the Government. We have tried exhortation in the past, but we need to try it again, as was said earlier. We need another meeting at which we bring all the insurance companies together and exhort them to consider financial incentives for young people. We have such arrangements in acceptable behaviour contracts in other areas. People could sign up to certain behaviour patterns if they so wished, which would enable us to monitor them using technical solutions so that we could reduce their overall insurance costs.
Tessa Munt (Wells) (LD)
I wonder whether, when that is being considered, it might be possible to consider the circumstances that two or three of my constituents have found themselves in. Young people have applied for insurance online and the insurance company has agreed a premium and formed a contract with those young people to provide insurance, but has then come back six or eight weeks later with a much increased premium, ostensibly because something was originally incorrect. That has certainly happened to young women in my constituency with the Diamond insurance company.
John McDonnell
It is almost like the policy of excess that has been developed for other insurance costs. I believe that the onus is now on the Government to bring the insurance companies in for a thorough discussion about how we can take forward voluntary arrangements. However, there will come a time, which I believe we are nearing, when if we cannot get in place voluntary arrangements and incentives that work, we will have to introduce regulation.
Like many other Members, I cannot cope any more with driving along the road and seeing shrines to people who have died. The number in my area seemed to be peaking at one point, although I have not looked at the recent statistics. A large number of young people were being killed on the roads, and we would drive down the road and see the bouquets of flowers and the pictures of those young people. It relates to the point that the hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson) made about youthful exuberance—young people get their first car and are out on the roads, and sometimes it goes to their heads. They might have their friends with them, and unfortunately it often results in tragedy.
Roger Williams
The hon. Gentleman is making a very powerful case. I know that the hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson) made a point about a restriction of freedom, but surely that is the whole point of a driving licence. People have to pass a test, and maybe there ought to be another test for them to pass before they can have unlimited access to a car.
John McDonnell
It is true that we need to consider a whole range of measures. I believe that we need to make another attempt to find voluntary arrangements with the insurance companies, setting out a range of activities that people can sign up to and that we can technically monitor. In that way, we could reduce insurance premiums. However, if that is not brought to fruition, we may well have to move on to regulation. That could mean more testing, and in fact that extra testing need not just be for young people. It could be much wider than that, because it is not just young people who are affected, even though the statistics that the insurance companies produce demonstrate the high number of accidents among young drivers in their first couple of years after passing their test.
In addition, if regulation is to be introduced, and if it involves imposing technical solutions, the insurance companies should bear some of the cost. If it is not willing to work with us in promoting voluntary solutions effectively, it should bear the cost.
To return to an earlier point, this is about reducing costs, but it is also about reducing deaths and accidents. That does not just involve young people, because collateral damage is also done to pedestrians and others. The House has addressed that significant issue effectively in the debate tonight, and now it is over to us to work with the Government to get the insurance companies to agree a strategy that we can monitor over the coming year or so. We can see whether that works, and take legislative action if it does not, to demonstrate our seriousness.
John Woodcock (Barrow and Furness) (Lab/Co-op)
May I add my congratulations to my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs Ellman) on securing this important and well informed debate, and to the Committee on producing its excellent and timely report?
The eye-watering rises in the cost of motor insurance in the past few years have been one more burden on families already hit by high prices at the pump, food inflation and soaring energy costs. Earlier in the year, annual increases in insurance premiums were running as high as 40%. Although the AA reports that by September the figure had dropped to around 16%, premium increases still far outstrip inflation. The average premium of £921, which my hon. Friend highlighted, means that more than half an average monthly take-home salary is used simply to insure a car.
We know that those likely to be earning least are paying most for their insurance. As we have heard, average premiums for young drivers are more than £2,000. Understandably, motorists resent those huge increases. The overwhelming majority of careful, responsible drivers feel that they are subsidising the careless, the reckless and the uninsured. Increasingly, they are aware that their premiums are increasing as a result of fraudulent or frivolous personal injury claims for non-existent or pre-existing conditions.
Although the Government should not get into the business of setting insurance premiums, Ministers have a responsibility to ensure that the market works fairly and in the interests of consumers. The insurance industry has made a strong case that the 75% increase in the number of compensation claims in the past five years is a key factor in driving up premiums. Increased access to legal redress for genuine injury is a good thing, but responsible motorists paying for insurance fraud is clearly not.
For many, the car is and will remain the essential way of getting around. For some—and, as we have heard, particularly young people—the fast-rising cost of insurance could make the difference between taking up a job that requires a car and being a burden on taxpayers by living on benefits. With job vacancies so scarce, transport to access opportunity needs to be affordable—that relates to motor insurance just as it relates to bus and rail fares.
The sky-high cost of motor insurance for young people has been an important part of the Opposition’s policy review. We urge the Government to implement the Committee’s recommendations to improve the education and safety awareness of young drivers and to consider further changes to the driving test.
It is important to stress that all drivers will benefit from having safer younger drivers on the road—that point was well made in the debate. Equally importantly, much has been heard about the potential of the black box and the relative lack of take-up so far. I am sure that the Minister will join me in praising insurance providers that use black boxes, but will he make clear what he is doing to encourage greater take-up of the technology among providers?
There is no excuse for breaking the rules, but as premiums rise we know that related criminal behaviour is at risk of increasing, potentially undermining the progress that the previous Administration made in tackling fraud and driving without insurance. The Association of British Insurers recorded a 9% increase in fraud.
Mike Penning
Would the hon. Gentleman be kind enough to tell the House what measures the previous Administration took against uninsured driving? This Government introduced the continuous insurance policy.
John Woodcock
The hon. Gentleman knows that the continuous insurance policy was a measure that was set out by the Labour party and which he has taken forward, which we welcome. According to the Motor Insurers Bureau, however, there has been a 25% fall in insurance fraud and uninsured driving over the past five years, which we welcome and want to see continue.
On tackling uninsured drivers, the Minister mentioned the continuous insurance enforcement scheme, but to work effectively that needs the necessary tools to do the enforcing, so will he tell the House, either now or during his speech, what level of resource the DVLA has put aside to pursue and enable the prosecution of transgressors, and how many drivers who ignore official reminders that their insurance has expired have so far been given a fixed penalty notice under the new scheme?
Last week, the House had the opportunity to debate referral fees paid by claims management companies and personal injury lawyers to insurance firms in return for the details of potential claimants. For the past five or six years, these fees have greased the wheels of a perceived compensation culture, encouraging claims that have little realistic chance of success or which are simply fraudulent. The cost of those claims feed directly back into the premiums that all motorists pay, so I, too, pay tribute to the work done by my right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) on this issue. His investigation into the scale of the problem and his private Member’s Bill put pressure on Ministers to add clauses on referral fees, at the last moment, to the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill last week. However, as we made clear then, the Government have so far missed the opportunity to crack down adequately.
I shall list what measures the Government have so far rejected: making the soliciting for and payment of fees in road traffic accident cases a criminal offence; outlawing the blight of unsolicited phone calls and text messages; strengthening the rules on data protection and third-party capture; and tightening the rules for whiplash claims. It is unfortunate that as industry practice has been shown to be driving up costs for law-abiding motorist, the Government are ducking their responsibilities on this issue. If the Minister is serious about keeping premiums as low as possible, I hope that, even at this late stage, he will prevail upon Justice Ministers to change the Government’s position.
The Select Committee made the sensible suggestion that the Government examine international experience on restraining claims numbers. It is disappointing that Ministers have refused its idea of a proper study. I hope that they will reconsider. The Committee also rightly pointed to the importance of road safety as another key factor influencing insurance premiums. Despite last week’s horrific tragedy—the Minister visited the scene, at the M5 in Somerset, at the weekend—Britain continues to have the safest roads in Europe and among the safest in the world. However, the first two quarters of this year have seen increases in deaths compared with the same point the previous year. A continuation of that trend would mean 2011 would be the first year since 2003 to see a rising death toll on Britain’s roads.
It is worrying that these upward ticks in road deaths have come at a time when spending on road safety campaigns has been cut. If the trend of safer roads were to reverse, the country’s principal concern—everyone’s principal concern—would, of course, be the tragic human cost seen so vividly this week. We know that a knock-on effect of less safe roads would be further upward pressure on insurance premiums. That raises this question: has the Minister estimated what the impact would be on road safety and on premiums of his proposal to scrap the annual MOT—a move that could lead to 800,000 cars that are dangerous to drive being left on the roads for up to a year longer?
Motorists are feeling the squeeze. Many face being priced out of their cars and, by extension, out of their jobs. As the Transport Committee has so effectively set out, those motorists want to know that their Government are doing what they can to enable lower insurance costs. If Ministers wish to prove that they are not out of touch with those concerns, they need to set out how they will go further.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Mike Penning)
For colleagues who have been here throughout the debate, may I say—I know it is not my brief to do so—that my thoughts and prayers go to the family of the Red Arrows pilot who was killed this afternoon? Our servicemen do a lot for us. I say this as colleagues might not know that, sadly, this pilot died—the second fatality in the Red Arrows this year.
This afternoon’s debate has been excellent—led brilliantly by the Chair of the Transport Select Committee, the hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs Ellman). In general, the debate has been sensible, measured and useful to our constituents. I cannot say that about parts of the speech by the hon. Member for Barrow and Furness (John Woodcock), particularly when it became party political. That is not what this evening’s debate was about, especially considering that the previous Administration were in government for 13 years and many of the measures he now asks us to bring forward could have been introduced then. The hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick), a former Front-Bench Transport spokesman was much better in his tone; he never used to read out a speech that was written before and that did not contribute anything to the debate.
To answer what was probably the only sensible point that the hon. Member for Barrow and Furness raised—about continuous insurance enforcement—60% of all those written to, having been shown to be uninsured, have responded positively and were either given a statutory off-road notice or said that they would insure. About £122,000 has been picked up in fines, and 250,000 penalty notices have been issued—in excess of what we expected at this stage of the new piece of legislation.
Let us move on to the general debate, led so excellently by the hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside. Everyone will be pleased to know that we shall not divide the House on the motion. There is an issue about the committee that is being formed, but I will come back to that in a few moments. Many of the issues I see in my constituency correspondence have been alluded to brilliantly in this evening’s debate.
To add to the anecdotal evidence, a member of my own staff was in a road traffic accident the other evening. She was hit from behind; the person got out of the car and was very amenable. My staff member said, “How are you? Are you okay? Do you want to go through the insurance process?” The other lady said, “I’d like to pay you privately because otherwise my premiums will go through the roof.” Everything was sorted out fine; no contact was made with the insurers or the police. However, she received a text message asking “Would you like to claim for the injury that you had?” A member of the public had obviously informed those whom I described to the Committee as ambulance chasers. Apparently it is not just the insurers who are passing information around; others also think that they can secure substantial earnings from such events.
Several Members paid tribute to the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw). I thank him, in his absence, for contacting me to say that he could not be present this evening. We have worked closely for many years on many subjects when our respective parties have been in opposition and in government, and I believe that the motion has opened the Government’s eyes to the possibility of using his Bill for this purpose. There will of course be attempts to find loopholes, but it is the Government’s responsibility to ensure that any legislation is fit for purpose.
I believe that 11, if not 12, Members spoke in the debate—that does not include those who have intervened—and it will be impossible for me to respond to all the points that they raised, but I will of course write to all those whose questions I have not had time to answer.
My hon. Friend the Member for Lincoln (Karl MᶜCartney) made an important point about uninsured drivers. Uninsured driving is a criminal offence, and I am sure that no Member would condone it, but given that it contributes only £30 to the average premium, there must be many other factors in the market. I see that the hon. Member for South Down (Ms Ritchie) is present, and I shall comment on the position in Northern Ireland shortly, but the fact remains that that £30 is not the reason that premiums have been shooting through the roof—although we have seen some reduction in recent months.
Nevertheless, notwithstanding our concern about the size of premiums, we must in no circumstances condone uninsured driving, which plagues not only our constituents who pay their premiums but the police. Like the hon. Member for Bradford East (Mr Ward), I have been out with the local police force many times, and I am sure that anyone else who has done so will confirm that when the police pull drivers over for being uninsured, they will almost certainly pick them up for another offence which, in many cases, will have nothing to do with driving offences. People who wish to break the law in that way often wish to break it in other ways. We must help the police in every possible way to ensure that such fraud is dealt with, because driving without insurance is indeed fraudulent.
We must also help the insurers, who will doubtless be monitoring this debate and will realise that they are the pariahs: the nasty, horrible people to whom we must pay our premiums. I suppose that I should declare an interest at this stage. I have two daughters between the ages of 17 and 25, and the premium is high. I am proud to say that they have managed to work hard throughout their time at university, and that the work that they have done has helped to pay the insurance. I have not had to bear the whole burden.
The hon. Member for Bolton West (Julie Hilling) mentioned the crass decision by the European Court of Justice that gender could not be taken into account by insurers deciding premiums, although, as we all know, premiums are based on risk. I find that astonishing, because the figures clearly show that, sadly, boys aged between 17 and 25 are 10 times more likely to be involved in accidents than girls of a similar age. One of the most frightening pieces of evidence that has been given to me while I have had the honour of being the Minister responsible for these matters is that the most dangerous activity in which a young lady can engage in this country is sitting next to a boy aged between 17 and 25 who is driving a car.
Jim Dowd
Is not the problem with the European approach the assumption that every member of a certain group will behave in a certain way? It is a generalised rather than a personalised approach. The assessment is being made not on the basis of what a particular individual who wants to buy a particular product is likely to do, but on the basis of what people in a particular category are likely to do. Even if there is no evidence against an individual, that individual will be subject to the same penalty.
Mike Penning
I completely agree—just as I often agreed with the hon. Gentleman during the many years when we served on the Health Committee together. The actuaries have to be able to look at risk in general; otherwise we will all be put into the same pot, which is unfair to those who are in lower-risk categories. I have concerns that addressing this issue will lead to premiums being increased, not reduced.
Many colleagues, including the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell), have said we need to do more about the insurers, and I agree. I certainly do bring the insurers around the table, and I give them a very hard time. After all, they want things from me. They wanted the continuous insurance; they have been calling for that for years, and they have got it. They also want access to DVLA data in order to try to alleviate fraud, both intentional and unintentional.
People ask me, “What do you mean by ‘unintentional fraud’?” Well, I am a dad, and I was asked whether I would put my daughter on the insurance as an additional driver. I had to look very carefully at whether she was an additional driver or the main driver, but most parents would not know the difference, so we need to educate them on that. They think they are helping their young people by naming them as an additional driver in those circumstances, but if their son or daughter is, in fact, not the additional driver, that insurance will be invalid, and the insurer will almost certainly find that out—and if the son or daughter is involved in a crash, they will almost certainly not be covered, and anybody else involved in the accident with them will also be penalised.
Some Members who were present for the debate have moved on to other things, so our proceedings now feel a little like an Adjournment debate, where people have not returned for the concluding speeches. That is a shame, because this is not an Adjournment debate; it is, rather, a proper debate of the House with a motion before it. Perhaps as Members get more used to debates such as this, more of them will return to hear the concluding remarks.
I certainly will work with the devolved Governments in respect of their responsibilities. Responding to the comments of the hon. Member for South Down (Ms Ritchie), I have serious concerns about the market as it operates in Northern Ireland. I am not responsible for the market, however; that is a Treasury matter, which is why the Treasury took the recent debate. I also understand that the Northern Ireland regulators are conducting a review, and I can assure the hon. Lady that if there is any evidence of collusion in the market—if any cartels are operating there or here—we will come down on them like a ton of bricks, as would be only right and proper.
As the Transport Committee has concluded, there is not just one simple solution to this problem. I agree, for instance, that there is a postcode lottery. In some ways, that is similar to the gender issue we have just discussed. Some postcodes cover large areas; that is certainly the case in my part of the world. It is fundamentally wrong for people to be penalised because of the road or neighbourhood in which they happen to live. Insurance calculations used to be based on theft and damage rates, but modern cars are very difficult to steal. Joyriders still steal ordinary cars, but most vehicle thefts are of high-value cars that are stolen to order. That is a completely different kind of theft from the thefts that affect premiums.
Let us consider why premiums are so high. It is not just to do with uninsured drivers. It is also to do with ambulance chasers. Some 50% of all personal injury claims are made on car insurance. How can that be right when, as we have heard this evening, we have some of the safest roads in the world, and certainly the safest roads in Europe? Our killed and seriously-injured rates are extremely low, although we need to get them even lower. The truth of the matter is that most of these claims, many of which are fraudulent, are not reported to the police. Very often they are reported after the incident; Members have referred to constituents saying people followed up on incidents the following day. The hon. Member for Lewisham West and Penge (Jim Dowd) touched on this in his speech. The police would never have been called in such cases; it will never be on the records of the police that that sort of thing has taken place. Some countries in Europe, including Germany, have carefully considered the speed that someone would have had to be travelling to be in an accident before they can claim for whiplash. I was with the relevant German Minister at a conference recently, and we discussed this and other measures, particularly priority. The evidence is that this does not appear to be working in Germany simply because people are increasing the speed that they claim they were travelling at before the accident.
John Woodcock
I just want the Minister to set out why he has rejected our calls to restrict whiplash claims, given the seriousness of this problem in forcing up insurance premiums. Will he not reconsider?
Mike Penning
I have not rejected that; this was done by a colleague in the Ministry of Justice, as it is a legal matter. However, I completely agree with my colleague, as he is a legal person and I am not. There are legal differences between Germany and this country. Everything is possible, and this Parliament can do whatever it wants to do. [Interruption.] Perhaps that is not the case—I see some of my Eurosceptic friends in the House this evening. There are certain things that I would like to be doing in my Department that Europe prevents me from doing.
As we have heard across the House today, insurers have to take responsibility and say, “No, we’ll take you to court and we will challenge this.” They should not just settle out of court because it happens to be cheaper than the possible consequences of going to court. Immediately we start to do that, the no win, no fee ambulance chasers will look very carefully at their cases, and people who should genuinely get their compensation will get it and those who are swinging a leg, as my grandfather would say, will not. I shall refer back to my time on the Select Committee on Health, because it is not just in this area that we have this problem with insurance. Our hospitals, in particular, tend to settle out of court rather than challenging claims, and that is costing the taxpayer and the NHS an absolute fortune, so this is a culture that we have to turn around.
Hon. Members have touched on other aspects in the report and the evidence to the Select Committee. I have significantly changed the driving test, the practical and the theory, since my appointment, and I intend to change it even more. I have said it before and I will say it again that people are currently taught to pass a test; they are not taught to drive. They are not taught to drive safely for themselves and for others, and we have to make sure that we have qualified driving instructors and that everybody knows they are qualified when they get into that car. One change we are going to make—I hope that the Select Committee will agree with me on this—is that someone who is not a qualified driving instructor will not be able to take someone out on their own to teach them to drive. I am not going to stop parents, grandparents and sisters doing that, but someone who gets into a car marked “driving instructor” should not have to look for a little badge on the windscreen that says that the person is a trainee. These people should be qualified driving instructors. The industry supports me on this and we will do this. There also has to be an ongoing training programme for driving instructors. Some instructors took their qualifications many years ago, and we need to make sure that they are au fait with what we want from the driving test, although we also want them to earn an income.
As we have heard today, there are also things that happen to people suddenly when they pass their driving test. Clearly, some people—young people in particular, but not all of them—appear to have some kind of lobotomy when they get behind the wheel of a car. I am talking about highly intelligent young people who are perfect role models in every other aspect of their life, and then they get behind the wheel of a car. Sadly, as has been discussed, testosterone is one of the leading factors. Drink and drugs are involved, but testosterone is one of the big problems here.
In my constituency, the place where most people pass their test is St Albans. Between my constituency and St Albans is a rather large motorway called the M1, and to get back from the test centre, people have to cross it. That means that someone could be driving for the first time on their own and as they turn left or right to come off the A414 they will be on the M1. I think we need to give people, particularly young people, the opportunity to learn how to drive on the motorway before they pass their test. That is why we will pass regulations to allow qualified driving instructors to take learners on to motorways. Can I make that compulsory? No, I cannot because some counties have no motorways, so it would be discriminatory to do so, but we will give qualified instructors the opportunity to do that.
We need to make sure that the test is not the endgame, but not—in my opinion or that of the Government—to make it compulsory to take post-test qualifications. Pass Plus was a partial success, but was never really rolled out properly.
Jim Dowd
Before I came to the House, I used to drive extensively on the motorway network—in my company car, for those who were listening earlier—and the idea of the odd learner turning up on the motorway is strange. Traffic on our motorways travels at much higher speeds generally. Would it not be better to allow people to pass the traditional test and then take an additional period of tuition on the motorway, rather than allow someone who might have been behind the wheel of a car for only two or three hours suddenly to turn up on a motorway alongside juggernauts and fast-driving cars? The Minister will know better than anyone that the average speed on motorways is much higher than the 70 mph limit.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)
Order. Minister, I realise that driving on motorways is a very important subject, but I have a feeling that you were going to bring the debate back to the cost of motoring.
Mike Penning
An integral part of driving and the cost of insurance is how people are qualified to drive. That is why qualifications, as well as the ordinary driving test, are specifically mentioned in the report we are discussing, which is why I was speaking to the issue. However, I shall take your guidance, Madam Deputy Speaker, and steer towards more detailed work on the black box.
Madam Deputy Speaker
Order. I am very sorry, but I was trying to ensure that the Minister stayed where he wanted to be, whereas the hon. Member for Lewisham West and Penge (Jim Dowd) was tempting him away. I do not need a gentle rebuke from the Minister; I thought I was helping him.
Mike Penning
I know you too well ever to rebuke you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I would never be led astray by the hon. Gentleman.
I do not agree with the hon. Gentleman. We have a situation in which young people—or, indeed, anyone—passing their test today can go on the motorway. There are no restrictions on that, and we need to give them the necessary skills. I have a full car, full motorbike, HGV and tank licence to boot, and I have driven on the motorway in all types of vehicle, so I understand. I have an H licence. The hon. Gentleman was indicating from a sedentary position, “What is a tank licence?”—it is an H licence for tracked vehicles.
Let me touch on issues of technology. As we heard earlier, some insurers have been using technology, particularly the black box. The Co-operative insurance company, which was mentioned earlier, has a scheme that encourages people to take the box in their car, and it monitors very carefully what speed one is travelling at, what time of day one is driving—nearly everything. I have been pushing quite extensively with insurers to roll that out further. It is the obvious way forward. If people are given the responsibility of a driving licence, they can be given the opportunity of responsibility. However, insurance companies have to be transparent. We have to know why the premiums are what they are and how they can best be broken down so that the public, when they look at their premium, know exactly what they are getting for their money. If there is a discount, we need to know exactly what it is and that if the person who takes out that policy sticks rigidly to the agreement their premium will not shoot up the following year or month.
In conclusion, I think this has been a very sensible debate. I welcome the report from the Committee chaired by the hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside and I think that we can agree on most things. We have many, many Committees sitting already; one more would be quite difficult. We meet regularly on a cross-party basis to discuss these matters, and myriad Departments can be involved, depending on the issue in question.
At the moment, we are doing a great deal of work on penalties, which I have not yet touched on, and on the question of whether fines are the answer. The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions has already announced that he is going to allow fines to be increased for those on benefits. At the moment, the figure is £5, but that will increase to £25. I personally think that, as well as looking at increasing fines, we need to look at the points. In most cases, people will be prepared to pay a fine, but they might find the prospect of getting additional points on their licence more of a deterrent. They might decide that getting an extra six points, rather than just three, might mean losing their licence. I hope that such a move might prevent more people from driving while uninsured.
Karl MᶜCartney
I understand what my hon. Friend is saying about points. Is there not also a need to make it socially unacceptable to drive while uninsured? Would it perhaps be prudent to consider a prison sentence for people who seem determined to do it three, four of five times or who have been involved in a serious accident while uninsured?
Mike Penning
I thank my hon. Friend for that point. We will continue to look at the penalties involved. Those of us who came through the drink-driving campaigns of the ’70s and ’80s will remember how we turned drink-drivers into pariahs, but that involved educating the public first, then using a big stick. We did the same with seat belts, and we now need to do it with drug-driving as well as with uninsured driving. We will continue to look at this, but, at the end of the day, it is for the magistrates and the courts to decide how they interpret the law. They have a degree of autonomy, which is why so many drivers who have more than 12 points have kept their licence. It is a matter for the courts to interpret the special needs of the people involved, and perhaps the lawyers who represent them are also a factor. I was shocked when I saw the figures, and it was my own Department that released them.
I know that the hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside is going to respond to the debate. Her Committee has produced an excellent report, and we have had an excellent debate. I look forward to implementing many of the measures that have been mentioned, so that our roads can continue to be the safest in Europe and among the safest in the world.
Mrs Ellman
We have heard many excellent contributions this evening. Members have reflected different experiences, but all have given us the same message: insurance premiums are too high, the insurance industry is dysfunctional and more must be done. I recognise the work that the Minister has been doing, particularly on uninsured driving, on referral fees, and on improving driving standards. I am pleased that the insurance sector has now adopted the Select Committee’s recommendation to fund a specialised unit in police service to detect and act on fraud.
I have listened carefully to what the Minister has said, and I recognise his good will and commitment. I do not wish to divide the House on the motion tonight, but I must warn him that the Committee will continue its scrutiny, and we look forward to the next occasion on which we can question him on what has been done in his Department and across government, because that is the only way we will make progress on this important issue.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House expresses concern over the large increase in the cost of motor insurance in recent years, including in relation to young drivers; welcomes the report by the Transport Committee on the cost of motor insurance (HC 591) and its continuing inquiry into the reasons for this increase; notes that factors explaining the cost of motor insurance include the number and cost of personal injury claims arising from road accidents, assessment of risk, fraud, and uninsured driving; notes that the Government has taken some steps to deal with these issues, including a ban on referral fees in personal injury cases, but that more could be done; further notes that Ministerial responsibility for these issues is split across several departments; and calls on the Government to establish a cross-departmental Ministerial committee on reducing the cost of motor insurance and to publish a plan for dealing with the different aspects of this problem during this Parliament.
Business without Debate
Delegated legislation
European Union documents
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)
We now come to motion 9. There is a small error in the motion as printed on the Order Paper. It should refer to the motion in the name of Mr Peter Lilley, not Sir George Young, relating to the House of Commons Members’ Fund. I will therefore ask the House to consider the motion in the amended form.
DELEGATED LEGISLATION (COMMITTEES)
Ordered,
That the Motion in the name of Mr Peter Lilley relating to the House of Commons Members’ Fund shall be treated as if it related to an instrument subject to the provisions of Standing Order No. 118 (Delegated Legislation Committees) in respect of which notice of a motion has been given that the instrument be approved.—(James Duddridge.)
Yemen
(13 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)
It is a great pleasure for me, though a sad pleasure, to raise in the House yet again the situation in Yemen. I am delighted to see the Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the hon. Member for Taunton Deane (Mr Browne) at the Dispatch Box to keep the House informed of developments in Yemen.
My attachment to Yemen comes from the fact that it is the country of my birth. My parents having been born in Mumbai in India travelled to Aden in south Yemen, where I, my sister, my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall South (Valerie Vaz) and my other sister were born. For the first nine years of my life I lived in Yemen. I have returned to Yemen over the years, having established the all-party Yemen group. It is a country to which I feel an emotional and physical attachment, because of the kindness that was shown to me and my family and the way in which that country has sought to develop over the past quarter of a century.
I am sorry to say that the situation in Yemen is yet again at a crisis level. That is despite the good work of successive British Governments. I pay tribute in particular to the Foreign Secretary, the Secretary of State for International Development, the Minister of State, Department for International Development, the right hon. Member for Rutland and Melton (Mr Duncan), our ambassador in Sana’a, Jon Wilks and Joanna Reid, who heads the DFID project there. All those people who are still in that country in turmoil show what is best about Britain. A commitment made by Ministers at the Dispatch Box and at numerous conferences in the past decade has been followed through by exceptional public servants.
The political crisis that we are seeing shows a central Government in Yemen who are weak, peaceful protests that are turned into violence and, since the start of this year, hundreds of people dead and thousands injured across this impoverished country. At least 94 children are known to have died since the start of the year. Recent reports from places such as Taiz, a southern town that has always had a tradition of law and order—a real civil society—reveal that it has become a place of lawlessness. Only last Wednesday seven civilians were killed in Taiz, including two children.
The background to the events has always been that Yemen is a poor country, but we now have a humanitarian crisis. Some 7.5 million people struggle to find enough to eat each day; 320,000 people have been displaced in the north and 100,000 in the south. Yemen is the poorest country in the middle east, with 40% of Yemenis living off less than £1.25 a day. In Yemen there are 3.6 million children under the age of five, 43% of whom are underweight and 58% of whom have had their growth stunted. There are acute water shortages, and inflation and unemployment are rocketing. One in three Yemenis go hungry every night. It has the third highest malnutrition rate in the world.
So the background to the current situation of unease and crisis is the humanitarian catastrophe. I was told recently at a meeting with the Yemeni Foreign Minister that 32 schools were closed in Sana’a due to military occupation and that there are severe electricity shortages.
The World Bank has cut back on aid, freezing its £500 million programme and citing the uncertainty in the political and security situation. As the Minister will know if he has followed the deliberations on Yemen in the House, the concern has always been that countries of good will come together, as they did under the previous Government when the former Prime Minister held a conference concerning Yemen, and the Friends of Yemen donated billions of dollars to Yemen, but at the end of the day very little of that money finds its way to the Yemenis.
So we have a power vacuum. President Saleh has been in office for many, many years. I have met him on many occasions and the Foreign Secretary met him just before the Arab spring and the protests began. He is a president who has been very supportive of the present Government, but a president nevertheless who made it clear that he wished to leave the country’s presidency, vacate his position and give way to a Government of national unity. We need to resolve the impasse. Because of the bombing that occurred in the presidential palace, President Saleh went to Saudi Arabia and the situation became a little calmer, but it has become worse again.
Why does this matter? The situation matters to us hugely because what happens in Sana’a today may well happen on the streets of London, so the counter-terrorism agenda is extremely important. That is why I have welcomed the support that the American Government gave to the Yemeni security forces, donating £90,000- worth of public order equipment in order to train members who were there to provide support. The reason we are so interested in that country is that al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula is based in Yemen. There are people in that country who not only want to destabilise Yemen and therefore the middle east, but want to export their brand of terrorism to other parts of the world. Tackling terrorism is a key factor in trying to deal with the situation there.
I was heartened to hear from the Prime Minister at the Liaison Committee that at a meeting of the National Security Council, the Secretaries of State of all the major Departments focused on the situation in Yemen. That pleases me, having raised the matter on so many occasions. As Yemen does not have the oil resources of a Libya or the punch power of a country such as Saudi Arabia, it is easily forgotten. It was heartening to know that at the highest levels of our Government, the Prime Minister and senior Ministers were prepared to have that discussion and set out a roadmap.
How do we deal with the situation? That is what I hope the Minister will tell the House about tonight. We need somehow to move on the good work that we have done in the international debate that we are having and the pressure that we are applying in the Security Council, with an excellent resolution sponsored by the United Kingdom recently about the situation in Yemen. We have to turn those resolutions into good deeds.
That means that we need to send support for the UN envoy, and as I have said for the past six months and seriously believe, we need to send to Yemen three wise people, one representing the UN, one representing the Government, and one representing the European Union, to negotiate directly with the president and the Opposition to try to bring all sides together. It is clearly something that cannot be done just by the Yemeni Government and the Yemeni people. The Gulf Co-operation Council and the Saudi Arabian Government have tried and failed. My message to the Minister tonight is that we cannot allow the situation to drift and eventually Yemen to break up into civil war.
The picture I have painted is bleak, but we must not forget the courage of the Yemeni people. The country is awash with weapons, yet peaceful protesters are going out and trying to bring international attention to what is happening. There is a long history of peaceful protest in the Arab world. My first memory of Yemen is of standing after school one day on the top floor of the block of flats where we lived and seeing my first political protest. A group of Yemeni students were walking through the centre of Malah and protesting about the level of English teaching in their schools. I went to the balcony and watched that amazing protest. There is a long history of peaceful protest in Yemen, not a history that ends with the violence we have seen.
We must come to the aid of the Yemeni people. I know that the Minister is very busy—he now has responsibility for India, in addition to his large responsibilities all over the world—and that this is not his primary area of concern as a Foreign Office Minister, but he has come to the Dispatch Box today because he represents the Foreign Office. When he goes back to his fellow Ministers, he must tell his right hon. and hon. Friends that the House is debating Yemen today because we believe that tomorrow will be even worse.
The good news is that in a few days’ time I will welcome Tawakkal Karman, the first Yemeni to win the Nobel peace prize, to the House of Commons, where she will talk with colleagues. Because of the House’s wonderful structure of all-party groups, the all-party group on Yemen has been able to visit the country almost every year, but we have not done so for the past year and a half. I am assured by the President and the ambassador that it is safe to visit but, as I pointed out to the ambassador, even the President was not safe in the presidential palace. I am not sure that they could guarantee the safety of British Members of Parliament, so we said no on this occasion.
It has always been my dream to take my young son and daughter to visit the country where their father and aunts were born and where their grandparents had such a wonderful life before the revolution started in Aden. My dream is that one day I can ask you, Mr Speaker, to go to Sana’a and speak to the Yemeni Parliament in a situation that is very different from the one that exists currently. You have been such a great Speaker and gone to so many countries. You recently went to India and spoke to the Indian Parliament. Your going out to speak to the Yemeni Parliament in different circumstances would be of such great benefit.
I do not use the term often, but I beg the Minister, as a Government spokesman, to give this as much ministerial time as he can, not to lose focus, not to allow Yemen to break up in civil war and not to allow those who wish to peddle terrorism to take it from the streets of Aden, Taiz and Sana’a and bring it to the streets of Birmingham, London and Manchester. That is my plea to the Minister tonight.
The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Mr Jeremy Browne)
I am grateful for the opportunity to respond to this short but important debate. I start by paying tribute to you, Mr Speaker, for your recent visit to India—it is not the topic under consideration, but it was mentioned by the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz)—which was greatly appreciated by the Foreign Office and Parliament. I pay tribute to the right hon. Gentleman, a former Foreign Office Minister himself, for his long-standing interest in Yemen, which is born of his personal commitment to the country and a very contemporary interest. It is a constant reminder to the House and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office of the importance of Yemen to Britain’s national interests.
The British Government have a long-standing relationship with Yemen, and we have worked with its Government and our partners in the international community for some years to pursue security, prosperity and democracy in the country. The current situation is of increasing concern, however, and I am grateful for this opportunity to lay out comprehensively before the House the British Government’s current assessment.
As the right hon. Gentleman has already said, Yemen is in a sad state today. The political process is stalled, the economy is in tatters and ordinary Yemenis are suffering greatly. Security is fragile, violence is worsening and the country is fragmented and divided. Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula will exploit and is exploiting that instability. The country will take a long time to recover, and the British Government are profoundly concerned by Yemen’s decline, a concern that is reflected at the highest levels of the Government and in the interest being taken by the most senior Ministers.
Yemen is stuck in political stalemate. The momentum behind the valuable initiative of the Gulf Co-operation Council—GCC—to broker a political settlement leading to a managed transition has been lost, and over the past 10 months we have seen widespread demonstrations throughout Yemen calling for President Saleh to step down and for democratic change. Tragically, the demonstrations have also frequently seen the use of excessive and lethal force by Government security forces, but regrettably the armed opposition, too, has been partly responsible for the frequent escalation of violence.
We have condemned in the strongest terms the use of excessive force against unarmed protesters, and we have called for restraint by all sides and for the Yemeni authorities to listen to the legitimate demands of the Yemeni public for change. We continue energetically to encourage negotiators on both sides urgently to conclude discussions on implementing a plan for political transition based on the Gulf Co-operation Council initiative. That plan, brokered by Yemen’s neighbours and with widespread international support, represents the best hope for a peaceful end to the crisis. It envisages a transfer of presidential power to the vice-president, the establishment of a national unity Government led by the Opposition and early presidential elections.
We welcomed President Saleh’s decree in September in which he authorised Vice-President Hadi to restart dialogue with the Opposition and to sign the initiative on his behalf. Along with our EU, US and GCC partners, as well as the UN, we have been working closely with the vice-president and the Opposition to encourage a speedy conclusion to discussions on an implementation mechanism.
It is important to appreciate, however, that our and, principally, our regional partners’ efforts are ultimately dependent on the willingness of President Saleh to fulfil his promise to agree formally to transition. To date, he has pledged on several occasions to pass all executive authority to the vice-president and then to step down, but each time I regret to say that he has reneged on his promise.
Our task, alongside our international partners, has been and continues to be to impress upon the Yemeni leadership that, in the absence of an agreed and sustainable political settlement, Yemen will continue to spiral downwards towards state failure and humanitarian catastrophe. We can already see that the country is fragmented and under-governed, with growing insecurity, especially in southern Yemen, and with frequent episodes of extreme violence, targeted largely at unarmed protestors.
The Yemeni authorities have lost security control over large swathes of the country, and the Government are barely functional, struggling to deliver services and to pay salaries. The current situation has the biggest impact on the wider Yemeni population, who are struggling to eke out an existence in an environment of food price rises, water scarcity and sudden upsurges in violence, so it is indeed a truly terrible situation.
Keith Vaz
I thank the Minister very much for what he has said so far, but there is a logjam: we have groups, in their particular positions, unwilling to give way. The President has said that he wants to go, the Opposition want to take over, and the Saudi Arabian Government and the Gulf Co-operation Council are involved, but what is the mechanism by which we break that logjam? We do not want a bloody revolution, so there must be something that we can do, with all the great diplomacy at our disposal, to try to break this logjam. What does the Minister think it should be?
Mr Browne
I agree with the right hon. Gentleman’s assessment. I hope that the next passage of my speech will at least provide him with some assurance that we are seeking to make progress, while recognising that we inevitably face some restrictions and limitations on our ability to bring about the change we all wish to see.
The lack of urgent progress in Yemen towards achieving peace, alongside a worsening humanitarian situation, has placed the country increasingly under the international spotlight. Since the Adjournment debate on the subject secured by the right hon. Gentleman in April, the United Nations has begun to play a helpful political role in support of the efforts of the GCC, alongside our EU and US partners. A UN special adviser has visited the country five times and will be arriving in Yemen again shortly. We welcome the UN Security Council’s statements and, most recently, resolution 2014, which was adopted unanimously on 21 October. As the Foreign Secretary stated, that resolution represents a clear indication from the international community that the deteriorating humanitarian, economic and security situation in Yemen is a direct result of President Saleh’s refusal to agree to a political settlement.
That was also the view of the EU Foreign Affairs Council in October, which said that it would explore all available options if the political impasse persisted and the economic and humanitarian situation continued to deteriorate as a result. We, the British Government, will continue to work closely with our international partners and allies, including in both the EU and the Security Council, to support a peaceful transition. We look forward to the Security Council’s review on 21 November of the situation in Yemen in the light of the adoption of resolution 2014.
We have talked about the Yemeni economy. Its situation is truly desperate. Economic collapse and escalating conflict and violence is pushing Yemen into a humanitarian crisis. The right hon. Gentleman mentioned the role played by the Minister of State, Department for International Development, my right hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Melton (Mr Duncan) in that regard. We share the UN Security Council’s grave concern about the deteriorating humanitarian situation. Although a £15.4 million package of humanitarian assistance has been given, DFID continues to support a range of initiatives being carried out by non-governmental organisations, UN agencies and the International Committee of the Red Cross to help to alleviate the suffering of Yemenis. DFID continues to be active in Yemen.
More generally, the current crisis has set back Yemen’s development by years. Yemen was already the poorest country in the middle east and faced significant challenges, including falling oil revenues, increased water scarcity and rapid population growth. There is political instability, violence, great poverty, economic hardship and, as a result, humanitarian suffering. It is very much the Government’s intention to approach Yemen in a broad co-ordinated way, drawing on our security and diplomatic expertise, as well as on our humanitarian and development knowledge.
Yemen’s human rights record is also very worrying. The high number of credible allegations of violations perpetrated by the authorities against peaceful demonstrators is disturbing. There have been numerous reports of detentions, civilians caught up in armed conflict, the recruitment of child soldiers and restrictions applied to the media. We have witnessed appalling violations by the security forces since the beginning of the protests, in particular in Sana'a on 18 March. Most recently, we have seen an escalation of violence by both sides in Sana'a in September, and the shocking use of heavy artillery to quell demonstrations. We estimate that more than 400 civilians have now been killed and that thousands have been injured.
I should like to use this opportunity to pay tribute to the work of all our staff in the embassy at Sana’a. The right hon. Gentleman said at the end of his speech how much he would like to be able to take a cross-party delegation from this Parliament to the Parliament in Yemen but was prevented from doing so by his concerns about the security situation. It is worth placing on the record the fact that the United Kingdom staff and their Yemeni colleagues have been operating in very difficult circumstances in an environment of high terrorist threat. Sana’a is now probably our most dangerous post world-wide—the most dangerous place for Foreign Office and other British Government staff to serve in. Our diplomats’ ability to operate has also been continually constrained by ever-present and unpredictable bouts of violence and civil disorder. Our staff are living in temporary container accommodation inside the embassy compound and have to cope with irregular electricity, and occasionally even water, supplies. Life for our local staff has often been even more difficult, with many living in areas of the city affected by ongoing violence and curfews. They have been constantly affected by frequent food, fuel and electricity shortages. Yet through all this, all our staff continue to show willingness, effectiveness and commitment in pursuit of our vital national objectives in Yemen.
That brings me to the crux of what I wish to say. The reason we maintain, at considerable cost and, in terms of hardship, a considerable burden on our staff, a diplomatic and wider British Government presence in Yemen is that we recognise, as the right hon. Gentleman said, the great importance of Yemen in its own right across the wider region and globally. As he said, it is important in security terms because the presence of al-Qaeda and other malign influences in Yemen means that they have the potential to visit themselves on us here in the United Kingdom. However, we also recognise it in other regards.
Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)
I hope the Minister will forgive me for interrupting. We also have responsibility because the Aden protectorate was, for a very long time, a responsibility of ours. I speak as someone who lived there for four years. We also have a responsibility to this part of the world because of that.
Mr Browne
I endorse the point that my hon. Friend makes. We have a narrow self-interest in security terms, but I hope and believe that we also have a wider enlightened interest, and a desire on humanitarian grounds to see the population of Yemen living more materially prosperous lives free from the degree of insecurity that they must feel on a daily basis. I hope and believe that not only because of the hard concerns about national security but because of a desire to see stability, peace and relatively greater prosperity in Yemen, the British Government are affording that country the degree of attention and seriousness that it clearly warrants.
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for the opportunity to discuss Yemen’s manifold challenges and what he has said about them. I am sure that we will have other opportunities to discuss what I hope will be progress by the British Government and our international partners in the months and years ahead.
Question put and agreed to.
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King George Hospital
(13 years ago)
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Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)
I want to raise the issue of the Care Quality Commission report on the Barking, Havering and Redbridge University Hospitals NHS Trust in north-east London, the related independent reconfiguration panel report and the recent decision by the Secretary of State for Health to endorse the recommendations in the panel’s report and, as a result, significantly to downgrade services at King George hospital in Ilford. It is not the first time that the problems in north-east London health services and hospital provision have been debated in Westminster Hall or the House. Indeed, I introduced debates in 2006, 2009 and 2010, and my right hon. Friend the Member for Barking (Margaret Hodge) introduced a debate in June about maternity services.
Members of Parliament throughout north-east London have been very concerned, and there has been cross-party consensus, in very unusual circumstances, involving eight Members of Parliament: myself, my right hon. Friend the Member for Barking, my hon. Friends the Members for Leyton and Wanstead (John Cryer) and for Dagenham and Rainham (Jon Cruddas), the hon. Members for Ilford North (Mr Scott), for Hornchurch and Upminster (Angela Watkinson), and for Romford (Andrew Rosindell), and the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions. We have had massive support in the community. Decisions have been made by local authority health overview and scrutiny committees and there is wide public concern, with huge petitions and public meetings, about proposals that were initiated in 2006 to downgrade services at King George hospital, the smaller of the two hospitals in the trust.
That trust, in the words of the first paragraph of the Care Quality Commission’s summary,
“had a history of poor performance under the previous regulatory framework. It has long-standing and escalating debts (in 2005/06 this was just under £16m; by 2009/10 it was close to £117m). There have been numerous changes at executive level.”
Queen’s hospital, Romford is the newer of the two hospitals, having opened towards the end of 2006. It cost a huge amount of money and is run under a private finance initiative arrangement, which has led to certain difficulties. There was high-profile publicity, particularly about deaths in maternity services, and the CQC began a series of investigations, as a result of which it decided to carry out a full investigation of the trust as a whole, encompassing both hospitals and all services. That investigation went on throughout this summer, and its report was published at 10 am on 27 October.
At the same time, there have been proposals from the NHS London region bureaucracy, driven by the people within it, who have a vision of reducing the number of hospitals in north-east London from six to five, transferring services to large hospitals and reducing facilities in the Redbridge and Barking and Dagenham areas. We have ended up with a series of proposals that, when they were initially put forward, were deemed by Professor George Alberti to be clinically unsound. Later, they were revamped, tweaked and remodelled, and they became known as the health for north-east London proposals.
Those proposals envisaged principally getting rid of the accident and emergency department at King George hospital, Ilford. There has been an accident and emergency department in the district general hospital there since 1931, when the population was 85,000. Now it is 264,000 in the London borough of Redbridge, and the hospital also serves Barking and Dagenham, with a population approaching 200,000. The proposals also included getting rid of King George hospital’s maternity services, which serve young mothers in an area with a growing, diverse, predominantly ethnic minority population. Many of those young mothers have come recently to the United Kingdom, or at least have recently moved to Ilford. At the same time, it is proposed to increase the number of births taking place at Queen’s hospital in Romford—the one about which there were particular concerns—to make it what some people have called a baby factory. Those words were used in the reports by the CQC and the independent reconfiguration panel.
In March 2010, following concern and a campaign against the proposals, the then Secretary of State for Health referred the matter to the independent reconfiguration panel. The IRP then decided not to carry out an investigation, but to allow the consultation process to continue. That process led to final proposals, which were published towards the end of 2010, and then went through the so-called consultation and decision-making process, based on the primary care trusts. The joint committee of primary care trusts rubber-stamped the proposals despite overwhelming public opposition: aside from the tens of thousands of people who signed petitions against the proposals, within the committee’s own limited, and rigged, consultation procedure the public were opposed by a two-to-one majority—and an eight or nine-to-one majority in areas that were directly affected—to what was put forward.
We were told, however, that there was clinical support. There was no ballot of GPs, or system to ascertain what ordinary GPs thought.
Margaret Hodge (Barking) (Lab)
My hon. Friend says that there was no ballot of GPs, but does he accept that I undertook a survey of GPs in Barking and Dagenham, and there was unanimous support for retaining the two A and E departments, at both King George hospital and Queen’s?
Mike Gapes
Yes, I should have said that there was no official ballot of GPs, because, of course, the view of the NHS bureaucracy was that the clinical leadership and the practices should make the decision; therefore, there was a strange kind of managed democracy and consultation.
Mr Lee Scott (Ilford North) (Con)
Does the hon. Gentleman also agree that it is possible that a number of the GPs who were spoken to were too concerned for their own futures to give their real opinion?
Mike Gapes
I suspect that that may be the case. A number of others were also on the payroll in one way or another—including many who were the lead GPs in the consortia that endorsed the proposals.
It is important to get the chronology right. Following the decision of the joint primary care trust meeting in December to endorse the proposals, all the councillors from all the parties in the London borough of Redbridge made a unanimous referral to the Secretary of State. The joint overview and scrutiny committee for all the boroughs in outer north-east London also made a referral to the Secretary of State. The Secretary of State then decided—the Minister will recall a previous debate in the main Chamber, in which we had an interesting exchange on the matter—to refer the case to a new independent reconfiguration panel investigation.
The IRP spent a lot of time talking to Members of Parliament and councillors, and it worked hard; I have no criticism of the consultation process. In its analysis, although it tended to group us all into one paragraph called, “Save King George Hospital” campaign, which covers many interviews and consultations, the community’s opposition was reflected. The view was expressed, if tucked away, that the local community was overwhelmingly against the proposals.
The IRP published its report internally, but not publicly, and put it on the desk of the Secretary of State on 22 July, and there it sat. Two or three weeks after that, the CQC decided to carry out a full, no-holds-barred look at Barking, Havering and Redbridge trust. Understandably, I guess, the Secretary of State decided to hold back until he had received the CQC report before he published the IRP report and gave his official response; Members of Parliament expected something like that to happen.
Then, interestingly, everything went quiet. We originally thought that we were going to get an announcement in September, but September came and went. Then we thought that we would get an announcement in early October, but that did not happen. Eventually, three hours after the CQC report was made public, the Secretary of State published his response.
There is a little bit of history here. As a local Member of Parliament—I know that other MPs feel the same—I was not appropriately informed about the matters. BBC London news on television at 6.30 pm on Wednesday evening ran a story saying that the Secretary of State was going to announce at 12 o’clock the following day the closure of A and E and maternity services at King George hospital. I raised a point of order in the Chamber that evening with Madam Deputy Speaker, who had no knowledge of the matter—there was no statement or announcement to come.
The following morning, telephone calls to the private and press offices of the Department of Health ascertained that, yes, the news was true: there was going to be an announcement. To be fair, I was phoned back eventually, at 11.15 am, and told that the announcement would be made at 1 pm, and that I would be told in advance of it. That is true: I received an e-mail at, I think, 12.46 pm. Attached was a letter from the Secretary of State with a link to the IRP report, but the report was not available on that link; the link did not work until 1.10 pm. Other people had a similar problem, by which time the announcement was already up and running. Therefore, we knew what the decision was—to endorse the report—but we did not know the content of the report. That is a matter of concern.
Nevertheless, the essence of the proposal is that Barking, Havering and Redbridge trust will be completely reorganised, because the IRP recommended going ahead with the downgrading of services at King George hospital, despite public opposition and deep concerns.
I have a question. The CQC report was published at 10 o’clock. Is the CQC report consistent with the IRP report and the Secretary of State’s decision? The Secretary of State, having read the CQC report, should have thought hard about whether to endorse the IRP report. The CQC report is absolutely damning about services at Queen’s hospital. It contains some criticisms of King George, principally because that hospital is in the same trust as Queen’s, with the same management, which the report is also strongly critical of. However, of the 73 recommendations in the CQC report, concerning maternity, A and E, children’s services, dealing with complaints from MPs, quality of care, cleanliness and all kinds of other issues, the vast majority relate to the new, five-year-old, private finance initiative-built Queen’s hospital in Romford. The report explicitly says on occasion that the recommendations do not apply to King George and that at King George, there is a different case. We have a series of absolutely damning recommendations relating to the larger hospital in the trust.
I do not wish to go through the report in great detail, as it is a long document. If people are looking for horror reading at Christmas, I recommend taking the report away and reading it. Apart from criticising poor management, it says that some staff, particularly in the maternity services at Queen’s, have very poor attitudes to the patients whom they are treating. It also confirms that attempts to cut the deficit at Barking, Havering and Redbridge trust over the years have led to reductions in the quality of care.
The IRP report also flags up concerns, saying that if the trust drove on with the deficit reduction programme and reduced the number of staff and beds, there could be an issue with quality. Damningly, the report makes it clear that although services at King George were reduced over the years, it has not led to efficiency savings. All it has done is reduce the quality of care in a hospital that serves my constituents and those of a number of other MPs. The cost of doing that has not led to improvements in efficiency; on the contrary, it has contributed to the ongoing deficit problems in the dysfunctional trust.
There we have it. The Secretary of State receives a report from the IRP recommending the endorsement of NHS London’s vision to downgrade services at King George hospital in Ilford. He then receives a report saying that there are two hospitals in the trust, covering 750,000 people in the community in the three boroughs, one of which is doing badly and there are criticisms of the other. He therefore endorses the recommendations to cut the services at the hospital that is doing better, on the aspiration, but with no evidence, that it will lead to a miraculous Stakhanovite improvement in the services at the bigger, supposedly better and more expensive hospital in the long term. You really could not make it up.
The Secretary of State could have delayed his decision on the IRP report. He could have said, “I am concerned about the CQC report and the damning indictment of what is going on at Queen’s hospital. I have waited three months with the report sitting on my desk, and I will wait another year to see whether I am satisfied that the improvements at Queen’s hospital are happening and have happened, that the quality of services provided is sufficient and that there has been an improvement in primary care services, which is also called for in the IRP report.” He could have waited, or he could have said, “I have made an announcement. I am minded to support the recommendations unless there is a significant improvement at Queen’s hospital and other services.”
The Minister of State, Department of Health (Mr Simon Burns)
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way, and I hope this reassures him. As he will know from the decision, nothing to do with the IRP proposals will come into effect until the problems highlighted in the CQC report have been remedied, and the time scale for that in many ways fits in with the hon. Gentleman’s point.
Mike Gapes
I am sorry, but that is not good enough. The Minister gives the impression that the Secretary of State has somehow not “fully supported”—to use his own words—the recommendations. The letter that I have from Heather Mullin of the Health for north east London programme states that the Secretary of State fully supports the recommendations of the IRP.
Mr Burns
The hon. Gentleman is making a fallacious point. I have never said that at all. It is quite clear from the letter that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State sent to him and to other hon. Members that he does. The point that I was making in my intervention is that he said that the IRP proposals should not come into effect until the problems have been sorted out at the two hospitals. I am saying that it has already been accepted that those improvements have to be made prior to the IRP proposals coming into effect, which is what I understood that the hon. Gentleman was saying should happen.
Mike Gapes
I am saying something different; I am saying that the Secretary of State could have delayed his decision or that he could have said that he was minded to—the words that I used—support the proposals, but would not make a final decision until he was satisfied.
I spoke to people within the Health for north east London programme last week. I asked them what the timetable for the implementation of the proposals was, and they could not tell me. I asked them whether babies will be born at King George hospital, Ilford, in five years’ time, and I was told, “Almost certainly not.” I therefore asked whether babies would be born there in two years’ time, and I was told, “They may be. We have not yet worked out the detail of these proposals. There is still a lot of work to do.”
Margaret Hodge
Perhaps the Minister will be able to help us in his reply, but my understanding is that the business plan put forward by NHS Outer North East London at the end of the summer suggested that, for the finances to stack up, the proposals will have to be implemented by April 2012. If that has been superseded, that is welcome news, but the local information is that the NHS ONEL business plan suggests the closure of the A and E and maternity services by April 2012.
Mike Gapes
There is obviously some uncertainty, because I was not told that when I spoke to NHS ONEL. Perhaps it is having a rethink in light of the report.
Mr Burns
To respond to the hon. Gentleman and the right hon. Member for Barking (Margaret Hodge), I will repeat what I said before, which is that it is of paramount importance that the recommendations and demands of CQC are met before anything happens with the IRP recommendations, because patient safety is paramount. As far as can be assessed, it will probably be two years to get patient safety to the required levels and to address all the problems highlighted in the CQC report. Whatever the hon. Gentleman or the right hon. Lady may have heard from other people, we estimate that the time scale will probably be about two years, because the CQC’s requirements are paramount.
Mike Gapes
I would like to move on to what the CQC actually said, because it has made several criticisms and expressed deep concern. It will prove difficult for the management of the trust and the present configuration of Queen’s hospital to meet the required improvements within a two-year timetable. My right hon. Friend the Member for Barking and I have visited the hospital, and there are, for example, bottlenecks where people are on trolleys around the corner where they cannot be seen, which is pointed out in the report. There are design faults, and it is a bit like Eros at Piccadilly circus with trolleys suddenly coming from both directions. This newly designed hospital has a level of chaos. Whoever was responsible for signing off the design must have decided that it was an airport rather than a hospital, because the design has big issues—
Mike Gapes
Before the Minister intervenes, I am criticising the previous Government, the private finance initiative and the people in the consultancies and the private sector who run the PFI and make a huge amount of money from it, for designing a hospital that does not work well. The reports state that. They criticise the bad signage, the design and the way that wards are structured. Queen’s hospital has, for example, areas where children cannot be seen and areas where people wait for more than an hour before being attended to by a nurse or doctor. There is a whole litany of things that relate partly to design, partly to management, partly to staff shortages and partly to other issues at the hospital.
I do not believe that Queen’s hospital can be turned around in the suggested time scale, and that raises wider questions. The CQC wrote to me after I asked for an update following the publication of its report, and I received it yesterday. The update confirms the reasons why it had to intervene, which included the poor performance of the trust in the past and the fact that long-term problems prevented offering care that consistently meets CQC’s essential standards. To be fair, the CQC refers to both hospitals. It continues by saying that they have taken action to mitigate the risk of immediate harm in the short term, which includes reducing births at both Queen’s hospital and King George hospital and transferring caesareans out of the area. When they will be transferred back is an interesting question, which we can perhaps come to later. The update also states that the CQC met many staff and patients and that their concerns were made known, but the nub of the issue is that if improvements are not forthcoming, the CQC is prepared to restrict access to or close services that appear to be basically unsustainable. It then states that the CQC is not responsible for service reconfiguration.
The CQC, therefore, is not yet convinced that the 74 improvements that it has requested will be met. The final paragraph in the letter to me states that the CQC has set out 16 key recommendations that must be fulfilled by the trust and that it will monitor their implementation, but it admits that the trust needs help from organisations in the local health economy such as NHS London and commissioners and that the necessary significant changes are likely to challenge both clinical flows and trust finances.
There it is. We have problems with capacity and money, and we have a decision from the IRP and the Secretary of State to downgrade King George hospital, but serious concerns remain about Queen’s hospital. Are we confident that within two years those problems will have been addressed sufficiently well, at a time when there are financial problems; that Queen’s hospital will suddenly have been turned around, so that it is such a fantastic place that my constituents and the constituents of my neighbouring MPs—my right hon. Friend the Member for Barking and my hon. Friend the Member for Dagenham and Rainham—will feel happy to go into it to give birth to their children? I already have constituents expressing concerns because of the media reports and other things that are going on.
The CQC report points out that in the past there were more than 2,000 births a year in the King George hospital; at one time, there were 2,500 births a year. However, those numbers were deliberately run down by the trust to around 1,300 births a year. Then, a few months ago, the trust began to push the numbers up again, because Queen’s hospital could not cope. Within two years of now, the capacity for births at King George hospital—a capacity of around 2,000 births a year—will go. We are told that some of that capacity will go to a midwife-led birthing unit on the Barking hospital site, where there are currently about 10 births a week, or about 500 births a year. I am told that that figure is the maximum for that unit, although I do not know whether that is accurate. There is no proposal to have a similar unit on the King George site. That idea was floated in the consultation, but it was ruled out.
We have had a maternity hospital in Ilford since 1926; children have been born in that hospital since 1926. But from 2013 there will be no children born in that hospital, even though we have a young population. People in Ilford will be forced to go to the Queen’s hospital, where there is capacity for 9,000 or 10,000 births a year. It will be one of the largest maternity units in the country and it has been described as a “baby factory” in one of the documents that I have referred to this morning. Alternatively, they can go to Newham hospital or Whipps Cross hospital. Apparently, the facilities for babies to be born at Newham hospital or Whipps Cross hospital will be increased, although the cost of doing that is undefined. That will happen, while the perfectly good maternity service that exists in Ilford at King George hospital is being run down. My constituents will have to travel to Havering or to Whipps Cross. It is not easy to get to Whipps Cross from Ilford lane; the route is complicated and there are sometimes lots of traffic problems. There will be concerns about that.
Interestingly, Havering has the oldest population of any London borough; that is pointed out in the IRP report. The boroughs with the youngest populations in London are Barking and Dagenham, and Redbridge. So we have this huge increase in young people in north-east London, but their hospital will not be in the communities where they live. I could understand it if we had had a hospital at Queen’s hospital that provided long-term care for people suffering from long-term illnesses, mental health problems and so on, and if we had our maternity hospital in the area where most of the births were taking place. But oh no—the IRP, Health for north east London and the Government do it the other way round. We pointed that out in the consultation and the local MPs and councillors kept making these points, but we have been ignored.
Mr Brady, I am conscious of the time and that other Members wish to speak, so I simply want to get back to the CQC. I have been told that the CQC will review in March 2012 whether or not the Barking, Havering and Redbridge University Hospitals NHS Trust is delivering improvements. The CQC says:
“If we do not see improvements, we are prepared to take further action to restrict and ultimately close services that do not deliver care that meets our essential standards of safety and quality, and that present risks to people using services.”
That review is due to take place in March 2012, which is not very far away. It is not two years away; it is just a few months away.
I hope that the quality of care at Queen’s hospital improves sufficiently; I hope that services at King George hospital are not run down by surreptitious salami-slicing cuts in preparation for the implementation of Health for north east London’s plans, as they have been for several years now; and I hope that quality of patient care and treatment for my constituents is put ahead of the bean-counting desire to reduce the deficit at the Barking, Havering and Redbridge University Hospitals NHS Trust.
However, I am not confident that those things will happen. I am extremely angry at the betrayal of my constituents by the bureaucracy in Health for north east London; by the Minister, who said before the general election last year that there would be no top-down reorganisation; and by others, who said that they would keep district general hospitals open and that those hospitals should not close. The Prime Minister said that in 2007. In 2009, he promised “a bare-knuckle fight”. That was in the context of Chase Farm hospital, but the principles involved are the same. I feel that we have been betrayed and that our services are going to be reduced, and I fear the consequences of that for my constituents.
Mr Graham Brady (in the Chair)
It may be helpful for right hon. and hon. Members to know that I anticipate taking Front-Bench contributions from 10.40 am. Colleagues can work out for themselves that we may be able to get everyone in to speak if speeches are reasonably short.
Mr Lee Scott (Ilford North) (Con)
I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in this debate.
Before I talk about anything to do with the hospitals that we are discussing today, we should praise the doctors, the nurses and the back-up staff at Barking, Havering and Redbridge University Hospitals NHS Trust. After everything that has happened in these last few weeks, particularly the reports on the trust, morale must be pretty low. I do not believe that those staff are to blame for the problems at the trust. I believe that criticisms of staff can be made and that there are things that need to be learned, but I also believe that the fault for the problems lies much more with the previous senior management at the trust than with the doctors, nurses, back-up staff and front-line staff. Of course, recommendations for improvements have been made, but those staff took their orders from others and we should try to build morale rather than knock it down. That is what I genuinely feel.
I, along with other right hon. and hon. Members in our local area, thought that the Care Quality Commission report was going to be bad, but I did not think for one moment that it would be quite as bad as it turned out to be. It was damning of just about everything. It was probably easier to see what was right than what was wrong, because the good points were fewer than the bad ones.
I will talk about the CQC report in depth, and at this point I want to mention that I am talking on my own behalf and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Hornchurch and Upminster (Angela Watkinson), who is a Government Whip and therefore is unable to speak in this debate. If she disagrees with anything I say, I am sorry but that is too bad. The damning report by the CQC was ostensibly of Queen’s hospital, but it also points the finger at King George hospital. As with the independent reconfiguration panel report, I was disappointed, upset and angry that the decision that was made had been taken.
I will begin with accident and emergency. In my own constituency of Ilford, North, I believe that a large additional burden will be placed on Whipps Cross hospital. My guess is that in an emergency, people from wards such as Woodford Bridge, Fairlop and Fullwell will go to that hospital, rather than cross the A12 right the way through to Queen’s hospital, so there will be a major problem at Whipps Cross.
The CQC report and the letters that I have received say that, that owing to the pressure of our one-paragraph “Save King George Hospital” campaign, the urgent care centre will now be manned by doctors, nurses and some specialists 24/7, 365 days a year. I acknowledge that, and I am grateful for it. However, in his response to the debate, will the Minister say whether we can look at taking the next step and going a bit further to make that urgent care centre an A and E department.
Regarding maternity services, during the consultation I had a meeting at Barking, Havering and Redbridge University Hospitals NHS Trust, and I believe that the hon. Member for Ilford South (Mike Gapes) had a similar meeting, although we were not allowed to have meetings together, for whatever reason. It was hinted—quite strongly—that a birthing unit would remain, in some shape or form, at King George hospital. I do not know what happened to that idea, but I would like it to be considered, because it came through loud and clear at the meeting that I attended.
Mike Gapes
I recall the conversation that I had very well. I was told that the local trust wanted to have the birthing unit, but that they had to get the approval of NHS London and that, as usual with regard to services in Ilford, NHS London’s bureaucracy was less inclined to go along with it.
Mr Scott
I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention.
I want to praise the hospital’s new management. Averil Dongworth is doing a good job with her staff. She inherited a difficult situation, with a £117 million deficit and low morale, and she should be praised for doing her utmost to turn things around. The CQC report stated that things had improved over the past months.
The hon. Gentleman said that there are 265,000 people in the London borough of Redbridge alone and, given the amount of new build that has outline or detailed planning permission, the population is going to grow considerably. I understand that the situation is similar in Barking and Dagenham, and it is estimated that the area could grow by about 50,000 people in the next five years or so. When I met with the independent reconfiguration panel and the CQC, I mentioned that issue in relation to my own constituency, and I am sure that colleagues have also done so.
On the ballot of GPs that did not take place, GPs were consulted and the report says that they gave their blessing to what was happening. However, that seems to contradict what I heard from a number of GPs who contacted me in private, as they made it clear that although they did not feel confident enough to make their views public they had grave concerns. I know that that is anecdotal, but I want to put it on the record. It certainly happened with me; I know not whether it happened with other Members, but I would be surprised if it had not.
I think that it is fair to say that the private finance initiative at Queen’s hospital has been a failure. It was badly negotiated—the hon. Gentleman acknowledged that that was done by the previous Government and not the current one—it was a bad deal; it was badly set out and there are grave concerns. I understand that the planning applications for the new units that would need to be built at Queen’s have not even gone in, and are unlikely to do so before the new year. The time scale for the build ties in with the two years the Minister mentioned earlier, so that would obviously be a constraint.
In a letter to the hon. Gentleman, we heard that the CQC would undertake a re-evaluation in March 2012. I urge it to make a full report before any changes are made—in two years’ time or whenever—to say, “Yes, we are satisfied that our 73 points of concern have been rectified.”
Mr Simon Burns
As my hon. Friend will appreciate, the CQC is independent of the Department of Health, because it is a regulatory body that is concerned with standards of quality. Knowing how it works, however, I have no doubt that on an ongoing basis it will look closely at ensuring that its recommendations are implemented and the required standards for people in that community are reached.
Mr Scott
I thank the Minister. I am sure that the CQC will take note of what the Minister, other colleagues and I say in this debate. I have presented petitions signed by a total of 39,000 people, and other Members have presented petitions directly to Downing street; via our local Ilford Recorder, to which I pay tribute for its continued campaign; and in other ways. I am sure that it is an underestimate to say that there must have been a total of 50,000-plus signatures.
Mike Gapes
I presented 25,000 signatures, which became 28,000, to NHS London on the initial proposals, and another 32,000 in the latest round. Adding all those together with the ones that went in from other groups, I would guess that it was more like 100,000.
Mr Scott
My arithmetic shows why I will probably never be in the Treasury. None the less, a huge number of people have signed petitions.
I ask the Minister to take on board the fact that there is cross-party support for keeping the services that our constituents need at King George’s, and to consider upgrading the urgent care centre by renaming it an A and E and adding a little to it—I do not ask for a lot in life—and a birthing unit at King George’s.
Margaret Hodge (Barking) (Lab)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford South (Mike Gapes) on securing this debate and on giving us the opportunity to comment on something that impacts on all constituents of all hon. Members participating today.
I am really disappointed, because I feel that the Minister and his Secretary of State have reneged on promises that he gave to my constituents before the election. First, he said that he would never close the A and E, and we all know that the closure of such a department means the closure of a hospital over time, because most patients who go through a hospital come in that way. Secondly, he said that there would be more money in real terms for the NHS. Sadly, that is not true either, and it is impacting dreadfully—[Interruption.] The Minister can reply if he wishes. A 0.1% increase in cash terms is not real-terms growth, especially when inflation is running at about 5%. Thirdly, he promised no more top-down reorganisation. In north-east London, we are suffering from his reneging on those three promises. He must listen to that, because it has a terrible impact on the quality of the health service offered to my constituents. I have said to him privately, and will say to him publicly, that that will grow health inequalities in London.
I do not want to repeat what others have said about the Care Quality Commission. What I will say is that a lot of emphasis has been placed on confidence in the new management at Queen’s. I am on my fifth chief executive there, and every time a new one arrives, I think, “Perhaps this one will be a little better.” The new chief executive has been in place for six months, and so far I am not sure about that confidence. If one looks at the maternity services, why in September did we suddenly see elective caesareans being transferred from Queen’s to the London hospital? None of us knew why; none of us could understand it; none of us was told the reason, but it was because the CQC went back into the maternity unit because it was so bad and threatened to close the entire unit. The only way for the hospital to maintain the unit was for it to accept that caesareans should be transferred. The teams were not talking to each other; people were not taking responsibility, and no one was putting the patient at the heart of care, but the required cultural change has not occurred. Yes, new midwives are being recruited, but not at the right grade and not to manage the unit. The Minister is putting too much on Averil Dongworth, because she will not be able to turn around those cultural issues. The record so far shows that she does not share information freely, particularly with Members of Parliament, and that she has not done much.
The most recent case that I have had at the unit is an anonymous one—the woman does not want to reveal her name, although the case will be investigated. This mother was left for hours without being checked on, and it was her mother—the grandmother—who had to look after her. She was almost lifeless and delirious, and she was discharged without anyone checking her scar from the cuts she was given or changing her dressing. She was asked to give water samples, but they were left in the bathroom and were still there when she left, which is just not on. Queen’s provides facilities for 7,000 births, and if the proposals go ahead that will increase to 9,000, making it the biggest single maternity unit in the country. Given the quality of care, the problems faced and the population growth, it is sheer madness to go ahead with a proposition that closes a hospital in this area of London.
Perhaps the Minister will give us some words of comfort about the finances. The trust’s finances have been in a mess for ever, since well before the Labour Government came into office. I assure the Minister that when I became a Member of Parliament in 1994 there was already a deficit in the trust. David Varney, a well-respected and talented man with a lot of experience, was chairman of the trust although for a very short time, and I breathed an enormous sigh of relief that at last we had someone there who could sort the trust out. He went to NHS London and said, “Write off the debt, give me a blank sheet of paper and I’ll provide you with a decent health service within budget.” NHS London refused, so David Varney walked away. That was a tragedy for the people of that part of London, and such tragedies will continue to be repeated. The problems will not be sorted out until somebody grasps them properly and says, “Right, we will do something about the finances,” enabling the trust to run a decent service within budget rather than always chasing a deficit.
One thing about the CQC report that has not been raised is that it is about not only maternity but accident and emergency. One of the most shocking things, for me, involves radiology. The results of scans are just sitting around. Some scans show a possibility of cancer, but individuals are seen so late that the cancer has grown. People’s lives are being threatened and death warrants are being written simply because the hospital has no systems to transfer knowledge from a scan to a consultant who can quickly pick up on the symptoms and deal with the patient.
That is awful, as is the fact that people sit in theatre all the time. The fact that A and E is bound to be bad again this winter is awful. The fact that proper records are not kept of who has had cannulas inserted for treatment is awful. The culture throughout the hospital is awful, and it seems to me that it will take a heck of a lot more than Averil Dongworth, whose only record is the closure of Chase Farm hospital, to turn that around.
I am conscious of time. I campaigned for years to reopen a birthing unit at Barking hospital, for all sorts of reasons, including pressure on Queen’s, population growth and the fact that I wanted babies to be born in Barking again. I was grateful when it was finally built. Those hospital beds have been ready for occupation since March this year, but they are still not occupied. When I last asked NHS London what was happening, I was told that the unit would be open by March next year. That is a 12-month wait. If the hospital is kept empty, £1 million in costs for security, electricity, heating and so on will go down the drain each year. Now the deadline has changed from next March to next spring.
That is absolute madness. There is pressure on Queen’s. Queen’s is failing to deliver, so people are being sent to London, while a brand-new facility that could provide for many more births than my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford South has suggested stands empty. Will the Minister give us an assurance that the unit will be open not next spring but by Christmas, so that people in my constituency can have hope?
The decision whether to close the A and E at King George hospital was predicated on the idea that fewer people should go to A and E; I agree. If and when the Minister can demonstrate to me and other Members of Parliament that fewer people are actually going to A and E, maybe we can have a serious conversation about whether that part of north-east London has too many hospital places. The reality is that we have a mobile and transient population, many of whom have not registered with a GP and who, if they want to access health care, go first to A and E.
Another reality is that GP and community services also have issues. Before taking a decision, is the Minister willing to do a comprehensive inspection of GP services in my area to ensure that they can fulfil the demands on them, as the decision to close assumes they can? If GP services prove to be up to scratch, again, I am willing to enter into conversation with him about whether there are too many hospital places. However, at present, he is letting down the people in my borough.
Time and again people say to me, “I rang the GP at 6.30 in the evening. He said to ring back the following morning. I rang at 8 o’clock in the morning, and I couldn’t get through. By that time, I felt that the only way to be seen was to go to A and E.” [Interruption.] The Minister looks at me in amazement. That is the reality on the ground.
Mr Simon Burns
I am fascinated to hear the right hon. Lady say that. Does she know who the authors were of the GP contract that ended evening and weekend work for GPs? It certainly was not my Government.
Margaret Hodge
Making a political point does not get at what is happening in practice. It is not about the contract; it is about the practice, attitude and culture in the whole NHS economy in our part of north-east London. That is the problem that the Minister must tackle. Making a cheap political point does not help make any advances in the quality of health care in my quarter of London, for which he is responsible.
Finally—I have said this to the Minister privately, and I will say it publicly—there is inequality in health care across London. The teaching hospitals in the heart of London take away necessary resources from outer London, whether north-east or south-east. If Queen’s becomes the only hospital in our part of London, it will have to meet the health needs of 500,000 people, according to the CQC. The catchment area in inner London has a population of about 200,000. It is completely different.
I have spent my whole adult life bringing up my children in north London. The catchment area where I live has four hospitals that I can reach within 10 minutes and that provide excellent health care for me and my family. In north-east London, where I work, if King George hospital closes, it will take those who live on the Thames View estate an hour and a half on three buses to get to Queen’s hospital. People with weekly hospital appointments will not go. With the greatest respect to the Minister, that means that they will die earlier. His Government have said that they want to tackle health inequalities. Our Government tried to tackle them, but did not make much progress. Those health inequalities will grow.
Why does the Minister not take a bold move and consider the configuration of teaching hospitals in inner London? For example, the Royal Free hospital is not a good hospital. The physical building is terrible, and it sits on an extremely valuable site that would do a lot to sort out the financial situation faced by the NHS, but some talented and good people with the right culture and attitude work there. Those people ought to be working in areas of health need, such as our bit of north-east London. They should be operating out of the brand-new Queen’s hospital on the Romford site. If he did something radical and sensible like that, it would improve health outcomes for people in my constituency. It would also help him tackle some of the financial problems that he faces, and it would make sense in terms of tackling health inequalities across the capital.
Jon Cruddas (Dagenham and Rainham) (Lab)
I echo every point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Barking (Margaret Hodge) in her powerful speech, which I think will resonate with the local community. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford South (Mike Gapes) on securing this debate and on the extensive speech that he made, as did the hon. Member for Ilford North (Mr Scott). There is total agreement across the aisle on issues of local concern about the provision of health care in north-east London and the sub-region. I will not repeat the points made, but I will emphasise a couple of them, especially about the pressure on Queen’s hospital if the King George closes. Those points are echoed in the report, and I will touch on them.
I welcome the Care Quality Commission’s investigation of Queen’s hospital. I recognise that it must have been a stressful and worrying time for many people involved, but it is definitely a process that we needed to go through. The report has 16 key recommendations for the future, and I, like my colleagues, will support the chief executive and her staff in trying to meet them. I have major concerns, however, about how the two reports will affect each other, specifically in relation to Queen’s hospital. Many of my constituents are extremely worried about the proposals to close the A and E and maternity services at King George hospital, especially when the only alternative for them is to go to Queen’s hospital.
Some figures have not been cited this morning, but they are worth rehearsing. According to page 26 of the independent reconfiguration panel report, planned activity for 2011 for Queen’s hospital is 885,511 people, while for King George hospital it is 284,459. The combined total of 1,169,970 people simply cannot be treated by Queen’s hospital alone. A 24% increase in patient numbers will result in havoc in a hospital that is struggling to cope with its current intake of patients. The estimated increases from 2010 to 2017 of 12.5% in the Barking and Dagenham primary care trust and of 5.7% in Havering PCT demonstrate that the acute sector in the sub-region has a serious structural problem, and closing the services at King George hospital will do nothing to help.
The question of the structural debt has been raised throughout the debate. The trust is clearly suffering from its escalating debts. From 2005-06 to 2009-10, the trust debts rose from £16 million to £117 million. Those levels will only increase and make any future improvements very difficult to sustain. That takes us back to the changes in the staffing of people who were keen to remove some of the structural debts to resolve some of the health problems that we have seen over the past few years, but who have since departed because they did not receive the support that they desperately needed to secure that.
I want to touch on the four general issues in the CQC report. First, capacity at Queen’s hospital is already too high for hospital staff to cope. The report states:
“An independent review of maternity services at the trust was undertaken at the beginning of 2011, which concluded that ‘Capacity at Queen’s is of major concern to the review team’. The recommendations from this review included the need to develop measures to ease the capacity at Queen’s, including ‘an impact assessment of the changes at KGH. It should also include an updated Escalation Plan, with clear indicators relating to capping numbers at Queen’s and temporary closure if required in the interests of patient safety’.”
Nevertheless, the Health Secretary is looking to increasing capacity further. Does the Department not understand what multiple panels are recommending to it?
Secondly, on demographic changes, which have also been mentioned, the IRP’s decision to transfer maternity services to Queen’s hospital seems peculiar, given that the CQC report states that
“King George Hospital is geographically located for the populations of Barking and Dagenham and Redbridge,”
an area with an expanding, multicultural and relatively young population and a high level of teenage pregnancies. Under the IRP’s recommendations, however, provision of maternity services would be predominantly from Queen’s hospital. Moreover, as has been mentioned, a third of the population of Havering is over the age of 65, which means a different health profile and different needs in the sub-region that cannot be catered for solely by Queen’s hospital. With people living longer and the population growing at an ever-increasing rate, the number of patients presenting at Queen’s hospital will increase year on year, and it is very unlikely that it will be able to manage these levels in five, 10 or even 15 years’ time.
Thirdly, on travel, it does not help the fears of local residents that, historically, transport links between the hospitals have been incredibly poor. My right hon. Friend the Member for Barking has mentioned the Thames View estate. It can easily take someone living on the other side of Ilford up to an hour and a half to get to Queen’s hospital, as opposed to 20 minutes or less to get to King George hospital.
Mike Gapes
I travel to Queen’s hospital by public transport. If people get the train from Ilford to Romford and come out of the station, they will see that two buses on one side of the road go in one direction to Queen’s hospital, and that two buses on the other side go in the other direction. I have been pressing for years for proper signage at Romford station, and, while various chief executives of the trust have said that they will do it, they still have not done so. The links for people who have to rely on public transport to get to Queen’s hospital are appalling.
Jon Cruddas
I agree. The point has been made in Havering, Barking and Dagenham, and Waltham Forest, as well as Redbridge.
The fourth point relates to evidence of no gains from the previous transfer of services in the sub-region. There has already been a long, ongoing transfer of services form King George hospital to Queen’s hospital, but the efficiency gains that were predicted have not occurred, as my hon. Friend has said. What are the guarantees that any future transfer of resources will lead to such efficiency gains? What is the correct move for both hospitals and the wider trust to see a rise in standards and for the faith of local residents to be restored in their local NHS trust? If that is to be achieved, King George hospital’s A and E and maternity services simply cannot close. It would go against all logic suggested by the CQC report and cause no end of damage to the confidence of residents in their local hospitals. I urge the Government to step in and implement the CQC report and hold back the IRP report, until we can re-evaluate after the CQC has been able to see whether its initial recommendations have been met.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Barking has talked about one case that was recently brought to her attention. All local MPs have a series of cases that are equally dramatic and heart-rending. A few hours after the two reports were published on 27 October, I received this e-mail:
“Just wanted to give an example of what could happen if the above A&E is closed.”
The correspondent is referring to King George hospital. They continue:
“Two weeks ago I had to take my eldest daughter to Queens as she thought she was having an early miscarriage. All the spaces in the Early Pregnancy Unit were full, (apparently they even called in the consultants), we had to wait in the A&E department for approximately 7 hours before she was seen by a doctor, she could not have a scan as there were 15 women in the unit which meant it was full, so she was sent away and told that there was no point in returning at 9am as they had a full unit to clear before they could see her. We tried to arrange a private scan but were unable to do so (not that we are awash with money but she was distraught). Homerton agreed to see her and scan her and we are returning there tomorrow, unfortunately we are almost certain that she has lost a much wanted baby.
How is Queens going to cope if King Georges is closed as they are not coping now?”
Overall, such reports confirm what all the local MPs have known for years about the standards of care throughout the sub-region. The pressures are growing. Extra capacity is needed and should not be cut.
Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)
I welcome you to the Chair, Mr Brady, and congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford South (Mike Gapes) on securing this important debate on the issues facing his local hospitals. I know that he, my right hon. and hon. Friends, and other Members across the party divide have campaigned extensively for their local health services, and I commend them for it.
The Government are implementing a number of much wider changes in the health service—I will touch on those later—but my hon. Friend must be disappointed with the recent decisions made about the hospitals in his area and the health services used by his constituents. He and others have mentioned the recent Care Quality Commission report on the standard of care received by people under Barking, Havering and Redbridge University Hospitals NHS Trust. The report had immediate concerns in relation to maternity services, identified failings in emergency care and radiology, and demanded widespread improvement.
As Members have mentioned, Queen’s hospital had the most serious concerns, including poor clinical care, verbally abusive and unprofessional behaviour by staff towards patients and colleagues, and a lack of learning from maternal deaths and incidents. The report states:
“Despite some signs of improvement in recent months, patients remain at risk of poor care in this trust”.
It also notes that the trust addresses issues on a short-term basis, under instruction, rather than proactively looking for longer term solutions. The report also states:
“There is past and current evidence of poor leadership from some managers and a culture among some staff of poor attitude and a lack of care for patients, especially in maternity.”
That is of extreme concern, and those views have been reinforced in this debate. The report also confirmed that attempts to cut the financial deficit at Barking, Havering and Redbridge trust led to reductions in the quality of care.
About three hours after the CQC report was published, the Health Secretary made an announcement about King George hospital, which now looks set to lose its A and E and maternity units. We know that the Health Secretary backed the IRP’s proposal for services to be expanded at nearby Queen’s hospital in Romford. That raises the question why, when the report on King George hospital was presented to the Secretary of State on 22 July, it then sat on his desk for more than three months and he chose to release its conclusions and recommendations on the same day, three hours after the CQC report.
From articles in the Ilford Recorder, in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford South, I see that there is a great deal of concern and consternation about that decision. Indeed, my right hon. Friend the Member for Barking (Margaret Hodge) described the decision in the press as “sheer madness”, outlining how Queen’s hospital is already having difficulty dealing with existing pressures—an issue which she raised today. My hon. Friend the Member for Ilford South previously described the decision as a disaster and is quoted in the Ilford Recorder as saying that the decision on King George hospital showed an
“absolutely contemptuous attitude to local people’s wishes and concerns”.
The proposed changes will not take place until the Barking, Havering and Redbridge University Hospitals NHS Trust, which runs both sites, tackles the issues raised by the CQC. The Minister went into a little more detail about that in the debate. However, it is not just the disruption, but the uncertainty of local people, who will no longer have access to A and E and maternity services on their doorstep, that should be of concern to all hon. Members.
Yes, we need to acknowledge that reconfigurations are unpopular. We went through that a few years ago in Greater Manchester. Nevertheless, given public opposition and the views of the overview and scrutiny panel, local MPs and members of the local authorities across party, will the Minister say what account has been taken of the level of local opinion on the local health services by the IRP? My hon. Friend says that it was in its report, but what weight did the IRP and the Secretary of State give to that level of opinion?
Mr Simon Burns
May I help the shadow Minister? The consultations—not on the IRP level when it was doing its work, but on the proposals themselves—have, since 20 March 2010, had to fulfil the four conditions for reconfigurations set out by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, which include consulting local people within the health economy and local opinion.
Andrew Gwynne
I appreciate that, but we heard today that there is a great deal of concern across local authorities and the communities, and I would like to know what weight was given to their views.
Margaret Hodge
Does my hon. Friend agree that it appears that money has been the key factor in forming the decisions, and not the care of people? The views of bureaucrats have taken precedence over the views and experiences of local communities.
Andrew Gwynne
Absolutely. We recognise that reconfiguration is sometimes necessary in parts of the country for reasons of financial efficiency, safety and better health outcomes. However, people are rightly disappointed by the way in which the nature of the debate changed in the run-up to the general election. As hon. Members rightly said, the general election was fought with a pledge about hospital closures and reconfigurations that is not being met. Back in 2010, the now Prime Minister clearly promised a moratorium to stop closures. Indeed, in opposition both he and the Secretary of State toured the country making promises to overturn some very difficult reconfiguration decisions taken by the previous Labour Government. Yet, as we have seen, the moratorium has not materialised, and there is now evidence of major changes to hospital services across the country.
I do not want to stray too far from the subject, but it is worth remembering that the Prime Minister gave a firm pledge not to close services at Chase Farm hospital, but in September 2011 the Secretary of State accepted the recommendations of the IRP and approved the downgrading and closure of services at Chase Farm. Similarly, at the Fairfield maternity department near Bury, we were told on a visit by the now Secretary of State that the service would be kept open. We now know that the maternity department at Fairfield general hospital is scheduled to close in March 2012.
My hon. Friend the Member for Ilford South raised concerns about the ability of Queen’s hospital to improve when the NHS faces tough financial challenges in the years ahead. That is fair comment. At the general election, Labour promised to guarantee to maintain NHS front-line funding in real terms. In contrast, the Prime Minister offered real-terms increases. We can debate that another time, but I would suggest that that was just an electoral gimmick. The Treasury figures show that in 2009-10 health spending was £102,751 million in the last year of the Labour Government. In 2010-11, actual health spending was £101,985 million.
Mr Simon Burns
Will the hon. Gentleman be kind enough to tell hon. Members that the health spending figures for the financial year 2010-11 were set by his own Government, and that, for the lifetime of this Parliament and thereafter, we are increasing health spending in real terms, albeit a modest increase because of the financial mess we inherited, which needs to be sorted out?
Andrew Gwynne
I said that that was the actual health spend for the first year of this Government, which represents a real-terms cut of £766 million, according to Treasury figures. That includes the GDP deflator, which so excited the Minister during the Opposition day debate when my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester West (Liz Kendall) tried to raise this issue. That is the first cut in health spending for 14 years. Indeed, that is the first real-terms cut since the last year of the previous Conservative Government in 1996-97. The Government promised a real-terms increase in health spending; they have delivered a real-terms cut.
There are wider concerns about how the Health and Social Care Bill will impact on local health services. The extensive reorganisation of the NHS was not put forward by either party in government in their manifestos, or in the coalition agreement. Clearly, such a massive reorganisation will make it harder for the NHS to tackle the sorts of problems identified at Barking, Havering and Redbridge University Hospitals NHS Trust, and the wider issue of social care for older people by the CQC. The Prime Minister has clearly gone back on his promise on NHS reorganisation. The coalition agreement could not have been any clearer:
“We will stop the top-down reorganisations of the NHS”.
It is difficult to see how the coalition Government could have said that, when only weeks later they published a White Paper outlining the biggest reorganisation of the NHS since 1948. It is clear that such a change on this scale is the last thing that the NHS needs right now.
Returning to the more specific question about Barking, Havering and Redbridge trust and the future of King George hospital, given the CQC report and what hon. Members have said today, what consideration has the Minister given to the ability of Queen’s hospital to deal with the added pressures on its services when King George hospital closes its A and E and maternity services? On the face of it, no consideration has been given to the local support for keeping A and E and maternity services at King George hospital. If services are to be transferred—the Minister says within two years—does he recognise that people need certainty and that NHS staff need proper expectations to plan and manage those changes? If those time scales are not met, what plans are in place for NHS services in that part of London?
The concerns expressed by Members today are right and need to be addressed by the Minister. Also, the wider changes to the NHS will make it much harder to identify such failures in care in future and to deal with them effectively. That is why we are so against what the Government are doing to our national health service.
The Minister of State, Department of Health (Mr Simon Burns)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship today, Mr Brady.
I congratulate the hon. Member for Ilford South (Mike Gapes) on securing the debate because, from personal experience in a previous debate and from meetings, I know that he and other right hon. and hon. Members have a tremendous interest in, and concern about, securing the highest-quality health care for their constituents. I share their desire for excellent health services in hospitals and in the community, whether in Barking, Dagenham, Ilford or elsewhere in London and the country. That is why it is so important that the issues raised by the Care Quality Commission’s investigation into Barking, Havering and Redbridge University Hospitals NHS Trust are acted on immediately and that safe services are realised and sustained.
Before I go on, I extend my sympathies to anyone who has experienced poor care at the trust. We can all be united in our concern and, in certain cases, even horror at what the CQC report showed. It is unacceptable in this day and age for services to deteriorate to that level, with such low-quality patient care. The improvement of the quality of care in that area and throughout the NHS is crucial—it is imperative and a priority. I can assure right hon. and hon. Members that the Secretary of State, my ministerial colleagues and I take such issues every bit as seriously as they do.
Although the CQC report identified some risk of poor care throughout the trust, it is the maternity service that requires immediate action and where the biggest risk of poor care was identified. The local NHS has taken immediate action at the trust to ensure that services are safe. NHS London and the Outer North East London PCT cluster have been working in collaboration with the trust to manage capacity and demand, to support its clinical leadership and to address the gaps in capability.
Margaret Hodge
Will the Minister therefore ensure that the unit at Barking hospital is open before Christmas?
Mr Burns
Since the right hon. Lady has specifically mentioned it, I will discuss that now, instead of later as I had intended. There is a plan to move the midwifery-led unit services into Barking hospital; that is a continuing, high priority for the hospital, and currently I believe that capacity is about 50%. [Interruption] She ought to have waited until she had heard the end of my answer. If she wants to intervene again, I point out that I have only been left seven minutes and there is a lot to deal with. However, it is not for me in Whitehall to micro-manage decisions; services and the speed at which services are provided must be a local decision by the local health economy. The only assurance that I can give—it is an assurance—is that the MLU is a priority for the hospital. I am advised that the whole service is expected to be provided at Barking hospital by April 2012, which I think is the date given to the right hon. Lady.
NHS London continues to monitor closely the actions taken in the local NHS, including twice-weekly discussions with all key stakeholders, as well as regular meetings with the PCT cluster, the trust and NHS London’s performance and chief nurse’s teams. Some concrete actions, which I hope reassure right hon. and hon. Members, have already been taken. To ensure safety, NHS London, PCTs and the trust decided to cap the number of deliveries to 20 a day at Queen’s and seven a day at King George from the beginning of October. In collaboration with the South West Essex commissioning cluster, a number of women with Essex postcodes due to give birth at Queen’s or King George will give, and have given, birth in hospitals in Essex instead. Additional, part-time professionals are being brought in—including the well-respected head of midwifery from the Royal Free hospital—to support the maternity unit until substantive leadership can be appointed.
Five supervisors of midwives from surrounding trusts have agreed to support the team at Queen’s. A senior obstetrician has been recruited and will begin working with the trust shortly. Given CQC concerns about the number of vacancies and the skill mix in the maternity work force, NHS London’s chief nurse has set up a midwifery leadership scheme to attract 12 experienced midwives to the trust. For an initial period of eight weeks, Caesarean sections have been transferred from the trust to Homerton university hospital in Hackney. All such actions are having an immediate impact on the ground and protect patients.
In February of this year, the trust gained a new chief executive, Ms Dongworth. The CQC and NHS London have confidence in her and have given her their full support. The CQC reported:
“Almost without exception, staff were positive about the impact the new Chief Executive is having at the Trust. They have embraced the Chief Executive’s inclusive style and believe, for the first time in many years, that there is a real opportunity for positive change.”
It is my belief that such positive leadership can help the trust to move forward from the report and to continue to make the improvements that are so badly needed. A recruitment drive has already brought in an additional 72 midwives, enabling the trust to have one of the best midwife-to-birth ratios anywhere in London, and one of the highest levels of senior doctor cover. There is now regular, independent monitoring of performance every week. The trust has made it absolutely clear that continuing to improve is its top priority. All local NHS partners are committed to making that happen. The Secretary of State will also actively monitor developments.
I now pick up on a point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford North (Mr Scott) which, to be fair, I think was a special plea about his urgent care centre. The urgent care centre at King George’s will see the majority of patients who already attend. I must advise my hon. Friend that few blue-light cases are actually taken to that unit. He might have been hoping that I would do something to upgrade the centre to an accident and emergency unit, but I am afraid that that is not within my remit. However, under the modernisation of the NHS, nothing prevents the clinical commissioning group, when commissioning care for its patients, from looking at the situation if it is so minded. If it wants to commission enhanced care in an urgent care or A and E centre, it has the powers to do so if it wishes. I cannot prejudge what a local CCG might or might not want to commission in the future, but the opportunity is available.
Owing to the shortage of time in the debate, I have not been able to answer all the points made by the hon. Member for Ilford South, or by the right hon. Member for Barking (Margaret Hodge) and the hon. Member for Dagenham and Rainham (Jon Cruddas). I commit to writing to them with the answers to their specific points, made during this interesting and in many ways traumatic debate. I appreciate, as they do as constituency MPs, that it is totally unacceptable to have poor-quality health care for our constituents and for patients within the NHS.
Grammar Schools
(13 years ago)
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Gareth Johnson (Dartford) (Con)
It is a pleasure, Mr Brady, to serve under your chairmanship, the irony of which will not be lost on hon. Members who are present. I know that you take a keen interest in education matters.
I applied for this debate because grammar schools are an important and integral part of the education system in the United Kingdom. They provide social mobility and opportunity for thousands of children every year and are hugely popular with pupils and parents alike in the areas where they are found and beyond. It may help if I give a brief history of how they were established.
Grammar schools were created during the second world war and promoted by the Labour Government that was formed in 1945, but it is fair to say that subsequent Labour Governments have had a less enthusiastic approach to them. In 1965, Harold Wilson declared an end to selection in schools—a diktat that was withdrawn by Ted Heath in 1970, after which date the matter was left to local education authorities. That was again changed in 1974 by the re-elected Harold Wilson, who obliged LEAs to close grammar schools, a situation that was repealed in 1979 by Margaret Thatcher. The Government’s recent announcement allows an expansion of existing schools, and I congratulate the Minister on that announcement.
Mark Field (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con)
Before my hon. Friend finishes his history lesson, which is timely—I congratulate him on obtaining this important debate—surely one problem in the post-war era and one reason for the hostility on one side of politics to the grammar school system was the failure of the plan to build up technical schools and colleges as part of the 1944 Butler Act settlement. Will he congratulate the Government on their tremendous work in the past 18 months in developing technical schools, which I hope will work in tandem with a strong and thriving grammar school system well into the future?
Gareth Johnson
My hon. Friend makes a pertinent and correct point. Having a range of options available for children is undoubtedly the key to a good and successful education system. We should not try to pretend that all children are alike and that they have the same needs and desires in the education system. The Minister’s recent announcement is a huge step towards the goal that I would like to reach—new grammar schools where parents and local authorities want that option.
Mr Andrew Turner (Isle of Wight) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend accept that it is not only those at grammar schools who like grammar schools and secondary modern schools? Rugby, where I used to live, had both sorts and they were very welcome.
Gareth Johnson
Yes. Grammar schools have a positive effect on non-selective schools in the areas where they are found. Boroughs where there are grammar schools tend to have some of the best exam results, which is evidence of the positive impact that grammar schools may have not just on their own environment, but beyond.
I do not claim that grammar schools are for everyone. It is a case of horses for courses. Some children flourish in academic surroundings, and others do not. We must cater for all children, and grammar schools play a vital role in that diversity. A one-size-fits-all education system must never be our goal. Such a system can only help one sort of child. Children have different needs, talents and capabilities, and our education system should reflect that.
I make no secret of my support for selective education. It gave me the opportunity to specialise in academic work within the state system, an opportunity that tends to be available elsewhere only in the private school system. I do not claim to be part of a rags-to-riches tale—I never wore rags and, unfortunately, I am not rich—but I come from a modest working-class background. My father was a milkman. I went to the local state primary school, and I was fortunate to pass the 11-plus and to go to Dartford grammar school. I used that opportunity to become a solicitor and now a Member of Parliament. The social mobility that that education gave me would be difficult to find outside the grammar school system. It is wrong to suggest that only comprehensive schools provide equal opportunities for children.
Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)
If it is hard to find social mobility outside the grammar school system, how does the hon. Gentleman account for my social mobility as a comprehensive school pupil?
Gareth Johnson
I am not saying that there are no examples of social mobility among non-selective schools, but in my experience it is common for children who go to grammar schools to benefit enormously from the social mobility that they offer.
What is unique about grammar schools is that they enable specialisation in academic work, which is not always available, not should it be, in other schools. In some areas with exclusively comprehensive schools, the catchment area around good non-selective schools experiences higher house prices than in areas around less-well-performing comprehensive schools, which leads to poorer families being unable to send their children to the best performing schools in the area.
To return to the point made by the Gentleman, social mobility may suffer in areas without selective education. Grammar schools provide an equal chance for children from poorer backgrounds. Common sense suggests that children will learn more when placed with children of similar academic ability.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
Grammar schools clearly push academia, and push pupils to achieve above what they may think they can do. An example in my area is Regent House school in Newtownards, where one young fellow achieved six A-levels, four of which were 100% passes. That proves that if children are in the right school and are pushed hard, they do well.
Gareth Johnson
The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. I think I am right in saying that Northern Ireland has a completely selective school system. I have taken the liberty of obtaining some figures on exam success in Northern Ireland compared with England. I do not doubt that there are caveats attached, and I will give him the figures after the debate. According to the Library, in England, just under 70% of GCSE entries were awarded a grade C or higher, compared with just under 75% in Northern Ireland; and 76% of A-level entries in England were awarded a grade C or higher compared with 84% in Northern Ireland. That is the proof of the pudding. Northern Ireland has a completely selective process and, with caveats attached, it has improved exam success as a result.
Kevin Brennan
Is the hon. Gentleman aware that Andreas Schleicher, statistician at the OECD, who is often cited by the Secretary of State as being the most important man in education, makes it clear in his pronouncements that the best and most effective education system for all pupils is non-selective?
Gareth Johnson
Education will always provoke differences of opinion. Some academics disagree with other academics, but common sense seems to dictate that it is right to have different types of schools because we have different types of children. What is inherently wrong with the comprehensive system is that it is a one-size-fits-all system. It tries to put all children, of all types and varieties, into one bag. Common sense dictates that that surely cannot be right.
Common sense also suggests that children learn more when they are placed with other children with similar abilities, and that has been shown in the streaming that takes place more and more often in non-selective schools. I cannot understand why some people believe that it is acceptable to stream within a school, but not between schools. That simply does not make any sense whatever. Grammar schools are generally good schools, and heaven knows we need to look after good schools. We need them to ensure that we educate our population and that the country’s future is secure.
More than 98% of children who attend a grammar school achieve five GCSEs or more compared with 80% in comprehensive and independent schools. I concede that those figures may not cause surprise, because selective schools are, by their nature, full of children with a record of academic achievement. However, when we look at A-level success where there has already been a record of achievement at the GCSE stage, grammar schools again out-perform all other forms of schooling. In addition, boroughs with grammar schools tend to out-perform boroughs with none, so grammar schools help all the schools in the area to perform better.
In my constituency of Dartford, we have four grammar schools: Dartford grammar school, where I was a pupil; Dartford grammar school for girls, where I am a governor; Wilmington grammar school for boys; and Wilmington grammar school for girls. Each offers something different, and each provides academic specialisation, which is highly sought after in the area, particularly by children from modest backgrounds. My neighbour and hon. Friend the Member for Bexleyheath and Crayford (Mr Evennett) is a passionate supporter of grammar schools in his constituency. I know that his constituents enjoy the benefit of grammar schools in my area, and vice versa.
It is a myth that non-selective schools in selective school areas inevitably suffer. In Dartford, we have first-rate non-selective academies, one of which is the most over-subscribed school in Kent. They form as crucial a part of the educational system as the grammar schools and benefit from the existence of grammar schools.
Mark Field
We all know that the existence and indeed excellence and elitism of grammar schools have been a matter of dispute in our party. Does my hon. Friend agree—I hope the Minister will discuss this later—that if we can commit to making academies the grammar schools of the 21st century, places of great elitism and excellence, the culture war that has existed within the Conservative party can come to a close and we can look firmly to the future?
Gareth Johnson
I very much hope that that will be considered in due course by the Department. I have spoken about the benefit that grammar schools offer children from poorer backgrounds. Children who receive free school meals in grammar schools achieve almost an equal success those who do not have free school meals—95.6%, compared with an overall figure of 98%. However, pupils in non-selective schools who have free schools meals achieve far less in examinations—30.9%, compared with an overall figure of 55%. That confirms my point that pupils from the poorest backgrounds have most to gain from the grammar school system.
My hon. Friend highlights the potential for academies, and I welcome the freedom that the Government have given to schools to become academies. The new freedoms allow schools to become flexible in their approach to education. The Department for Education has wisely allowed grammar schools to continue to select on academic ability when they convert to academy status. I hope that the Department will soon consider allowing academies that did not previously select on academic ability to do so. Grammar schools are popular. They provide excellent education, offer social mobility and enable many children to reach their maximum potential. We need to allow them to flourish.
Mr Rob Wilson (Reading East) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Dartford (Gareth Johnson) on securing this extremely important debate. His commitment to grammar schools is well known. I note that he is a distinguished alumnus of Dartford grammar school, along with Sir Mick Jagger.
Reading school, in my constituency, can boast my hon. Friends the Members for Cities of London and Westminster (Mark Field) and for North East Hertfordshire (Oliver Heald) as Old Redingensians. While not easily described as rock stars, they have equally made their mark in the world of politics.
Mark Field
My hon. Friend has missed out the black sheep of the family: the right hon. Member for Oxford East (Mr Smith) was also an alumnus of Reading school. Despite the disadvantage of a grammar school education, he still managed to go to Oxford and become a Cabinet Minister, although in a Labour Government.
Mr Rob Wilson
That is an excellent intervention. I recall that his hairstyle back in those days was very much like a rock star’s.
As a keen supporter of grammar schools, I have campaigned vigorously to protect them in my constituency, and I am delighted to contribute to the debate today. Grammars have played a significant part in the important role of social mobility. Through selection, grammars offer our most academic young people and constituents across the country excellent educational opportunities. Academic selection in secondary education is often the focus of rigorous debate, and we are getting a flavour of that this morning. Some have argued that grammar schools are an impediment to social mobility, but that view is profoundly wrong. Our 160-odd grammar schools continue to offer fantastic opportunities to gifted pupils from more disadvantaged backgrounds, thus unlocking all the potential that an academically rigorous education can provide.
Far from impeding social mobility, our grammar schools encapsulate the driving principle of aspiration and ambition. The Prime Minister has said, when staving off class-based attacks from the left about his educational background, “It matters not where you come from, but where you are going.” Grammar schools reflect that ethos. They are precisely about where someone is going, not where they are from. They provide a ladder of opportunity, and I fail to see how that is an impediment, as some have described.
If we take social mobility seriously, as I do, it is fundamentally important that our grammar schools are safeguarded and that threats to their future are taken seriously, but those who wish to threaten and destroy our grammar schools do not rest. Their commitment to vandalising some of the best schools that state education provides continues undiminished, as I recently found in Reading.
Reading is on the front line of the battle to protect our grammar schools. Reading East is fortunate to have two excellent grammar schools: Reading school, which I have already mentioned, and Kendrick school, which is a girls’ grammar school. Both schools feature at the top of the nation’s league tables for educational attainment, a fact of which I am enormously proud. Despite their excellence, Reading’s grammar schools find themselves firmly fixed in the crosshairs of those who seek to kick away the ladder of opportunity that they offer by removing their ability to select pupils. This year, a mere 10 Reading residents formed an anonymous group to put a petition together to trigger a ballot to end grammar school education in Reading.
Without wishing to suck this debate into the realm of legal complexities, the law pertaining to a ballot was confusing and flawed, because the grammars had converted to academy status, as they had been encouraged to do by the Government. A lack of synergy was exposed between annex E of the academy funding agreements and the provisions of the School Standards and Framework Act 1998, the legislation that sets out the regulations pertaining to grammar school ballots. The confusion focused on the 20% petition threshold of local people eligible to vote in the ballot—namely, parents at feeder primary schools.
It is also worth noting that the ballot itself, should it have gone ahead, was undemocratic, because it comprised only parents from primary feeder schools and not the parents of pupils currently in grammar schools. Why should parents of children attending a grammar school be disfranchised in decisions about the school’s future, as parents and their children will be affected by the outcome of any ballot?
Is it right that 10 faceless people can cause huge instability at local schools that have served the people of Reading so well for so long? Recently, when those faceless individuals started that ballot process, it caused huge problems. How does a school cope with a threat to its future? The uncertainty it causes for staff, parents and pupils is significant. Enormous effort and expense have to go into administering the ballot and putting the case for the school, taking time away from the important teaching effort that has to go on. It was both wrong and unfair, and it should never have been allowed to happen.
In short, the episode in Reading exposed a gaping democratic deficit whereby a tiny, unrepresentative part of Reading’s community managed to unsettle two schools along with their staff, pupils and parents. Because of the disruption and potential expense to our grammar schools, I hope that the Minister will look at the initial trigger point for initiating such a ballot, which should surely be well above 10 anonymous people. Working closely with Reading school’s head teacher, Mr John Weeds, we lobbied Ministers in the Department for Education. As a result, we have an undertaking from the Minister that amendments will be made to the funding agreement, which I hope will achieve greater clarity.
For now, the threat to Reading’s grammar schools has been temporarily beaten back, but it could return at any time. If they wish, the same 10 people in Reading could return with their protest year after year, and the Government must change the rules so that, if a ballot attempt fails one year, it cannot be constantly repeated. Such a strategy could become a device for destabilising grammar schools all over the country, and I would have grave concerns for the remaining grammar schools in England should it be repeated elsewhere. In defending the few grammar schools that we have left, it seems that the price of their retention will be constant vigilance, unless the Government make significant and necessary changes to the legislation. I am therefore encouraged to see that so many determined hon. Members are participating in this important debate.
To remove grammar schools would be to remove a specialist part of our state education system that seeks to maximise a pupil’s academic potential. Critics of grammar schools—usually, although not exclusively, from the left—say that those who do not pass the selection criteria for a grammar school education will in some way be left behind by the system. That argument, however, is flawed. Not every pupil is academic in orientation, but that does not mean that their potential should be left unfulfilled. Too often, our state education system has let down technically gifted as well as academically gifted pupils, and we need schools that reflect the abilities of all pupils.
That is why I am delighted that university technical colleges are growing in number and strength, and last week I joined Lord Baker of Dorking in celebrating and promoting the success of such colleges at a parliamentary reception with rest of the UTC community—a community which now looks more like a movement. By departing from a one-size-fits-all approach to education, both types of school serve the interests of social mobility. It is about being holistic, serving pupils in the system and reflecting their needs accordingly. Our grammar schools do precisely that, and they deserve our unwavering support.
Laura Sandys (South Thanet) (Con)
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Dartford (Gareth Johnson) for securing the debate. He has said many things that I agree with, particularly on the Kent grammar school system.
When I arrived in Kent as a parliamentary candidate, I had no great understanding of the grammar school system, although I did have an open mind. I wanted to find out what parents felt about the issue, and when knocking on doors I came across families in which one child went to a grammar school and the other to the high school. Sometimes the child at the high school went on to sixth form at the grammar school. I found that Kent had an integrated system and that it was impossible to knock on a door and say, “That is a grammar school house,” or, “That is a high school house.” Perhaps that has something to do with the number of grammar schools in Kent. In my constituency, as in that of my hon. Friend, there are four grammar schools. Therefore, 30% of young people in my constituency go to a grammar school, and it also allows children who have finished their high school education to attend sixth-form college at a grammar school. People can access that excellence at any time.
One thing that struck me very starkly was social mobility. We look for excellence in education, and no one disputes that grammar schools provide that. There is always, however, a big question about whether grammar schools attract only children from middle-class families. One school in my constituency, Chatham House, surveyed its pupils’ parents and found that only 20% had been through higher education. Therefore, 80% of children at that school will be the first generation to go into further education or university. For me, that provided a stark understanding of the issue, and it sounded a clarion call that we are talking about a route into higher education for a first generation of children.
In one of the richer areas of east Kent—an interesting thing to say, because the area has high deprivation— Sir Roger Manwood’s grammar school in Sandwich has an average number of children on free school meals. Again, that reasserts the message coming across from teachers.
Kevin Brennan
I am sure that the statistics that the hon. Lady has quoted are correct, but is she aware that overall, the ratio of state to grammar schools is 25:1? There are 158 pupils on free school meals in non-grammar schools for every one in a grammar school. The ratio is 158:1, rather than 25:1, which is what it should be. Is the grammar school mentioned by the hon. Lady highly unusual?
Laura Sandys
It is not unusual for me or for parents who send their children to grammar schools in my area, but different counties have different systems. Kent has a high number of grammar schools that are attended by between 25% and 30% of children. That offers a huge opportunity for young people from diverse backgrounds to access the grammar school system. Other counties have few grammar schools. That is a pity, because the schools attract only a small number of children, which may not include a representative percentage of the population as a whole. In many ways, that supports my advocacy of the need for more grammar schools to create a proper mixed environment and educational system that is appropriate for different children with different abilities at different ages.
As my hon. Friends and I have said, grammar schools do not work in isolation, and when seeking excellence in our grammar schools, it is crucial that we also seek it in our high schools and other schools in the area. We cannot promote grammar schools without promoting a mixed educational environment.
Kent is lucky to have very good high schools, and I ask the Department to look at how they are judged during Ofsted reports. It is important that the system in which those schools operate is understood by Ofsted and that the 30% of children in my area who enter the grammar school system is understood in the context of what those high schools have achieved in that mixed and selective system.
I wish to be clear on three points. First, we must not undermine excellence. I was concerned to hear about the campaign in Reading, because if we end up with a situation in which grammar schools, which are excellent schools, are threatened or put under pressure by parents, we will do our education system a big disservice. Secondly, I would like the Department to be clear about the opportunities and social mobility offered by grammar schools, when there are enough of them in an area to enable them to increase their intake. Thirdly, I will always be dedicated to my high schools, and I am clear that they need to achieve a huge amount. The Government must understand the selective nature of the system in which they operate.
We are looking to increase opportunities for schools to expand, extend their interests and attract parental choice, and that will be the same for grammar schools, high schools and technical colleges. At the same time, we must maintain and sustain the excellence that currently exists in our grammar school system.
Mr Robert Syms (Poole) (Con)
Like other hon. Members, I know how dear this subject is to you, Mr Brady. No doubt you are having occasion to bite your tongue, to be an impartial Chair.
I start with the usual caveat that I enter in such debates. The vast majority of children go to comprehensive schools, and if we are to remain a first-class economy, we must raise education standards for all children in the United Kingdom, in whatever sector they are being educated. However, that does not mean that we should not value and cherish the 160-odd grammar schools. Looking around the Chamber, I see a smattering of the geography of Britain where parents banded together in the bad old days and managed to maintain their grammar schools, as we have done in the Poole and Bournemouth area. These schools have suffered hostility and sometimes indifference. I am glad that at last we have a Government who appreciate the value that these 160 schools bring to the UK and the chances that they give to the children who go to them.
One of the saddest things over the past 20 or 30 years because of the changes is that a bigger divide has developed in the UK, in that those from a middle-class background who can afford to pay for education have more opportunities, whereas some of those from more disadvantaged backgrounds have found that, with the demise of grammar schools in many areas, their opportunities have not expanded as much as they might have done 10, 20, 30 or 40 years ago. It is still amazing to me to see the people whom this country has produced who make a major contribution to business, to universities and to the media who came from a grammar school background.
We must cherish and support the grammar schools that we have. They provide a beacon for the academy programme. I understand why the Government have focused more on academies than on grammar schools. Clearly, everyone is in favour of grammar schools, but not everyone is in favour of the 11-plus. Rather than arguing about that, it was probably right and proper to get on with the academy programme, which seems to be building up a head of steam. The existence of grammar schools will allow many academies to look at the way in which they teach their pupils. I am thinking of the streaming, the uniforms and the whole ethos of those schools. If the expansion of the academy programme sees many academies adopt those things, that may be a quicker way of ensuring that the widest possible number of pupils get a better chance in life.
We come into politics to make a difference, or at least we hope to make a difference. Of course, it is terribly difficult for any of us to measure what difference we make. However, the changes that the Government are making to school admissions, particularly as they relate to grammar schools, really are a major difference, because the presumption against expansion is to go, which means that good schools will be able to expand. I have no doubt that one of the most important announcements made by the Government is the one that will allow grammar schools to expand, because they are popular and more people will wish to go to them, providing that they meet the standards. That is the first staging post on the way to cherishing and perhaps expanding this sector in the future as a major beacon for educational standards.
I do not intend to say much more, but the number of colleagues present for the debate says something about how strongly they feel. The Minister and I are old friends, and I am pleased with and proud of what he is doing in the Department to improve standards and opportunities not only for those from prosperous backgrounds, but for those from poorer backgrounds.
Eric Ollerenshaw (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Con)
Like other hon. Members, I am the product of a grammar school—Hyde County grammar school, which was destroyed in the grammar school wars. On the other side of things, I went into teaching in 1973, in the heyday of comprehensivisation, with a genuine desire for comprehensives to succeed, because there was, in a sense, no golden age. I think that it was my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mark Field) who remarked on the failure of the tripartite system, because there was not a tripartite system in most of the country. To be fair, in the 1950s and ’60s, although the grammar schools were successful, both parties were worried about the failure across Britain in terms of skills and attainment of those who did not have the chance to go to grammar schools.
As I have said, I entered teaching at the time of comprehensivisation. The phrase used at the time was that it would be a grammar school education for everybody. My first comprehensive school was in Tottenham—Northumberland Park school, just behind the Spurs ground. In a sense, that was my education in how political education is.
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Dartford (Gareth Johnson) on securing this debate. It is a pity that there are no Labour Members present other than the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan), but I hope that we will hear from him that this will be the end of the grammar school wars.
Kevin Brennan
Would the hon. Gentleman also like to hear from the Liberals on this issue?
Eric Ollerenshaw
Well, there you go. What I am trying to say is that I hope—my hon. Friend the Minister has already indicated this—we will see the end of the grammar school wars. I think that all parties have learned from the mistakes that we made and the destruction of good schools that took place in the genuine attempt to create all-purpose comprehensives for everybody.
Let us consider what happened in the ’70s and ’80s. I shall give a personal example. I remember as a teacher in Tottenham at the time trying to bring in an A-level course—France under Louis XIV—and being challenged by other teachers who said, “Do you think they’re good enough for this, Eric?” The penny then began to drop that somehow there was a dumbing down in the system. No teacher in that comprehensive sent their child to it. Most moved to the higher reaches of Hornsey to get near the comprehensive there. There was a classification of comprehensives, but only the middle-class, trained professionals knew the distinctions.
My family background is that I was the first one who passed the 11-plus and all that stuff, but my parents and grandparents did not understand the system. I just went to a school where I managed to pass the 11-plus and ended up in a grammar school. Hon. Members can imagine that loads of parents in Tottenham did not understand that there were distinctions between the schools. We must remember that that was the day and age when schools did not publish their results. There were huge battles to get schools to publish results, so people had to be really in the know, to know which comprehensive produced better results than the other comprehensives.
Then there were all the other things that we tried. I started off teaching mixed ability. Then we tried setting and then, as has been said, streaming. Then we had social priority schools and social priority staff, which meant that we got extra money. I managed to keep that extra money until 2000, when I finished, but that was another problem with the bureaucratic system. In addition to all those different attempts to do things, there were new subjects, including integrated humanities, cross-curricular studies and sociology—I think I happen to be the only Conservative in education who ever taught sociology to A-level. We made all those attempts to do something with the system, having destroyed the previous system, even though, as hon. Members have said, every school and every area are totally different. If results can be measured, people can understand those results, and if the schools are achieving, let them get on with it.
One of the bravest things that we did in opposition was finally to stop the wars and say that we support the academies programme. I hope that that will be reciprocated and that we can pull out of the political wars about education. I now find myself the Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood, where there are two grammar schools. One is Lancaster royal grammar school, which claims a history going back to the 13th century. It is a boarding state grammar school. I thank the Minister, who had a meeting with some of us who represent state boarding schools. I hope that that is another area in which we might see an increase now that we are in the era of free schools—let them get on with it. My area also has Lancaster girls’ grammar school, which dates back to 1907. Those schools are very successful. They are outstanding schools that provide outstanding opportunities for children. Alongside them, my area has Church of England schools, such as Ripley St Thomas school, which has been rated outstanding by Ofsted. Central Lancaster high school, a comprehensive school, is just about to get its first sixth form. That school provides a very good education for those who do not want a grammar school education or a religious school. In a sense, everything is there. There are no problems in my area—touch wood—with choice in education, simply because there is huge variety, which is the key. As I have said, we must pull the politics out, let schools get on with it and allow them to prove by their results what they can do.
I welcome the announcement that grammar schools will be allowed to expand, but I ask the Minister to go further. On selection criteria, the school admissions code specifically mentions selective schools and
“designated grammar schools that rank children according to their performance in a test and allocate places to those who score highest”.
It then has some rules about siblings who can or cannot go to such schools. If we are to go the whole hog on free schools—if we are letting 100 flowers bloom and all that—let us start pulling out the regulation and discrimination that have been built up against grammar schools, which hon. Members say provide a successful education for children in their patch.
Beyond that, grammar schools that have gone for academy status are raising the issue of the possible impact of funding still being under the control of local education authorities and school forums, where there is a predominance of non-academies. There is still work to be done on that. As my hon. Friend the Member for Reading East (Mr Wilson) has said, there is also discrimination because people can call for a ballot over which school they get. Let us put an end to all that.
The debate is about grammar schools. As my hon. Friend the Member for Poole (Mr Syms) has said, they make up a minority of schools, but they are still very successful. Let us put an end to these arguments about which kind of schools we have, which should be up to the local area and to parents. We should enable people to have the education that they want for their children. The Government’s responsibility should simply be to measure success and to build on it, and grammar schools have been one part of that success.
Esther McVey (Wirral West) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Dartford (Gareth Johnson) on raising this issue. All of us are saying that grammar schools provide excellent education for all children from all backgrounds. As my hon. Friend the Member for South Thanet (Laura Sandys) explained most powerfully, we would not necessarily know what schools people’s children go to when we are knocking on doors while out canvassing.
For me, the debate is about acknowledging grammar schools and the excellent work they do. It is also about acknowledging the part that they play in the educational system. There are a number of different kinds of schools, and grammar schools are just one, but we cannot run away from the fact that they do an excellent job. They need to be supported, and I am delighted that the Government are backing them, which will enable them to flourish.
Grammar schools produce consistent, successful results and well-rounded citizens and adults. I say that as a previous governor of Calday Grange grammar, which is 365 years old this year. I was most impressed by the way in which the parents there came together to support not only the school, but the pupils in it. I was also impressed by the community engagement there. If parents want grammar schools and support them—this one has been going for 365 years, and there are many more like it, not just in Wirral West, but right across Wirral—we must keep hold of them. Parents know what is right for their kids and they want these schools to keep going.
The successful results of grammar schools in Wirral West speak for themselves, so let me give just a couple of examples. On the average point score per student, Calday Grange grammar gets 34.5% above the average in the country, Upton Hall school for girls gets 37% above the average and West Kirby grammar gets nearly 40% above the average. On the five A to C grades at GCSE, Calday Grange grammar is 44.5% higher than the average, Upton Hall is 35.5% higher and West Kirby grammar school is 43.5% higher. That is outstanding, and it is part of the grammar school system. Why try to mend something that is not broken? Why take away something that is unbelievably successful?
Wirral grammar school for girls had a 100% pass rate for A-level students, with 43% of its pupils getting A* and A grades and 73% getting between A* and B grades. The school is unbelievably successful. It is ranked in the top 100 state schools in the country in The Sunday Times list.
My area desperately needs great schools—I can say that because I am from Merseyside. In fact, every area could say the same. That really is key when we look at the future generation we are creating and at social mobility. Grammar schools have to be the engines for social mobility in communities.
Grammar schools are academic schools, and our top universities look to them. More than 1,000 grammar school pupils went to Oxford and Cambridge after taking A-levels in 2008. In areas such as mine, grammar schools provide an outlet for academic potential.
We all watch BBC and ITV and select excellence in dancing, singing or some other kind of performance—nobody has a problem with that. We all vote on these things and say that someone can win because they are the best. Why do we have a problem with looking at academic excellence and selecting people in that way, when the whole country is quite happy to send in a text to vote in these shows?
Jim Shannon
Why do people vote for Russell Grant in “Strictly Come Dancing” if this is about excellence? I cannot understand that.
Esther McVey
To be fair, I think that man has got move and groove and slinky hips, and I will be voting for him. As an ex-dancer, I was taken by his dancing abilities.
I welcome what the Government are doing. I welcome free schools and academies, because I believe in choice. The grammar schools in Wirral West are moving to become academies and following the academy route. As they progress towards becoming academies, I hope they will remain true to their beliefs, aims, aspirations and founding principles. I hope they will remain the same when they become academies. I hope that our support for them will allow them to flourish, that we do not change a winning formula and that we ensure that these excellent schools remain in our community.
What the coalition Government are doing is a refreshing change. They are offering choice, pushing for discipline, looking to support and encourage all sorts of schools and looking for achievement in every area. Yes, there must be academic achievement, but there must be achievement and fulfilment for every child. What some might do in academia, others might do through practical skills, while others might provide for their community in a very different way. I support all those kids, because they all have a talent; we just have to find out what theirs is and nurture them.
Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)
I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in this important debate. Like everyone who has spoken before me, I am a strong supporter of grammar schools. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Dartford (Gareth Johnson), whom I congratulate on securing the debate, I am a product of the grammar school in the constituency that I represent.
Rugby retains grammar schools, but we have the best of both worlds because we also have non-selective schools. We have a non-selective school in Ashlawn that has a grammar stream, and we have two high-class, selective, single-sex grammar schools—Lawrence Sheriff school for boys and Rugby high school for girls. I should declare an interest, in that my daughter is a pupil at the girls’ school.
As I say, Rugby has grammar schools, and I am a product of Lawrence Sheriff. My hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight (Mr Turner) was there a few years before me, and I came to this place with my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington South (David Mowat), who also went to the school. The school therefore has a proud tradition of producing Members of Parliament.
At the school, I was in a class with the sons of cement factory workers and scrap metal merchants, each of whom was the first member of their family to go to university. I therefore have a good understanding of the role of grammar schools in providing social mobility.
We retain grammar schools in Rugby because of the hard work and diligence of an earlier generation of politicians, who fought to retain our selective schools in the face of the comprehensivisation of Britain. The fact that we have grammar schools is a major asset for the community that I represent. Our schools are in high demand. Parents move into our area to provide their children with the opportunity to attend a grammar school, and they also apply from substantial distances—20 or 30 miles away—to secure that kind of education for their children. We know the schools are popular, and it is because of the high standards and excellence that a grammar school provides. My hon. Friend the Member for Dartford gave a full account of the academic qualifications secured at most grammar schools.
I am pleased that the Government recognise the strengths and qualities that grammar schools can bring the country, and that they have brought forward a policy that will enable them to expand. In Rugby, we have been looking forward to the expansion of our grammar schools in the past few years, because of our party’s policy to permit them to grow where there is population growth. Rugby has a very positive approach to new housing development. We have a site that is expected to take 6,200 new homes in the next 20 years, and we are expecting the grammar school provision to increase in proportion. It is great news that we may be able to go further.
I am anxious to ensure that our grammar schools should be available for the broadest possible number of children in our community. I have one or two anxieties about the selection process that will take place in an era of academies. Until now, the selection arrangements for our existing grammar schools have been run by the local authority, and I have two concerns about the process to which the authority has moved in recent years.
The first concern is about the need for parents to opt in. That came home clearly to me much as it did to my hon. Friend the Member for South Thanet (Laura Sandys). I was on a doorstep talking to parents who had a bright and gifted young child, who had been denied the opportunity of a grammar school place because they had not filled in the necessary form in time for the child to take the exam. I was horrified that there was a system in which parents must opt in rather than opting out. I should like the Minister to comment on an opt-out system. I recognise that there will be parents who decide that a selective education is not right for their children, or who do not want to put their children under the burden of taking a selection exam. However, if we are to make our grammar schools the engines of social mobility that they should be, we should make certain that a child’s ability to sit the selection exam is not determined by their parents’ ability to get a form filled in on time, and sent back to the school and local authority.
Laura Sandys
Another issue in my constituency is that fewer girls than boys apply to grammar school. There is no reason for that, other than parents’ not necessarily looking at their girls, and their potential to go to grammar school, in the same way. My hon. Friend’s system would be extremely interesting, in many ways, in relation to opening that up and perhaps increasing the number of girls who apply.
Mark Pawsey
My hon. Friend’s intervention is profound. The essence of my support for grammar schools and, I am sure, of the support of other hon. Members present, is that they should be available to all children. We want them to be vehicles of social mobility. We want children from less privileged backgrounds to go to them; so my heart went out to the parents I met whose daughter had been denied the opportunity of a grammar school education.
Mr Rob Wilson
Why are not primary schools encouraging parents to put their children in for the examinations, and opting in on behalf of the children? Does my hon. Friend agree that primary schools do not do enough to get their children into grammar schools?
Mark Pawsey
Absolutely. I share my hon. Friend’s view. One of the difficulties is that in certain primary schools there is an expectation that children will sit the selection exam, whereas in other schools, perhaps in less well-off areas, the expectation may not be present; but it should be. Those schools should put all their children forward, to give them the opportunity to participate in a selective education.
I have a second point about the selection process on which I would like the Minister to comment. I have mentioned my daughter, who is currently at grammar school. My other daughter, who is older, sat the exam 10 or 12 years earlier, when the entrants sat several practice papers in school and then took the actual paper in school—an environment that they were all entirely comfortable with. I am sure that that enabled each child sitting the paper to do their best. By the time my younger daughter took the exam, it had been moved to a separate examination centre. At the age of 11, with the entire cohort of other children of that age, she was taken to a foreign environment—a school they were not familiar with. They sat in rows in the same way we would have sat our GCSE and A-level exams. For many children, the move from the comfortable environment to somewhere completely different was distressing. They are youngsters of 11 years old. Sure, the selection exam should determine which children are the most capable, and who will benefit—
Kevin Brennan
I am very interested in the experience that the hon. Gentleman describes, but is he entirely comfortable with categorising children in that way at the age of 11?
[Jim Sheridan in the Chair]
Mark Pawsey
Absolutely comfortable. I know as a parent that it is possible to identify at the age of 11 the children who will benefit from the more rigorous academic education that would come through a grammar school. However, I do not want children to be assessed in an environment in which they are not entirely comfortable at such a tender, early age. I urge the Minister to do his utmost to ensure that the process of selection is put on a more even footing and that the system is better able to identify those with the ability and skills to benefit from a grammar school education, rather than those who perform particularly well in an exam on a given day in an unknown environment.
I am very supportive of what the Government are doing in increasing the role of grammar school education, and I look forward to many children benefiting from the changes that we will make in the years to come.
Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)
Welcome to our proceedings, Mr Sheridan. We have had a very interesting debate, although I feel somewhat as though I am intruding on a private argument.
Kevin Brennan
I think that there is an argument, because I agree with the Minister that more grammar schools should not open, and I sense an undercurrent among the hon. Members who have spoken that they would like more to open. Perhaps if I am wrong about that, one of them will intervene and tell me so, but no one is standing up to speak, so we can take it that they do not agree with the Minister and that they have an argument with his policy—
Kevin Brennan
In a minute. I will finish and let the hon. Lady intervene in a second, if she will contain her slinky hips, as she said in her speech earlier. I apologise—I should not have said that: I was simply quoting what she said about “Strictly Come Dancing”.
The Minister’s policy is not to open more grammar schools, and I understood from the speeches of other hon. Members that they want to open more, so perhaps the hon. Lady will clarify matters.
Esther McVey
I think that if the hon. Gentleman was listening to what I was saying, he would know that I gave full acknowledgment to the grammar schools that we have and the fact that parents want to keep them. My speech was not about increasing them, or making alterations; I was saying that they are an important part of the education system, for which they must be acknowledged.
Kevin Brennan
I accept that one hon. Member in the debate agrees with the Minister’s—and the Government’s—policy that more grammar schools should not be opened. The hon. Lady has made it clear that she agrees with that. I am looking around the Chamber to see whether other hon. Members want to tell us they agree with the Minister, but I do not see any.
Kevin Brennan
Ah! I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman for intervening on me.
Stephen McPartland
I did not speak in the debate, but I understood my hon. Friends to be saying that they were very proud of the grammar schools in their areas and that they wanted them to have the opportunity to expand. I believe that it is Government policy that all good schools should have the opportunity to expand.
Kevin Brennan
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that clarification. I shall take it then that all Government Members present do not wish to see more grammar schools opened across the country, which is the Government’s policy, although they support the Minister’s move to allow existing grammar schools to expand their numbers.
Mr Andrew Turner
I would say that it would be a good idea to have grammar schools in areas in which they do not currently exist, but I would need to consult my electors before I decided which way to vote.
Kevin Brennan
I take from that that the hon. Gentleman has some doubts about his own Government’s policy in not allowing more grammar schools to be built; that is the logical conclusion of his statement.
We now know that there is a mixed bag of views among Government Members about the matter. I agree with the Minister that we should not build more grammar schools, because selection at age 11, in my view, does not work and is wrong. I will expand on that in a moment.
Kevin Brennan
Our policy on the matter is unchanged. It should be up to local parents, via the ballot mechanism described earlier, to decide whether they want to keep the grammar schools that are in their area. Our policy is unchanged from what it has been for many years.
I congratulate the hon. Member for Dartford (Gareth Johnson) on securing the debate. When he opened the debate, he talked about a one-size-fits-all education. He told us his story of social mobility, which he attributed to his attendance at grammar school. He seemed to indicate that that kind of social mobility would not be possible without grammar schools, but I have to tell him that that is not correct.
I think that I come from a background similar to the hon. Gentleman’s. My parents both left school at 14. My father worked in the steelworks and my mother was a dinner lady. I attended a comprehensive school and ended up here via various other institutions along the way, including teaching in a comprehensive school, which the hon. Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood (Eric Ollerenshaw) also did. Social mobility is not dependent on attendance at a grammar school. There is conflicting evidence regarding the impact of grammar schools on social mobility, when looked at in the round, and the evidence that the hon. Member for Dartford cited was circumstantial rather than conclusive.
Gareth Johnson
No one here has suggested that it is impossible to have social mobility in non-selective schools. What we are saying is that there is a high degree of social mobility in grammar schools, which we are all proud of.
I hope that the hon. Gentleman will clarify something for me. He says that he is against selection at 11, yet his party has a policy of continuing selection at 11 for the 164 remaining grammar schools. Does he want a policy with which he disagrees to remain?
Kevin Brennan
We have made our position clear. Although I am not in favour of selection, it is up to the parents in existing areas, via the ballot mechanism described by the hon. Gentleman, to decide whether they want to keep grammar schools. That has been our policy for many years, and the decision has always been taken in that way at a local level, previously by local authorities.
The hon. Gentleman said that no one is suggesting that social mobility is possible only through the grammar school route. Perhaps that is not what he wanted to suggest, but he made a remark—and I intervened on him, as the record in Hansard will show—that might have implied that that was what he believed. However, I accept the explanation that that is not the case. I will come on to the evidence that says that non-selective systems are more effective than selective ones.
The hon. Member for Reading East (Mr Wilson) objected to the mechanism available to parents, should they seek to trigger a ballot, to change a selective system in their local area to a non-selective one. There was only one part of his argument that I did not understand. If the presence of grammar schools benefits all children and parents in an area, as many of his hon. Friends say is the case, why is he concerned about parents of children in the feeder schools to grammar schools having a vote on keeping a selective system? After all, according to him and his hon. Friends, all those parents would benefit massively from the gravitational pull of a selective school in their area.
Mr Rob Wilson
My concern is not about parents of children in feeder schools voting—they should be able to do so—but about parents of children in grammar schools not being able to vote and about the fact that ballots may be triggered by 10 anonymous people collecting a petition.
Kevin Brennan
Leaving aside the trigger, which the hon. Gentleman raised with the Minister—I am sure that the Minister will respond to it—the logic of his argument suggests that he would want parents from all secondary schools in an area to be able to vote in a ballot, because they, too, would all benefit hugely, as described by his hon. Friends, from the presence of grammar schools that their children do not attend. By his own logic, all parents in an area should have a say in whether the local system should be selective or non-selective. However, the current system allows parents of children in feeder schools to vote in that way. If he is afraid that they will vote differently, clearly he is saying that they might not feel that their children are benefiting from having a selective school in their area. That was not the point that his hon. Friends were making.
The hon. Member for South Thanet (Laura Sandys) mentioned the high schools in her area and spoke with passion and persuasiveness about the school system there. It was interesting to hear that non-grammar schools in the area are now referred to as high schools. Why do we never hear the term “secondary modern” any more? Why are non-grammar schools referred to as high schools, comprehensive schools, sometimes community schools or a variety of other appellations? It is for the reason pointed out by the hon. Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood—the tripartite system that existed across the country condemned the vast majority of children to second-class schools. That is the truth and the reality of what the system was like.
Kevin Brennan
The hon. Gentleman is nodding, because he taught in that system and knows what secondary modern schools were like, as a whole, across the country. They provided a second-class and extremely poor education to the children who failed their 11-plus and were unable to attend other schools.
Mr Andrew Turner
I have no experience of grammar schools or secondary modern schools on the Isle of Wight, because that has not happened to the schools there. Both grammar and secondary modern schools are doing well in places such as Thanet, the rest of Kent and Rugby, where grammar schools remain. They are good schools; it does not matter what one calls them.
Kevin Brennan
I am not disputing the fact that there are many good schools within a selective system that are not grammar schools. I completely accept the point made by hon. Members about good schools in their local areas; they will know far better than I the quality of education offered in those schools. I am simply pointing out that when the system was scaled up right across the country in the 1950s and 1960s, the reason why the comprehensive movement came along was because of the failure of that system to cater for the needs of the vast majority of children.
The hon. Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood brought to the debate the benefit of his experience as a teacher in a London comprehensive school, and he made some valid points about the kind of social selection that can also take place in a comprehensive school. I taught in a comprehensive school for 10 years, and in my experience in schools, what counts is not whether a school is selective, but the quality of its leadership, the teachers in the school and the relationship created with parents and the effective enforcement of good standards of behaviour in the classroom. Those are the sorts of issues that count in giving a good education to a child. That is perfectly possible—I witnessed it in many comprehensive schools. With the right leadership and the right quality of teaching, we can offer an educational experience for all children in a comprehensive school, including those who are academically gifted.
Eric Ollerenshaw
I agree with the hon. Gentleman on that, but I just wonder why his party still pursues the line of antagonising the remaining grammar schools and why it would prefer to see even them abolished at some point. On his party’s strictures, if the schools are good with good teachers and good results, should they not be allowed to continue?
Kevin Brennan
I am not in the least antagonistic towards any school. As I have made clear, our policy is that the parents of children in the feeder schools to such schools should have the decision as to whether a system is selective or not. Let us be clear. When discussing grammar schools, it is not just a case of one school, but a selective system in an area. That is the consequence of having selection. It is quite right that parents should have a choice on that.
The hon. Member for Wirral West (Esther McVey) made the point that academic excellence is extremely important, and she referenced the very good schools in her area. I simply reiterate that academic excellence can be catered for in good, non-selective schools, whether they are academies, community schools or whatever.
On the point of social mobility and the make-up of existing grammar schools across the country, in a parliamentary answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Sefton Central (Bill Esterson) in April this year, which can be found in the Library debate pack for this debate that I am sure hon. Members have seen, the Minister set out the number of year 7 pupils attending state-funded secondary schools overall, the number of those pupils attending grammar schools and then the numbers of pupils from a black ethnicity, those who receive free school meals and those who have a statement of special educational needs. It must be said that the Minister’s statistics show that grammar schools are purely academically selective; they are clearly socially selective as well.
Laura Sandys
As I outlined in my contribution, different areas have different settlements when it comes to grammar schools and high schools, and that is important to understand. In an area with many grammar schools, there is a much greater cross-section of the population. When there are only three or four in a county, they are often in rural areas and people must drive to them. There is therefore a difference in the systems. We often put an umbrella around all grammar-school systems as if they were one, rather than look at the nuances that have developed in different areas with different outcomes.
Kevin Brennan
In her speech, the hon. Lady made the point that the grammar school in her area with a free school-meal intake was at exactly the average for the area, but that is an exception. It has to be an exception, and the statistics show that. In 2010, for example, 96,680 year 7 pupils attending state-funded secondary schools received free school meals out of a total number of 549,725. Out of 22,070 grammar school pupils, 610 received free school meals. The table goes on to give a percentage, and I must say that, using my comprehensive school maths, I think that the figures are wrong in the Minister’s answer. I am sure that it was not his answer, but perhaps a mistake in translation when it went into the debate pack. The percentage calculations that I have done to check seem wrong, but what is clear from the figures when they are recalculated in a different way is that the ratio of state-school pupils to grammar-school pupils is about 25:1 and yet the ratio for free school meals is 158:1. There is clearly a huge amount of social selection going on, but I give those figures with the health warning that they may have been mistranslated along the way. Perhaps the Minister will clarify that—if not now, at a later date.
I will not go on much longer except to say that, as I stated earlier, Andreas Schleicher, the OECD statistician who compiles the figures for the programme for international student assessment, pointed out at a meeting that I attended that the best school systems in the world are non-selective. That is a clear conclusion of the OECD’s research.
The Minister of State, Department for Education (Mr Nick Gibb)
I begin by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Dartford (Gareth Johnson) on securing this important debate, which has been interesting and well argued. As ex-grammar school pupils, we share a familiarity with the high standards and positive experience that grammar schools engender. I also know that he continues to serve as a governor at Dartford grammar school for girls to ensure that those standards and values continue. As the Sutton Trust recently reported, more than eight in 10 of girls at that school are accepted at university. At 83%, it is around the same percentage as Maidstone grammar school, which I attended for one year, where 87% are accepted. That record is testament to the work of the school, its staff and the girls themselves. More than nine in 10 pupils go to university from Dartford grammar school—the boys’ school.
This debate comes at a time of almost unprecedented reform in our education system, and I am grateful to my hon. Friend for paying tribute to the work of the Department since May 2010. For too long, standards were allowed to slip in far too many schools. I know that Sir Michael Wilshaw, Her Majesty’s new chief inspector at Ofsted, will bring a resolute determination to reverse that trend and to return the focus of all schools towards excellence rather than excuses.
Grammar schools ensure that thousands of state-educated pupils move on to higher education and to the most competitive universities. Around 1,050 grammar school pupils were studying at Oxford and Cambridge in 2009. Some 98% of pupils in grammar schools achieved five or more GCSEs at grades A* to C, including English and maths, compared with 57.8% of pupils nationally. In 2009-10, some 95% of grammar schools pupils who were eligible for free school meals achieved five or more GCSEs at grades A* to C, compared with about 31% nationally. The gap between the overall figure of 98% and the free school meals figure of some 95% of those in grammar schools achieving those good GCSE grades, which is about three percentage points, is absolutely critical. That contrasts sharply with the national figure.
In 2009, 55% overall achieved five or more GCSEs at grades A* to C, including English and maths, but for pupils who were eligible for free school meals the overall figure was just 31%. That gap of 24 percentage points has stubbornly remained over recent years. That is a disparity in outcome that we want to close or, at the very least, bring closer to the narrower gap that grammar schools have achieved for the simple reason that reducing the attainment gap between pupils from rich and poor backgrounds is one of the key objectives of the coalition Government. The question is how we can achieve that objective. How do we spread to the whole state school sector the grammar school ethos of high standards and ambition and of placing no limit on achievement?
No limit on achievement certainly seems to be the approach taken by Dartford grammar school. It is one of three such schools where, in 2010, more than 95% of pupils achieved the English baccalaureate’s combination of GCSEs. A further nine grammar schools scored above 90%, and 67.9% of grammar pupils achieved the E-bac nationally, compared with the overall national figure of 15.2%.
My hon. Friend the Member for Reading East (Mr Wilson) was right to pay tribute to Reading school, where 78% of the pupils achieved the E-bac, and to Kendrick school, where 72.8% achieved the E-bac.
Kevin Brennan
At Chislehurst and Sidcup grammar school, only 15% of pupils achieved the E-bac. Does the Minister regard that as a failure?
Mr Gibb
The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. There are a variety of standards in the list of grammar schools, and I believe that we will see a rise in that figure that he just quoted in the years ahead, just as we will see a rise in the proportion of pupils taking the E-bac right across the state sector, as schools focus on achieving results in the E-bac.
My hon. Friend the Member for Reading East raised the issue of the grammar school ballot provisions, both in statute and in annex E to the funding agreement. We have discussed these issues on a number of occasions and the head teachers of the two schools that he mentioned—Reading school and Kendrick school—have made very clear representations. Throughout the country, there have been just 10 petitions since 1998 and only one went to a ballot. That proposal to abolish a grammar school, in Ripon, was defeated by a margin of two to one, but we are looking very seriously at the technical issues that my hon. Friend raised both today and in recent weeks.
My hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood (Eric Ollerenshaw) paid tribute to Lancaster girls’ grammar school, where 87.3% of the pupils achieved the E-bac combination of GCSEs, and to Lancaster royal grammar school, where 81.9% of pupils achieved the E-bac combination of GCSEs. Those are excellent schools, and my hon. Friend is right that we should not be engaged in wars about such excellence.
My hon. Friend the Member for Wirral West (Esther McVey) was right to extol the virtues of Calday Grange grammar school, where 87.3% of pupils achieved the E-bac, and the two Wirral grammar schools, where 77.3% of pupils achieved the E-bac combination of GCSEs.
My hon. Friend the Member for Rugby (Mark Pawsey) was right to pay tribute to Lawrence Sheriff school and Rugby high school. I listened very carefully to the important points that he made about the selection process, and local authorities should be advising parents about the options that are available to their children, particularly those who are from more disadvantaged backgrounds. I have also taken on board my hon. Friend’s important point about the environment in which the tests are taken.
My hon. Friend the Member for South Thanet (Laura Sandys) raised the issue of the ethos and popularity of grammar schools. It is that formula that the Government are now seeking to replicate in every school in the country and for every pupil, irrespective of family background. In this country, we have many exceptional schools and teachers who work extremely hard towards achieving those goals—in fact, we have some of the very best schools and teachers in the world—but we also know that many state schools are struggling to work in what is at times an almost unworkable system of bureaucracy and central control. As a result, we have fallen back in the programme for international student assessment rankings, from fourth to 16th in science, from seventh to 25th in literacy and from eighth to 28th in maths. Our 15-year-olds are two years behind their peers in Shanghai in maths and a full year behind teenagers in Korea and Finland in reading.
Kevin Brennan
When the Minister cites those figures, will he cite the change in the number of countries participating in the PISA survey, will he say over what period he is quoting and will he also give the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study statistics for the same period?
Mr Gibb
Even if we take into account the increasing number of countries taking part in the PISA surveys, which took place in periodic years from 2000 onwards, the surveys still show this country declining. Also, the TIMSS survey is different, because it examines the curriculum of the countries in which children are tested, whereas the PISA survey looks at a common set of questions right across the different countries. The PISA survey is the one that we should be concerned about.
Kevin Brennan
It is only fair to put on record that, as the Minister knows, Andreas Schleicher, who compiles the PISA statistics, does not agree that there has been any absolute decline in performance in this country.
Mr Gibb
However, Andreas Schleicher also says that there has been no increase in performance in this country, whereas other countries around the world are increasing performance. That is the problem facing our young people if we do not improve standards in our state schools, because those young people are now competing for jobs in a global market. It is no longer good enough just to look at the past, because we now have to compare our system with the best systems in the world.
Our education system has become one of the most stratified and unfair in the developed world. Since coming into office, we have been setting out our vision for reform on four broad themes: improving the quality of teaching and the respect for our work force in schools; greater autonomy for schools to plan and decide how and when improvements should take place; more intelligent and localised accountability; and reducing and simplifying the bureaucracy that frustrates and demoralises teachers. Those themes formed the basis of the White Paper that we published a year ago this month, “The Importance of Teaching”, and I believe that grammar schools can actively support improvement in each of those four areas.
First, we want to get the best graduates into teaching by funding the doubling of the Teach First programme during the course of this Parliament, and by expanding the Future Leaders and Teaching Leaders programmes, which provide superb professional development for the future leaders of some of our toughest and most challenging schools. We want grammar schools actively to share their experience of staff development with other schools, in both the initial training of staff and the provision of professional development. We have had more than 1,000 expressions of interest in establishing teaching schools and 300 applications have already been received, with grammar schools among the keenest to sponsor or support local schools to improve standards in their communities.
Secondly, our drive for greater autonomy has seen 111 of the 164 grammar schools that made those applications become academies, and many of them support other local schools. The vast majority of grammar schools participate in some form of partnership with other maintained schools or academies, be that an exchange of staff, working with students or supporting school leadership. Between them, the newly converted academies have agreed to support more than 700 other schools and to support fellow head teachers through the doubling of the national and local leaders of education programmes.
Thirdly, it is vital to ensure that improvement is driven not by the Government but by schools themselves, through effective accountability that focuses on raising standards. We are overhauling the inspections framework to focus on schools’ “core four” responsibilities—teaching, leadership, pupil attainment and pupil behaviour. The E-bac sets a high benchmark against which parents can hold schools to account, and it helps to narrow the gap between those from the poorest backgrounds and those from the wealthiest backgrounds.
The Russell group of universities has been unequivocal about the core GCSEs and A-levels that best equip students for the most competitive courses and the most competitive universities—English, maths, sciences, geography, history and modern or traditional languages. However, nine out of 10 pupils in state schools who are eligible for free school meals are not even entered for those E-bac subjects, and just 4% of those pupils achieve the E-bac. In 719 mainstream state schools, no pupils who are eligible for free school meals were entered for any single-award science GCSE; in 169 mainstream state schools, none of them were entered for French; in 137 mainstream state schools, none of them were entered for geography; and in 70 mainstream state schools, none of them were entered for history. Academic subjects should not be the preserve of the few, but we need to free schools to achieve that aim.
Fourthly, therefore, we are dramatically reducing the bureaucracy that constricts achievement. In opposition, we counted the number of pages of guidance sent to schools in one 12-month period. They came to an incredible 6,000 pages—or six volumes of “War and Peace”, if people are inclined to consider it that way— yet they contained little of substance that schools do not already know or share.
The most recent example of our efforts is the recently completed consultation on the school admissions and appeal codes. There were some 130 pages of densely worded text, with more than 650 mandatory requirements that were often repeated. The revised versions, which we published last Wednesday, total just over 60 pages and are minimal in their requirements, while preserving the important safeguards as well as introducing new requirements, such as priority in admissions for children adopted from care. As my hon. Friend the Member for Poole (Mr Syms) said in his contribution, it is one of the most far-reaching changes that we can make if we give all schools, including grammar schools, a greater say over their own published admission number.
Currently, that intake number is tightly managed by the local authority to ensure that any increases do not affect the school down the road. That kind of rationing of places only limits choice for parents and pushes cohort after cohort of children to less accomplished schools, rather than giving good schools the freedom to expand and share their excellence.
Our approach is simply to let schools decide how many students they can offer a high quality of education within their own capital budget, while ensuring that they maintain standards or improve any underperformance. Why is that important? Quite simply, it is important because we want the number of places in all good schools to increase, to increase genuine choice for parents. Even marginal increases in some areas will lead to a positive cycle of increased standards. Critics who argue that that will create sink schools overlook the current admissions codes—
Jim Sheridan (in the Chair)
Order. We must now move on to the next debate. Before doing so, I ask colleagues who are leaving Westminster Hall to do so quickly and quietly.
Primary Care (Devon and the South-West)
(13 years ago)
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Mr Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab)
This debate is about a proposal by most, but not all, of the NHS primary care trusts in the south-west, including my own in Devon, to contract out some of the important administrative work done to support GP practices and other family health services to a business partnership with the private French company Steria, called Shared Business Services, or SBS. The work includes running the system of payments to GPs, pharmacists, ophthalmologists and others, patient registration and screening, organising the timely transfer of patients’ records, and basic but vital things such as ensuring that GPs do not run out of prescription forms.
I was first alerted to the proposal when constituents of mine who work for the Devon primary care support services at Newcourt House on the edge of Exeter contacted me. I subsequently visited and spoke to some of the 27 staff who between them have more than 500 years’ experience of working in the field. As a result of those conversations and subsequent research, I now have grave concerns about the proposal and the process that has led to it.
As far as I am aware, there have not been any complaints about the quality or efficiency of the current service. On the contrary, the in-house service in the south-west in general and in Devon in particular is considered to be one of the best in the country for quality and efficiency. The Department of Health has for the past two years been undertaking a major research and benchmarking exercise to improve and standardise the quality of primary care commissioning, including that of support services. Of the 19 NHS organisations reviewed, Devon was shown to be one of the best for quality, and the best for efficiency. Its costs for transferring medical records, for example, are less than half the national average.
That Department of Health study is supposed to help develop a national standard or specification for primary care commissioning, so why is the Department pushing PCTs in the south-west to contract out the services when we have not yet seen the results of this important work? The Department’s programme director for primary care commissioning, who is in charge of the work on a national specification, has said that she “cannot envisage” the arrangements that are likely to emerge from her work “being in line with” what is being proposed in Devon and across the south-west. Surely, therefore, it makes sense to wait until the work of the Department’s national commissioning board project team is complete and published before pressing ahead with the contract.
The Secretary of State for Health states in his letter to me of 25 October that decisions are entirely a matter for individual local trusts, but from the conversations that I have had and the documentation that I have seen, it is clear that his Department and the strategic health authority have put considerable pressure on PCTs to sign up to the SBS bid. I have seen a letter from the Department’s commercial director to a PCT chief executive, which basically implies that they have no choice. As a former Health Minister, I know that it is possible for different bits of the Department not always to work in a joined-up way, but it seems extraordinary that the commercial division is pushing a policy that would seem to, if not go completely against, at least pre-empt what the primary care commissioning officials are doing.
In spite of the pressure from the centre, some PCTs in the south-west have decided not to go with the SBS bid and to keep the work in-house. Somerset has done that, Bristol, South Gloucestershire and North Somerset have recently announced a delay to any decision until they have done a full due diligence assessment, and I understand that Gloucester put up some initial resistance.
The original bid from SBS was to cover the whole of the south-west, but with significant parts of the region either now not signing up to the contract or having second thoughts, I would be grateful for the Minister’s thoughts about how that will affect the viability of the bid. It must also surely strengthen the arguments for waiting for the outcome of the national specification work, given that the study might recommend a very different solution only for PCTs to discover that they are already bound into a contract with SBS that they cannot change.
What particularly concerns the staff in Exeter and me is the future quality of the service. I have seen figures—I can let the Minister have them if he has not been given sight of them by his officials—that show that the quality of primary care support services that are already run by SBS are worse than those in the south-west and that they have deteriorated since SBS took them over. For example, in the south-west 91% of patient records are transferred within the maximum target time of six weeks, and the east midlands used to boast a similarly good figure but performance has fallen to 76% since SBS took over at the end of 2010. North London was the first and is the only other area where SBS runs the primary care support services, and performance there is just 35%.
The SBS model involves moving some of the work currently done in Devon and the rest of the south-west to India. I have nothing, in principle, against work being done in India. When I book my train tickets to and from Exeter every week, I speak to extremely helpful people in India, but for these particular NHS services, the local knowledge that the staff have built up over many years and the relationships that they have with local GPs and others are vital for resolving problems and ensuring that a system runs safely and efficiently. For example, during last winter’s bad snow, staff from Exeter used Land Rovers to ensure that GP surgeries did not run out of vital supplies.
Our existing service operates a hub and spoke model for the ordering of prescriptions by practices. Suppliers deliver orders to the hub—the primary care support services—which then delivers to the individual practices. Devon primary care support services have two very busy staff members to administer the process from their side, but the NHS SBS bid would have just two administrators across the whole south-west.
The chairman of the Devon local medical committee, which represents GPs in my area, has described the current service as “exemplary” and has told me that GPs and their practices have “severe anxieties” about the proposed change. Just last night, a Devon GP contacted me when she heard I had secured this debate and said:
“I have over the past two years had several causes to ask the Devon primary care support service for brief advice. They clearly have a wealth of knowledge born from years of dealing with these queries and I have found the advice to be much more up to date and helpful than the service that I received from their equivalents in the previous PCT where I worked prior to coming to Devon. The support that we receive is invaluable. It allows us to do our jobs rather than spending hours on the telephone and e-mail. The plans to derail this system are unhelpful and counter-productive for the wasted time that will be spent finding information elsewhere.”
I thought that the whole thrust of this Government’s policy was about giving GPs the power and money to commission services as they wished, but here the Government are doing exactly the opposite and ignoring the wishes of local professionals in the process.
Doubts have also been raised about SBS’s reported record in reducing costs. A 2008 report by the Office for Public Management details examples of huge oversights in plans for cost reduction. One member of staff has said that his
“team are as big as they were when SBS was introduced”
because SBS had to re-recruit a full team after its previous job cuts had left the organisation unable to function effectively. The report concluded that
“few if any cost savings were made as a result of the agreement and it is deemed ‘unlikely’ by interviewees and commentators that they ever will”.
Staff in Devon have told me that the draft contract with SBS does not include a lot of their current work. The work will have to be done by someone, so on whom will the costs fall? The staff feel particularly aggrieved that the strategic health authority’s finance director recently visited India to inspect SBS’s work but has not talked to the people who currently provide an excellent service on his own doorstep. I understand that he has also told primary care trust chiefs that SBS represents
“the way forward for the NHS”.
Again, that hardly sounds like encouragement for local decision making.
It has been suggested to me in the past 24 hours that European competition rules might not have been adequately addressed when dealing with the bid. I would be grateful if the Minister went away, examined that point and reassured me in writing, if not in his reply, that both the policy and the process are legally watertight.
We face a fragmented part-privatisation of an important part of the NHS across the south-west, before the Minister’s departmental officials have reported their findings on best practice and a national specification for primary care commissioning. Questions have been raised about the company bidding for the work, in terms of its record on quality and its potential to deliver savings. The Government claim that the decisions are entirely for local PCTs, yet pressure has clearly been applied by some in his Department and the strategic health authority, contrary to everything that the Government claim to support in terms of local commissioning and decision making. There is also a strong feeling that the decision is being rushed through. For example, it appears that staff in Devon are being subjected to a curtailed consultation period, before due diligence work is complete. Surely, consultation with staff should begin after local managers have satisfied themselves that any bid stacks up.
It feels as though loyal and hard-working NHS staff in Devon are being presented with a fait accompli that is being pushed on them for ideological reasons by a Government who are not joined-up. Primary care support services are what keep the wheels of the NHS moving smoothly. The quality of local service is at stake, and I urge the Minister, in consultation with senior staff at the regional and local levels, to put the decision on hold, at the very least until the questions and concerns that staff have raised with me and that I have highlighted in this short debate have been addressed satisfactorily.
The Minister of State, Department of Health (Paul Burstow)
I congratulate the right hon. Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw) on securing this debate. As a former Health Minister, he has stood up in the Chamber to respond to hon. Members who have raised concerns on behalf of constituents, as he has done thoroughly and thoughtfully today. I appreciate the way in which he presented his case. When he was a Health Minister, I found him to be a constructive and courteous colleague on the occasions on which I dealt with him.
I pay tribute to the hard work done by national health service staff every day of the week, whether in back offices or on the front line in wards. They change lives. It is all too easy to dwell on the things that go wrong and not to pay enough attention to the excellent work that they do. I certainly want to pay attention to that today. This Government are committed to doing all that we can to support front-line staff and ensure that we continue to deliver excellent services to the right hon. Gentleman’s constituents.
I will first address the central issue—the role of NHS shared business services and how it has come to be such an important player in shared services—by referring to the chronology. NHS SBS was established in 2005 after an open competition in accordance with European procurement regulations. I will certainly consider the right hon. Gentleman’s point about procurement law and will write to him if any further issues need to be dealt with. I will confirm the state of play.
The service was established to help to meet efficiency targets set out in the previous Government’s efficiency review, led by Sir Peter Gershon, in 2004. In creating NHS SBS, the last Government brought together two shared financial service centres situated in Leeds and Bristol and introduced private sector capacity and expertise to assist expansion and increase the range of services offered, to deliver the potential efficiencies of such an approach. I appreciate the right hon. Gentleman’s question about his concerns on behalf of staff. As a constituency MP, I too would want to ensure that such concerns were properly aired and that the decision makers involved understood those concerns and properly reflected on and respected them. However, I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman, as a former Health Minister, will understand that the responsibility for determining how local services are delivered rests with local NHS organisations. I will set out why. Local NHS organisations are in the best position to understand what local people need, how to design shared services to meet the support needs of NHS provider organisations and so on, and how to ensure that the offer available is appropriate and affordable. It would be inappropriate for a Minister to try to micro-manage the details of individual contracts.
In line with that policy, the Government absolutely do not mandate NHS organisations’ use of SBS. That remains a decision for local organisations on the basis of their assessment of the quality and value for money that they will receive by letting contracts to SBS. Nevertheless, the Department supports the use of SBS. I will explain how that tension is resolved. As a former Minister, the right hon. Gentleman will have grappled with it himself.
Public sector use of shared services and private sector expertise is in line with the policies of this Government and the last Government, but it absolutely must offer best value for money and meet the required quality standards. Equally, when the previous Government set up SBS, they took a 50% stake, meaning that from day one, the Department has had a duty to promote the venture and create value for the taxpayer. In turn, the Department’s share of SBS profits is returned to the NHS. It is therefore not uncommon for the Department, in undertaking its duty, to correspond with NHS organisations considering the use of NHS SBS in support of using shared services, particularly SBS. Such letters have been consistently provided throughout the existence of SBS, and I have copies of correspondence dating back to October 2008 that relates to the transfer of family health services of the sort that we are debating.
Mr Bradshaw
Does the Minister accept, however, that the original joint venture established by the Labour Government was for finance and accounting, not family health services? The only area in which we allowed SBS to take over the running of family health services was north London, because that service was failing dismally. It does not seem to have improved much since SBS took over, either.
Paul Burstow
My understanding—I will go back and check, and if it is not correct, I will write to the right hon. Gentleman—is that that extension of SBS’s role was a policy decision by the previous Government, and that the Nicholson challenge set in 2009 of making better use of support services by sharing across organisations was identified as an opportunity to realise savings that could then be reinvested in front-line services. I hope that that is a shared goal, even though its execution is open to proper scrutiny and debate.
I reassure the right hon. Gentleman again that, although the Department writes letters of the sort that he has referred to, they are nothing new in the context of promoting that business venture and the return of profits to the NHS. I stress that those decisions are local.
Back in 2007, the National Audit Office considered the potential of NHS SBS and estimated that it could deliver £250 million in savings over 11 years. To date, more than £70 million has been saved, freeing up funds for front-line patient care. As I mentioned, the review of shared services undertaken as part of Sir David Nicholson’s productivity challenge identified how a minimum of £600 million could be saved across England and redirected to support front-line services. The report cites SBS as an example of successful shared service ventures, delivering typical savings of between 20% and 30%.
In the specific case of Devon PCT’s family health services, as the right hon. Gentleman said, SBS provides numerous administrative functions relating to primary care, including patient registration, patient records management and contractor payments. Those functions help the NHS to run more smoothly, and the testimonies that he read out bear witness to the fact that they are valued services.
The PCT, along with nearby health care commissioners, has been exploring how to save money on administration and management functions without affecting front-line services. To spell out the current situation in relation to the agreement between the south-west and SBS, SBS provided an outline proposal in March this year, followed up with a final proposal in June. At the south-west regional project board, 10 trusts agreed to sign an intention to proceed in September. The intention to proceed is made between the trusts and SBS—there is no contractual relationship in that sense between the Department and SBS—as an agreement to invest the time and effort in undertaking the final element of due diligence, which was one of the right hon. Gentleman’s concerns, and consultation. It is not, therefore, a commitment to enter into a contract.
Due diligence is a process that runs alongside the contracting process. The due diligence process began formally alongside the final proposals in June and will gather pace following the intention to proceed. As part of this process, efforts are undertaken by both sides to understand the precise details of the proposed arrangements. As part of that process, the final and precise quality, which is an important consideration, and service standards are determined. If, as part of the process, the trusts are not satisfied that the offer from SBS can meet the quality and value standards that they require, they are not committed to entering into an agreement with SBS.
Mr Bradshaw
That is helpful, because my understanding of the situation is that the staff in Devon have been told to expect to be TUPE’d across on 1 December. The consultation for staff is taking place in parallel with the due diligence process, but surely that should wait until the trust itself is satisfied with the quality of the bid, following the due diligence process.
Paul Burstow
It is not uncommon for such processes to run in parallel, which, as the right hon. Gentleman has identified, is what is happening in this case. This is not, however, a conveyor belt that cannot be reversed. The point that I am making is that the due diligence process is not about doing things by rote; it is about making sure that both the taxpayer’s interest and the quality standards of the service are properly protected. It is a legitimate area for local scrutiny and debate, and for challenge by him and other Members who have a concern in the matter.
The TUPE consultation started on 2 November. Extensive discussions will be held with staff and managers. Following the consultation, the organisations will be required to consider the feedback from staff. Again, it is not a rote process, but one that requires decision makers to have proper regard for what they learn from the process. The right hon. Gentleman has mentioned India. I should make it clear that NHS SBS has no call centres for family health services in India. It is envisaged that, under this contracting arrangement, if it goes through, some staff will work in India, but they will not be part of a call centre service.
Only when each of the processes that I have described is complete, and the individual local organisations have concluded that the service offering is in the best interest of the local area, will the decision be taken to proceed. Should the proposals be advanced, it is expected that five centres of excellence will be established in the south-west, based in St Austell in Cornwall, Exeter in Devon, Ferndown in Dorset, Brockworth in Gloucestershire and Devizes in Wiltshire. That decision will be a local one made by NHS organisations on the basis of all the facts provided as part of the process that I have set out. The matter is to be decided locally, and those concerned must assure themselves—hence the due diligence process—that the contracts afford the necessary flexibility and quality standards. Indeed, on quality change and the formation of an NHS commissioning board, the contracts are framed in a way that allows such flexibility. I am assured that that should not present an insuperable obstacle to delivering the wider goals.
Mr Bradshaw
I appreciate that, but would it not make all the more sense to hold off signing the contracts until we know what the national picture will be when the commissioning board publishes its findings? I should be grateful if the Minister returned to the Department and found out why the official in charge of this work does not seem to think that the model being pursued in the south-west involving SBS would be compatible with what is likely to emerge from the recommendation of the national commissioning board.
Paul Burstow
I will write to the right hon. Gentleman to amplify why I think that the policy concern is not as great as has been presented, and why the emergence of the NHS commissioning board, with its role in family health services and the commissioning of primary care, provides a model whereby the exploitation of the opportunities for shared services will be even greater than it is now.
In conclusion, local NHS organisations have responsibility for getting value for money and meeting the highest levels of quality. That is true about everything they do, including proposals such as the one under discussion. The coalition Government support the move to shared services, if that decision is made locally and for the right reasons.
This is equally one of the key proposals that will help trusts to meet the quality and productivity challenge that the NHS has faced since 2009. I understand that the proposal for the south-west region aims to deliver operational savings of 32%, with a 23% net saving after the cost of change. By commissioning the service in a different way, it is estimated that the NHS can save in excess of £6 million over four years in the south-west, including £1.6 million in Devon.
I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will agree that it is only right for local organisations to look at areas where they can deliver efficiencies and quality and can release money for investment in front-line services. I hope that this debate has gone some way to addressing the right hon. Gentleman’s questions. I will undertake to enter into the correspondence that he has requested. If he has any further questions, I am sure that the Department will want to respond as quickly as it possibly can. I thank him for initiating this debate.
Schools (Bradford)
(13 years ago)
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Mr David Ward (Bradford East) (LD)
Thank you for chairing this debate, Mr Sheridan, and I thank the Minister of State, Department for Education, the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Mr Gibb), for attending. I would like to begin with a quote:
“Funding totalling £337 million has been secured after an outline business case by Bradford Council was approved by Partnership for Schools (PfS), the organisation which administers the Building Schools for the Future programme (BSF) on behalf of the Government.”
It continues:
“Kath Tunstall, Bradford Council’s strategic director for services to children and young people, said: ‘We are delighted that the final stage of the improvement programme has been given the go ahead.
We will now be able to provide the most up-to-date environment and facilities for all our secondary schools.
Bradford children will be taught in the surroundings and with the technology that their efforts deserve. This is marvellous news.’”
It did, indeed, seem to be marvellous news.
That was the lead story in the Bradford Telegraph and Argus on 7 April 2010, just one month before the general election. What a cruel deceit. It was cynical and mean. At the time, I was a governor of one of the 19 schools in phase 3 of the Bradford BFS programme, and I was pretty sure that it was all too good to be true—I think that many of us felt the same—and so it proved to be. It was an example of the sheer dishonesty of a Government who knew that they were going to lose the forthcoming election, promising the earth in the full knowledge that the new Government, of whatever political complexion, would never be able to deliver the BSF programme. It was shameful.
Unfortunately, the problems that the BSF programme was designed to remedy are still with us today. The reception year population in Bradford is increasing rapidly—in fact, we have one of the fastest-growing young populations in the whole country—which is having a severe impact on school places in our primary schools. Although, nationally, numbers in maintained nursery and state-funded primary schools started to increase in 2010, they have been increasing in Bradford since 2006.
A significant number of our primary schools are now full, particularly in the lower age groups in key stage 1, which will start to impact soon on key stage 2. To overcome the additional demand for places in primary schools, 28 schools—nearly 20% of our primary schools—have increased their published admission numbers. Do not forget that, year on year, we have already asked our schools to increase their numbers, but here we have 28 trying to respond, all in one go, to the increased demand. To accommodate the additional children, the schools have been included in a building expansion programme funded through basic need allocations. Bulge classes had previously been established, but a more permanent solution was required to help schools with their organisation, management of staff and classes, and to enable them to plan ahead. For all schools, an extensive programme of building works to provide additional accommodation incrementally over a seven-year period is required as the larger cohorts progress through the year groups.
The lack of information on capital allocations beyond 2011-12 means that the building programme has to be broken down into phases. Funding is only secured for phase 1, which will provide additional accommodation to cater for the children up to and including 2012-13. It should be pointed out, however, that a number of schools also have a backlog of maintenance issues. In phase 1, the council cannot address many of those issues due to the limitations of available capital. The figure for the backlog on repairs for primary and secondary is approximately £55 million.
Phase 2, for growing other year group capacity and beyond, will depend on available funding. Future forecasts also identify the need for further additional capacity over and above the current expansion programme. Additional problems have been caused by a reduction in pupil admission numbers at Catholic primary schools proposed by the diocese and governing bodies of voluntary aided schools. The reduction in places in certain schools and the desperate need for additional places is a double whammy. This is not simply an inner-city issue, as it is often portrayed. We are now experiencing difficulties in most areas across the Bradford district.
Although plans to provide additional capacity are in place, potential proposals and approvals of free schools in the district—of which the local authority has no knowledge at any one time—give rise to what can be described as tensions in the planning process, particularly where clear expansion programmes have begun to be delivered and there is a need to continue them through the older year groups.
Mr Gerry Sutcliffe (Bradford South) (Lab)
Is it not true that Bradford has taken a very pragmatic approach to free schools? The local authority and all three parties on the council have decided to support the principle. There might be arguments about each other’s schools, but free schools will be members of the family of the wider school population. However, there are issues that affect that wider school population.
Mr Ward
I have read some comments to that effect. They are not actually accepted in principle by the Liberal Democrat group, but I recognise the hon. Gentleman’s contribution. My point about free schools is about the difficulties they create for a strategic view of school admission numbers across the district.
We are also experiencing significant pressure in the secondary sector, particularly lower age groups. Numbers in secondary schools in Bradford started to increase in 2008 and are forecast to continue rising. As I understand it, that is against the national trend. Recent statistics on pupil projections identify state-funded secondary schools showing a decline since 2004, and they are expected to decline even further until 2016. That is not the case in Bradford.
Previously, there were plans to increase capacity at a number of secondary schools—I mentioned 19 in phase 3—through the BSF programme. However, the cessation of the BSF programme means that that route is not available. Alternative plans are being developed. The current approach, where possible—we have done this with our schools over a number of years with some success, and we have to pay tribute to the head teachers and governing bodies of schools for accommodating it—has been to request schools to admit year 7 pupil numbers above their pupil admission numbers. However, that is not a sustainable solution. It can only be done where there are gaps later up in the school years, and it soon exceeds capacity.
With the basic need allocation for the district fully committed to the expansion of primary schools at this stage, no funding has been secured to implement any plans for secondary expansions. It is estimated that, in addition to any expansions of existing schools, two further 1,000-place schools will be required in the next three to four years. Those two new secondary schools are required in Bradford in addition to the capacity potentially being introduced through known proposed free schools in the district—they are over and above. There is a tension between current place planning and proposed expansion programmes with the unknown quantity of free school places. We now have five free schools in Bradford and we do not know what will become available in the future. That creates the potential—perversely and inadvertently—to develop overprovision in certain areas.
As previously stated, we have information on capital allocations up to 2011-12 only. In the past, we had three-year allocations. The most recent announcement for capital allocations for 2011-12 was for one year only. Failure to be able to plan over a three-year period has led to considerable problems, such as the inefficient use of resources. Capital schemes have been broken down into smaller phases, which are proving more costly than larger schemes. On the ability to complete schemes on time, due to the late announcement of funding—I believe that there were big headlines in the Telegraph and Argus last week—it has proved difficult to contract and mobilise building contractors to complete programmes in time for the beginning of the new academic year. Hundreds of school days were lost recently as a result of schools opening late. On long-term planning, schools are finding it extremely challenging to plan ahead in terms of space, resources and staffing.
The only capital resource provided by the Department for Education for additional accommodation is basic need funding. That is based on the need for additional teaching space and is insufficient to deal with existing inadequacies of accommodation, or the provision of other important spaces required for the successful operation of a school—play space, dining space, space for whole-school gatherings, community space and so on. The indications from the James review are that space requirements are likely to be reduced, which is also a serious concern.
The methodology used by the Department to determine the allocation of basic need funding to authorities is based on the local 2011 school capacity and forecasting information return, which only focuses on a five-year forecast. Basic need pressure across the secondary school estate will only realistically become apparent by the end of that forecast period and will require addressing in the time frame of this funding announcement.
Bradford’s very welcome £7.4million allocation towards its basic needs will, I am afraid, be insufficient to cover the pressure on pupil places across both the primary and secondary school estate. In addition—I have referred to this—there are significant backlog maintenance requirements to bring existing accommodation up to suitable standards across Bradford’s existing school estate. Basic need funding is not provided to address this issue.
Although a new programme, the priority school building programme, was announced in July to deal with the most serious cases, only a limited number of schools in Bradford qualified to bid for that funding, given the criteria that were set. Importantly, none of the primary schools being expanded qualified, while some of the smaller primaries, as well as a smaller secondary school, Queensbury, did meet those criteria but declined to take part because of fears about the affordability of the private finance initiative deal on offer. Should the six secondary submissions to the PSBP programme—Aire Valley, Belle Vue boys’ school, Carlton Bolling, Oakbank and the two new schools—be rejected by the Department for Education, pressure on pupil places throughout the secondary estate will not be dealt with and the authority might well face difficulties in fulfilling its statutory duty.
As an aside, I can comment on one of the schools that I have mentioned, Carlton Bolling, where I am a former chair of governors. Although the backlog maintenance is only 30.71% of the total costs of a new build, the school currently has sections that are structurally unsound. In fact, some areas of the school are roped off and unusable because they are unsafe. Also bear in mind that the other schools were part of the reorganisation programme, which was when they most recently had investment, but at Carlton Bolling the previous reinvestment occurred as the result of a fire. The fire damage, however, was not to the classroom area but to the sports and dining room areas, so the heavy investment during that time was in the non-classroom parts of the school. The classroom area has not therefore received substantial investment and includes the part that I referred to as structurally unsound.
The purpose of the debate is to explain the need for support for Bradford schools, which are in dire need of capital investment, and to emphasise the scale of the issue. It is incredibly difficult to plan strategically for school places in Bradford, not simply because of the considerations that I have presented but because of the enormous difficulty faced by the council in meeting its statutory responsibility to provide the right number of school places in exactly the right areas, given the short-term capital allocations and a highly turbulent and mobile school population.
Recently, in questions to the Secretary of State, I pointed out that 60% of the children in a year 3 classroom that I had visited were not together in reception. Go to many areas, even in Bradford, and 90% of those who come into reception go on to the same secondary school. Our turbulent and mobile school population makes the dynamics of forecasting for future places very difficult. In addition, we have free schools supported in their desire to set up when and where they choose, the freedom of popular schools to expand their pupil admission numbers without having to consult their local education authority and school fears about the private finance initiative. I will welcome the Minister’s comments on such crucial issues.
The Minister of State, Department for Education (Mr Nick Gibb)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford East (Mr Ward) on securing the debate. Clarity on how the Government are funding and ensuring fairness and choice for parents and their children throughout the country is important. The debate is particularly timely, as the academies and free schools programmes gather pace and as we announce our additional basic need allocations for those areas deemed to be most in need, which include Bradford.
Bradford is playing an active part in the academies programme, with seven schools already open as academies and another 10 in the pipeline. Bradford has 27 outstanding schools, which offers an excellent basis on which to continue to drive up standards and school-to-school collaboration. Currently, two free schools in Bradford are open, both of which directly support local needs. The Rainbow free school aims to improve education quality for children in central Bradford and to reach out to children in challenging circumstances. The positive local reaction to the Kings science academy was reflected in a high volume of applications for places in its first year.
My hon. Friend mentioned five free schools altogether, and a further three are due to open in September next year, helping to provide new school places where they are most needed. However, I accept his point that the need goes beyond the supply provided by the new schools. What has been achieved is educational transformation, delivering professional autonomy and recognising the expertise of teachers and the best leadership in the country. That is what we hope to achieve through the academies and the free schools programmes. None the less, real challenges face Bradford, with its increasing school population and the capital expenditure needed to repair and maintain its schools.
My hon. Friend was right to point out the political dishonesty of announcing a major piece of school funding one month before there had to be a general election and when everyone knew that there simply was not the sum of money needed to provide such a scale of school building in any part of the country, let alone in one particular area. The Chief Secretary wrote on leaving office that “there is no money”. It was political dishonesty of the worst kind to make those promises in Bradford and elsewhere, writing blank cheques when there was no money to support them.
We are committed to providing practical support to enable Bradford to manage its pressures. On school places, the Secretary of State’s 3 November announcement on capital allocation included a further £500 million for basic need, in addition to the £800 million announced for the same financial year to reduce pressure on school places. As my hon. Friend said, that led to £7.4 million for Bradford, in addition to the basic need allocation of £10.3 million in 2011-12, announced last year. That is on top of the £45.9 million of capital grant for Bradford in 2011-12, which covers capital needs including maintenance.
On school buildings, the priority schools building programme, which was announced in July 2011, targets those schools that are in the worst condition or have severe basic needs. Four Bradford schools have applied, one of which is Carlton Bolling; as my hon. Friend pointed out, parts of that school are structurally unsound and cordoned off from use by pupils and staff. Each application will be assessed fairly on its merits and against the criteria. Once all applications have been assessed, the successful schools will be announced, which should happen by the end of the year.
On disadvantaged pupils, in 2011-12 the Government are providing a pupil premium of £9.1 million for more than 18,000 pupils in schools throughout Bradford. I was taken by the point made by my hon. Friend in oral questions concerning the churn of pupils in his schools—60% of the year 3 pupils had not been at that particular primary school in reception. However, we must still provide a high quality of education for those children. The pupil premium of £488 per pupil this year will increase over the next four years. We are doubling the total expenditure on the pupil premium next year, from £600 million to £1.2 billion, and it will rise to £2.4 billion by 2014-15. I agree with my hon. Friend that at all stages the processes of how decisions are made and how money will be spent to deliver real impact must be clear.
My hon. Friend raised his concern that local authority budgets will be top-sliced to pay for the academies and free schools programme. In the context of the pressures highlighted in the debate, I understand that concern, but I hope I can reassure him that no school, parent or child should be disadvantaged financially by academies and free schools. Far from disadvantaging other schools and breaking up the system, they will improve parental choice and ensure that all schools aim to raise their standards.
LAC SEG—the snappy acronym for the local authority central spend equivalent grant—enables schools converting to academy status to pay for those services that they previously received free from the local authority. To avoid the taxpayer paying twice for those services, the element paid to academies needs to be recouped from local authorities. How that recoupment is calculated and top-sliced from local authority grants is subject to consultation, and the Government will respond to that consultation and make an announcement in due course. The key is to ensure that local authority-maintained schools and academies are funded fairly.
The academies and free schools programme aims to meet demand for school places and to increase choice for parents and children. Our commitment is to ensure that parents and their children have a choice of school places, whether in maintained schools, academies or free schools. On performance, failure to secure high-quality education for pupils will not be accepted. The Government are committed to tackling underperformance. It is unacceptable that more than 200 primary schools have been under the floor standard in their key stage 2 results for five years or more and that more than half of those schools have been underperforming for at least 10 years. A further 500 or so have been below the acceptable minimum standard for three of the past four years. Those schools have let down repeated cohorts of children. We are starting work, as an urgent priority, on turning around the 200 schools nationally that have most consistently underperformed by finding new academy sponsors for them, so that they can reopen from September 2012. We want to work closely with the schools involved and the local authorities to ensure that that happens.
We have collective responsibility to make education provision more effective and efficient within the current economic climate. To do so, we must increase choice for parents and their children, so that they have the highest possible quality of education provision to choose from. Academies and free schools are a key part of that reform, but every education institution has a role to play. The security and predictability of front-line school budgets will be vital to that success.
My hon. Friend spoke about the importance of being able to plan for more than one year at a time. In December 2011, there will be another announcement on capital for future years, to address that planning point. We must ensure that there is up-to-date information, so that funding is targeted to the right areas. We are gathering that data now, so that funding can be targeted as accurately as possible on where the need lies.
We have announced that capital spending will be £15.9 billion over the four years of the spending review period, and I assure my hon. Friend again that no money is being diverted away from other schools to academies. Our commitment within the spending review is clear—to protect school funding in the system at flat cash per pupil—because even when funding is tight, as it is with the current imperative to tackle the country’s budget deficit, we realise that it is essential that buildings and equipment are properly maintained to ensure that health and safety standards are met and to prevent an ever-increasing backlog of decaying buildings that would be difficult and expensive to deal with.
We have learned the lessons of the private finance initiative contracts entered into by the previous Administration, but it is important that in being able to deliver the necessary capital expenditure we transfer some of the risk of maintaining buildings to facility management operations that ensure that those buildings do not deteriorate. That is the essence of the PFI arrangement.
Mr Gibb
I do not want to give assurance on a particular proposal, but in general terms schools must maintain their buildings, and when looking at whether something is affordable, the calculations often omit looking at what a school will have to spend on maintenance over the next five, 10 or 20 years. When assessing the value for money of a PFI arrangement, it is important to do just that, and not simply to compare the cost of building a school with a design-and-build arrangement within the PFI arrangements. It is important to take into account those long-term maintenance costs.
By stopping wasteful and bureaucratic Building Schools for the Future projects we have been able to allocate £1.4 billion to local areas to prioritise their maintenance needs, and that includes £195 million of devolved formula capital, which has been allocated directly to schools to use in line with their priorities. On top of that, we have allocated £800 million of basic need funding for 2011-12, which is twice the previous annual support, despite the fact that we are dealing with a very difficult budget deficit. As recent events in Europe have proved, we took the right decisions early on in this Administration to help to tackle that deficit.
Earlier this year, the Secretary of State announced an addition to the £800 million of a further £500 million to provide extra school places where there is greatest pressure caused by the increasing pupil population—that makes a total of £1.3 billion—because we recognise the importance of ensuring that every pupil has a place when they start school, whether primary or secondary school.
Future allocations and the management of funding for 2012-13 to 2014-15 will be informed by the outcome of the capital review, but the Secretary of State has already indicated that local authorities may expect the headline amounts of capital available in future years to be broadly in line with those allocated when we first announced the figures for 2011-12.
As well as radically reviewing how capital funding is allocated and spent in future, the Government have renewed their focus on finding an academy solution for the weakest primary schools in the country. In that respect, Bradford will be supported by the Department for Education in challenging underperformance and securing improved performance in schools that are struggling. The introduction of the academies and free schools programme should be viewed as an additional tool in the arsenal of local authorities as they seek to eradicate any basic need pressures they are encountering. We believe that giving those involved in education the freedom, flexibility and support they need to shape the future of our schools and opening up opportunities for others to enter the education sector will offer an education system to meet the needs of local communities.
Basement Developments
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Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab)
I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in this short debate. I am pleased that the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mark Field) is also joining us. I know he has concerns about basement developments, too.
I have been conscious of the issue over the past year or two, having received constituency correspondence on it, and I was aware that the matter had been raised by amenity associations in various boroughs in central London. However, it was not until I accepted an invitation to see one of the larger basement developments in NW8 a couple of weeks ago that it really came home to me just what an extraordinary change we are seeing in some of our inner city communities.
I saw a basement excavation stretching between Hamilton terrace and the mews behind it in St John’s Wood. It seemed that the excavation was the size of an aircraft carrier—absolutely vast. It was far greater in scale than I had expected. Not only was this enormous excavation going on, but lorries that were turning into the mews to take away the soil were pounding away. There was noise and filth in the air. The small mews was already buckled by the pressure of the lorries coming into the street, which was not designed for the kind of traffic that was being imposed on it. It was vividly brought home to me how disruptive such basement developments are. They are an imposition on many residents in areas where they have become such a striking phenomenon over the past couple of years.
We all know that building works are a hazard of urban living. We live in a growing city. Wherever we live in London or other cities, at some stage we are likely to experience building works. It is right that we must endure some of this as our infrastructure is updated and as much-needed new housing development is fitted into our growing cities. However, if we look at some of the plans for basement developments that are now spreading all over inner London, we are not talking about infrastructure development or new house building. In many cases, basement developments—sometimes double basements going down two levels—stretch not just under the footprint of the house or even one or two thirds beyond the footprint of the building itself, but through an entire garden. Those gardens are sometimes substantial, because they are in our more prosperous neighbourhoods. Plans include underground cinemas, swimming pools, gymnasiums and gun rooms. Delightful as that may be for residents fortunate enough to live in such properties, it is hard to accuse those who object of restricting the necessary growth and infrastructure development of our city.
Mark Field (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con)
I agree with what the hon. Lady says. The Knightsbridge Association in my constituency, among others, has made it clear that it is not opposed in principle to the provision of basements beneath existing houses, but it is concerned about aspects of the design, construction and usage. What applies in the hon. Lady’s seat similarly applies in mine. We are dealing primarily with terraced houses. As in many other parts of London, they are 19th-century houses, built as terraces of varying widths and with a number of different storeys. They have proved remarkably adaptable over the past century to changing housing needs as well as changing tenure and household size. Does the hon. Lady share my view that in recent years almost unprecedented pressure has been brought to bear, along the lines that she has pointed out, to attach a bathroom to every bedroom and find space for home cinemas and gymnasiums at subterranean levels? That can cause real problems: it is not just the soil but the disruption to which she has already alluded.
Ms Buck
I agree with everything that the hon. Gentleman, my neighbour, has outlined, and I will touch on a few of those points.
We know that, for the most part, basement developments are not opposed in principle, but their scale and the speed with which such major developments are now spreading over large parts of inner London is a major concern for neighbourhoods. I have already mentioned what I saw myself in terms of the scale of some of the building works and the disruption and damage that they do. The damage to neighbours, streets and pavements is uncompensated. It can become a burden on the local authority that has responsibility for mending pavements, or it can fall on residents in the case of some of the unadopted roads and mewses. None the less, the damage is not compensated in any way.
The sheer scale and number of basement developments means that the noise is incessant, even when builders keep within the considerate builders code—sometimes they do; sometimes they do not—because the works are so substantial and prolonged. As my neighbour, the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster, has said, many of the properties are terraced—substantial, certainly—so there is no buffer zone between the residential properties affected.
I heard a sad story of one resident in St John’s Wood who is suffering from cancer. Living in the middle of two properties, they had to endure the noise and nuisance of a major basement development on one side. They got through that particular nightmare—it is always difficult living next to building works—and then found that an application for a basement development had been made for the property on the other side.
Sir Hugh Cortazzi, a local resident who I am delighted to see has turned up to listen to this short debate, has been corresponding with me on this issue. He describes his experiences as follows:
“The excavation of the basement and garden at an adjoining property has been continuing since September last year and vast quantities of earth have been removed via trucks and skips. The pollution and noise are extremely disruptive but they will also cause damage to the environment, alter buildings in a conservation area and could have adverse effects on the water table and drainage in an area built on streams which already suffers from subsidence”.
An editorial in The Lion, the parish magazine of St Mark’s church, Hamilton terrace, added:
“The digging and tunnelling not only devastates existing gardens but damages the water balance and root systems in surrounding properties...hidden waterways have suddenly come to light, causing unexpected flooding...we must ask ourselves whether those with millions to spend should be allowed to endanger the quality of life for their neighbours by embarking on developments that could damage the area for years to come”.
Responses to the Westbourne neighbourhood survey included these findings:
“We have been through hell and beyond not with a basement development but steelbox frames underpinning our back extension against our wall—2 years of hell...and we cannot open our front door...We are about to be sent to an early grave—works are now being applied for next door on the other side”.
Last night, I received an e-mail from another constituent in Hamilton terrace. They asked whether I
“would also look at the gigantic building operations at…Hamilton terrace for which the application was for minor alterations. The actual operations are reaching out almost two thirds into the garden, and I have complained to WCC without receiving an acknowledgment or an answer. Last week when I was home briefly…I could not lock or unlock the basement door into the garden for the second time in two months because of the movements caused by the huge digging works…So for the second time in that period I had to call a carpenter to repair and adjust the door. On top of all that I have been suffering endless dirt and dust from the building works apart from the noise which makes serious work…during the day utterly impossible.”
Mark Field
Some solutions are in place. There is the issue of planning law, and it is vital that local authorities produce an annual public report, so that we are aware how many applications for this type of development have been approved. Could one further provision be a highway licence? We must ensure that the streets function normally, so where licences have already been issued—as in the cases to which the hon. Lady referred—it should be possible to bar further works for a period of time and stop the intense disruption that has taken place. Things such as skips and builders licences should be charged for by the day, just like a parking meter. That would provide a strong incentive to minimise the disruption to people’s lives, to which the hon. Lady referred.
Ms Buck
I agree with the hon. Gentleman, and I will touch on those issues in a moment.
Westminster city council—the authority with which I am concerned, although I know that other inner-London authorities deal with similar issues—states in its policy guidance:
“The environmental impact of subterranean development also has potential to be significant and result in increased carbon emissions, due to additional requirements for lighting, ventilation and pumps. By limiting the extent of basement developments and requiring them to meet sustainable design standards, negative environmental impacts may be reduced.”
We know, however, that due to a degree of uncertainty about current planning guidance, some local authorities—Westminster in this case—are anxious about their ability to block developments.
I have mentioned the devastating impact of some developments experienced by neighbours and local communities, but we must also remember the sheer scale of some of the work—that took me by surprise, and I am indebted to the work of the St John’s Wood Society, South East Bayswater Residents Association and others, for their mapping of such developments. The St John’s Wood Society has identified no fewer than 86 basement applications in that corner of NW8 between October 2010 and September 2011, plus 10 repeat excavations; Hamilton Terrace alone has 13 applications.
In the Westbourne Neighbourhood Association survey, to which I have already referred, 47 local residents said that their area contained local developments of the kind under discussion. When asked, “Did party wall agreements broadly cover your building repair costs?” three quarters answered no. There was overwhelming support for greater legislative protection, an enforceable code of practice and greater powers for local authorities to block or restrict developments where necessary.
Mark Field
Does the hon. Lady agree with the Knightsbridge Association, which wrote to me before the debate? Its view is that
“provision should be made in party wall agreements for a bond to be put up by the developer or an insurance taken out to ensure that neighbours are able to obtain redress where problems are caused.”
As the hon. Lady is aware, all too often, the offending party may not be a UK national, and it can be difficult for those who have lost out financially—often quite substantially—to secure the redress that they deserve.
Ms Buck
That is a good point, which deserves to be explored, and I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response. Neighbours affected by such developments often find that work is done by companies or people who are not UK residents and that those who live at the property will not necessarily be there for a long time or are not in full-time occupation. People’s ability to obtain leverage during the building works, or redress afterwards, is limited.
The problem has increased over the past two or three years and is impacting negatively on local communities and individuals. Nobody seems able to protect residents affected by such developments, whether it is the local authority or organisations such as the Grosvenor or Cadogan estates, or the John Lyon’s Trust, which manages some of the properties in St John’s Wood conservation area. Such agencies do what they can by way of guidance and a voluntary code of conduct for subterranean development, but it is understandably difficult for them to act where the planning authority cannot. Everyone is keenly aware of the amounts of money behind these developments, which makes opposing them risky in the absence of clear Government guidance.
The previous Government amended the Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) Order 1995 in 2008, and removed the volume restriction that had previously limited home owners to developments that did not exceed a fixed percentage of their floor area. The 2008 guidance seemed to confirm that basement excavations should be permitted, although subject to conditions and restrictions intended to limit the impact on others. I am not sure, however, that the pace and scale of change was—or could have been—foreseen in 2008, and three years on, the system is obviously not working. If the legislative framework is inadequate, especially given the size and number of subterranean developments, what do the Government think can be done to rectify the situation?
I seek clarification on whether the current unsatisfactory situation results from a correct interpretation of the 2008 legislation, which may therefore require further amendment, or whether the legislation has been interpreted wrongly. In the latter case, can the issue be resolved by an additional consultation process to correct and restore the original intent of the measure? I believe that that point was raised with Ministers by representatives of the St John’s Wood Society and others, at a recent meeting, and it would be good to have an answer from the Minister.
If, however, the developments are based on a correct interpretation of the 2008 guidance, what options are now available? The hon. Gentleman mentioned proposals by the Knightsbridge Association and other amenity societies. I will not go into too much detail, but those proposals include the removal of permitted development rights to allow the implementation of stronger safeguards to protect neighbours and local neighbourhoods, and better guidance for inspectors at appeal. It is frequently felt that inspectors are not familiar with the conservation areas most affected, given the nature of central London where the basement developments are being built, and that they are not necessarily best placed to make their objections known. Other suggestions include updating the Party Wall etc. Act 1996 to allow more control over construction and compensation for residents of adjoining properties. That could include allowing bonds to be set up against the development. Existing building regulations could be reviewed to ensure that the interests of conservation areas are considered when assessing the development application.
Given the proposed amendments to the Localism Bill in the other place, it would be helpful to know what scope the Minister thinks has been provided for local authorities and residents to protect themselves against excessive subterranean developments and the combined impact of multiple developments in a small area. What can the Minister offer by way of stronger and clearer guidance to the small number of inner-London authorities where almost all such developments are taking place?
This is not nimbyism or an objection to new infrastructure or housing developments—indeed, the St John’s Wood Society played a constructive role in the future development of the King’s Troop barracks. It is, however, a response to a real and worsening problem that was probably unforeseeable only a few short years ago. Like Chelsea and Bayswater, St John’s Wood may be a largely prosperous area, but its residents have the same right as anyone else to be protected from unacceptable noise, nuisance and disruption that prevent them from the quiet enjoyment of their homes. We have a shared interest in protecting the urban environment and the character of our residential neighbourhoods, which contribute to making London the city that we love so much.
Mark Field
I thank the hon. Lady for an excellent speech. She will appreciate that we work on a bipartisan basis, putting the interests of our constituents first. She did not address this issue directly, but James Wright, chairman of the Belgravia Residents Association suggested, with some validity, that basements are often developed by non-resident, non-UK taxpayers, for the benefit of a single wealthy individual and at significant cost to the environment and community, as highlighted by the hon. Lady. Furthermore, extensive damage is caused to roads, and repairs are often paid for by the taxpayer, because the developer is not accountable for that. There are also concerns about the loss of viable gardens and mature trees because of basement developments, particularly those that go deeper than two storeys.
Ms Buck
I think that I covered most of those points in my contribution, but the hon. Gentleman is right. Those living next to such developments should not have to suffer the disruption and upheaval that now takes place at a relentless pace, given the scale and number of developments under way. Residents, taxpayers and local authorities should not be expected to foot the bill for damage and disruption inflicted by such developments on a number of our neighbourhoods. Through available vehicles such as the Party Wall etc. Act 1996 or planning guidance, it is clearly time to say that something has gone wrong over the past two or three years and that firmer, stronger controls must be introduced to protect people’s interests.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Robert Neill)
It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Sheridan. I congratulate the hon. Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck) on securing the debate and I acknowledge the very constructive interventions and support that she has had from my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mark Field).
This is an important debate about planning and basement development. It raises important issues, not for the first time in relation to planning, about balancing sustainable development with individual rights, and I will happily do my best to respond. The issues have been well set out by the hon. Lady. She is particularly concerned about problems arising from home owners’ wishes to increase the size and value of their home by extending the property through the excavation of new basement rooms. I recognise that there can be a problem with such development. It tends to occur in a fairly limited geographical area, predominantly in parts of central London, as we have heard. I am also aware that the cause for concern is often not the completed basement, but the disruption that can be caused during the construction phase. That is precisely what was graphically described by the hon. Lady.
This is quite a complex issue, because it covers many aspects of both the planning process and the construction process, including concerns about noise and general disturbance and issues about the consistency and effectiveness of enforcement. There is not necessarily, therefore, a single silver bullet that can deal with the problem, but there are existing powers and good practice available to tackle it, and I will endeavour to set those out.
It is important to bear it in mind that the planning system is designed to consider the impact of a development once complete, and of course it is often the case that subterranean developments, once complete, have little visual impact. The system is essentially about land use and visual impacts. What we are talking about today is generally an extension to an existing acceptable land use—a dwelling house. In the end, its visible impact will be limited, but I do understand that that does not help the people experiencing the disturbance during its construction. However, although there are some limitations, people often regard the planning system as the most reliable route for alerting a local community that a development is proposed—we are all familiar with the requirement to put up notices and so on—which can then act as a trigger for wider engagement on how any development will take place.
It might be helpful if I describe how the planning system deals with subterranean developments and the controls available. A planning application is likely to be necessary for a substantial new and deep basement, but as I think the hon. Lady conceded, that will depend on the size of the existing property. It generally depends on the size of the extension in relation to the original size of the house, as is well known. None the less, where permitted development rights grant planning permission without the need for an application, a local planning authority can consult on using the powers available to it to ensure that the proposals are brought back under its control through the planning process. In other words, it is possible to issue an article 4 direction—that is article 4 of the Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) Order 1995—which removes the permitted development rights in relation to the proposed development. In those circumstances, an application must be made in the normal way.
Local authorities are already required to consult neighbours and other interested parties on planning applications, and we already advocate pre-application engagement between applicants and neighbours. Local authorities can use locally prepared planning policies to set the standards by which planning applications for subterranean development will be assessed. In addition, local authorities are able to produce guidance that can outline matters such as submission requirements and the standards that development will need to achieve. Our proposals to introduce neighbourhood planning provide further opportunities to fine-tune the detail to reflect what may be particular concerns in particular neighbourhoods of London or other major cities. Local authorities can already require applicants to ensure that their planning applications are accompanied by a construction method statement and require such a statement to be prepared and signed off by a chartered civil or structural engineer. Those methods can deal with some of the matters raised.
Ms Buck
Perhaps the Minister is coming to this point, but one of the grave concerns of residents in places such as St John’s Wood, Chelsea and so on is that, although each individual development can be close to unbearable, the compounded effect of, say, 13 developments in one street in St John’s Wood is absolutely intolerable. What powers does the local authority have to consider the compounded effect of numerous developments, rather than each individual one on its merits?
Robert Neill
As a matter of planning law, local authorities can have regard to cumulative impacts and they can attach planning conditions to the permissions to ensure that developments meet the standards set for such development. Of course, they have to consider each of those on a case-by-case basis, but it is well established in the case law that cumulative impacts can, in the proper circumstances, be a material planning consideration.
That is the position as far as planning law is concerned. I will also consider building control, because the two are closely interlinked. It is likely that subterranean development work would be required to meet the Building Regulations 2010. Therefore the person in control of the works—from what I have heard, I imagine that that would be the contractor in these cases—will either have to submit plans or give a notice to the local authority building control department about the development. That enables the works to be inspected by a building inspector on behalf of the local authority. The building inspector will have to be satisfied that the basement structure complies with the relevant requirements. It is fair to say that much of the building regulations concentrates on the safety of those working on the site. I do not think that that is suggested as the primary issue in this case, but it is worth bearing in mind. The building regulations are also concerned with ensuring that nothing is done to impair the stability of the building during the construction process. Again, that can be a worry for neighbours.
Work would also need to be carried out in accordance with the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2007 and various other related health and safety measures. Regulation 31 of the 2007 regulations requires steps to be taken to ensure that an excavation is safe both for those within the building and for neighbours.
The noise and other sources of potential nuisance, such as dust and deposits, that we have heard about can be dealt with through the statutory nuisance regime set out in the Environmental Protection Act 1990. In addition, the specific issue of noise from construction sites can be dealt with through the powers in the Control of Pollution Act 1974.
Mark Field
The big concern that many of our residents have, whether this is on grounds of planning, building regulations or environmental protection, is that ultimately they are often up against an applicant who is incredibly wealthy—who has very deep pockets—and can bypass all of those. I am talking about the lack of the cumulative robustness that is required in this whole area to ensure that we do not have a David and Goliath situation between a developer wanting to drive ahead and, obviously, add great value to his property through substantial works along the lines that we have described, which are incredibly disruptive, and a local authority whose hands are tied behind its back because of what are obviously very inadequate protections or notional protections.
Robert Neill
I understand the point that my hon. Friend makes, but perhaps it is not entirely fair to say that the controls are inadequate. There is without doubt a fairly new challenge because of the technology and the type of building that we have only fairly recently seen. However, there are powers, if they are robustly enforced.
Robert Neill
May I just make this point? The Control of Pollution Act 1974 enables issues such as the equipment type, the hours of working and acceptable noise levels to be stipulated, so there is a control there, if it is robustly enforced.
Ms Buck
I am grateful to the Minister for giving way; we are about to run out of time. Will he either mention briefly the scope for looking at the Party Wall etc. Act 1996 in particular, as per the proposals that the hon. Gentleman and I have outlined, or meet us separately, possibly with representatives of the local amenity societies, to consider what action might be available under that set of powers?
Robert Neill
Certainly. The 1996 Act was considered in relation to the Localism Bill. As time is short, perhaps I will write to the hon. Lady, setting out the views expressed in the other House. We can then consider the matter if she wishes to make further representations. I think that that is the fairest way to do justice to her and her constituents—
Written Ministerial Statements
Statutory Security of Supply Report
The Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change (Charles Hendry)
I have today laid before Parliament the 2011 statutory security of supply report (SSSR), which has been produced jointly with Ofgem and with input from National Grid. The report is a technical document that provides factual information to the market on security of supply. The report covers electricity, gas and oil. The latter is not a statutory requirement but is included for completeness. I have placed a copy of this report in the Libraries of both Houses.
In addition, I am also publishing today a risk assessment produced for the purpose of the EU Security of Gas Supply Regulation 994/2010. This is available on the DECC website at:
http://www.decc.gov.uk/en/content/cms/meeting_ energy/en_security/eu_sec_reg/eu_sec_reg.aspx.
Pingat Jasa Malaysia
(13 years ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Mr Andrew Robathan)
Her Majesty the Queen has given her approval to a recommendation from the Committee on the Grant of Honours Decorations and Medals that those entitled to accept the Pingat Jasa Malaysia (PJM) medal should now also be permitted to wear it.
The Government of Malaysia introduced the medal in 2005 and awarded it to British and Commonwealth veterans who had served in the conflict in Malaya in the late 1950s and 1960s. Approval is not normally given for foreign medals to be accepted if British recognition for the same campaign has already been presented. As an exception, veterans were originally permitted to accept but not wear the medal. This was done to recognise the generous gesture by the King and Government of Malaysia, and their wish to award the PJM in recognition of service given by many veterans in the difficult years leading up to and following Malaysian independence.
Following this change to the original decision we are taking action to ensure that as many holders of the medal as possible are aware, to enable them to wear their medal with pride at remembrance events this week.
Single Payment Scheme
(13 years ago)
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The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mr James Paice)
In the statement made by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs on 14 July, Official Report, columns 40-44WS, she explained that the Rural Payments Agency business plan for 2011-12 would be updated when the agency’s strategic improvement plan (SIP) was finalised. Work on constructing that plan is progressing well and the new RPA management team are already taking forward some components. However, as there may be public expenditure implications, it has been necessary to factor in additional time for scrutiny and approvals processes before the plan can be finalised. Consequently, my expectation is that the SIP will now be ready for publication in the first quarter of 2012.
In the meantime, the RPA oversight board, which I chair, has reviewed the existing indicator in the business plan for demonstrating that payments under the 2011 single payment scheme (SPS) are made in an accurate and cost-effective manner. In doing so, we have considered progress on both 2011 scheme processing and work to address legacy errors. In line with my earlier statements, the agency has been undertaking corrective action on the remaining known legacy data problems alongside the processing of 2011 SPS claims. I am pleased to say that that corrective work on the known error cases remains on track to be completed by the end of the payment window on 30 June 2012, with further analysis planned on potential cases. Outstanding top-up payments have already been completed in respect of 2010 claims and are significantly advanced in respect of long-standing requests raised by claimants relating to earlier scheme year claims.
Against that background the oversight board has agreed the following additional indicators for 2011 SPS:
by the end of December 2011 to have paid a minimum of 86% of eligible claimants and 78% of the total estimated value;
by the end of March 2012 to have paid a minimum of 95% of both the eligible claimants and the total estimated value.
These indicators reflect a change in the focus of the agency’s efforts towards processing the more difficult cases at an earlier stage, which is expected to increase the value of payments made at the beginning of the payment window while maintaining performance on the numbers of claimants paid in that period. Each individual indicator betters or matches performance under any previous scheme year while both reducing, rather than adding to, legacy problems and operating with a much-reduced budget. That represents a stride forward for the agency but, as I discussed with leaders of farming representative bodies last week, there remains some distance to go before I could be happy that farmers are receiving the service they deserve. I am clear that further strides towards that goal must be made in the indicators that are set for subsequent years and that communications with farmers who are not paid early in the window must be improved now. I know the RPA chief executive has heard the clear message from farm leaders on the latter point and will ensure steps are taken to address it over the coming months.
I will continue to keep the House informed on the agency’s progress.
High-speed Rail
(13 years ago)
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The Secretary of State for Transport (Justine Greening)
As the House will know, since taking up office as Secretary of State, a key early priority for me is to make a decision on the way forward following the Government’s recent consultation on high-speed rail (HS2).
My Department received around 55,000 responses to the consultation and an analysis of them has been undertaken. I am being provided with detailed information on the issues raised. This will provide me with extensive evidence in respect of all the issues that will affect my decision.
A number of colleagues have understandably requested meetings regarding HS2 and I believe it is important that that there should be an opportunity for me to hear directly from MPs on their views about HS2. Given that the consultation has closed, due process means it would not be proper for me to respond to any substantive points that are made at this meeting.
I wish to place on record that I will be providing MPs with an opportunity for such a meeting. I have scheduled this meeting for 21 November and have written to all Members to ask them if they wish to attend. The meeting will take place in the Palace of Westminster. In the interests of transparency, I will arrange for a transcript to be made available, as a public record of the proceedings.
Triennial Review of NDPBs (HS2 Ltd)
(13 years ago)
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The Secretary of State for Transport (Justine Greening)
Reducing the number and cost of public bodies is a coalition priority. The triennial review process has been established to continue our work ensuring accountability in public life by examining all non-departmental public bodies at least once every three years. I am announcing today the triennial review of HS2 Ltd. This review has two aims:
to provide a robust challenge of the continuing need for this NDPB—both its functions and form; and,
if it is agreed that it should remain as an NDPB, to review the control and governance arrangements in place to ensure that the public body is complying with recognised principles of good corporate governance.
The triennial review will build upon the internal review of the body conducted earlier this year.
I will announce the findings of the review later this year in line with the decision on the response to the consultation on high-speed rail.
If you would like further information, or to contribute to the review, please contact my Department or highspeedrail@dft.gov.uk.
I remain committed to the ongoing review of public bodies and my Department continues to work with the Cabinet Office to develop forward plans of reviews.
Deportation with Assurances
(13 years ago)
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The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mrs Theresa May)
I am pleased to announce that on Saturday 24 September my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary, and His Excellency Taieb Fassi Fihri, Moroccan Foreign Minister, signed a memorandum of understanding between the Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the Government of the Kingdom of Morocco concerning the provision of assurances in respect of persons subject to deportation on grounds of national security.
Copies of the memorandum of understanding have been placed in the Libraries of both Houses and on the Foreign and Commonwealth Office website.
There are a number of outstanding elements of the arrangement which UK and Moroccan officials are continuing to negotiate, along with a number of other judicial agreements and arrangements. We will publish further details when this process is complete.
The Government are committed to strengthening our bilateral relationship with Morocco across a range of fields, including measures to combat the shared threat from terrorism.
Grand Committee
Welfare Reform Bill
(13 years ago)
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The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Gould of Potternewton)
My Lords, may I remind you of the new procedure during Grand Committee on this Bill for Divisions in the Chamber. Members who have registered with the Clerk of the Parliaments may vote in their places in the Grand Committee, provided they are present in the Grand Committee when the Question is put in the Chamber after three minutes. Members who have not registered or who are not here at the three-minute mark will not be able to vote in their places. I also remind Members to be sure that they speak up but do not touch the microphones. Before I call the first amendment, the noble Lord, Lord Freud, wishes to say something.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Lord Freud)
My Lords, I thought it would be convenient to touch on the timetable. There has been discussion between the usual channels on the best way to take the rest of proceedings. We have agreed, subject to our best endeavours and without overriding anything, that there will be 17 Committee sittings, finishing on 28 November. The main items will be taken as follows. ESA time-limiting will be debated today; the Social Fund issues on 10 November; the PIP on 14 and 16 November; the benefit cap on 21 November; fraud and error on 23 November; and child maintenance and changes to the Child Poverty Commission on the last day, 28 November. I will circulate this timetable to all Peers after today.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Freud, for running through that timetable. Our Front Bench is signed up to using our best intentions to make sure that we stick to it. It is helpful for those who are not necessarily here for every bit of the Bill to know roughly what the schedule is. My Whip, my noble friend Lord McAvoy, has asked me to stress that these are firm intentions but not a straitjacket.
Baroness Morgan of Drefelin
My Lords, it is incredibly helpful for those of us on the Cross Benches to hear from the Minister what the timetable for the subject matter for debates might be. Can I also point out how difficult it might be for some of us, with the Health and Social Care Bill being in Committee at the same time as the Welfare Reform Bill? I have amendments down for both Bills and it will be difficult. I know that is true for many Peers.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees
My Lords, before I call the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie of Luton, can I point out that within this group is government Amendment 72? I have to inform your Lordships that if that amendment is carried, Amendments 73 and 74 will then not be spoken to because of pre-emption.
Clause 51 : Period of entitlement to contributory allowance
Amendment 71M
Lord McKenzie of Luton
Lord McKenzie of Luton
My Lords, in speaking to Amendment 71M, I shall speak also to Amendment 71P. I shall speak to the other amendments in this group when they have been introduced.
Clause 51 is one of the most controversial and unfair provisions in the Bill. It seeks to limit contributory ESA to 365 days in aggregate in respect of the same reference period. The clause further seeks to have the clock running for this currently so that days of receipt to date count towards the total. Our amendment is modest in that it seeks to remove the reference to 365 days and replaces it with an order-making power for which the prescribed number of days must be at least 730—that is, two years. This formulation provides the route to ensuring that any time-limiting of contributory ESA must be based on a proper analysis and evidence, rather than the arbitrary approach that the Bill adopts.
To justify a time limit for ESA we need to be satisfied that it is reasonable to expect people to return to work within the period, or to be fit for work and transfer to the JSA regime or be subject to work-related requirements in the universal credit regime. This judgment is not without difficulty, given the multiplicity of circumstances that cause individuals to be allocated to the work-related activity group—the WRAG. They include mental health and fluctuating conditions and depend on the level of support that is available to individuals. No one is arguing for a system that enables individuals to stay in the WRAG for ever without making any effort to move closer to the labour market. However, is it not the case that, when placed in the WRAG, there is a prognosis of how long somebody will stay there, and that prognosis is reviewed for its appropriateness before a claimant is moved to the JSA regime or, in the future, to the all work-related requirements of universal credit or, indeed, to the support group?
Therefore, in essence, the system has an individualised assessment of how long somebody may need to remain in receipt of contributory ESA if the national insurance conditions are satisfied. If the Government have confidence in the WCA process, why not rely and build on this approach? Is not the answer that this is really not about fairness or making reasonable judgments about how long people need to remain in the WRAG but all about cost savings and removing entitlements to which individuals may have contributed throughout their working lives?
A lot of figures have been swirling around this matter but we know that government estimates show that by 2015-16 700,000 people will be affected by time-limiting. Forty per cent of these will not qualify for means-tested benefit. Of those who do, can the Minister give us an estimate of those who will receive maximum income-related ESA and possibly the distribution of those who will not? We know that 94 per cent of contributing ESA claimants in the WRAG have a claim, the duration of which is 12 months or more. From the Pathways programme, we know that between 2005-06 and 2008-09 only between 25 and 30 per cent of participants found work within 12 months. There are strong representations, for example, from Macmillan to the effect that for many cancer patients 12 months is not a long enough period before they return to work. It maintains that three-quarters of people with cancer placed in the WRAG still claim the benefit 12 months later.
Of course, the Government’s defence of all this is that income-related ESA will still be available. However, the thresholds for the means-tested benefit is low, and entitlement could be denied if a person’s partner earned as little as £7,500 a year or worked more than 24 hours a week. That is another couple penalty and a significant disincentive to work. The Government’s own assessment is that the average change in income for those who lose out from time-limiting is a loss of £52 a week—a staggering amount—with some losing as much as £94 a week.
We can accept that, as with JSA, an argument can be made for contributory ESA to be subject to a time limit, but the line must be drawn at a point where it is reasonable to expect that people will be able to move on from the support and protection of the work-related activity regime. Three hundred and sixty-five days is clearly far too short a time for this yardstick. Seven hundred and thirty days is, it is accepted, an arbitrary figure to an extent, but the real task is to do the analysis, produce the evidence and do the work so that a proper time limit can be established. This evidence-based approach is what the DWP is usually so good at, and it is to be regretted that it is being abandoned in this situation.
Although not spoken to yet, we wholeheartedly support the proposition that the assessment phase should not feature in the number of days counted for any limitation period. The basic JSA rate is all that is received during this period and claimants do not know whether they will end up in either the WRAG or the support group.
Similarly, we support the amendments that prevent any days arising prior to the introduction of the legislation counting towards any limitation period. Can the Minister tell us how many people will lose contributory ESA at the point that these provisions in the Bill come into effect? Writing to tell people that this restriction is probably on its way—and we will have to see the resolve of the Liberal Democrats on this issue when we have the opportunity to vote—is all very well but helpful advice to the effect that the DWP cannot offer any guidance before the legislation becomes law must have been received with some consternation. Perhaps we can ask what feedback has been received.
I have not spoken to Amendment 71P, which is by way of a probe. The notes provided by the DWP state that people in the support group will not be affected by the proposals. Is this correct? Take the case of someone who starts in the WRAG but because of a deteriorating condition transfers to the support group. Prior to any time limit in legislation taking effect, contributory ESA would have been payable throughout, based on satisfying the first and second contribution conditions at the start of the claim. But if entitlement ceases as a result of the time-limiting rule, will the claimant not have to satisfy the contribution conditions afresh? Satisfying the second contribution condition may not be a problem because of crediting, but the claimant could be out of time to take advantage of the last tax year in which the national insurance contributions were paid, the last time when the individual was actually earning in excess of the LEL.
I have a couple of further questions. When somebody is migrated on to the ESA from contributory incapacity benefit, will the national insurance contribution conditions be treated as satisfied or will they have to be met again? The Minister will recognise that somebody who in later years has been treated as having limited capability for work may well have been credited with sufficient national insurance contributions to satisfy the second condition, but may struggle to satisfy the first condition of paying contributions amounting to 25 times LEL within the previous three complete tax years. When somebody is transferred from contributory incapacity benefit to contributory ESA, is it intended that the 365-day clock starts at that point? What analysis has been undertaken in respect of this in planning transfers to ESA? What is the position of somebody who is no longer in the WRAG because they are considered to be fit for work and currently, therefore, are on JSA? Will they be eligible for contributory JSA, albeit for a maximum of six months? Further, policy briefing note 4 makes it clear that further changes are planned to the employment and support allowance to align the earnings rules and taper with universal credit. With contributory ESA in steady state, accepting for this purpose the 365-day time limit, what analysis has been undertaken of the costs and benefits of this? Is it intended to be cost-neutral?
We have a number of other amendments to consider. I have no doubt that we will hear the refrain from the Minister, “There is no money. These changes are vital for deficit reduction”. But there is always choice. The question is: why make these particular cuts and why is this particular burden to be borne by those who by definition are not currently able to work and, moreover, have paid their dues in the past? I beg to move.
Lord Wigley
My Lords, I must say that I have considerable reservations about this clause in general, and these amendments touch on a number of them. I have concern about the provision for time-limiting the contribution-related ESA to 12 months, as is provided by this clause. It means that ESA claimants with a spouse or partner working 24 hours a week or more will not be eligible for the benefit. I believe that the time-limiting ESA is a serious disincentive to work for the partners and carers of ESA claimants, which leads to a situation in which unemployment is more financially sustainable than work, which must be a considerable worry to us all.
I further believe that the time-limiting of ESA punishes working families where one member is claiming ESA. Does the Minister accept that those with a working partner or with other income or capital, possibly up to as many as 400,000 people, will lose entitlement to the benefit completely if these provisions go forward? I urge the Government to think again on this.
Baroness Morgan of Drefelin
My Lords, I have the second amendment in this group, Amendment 71N. It is a big and complicated group. I have also put my name to Amendments 73, 74 and 75. I am not going to say too much about those because the noble Lord, Lord Patel, is going to introduce them in some detail. I support his opposition to clause stand part, and I am sure that we will come to discuss that more generally.
Many people who are placed in the work-related activity group have a deteriorating condition—say, Parkinson’s disease. Some people with motor neurone disease or some forms of cancer have been told that they have only two or three years to live, so it is possible to be in the work-related activity group and still have a very limited prognosis. The purpose of this amendment is to allow certain groups to be exempt from time-limiting of contributory employment and support allowance. This is a probing amendment in many ways, but I would prefer there to be no time-limiting at all, to be clear. If we do have time-limiting, this amendment is intended to safeguard support for people who have had to give up work due to a degenerative condition or terminal illness—for example, Parkinson’s disease, motor neurone disease or cancer. This measure will affect people with a degenerative condition who qualify for the work-related activity group but whose benefit expires before their condition deteriorates, to the extent that they would be eligible for the support group. It will also affect people with a terminal prognosis of over six months who will qualify for ESA under exceptional circumstances.
The Government had originally promised those whose contributory ESA claim had ended at 365 days as their condition deteriorated that, if they qualified for the support group on either functional or terminal illness grounds, they would become eligible again for ESA. This commitment was made in response to a question from Dame Anne Begg MP by Chris Grayling MP. However, there are currently no provisions in the Bill that will allow for someone to restart a contributory claim after their 365 days have expired. Many people with degenerative conditions or a terminal prognosis of more than six months will find themselves without support in the final stages of their illness if they have savings or a partner in work, and therefore cannot seek support from means-tested benefits. People with a degenerative condition will face the impossible predicament of trying to remain in work for as long as possible in order to ensure that they enter the support group within a year of beginning their claim, or having to stop work and focus on managing their condition and thus risk seeing their benefit run out after one year. What a position that we contemplate these people being in.
I use the example of a person with Parkinson’s disease that was lent to me by the Parkinson’s UK charity. It described the following client. He had worked until the symptoms of his condition became too severe for him to continue. He explained that although he had good days, he had bad days. He would only have good days if he carefully conserved his energy. He said,
“but I’m better when I’m not doing anything. It sounds like a skiver’s charter but what it means is that the energy or concentration reserves needed to do simple physical or mental tasks are quite low so any difficulty encountered quickly drains those reserves and I get into a sort of ‘closing down state’. My thoughts slow down. My movements slow down. My breathing gets laboured. I want to sleep. I find it hard to swallow properly. I get headaches and experience a feeling of desperation”.
This proposal promises to create a two-tier system. The rules around national insurance contributions are extremely complicated. I do not claim to be an expert in any way, so it is hard to present a hard-and-fast case, but one scenario that might occur is that someone whose condition deteriorates to the extent that they are eligible for the support group on day 365 of their claim receives indefinite support, while someone who becomes eligible on day 366 gets nothing. What action is the Minister taking to ensure that the Government honour their commitment that those who become eligible for the support group after their 365 days’ claim has expired can receive support through contributory ESA?
I understand that there are exceptional circumstances which are catered for in legislation, in the Employment and Support Allowance Regulations 2008. Someone with a life-threatening condition who would not meet the normal criteria for ESA can qualify under exceptional circumstances and be placed in the work-related activity group. The example given in the guidance for healthcare professionals carrying out the assessment is someone with motor neurone disease. As I have said, we know that the average life expectancy post-diagnosis for someone with motor neurone disease is one to four years. A 62 year-old client of a citizens advice bureau in the south-east had worked all his life, until he became too ill to carry on. He was diagnosed with motor neurone disease and experienced chronic fatigue and reduced mobility. He applied for ESA and was placed in the work-related activity group. What does the Minister intend to do to ensure that people in that situation, who qualify for ESA under these exceptional circumstances, do not lose out as time-limiting is introduced?
The equality impact assessment accompanying the proposal to limit payment of employment and support allowance to people in the work-related activity group partly justifies that measure on the basis that ESA is a “temporary benefit”. This ignores the reality that it is impractical to expect someone with a terminal prognosis to return to work. We are seeing people with a terminal prognosis being put in a work-related activity group, which is being classified as a temporary benefit. If ESA is a temporary benefit, what action is the Minister planning to take to support those for whom a return to work is not an option?
I, like many here, find these clauses desperately unfair to some of the most vulnerable people in our society. I oppose time-limiting for 12 months for ESA, which appears to me to be completely arbitrary. It is not appropriate that we should be looking at this implementation retrospectively. The assessment period should not count towards any time-limiting and it is not appropriate that people coming out of the support group, if they only have a month left of their time-limiting, should be expected to find work in a month. This is an extremely important debate and I hope very much that the Minister will be able to come back fully with answers to my questions.
Baroness Thomas of Winchester
My Lords, at this stage, I am not going to go into all the arguments about the time-limiting of ESA to one year. My noble friend Lord German will address the main issues in a short while. I shall speak to my Amendment 72A to my noble friend the Minister’s Amendment 72, the purpose of which is to question the whole business of the retrospective nature of this provision. Under this part of the new clause, the clock has already started ticking for existing claimants, regarding their entitlement to contribution-based ESA in the work-related activity group rather than in the support group, who have been receiving the benefit for 12 months or more. For them, their claim will stop as soon as the Bill becomes law, which is estimated to be April of next year. By starting the clock well before Parliament has made its decision on the Bill, the Government seem to be acting like a private insurance company that changes the rules of someone’s policy after they have made the claim.
However, this does not seem to have been the plan in October last year. If one looks at the Spending Review 2010’s policy costings, published in October last year, on page 6—it is repeated in the Library briefing pack on the Bill—it is stated at the first bullet point that,
“for existing contributory ESA customers, the time limit will apply at the point they reach one year including the assessment phase. Those with a claim duration of one year or more when legislation comes into effect will have their benefit time-limited immediately and will have at least 12 months to prepare for the change”.
Perhaps the Minister can throw some light on why and when the Government changed their minds and decided to make this provision retrospective—thus allowing hardly any time at all for some claimants to prepare for change. Just to be clear, someone whose claim started in April this year may find by the time the Bill becomes law in April next year that their claim will cease immediately.
Parliament has always deplored retrospective legislation. In 2009, the Constitution Committee of your Lordships' House, in its report on the Banking Bill, drew attention to the need for there to be,
“a compelling reason in the public interest for a departure from the general principle that retrospective legislation is undesirable”.
At least the letter to claimants that was sent out recently by the DWP is headed:
“Possible changes to your ESA”,
and states that the changes the Government want to make have not yet been approved by Parliament. The letter continues by providing the ramifications of the change. I gather that many claimants who have received such a letter are telling citizens advice bureaux up and down the country that they do not know what this letter means for them, and that they are very worried by it. They have good cause to be worried. Not only are the Government breaking the understanding that national insurance contributions—perhaps paid for years and years—protected a person against the loss of employment on health grounds, but many claimants, as we have heard, are likely to be left with only their partner’s extremely modest income, which may push them out of eligibility under the means-tested ESA.
I turn back to the policy costings document of October 2010. Under the heading, “Uncertainty”, we read that the migration from IB to ESA was the cause of particular uncertainty. We now know that a high proportion of IB claimants are being found to be fit for work as a result of the migration to ESA, in spite of appeals. I therefore ask my noble friend whether the Government can now start to quantify savings that might be made on the ESA bill, in spite of an increasing JSA bill—given high unemployment—and whether they will consider reverting to their original plan and drop the retrospective nature of this clause.
We all know of the need for the Government to cut public spending by an eye-watering amount as soon as possible. The Government’s argument may be that JSA is time-limited, so why not ESA? However, in my view, a claimant’s health is a much more emotive subject for their employment—or lack of it—and being ill can be a very expensive business. Using retrospection in this way, when it directly affects someone’s income in an unforeseeable way, seems to be thoroughly bad practice. Is it really good governance to cut massive corners by bringing in this policy in such haste?
Lord Patel
My Lords, I thank noble Lords who have supported my amendments. There are three amendments in my name: one to ensure that any period of time-limiting contributory ESA restarts following any period a person spends in a support group, one to ensure that the assessment phase is not included in any time limit of contributory ESA, and one to ensure that time-limiting contributory ESA for those in the WRAG is not applied retrospectively.
Many groups, including Macmillan, Disability Alliance and others, oppose the introduction of a 12-month limit to the amount of time someone is able to claim contributory-based employment and support allowance for those in the work-related activity group. Macmillan, the Disability Benefits Consortium and others in the wider disability sector oppose the principle of time limiting ESA. People with a disability or illness who have paid into the system should be able to receive support for as long as they meet the eligibility criteria for ESA and are unable to work due to their condition.
Clause 51 amends the Welfare Reform Act 2007 to introduce a 12-month limit to the amount of time a person is entitled to contributory ESA for those in the WRAG. In my view, Clause 51 should be removed from the Bill. Removing this clause would ensure that disabled people would continue to receive critical financial support for as long as their disability or long-term condition limits their ability to work.
The Government’s own figures show that 94 per cent of people in the WRAG will need ESA for longer than 12 months. Those affected, including 7,000 cancer patients, will lose up to £94 a week in vital support. The Government’s proposal is based on their objective to make savings. However, they have provided no evidence to demonstrate that a 12-month time limit is reflective of the amount of time people in the WRAG need in order to be able to return to work.
The coalition agreement promised, I believe, to protect the vulnerable from spending cuts. In his first party conference speech, the Prime Minister last autumn said:
“People who are sick, who are vulnerable, the elderly—I want you to know we will always look after you. That's the sign of a civilised society, and it's what I believe”.
It cannot be right for the Government to propose such a significant policy change without providing evidence that the measure is appropriate and reasonable. Can the Government publish evidence to demonstrate that a 12-month time limit reflects the likely needs of people in the WRAG? What organisations or experts were consulted before the decision was taken to introduce a time limit for contributory ESA?
The time limit will be imposed on people who are in the WRAG. Those in the WRAG are people who, following a work capability assessment, have been found to be not fit for work due to their disability or illness. While those in the WRAG are expected to carry out some work-related activities in order to help them return to work, they are still considered to be not fit for work. If following the WCA they had been found to be fit for work they would be ineligible for ESA and placed on jobseeker’s allowance.
People in the WRAG could still be severely disabled or disabled, as is the case with people recovering from aggressive cancer treatment and other debilitating conditions. I have one example. Martin was diagnosed with primary progressive MS in February 2007. He continued to work until November 2009, albeit with difficulty. He cannot walk or stand up, has incontinence problems and suffers badly with fatigue and muscular weakness in his legs and back. Martin recently received a letter from the DWP outlining how the Government are seeking to change the rules of ESA and impose a time limit on the benefit. He said:
“The real sting in the tail is that the ‘clock’ starts ticking from the date you first ever started receiving the benefit. In my case that is since June 2009, so some 27 months, so in their eyes I am 15 months over the limit! Therefore, my payments would stop immediately once the policy comes into force next year”.
Poor old Martin. What is he going to do?
Currently, no one is placed in the WRAG indefinitely. Only those who meet the strict eligibility criteria for ESA and are unable to work will be able to continue to receive ESA. People in the WRAG can be called for an assessment at any time and will lose the benefit if they are found fit to work. The government proposals will affect only those vulnerable people who are too unwell to work. The vast majority, patients with cancers and others, want to work if they are able to and do not need an incentive. Unlike incapacity benefit, the WRAG or ESA is clearly focused on supporting people into work and receipt of the benefit is conditional on claimants taking agreed steps on activity to move towards work. That can include training, education or condition management. Claimants who take the agreed steps to return to work should not be penalised simply because they need longer than one year.
Many disabled people will simply not be fit enough to return to work after just one year. For example, people with cancer will often experience side-effects of their condition and treatment, such as severe fatigue or depression, for many months and in some cases years, even after their treatment is finished. People with cancer face a range of barriers that impact on their ability to return to work. They can experience debilitating physical and psychological effects from cancer and its treatment, including severe pain, fatigue, nausea, fever and diarrhoea. The majority, 53 per cent, are not advised by medical professionals about the impact of their cancer diagnosis on their working lives and how they can manage their condition. They are not routinely offered the range of back-to-work services they need, such as counselling, retraining and workplace advocacy. They are less successful in securing workplace adjustments to which they are legally entitled and which would help them return to work. This is likely to be linked to the fact that just 43 per cent of employers know that people with cancer have legal protection against discrimination.
Means-testing thresholds are such that thousands of people will lose all their ESA if their partner earns as little as £150 a week. The Government’s own estimates predict that 700,000 people will be affected by time-limiting by 2015-16. Of those who actually lose out, 51 per cent are in the lowest third centile for income; the average drop in income would be £52 a week, but for those in the lowest centile—the lowest third—this figure is £35 a week, a significant amount of money for people struggling to make ends meet. What estimate has the department made of the number of people who will fall into poverty as a result of time-limiting contributory ESA?
Furthermore, people who are currently covered by special rules and can reasonably be expected to die within six months are automatically placed by the support group and will not be affected by time-limiting. However, people who have a terminal diagnosis but who are expected to live for longer than six months currently can still be placed in the WRAG and will therefore be subject to time-limiting. This means someone who has a prognosis of two years and is placed in the WRAG could lose their support after one year, even though they may have only one year left to live. Many of these people will not go on to claim a pension and therefore may receive only 12 months of ESA for all their national insurance contributions. People who lose their contributory ESA due to time-limiting will not be able to claim contributory ESA if they have subsequently become terminally ill and are covered by special rules. This is despite the assurances given by the Government that people who are terminally ill will not be affected by time-limiting.
The Government have claimed that there are alternative means of support available for those who lose their ESA, such as housing benefit or tax credits. However, these are dependent on personal circumstances and many cancer patients will be ineligible. For instance, a couple without children who own their home will not be eligible for housing benefit and they will qualify for tax credits only if the working partner works more than 30 hours, which may not be possible due to caring commitments. My question, therefore, is: can the Government publish evidence to demonstrate what alternative means of support is available for people who lose ESA and give the number of people who are eligible for this support?
For cancer patients, financial worries are second only to worries about their condition and treatment. I have serious concerns about the impact that time-limiting will have on the psychological well-being of sick and disabled people who might already be experiencing depression and anxiety. This will also put pressure on mental health services funded by local authorities. What assessment have Ministers made of the impact that time-limiting will have on health and social care budgets and services, and what discussions have they had with the Department of Health?
Calls for a rethink on the time limit have not been limited to people with cancer and certain disabilities. Concerns about the impact of the proposal is widespread. I noticed that at the Liberal Democrat conference in September delegates voted unanimously to make it Lib Dem party policy to oppose an arbitrary time limit on ESA. I wonder what discussions the Minister has had with his Lib Dem colleagues about alternatives to the 12-month time limit following the Liberal Democrat vote at the party conference, about which no doubt Liberal Democrat noble Lords will correct me if I am wrong.
It is to be welcomed that the Government have recognised the need to make changes to the work capability assessment, and I commend them for at least recognising that. However, I look forward to the Government’s proposal to make more widely available the automatic entitlement to support groups which is currently available to groups such as patients receiving intravenous chemotherapy. As I said, I commend them for that. However, the necessary changes will take time to be implemented, and that will not improve the situation for cancer patients who have finished their treatment and need sufficient time to recover before they are well enough to return to work.
It is widely recognised that the WCA needs to be significantly improved before it is fit for purpose. The introduction of a 12-month time limit for ESA will compound the existing problems relating to the WCA. Instead of taking away support from sick and disabled people who are still unable to work, the Government should be working with disability organisations to design back-to-work programmes that offer personalised support appropriate to customers’ needs. I sincerely hope that the Minister will be sympathetic to the cause and that we will have some proposals from the Government that are encouraging to them.
Baroness Lister of Burtersett
My Lords, I am pleased to rise in support of the vital amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Patel, and in opposition to the Question that Clause 51 stand part of the Bill. I am afraid that this will be another of my rather long speeches but this is such an important issue that it is essential that we spend time on it.
The noble Lord, Lord Patel, speaks from his considerable experience as a clinician, particularly with regard to cancer patients. The cause of cancer patients has also been well served by Macmillan Cancer Support, which has done so much to bring this issue to public attention and to brief noble Lords. I shall not focus on this particular group because I cannot possibly bring to the matter the same level of expertise as that of the noble Lord. Instead, I shall discuss some of the wider implications for our social security system, including the gender implications of relying on income-related ESA as an alternative to contributory ESA.
In the other place, the Minister of State told the Public Bill Committee:
“It is a long-standing principle of our contributory system and the JSA system that we allow those who have paid in to draw back out money for a period of time, but that there is a limit to the amount that they can draw out again”.
He continued:
“There has been an enormous inconsistency between JSA and ESA and its predecessors, in that somebody who manages to get themselves on to our sickness benefits is there indefinitely, whereas somebody who is on JSA is there only temporarily. That creates a perverse incentive in the system”.—[Official Report, Commons, Welfare Reform Bill Committee, 3/5/11; col. 650.]
Baroness Lister of Burtersett
I was just quoting from a letter I received from a 50 year-old woman with complex mental health problems. She wrote that,
“my life revolves around trying to be as well as possible. I cannot stress enough how frightening it is to feel that you are not able to work, will not be put into the support group”,
she fears,
“and will be left to use up everything you have until eligible for means-tested benefits … My medicine prescription has been increased 4-fold and been supplemented with extra medication since the time limit was announced”.
As someone who has campaigned and argued for a more inclusive social security system for 40 years, I feel that I have to use the luxury of being a Back-Bencher to oppose this clause on principle. My noble friends on the Front Bench know and understand my position. However, if time-limiting goes ahead, it must be done on the fairest possible basis. Therefore, I hope that the Minister will look favourably on the proposed amendments in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Patel, which would aim to achieve that in three main ways.
First, I hope that action will be taken so as not to penalise people with fluctuating conditions who go on to the support group after the contributory ESA has expired. I know that that is a particular concern of Macmillan Cancer Support. Secondly, I could not believe at first that the rule would be applied retrospectively. The case against that has been made extremely eloquently by the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas of Winchester. As a result of this, the letter has gone out to existing recipients. According to one who wrote to me, far from providing the reassurance mentioned by the Minister in his opening remarks at Second Reading, that will, she warns, “strike fear” into the hearts of those affected. Could the Minister state whether there is a precedent for such a letter to go out before Parliament has agreed such a controversial change?
Thirdly, I was also dismayed when I realised that the 13-week assessment phase is included in the one-year time limit, which in effect means that full contributory ESA will last for a year minus 13 weeks. In Committee in the other place, the Minister of State agreed to look again at this issue in response to concerns expressed by a Liberal Democrat MP. What was the outcome of this further look? According to a Written Answer that I received, if the assessment phase were excluded it would reduce the savings by £100 million in 2012-13, rising to £120 million by 2014-15, but falling to only £40 million by 2016-17. Here is the nub: this clause is not about making social security fairer; it is about saving money, as my noble friend Lord McKenzie has already stated.
I have some sympathy with the Minister. He is extolling the virtues of universal credit at every opportunity, yet universal credit is in danger of being contaminated by sharing a Bill with unfair, cost-cutting measures such as this one. I hope, therefore, at the very least, that the Minister will think very hard about how to mitigate this unfairness through the kind of amendments before us.
Baroness Meacher
I rise to speak to Amendments 71M, 71N, 71P, 72A and 73. First, I thank the noble Lord, Lord German, for kindly allowing me to speak a little earlier than I had planned because I have to leave the Committee briefly at 5 pm. I apologise to the Minister and the Bill team that I have not been able to attend the briefing sessions. They are a wonderful idea and I had hoped and assumed that I would attend every one, but life has not been quite like that.
I also apologise for not having had quite the time I would have wished to prepare for this debate. Having said that, I have major concerns about the plan to limit entitlement to contributory ESA to one year. I understand from the CAB service that the DWP has estimated that, of those on contributory ESA and in the work-related activity group, 94 per cent will remain on the benefit from more than a year, so it is estimated that by 2015-16 700,000 people will be affected by limiting contributory ESA. Some will lose their entire benefit payment, currently worth £94.25 a week. I know that the Minister will correct me if that is wrong. It sounds astonishing. The rationale for this change is, I suppose, twofold. First, it is to give maximum incentive to people to return to work and, secondly, it is to save taxpayers’ money. I will refer to those two points briefly.
It is particularly difficult to support the employment incentive argument at present, when even able-bodied people and remarkably highly skilled people are finding it very difficult to find work. As we said, we think that about 94 per cent of those with disabilities will remain on this benefit beyond their contributory entitlement. I would welcome the Minister’s views on the fairness of this provision in relation to an individual with—obviously in terms of my own concerns—ongoing and fluctuating symptoms. He is very keen to work and does not need any incentive, but no doubt he will be given lots of incentives through the mechanics of the work-related activity group. But the fact is that he cannot persuade an employer to take him on. I know that the Minister is aware that there are very large numbers of people on ESA who want to work and cannot persuade an employer to take them. In other words, these people are very much the deserving unemployed. They used to be called the deserving poor. I happen to know hundreds of people personally who fall into that category. I would be grateful for the Minister's views on that.
If we consider for a moment the need to protect taxpayers’ money, I happen to believe that taxpayers would recognise that this group—people who are disabled and sick on benefits—should be entitled to their benefit, having contributed, many of them, for decades. Politically, I do not believe that this is something that one can possibly justify. It is very hard to argue that savings to taxpayers’ money should be made with this particular group—sick and disabled people—rather than at the expense of other groups in society with much broader shoulders. There are all sorts of cuts that a Government could make that would seem much fairer than this one.
Amendment 71M, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, would at least be a great deal fairer. In a sense you could say that it is all rather arbitrary— 365 days or some other number of days. Really, it is just not justified to cut contributory benefit at any stage for many of these people, but I suppose that that would be better than the alternative.
Lord German
My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 75A in my name. I start by saying that the important thing is to get the work capability assessment right. That was a point made by the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie. It is important that people are accurately placed in one or another of the categories. That means that rapid progress needs to be made with the improvements that have been suggested by and are being adopted from Professor Harrington’s report. It seems that the work capability assessment is a crucial first part in ensuring that the whole system works effectively and properly.
The purpose of this amendment is to protect the most vulnerable and the poorest, and to take a slightly different approach from those suggested so far. I should like to start by looking at the context of two words that many noble Lords have used so far in this discussion—“arbitrary” and “temporary”. There is a difference. The noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, referred to any date being arbitrary. It is indeed an arbitrary decision, and if you have some form of illness that will take you beyond 720 days or whatever, then it is an arbitrary cut-off date one way or the other. That is our principal concern—the provision does not address the issues relating to the people concerned.
I of course recognise that there is an issue to which many noble Lords have referred regarding the cost-saving measure in this proposal. I should like to ask the Minister why the savings now being predicted are between £1.3 billion and £1.4 billion, given that in the comprehensive spending review the Chancellor of the Exchequer said that the savings would be £2 billion a year. This is a question that my noble friend Lady Thomas raised—to try to identify why there was a change of procedure from the announcement made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who stated that that there would be no backdating and that the provision would not be retrospective, when this proposal is for some form of retrospection.
When you examine the ways in which you can have a non-arbitrary system that deals with people’s needs, and when you look for a system that in our view deals with the most vulnerable and poorest in our society, there is a variety of ways in which you can do it. Obviously, through medical assessment, you could potentially re-examine people at some stage and say whether their medical condition had improved or was changing, or whether the condition would require that the payment should continue. The problem with reassessment is: when do you reassess and how long does that take? If you understand the meaning that I have already put on the word “arbitrary”, then, whether it is 18, 13, 12, nine or six months, you will see that it really is a question of the individual’s circumstances.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
I am sorry to interrupt the noble Lord, but if the process is that when someone is put into the work-related activity group there is a prognosis as to how long they are likely to remain there—this is the basis on which referrals to the work programme are made, for example—does he accept that that is a natural and clear point for reassessment?
Lord German
It is a point of assessment, but the problem is that people’s medical conditions can alter—they can get worse or better, and there is the issue of fluctuating conditions that noble Lords have also recognised. The point that I am making is that there is a problem with a single point, and you need to have a progression of points if you are going to use medical assessment.
The other approach that has already been referred to in this debate is exemption by groups. Once again, identifying groups of people is very tricky because people can fall into different categories within a particular group. There is also the danger that, if you identify one group, another group might be left out. In this amendment, we are therefore proposing to look at ways in which—while we cannot wreck the Government’s proposals to make savings and reach the overall budget targets that they have set—we can ensure that the most vulnerable are protected from the effects of any time-limiting contributory ESA. This essentially means protecting the poorest and the sickest. The objective, therefore, is to focus the protection of those who are least able to support themselves. I know that that aim is shared by the Government, and we recognise that they are not time-limiting those in the support group, or even those on income-related ESA—to which I shall return in a moment.
However, we are not fully convinced of the thresholds at which income-related ESA apply, or that they are set at a level that will adequately protect low-income claimants—especially those with working partners. It is interesting to note from the impact assessment that 62 per cent of all those who would not be able to claim income-related ESA at the end of 12 months could not do so because of their employment. I want to come back to that issue of income. I know that we are talking here about a form of means-testing but, even so, we are talking about the main reason why people’s payments cannot continue.
We know that the Government are keen to ensure that there are no disincentives to work and that work will always pay. I am also aware that the Conservative Party in the Government wants to strongly support family ties through the tax and benefits regime. As such, it seems odd to us that the narrowness of the ESA means test risks undermining both these objectives, since it can present an incentive for a certain group to give up work. Paragraph 24 of the impact assessment states:
“Those with the most incentive to give up work are partners earning less than £150 a week, as their net income could potentially only be a few pounds less if they gave up work. An indicative analysis shows that 10% of all partners are in this position”.
If that is the case, these are the 10 per cent who are obviously the poorest and the most threatened by the change which is before them. With that 10 per cent of people in mind, this amendment seeks to set in law a floor beneath which the means test cannot apply. We are probing the Government to see whether they think that the test, as currently applied, is adequate to protect the lowest income households.
The amendment is set in terms not of the hours worked, because that is quite difficult to assess, but of the actual paid income. We know that the new universal credit system will enable the DWP to indentify the income of the partner. I am attracted to an income-based level because it is a clearer marker of actual income than hours worked.
Nevertheless, we would like to hear the Minister’s view on alternative methods of measuring income for a means test. We have chosen in this amendment the income tax personal allowance threshold divided by 52, for simply making it a weekly income measure rather than an annual. This is an external marker and thus less arbitrary than plucking a figure from thin air to write into legislation. If you divide the current rate of £7,475, the figure comes to £143.75 a week, which is very close to the £150 figure mentioned in paragraph 24 on page 11 of the Government’s impact assessment. This level therefore almost equates to the £150 figure. The Government’s own assessment notes that this is the level below which there exists a disincentive for people to work. We are trying to address that disincentive.
We—those who tabled this amendment—cannot be committed to a particular bar or level to set. But I am keen—I hope noble Lords will agree—to set in place an architecture for the future. My noble friend the Minister has used many times the argument that the taper can move with time as circumstances permit, but I want a means-test bar from which one can fluctuate as government income increases. We are aware that the Government have expressed the intention to raise the personal allowance threshold and we are very pleased with that. But it seems to us that if the Government think one should keep one’s earnings and not lose them to the taxman below a certain level, the same logic might also be applied to earnings and to one’s partner’s ESA. I welcome the Government’s response to the future impact of this amendment in light of the changes to the tax threshold which are before us in the next few years.
There are two other issues on which I should like to probe the Government. If they were to look at what happens immediately after the 12-month period is up, and if the income-related ESA is not available—because of the bar or the fact it is means-tested, or for any other reason, capital perhaps—will the Minister allow people who would otherwise have been eligible for income-related ESA to have the national insurance contributions credits applied to them? That would allow them to get the passported benefits that came with that purpose and therefore additional benefits would flow. At its minimum level, that would be a level of support that people could look to.
Baroness Morgan of Drefelin
Before the noble Lord sits down, he said that there was a sense that the work capacity assessment needs to be right and that he was thinking about arbitrary cut-offs and temporary classifications. Is he saying that, in order to get this right, we have to look again at the support group? Because of the functional impairment or prognosis of the people whom I am concerned about—those who are known to be facing a terminal prognosis of two years—perhaps they should automatically be in the support group. If that were the case, there would not be a problem
Lord German
I can answer that question by simply stating that the work capability assessment, if done accurately enough, should place people in the most appropriate group. Of course, one of the questions in the work capability assessment is, “What are you capable of?”; “capability” is in the title. If you are capable, with an illness, to do some work, and if you know that that will diminish over time, logic tells me that you need to think again about the way that that group of people is affected by such a proposal.
In a sense, what it means is that a clear definition between support on one side and being work ready on the other is not necessarily the only appropriate distinction you can make. It is part of the issue about having clear cut-offs and clear decisions of this sort. You need to be flexible for the people who need it most and whose circumstances will have changed.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
I shall be brief because we have had some very full and powerful speeches from people who are intimately involved and who have specialist knowledge in this field. Like others, as I am sure my noble friends will go on to say, I would prefer not to see this clause in the Bill at all. I very much support the whole range of amendments that have been tabled.
However, I want to add my particular support to Amendment 75A. This is something that many of us referred to at Second Reading. It is the amendment that, leaving aside the issue of the disabled person, most protects the position of the other partner in the relationship, and it is therefore consistent with universal credit. In my view, it is the amendment that, if the Minister seeks to retain consistency with universal credit, he will do his best to support. Basically, we are again running the sort of arguments that we were having over second incomes and disregards, where the question was, “What is the return to work?”, and the Minister told us that he could not afford to run a disregard, even though the costs of childcare might eat up the earnings.
Here, we have the same problem in an even more aggravated form because here, above all, we need if we possibly can to keep the working partner attached to the labour market. We know that if somebody needs to care for more than about 20 hours a week, they probably cannot combine that with anything other than a part-time job. The ingenuity of the Lib Dem amendment is that it allows for something like 24 hours a week at minimum wage or thereabouts, which is pretty much at the tipping point where somebody leaves a full-time labour market and can manage only part-time work in order to make a generous and graceful contribution to caring responsibilities.
If the Minister cannot accept the push of this amendment—I will not say “understand” because I know that he understands it perfectly well—he will be saying to a woman in this position, who may be the working partner: “We are going to make it so unattractive for you to stay in the labour market and work that you, who may very well be tired because of your caring responsibilities, may have financial pressures and may yourself have minor complaints, will want to come out”. It would be infinitely better for her poverty, her health, her connections to the labour market, her sense of self-esteem and her social gregariousness to have a wider life that we should do our absolute damnedest to support her in the labour market—even if on only a part-time basis—and ensure that she kept that money. That is not a huge sum but it would lift her, as a parent, out of poverty and keep her in the labour market. If her partner’s condition deteriorated, we might be very glad that she had that earnings capacity behind her. If he died, we should be very glad that she had remained attached to the labour market and could, after a period of grieving, re-enter it. If he got well, and we would expect to attach conditionality to her, we would be very glad that she had remained attached to the labour market. On all possible outcomes of their partnership, it is in our public interest—the Government’s included—that we keep her attached to the labour market.
I feel very strongly that we have real problems with couples’ earnings. We have seen that before in amendments moved by my noble friend Lady Lister. Here, it seems even more damaging if we go down the parsimonious route of trying to peel off every pound that the woman earns against the partner’s benefit income. I hope very much not only that the Minister will take this away and think about it but, if he is unable to move, that the Lib Dems, who have come up with a decent and ingenious amendment addressing a very real problem—though it is not sufficient to deal with all the problems that disabled people face on the ESA, which need other amendments—will not retreat from the courage of their convictions and will pursue this through.
Baroness Gibson of Market Rasen
My Lords, perhaps I may explain why I am briefly entering the Bill at this stage. I did not speak at Second Reading and was not planning to speak in the debates but I have chosen to speak today because I received a letter from an old school friend. He went to school with me when I attended Caistor Grammar School in Lincolnshire many years ago. This friend knows a lot about disability because he is himself disabled. In mid-life, he went into hospital to have what was expected to be a very straightforward operation but unfortunately came out having lost his sight. When Derek wrote to me, I took his letter very seriously and I wish to speak briefly on his behalf today.
My friend is very worried indeed about Clause 51, particularly about the one-year time-limit on contributory ESA, which we have heard a lot about this afternoon, and the replacement of the working-age disability living allowance. With regard to the limit on contributory ESA, he points out that it takes no account of the often very complex issues that disabled people need to address in preparing for and finding work. I understand that the Government have estimated that 94 per cent of those on ESA and in the work-related activity group would take over a year to find work. That would mean that by 2015-16 700,000 people would be affected and 280,000 could have lost their entire benefit payment. The new criteria focus on a much narrower range of support than DLA and appear to fail to recognise the barriers that prevent blind and partially sighted people being able to participate fully in society.
The Disability Benefits Consortium, which is a national coalition of more than 50 disability and welfare charities and other organisations committed to working towards a fair benefits system, also wishes to see Clause 51 removed from the Bill to ensure that disabled people continue to receive the critical financial support that they so deserve. The Disability Benefits Consortium included in its briefing a moving statement from a woman who has Parkinson’s disease. She says:
“I’ve worked all my life and paid for decades into the system on the understanding that there’ll be support if I need it. To be told that all of this support could have an arbitrary time limit is both unfair and stressful”.
I agree. Clause 51 is very flawed and this would be a better Bill if it were removed.
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town
My Lords, I am not replying on behalf of the Front Bench at this stage. My noble friend Lord McKenzie will no doubt do that after the Minister has spoken to his amendment. I am particularly pleased to rise after my noble friend Lady Gibson and want to comment on what the Lord, Lord German, said, although he is unfortunately not in his place at the moment. No doubt he can read my comments at a future moment.
Like my noble friend Lady Hollis, I very much support the amendment to which the noble Lord, Lord German, spoke. However, I should think he finds it rather easier to speak to it here today, in the Committee, than at the Lib Dem conference. I do not think it would answer the party’s desire to get rid of arbitrary time limits. It will, to some extent, help the very poorest but it does not address the fundamental issue that has been raised.
As my noble friend Lord McKenzie said in opening the debate, this will affect some 700,000 people. I should like to talk about just a few of these, particularly older women with breast cancer who have paid into the insurance system for their whole working lives. I quote in particular Dawn Sheldon, who wrote to me. She said:
“I am terminally ill with breast cancer which has spread to the lung. I am in receipt of benefits, without which, I would have no income whatsoever. Under the proposed reforms, I would have to find employment. My concerns are that although reasonably qualified, I’d be applying for jobs against other applicants with a clean bill of health and a long life expectancy who would be more attractive than my own CV”.
As has already been mentioned, in addition to being ill with the cancer itself, breast cancer sufferers take very strong medication, sometimes for up to five years, with very unpleasant side-effects. Dawn says that without benefits she probably would not be able to pay her mortgage and fears that she would become homeless.
Other breast cancer sufferers have also written to me. Similarly, having been on strong medication for 18 months, one woman feels that she would be a cripple if she carried on using it. Therefore, she asks what benefits she should have, and she might come off the medication. That is some indication of how dreadful some of the side-effects are for some people. Another woman writes that she has a lot of pain in her joints at night. She has an eight year-old, so she is taking whatever she can to be here for him. The consultant said that it is a balance—quality of live versus length of life. She says that when she takes her painkillers her boss can tell that she is not able to work as well as she does normally. However, she wants to be there to see her son grow up.
These women have asked me to plead with the Government not to reduce their benefits. They are pleased that their tumours have been removed but they are not fit and well; they are struggling to keep going. While they have not yet been diagnosed as being terminally ill, it would be wrong to think that they are able to return to work. They have a choice to make about whether to take drugs to live longer and see their children grow up but, with that medication, perhaps be even less fit for work. The question that they pose is: if you were a prospective employer, would you want to employ someone with a history of cancer or someone who had to take medication to the point that they could be ineffective in their work—at least, at certain times? These women feel that the new medical assessment is a “ploy”—their word—so that they can simply be told what the Government want to hear: that they are fit for work, disregarding the reports of qualified medical staff.
Lord Freud
My Lords, I must start off by saying that the contributions of noble Lords today are highly informed and very moving. But let me try and respond as much as I possibly can to those many points.
Employment and support allowance for those in the work-related activity group was never intended to be a long-term benefit, but an interim measure for those who are expected to return to work. I know that there have been concerns that restricting contributory ESA to a year may disadvantage people with longer-term health conditions or disabilities. However, we remain of the view that this is the right approach. The benefits system has to be fair to all those who contribute to it as well as those who draw support from it. We expect people on benefit to take up the help and support available, through Jobcentre Plus or the work programme, to move off benefit and into work.
Dependent on individual circumstances, other benefits, such as housing benefit and disability living allowance, may be available to those claimants affected by the introduction of a time limit to the income-related employment and support allowance. It ought to be available to those on lower incomes.
Introducing a limit on the length of time people in the work-related activity group are entitled to contribution-based employment and support allowance is more consistent with the rules for contribution-based jobseeker’s allowance, which has a time limit of six months, while recognising the different nature of employment and support allowance recipients and the purpose of the benefit. People receiving income-related ESA will not have their benefit time limited, nor will people with the most severe conditions or disabilities in the support group.
What is more, we expect 60 per cent of the people who leave contributory ESA as a result of the time limit to be fully or partially compensated by income-related ESA.
In response to the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, that 60 per cent can be decomposed into two sets of 30 per cent. 30 per cent of those affected are expected to claim both income-related and contributory ESA. So when the time limit applies, they will continue to receive income-related ESA. The majority will therefore see no change to the total amount of ESA received. The other 30 per cent are expected to become eligible for income-related ESA, some of them at the same rate. They will become eligible for passported benefits, such as the full housing benefit and council tax benefit and free prescriptions.
Lord Freud
My Lords, I had just begun to address the question raised by the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, on national insurance contributions. The person who has transferred to contributory benefit from incapacity benefit will be treated as having met the contribution conditions from the point of migration. Claimants will be entitled for a year to ESA if they are placed in the work-related activity group. National insurance credits will continue to be awarded to people who continue to have limited capacity for work, even if they receive no ESA at all.
Through these changes we are sending out a clear message. To the most vulnerable, we will provide the support when it is needed for as long as it is needed.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
If the Minister has moved on from national insurance, perhaps he might just address this point of circumstances where somebody starts off in the WRAG and at the start of their claim meets the national insurance contributions, because they have been both credited in and paid sufficient in one of those years. That claim is terminated or ceases after 365 days and the person then moves into the support group. Would that be a new claim for the purposes of attachment to the national insurance contributions? If people had to look afresh at that point, they may well have been credited insufficiently, but they would not be able to pay in, because they would not have been in the labour market and would not have had earnings. They would therefore be disconnected from contributory ESA.
Baroness Lister of Burtersett
I shall ask the Minister another question, so that he can get his breath back. I very much welcome what he said about credits. This may reflect my ignorance of the mechanics of it, but could he explain how people get credited, if they cease to be part of the system and have no entitlement to anything?
Lord Freud
My Lords, clearly, the detailed mechanics of that is something that we will need to work out and set out in regulation. I am not absolutely convinced that we have it locked down—we might, but I simply do not know. But clearly we will make that clear.
I shall come on to the question asked by the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie. The run-ons in practice are rather complicated. I shall come on and deal with that in a little while.
For the most vulnerable, we will provide the support when it is needed for as long as needed. When people can work, they should be expected to; a lifetime on benefits is no longer an option.
Amendments 72 and 76 are technical amendments that seek to restore the original policy intent for Clauses 51 and 52. The current wording of those clauses meant that days in the assessment phase before the determination that the claimant should be placed in the support group must count towards the calculation of the 365-day limit. This would not of course affect a claimant who remains in the support group throughout their ESA award, but it would affect those claimants who moved to the work-related activity group from the support group, at which point they would be entitled only to the balance of the 365 days after deducting the day spent in the assessment phase. This was never our intention and I urge noble Lords to accept this amendment.
I shall now address Amendments 71M, 72A, 73, 74, 75 and 75A. Amendment 71M would increase the time limit for claimants receiving contributory ESA in the work-related activity group from 365 days to a prescribed minimum of 730 days. We disagree that two years is the right approach. The noble Lord, Lord McKenzie suggested that this was a modest change. It would, in fact, cost a total of £1.6 billion by 2016-17.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
It would be more helpful and reasonable if we had annual figures, not roll-up figures.
Lord Freud
I will be supplying annual figures later on. I wanted a single figure.
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town
I think that the noble Lord wanted a big figure.
Lord Freud
It is a single figure. We believe that our one-year time limit is not arbitrary; rather, it strikes the right balance between restricting access to contributory benefits and allowing those with longer-term illnesses to adjust to their health condition and surrounding circumstances. In recognition of that, it is double the length of time allowed for contributory JSA and is one of a number of difficult decisions that the Government have had to make in view of the current fiscal climate.
Given that I was asked about the single figure, perhaps I may take the opportunity to read out the per annum figures. Next year, the change would cost £270 million; in the following year, 2013-14, it would be £420 million; the figure would be the same the following year; in 2015-16, we think that the cost would be £360 million; and it would be £140 million in 2016-17.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
Do those interesting figures mean that by 2020 the figure could be expected to be below, say, £50 million?
Lord Freud
My Lords, I am not sure what the extrapolation would be. Those are the figures we have. If I have a longer run at it, I will make the figures available when, or if, I have them. I am sorry, but we do not have any figures stretching out beyond that point.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
The Minister accepts that point that it looks as though there is a reverse bell curve here. It would be interesting to know, perhaps at Report, some information as to how that would pan out.
Lord Freud
My Lords, one can clearly see the process here, as you move through the bulge, of stopping as you take on the transfer from IB to ESA. You can see that the effect of moving from one year to two years is a reduction as you go through that group—the bell curve, as the noble Baroness described it.
Baroness Morgan of Drefelin
I wish to be sure that I understand what the Minister has just said. He said that there are two reasons for choosing the 12-month period and that it is therefore not arbitrary. Therefore, the choice was made, first, due to the need to make financial savings and, secondly, because 12 months was sufficient time for people to adjust to their illness and make arrangements. Did I get that right?
Lord Freud
My Lords, no. I am making a different argument here. It is an argument about cost. However, I will come back to the “arbitrary” issue from the perspective of what happens elsewhere. Other countries do not have benefits which precisely mirror the design of the ESA, but a number of countries already impose time limits on eligibility for both sickness benefit, which covers temporary incapacity for work, and invalidity benefit covering long-term or permanent incapacity. For example, Austria, Belgium, France, Denmark, Ireland, Spain and Sweden all impose 52-week time limits on their citizens.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
I think that the noble Lord will also note from comparative research that their replacement earnings benefit, whether you call it JSA, IS or whatever, is a much higher proportion of earnings than is the case in the UK.
Lord Freud
My Lords, as noble Lords know, direct comparisons of systems are terribly difficult to make.
Lord Freud
Although we have what seems to be a rather modest level of primary benefit, whether it is JSA or ESA, we pile up a lot of other “elements”, we might call them, in terms of housing benefit to get substantial figures. Therefore, making a comparison internationally is not straightforward at all. I am not making a straightforward comparison of amounts; I am making a straightforward comparison of the timing issue. I am saying that the 52-week limit falls into line with much international practice in countries whose systems we generally admire. I am arguing that, to that extent, the accusation that this is arbitrary simply does not stand. We are conforming with norms which are followed very broadly internationally.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
That may well be right and I would not disagree with the noble Lord’s point about time and the comparison that he made there. However, the point is that that time limit, although it may or may not be regarded as arbitrary, is not threatening if the drop-down from that limit to the alternative income, which is income-related, is not particularly significant. That is the point that some of us were seeking to make.
Lord Freud
My Lords, in practice, other countries in northern Europe, as noble Lords will know, have a very much more contribution-based system, and the support for people who fall outside that system or are immigrants who never got into it is much lower than with our support systems, which are pretty good for people who are not in the economic system. Therefore, I am not sure that I accept that point at all.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
I am sorry to intervene again but this is Committee stage. The point there is precisely the aim behind this set of amendments. Most of the European countries that I have studied—and I have looked at the Bradshaw research and so on—have a much higher commitment to the contributory principle. Therefore, this covers people for much longer at a much higher level with a sense of entitlement. This issue goes back to the very powerful arguments put forward by my noble friend Lady Lister. With a strong commitment to a contributory principle, even if you have a relatively short time limit for sickness benefit, because of the resulting contributory benefits to remaining unemployed, the drop-downs are therefore not threatening. That is surely the point that some of us have been seeking to make.
Lord Freud
My Lords, I think that we could debate this issue for a long time. The point that I am simply trying to make is that the arbitrary nature which this time limit has been accused of looks much less arbitrary when it seems to be the time norm chosen by a whole range of countries. Other countries such as Canada, Germany, Poland and Australia also feel that it is right that there should be some limit to the state’s support for those who have an illness.
Lord McAvoy
I am grateful to the noble Lord, who has given way a lot, as we all recognise. However, I am sure he recognises that this is a very complicated and emotive subject. I do not have the mastery of detail that the Minister or my Front Bench team have. How can a 12-month period be applicable to someone who is suffering from cancer? It is an arbitrary decision.
Lord Freud
My Lords, I shall come to the point about cancer, which is clearly very important. The powerful speech of the noble Lord, Lord Patel, on his amendment had to do with that. I shall deal with it as a whole. I am trying to make one point at a time. The point I am making is that our proposals are not out of kilter with the arrangements in many other countries. We still provide unconditional support to those in the support group and income-related benefits for the poorest.
I shall just pick up the point of the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, on the expectations of contributors to national insurance. National insurance contributions are used to pay for a wide range of contingencies. These include working-age benefits, the state pension and the NHS. The overwhelming proportion of expenditure—some £60 billion a year—goes on the state pension. This is in contrast to around £6 billion on ESA and incapacity benefit and around £1 billion on jobseeker’s allowance. There have been numerous changes to national insurance and the benefits system over the years to take account of changes in society and demographic factors. For example, far more women now pay national insurance than when contributory benefits were first created. As I have said, we believe that the adjustments we are making are fair and reasonable.
Baroness Lister of Burtersett
Will the Minister acknowledge the point that has been made by several noble Lords? Some people will not see the pension that they have paid their contributions towards. Therefore, they feel particularly aggrieved that, having paid contributions all their life, the contributory ESA is being snatched away from them just like that.
Lord Freud
My Lords, let me come back to that. It is to do with the debate about who should be in the unlimited support category for an unlimited time and who should not be in it. As I just said, we support the poorest on an income basis and those who are the most ill in the support group indefinitely.
Amendment 71N introduces another regulation-making power to the Bill. It would enable the Government, or a future Government, to exempt certain groups from the 365-day limit for those in the WRAG. This point was also raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher. We believe that it is for the WCA to distinguish between those who are in the WRAG and those who should be placed in the support group and therefore be exempted from the time limit. As noble Lords will know, Professor Harrington has been working with Macmillan and other stakeholders to help us make sure that people are placed in the appropriate groups. Therefore, an amendment along the lines proposed by the noble Baroness is not necessary.
Amendment 71P introduces a new provision, which would mean that people whose contributory ESA exhausts after 365 days would be able to requalify for the support group if their condition deteriorates. However, this could mean benefits being reinstated 10 or more years after the claimant last worked, which is not reasonable. Moreover, we already have a series of safeguards in place that would protect people in this position. First, if the claimant leaves ESA before their contributory ESA exhausts, we have the linking rule, which enables the claimant to return to that contributory ESA within 12 weeks of leaving it.
Secondly, we already have within the ESA regulations an easement allowing a claimant to satisfy the first contribution condition for ESA if they have paid contributions in any tax year at a certain rate, and they had received a contributory ESA award in the last complete tax year before the current benefit year when they are claiming again. If it is decided that a person has limited capability for work-related activity, they will, of course, be placed in the support group. In addition, if someone qualifies for income-related ESA—as some 60 per cent of claimants will—eligibility for ESA can be reinstated automatically.
On the point raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, regarding protection for those who qualify under exceptional circumstances, time-limiting will apply in the same way as in all other cases. Those in the work-related activity group will be time-limited; those in the support group will be unaffected. Consideration of exceptional circumstances applies to those who do not have limited capability for work.
For those for whom work is simply not an option, we would expect them to be in the support group and not affected by time-limiting.
Baroness Morgan of Drefelin
Perhaps I may reassure the noble Lord that there are many people who would not be in the support groups specifically because of the way that a support group is designed. Some people with deteriorating conditions—perhaps motor neurone disease—can look forward to a time when they know that they will become increasingly ill, but on that day they are not in the support group. It is a difficult issue.
Lord Freud
I hear the point being made by the noble Baroness. What we are looking at in the WCA, in particular with regard to cancer patients, is to work our way through that position. We are expecting a report from Professor Harrington before Report stage. This is a very important point, also made by my noble friend Lord German, about how getting the right people into the support group, using the WCA mechanism, is such a key part of this system. I think that virtually everyone in this Committee Room would say that if the WCA test worked absolutely perfectly we would not have a problem. There are some concerns about getting that test absolutely right, and I hear those concerns; but that is the way to address these issues, and that is what we are planning to do.
Baroness Morgan of Drefelin
Perhaps I may make a small point before we move off this issue completely. I am also concerned about the definition of terminal. There is a question here. I cannot remember the correct terminology, and if the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, were here she would tell me instantly, but during the six-month deadline or prognosis period, things may perhaps be moving on. Perhaps for some people we need to think about that period being longer than six months.
Baroness Wilkins
Does the Minister also accept that any recommendations made by Professor Harrington will take some time to put into effect—until 2014 at least? In this amendment, we are talking about this measure coming into effect next April.
Lord Freud
My Lords, that is a little premature. It is literally too early to look at the timetable of introducing any recommendations, whatever they may be? However, there may be elements that can be brought in sooner rather than later. I do not think that there is an impossible timeline here.
There is a real issue about these particular people who are suffering from cancers and other similar illnesses. You might look at the kind of experience that they will have in practice, because it is easy to look at the one-year ESA in isolation.
In practice, many people will first go through six months of sickness pay, whether it is occupational or statutory sick pay. That is a 28-week period in which many people will undergo much of their treatment. Then there is a one-year period if one is on the WRAG. Many people will go for a period on the support when they are going through treatment. We are seeking to precisely define which types of treatment they can go through. So there is a period on support and then a period on the WRAG. So the idea that there is an arbitrary one year, spinning down the track, from people being ill, is not the reality. There are a lot of stages to go through in our system, which people go through at different times and in different ways. I do not think it is right to think of it in a rather simple way; our system is more complicated.
Lord Patel
Sorry to disturb the Minister’s train of thought. I am grateful for the comments he made earlier, and the sympathetic way in which he made them. He may look forward to Professor Harrington’s report. I hope the interpretation of that report will be the important aspect. I gave the example of patients who are on intravenous chemotherapy, who are regarded as different. Equally, for people who are on oral chemotherapy or radiation treatment, it is a very debilitating form of treatment that exhausts one’s body completely. If you ask any patients who are undergoing this treatment, they will tell you that it does.
The second comment that the Minister just made concerns the different amount of money that is available to different people. But it still applies within the 12-month period, unless I have misunderstood.
Lord Freud
No, let me make that clear. I will take the points one by one.
Professor Harrington is looking very closely at cancer treatments and is working very closely with Macmillan in particular, to which I must pay testimony; it has provided a lot of extraordinarily valuable background data that we have been grateful for and are using. So there is a process going on.
The point I was making about the timescales is that clearly there is a time when not absolutely all but the bulk of all cancer sufferers going through treatment will be on the support, which is unlimited. They will have gone through that process, then they start the WRAG process, which is time-limited, after that. So it is not “one year for your illness”, if you like; it is one year on these particular benefits.
The noble Lord made a most effective speech at Second Reading, which I remember vividly. I am sure everyone else does as well. He was making the point about how tough it is getting through the experience of cancer—and we are worrying about that in detail. But I also want to give reassurance on the example the noble Lord used, when you get to a year and you are still having a tough time. That is probably not likely to happen in practice very much because of the different phases.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
What the Minister is saying, which is a welcome elaboration of policy, is that new entrants into the system who have the sorts of conditions that the noble Lord, Lord Patel, and others described, may very well be reassured by the fact that they have up to two years or longer on non-means-tested benefits. Does that not therefore put into even sharper concern the situation of the retrospective nature for people already on those benefits raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher? Does it not suggest that by comparison the situation is that much the harsher?
Lord Freud
I will come back to that issue and argue strongly that there is no retrospection. I will make that argument in a coherent way. No, the people who will have been on support will be in a position where there will be no difference between the existing group and the new group. There will not be that difference. As the noble Lord, who has infinitely more experience than I have, said, with cancer there is a differential experience, and some people literally sail through the process—the really lucky ones. Maybe that is slightly over the top, but they get through the process in a reasonable time, pretty fast, while others find it very tough indeed. If we put everyone in the same category by definition a type of illness, we get back to the problems that we have with treating people who need help to work and everything else—we are excluding them from that. Of course, once you set a precedent in that area, it rolls on and on. That is why we are going about this using the WCA as the route to putting people in different categories.
I was also asked about support to work. Support to find work will be widely available for all ESA claimants from the outset of their claim, irrespective of their health condition. Following the work capability assessment for most ESA claimants placed in the work-related activity group, that support will be mandatory either through Jobcentre Plus or through the work programme once their prognosis is down to a particular number of months.
The vast majority of ESA claimants who want the more intensive support offered by the work programme will be able to access it as soon as the outcome of the WCA is known. That includes contributory ESA claimants who can remain on the programme after their benefit has come to an end—to meet the point raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Lister. That ensures that they receive all the support they need to help them to return to work. Clearly, that was a conscious decision in the design of the work programme because it is clearly not supported by any sort of delaying switch. This is a straight investment in helping those individuals back into work.
Baroness Lister of Burtersett
I thank the Minister. I am pleased to hear that. So that I am absolutely sure that I have understood, can he confirm that this would also apply to someone who does not qualify for income-related ESA? Is it simply enough that they have received contributory ESA in the past and that that is the ticket to the work programme for the future?
Lord Freud
The noble Baroness has got that absolutely right. It is both for people who are currently on income-related ESA and those who have been recipients of contributory ESA.
There will clearly be a financial cost to Amendment 71P, but I am afraid that in the short time available I have not been able to produce a robust costing.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
I thought the Minister said in his earlier remarks that, effectively, these things did not need the amendment because they were dealt with by way of easement. Therefore, presumably they are already factored into the cost and no additional cost would arise from this. Is that not what he said?
Lord Freud
No, that is not what I am saying. The noble Lord’s amendment raises the example of someone who has been in the WRAG for a year, falls off it and in five years’ time falls ill. The amendment would allow them to go onto the contributory support element of ESA as of right. That carries a cost for which I do not have the exact figure. We are working on it.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
I am sorry but I thought the noble Lord, in responding earlier, said that there were easements to address this so that you effectively reconnected people because of their national insurance contributions. That was the issue that was being raised. We are dealing here with people who, but for the 365-day time-limiting, would currently have a continual claim to ESA.
Lord Freud
My Lords, I am convinced that I did not say that this particular easement was built in. I was talking about national insurance contributions. Once they are through the time-limited period, individuals cannot then switch back into the support group on a contributory basis.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
Forgive me, but that means that people in the support group are disadvantaged by these provisions, contrary to the Government’s assertion.
Lord Freud
My Lords, people in the WRAG who have gone through their time-limited period do not then have a right to go into the support group on a contributory basis. Clearly, they have a right to go into it on an income-related basis, but not on a contributory basis.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
I am now completely baffled. I thought the argument was that if somebody had not exhausted their time on the contributory basis and had, for whatever reason, been able to get back into work, which then collapsed or folded, they would be able to get back into the support group using some of the contributions that were still available. The noble Lord ran against this the argument that this might be five years away and was therefore unrealistic in terms of connection. The point that I was going to press was that, in that case, the Minister was saying that one of the easements that we currently have is the 12-weeks’ linking rule. I was going to come back and suggest that in these circumstances it would be sensible to have something more like a 12-month linking rule so that there was a realistic time in which, if either the job or the person’s health folded again, they could come back and use up their unused period of contributory benefit.
Lord Freud
My Lords, clearly, they can use up time that they have not used. Therefore, if you are nine months down in the period of the contributory WRAG but go to work and come back, and are due to go into the support group, you can do so. However, if you have used up your contributory element of WRAG, there are, as I was trying to describe, some quite complicated effects. In practice, there may be up to a two-year period to do that. We have an easement, allowing a claimant to satisfy the first contribution condition for ESA if they have paid contributions in any tax year at a certain rate and have received a contributory ESA award in the last complete tax year, before the current benefit year in which they are claiming again.
It is quite a complicated situation. In practice, the easement for many people will work for about two years in those circumstances but no longer. It will not, as Amendment 71P is looking to do, make it unlimited. There may be different costs to having an easement of five or 10 years but we have not had a chance to look at the costs of this amendment. So I cannot accept that we make this amendment and urge that it is not pressed.
I am completely lost in my brief.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
Perhaps we should have a tea break. The votes were so demanding that we have not had time for one.
Lord Freud
Moving swiftly on—Amendments 72A and 73 exclude from time-limiting any days contributory ESA claimants in the WRAG have received ESA for before this clause comes into effect. We expect that around 100,000 people will have been in receipt of contributory ESA in the WRAG for more than 12 months by April 2012, plus an additional 100,000 who will reach 12 months’ duration in the WRAG during the rest of 2012-13.
On the issue raised by my noble friend Lady Thomas on retrospection, a benefit claimant has no right to receive ESA indefinitely if the conditions of entitlement change or their circumstances change and they no longer meet the conditions of entitlement. Through the amendments made by the Bill, we are changing the conditions of entitlement for the future so that entitlement will not end until Clauses 51 and 52 is commenced. This will not affect any entitlement that has already arisen. I assure noble Lords that we are not seeking to recover past ESA payments that claimants have received correctly, but merely defining their future entitlement to ESA on the basis of whether at the time the clause is commenced they have had ESA already and if so for how long, and whether they are in the WRAG. We took the decision to issue 115,000 notification letters to all claimants potentially affected by this change to ensure that they were given sufficient notice. This generated around 4,200 inquiries from claimants in response.
We wish to strike a balance between fairness of treatment for all those affected and complexity. We do not think that it is reasonable that people in the WRAG who have already received contributory ESA before Clause 51 comes into force should continue to do so for an additional year after the clause is commenced. This would be unfair to new claimants; we want as many people as possible to receive benefit for the same period of time. Given the very difficult financial position that we inherited from the previous Administration, this is another difficult decision that we have had to make to ensure that the economic well-being of our country is protected.
Baroness Meacher
Can I just raise a question? The Minister talks about the unfairness about those in the future and those in the past, but that issue exists anyway. People who started claiming 18 months or two years ago, or whatever, clearly had a different length of contributory ESA to those people who claimed any time from 1 April last year in the Government’s terms. What I was suggesting was that the conditions are changing as of 1 April next year, and it is retrospective to suggest that the conditions change from 12 months previously. That is what is retrospective. Of course, you will always have unfairnesses between the past and the future when you change laws. It is not logical to suggest that there is some sort of inequity between past and future and, therefore, there is no retrospection. I think that the Minister has to accept that there is retrospection here.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
My Lords, perhaps I may add to the Minister’s woes. He will no doubt be aware that previous Administrations faced this difficulty when we moved from IVB—invalidity benefit—to incapacity benefit. What happened was that people on invalidity benefit remained on that benefit and only new entrants went onto incapacity benefit. That is one path. I can quite see that allowing long-term claimants to have two or three different paths is technically complicated and administratively undesirable, but it is what is most supportive and decent to the individuals concerned. Their expectations are not suddenly changed part-way through their later years.
The second path that the noble Lord could adopt would be to say that from now on, at a certain date, this will be a common rule for all new and existing applicants. That would be the middle path. What would clearly be wrong would be to say that this will apply only to new applicants and that we will knock off existing claimants who have come up to the time barrier. I have never known that in social security before—ever.
Lord Freud
My Lords, the accepted convention on retrospection is that it applies from the announcement of a measure. When the price of petrol goes up in the Budget, it goes up that night or the next night and then the Finance Bill becomes an Act four or five months later. That is the convention—you go from the date of announcement. We announced this move from October 2010.
Baroness Meacher
Perhaps I may suggest that the Budget is a completely different kettle of fish, because you absolutely have to implement financial changes on the day of the announcement—otherwise all sorts of people will play games and use the delay to do all sorts of things. However, social security is completely different. You are talking about vulnerable people dependent on benefits, and that is why the convention in the social security field is totally different from the convention regarding the Budget.
Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope
Can I just make a point? As to the Minister’s explanation of when things start from, this announcement was made in 2010. If logic is to stay on his side, implementation should have started in 2010.
Lord Freud
Well, my Lords, what was written in the document that my noble friend Lady Thomas referred to was posited on the notice given in it, which allowed people to prepare for this change. The notice was given in—
Baroness Lister of Burtersett
Can the Minister explain what this preparation is supposed to be? How do you prepare for the loss of a benefit if you are unable to take paid work? Is it preparation for your partner to give up work? I am not sure what preparation people are supposed to be making.
Lord Freud
My Lords, one of the clear preparations is to understand whether you are now entitled instead to income-related ESA on the WRAG, or to take steps to get into a job, or whatever it is. There are a number of things, but preparation would cover all of them. However, the documents written in October 2010 were saying that this change was coming in April 2012, effectively giving 17 or 18 months’ notice that this change would apply. That is what was intended by the document.
We have taken steps to give people whose awards will end, either when the clause comes into force or shortly after, time to assess their circumstances and adjust to the change. We have written to all existing contributory ESA claimants who could be affected to make them aware of this change. It is important to remember that claimants in the support group and those claiming income-related ESA will not be affected. The noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, raised the issue of the impact on the lowest deciles. The analysis in the impact assessment shows that although many people affected are in the lowest deciles, they will tend to be fully or partially compensated by income-related ESA and those who will not be eligible for income-related benefits are typically in the middle or higher deciles.
The government amendments I have already outlined ensure that days in the assessment phase for a claimant subsequently placed in the support group are excluded from the 365-day total. Amendment 74 would go further than this; it would mean the 365-day limit for all contributory ESA claimants, including those placed in the WRAG, begins only from day 92 of the claim. This would therefore give an extra 13 weeks of contributory ESA to WRAG members, increasing their overall award to 15 months. Another effect of the amendment would be that, if claimants have repeated short-term claims and as a result they are not medically assessed via the WCA, these claims might never individually go beyond the 13-week assessment phase. If so, the 365-day time limit might never apply to their contributory ESA award. This amendment could therefore create a perverse incentive for claimants to terminate the award before the end of the assessment phase; they may also try to delay attending the WCA. We do not believe that such behaviour should be encouraged.
Amendment 75 would allow claimants receiving contributory ESA who move in and out of the support group, to start a fresh 365-day period each time they move from the support group back to the WRAG. For those claimants moving between the two groups regularly, it is likely to mean they would be able to remain on contributory ESA indefinitely. This amendment would lead to inconsistent periods on benefit for claimants. For some, time spent in the WRAG would count towards the 365-day limit while for others it would not. This is unfair. We believe that everyone should be treated the same, irrespective of when they are placed in the WRAG. I understand the noble Lords’ concern about fluctuating conditions, which may have prompted this amendment. We recognise the importance of the role the WCA plays for people with fluctuating medical conditions, as I have discussed.
To pick up one more point on the cancer issue, I want to make it absolutely clear that the present position is that anyone who is diagnosed as terminally ill and who is expected to die within six months will automatically be placed on the support group.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
I am sorry, but could someone be diagnosed as terminally ill as a result of the biopsy and be given a life expectancy of 11 to 12 months, which may be accurate almost to the week, yet not be deemed under this condition to be terminally ill?
Lord Freud
That is correct. That is the current position but the reality is that the treatment provision is likely to catch most of those people.
Lord Patel
Earlier the question was asked if we could have a definition of “terminally ill”. I do not think there is one. This definition that you will die within six months applies where the allowance is available. But as I tried to point out in my presentation, you might be terminally ill and not die within six months. Although you might be pretty sick and even near to death, you would not qualify for the allowance.
Lord Freud
My Lords, I know that this is a very emotive matter and I have said that we are looking very closely at the recommendations from Professor Harrington. I have picked up the concerns on this matter, and I think that that is as far as I can go today.
Amendment 75A would introduce an additional income disregard for partners when calculating an award of income-related ESA. Based on the current annual personal allowance for income tax of £7,475, this disregard would amount to a gross weekly amount of £143.75. Currently, when calculating an award of income-related ESA, we provide disregards on partner’s earnings of £20 per week and a disregard of between £10 and £20 for other specified income. This contrasts with universal credit, where a disabled person would have a minimum earnings disregard of £40 per week.
The practical effect of this amendment would be that the DWP would be forced to amend existing DWP regulations to remove existing disregards and make new regulations to disregard a minimum of what, under current tax allowances, would be £143.75 per week of a claimant’s partner’s gross income when calculating entitlement to income-related ESA. If we did not amend the existing disregards, the excess would then be subject to an additional £10 to £20 disregard where appropriate. In total, this would potentially increase expenditure on the ESA by up to £500 million per year.
We do not think that this approach would be reasonable. Introducing a significant new disregard for ESA claimants would be unfair to others receiving other income-related benefits, such as claimants whose partners claim income-based jobseeker’s allowance, where the earnings disregard is currently set at £10 per week, and ESA claimants who have no partner.
At this point, perhaps I may introduce the question of what happens to payments of contributory benefits—
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
Returning to the previous point on Amendment 75A, will the Minister confirm, for clarity, that the figure of £500 million per year was related to the cost of this amendment only, not to changing other disregards? I was not clear about that from what he said.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
Therefore, having this exclusion for this group would cost £500 million a year with no knock-on consequences for other disregards for people on JSA or whichever benefit the Minister cited. I just wish to be clear on this.
Lord Freud
We have done a relatively simple sum on this and this is the change. We have not rebuilt the whole system to make it consistent.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
Is it therefore also net of the actual disregard that people will get, which will be £20 plus possibly some other amount?
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
In that case, before the Minister goes on to a different point, why does he think that the situation of someone whose partner is on JSA, but with no history of disability or whatever in the family, is identical to the situation of a partner who is managing to care for a person for possibly 20 hours a week or more—that is why they are on those benefits anyway—and is, on top of that, hanging on by her fingertips in the world of work? Incidentally, we have now established that this will, first, not make it pay for her and, secondly, will almost certainly encourage her to leave the labour market. Why does the Minister think that there is any equitable comparison whatsoever between that and JSA? I am all in favour of establishing simple parameters so that people know where they stand, but I should have thought that the noble Lord would accept that someone who is disabled and has a partner, or possibly a wife, caring for them for 20 hours a week and in a part-time job is none the less in a very different situation from a young couple in their 20s who are on combined JSA.
Lord Freud
My Lords, at that kind of annual cost this really is an expensive amendment. Whereas one can clearly look at elements and disregards in the system later when there is some money—I have made this point before—this is a lot of money.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
Can the Minister then tell us what the total saving on the ESA is going to be overall so that we can see what percentage this represents?
Lord Freud
Yes. I am speaking slightly from memory but the running rate is about £1.7 billion a year. I am sorry—I have tripped myself up on that.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
It cannot possibly be. You cannot have £500 million a year and £1.7 billion in total. That does not work, but I would be happy for the noble Lord to refer to it later.
Lord Freud
I will refer to it in a minute. Let me gather my forces. I come to the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, on ESA contribution and universal credit. We are looking to simplify the payment arrangements for cases where there is entitlement to both universal credit and contributory benefits. Customer insight research suggested that claimants would prefer a single payment of universal credit rather than two separate payments, but no final decisions have been made. The key point is that contributory ESA and JSA will continue as individual entitlements. In other words, as now, they will not be affected in any way by the circumstances of the partner.
Baroness Lister of Burtersett
I thank the Minister for his answer, for I realise it is slightly off the main amendments, but I am glad that no final decision has been made. I do not know the nature of the customer insight research but on qualitative research with individuals in couples I know, having done that kind of research myself, that you need to talk to individuals separately within couples for them to be able to talk freely to a researcher. For many women, it is important to have control over a certain amount of income. As the noble Lord said, it is not simply an administrative matter. There is a matter of principle here about having paid into the system as an individual and being able to draw out from the system as an individual, rather than having that benefit paid to your partner. I just hope that the Minister will take that point away and think about it seriously before a final decision is made.
Lord Freud
My Lords, we have had this discussion before. I come back to the point that one of the most interesting opportunities in the universal credit is the budgeting support. When I talk about budgeting support there is an element there of how you run your household finances, which we are just beginning to explore. There is huge potential in that and I am just beginning to think about what that could imply and what it means, so we will come back to this in the months to come because it has enormous promise in the areas that the noble Baroness is worried about.
Let me go through the AME savings, which were raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis. Running each year from 2012, they are: £420 million; £780 million; £1,090 million; £1,330 million; and £1,380 million. The £500 million—
Lord Freud
They are the AME savings from Clause 51. The £500 million cost that we are talking about of this amendment is calculated on the basis of applying the disregard to all ESA claimants, not just those affected by time-limiting. We would have to apply it to everyone.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
Is the Minister saying that the £500 million cost of Amendment 75A exceeds the total amount of savings on all these changes in 2012?
Lord Freud
Yes. This is the ESA income-related claimants. I think that has a £500 million average cost per year spread over that period, but it is a per year cost. No, I am sorry; it is a steady-state £500 million, so it should be looked at against the £1.3 billion or £1.4 billion figures as a proportion.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
These figures seem deeply implausible to me, but we will work on them. Thank you.
Lord Freud
Additionally, the amendment would likely weaken the financial incentive for a benefit claimant’s partner to take up full-time work. It would increase the number of people who qualify for income- related ESA and therefore give them automatic entitlement to housing benefit and/or council tax benefit at a cost of approximately £50 million per year.
In addition, if Amendment 75A were accepted and we did not mirror that larger disregard in the housing benefit and council tax regulations, it would mean disparate treatment between those claimants passported automatically on to housing benefit or council tax benefit because they are entitled to income-related ESA, and those who claim housing benefit or council tax benefit on low-income grounds. That would be unfair. We estimate that it would cost approximately £50 million per year to mirror this amendment in the housing benefit regulations. That is in addition to the £50 million previously mentioned.
If the amendments tabled by noble Lords were accepted, either singularly or collectively, it would significantly reduce the expected benefit savings of these measures. If Clause 51 did not stand part of the Bill, the entire savings projected by this measure would be lost. That amounts to around £5 billion in total by 2016-17, and we went through the individual years.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
I am sorry; the Minister said £5 billion went through the individual years. My figures add up to £3.5 billion.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
That is £420 million, £780 million, £1,090 million and £1,380 million.
Lord Freud
You missed out £1,330 million. I have £420 million, £780 million, £1,090 million, £1,330 million and £1,380 million. That is nearly £5 billion.
Accepting Amendment 71M would reduce the total savings by around a third by 2016-17, which is £1.6 billion. Accepting Amendments 72A or 73 would reduce savings by around £420 million, which represents the entire savings forecast projected for 2012-13. Amendment 74 would reduce savings by around £430 million in total by 2016-17.
Baroness Lister of Burtersett
I apologise if I missed this because I know that the Minister has had an awful lot of ground to cover on so many different amendments, but did he explain why the assessment period is being included? The way that the policy has been put across is that if you are in the WRAG, you will get contributory ESA for only a year. But actually that is a year minus 13 weeks because you get a lower rate of benefit for that. Apart from cost, and by 2016-17 only a third minus 3 per cent of the savings would be forgone—I realise it is more up front, but it diminishes—what is the principal reason for including the assessment period?
Lord Freud
The reason is that we never intended to take it out in the first place. If someone is waiting to go into the support group it is not appropriate to have them assessed as if they are in the WRAG group.
Baroness Lister of Burtersett
But this is someone who is going into the WRAG group, so they are getting only a year's contributory benefit. It will be a year minus the assessment period. What is the point in principle for cutting short what many people are already calling an arbitrary time limit on their entitlement?
Lord Freud
It is interesting that noble Lords are looking at the assessment phase as a different benefit, which it is not. It is the same benefit. It is just a phase. You go on the ESA assessment phase and then it discovers what type of support you are on—the support group or the WRAG group. That is what the assessment phase is doing.
Baroness Lister of Burtersett
Forgive me if I am wrong and I expose the frailness of my knowledge of social security, but I thought that claimants got a lower rate during the assessment phase. Therefore it may be called the same benefit but, in terms of the money people get, it is less. That period is not being included. That is why I am saying that it is a year minus 13 weeks. Yes, they are getting a benefit but at a lower rate.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
I can support my noble friend: as I understand it, people get the basic JSA rate in the assessment period.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
You might as well be on JSA and be done with it.
Lord Freud
The assessment phase would last beyond 13 weeks. It can sometimes be a long period, but claimants are always paid the full rate from week 14 of their claim.
Baroness Lister of Burtersett
Is the noble Lord saying that you can get backdated money for the assessment period?
Lord McKenzie of Luton
Surely that is not right. Is it backdated to the end of the assessment period?
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
Is the Minister saying that after 13 weeks you get paid a higher rate even if you have not been assessed because the assessment is taking longer than your 13 weeks? It might take 20 weeks or 25 weeks. Is that what he is saying; that it is okay for part of the period to get the higher rates but the lower rate period counts in the run-up to that? Is that what he is saying?
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
Forgive me, but that seems to be a very confused position.
Lord Freud
Whether it is confused or not, the position is that, when you are claiming the ESA rate, the first 13 weeks you are in the assessment phase you are on the lower rate. Then you go on to the standard WRAG rate from week 14.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
My noble friend’s point is entirely valid. You are nominally, on paper, entitled to 12 months of the WRAG money, but in practice it is actually 12 months minus 13 weeks—three months—because for that period you are on a benefit that for all purposes might just as well be JSA, because it is at a lower rate and therefore should not realistically count.
Baroness Lister of Burtersett
What is the principal reason for that? How does the Minister justify it?
Lord Freud
I have to admit that I am not particularly happy about the assessment phase of ESA and how it is working. It is becoming a separate benefit in practice. I would like to look at it. It is difficult to have a set of principles around something that one is somewhat unhappy about.
I shall go on with the costs. Amendment 74 would reduce savings by around £430 million in total by 2016-17. Amendment 75A would increase expenditure on ESA by approximately £500 million per year, plus up to £50 million more on other income-related benefits. I cannot accept that we should make these amendments. They would place a very high financial cost on us in the current fiscal climate. I believe our proposed changes are right in principle and fair to the taxpayer. I urge noble Lords not to press these amendments.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
My Lords, I thank the Minister for his very extensive reply dealing with a whole host of interruptions. That must certainly be a record for this Committee.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
I wonder if my noble friend will allow me to ask him a question? Does he not agree that this shows the undesirability of having one vast grouping all day, which means that we are constantly interrupting the Minister because he is about to move on to something else and we cannot have a discussion on different topics? It would have been perfectly simple to have turned it into something like four groups on the different issues. We could have had a coherent discussion on each of those and then gone on to a wider discussion at the end. This way, we have been to-ing and fro-ing trying to get information. No wonder the Minister has sometimes had to shuffle his papers. It is because of the way that this has been grouped. It is madness.
Lord McAvoy
I am not as sympathetic as the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, on this because we co-operated in getting the groupings and the Minister knew the groupings that were coming. That sounds uncharitable, but there is no doubt that he has made absolutely every effort. That it has taken so long to answer questions demonstrates the complexity of the whole group of amendments.
Lord Freud
I feel drawn to say, in response to the noble Baroness, that I was very happy with how the amendments were grouped, because it allowed me to deal with a complicated set of issues in their entirety. When amendments are degrouped you very often find that you are arguing one thing at one time and then miss a key part of your argument and have to repeat it. So I would plead with the noble Baroness to accept that at least I was very happy with how it was done and that we got through a very difficult set of issues—I know how difficult they are—in reasonable order.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (The Countess of Mar)
My Lords, if I could offer some guidance, the groupings are informal and noble Lords are perfectly at liberty to decouple amendments if they are not happy.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
The noble Baroness the Deputy Chairman of Committees is absolutely right, but you do have to lead on the amendment group to have that right.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
To satisfy both my noble friends, there is a balance to be struck between making decent progress on the Bill and having coherent discussions. I hope that we have achieved both, or will achieve both, today.
I come back to the Minister’s response, but will comment on what other noble Lords have said. The overall tenor of our very powerful debate this afternoon is clearly to the effect that people are extremely unhappy with these provisions. Comments have ranged from suggesting that we should not have them at all, with Clause 51 not standing part, to a series of detailed amendments. Noble Lords have made a range of extremely pertinent points. The noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, talked about job prospects and asked where the fairness was in this. My noble friend Lady Lister talked about the value of the contributory principle and making sure that it does not get lost, as well as the quality impact assessment and the challenges of denying people an independent source of income.
The noble Baroness, Lady Thomas, talked about the changing of the rules. We do not have an answer yet as to why the Government changed their mind on that, and the Minister may wish to respond further in due course. The noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, raised a range of concerns focused on how the WCA works, and how people access the support group, particularly those who are terminally ill. The noble Lord, Lord Wigley, was one of those noble Lords concerned about whether Clause 51 should exist at all, while the noble Lord, Lord German, talked about the WCA getting it right. I absolutely agree, and we have common cause on that, but we should get it right irrespective of these provisions as it serves a purpose around conditionality and support that should be available to people.
As for what is arbitrary and what is not, I warm to the Minister’s definition—it is what others do, so it is not arbitrary. On that basis, we might almost apply to join the euro, but I do not think that the Minister would suggest that.
Our amendment fundamentally looked at these things being dealt with by way of orders, so you could build an evidence base as to what was appropriate. Yes, we had a two-year minimum, which one would accept was not based on the most robust of evidence. My noble friend Lady Hollis warmed to the thrust of the amendment, as it was one way to ameliorate some of the impacts of the provisions, although it does not deal with them entirely. For example, it does not deal with the independent source of income, which my noble friend Lady Lister was concerned about.
My noble friend Lady Gibson was also concerned about the very existence of Clause 51, and there were some very moving examples from my noble friend Lady Hayter. The noble Lord, Lord Patel, led the charge on the challenge that the assessment period should not be included, that Clause 51 should not be there at all and that there should not be a start to this before the legislation comes into force. There was an interesting reference to Lib Dem conference resolutions, which we might keep in our sights.
However, we should thank the Minister for a very full series of exchanges on a lot of detailed points. Fundamentally, this comes back to costs, which he always quotes at us. I agree that we shall have to study Hansard and get into the figures. He could not resist the jibe about the deficit, although I wish he had because I could have resisted pointing out that we have had an international financial crisis that has affected all major economies.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
Driven by bankers—thankfully not accountants. With great respect, I normally find the Minister convincing but he was not convincing on the assessment period, and at the end of the day acknowledged that he had concerns about that. As to the definition of whether the proposal is backdated or not, starting this process up to 12 months before the legislation comes into effect is a very unusual way to proceed.
Part of the reason why we are going down this path is that the Minister said right at the start of his response that we should expect people to avail themselves of the help and support available. He also said that a lifetime on benefits is no longer an option. I would not disagree one iota with that, but no one is arguing for a lifetime on benefits—certainly not for those who can move closer to the labour market and into work. That is not a matter between us, but the noble Lord did not deal with the point about the WCA, around which there is a lot of discussion. We all want it to work as it should do, but is there not, when people are allocated to the WRAG or the support group—certainly the WRAG—a prognosis that goes with them that says how long they are likely to be in that group and, therefore, when they are likely to be fit to join what is currently the JSA group? That is the hope and that is how it works. The Minister has said that in the past and told us that that prognosis is tested before someone is moved off benefit. We therefore have a process by which an individual judgment is made about how long people will be assumed to be in the WRAG, and then ultimately, when that time is up, whether they should remain in the WRAG, go into the support group or join JSA. We have an individualised process, do we not? Why can that not be used?
This is where we fundamentally differ from the Government: if the object is to ensure that people can stay in the WRAG for as long as they need to and have the benefit of the contributory ESA system for as long as is necessary, is that not a fair way of proceeding? On the other hand—I think that this is probably the Government’s position because we need to save money—is the Minister saying, “We do not care how long you need to stay in the WRAG; after a period your contributory benefit will be chopped”? It seems that the position is not related in the Government’s mind to how long people should need support in the WRAG.
Lord Freud
If the noble Lord would like me to, I can give him a little information on that. The latest data show that among all those assessed to be in the work-related activity group at their initial WCA, 91 per cent have a prognosis of 12 months or less. However, it is placing an awful lot of weight on such a prognosis to build a system around it. I would personally feel pretty uncomfortable about it. However, the data make the point about the expectation that the curve is rather similar to what you would expect regarding the potential for people to come off—certainly, the WRAG element—on that prognosis.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
Is it not the case that the same prognosis is used for remuneration of providers in the work programme because that determines which remuneration slot they are in?
Lord Freud
The standard position on the work programme is that people whose prognosis goes into the three-month phase then go into work programme, which provides a heavy incentive at that stage to help those people back into the workplace.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
Perhaps I might move on. The noble Lord has stacked up the costs of these various amendments. However, the Government have not reflected on who is bearing those costs. That is a point made by several noble Lords during the debate. It is not just spread equally across the population or pro rata to resources across the population. It is concentrated on a range of people who are in the work-related activity group, who we want to move closer to the labour market but who are currently neither in work nor, according to the analysis, fit for work. That is the fundamental issue that we are trying to get to grips with. I am sure that the amendments that we have discussed in Grand Committee today will all be withdrawn but I have no doubt that we will revisit them in one form or another when we get to Report.
I thought that the noble Lord had reassured me on the decoupling of people in the support group when he first spoke. When we followed that up, I was much less reassured. The claim that this does not affect people in the support group could be difficult to sustain in circumstances where they get disconnected by the national insurance rules. I urge the Minister at least to reflect on that to see whether there should be some change in or expansion of the linking rules. We are dealing here with a situation where, currently, there would be a continual claim whether someone was in the WRAG or the support group. We seek only to establish that if that link in the WRAG is broken because of the 365-day rule, when people end up in the support group they are not disconnected from those earlier national insurance contribution conditions, particularly the first one. We will certainly want to come back to that in detail.
We will not have a meeting of minds on this today but I am sure the Minister will reflect, as he always does, on the data, facts and arguments that have been put to him. It seems very clear today that, overwhelmingly, those arguments have been against what the Government are proposing. Having said that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Freud
“(3) In calculating for the purposes of subsection (1) the length of the period for which a person is entitled to a contributory allowance, the following are not to be counted—
(a) days in which the person is a member of the support group, (b) days not falling within paragraph (a) in respect of which the person is entitled to the support component referred to in section 2(1)(b), and(c) days in the assessment phase, where the days immediately following that phase fall within paragraph (a) or (b).(4) In calculating for the purposes of subsection (1) the length of the period for which a person is entitled to a contributory allowance, days occurring before the coming into force of this section are to be counted (as well as those occurring afterwards).”
Lord Freud
“(5) In calculating for the purposes of subsection (4) the length of the period for which a person is entitled to an employment and support allowance, the following are not to be counted—
(a) days in which the person is a member of the support group (within the meaning of Part 1 of the Welfare Reform Act 2007), (b) days not falling within paragraph (a) in respect of which the person is entitled to the support component referred to in section 2(1)(b) of the Welfare Reform Act 2007, and(c) days in the assessment phase (within the meaning of Part 1 of the Welfare Reform Act 2007), where the days immediately following that phase fall within paragraph (a) or (b).(6) In calculating for the purposes of subsection (4) the length of the period for which a person is entitled to an employment and support allowance, days occurring before the coming into force of this section are to be counted (as well as those occurring afterwards).”
“Condition relating to youth
For paragraph 4 of Schedule 1 to the Welfare Reform Act 2007 (condition relating to youth) substitute—“4 The third condition is that—
(a) the claimant has limited capability for work-related activity;(b) he was under 20 when the relevant period of limited capability for work began; and(c) he has had limited capability for work for at least 28 weeks.””
Baroness Lister of Burtersett
I rise to speak relatively briefly, the Committee will be relieved to hear, to move the amendment and to support the noble Lord, Lord Patel, in opposing the Question that Clause 52 stand part of the Bill.
Currently, people who are disabled from birth or early in life may claim ESA in youth from age 16. This has, in different guises, been a feature of the social security system since 1975. When it was incorporated into ESA in the Welfare Reform Act 2007, I understand that the then Opposition did not question the inclusion of young people. Indeed, during the Lords Committee stage, the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, from the Front Bench, asked my noble friend Lord McKenzie of Luton why young people should receive a lower rate of ESA during the initial assessment phase. The implication was that the Conservatives not only supported the inclusion of young people, but thought they should be included on more generous terms. Similarly, Liberal Democrat spokespersons in both Houses, one of whom was Danny Alexander—now in the Treasury—were at that time pushing for more generous treatment of young people.
It thus seems rather strange that in the other place, the Minister commented that,
“It seems to be an oddity that a young person with a disability or a health challenge, regardless of their circumstances, should automatically be able to migrate to contributory ESA even if they have never worked”.
As the Minister acknowledged:
“This may not have been debated hotly in the past”.—[Official Report, Commons, Welfare Reform Bill Committee, 3/5/2011; col. 654.]
I would suggest that this is because it has been accepted for nearly 40 years that it is fair and proper to include disabled young people in the contributory system.
The availability of contributory ESA provides those who become severely disabled in youth with a sustainable income to support their transition to independent adulthood in particularly difficult circumstances. It has long been accepted that the normal contribution conditions should not apply in order not to exclude a group whose members have not had the opportunity to build up a contribution record and may well not have that opportunity in the future through no fault of their own. For those who are hung up on the “something for something” principle, I think we can agree that it can be suspended in these circumstances. Instead, the removal of this long-standing right will undermine the goal shared by all of us of supporting disabled people to live independent lives.
In fact, the justification that we have received for ending the long-standing consensus on this matter is nothing to do with principles or even costs, unlike Clause 51. It is primarily, I understand, about administrative simplicity. It is stated that abolition of the youth concession is a simplification and will create consistency in the run-up to the introduction of universal credit. I am not sure that any policy that increases reliance on means-tested benefits, which the impact statement acknowledges will be the case, adds to the sum of simplicity in the benefits system. I do not think that tidy alignment for administrative purposes is a good enough reason to withdraw a long-standing right, not least because alignment of the rules with those for contributory ESA would be another option open to the Government.
A rather more persuasive argument on first sight is that those receiving contributory ESA are not automatically entitled to passported benefits, to which they would be entitled were they receiving income-related ESA. However, this is true of those receiving contributory ESA generally, not just young people. Therefore, it is a problem that should be resolved for all this group as part of the current review of passported benefits. Can the Minister assure us that those who would have qualified for income-related ESA under the present system will continue to receive passported benefits under the new regime? If he cannot give us this assurance now—and I understand about SSAC looking at all this—then this justification is rather weakened.
The availability of contributory ESA is of particular importance to certain groups of disabled young people. I am grateful to the Child Poverty Action Group for providing me with a number of case studies that illustrate the kind of people particularly affected.
First, there are young disabled people who have been temporarily in and out of local authority care or have moved areas, as it provides a secure, independent income. I know that there are a number of noble Lords here who have particular concerns about this group of young people generally. I do not think that the names I shall use are real but they are real examples. Sanjeet, who is in foster care, is at school and planning to go to college. He is aged 18, severely disabled and lives with foster carers. He was advised to claim ESA in youth to give him some of the extra income and independence that he needs. We should note that a severely disabled young person such as Sanjeet may have limited earnings capacity during his life and may not have parents who can provide financial support. If he has to rely on a means-tested benefit, he will never be able to build up savings beyond the £16,000 limit to help him with equipment, housing and so on for independent living.
Another example is Anna, who lives with a kinship carer. She is 16 and has been living with her grandmother since her mother died. Anna has severe problems with depression and post-traumatic stress. She is not working or in education. Her grandmother is struggling to support her out of her pension. Anna was advised to claim ESA in youth to provide her with her own independent income.
Another group is young disabled people who have built up savings to be used for an adapted car, disability equipment, a deposit on a property or future care needs. In the absence of non-means-tested support, using savings for basic daily living costs will have long-term implications for the welfare state when these people’s carers—usually elderly parents—are no longer able to provide care and accommodation.
An example of this group is Jackie, who is 19 and in full-time education. She has Down’s syndrome and gets the DLA highest-rate care component and lower-rate mobility component. When her parents stop claiming benefit for her, she can claim ESA in youth as her own independent income. Jackie’s parents think that their daughter will never work and she will not have an inheritance from them, so having a contributory benefit of her own means that she will have the option of saving from her DLA towards the cost of future disability-related needs. If her parents were able to leave her some money, she would be able to keep it to fall back on if she had contributory ESA in youth but not if she had to rely on income-related ESA with the capital limit.
Another group is young disabled people who may be vulnerable to forming unsuitable relationships or may avoid forming a suitable relationship due to fears about losing an independent income. The case study is Caitlin, who has learning difficulties and is aged 20. She gets DLA and is attending a life skills course at college. To move towards independence, she is advised to claim ESA in youth, topped up by income-related ESA. Caitlin is currently living at home with her parents. Having a contributory benefit of her own means that she could in the future choose to form a relationship without fear of losing her independent income.
Moving on to young disabled people in education, the example is Nadia, who has cystic fibrosis. She is at university and gets ESA in youth. She has tried to work but has been unsuccessful because of the effect on her health. Unlike other students, she cannot support herself through university by working during the year or in the vacations. Her ESA in youth helps to make up for this. Because it is contributory, it is not reduced because of her student loan. Had she needed to claim income-related ESA instead, she would have been entitled to little or nothing during the year because of the means test.
The CPAG is also concerned about young disabled people trying out work. It says that the removal of contributory ESA in youth would bring young disabled people into the universal credit system. The current permitted work rules for ESA provide a useful opportunity for young disabled people to try work without having an effect on their benefits, in some cases for an indefinite period. There are concerns that the transfer to the universal credit system will increase complexity and reduce the incentive to work for people whose main objective is stability and security of income. The impact assessment says that there may be a “positive employment impact” from this change, but it does not explain how and why, so perhaps the Minister could do so.
The impact assessment also says that about 15,000 people a year are likely to be affected. A fifth of these, who have no other income, will receive the same amount of benefit in income-related ESA. It is estimated that a further 70 per cent will qualify for income-related ESA, either at the same rate or at a lower rate, with an estimated average loss of £25 a week. That is not an insubstantial amount, even if it does open up eligibility to passported benefits.
Finally, one in 10, or 1,500 a year, will lose all entitlement to benefit, probably because they have a partner in full-time work. This is a small group. I hesitate to use the word vulnerable because the noble Baroness, Lady Campbell of Surbiton, has reminded us that disabled people are not intrinsically vulnerable but made vulnerable by disabling institutions and circumstances. This clause will increase the vulnerability faced by a small group of young disabled people, particularly those in the kind of difficult circumstances I have mentioned. The savings are miniscule: an estimated £11 million net per year.
Who was consulted on the likely impact of what I am afraid I see as a mean-minded little measure? I find it difficult to believe that the Minister is comfortable justifying it. I hope that he will therefore be able to give us some indication that he is prepared to reconsider and, at the very least, that he will look favourably on this amendment, which would at least retain contributory ESA for young people in the support group. This would be consistent with the exemption of this group from the one-year time limit. I beg to move.
Lord Patel
My Lords, I support the amendment moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, but I would also remove Clause 52 from standing part of the Bill. Many charities including CLIC Sargent, a charity which supports children with cancer, and other disability charities are also against this clause. The charities, such as that leading charity for young people with cancer, have serious concerns because of the negative impact that proposals in the Bill will have on young cancer patients and other disabled young people. I believe the Government must undertake a proper assessment of the financial support available to those young people with long-term health conditions and/or disabilities before making these changes, as well as considering the cumulative impact of their programme of welfare reform on this age group.
I emphasise that my proposals do not seek to secure higher rates of benefit for those aged 16-24 but simply to ensure a more level playing field in relation to access to benefits and financial support. For example, I believe it is wrong that students with a long-term illness must already be in receipt of DLA to be eligible for income-related ESA. These proposals are supported by other charities too, particularly young disabled peoples’ charities.
As far as cancer is concerned, every day 10 families are told that their child has cancer. A study in 2007 found that 83 per cent of families incur significant extra costs associated with their child’s cancer treatment, with 68 per cent of families experiencing worrying financial difficulties. New research, published last December, found that on average young people with cancer spent £277 each month over and above their normal expenses, as a result of their illness. Half of those young cancer patients surveyed had to borrow money as a result of their illness. More than one in five had borrowed over £1,000, with almost one in 10 borrowing over £2,000. The top two expenses were travel and clothing.
My proposal would retain the youth provisions for contributions-based employment and support allowance and would ensure that young people with long-term health conditions and/or disabilities are not disadvantaged under the proposed new arrangements for ESA. The reason for these proposals is clear; under the youth provision, a person under the age of 20 who is not in full-time education and who has had a “limited capability for work” for 196 consecutive days can gain entitlement to contributory ESA despite not having reached the contributions threshold. ESA youth claimants are disabled people who are aged 16-19 inclusive or who satisfy the age exception rule, which revolves around rules for education or training, if aged between 20 and 25; they have at least 28 weeks of continuous medical evidence to support a claim for ESA; they are not in full-time education; they have been resident and present in Great Britain for 26 out of 52 weeks prior to the claim; and they do not meet the normal national insurance contribution requirements.
The youth rules were introduced for incapacity benefit in April 2001 as a result of provisions in the Welfare Reform and Pensions Act 1999, which were intended to,
“refocus benefit on people disabled early in life who have never had the opportunity to work and gain entitlement to incapacity benefits through the payment of contributions”.—[Official Report, Commons, 6/11/00; col. 96W.]
The rules were carried over into ESA following the Welfare Reform Act 2007, again to ensure that young people who might not have had the opportunity to build up a sufficient contribution record would not be excluded from the non-means-tested allowance.
The Government intend to abolish the youth condition as part of the Welfare Reform Bill, as well as time-limiting its receipt to 12 months for existing claimants. The justification for this change, as set out in the impact assessment, is that it will simplify the benefits system and ensure consistency of treatment for those claiming ESA. This assessment completely fails to recognise that young people with long-term health conditions and/or disabilities are already in a place of disadvantage in comparison with older adults, hence the introduction of the youth condition in the first place, and that this change will entrench this disadvantage. This will mean that young people, including those unable to work because of cancer, for instance, will be extremely unlikely to be able to access the contributory element of ESA and will have recourse only to the means-tested income-related element to be subsumed into universal credit. Young people who are ineligible for the income-related component, which will include those with a partner who works more than 24 hours a week and some full-time students, could therefore lose up to just under £100 a week. This will have a devastating impact on those who are unable to work and are struggling with the significant additional costs of a cancer diagnosis.
The eligibility of young people for benefits is extremely dependent on their circumstances, particularly in relation to their education status. There are serious concerns, for example, about how students are treated under the system. Full-time students are able to claim income-related ESA only if they are already in receipt of DLA. I can give noble Lords a case study. This is another example of how the eligibility rules currently disadvantage young people. I am also concerned about the knock-on effect of many young cancer patients who are students becoming ineligible for DLA as a result of the introduction of PIP, removing their eligibility for ESA. It is critical that the Government ensure that the eligibility of students with long-term health conditions and/or disabilities for ESA is not dependent on their receipt of DLA.
I shall give noble Lords an example of a student. A young woman of 20, who was a full-time university student, was diagnosed with an aggressive sarcoma and came home to have treatment. Her mother is a single parent on income support with a younger child. The mother’s former partner died of cancer during the young woman’s treatment, meaning that the mother no longer received child maintenance for a younger child. The young woman was refused DLA initially and, as a result, was ineligible for ESA. In addition, this meant that the mother was not eligible for carer’s allowance, nor did the patient have access to a student loan, as she had taken a year out from university to have treatment. The family of three was therefore living on the mother’s income support alone and was in huge financial trouble, completely unable to pay the bills and under a lot of stress. The social worker, supported by CLIC Sargent, applied for a reconsideration and the patient was awarded DLA, which meant that she could get ESA, her mum got carer’s allowance and they got some housing and council tax benefit. Without the DLA and other benefits, this family would simply not have been able to cope financially.
A further 10 per cent of people will lose almost £100 a week by virtue of not qualifying for income-related ESA. Over a year, this amounts to £5,000. Only 20 per cent, or just under 3,000 claimants, will get exactly the same amount of income-related ESA that they would have got under the youth provisions. Based on government estimates, this loss of income may affect as many as 10,000 people by 2015-16. It is wrong that this saving should be levied from such a small group of vulnerable young people. Indeed, the department’s own impact assessment notes:
“The abolition of the ESA ‘Youth’ provisions is more likely to have an impact on disabled people because ESA is directly targeted at people with health conditions that limit their ability to work. There is a risk that the affected group will be more likely to need more support because of their condition than all ESA customers”.
My amendment is linked to my subsequent amendments in that they all seek to create a more level playing field for those young people with long-term health conditions and disabilities who require support through the benefits system.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
I wanted to say only that I support the very moving amendments of my noble friend Lady Lister and the noble Lord, Lord Patel. When we introduced the 1999 Act, which I remember vividly, and replaced invalidity benefit with incapacity benefit, we considered and decided against the proposals that are now being introduced. This was primarily on the grounds of decency, but behind that lay another argument. The group that we were most concerned about at that time was not so much the cancer patients to whom the noble Lord, Lord Patel, referred, but those people with severe learning difficulties who would never find their way fully into the labour market and, as a result, could never build up contributions or savings. They might at some point receive a modest legacy or something that would help them but we did not want contributory IB to be dependent on that lottery. Therefore, we did not go down that road. Given the very small sums of money involved, in the interests of decency and given that such young people cannot build up the financial resources—and often the practical resilience, with the help of partners and so on—to allow them to cope, I very much hope that the Minister will think strongly about reconsidering the approach taken in Clause 52.
The Earl of Listowel
My Lords, briefly, I join in the request for the Minister to think very carefully about these matters. I have been moved by the speeches on this amendment. Reference was made to children leaving care, which certainly resonated with me. We know that disabled children are greatly overrepresented among children in care. We know that the transition from care is very difficult for many children without disabilities, so those with disabilities may be doubly disadvantaged as they make that transition into adulthood. Furthermore, we also know that for children with disabilities, in the general run, the turnover of social workers and many disturbances mean that the transition to adulthood and adult services is often very problematic. There are many good reasons why this amendment should be given careful consideration. I look forward to what I hope will be a sympathetic response from the Minister.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
My Lords, on this occasion I am happy to be at one with my noble friend Lady Lister and the noble Lord, Lord Patel. I am not sure that I am happy to be reminded about being assailed from the left by the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale; I try to put those memories far behind me. These are two important amendments and I hope that the Government will consider them seriously and take them on board. As my honourable friend Stephen Timms said in another place, it is,
“very hard to understand the Government’s justification for abolishing ESA for those people”.—[Official Report, Commons, Welfare Reform Bill Committee, 3/5/11; col. 645.]
He said that it is a measure that seems “unreasonably punitive”. I agree.
Lord Freud
My Lords, I shall briefly explain what the existing rules are for young people. Special conditions for young people who are exempt from meeting the usual PAYE national insurance conditions are set out in paragraph 4 to Schedule 1 to the Welfare Reform Act 2007. These provide that a person aged 16 to 19, or 20 to 25 in certain prescribed circumstances, who is not in full-time education and has had a limited capability for work for 196 consecutive days, will be entitled to contributory ESA. No other age group can qualify for contributory ESA without having paid or being treated as having paid national insurance contributions. Nor does any other contributory benefit have similar arrangements. The vast majority of claimants who presently receive contributory ESA on the grounds of youth—around 90 per cent—are expected to receive income-related ESA. Those who do not qualify for income-related ESA are likely to have capital in excess of £16,000 or a partner in full-time work who may be entitled to working tax credit. Clause 52 removes these special rules.
Baroness Lister of Burtersett
My Lords, perhaps it is the lateness of the hour but I did not think that the Minister read his brief with his customary gusto. I hope that that reflected his embarrassment at trying to justify what I called a mean-minded measure. I did not know that the previous Government had considered this, and I am very glad that they decided not to take it further, as my noble friend said, on the basis of decency. We are talking about decency here and this is an indecent clause. The amendment is purely a fall-back amendment. It would be much preferable if the Minister simply said, “We will continue with the status quo”. Therefore, the amendment would not be necessary. It is a minimalist amendment and, if it creates new problems, they could of course be considered. However, if the clause were to be withdrawn, we would not have to worry about the amendment.
I take the point about why the Minister cannot give us an assurance now about passported benefits, but I suggest that that should not therefore be used as a justification for this measure, given that we do not know who will be receiving passported benefits under universal credit. The Minister said that no other age group has this kind of concession. Of course there is no other age group because any other age group would normally be in paid work and be able to get their contributions. The whole point is that this group cannot be in paid work to get their contributions. I have to say that I am disappointed by the Minister’s response and I hope that perhaps he will reflect on what has been said and think again about this. He then came back and said that there would be a cumulative saving of £10 million. I mean, really—£10 million is absolute peanuts in public spending terms.
Baroness Lister of Burtersett
A margin of error—I thank my noble friend. We are told that this is not about saving money. Therefore, it is totally inappropriate to say what the cumulative savings will be if it is not about saving money. With a heavy heart, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Freud
My Lords, this may be a convenient moment for the Committee to adjourn until Thursday at 2 pm.
House of Lords
Crime: Self-defence Homicide
(13 years ago)
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Lord Mackenzie of Framwellgate
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they will issue the police with further advice or guidance on self-defence homicide cases, in the light of recent decisions by the Crown Prosecution Service.
The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord McNally)
My Lords, the Ministry of Justice is working with the Home Office to update the code of practice made under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 to give the police further such guidance. A revised code was published for consultation on 1 November. That consultation will end on 24 January.
Lord Mackenzie of Framwellgate
I thank the Minister for that Answer. Does he agree that when burglars enter an occupied dwelling by criminal trespass and as a result one of the burglars is killed or seriously injured by a householder who is clearly defending himself, the public reaction generally is that the burglar deserved everything that he got? It is clear that this matter has to be seriously investigated, but is it really necessary, except in serious cases, for the police formally to take the householder into custody and arrest him with all the consequences that that involves, including searching, placing in cells and so on? Is it not possible for the police to use their discretion more often and to investigate the matter by inviting the householder to co-operate without formal arrest? After all, he is hardly likely to abscond. Does the Minister also agree that recent, highly publicised decisions do not capture the public mood? After all, liberty is precious and should not be removed lightly, particularly from an innocent victim.
Lord McNally
My Lords, I fully appreciate many of the points that the noble Lord, Lord Mackenzie, made in that question, which echoed a number of points that were raised in a debate initiated by my noble friend Lord Blencathra on 20 October. Following that debate the Director of Public Prosecutions, Keir Starmer, wrote to me to meet some of the points made in that debate by the noble Lord and other Peers. The director made the point that the CPS had explained that in certain circumstances the police may be advised that an expedited, streamlined file is required following initial investigations by the police. However, he made it clear that the CPS reserves the right to ensure that adequate time is allowed to conduct a comprehensive review of all the evidence available, in accordance with the Code for Crown Prosecutors.
Lord Elystan-Morgan
Does the Minister accept that the principle of self-defence, whereby a person is entitled to defend himself or any other person from unlawful attack by using no more force than is reasonably necessary, is well ensconced in our law, well understood by juries, and is fair and clear? Furthermore, does he accept that the common law has enshrined this principle for a very long time; that it was spelt out in detail in the case of Palmer 40 years ago, and, indeed, enshrined in Section 76 of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008; and that any doubts that exist exist more in the minds of tabloid editors than of judges and lawyers?
Lord McNally
My Lords, as always, there is a great deal of wisdom in what the noble Lord says—and a great deal of accuracy as well. We intend to provide greater clarity with this new guidance and through the clauses in the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill, which will be coming before this House shortly. It is certainly true that, in so doing, we will be bringing into statute what is already a very fixed principle in our common law.
Lord Bach
My Lords, Clause 131 of the Bill that the Minister just mentioned is the one clause that deals with this issue of self-defence. However, what is not clear about the law as it exists at present? That feeling is quite widespread across the House. Why does it need another clause in another long Bill?
Lord McNally
I think that the answer to that was indicated in the previous question and by the fact that the noble Lord has tabled this Question today. There are newspaper articles and general assertions made about what is right or wrong. Under our common law, home owners, small shopkeepers and householders can use reasonable force to defend themselves or their properties and will not be prosecuted. My right honourable friend the Lord Chancellor has made clear that he believes that the current law is broadly in the right place. However, we believe that it does no harm, in the light of a lot of these questions and articles, to make it clear in the forthcoming Bill. I think that it will do a lot of good in establishing where people, including the police, are positioned in this. It will also deter any thought that we are drifting towards any kind of endorsement of vigilantism or keeping a six o’clock special under the pillow. This is a consolidation measure to clarify the law.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton
My Lords, will the Minister clarify the question from my noble friend Lord Mackenzie about the nature and circumstances in which formal arrest takes place?
Lord McNally
I think that I have made that clear. We are consulting on guidance. However, the trend of the Question tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Mackenzie, was that somehow policemen could make an instant judgment. Circumstances are very varied in these situations and the Director of Public Prosecutions has made it clear—and I think that the draft guidance implies this—that although police are invited to use common sense and discretion when assessing circumstances, the Director of Public Prosecutions cannot abandon his responsibilities in examining whether or not a crime has been committed and should be prosecuted.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
My Lords, will the Minister make clear to the viewers and listeners from north of the border that all the answers he has given so far apply only to England, and perhaps also to Wales?
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
Yes, including Wales, thank you. Will the Minister consider having some discussion with his counterpart in Scotland about lessons learnt from Scots law, which very often—and, I think, in this case—is superior to English and Welsh law?
Lord McNally
I am very happy to have such discussions. The noble Lord would be amazed, in the 18 months I have been in this job, how often the advice is: “They actually do this a lot better in Scotland”.
Economy: Monetary and Fiscal Policy
(13 years ago)
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Lord Barnett
To ask Her Majesty's Government how they are co-ordinating monetary and fiscal policy in the current economic climate.
Lord Peston
My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend Lord Barnett, and at his request, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in his name on the Order Paper.
The Commercial Secretary to the Treasury (Lord Sassoon)
My Lords, the independent Monetary Policy Committee has operational responsibility for monetary policy. Fiscal policy is a competence of the Treasury. When making its monetary policy decisions, the MPC takes into account fiscal policy, among other factors, when judging the outlook for growth and inflation. A non-voting Treasury representative attends monthly MPC meetings and plays a key role in ensuring the appropriate co-ordination of fiscal and monetary policy. This includes, when appropriate, briefing the MPC on the Budget.
Lord Peston
I thank the Minister for that. Bearing in mind that the monetary policy of the Bank of England is failing in its statutory duty to hit the inflation target set by the Government and does not even seem to be trying, and that fiscal policy has got us nowhere near full employment or a sustainable rate of real growth, is it not the case that far from there being co-ordination of monetary and fiscal policy, what we see on the part of the Government is simply an utter shambles?
Lord Sassoon
My Lords, the Bank of England is completely sticking to its statutory responsibilities and to the letter setting out its monetary policy mandate. If the noble Lord, Lord Peston, would care to look at the latest commentaries in the Bank’s quarterly documents —he is nodding—he will see that they identify the risks to inflation on the undershooting rather than the overshooting side. They identify a number of factors that will reverse the trend in inflation early in 2012. That is why the Bank decided to recommend increased quantitative easing to the Treasury to ensure that there is no risk of an undershoot on the inflation target.
Lord Newby
My Lords, does the Minister agree with the recent report of the Treasury Select Committee that, in a time of economic crisis, the buck stops with the Treasury, and that it should therefore be able to direct the Bank in such circumstances?
Lord Sassoon
My Lords, it is completely the case that the Chancellor of the Exchequer sets the inflation target for the MPC. I am sure my noble friend is not suggesting that we should go back on the previous Government’s decision, which I applaud, to give the Bank of England independence in this area. Monetary policy should be the first line of defence in the face of economic shocks.
Lord Myners
My Lords, monetary policy should be the first line of defence against the ravages of inflation. I put it to the Minister that the Government's fiscal policy, draconian as it is, is forcing the Bank of England to adopt a highly accommodative monetary policy with a disregard for the inflationary consequences, as is evidenced in the Bank's quarterly report in its failure to achieve any of its inflationary objectives over the past five years.
Lord Sassoon
My Lords, I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Barnett, is not here, because we have not had anything from his quote book for quite a time. I offer the noble Lord, Lord Myners, this from another place on 23 November 1978, when the noble Lord, Lord Barnett, was asking for cross-party support on inflation. He said:
“I had hoped to have the support of the Opposition instead of the carping criticism that we receive constantly … We intend to make our counter-inflation policy work”.—[Official Report, Commons, 23/11/78; col. 1468.]
Well, as it was in 1978, it is now. We should let the Bank of England get on with it.
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean
My Lords, will my noble friend confirm that opinion polls show that a vast majority of voters believe that the deficit is the same as the debt? Can I suggest to him that, in order to get across the difficulties which the Government are facing because of the size of the debt, which is still growing, he should consider putting on the Treasury building a large screen that shows how the deficit is going up every day?
Lord Sassoon
The debt is going up. Far be it from me to criticise my noble friend, who quite rightly makes this point. If the deficit was running at the level that we inherited from the previous Government, of 11.1 per cent a year—the highest deficit level in our history—it would not take very many years before our debt got up to the level of the Italian and the Greek debt. That is why we will continue to keep our deficit policy on track and keep our interest rates low. I entirely agree with my noble friend that we must be reminded about the level of debt as well.
Lord Eatwell
My Lords, in his first Answer to my noble friend, the Minister said that the Monetary Policy Committee takes account of growth and inflation, but its statutory responsibility is to take account only of inflation. When did the Treasury change the policy?
Lord Sassoon
My Lords, I will let the noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, read the actual words in Hansard tomorrow. [Interruption.] No, I am not changing anything. The MPC has to take account of the prospects for growth and inflation when it is judging how to set the direction of monetary policy. Its target is an inflation target, but it needs to take account of a wealth of other factors when making its decision, so that is what it does.
Lord Taverne
My Lords, do the Government not agree that in the present circumstances a simultaneous policy by many countries of rigid deficit reduction and fiscal contraction carries the danger of leading to depression, which will not cure the deficit?
Lord Sassoon
My Lords, I certainly agree that different countries should be taking different tracks, depending on their particular deficit and debt positions. I can only quote the concluding statement of the IMF, in its recent assessment, that:
“The current policy mix of tight fiscal and loose monetary policy remains appropriate”.
Lord Kinnock
My Lords, the Bank of England is patently seeking to foster growth with its very low interest rates and record QE, but the Government are actually depressing growth to virtually zero with their policy of public expenditure cuts that are too far and too fast. Is it not patently obvious that there is absolutely no co-ordination in the national interest at all?
Lord Sassoon
My Lords, I know that it is not for me to ask the questions this afternoon, but I wonder how much more expenditure and deficit the noble Lord, Lord Kinnock, would advocate before we risk getting into interest rates that are at the level of France, let alone of Italy. Last night the UK had 2.3 per cent 10-year interest rates, and Italy had 6.6 per cent heading for 6.7 per cent. Which would the noble Lords opposite like? We will stick to our deficit reduction plan, because that is what keeps interest rates low, and that is what our households and our businesses need.
Lord Howarth of Newport
My Lords, if the Minister insists that there is no case for altering the configuration of monetary and fiscal policy, may I draw to his attention another suggestion? Will the Government respond positively and energetically to the proposal put forward by the Society of Pension Consultants that a proportion of the vast resources held under management by pension funds could safely and sensibly be mobilised to lift investment in infrastructure and, through appropriate provision for early access to pension lump sums, to lift personal spending?
Lord Sassoon
I certainly agree with the noble Lord that infrastructure is one of the themes and priorities of the forthcoming growth review. The Government are looking at encouraging anything that encourages a further source of investment into our infrastructure from pension funds and others, so I certainly take his suggestions on board.
Devolved Administrations: Financial Flexibility
(13 years ago)
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Lord Wigley
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what discussions they have held with the devolved administrations concerning the future working of year-end financial flexibility.
The Commercial Secretary to the Treasury (Lord Sassoon)
My Lords, my right honourable friend the Chief Secretary to the Treasury announced on 18 July that the Treasury has agreed with the devolved Administrations that a modified version of the budget exchange system will apply to their underspends during the spending review period. The devolved Administrations will be able to carry forward DEL underspends up to a maximum of 0.6 per cent of resource DEL and 1.5 per cent of capital DEL from one year to the next.
Lord Wigley
My Lords, does the Minister agree that it is much more prudent for the devolved Administrations to carry forward, as a capital sum, any money that is unspent at year end rather than to rush to spend it? Given that the Assembly Ministers, as he said, have agreed with the Treasury a formula for devolved Administrations to carry forward underspends within these defined limits, why was the Treasury insisting on denying to Wales, and to the National Assembly, some £400 million of accrued underspends in Wales, money which Parliament had voted for use in Wales and which had been accumulated on a formula previously agreed with the Treasury? Will the Minister now discuss with his Treasury colleagues the possibility of releasing that sum over the next two years to augment the National Assembly’s much depleted capital resources?
Lord Sassoon
My Lords, sadly, the previous Government left us with a pot of money of some £20 billion which had been unspent by departments, which, if now spent, would simply increase our deficit; it would increase the stock of debt by £20 billion. It was necessary for the Government, as part of our deficit reduction strategy, to cancel that EYF, but the stock of cancelled underspends in the devolved Administrations was 8.4 per cent of the total, compared with 15 per cent of expenditure, which the devolved Administrations represent, so what they were prevented from spending was rather less proportionately than applied to the United Kingdom as a whole.
Baroness Randerson
My Lords, the decision not to allow the EYF for Wales was something which took many people there by surprise. Can the Minister tell us whether it took the Government of Wales by surprise or were there discussions with the Government prior to the decision by the Treasury at the time of the Budget?
Lord Sassoon
My Lords, as I have already explained, the Government inherited an extremely difficult deficit position. We took decisions that affected the whole of the United Kingdom and this one was consequential on decisions that needed to be taken to bring the deficit position under some sort of control so that departments were not completely without controls on their expenditure. After that, there were detailed discussions led by my right honourable friend the Chief Secretary, which led to the proposals which are the subject of this Question.
Lord Touhig
My Lords, the £400 million, to which the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, referred, could certainly help to sustain public services in Wales and boost the economy. Parliament has voted that money for the Welsh Assembly. Does the Minister not think that it is arrogance on the part of the Government to ignore the will of Parliament?
Lord Sassoon
My Lords, a lot of factors have to be taken into account in setting expenditure for the devolved Administrations, not least our favourite Barnett formula, but the fact remains that expenditure on a head-count basis in Wales will, in the present period, be some 12 per cent higher than the per head expenditure in the United Kingdom.
Lord Eatwell
My Lords, was the Welsh Assembly consulted before this decision was made?
Lord Sassoon
My Lords, the United Kingdom Parliament—this House and another place—was not consulted before an awful lot of spending decisions were taken. That is the way that Governments make spending decisions.
Lord Roberts of Llandudno
My Lords, the Minister has, I think, criticised the Barnett formula. What plans does he have to bring in a different formula regarding Wales and Scotland?
Lord Sassoon
My Lords, would I ever be so bold as to criticise the Barnett formula? The Barnett formula has been widely questioned, not least by the noble Lord, Lord Barnett, himself. However, the Government’s priority has to be stabilising the public finances. If, in due course, the formula is to be superseded, the challenge is that there is no consensus on how to measure needs, which would be required to bring in some needs-based formula.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
My Lords, on the contrary, I would suggest to the noble Lord that there is plenty of research on how to bring in a needs-assessed formula, given that both devolved Administrations distribute their money down to local authorities on precisely that basis. Would the noble Lord therefore accept that Wales is indeed underfunded, that the Barnett formula effectively misspends and overspends by £4 billion and that a rectification of that would surely help the Minister to address the deficit?
Lord Sassoon
My Lords, what I said was that there was no consensus. Of course there is plenty of research but there is no consensus, and that is what is needed in this area.
Lord Myners
My Lords, the Minister brings considerable private sector expertise to his role, including at Union Bank of Switzerland. Can the noble Lord tell the House whether in his private sector experience he has ever come across a situation where companies say that if you do not spend the money, it will be taken away from you? What prudence does that encourage?
Lord Sassoon
My Lords, I believe that it was under the previous Government in 2006—the noble Lord will remember this better than me—that the health service overspent its budget and reserve by £182 million, and the previous Government stopped the EYF system. So I really do not think that we need lectures about me and my experience; it was the noble Lord’s Government who stopped it.
Somalia
(13 years ago)
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Baroness Kinnock of Holyhead
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what action they are proposing through the European Union and other organisations following the Kenyan military offensive in Somalia.
The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Lord Howell of Guildford)
My Lords, we are discussing the Kenyan military intervention in Somalia with many of our partners, including the EU and other organisations. The UK supports Kenyan action so long as it is undertaken in co-ordination with the Transitional Federal Government, and so long as it complies with international law. We will work with Kenya, the TFG, the EU and other organisations, such as the Intergovernmental Authority on Development, to ensure that any action does not impede humanitarian operations and is consolidated by stabilisation and the development of credible, accountable governance structures.
Baroness Kinnock of Holyhead
My Lords, I thank the Minister for his Answer. Will the Minister join me in regretting the under-reporting of what is a rapidly developing crisis that threatens to escalate into a major military conflict with consequences, as the Minister has said, that inflict further tragedy on the people of Somalia, many thousands of whom are starving and urgently need humanitarian aid? Is it not likely that this Kenyan incursion will perversely bolster support for al-Shabaab and that it will carry out vengeful reprisals in Kenya and beyond? When US drones based on a remote airfield in Ethiopia are flying over the area and the French navy has been active to the south of Kismayo, can the Minister give a clear assurance that Her Majesty’s Government do not intend to undertake a similar involvement and instead will work for a diplomatic rather than a military response?
Lord Howell of Guildford
I totally agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Kinnock, about under-reporting. It is extraordinary how little coverage there has been of a very serious situation affecting the Indian Ocean nations of the coast of east Africa. As for vengeful retaliation, I am afraid that revenge is one of the currencies of the area. The Kenyan military operation is of course a response to the invasions into Kenya by al-Shabaab and other forces, and it is important to note that it is an attempt undertaken with the support of the TFG in Mogadishu, to bring some order and control to the situation. We have to face the reality that revenge operations may take place but there has to be a firm attempt to bring order and a better kind of control, at least to the border area between Kenya and Somalia. As to the noble Baroness’s last question, we support the Kenyan action on the conditions that I have clearly made: that it is important to ensure full compliance and that it is a legal operation under Article 51 of the UN charter.
Lord Alton of Liverpool
My Lords, has the Minister seen the reports of 4 November from the United Nations that the number of Somali refugees fleeing war and drought to the Dadaab refugee complex in Kenya has increased to a staggering 463,000 people, making it the largest refugee camp in the world? Catastrophically, the numbers are growing daily. Has he also seen the reports from Médecins Sans Frontières that it can take up to 40 days for a food card to be issued to refugees, including children, which is leading to levels of malnutrition and illness growing considerably in the camp?
Lord Howell of Guildford
I have seen some but not all of the reports. We have also seen reports that there appears to be pressure to reject refugees and to run down the numbers in that location. We have urged the Kenyan authorities to continue allowing refugees in from Somalia. We recognise Kenya's huge generosity in hosting refugees, which it has done over many years, and we will continue to support these efforts in the coming months. We certainly urge Kenya not to forcibly return Somali refugees over the border. There are obviously major aspects of administration and provision, to which the noble Lord rightly alluded. We will continue to help with what is an enormous imposition and burden on Kenya at this difficult time.
Lord Avebury
My Lords, do I understand from what my noble friend said that the Government consider that Article 51 confers an unrestricted right of self-defence under the charter against aggression by a non-state actor? Or does my noble friend rather consider that if a resolution comes before the Security Council we should attempt to impose some restrictions on the extent to which Kenyan troops may occupy large areas of Somalia, and that they should be circumscribed in a similar manner to that which applied to the NATO invasion of Libya?
Lord Howell of Guildford
It has not yet come before the United Nations, and there is strong evidence at the United Nations that an interest in the matter is not encouraged. Indeed, there are indications that if a resolution were pressed it might lead to further validation in precisely the opposite direction to the one that the noble Lord indicated. Of course, Article 51 does not permit unrestricted self-defence; it requires a real sense of challenge to national security and that the necessary defence should be proportionate. That is very important. That is what the Kenyan authorities will need to establish to satisfy our criteria for support.
Lord Anderson of Swansea
My Lords, should not a key factor in our response be that a friendly Commonwealth country, Kenya, has been subject to intense provocation from the failed state on its borders, which has harmed its financial interests in terms of tourism as well as the major humanitarian matter? Is it not also a factor that the stability of the area might be increased if we were to encourage Commonwealth countries to move towards the recognition of the only stable part of Somalia; namely, Somaliland, the former British protectorate, which wants to join the Commonwealth?
Lord Howell of Guildford
The noble Lord is absolutely right about the challenge to Kenya. We all bear in mind the stories of the hideous kidnappings that have taken place, including the revolting story of the pirates or kidnappers who abducted a disabled lady and refused her drugs until she died. It is a repulsive story. He is absolutely right that there are grievous pressures on Kenya and indeed on all Indian Ocean and African states to do something. Co-operation between states—between Mogadishu and Nairobi in this case—must be a sensible starting point for action. As to the recognition of Somaliland, the problem is that this is not a country recognised by anybody in the international community. It would be a one-off development. We take the view that Somaliland should decide its own relationship with Somalia. We work very closely with it. Its administration is good, in contrast to that of the rest of Somalia, and we support it. However, we do not think that fracturing the area and recognising a single state individually would help matters. It might hinder them.
Procedure of the House: Seventh Select Committee Report
The Chairman of Committees
That the 7th Report from the Select Committee (HL Paper 206) be agreed to.
The Chairman of Committees (Lord Brabazon of Tara)
My Lords, there are two Procedure Committee reports on the Order Paper today, and I sense that noble Lords may find the second of these more interesting than the first. But the seventh report also raises important matters, so I shall take a few moments to outline the committee’s recommendations.
As noble Lords will be aware, the Localism and Public Bodies Bills have now been through both Houses, and are in the final stages of ping-pong. Both are likely to be granted Royal Assent in the near future, and in the case of the Public Bodies Bill in particular, that may be quickly followed by the laying before Parliament of a number of important draft orders.
Clause 11 of the Public Bodies Bill, which was of course inserted in your Lordships’ House, sets out the process whereby Parliament will scrutinise these orders. A key role is played by any committee which is charged with reporting on any draft order. In particular, if this committee recommends that a particular draft order be subject to an enhanced affirmative procedure, involving a longer scrutiny period, and an opportunity to make further representations to the Minister, then that recommendation will have effect unless the whole House agrees by resolution to overturn the recommendation.
The effect of the report before the House today will be to charge the Merits of Statutory Instruments Committee with the tasks described in the Bill. This will involve some technical changes to the committee’s terms of reference, which are annexed to the report.
The provisions in the Localism Bill relate to orders akin to legislative reform orders, and our recommendation is that broadly the same procedure, of scrutiny by the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, should apply. Again, this will require some technical changes to the committee’s terms of reference.
I hope noble Lords will join me in paying tribute to the work of both committees affected by this report, and our confidence that they will undertake their new tasks efficiently and fairly.
I hope this explains the background to the seventh report, and I beg to move.
Procedure of the House: Eighth Select Committee Report
The Chairman of Committees
That this House takes note of the 8th Report from the Select Committee (HL Paper 213)
The Chairman of Committees (Lord Brabazon of Tara)
My Lords, I beg to move that this House takes note of the 8th Report of the Procedure Committee.
This is an unusual Motion, since normally I would invite the House to agree the report, and the House’s agreement to the Motion would give effect to the committee’s recommendations. However, this report makes no recommendations; it contains a number of proposals, and each of these proposals is listed on today’s Order Paper as a separate Motion. In other words, the Motion that I am now speaking to is purely preparatory. It gives me an opportunity to describe the procedure for today’s business, but does not itself commit the House to anything. The substantive decisions will be taken when we come to the Motions on proposals 1 to 9.
The Procedure Committee’s report contains proposals arising out of the Report of the Leader’s Group on Working Practices, chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Goodlad. The report was commissioned by the Leader of the House, and debated fully in the House on 27 June. As the report was made to the Leader of the House, it is for him to decide how to go about implementing particular recommendations. The proposals on today’s Order Paper were brought before the Procedure Committee either by the Leader himself, or by the Clerk of the Parliaments at the Leader’s request.
The committee has decided that, rather than express a view on the individual proposals, we should simply present them to the House in a neutral form, so that the House may take a view on them. Members of the Procedure Committee themselves have different views, and the committee did not attempt to come to a single view on the merits of these proposals.
What we did do was to try to put the recommendations into a clear, workable form. In some cases, therefore, we agreed modifications to the original Leader’s Group proposals. However, the committee’s agreement to these modifications does not mean that the committee agreed the proposals themselves.
The Procedure Committee’s report covers 10 distinct areas, which the Leader invited us to consider. The Leader’s Group made many other recommendations, and my understanding is that the noble Lord the Leader of the House will, in due course, bring forward more proposals, in a similar format, either to the Procedure Committee or to other committees of the House, such as the Liaison Committee.
But this is a matter for the Leader, not for me, and I would like to emphasise my own neutrality as Chairman of Committees and Chairman of the Procedure Committee. As I have said, the committee did not agree or even attempt to reach agreement on the proposals before the House today. I therefore have no mandate from the committee to speak either for or against them. My only job is to assist the House in coming to decisions. I therefore propose simply to move each Motion formally as it is called. In the case where there is an amendment down, that amendment will then be called. Even where there are no amendments on the Order Paper, noble Lords may wish to speak to particular proposals. I shall do my best to assist the House where possible but I will not address the merits of any of these proposals. Similarly, I shall not prevent the House from coming to a decision on these Motions by begging leave to withdraw any of them. Today is a day for decisions, and I shall move each Motion when the time comes. I beg to move.
Procedure of the House (Proposal 1)
(13 years ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
16:26 - Division on Motion 1 - Ayes: 169 / Noes: 233 - Motion 1 disagreed.
Lord Wakeham
My Lords, I declare an interest in these matters. I am a member of the Procedure Committee, a former Leader of this House and the only living person who has been Leader both of this House and of another place—in fact, only the fifth person in British history who has ever held both jobs. I say all that because I think what I am going to say will be pretty disagreeable to a great many people in the House, and I thought that if I said it now, at least they could not accuse me of a lack of experience. My view is that proposal 1 is grossly unfair on the Lord Speaker, is bad for the House and would be the end of self-regulation.
First, the proposal is bad for the House. The working practices report seems to be based on a number of misconceptions. The Leader’s role is not to make decisions but to advise the House of what he thinks the will of the House is, and that expression of view can of course be challenged. The Leader, as is clear from the proposal before us, advises only which group or party he suggests the House may like to hear. That, of course, leaves a big gap regarding what happens, as is often the case, when two Peers from the same party rise to speak.
Lord Hughes of Woodside
A document was issued by the Government Whips Office saying that the Lord Speaker should call sides at Question Time, but the Order Paper talks about calling groups. Which is correct?
Lord Wakeham
I have no idea. I am speaking only on proposal 1; that is all I know about. I have had many years’ experience of whipping and I consider that, like other things, it is best done in private.
The Chairman of Committees (Lord Brabazon of Tara)
My Lords, it might be convenient if I intervene at this point to assure the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, that the paper that we should be referring to is the Procedure Committee report and/or today’s Order Paper—and nothing that has been issued by anyone else.
Lord Wakeham
If I may resume, the first point that I was making was that the Leader of the House does not direct the House but offers advice. The second point is that the proposal before us today deals only with which party or group the Leader thinks should have the next turn; it does not deal with the question of two Peers rising from the same Benches.
The third point on this matter, and in my view the most crucial, is that the working party committee completely omitted what is very clear in both the Companion and Erskine May: that the Leader of the Opposition and the Convenor of the Crossbench Peers have a role to play in the order in the House. That is very important. In my view, in the circumstances when two people from the same party or two Cross-Benchers get up, it should be for the Leader of the Opposition, the Leader of the government party or the Convenor to advise the House which of the noble Lords he thinks the House should most like to hear. It is these failures to implement self-regulation over recent years that have got us into our present difficulty, and the sooner that we get back to proper self-regulation, the better. In my day, the Leaders of the opposition parties, the noble Lord, Lord Richard, who is not here, and the late Lord Jenkins of Hillhead, were both very helpful to the House over matters of order.
Secondly, this proposal is unfair on the Lord Speaker. When we set up the office of Lord Speaker, the House had the benefit of three separate Select Committees manned by some of our most experienced parliamentarians, taking evidence from virtually all the other experienced parliamentarians who were not members of the Select Committee. Those reports were very strong in saying that our unique system of self-regulation needed to be preserved and those conclusions from such an authoritative source should not be overthrown from a report which was based on misconceptions and did not in any case consider many of the issues, nor as far as I can see took any evidence from those with the appropriate experience.
The recommendations that the role of the Leader should be taken over by the Lord Speaker poses this problem for self-regulation: will the advice of the Lord Speaker be capable of challenge as is the advice of the Leader? It is not a comfortable thought. It would be disastrous if it were and the end of self-regulation if it were not. It would produce a regime for this House which is more restrictive than even the House of Commons which deals with these matters by points of order. So we need to think very carefully.
Secondly, we are asking the Lord Speaker to assume responsibilities not just from the Leader but also from the Leader of the Opposition and Convenor that are not even written down or clearly defined. There are also some very practical matters to be considered. I just wonder whether the lonely Woolsack is the right place for a Lord Speaker with these roles. When I was the Leader of the House sitting here, it was the nods and the winks from the Leaders of the other parties, plus, if I may say so, the mutterings of the Clerk, which were very valuable in making sure that I did not make mistakes. Even if we pass this Motion, the Lord Speaker stuck up there will not be in a position to administer it in any fair way. Therefore, my advice to the House is not to pass this Motion, and, secondly, to go back to self-regulation as it should be, because I do not believe that there are many people in this House who properly understand what self-regulation is.
Lord Geddes
My Lords, I did not expect to be intervening quite this early in this debate. When we last discussed the report by my noble friend Lord Goodlad, I used the expression that this recommendation was a “slippery slope”. I do not move away from that consideration. I intervene with a decade of experience as a Deputy Speaker and very much in support of my noble friend Lord Wakeham. There are practical problems in this proposal. I will mention just one or two of them.
The first is that from that position it is impossible to see the original Cross Benches. You simply do not have a view. Earlier this year, my noble friend Lord Colwyn had a brilliant suggestion for resolving that: he would use his dentistry experience and get an elevated Woolsack. That had considerable appeal. More seriously, of course your Lordships will know that in another place—and I use that expression advisedly—the Speaker sits in an elevated position, so he or she is able to see the House. Believe me, from the Woolsack that is not possible.
The only other point I would like to mention is that if this proposal were agreed to, the Lord Speaker or the Deputy Speaker would be able to call groups. However, as my noble friend Lord Wakeham said, if three members of Labour Party—I am not picking on the Labour Party, but use it merely as an illustration—were to rise simultaneously, they would all have to sit down again as the Lord Speaker rose, so there would be confusion to start with. Secondly, if none of those three or only one gives way, there would be a confrontational position and the Lord Speaker would be almost obliged to start naming names. That is not in this recommendation and I would vote very strongly against it. This means that the Leader of that party or the Leader of the House would then have to nominate or suggest the Peer concerned. In that respect, we will have gone round in a circle and will be back to self-determination. I do not approve of this proposal and I will certainly vote against it if it comes to a vote.
Lord Lloyd of Berwick
We considered this question at very great length when we had the Select Committee on the Speakership of the House six years ago. My view then was, and still is, that intervention at Question Time is a job for the Leader of the House as leader of the whole House and not as a member of the Government. If the Leader is not present, then it would be a job for the Deputy Leader of the House as deputy leader of the whole House. It was never my view that it was a job for the government Front Bench and therefore I do not understand the terms of Proposal 1, which refers to the job being,
“currently performed by the Leader of the House or Government front bench”.
That is not the job that we conferred on the Leader of the House six years ago. To insert “Government front bench” at that point in the proposal seems either to beg the question or, at any rate, to muddy the waters.
The question for the House is quite simply this: have the present Leader of the House and his predecessors on this side of the House impartially performed the function that they were then given during the past six years? I believe that they have. My only criticism, if I may say so, of the present Leader of the House is that when everybody is shouting together to get in, he does not intervene quickly enough. It is very important that he should intervene as quickly as he can when that situation arises. If in future he does intervene quickly, I see no possible advantage in transferring the job from the Leader of the whole House to the Speaker and I see many disadvantages, some of which have already been mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Wakeham. Inevitably it will, in the end, lead to a loss of self-regulation.
Lord Grenfell
My Lords, I am not particularly happy with this proposal and never have been. My views have been somewhat confirmed by what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd of Berwick, has just said. However, I wish to take up the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Geddes, who has several times in recent times referred to the “slippery slope”. I simply do not buy this argument about the slippery slope for the following reason: in a properly self-regulated House, the House does not need to go anywhere it does not want to go. It has the power to say, “This far and no further”. Whatever changes might be made, they do not automatically mean that we are living in fear of a slide down a slippery slope because they can always be stopped.
My second point is that I am not very keen on trial periods. The trouble with a trial period is that the determination of whether that trial period has yielded positive or negative results is very difficult to judge and can be extremely contentious because we do not have clear criteria about how we judge whether they have been positive or negative. Making that determination could simply cause more problems for the House.
On the whole, I feel that the House works well enough with the system it has, provided, as the noble and learned Lord said, the Leader of the House and others on Front Benches take the responsibility necessary to make it work. If they do not, then you are inviting a tsunami of requests for some sort of reform which would probably in the end destroy the self-regulation of the House.
Baroness Boothroyd
My Lords, I intend to support the proposal before us this afternoon. I am in a great minority of one in believing that this House is self-regulating. I have not found that to be so. I have found it alien to me that a member of a political party who sits on the government Front Bench, whichever party may be in power, as a Minister of the Crown intervenes, interferes and determines which group in this House should be next to put the question. That is not a decision for a Minister of the Crown—a political animal, if I may put it like that—to take. To me that is for the judgment of an independent body, and that is the Lord Speaker, in whom we all have confidence. We would abide by the decisions of that Lord Speaker. I would therefore like to see this for a trial period, and I favour the proposition that is before us this afternoon.
Lord Higgins
My Lords, I also had the privilege of being on the Select Committee on the Speakership of the House, which, as has been pointed out, came out very strongly indeed against the proposal which is before us this afternoon.
I would just make one other point, which has been touched on earlier, and which I would have thought might possibly have appealed to the noble Baroness, Lady Boothroyd. In the House of Commons, the Clerks sit immediately in front of the Speaker and can lean backwards to give advice. It may be very often that the Speaker in the other place does not need that advice, but there are occasions which are highly technical and where such advice may be useful. It would be quite impossible in this House, as it is presently configured, for the Clerks to give advice to the Speaker without it being very apparent—it is not always apparent in the other place—that the advice has been given.
Baroness Quin
My Lords, I do not claim to have the unique experience of the noble Lord, Lord Wakeham, but having been a member in the other House for a number of years, like many people I think, I often compare and contrast the proceedings between both Houses. In many ways, the experience of being in the House of Lords is a very favourable one in that respect. However, for the reasons advanced by the noble Baroness, Lady Boothroyd, I feel that it is worth at least having a trial period where we have these matters judged by the independent voice of the Speaker.
On this occasion, I would actually like to consider going further down the “slippery slope”, although I normally like the self-regulation approach very much. These days, however, I have to say that Question Time—certainly for me and, I think, some others—can be quite stressful when one is competing so much with very active and well prepared Members on one’s own side, as well as trying to intervene in Questions in relation to other groups. In many ways, we should consider the Speaker as having the ability in the future to call Members because I think that it would create a fairer distribution. Not all of us have booming voices or towering physical presences, and sometimes it is not pleasant competing with one’s own side. Therefore I would like further consideration of this matter in the future.
Lord Rooker
My Lords, for two years while the noble Baroness, Lady Amos, was the Leader of the House, it was delegated to me to perform the functions of the Deputy Leader. I can assure the noble Lord, Lord Geddes, that the Lord Speaker can see more people around the House than the person sitting on the Front Bench can. There were a number of times when I had to be elbowed because I could not swivel my head to see other groups. That is a fact. On the other hand, the configuration of this House is not the same as that of the other place, where not only do the Clerks sit in front of the Speaker but the Speaker’s secretary usually stands alongside him giving tips if he does not spot something.
I take very much what the noble Baroness, Lady Boothroyd, said. As a government Minister, it is not appropriate to choose who asks questions of the Government. That is the fundamental principle we are dealing with here. That should not be the role of a government Minister, and we need to find a suitable way. I can understand those who do not want change. Those who did not want a Lord Speaker in the first place can see, in years to come, the neutral person in the Chair calling the supplementaries. That in itself would be an advantage. I do not have the statistics in front of me, but something like 50 per cent of the supplementaries are asked by 10 per cent of the Members. That is because they have the loudest voices. It is a bully boy’s tactic. We try to encourage people to come into this House in order to use their expertise, but when it comes to Question Time, they look at what happens and say, “I am not playing a role in this”. Doing it that way is not professional and there has to be another way. I think that this is just a small modernising step.
Baroness Sharples
My Lords, I have been in your Lordships’ House for 38 years and I should just like to say that I agree with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd. I think that the Leader of the House should be on his feet rather more quickly when two people are trying to ask a question.
Lord Campbell of Alloway
My Lords, I want to make a very short intervention because everything I have on my notes has been said by my noble friend Lord Wakeham and the noble Lord, Lord Grenfell, so really there is little more to say but this. The question is: are we to retain a self-regulating Chamber? If so, why dabble with the concept of opening a gateway that can never be closed? To what end and where is the justification for it?
Last night I read the official reports on this. There is not a shred of evidence to support proposal 1. Whatever was said about the Leader of the House and the Convenor of the Cross Benches, it forgot to mention the interests of the spiritual Benches. They are all the people who will decide what to do; they have the authority. You cannot land this job on a Speaker who does not have the authority and should never have it. I am not criticising any person or Speaker; I am talking about how the House should be run. It should be run by the arrangement of consultation that was referred to by my noble friend Lord Wakeham.
The last thing is that this is a question of crucial importance which also relates to other outside concepts that would have to be considered in legislation. It is quite wrong that we should now, without justification or evidence simply to please some concepts, do away with the maintenance of self-regulation of the House. It is the same sort of problem that we will have later on with retention of the ethos of the House.
Lord Grocott
My Lords, I know the concerns that are being expressed principally, although not exclusively, on the other side of the House. They basically imply that we are in danger of ending up with a situation like that of the Commons Speaker. I sympathise with those concerns. We do not want a Speaker in the sense of someone who has to adjudicate constantly on points of order and decide on balance whether difficult issues should be debated and so on. We do not want to go in that direction for all sorts of reasons which I think are well understood. However, I strongly support the proposal because I do not think there is any risk whatever of that happening under this change.
Indeed, I would offer as a kind of reassurance to those opposite that all these kinds of anxieties were expressed five years ago when the Speakership in its present form was established in this House. It was pretty vehemently opposed in all sorts of ways, while all sorts of forebodings were expressed as to what it would result in. I put it to the House that those forebodings have simply not been fulfilled. The Speakership has worked extremely well. I think that should be of some reassurance to those who feel that something serious, even cataclysmic, will happen if we support this proposal.
My main concern for wanting to be assured that this proposal will go through, and why I support it, is the issue that has not been mentioned. We are here to serve the public and part of that is for our procedures to be intelligible. Let us leave aside the term “self-regulation” at the moment—if there is regulation in any debate or at Question Time, it comes spasmodically from the government Front Bench. That is totally unsatisfactory for the reasons given by the noble Baroness, Lady Boothroyd, and for the practical reasons given by my good and noble friend Lord Rooker that you physically cannot see. In no Chamber anywhere on this planet or at any time in this planet’s history has the person responsible for order had half the audience sitting behind them. We are an absolute one-off on that, which is the position that we are in at the moment.
I simply put it to the House that we should do as every other representative organisation that I, or I guess anyone else in this Chamber, have ever had any experience of by having the person with a kind of responsibility for easing things along sitting in the centre and at the front—so far as there is a front here—of the audience, which would make it immediately intelligible to people watching in this Chamber or on television. It is such a minimal change. It does not advocate any new powers; it simply says that the power should be transferred from somewhere that—let us be blunt—does not operate that wonderfully at present. I defy anyone to say that it is a model in how it operates at present that others should follow. It is a small change in the right direction without any fear that has been expressed or any likelihood of being justified in the exercise. I urge the House to support this unanimous proposal from a committee on which I was very proud to serve. It was a very diligent committee that took evidence from everywhere across the House, and we should let this proposal go forward.
Lord Alderdice
My Lords, I suppose that all of us come to these matters very much with our own experience, so it is perhaps no great surprise that a very distinguished Leader of your Lordships’ House should take the view that things should stay with the Leader, and a very distinguished lady who was Speaker in another place should feel that the Speaker is the more appropriate person. I therefore confess to having a good deal of sympathy for what the noble Baroness said, as I found myself in that situation some time ago.
Of course, the way in which one conducts oneself as a Speaker is not identical in different Chambers. Whatever the sense of authority might be in the other place, in the place in which I served there was the idea that the Speaker should exercise authority over some of the Members of that place rather than facilitate and persuade them. I need only state that idea for noble Lords to understand my point. In fact, I took as my guide Speaker Lenthall, who when confronted by the monarch and asked to identify Members of the other place said that he had neither eyes to see nor lips to speak other than the House gave to him.
That is what we are talking about. We are not talking about an end of self-regulation because we are not talking about new powers for anybody. We are simply talking about an element of the responsibility that lies currently with the Leader of the House to be taken not by the Leader but by the Lord Speaker, who has been elected by noble Lords. It is not a change to the procedures, the authority or responsibilities. It is simply that a different person undertakes those responsibilities on behalf of the House and in sympathy with the House—not exercising authority over the House.
We should not think of this as an end of self-regulation or even a change to self-regulation. This is simply a question as to who is the most suitable person and in the most suitable place to undertake this. I have no criticism of my noble friend the Leader of the House, who conducts himself with great decorum and a good deal of subtlety and has helped us through the difficult expansion of our numbers and the pressure on the work of the House. I must say, however, that there are some points of difficulty in our work, particularly at Question Time.
Lord Alderdice
Never. However, I appreciate for many other noble Lords coming into the House from other places—many of them not political chambers—it is not a great encouragement to involve oneself in the business of questions. I take very seriously what the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, says about the number of people who engage at Question Time not being entirely satisfactory.
We might, by this very, very modest change, be able to send a signal to ourselves and others that we want to see a greater involvement of the House as a whole. I accept that there is no ideal place to sit in this Chamber to see everyone. The Lord Speaker would obviously have some difficulty seeing those who are in wheelchairs but, as has already been observed, the Leader of the House has considerable difficulty seeing those who sit behind him, so there is no ideal place.
However, some things have been adduced in the debate that really do not apply and are actually a protection against the slippery slope over which noble Lords have great anxiety. There is no need with this particular change for technical advice to be provided to the Lord Speaker. There are no points of order, and no complicated questions of procedure apply in this case. Therefore the experience that I had to have, as indeed do Speakers in other places, of having a Clerk either in front or beside to give the kind of technical advice that is not easily facilitated in your Lordships’ House, simply does not apply with this very modest change. All that is being asked for—
The Countess of Mar
What would the noble Lord suggest should happen if people from those Benches, his Benches or this Bench got up at the same time and would not sit down?
Lord Alderdice
I am very grateful indeed to the noble Countess for raising that question. I think my noble friend the former Leader of the House raised a very interesting question that I saw raised a few eyebrows. He indicated that that responsibility lay with the leaders of the groups. I am not sure that I have observed the leaders of the groups and the Convenor intervening in that way. That would be a move away from self-regulation of the Chamber as a whole. The Lord Speaker move that is being proposed would not change that question; it would simply change identification of the groups, not the sides of the House, whether we are talking about the Convenor of the Cross-Benchers, Labour, Conservatives, Liberal Democrats or indeed the Bench of Bishops.
However, if the suggestion made by my noble friend Lord Wakeham and pointed to by the noble Baroness were to be adopted and it was for the leaders of the various groups to indicate which of their colleagues should address the House, it would become extremely inappropriate for the Leader of the House to undertake that as the leader of the Conservatives. If it were to be taken in that way—and I am not sure that we actually are in that position—it would be even clearer that it should be the Lord Speaker who undertakes that. However, I find myself somewhat doubtful that that really is the way the House sees itself functioning. I think it wants to hold to a degree of self-regulation whereby the House as a whole calls for the Peer they wish to hear. That is really the preferable position for us to hold to, but there does seem to be a little uncertainty.
In conclusion—
Lord Alderdice
I am grateful for the indulgence of the House. In conclusion, this is the most modest of changes, which, as the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, says, would be much more comprehensible to those outside—and we hope that an increasing number is observing our procedures—and would in no way take away from the self-regulation of this House.
Lord Wright of Richmond
My Lords, in the light of the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, I shall speak a little more softly than usual. I regard this proposal as a sad reflection of the decline in standards of courtesy, of self-regulation, of discipline and of brevity in this House, and I shall oppose it.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon
My Lords, I say to the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, that the Speaker we elected has virtually the same powers as the Lord Chancellor, who was summarily dismissed by Mr Blair. The role of the Speaker is no different from what went before. When this House was discussing whether we should have an elected Speaker, one of the reasons given in favour of having an elected Speaker was that there would be no difference from the previous situation. One of the arguments against it was the thin-end-of-the-wedge argument: that although there would be no initial plans, there would be moves later on to give the Speaker more powers. And so it has happened, because that is what is proposed today. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Wakeham, in one respect: the House should not vote for this proposal today. I do not agree with him about handing power to party leaders, which really would be a retrograde step.
When I came here 28 years ago and saw how the House of Lords worked, I said, “It simply is not possible that a Chamber like this can regulate itself”, but I quickly found that it could, and did, regulate itself, and that its self-regulation was good for democracy —much better than in the House of Commons. I really enjoyed it. That was in a House not of 823 Members but of 1,183 Members. It should be easier for the House to regulate itself now than it was when there were a lot more Members.
One of our present problems—and there are problems; there is a lot of shouting, which ought not to go on—arises from the fact that there is a coalition Government and that the House is not sure whether the Liberal Democrat party should have a voice apart from the coalition. Frankly, that has to be settled. The only people who can settle it are the political parties and the usual channels. I wish they would set about it, and then we would know who was entitled, and when, to speak, particularly at Question Time.
My final point is a personal point. All we have heard about is the political parties and the Cross Benches. Although I sit among the Cross-Benchers, and they are very kind to accept me among them, I am an independent Labour Peer. I have not yet registered myself as a political party and I do not want to have to do so, but if parties are going to be called rather than individuals—the recommendation is that people should not be named—I shall be in some difficulty. I shall have to register myself as a political party, the Independent Labour Party, the previous one having become defunct quite a long time ago. For all those reasons, including the personal reason, I believe that the House should vote against this recommendation.
Baroness Hooper
My Lords, the House of Lords has a reputation for courtesy and good manners, as the noble Lord, Lord Wright, has already said. The basic system is very simple: speakers at Question Time and in debates rotate around the various political groups. I believe it is the responsibility of every Member of your Lordships’ House to understand this simple principle and to give way gracefully, as appropriate. That is what self-regulation means. It is also what good manners mean. I hope very much that your Lordships’ House will continue to operate in an effective and efficient manner without having to make this change.
Lord Martin of Springburn
My Lords, when I came here two years ago, I looked forward to asking questions, because as a Speaker I was not able to. Of course, in politics, many of us do not go and read a big book as to how things are done—we watch and we listen. The noble Lord, Lord Rooker, mentioned the bully boys and those who get in more than others. I watched and listened, and the person that seemed to get in a great deal more than others was the noble Baroness, Lady Gardner; and she could not be described as a bully boy. I said to myself that I would take a good example as a good thing and listened to the noble Baroness and how brief her questions were. I would be delighted if a Speaker or the Leader of the House was able to help an individual by saying that a particular individual should be called. However, the proposal is not to call an individual; it is to say which section of the House should have their turn, which is very different. To me, that is not going to help the person who is quiet-voiced and quiet-minded. If the proposal did say that an individual would be picked, I might have a different point of view.
It seems shambolic, but, in a way, this place seems to work at Question Time. There is a fairness about it, such that the quiet person often does get called. We talk about the Leader of the House being a Minister of the Crown, but the Leader of the House in the other place is a Minister of the Crown. The Leader of the House, although a Minister of the Crown and a member of a majority party, still has an obligation to look after the needs of the House and to be fair. I have seen that fairness demonstrated by the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, when he has said whose turn he thinks it is. Correct me if I am wrong, but that is the term that is used: “I think it is the turn of the Cross-Benchers”; “I think it is the turn of the Labour Party”. That narrows things down such that when it gets to the stage of two Labour Members arguing with one another, they should have the good sense to allow someone else to get in; or to say to themselves, “Last week, I got in and perhaps I will let a colleague do it this week”.
I very much enjoy being able to ask questions, including about apprentices. I remind the House that I came out of engineering. One of the loveliest things that my old foreman used to say was, “Michael, if it works, don’t fix it”. I would leave things as they are.
Lord Campbell-Savours
My Lords, I go back to the contributions of the noble Lords, Lord Wakeham, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd of Berwick, because they raised two very important issues. They pointed to the need for the Front Bench to retain the role that it currently has. I will argue quite simply that it is impossible for the Front Bench to carry out that role. That has always been my position. In the correspondence that I had with about 500 Members four years ago, when 300 or so Members replied and gave their views on the matter, an overwhelming majority of those who responded said that they were in favour of changing the role of the Lord Speaker. It was clear that there was considerable concern about the role of the Front Bench—Labour was in government at the time—in carrying out that responsibility.
The noble Lord, Lord Wakeham, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd of Berwick, both referred to the need to intervene earlier, but therein lies the problem, because the Front Bench cannot intervene earlier without appearing to be political.
Lord Campbell-Savours
The noble Lord opposite says, “Rubbish!”, but some of us, including the noble Baroness, Lady Boothroyd, watch what is happening on the government Front Bench during Question Time. The noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, very effectively seeks to have some influence on what is going on in the Chamber and often talks among her colleagues on the Front Bench as to who should be called. We are pointed to by Ministers on the government Front Bench, almost inviting us or identifying us to intervene during the course of the debate.
Lord Grenfell
This may be a hypothetical question, but it comes to my mind. When the noble Lord says that it should not be in the gift of the Leader of the House because of the political implications, would we now be granting those powers to the Woolsack if we still had a Lord Chancellor—because he was a political figure, too?
Lord Campbell-Savours
We do not have a Lord Chancellor; we now have an independent Lord Speaker. I am arguing that we should take that role away from the political and give it to the independent Chair of our proceedings, thereby enabling early intervention in a House which, during Question Time, is often unruly, and which has led to public criticism when people see adults on television standing screaming, shouting and bawling at each other across the Floor of the House. Anyone in this House who can claim that that is a dignified spectacle misunderstands what is expected of this House.
Lord Hamilton of Epsom
My Lords, I am absolutely staggered that any Member of this House who has served in the other place—or the House of Commons, I am pretty agnostic on what we call it—should be advocating greater authority for our Speaker. I fear that I do not remember the halcyon days of the noble Baroness, Lady Boothroyd. I remember her authority being constantly challenged on totally bogus points of order. You have only to pick up a Hansard from yesterday, which will be like any other Hansard from the House of Commons. It will show that after every Question Time, people leap to their feet with points of order which are not points of order. They are people who missed out on Questions—they have not managed to get in, so they ask their question anyway—or they bring up some constituency matter that happens to concern them. That is all completely bogus. The authority of the Speaker is constantly challenged in the House of Commons, and it will be challenged here if we give authority to our Lord Speaker. We do not want to go down that path; it is a very retrograde step. We should learn from the House of Commons and stay with a system that works very satisfactorily as it is.
Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe
My Lords, I am finding this a very strange debate indeed. I always thought that when we had a Leader’s Group, the Leader of the House was on the group and presented the report to the House. Then it went back to the Procedure Committee. The Procedure Committee then went through the report and then presented its report with recommendations which it unanimously backed. We knew precisely where we stood then and had very strong leadership. Times change, and the report has been presented today in a very different way, in a neutral fashion. I have been waiting to see who will speak on behalf of whom in defending the current position or advocating change. It looks as if we have a new style of neutrality, which we have not had before. In those circumstances—and I say this as someone who saw the House regulating itself well when I first came in, with civility, courtesy and discipline; and no doubt I am now as much part of it as anyone else—it has changed. We should recognise that we have changed, and move on. I have again heard criticism of the Leader today, saying that he does not intervene in the way that Leaders intervened in the past. I am moving then to say that I am going with the change, and I am hard pressed on this. I do not like the state that we have got ourselves into, and therefore if changes come, I have got to go with them—unless, of course, somebody will stand up firmly and say “No, we are stopping it. We are going back to what it was like before, and I am the individual who will ensure that that happens”. I do not know who that individual is in the House, and who is going to say it. But the question I pose to the Leader is: is he going to speak this afternoon?
Lord Dubs
My Lords, I have the feeling that our procedures work pretty well on the whole. However, the one area where they do not work well is at Question Time. All I would say is that a House that approaches matters with more dignity than the Commons becomes extremely undignified when we get to Question Time or questions on Statements, and I do not like that. Your Lordships will notice that everybody who has spoken is what I would call an old hand. I do not think that any of the newer Members have spoken. But I have talked to some of them, and they said that they do not like Question Time, and do not take part in it, because they feel that they do not get a fair share of it. They do not like having to outshout the bullies, and they feel that it is more dignified not to do that. That we should allow new Members to feel this way is a condemnation of our procedures.
I believe in the dignity of this House, and I do not believe that this change will make us become like the Commons. All it will do is transfer responsibilities from the Front Benches to our Speaker, who we voted for, and who we all respect. We are not going to challenge our Speaker if we do not agree with which groups she points to. We will accept her decision with good grace, as we accept with good grace what the Leader of the House does from the Front Bench when he points to one group or another.
There are, of course, other difficulties, which have been referred to already, and I would like us to go a bit further. It is all right to say which group or side is going to come next, but what about those who are not members of a group or of a side? What about UKIP or Independent Labour? How do they get a fair share? It is quite hard for them. In the Commons, the Speaker makes a point of ensuring that small minorities get a share, probably a bigger share, but there is no such safeguard here. Yes, we defer to the Bishops’ Bench; we do that because we do that, and we have always done it, and that is not a bad thing either. However, we have no tradition of knowing how to cope with UKIP or Independent Labour, or any individuals. Though the proposal does not go this far, I would have thought that the Lord Speaker, from the Woolsack, would be in a better position to be fair to all the Members of this House. This is a small but important step. It will add a bit to the dignity of the House and keep us as a self-regulating House.
Lord Ribeiro
My Lords, as a new Member who has not spoken, I would like to say a few words. Few of my friends would consider me a shrinking violet, but there is no question that, for new Members, speaking in this House is a steep learning curve. I have been fortunate to have two or three Questions at Question Time. One thing that is very surprising is that the Member who puts the Question often has less time to ask their question than do those who ask questions afterwards. Brevity is the key. It has been emphasised that some of us are able to keep our questions fairly brief. Self-regulation is not just about the Leader of the House determining who speaks and when; it is about the Members themselves recognising that they have 30 minutes in which to deal with four Questions, and that that can be done satisfactorily only if people keep to time and allow others to have a say as well. I do not think that there is a problem with the system as it stands. It is for us to look at how we behave.
Lord Kakkar
My Lords, I have had the privilege of sitting in your Lordships' House for only 18 months but I have received the warmest of welcomes, particularly at Oral Questions. I have also learnt three unique characteristics of your Lordships' House. The first is that all noble Lords are equal. There is no stronger manifestation of that characteristic than at Question Time, when one has the privilege to be heard because it is the will of your Lordships that one should be heard. Secondly, this is a self-regulating Chamber and noble Lords hear from whom they want to hear in the context of the Question being discussed and the expertise that is present in the Chamber at the time of the discussion. Finally, I have learnt that there is a very important constitutional role for the Leader of the House which goes far beyond his responsibility as a member of the Cabinet and far beyond his responsibility as leader of the governing party in this House—the obligation to every Member of your Lordships’ House to serve their interests and to ensure that the will of the House is properly communicated and understood. To divide the Leader of the House from the specific responsibilities that we discussed at Oral Questions today runs the risk of removing this overall obligation which the Leader of the House has to all noble Lords.
Baroness Butler-Sloss
My Lords, after the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, I am very tempted to say—as yet another fairly recent Member of this House, having joined just over five years ago—that I am not entirely happy with the way in which Question Time is seen by the public. We do not behave as well as we should. However, I do not think that the current proposal would make it much better, for all the reasons that have been given. It seems to me that two things should happen. First, I think that the Leader of the House or the Chief Whip should occasionally make it clear whose turn he or she thinks it is. That is not always as clear as it might be. Secondly, it is time that we, as Members of this House, used self-regulation to mean self-regulation of each individual—we should behave better. We should sit down when other people are standing and hope that we will have a chance, but if we do not get a chance to speak, we should hope that we will have a chance next week. That is one of the reasons why I do not speak very often at Question Time. I feel that others have something to say and I want to speak only when I really have something to say. If we are proud of self-regulation, we have an obligation to regulate ourselves.
Lord Lucas
My Lords, I am for self-regulation but I think that the usual channels could help us a little. We could be clearer, as the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart of Swindon, said, about whose turn it is and what the rules are. I think that there is a blockage in the usual channels which should be cleared. It creates conflicts every Question Time, which is unnecessary. I also think that the leaders of individual parties should be much better at disciplining their own members—either those who speak too frequently and stop others speaking or those who speak at too great a length. I get the impression that there is no effective discipline in that respect. It would help if one knew that someone who sins will be dealt with afterwards.
The Countess of Mar
I was very impressed with what my noble friend Lord Wright had to say and with what the noble Baroness, Lady Hooper, said about courtesy and observing other people. I think that this is a temporary problem. The noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, said that we are a smaller House than we used to be, but in fact an extra 100 people sit in the House each day, so there is more pressure on the House. We have had a sudden influx of people who do not understand the rules. I think that they are now bedding down, so the proposal is unnecessary, if not premature.
Lord Palmer
My Lords, I have a quick question of clarification. If this Motion is agreed, are we going to adopt the idea of the noble Lord, Lord Colwyn, to actually raise the Woolsack? As the noble Lord, Lord Geddes, mentioned, you cannot physically see these Benches from the Woolsack. I would be grateful for the Leader’s response.
Lord Pearson of Rannoch
I should thank my noble friend Lord Stoddart—if I may refer to him as that—and the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, for what they said about the minority parties and independents in your Lordships’ House. I would comment further, however, by saying to the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, and others who feel that we behave extremely badly at Question Time, and that this does not do us any good with the public, that I think that the public see a substantial difference between Questions in your Lordships’ House and Questions, particularly Prime Minister’s Questions, in the House of Commons. The members of the public who I talk to always say how well behaved your Lordships’ House is in comparison to the other place.
Lord Campbell-Savours
Perhaps I may just refer to this myth about the distinction between the two Houses and ask the noble Lord whether he appreciates that in the Commons people do not stand and bawl at each other across the Floor of the House.
Lord Campbell-Savours
No, they do not. I would suggest that Members go to the Public Gallery in the Commons and see what goes on there. This is one of the only Houses in the world where Members bawl at each other to be heard on the Floor of the House.
Lord Pearson of Rannoch
I simply cannot agree with the noble Lord. As someone who tries to get in on Questions quite a lot—only because I am interested in a subject which is quite topical at the moment—I would have thought that when noble Lords get up who have not spoken and do not speak very much, the courtesy in your Lordships’ House is definitely there, to hear the new person, to give them a chance and so on. So I think that this aspect of our bad behaviour—and I speak also as someone who gives way a lot, and I am very happy to go on doing it—is exaggerated.
I am not sure that this Motion on the Order Paper really helps us. As I understand it, the Lord Speaker would simply choose a group, whether the Conservatives, the Cross Benches, Labour or the Bishops—though we normally give way to Bishops in any case. Time would be taken because it would go to the leader of the chosen group to decide who was going to speak. I am not sure that, as drafted, this takes us forward at all.
Finally, I would ask the Leader of the House, if he is going to speak, if he could clarify a doubt which the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, mentioned, and which is in the minds of many of us when we decide whether we are trying to get in at Question Time. Are the Government one group, and does each speaker from the Government count as a question asked by the Government, or are we in fact dealing with the Liberal Democrat party and the Conservative Party, and therefore do they each get a shot at Questions as the groups revolve around the Chamber?
The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Lord Strathclyde)
My Lords, what an extraordinary debate. I have never seen the House so impeccably well behaved, gracefully giving way to each other without being asked and without any intervention from me or anybody else. If it were like this all the time we would never need to have this debate.
This debate has been in gestation for some years, since the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd of Berwick, published his initial report, which settled the position for two or three years. It has become an increasingly hot topic and I very much welcome the debate that we have had today and the report of the Leader’s Group. It is important that we have this discussion.
I ought to lay out my cards at the very start of this debate. I do not favour the proposal. If it is called to a vote, and I am sure that it will be, I shall vote against it. Why? I think that the Leader’s Group sought to find a compromise, and in that it may well have created the seeds of doubt. I do not think that it will work. Simply moving the powers that I hold to the Woolsack—and many others have made this point—will not make things any better. If there is a failure in the current way that I interpret the rules, I am not convinced that the Speaker will do it any better. Whether or not we want to change the role of the Chair, it is not the proposal that we have before us today.
Secondly, it is the start of the end of self-regulation. I very much pray in aid the brief speeches of the noble Lord, Lord Wright of Richmond, who said that we should pause and reflect before we let go of the ancient way of self-regulation that has served the interests of the House for so long.
Thirdly, as a result of that, it will lead us inexorably to the Lord Speaker being given the power of calling individual Peers, which in turn will lead us to the system of the House of Commons. I have never been a Member of the House of Commons. I have been to see it from our own Peers’ Gallery and I have watched it on television. Presumably, the House of Commons has its own ways of behaviour, customs and traditions. However, I wonder whether any fair-minded, reasonable citizen who sat in our Gallery and then that of the House of Commons would really believe that the House of Commons is better behaved. I think not.
A number of Peers, including the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd, and my noble friend Lady Sharples, said that part of the problem was that I am not up on my feet quickly enough to bring order to the House. I will respond to that. I do not see my role as that of a Speaker bringing order. As others, including the noble Lord, Lord Martin of Springburn, said, I see my role very much as trying to guide the will of the House to put itself back in order. However, if the proposal is not agreed and the powers are retained by the Leader, I would not mind having my own little experiment of leaping to my feet with greater alacrity and seeking to guide the House more urgently.
The second criticism of my role was made by the noble Baroness, Lady Boothroyd, the noble Lords, Lord Grocott and Lord Campbell-Savours, and others. They said that my role is essentially political as a Minister of the Crown and that these powers should not be vested in someone who is so clearly a politician. I understand the impeccable logic of that, but I still think that it is completely wrong. Ministers in all sorts of roles also have to be able to carry out an independent role of leadership, which is what I very much try to do as Leader of the whole House. I hope that the House can recognise when I am being nakedly political and also when I am representing the interests of the whole House, which is what I try to do at Question Time.
A number of questions were asked about my interpretation of the rules. The usual channels, through the Chief Whips, have decided and agreed that the Liberal Democrats and the Conservative Party at Question Time are treated as one group. Therefore, we take it in turns. That gives an advantage—contrary to what the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, might believe—to the party of opposition. It is right that the party of opposition should have the lion's share of Question Time: after all, it is trying to scrutinise the Government. For instance, today there were 24 supplementary questions, of which 15 came from the Labour Party. I am bound to say that if this power were moved to the independence of the Woolsack and the Lord Speaker, I am not so sure that that arrangement would be maintained. One has only to listen to the speech of my noble friend Lord Alderdice to see that.
It is not so much a question of, “If it ain’t broke, don't fix it”; there is always room for improvement and for doing things better. In the first year of coalition, we had a substantial increase—more than 100—in the number of Peers in the House. There was a difficult sense of assimilation. There were certainly Members of another place, on all sides of the House, who thought that they had arrived in a House of Commons without any rules. That was not the case; it is not the case. As the first anniversary kicked by there was a sense of settling down in the House. I have noticed that the House seems to be happier in its skin, with new Peers and the coalition working together. The noble Countess, Lady Mar, was quite right in pointing that out.
The most difficult decision at Question Time is what to do, if I can put it as politely as possible, with the Bishops and the noble Lords, Lord Pearson and Lord Stoddart, who clearly represent a view—not the Bishops; I must not confuse the Bishops with the noble Lords—that is live outside this House. As an act of great courtesy, and rightly, the House always gives way to the Bishops. I think that we should maintain that, but I am not sure that this proposal allows for that.
I have learnt a lot from listening to this debate. I think that we have had a very good opportunity to air all the grievances and potential problems, and, I hope, also the benefits of the system that we already have.
The Chairman of Committees
My Lords, if no other noble Lord wishes to intervene, I beg to move that Motion 1 be agreed to.
Procedure of the House (Proposal 2)
The Chairman of Committees
To move to resolve that the procedure adopted in early 2010, whereby Secretaries of State sitting in the House should answer three oral questions, on one Thursday each month, directed to them in their ministerial capacity, should be made permanent, with a view to its revival as appropriate.
Amendment to the Motion
Lord Williamson of Horton
As an amendment to the above Motion, at end insert “, except that the time allocated for the three oral questions should be up to 20 minutes in total instead of up to 15 minutes”.
Lord Williamson of Horton
My Lords, this amendment was originally put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Low of Dalston, but as he is unable to be present today, I have put it forward in my name. I should like first to stress that I am strongly in favour of the proposal on the Order Paper today to make permanent an arrangement by which Secretaries of State answer questions in this House. The only issue raised by my amendment is whether 15 minutes are sufficient or whether the time should be increased to 20 minutes. We are speaking about a maximum time limit. We have plenty of experience in the House, for example, on the time limit for questions following a public Statement, when sometimes the full time is not used, but more frequently, questions are cut off by the time limit. In the case of a Secretary of State’s questions now being proposed, some part of the time would normally be taken by a question from the opposition Front Bench, and there would probably be a question from the Liberal Democrats, thus the time for Back-Bench questions would be very short indeed. I hope therefore that the House will look favourably on another five minutes, a fairly modest proposal in my view, so that a Secretary of State could answer questions for a maximum of 20 minutes, not 15 minutes, as was the case in early 2010. I beg to move.
Lord Laming
My Lords, this is a very modest amendment, but an important one for the reasons set out by my noble friend Lord Williamson. I hope very much that the House will endorse it without a Division.
Lord Goodhart
My Lords, we should not be taking this issue at this time because we have no Secretary of State. There is no real probability that there will be a Secretary of State in this House before the next general election. It seems to me that it would make more sense to leave this for what is likely to be some years, then bring it back and consider it in the light of events as they then are.
Lord Tordoff
My Lords, I disagree with my noble friend. This is an appropriate time because we do not have a Secretary of State. I have one other thing to add: I totally support the Motion and the amendment, but I wonder whether it should not be 20 minutes rather than 15 minutes. We can perhaps come back to that in the next Parliament.
Procedure of the House (Proposal 3)
The Chairman of Committees
To resolve that Members should read out the text of oral questions, using the formula “My Lords, I beg leave to ask Her Majesty’s Government” followed by the text of the question; and that there should be a mandatory word limit of 25 words (excluding the introductory formula) for all oral questions.
Lady Saltoun of Abernethy
This is the most ridiculous idea that I have ever heard in my life. As far as I can make out, it is put forward as a time-saver: how on earth is it going to be quicker to say “My Lords, I beg leave to ask Her Majesty’s Government” and then another 25 words instead of saying “My Lords, I beg leave to ask the question standing in my name on the Order Paper”? It just does not make sense. Is it proposed, then, that the questions will not be printed on a list—or what?
Lord Alderdice
My Lords, the noble Lady must have had a sheltered existence if this is the most ridiculous thing that she has ever heard. I must confess that I have heard a good deal more ridiculous things. My understanding is that this is not in order to be more efficient or effective in regard to time, but to convey to those outside of the House what they do not have available—which is the Order Paper. Rather than their being uncertain of the purpose of the Question, they would be clear about it. I accept entirely what the noble Lady has said—that it would take up a little more time—but, if it contributes to making our proceedings more comprehensible to those who are watching on the television or by internet, it is a reasonable enough proposition. The idea that the number of words might be restricted is a good one as well.
The Earl of Erroll
My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord and I confirm that that is the purpose. As everything is now televised, people must understand what is going on. We could get the time back by saying that the Minister may stand up when someone has been speaking and trying to ask a supplementary for 30 seconds and start the reply at that point. Quite simply, if one cannot get the question out in 30 seconds it is just bad luck.
Lord Higgins
My Lords, I believe that the present arrangement works extremely well. As far as I can see, this will actually slow down the proceedings, and, to try to get some of the time back, imposes a limit on the length of Questions to 25 words. One can see a number of Questions on the Order Paper now which are over 25 words and are by no means excessively long. I see no reason whatever to change the existing arrangement.
Lord Cormack
My Lords, I agree very much with my noble friend, but there is one thing that we could do—and I hesitate to mention this. There is one practice in the Commons that speeds it up: that the Member asking a Question gets up and says “Number One”, “Number Two” or “Number Three” or whatever. As the Question is printed on the Order Paper; as you can put texts on the television that viewers can read; and as every Member of your Lordships’ House can read and has an Order Paper, that is the way one could speed things up. However, in my view there is absolutely no justification for this particular suggestion.
Lord Empey
My Lords, I support the noble Lord, Lord Cormack. Clearly, we want to make the House intelligible to as many people as possible. However, given that we have Questions one month in advance on our green sheet and, on the day, we get two sheets with the Questions on, nobody should be in any doubt as to what Question we are going to be asking. Given that the Questions are well known in advance, the solution is to have the text on the television. That would achieve the two things that we want to achieve: first, to better inform the public; and, secondly, not to do the very opposite of what we are trying to do in many of these Motions, which is to save time. This goes completely contrary to the thrust of them.
Baroness Royall of Blaisdon
My Lords, I am slightly agnostic about this. If I have to come down somewhere, I come down on the status quo. However, I am attracted to the limit of 25 words. We need more brevity in this House. I take myself to task, following on from the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, earlier, that my colleagues and I on the Front Bench do not take ourselves and other noble Lords on our Back Benches to task when they ask long supplementary questions. I do not say that we must have it in writing, but as a consequence of this debate we all need to be more mindful about the length of supplementaries, both questions and answers. I hope that that is one lesson we will have learnt from today.
Lord Higgins
My Lords, before the noble Baroness sits down, as I understand it, the limit is on the length of the Question on the Order Paper. It is not on the length of supplementary questions.
Baroness Royall of Blaisdon
I understand that, but I was trying to draw a comparison by saying that it is not so much that we need a limit on the original Question, but that we need to be more self-regulatory in putting a limit on the length of supplementaries.
Baroness Kramer
My Lords, perhaps I may pick up on the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Royall. I, too, am agnostic about the particular form, but the example that 25 words would make is perhaps one that the House would take on board. A short question takes a lot of hard work to frame but is probably the greatest courtesy that any noble Lord can pay to the House. The more questions we have on any particular topic, the better the range of issues around that topic is covered. I know that frequently only five supplementary questions are put, whereas I must say, coming from the Commons, I would have thought that closer to 10 supplementary questions are put in an equivalent time. That would be appropriate. We should somehow absorb the self-discipline of not believing that it is necessary to lay out the full background to a question, and then because our questions are so important, to ensure that two or three are wrapped into what is meant to be one supplementary question. But that is going to require the Leader of the House, the Leaders of other parties and perhaps the Members of longest standing who have real influence in this House actually to enforce the process. Perhaps then newer Members, who very rarely get to open their mouths in this place, will have an opportunity genuinely to contribute where they have real expertise.
Lord Campbell-Savours
My Lords, the problem with that as a proposition is that it does not work. We have been arguing for that for the past 10 years. I can think of innumerable occasions where Members have sought to try to stop people asking long supplementary questions, but I can guarantee the House that tomorrow it will happen again, and that it will happen on Statements. It is because we simply do not enforce the rules of the House. It is a problem that this House will ultimately have to address.
Lord Butler of Brockwell
My Lords, I want simply to ask whether it is in the House’s power to arrange that the Question is printed on the television screen. That was exactly 25 words.
Lord Roberts of Llandudno
My Lords, the time allowed for each Question is about seven minutes. When we had a smaller House, most of those who wanted to ask a question were able to do so, but now there are so many people who cannot get in on a Question. They might not always have something valuable to contribute, but sometimes they do. Is it not time, perhaps not today but very soon, that we sought to adjust the length of the Questions by allowing eight or nine minutes for each of them rather than seven minutes?
Lord Lucas
My Lords, since we cannot even squeeze the name of the person speaking in Grand Committee onto the television screen, I doubt if we can fit 25 words on it.
Lord Harris of Haringey
My Lords, a simple arrangement would be to have a surtitle over the Throne so that anyone could look at it up there.
Lord Geddes
My Lords, I am all for paucity of words and the concept of limiting supplementaries to 25 words is thoroughly admirable, but that is not the point of this proposal. In that respect, I think that noble Lady, Lady Saltoun, has done the House a good service with her initial intervention. I certainly am not in favour of wasting the House’s time even further.
Lord Jenkin of Roding
My Lords, I have a confession to make. I do not spend a great deal of time watching the Parliament channel or listen to “Yesterday in Parliament” and I do not know the answer to the question. Do those channels ever print the Question so that people can see it? It seems to me that the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Butler, is absolutely right. I am not concerned that the Questions should be on these screens because we can always get hold of the Order Paper ourselves. Indeed, that is one of the first things most noble Lords do when they come into the House. It is a question of whether people who are watching the proceedings know what the Question is. I do not want to have the Question read out in the House but we should follow this up through the Information Committee or whatever to make sure that the television channels print the Questions so that many more of members of the public who watch will know what we are talking about.
The Earl of Erroll
To help the noble Lord, it is not just television as there is also YouTube and other internet channels. You cannot do anything about that and we will probably be putting out more information that is much more accessible to the general public.
The Countess of Mar
My Lords, if people are interested in the proceedings of the House, they have only to go on to the parliamentary website and look at the Business of the House. They can then see all the Questions listed for a month ahead.
The Chairman of Committees (Lord Brabazon of Tara)
My Lords, I do not know whether noble Lords think that we should maybe come to a conclusion on this proposal. Before asking for the Question to be put, I will say that I will take back the question of the noble Lord, Lord Butler, on how much or what is televised. Otherwise, I move that proposal 3 be agreed to.
Procedure of the House (Proposal 4)
The Chairman of Committees
To resolve that the following new guidance be added to the Companion to the Standing Orders: “Members should not take up the time of the House during question time by making trivial declarations of non-financial and non-registrable interests. Questioners should not thank the Government for its answers, nor ministers thank questioners for their questions.”
Baroness Noakes
My Lords, I have one point to raise in connection with this, which comes back to courtesy in the House and which ran through the debates on the first proposal. If Members of this House were more courteous to each other, we would not have the problems that are perceived during Question Time. Often in Question Time, Ministers do not give Answers that merit any thanks whatever, but occasionally they give extremely helpful Answers. It seems to me that it would be improper that the Companion should debar the questioner from thanking the Minister for a useful Answer. While I am all in favour of stopping the ritual of thanking for Questions and Answers, the way in which this has now been expressed is wrong because it debars Members of the House from normal courtesy.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton
My Lords, I will make just a brief observation. Occasionally, the length of the reply does not assist the person who asked the Question but is an attempt to prevent their answering it.
The Chairman of Committees (Lord Brabazon of Tara)
My Lords, as your Lordships know, I am completely neutral on these proposals and have no views. I therefore put the Question. I beg to move that proposal 4 be agreed to.
The Deputy Speaker (Lord Colwyn)
I wonder whether it would help the House if I read out the Motion. This Motion invites the House to insert new guidance in the Companion with a view to promoting briefer interventions from Members and Ministers during Question Time.
Procedure of the House (Proposal 5)
(13 years ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Chairman of Committees
To resolve that where a statement of exceptional length has been made in full to the House of Commons and made available in the Printed Paper Office before it is due to be repeated in this House, the Minister in this House may (with the agreement of the usual channels) draw the attention of the House to the statement made earlier without repeating it; and proceed immediately to the period for exchanges with the Opposition front benches;
That the text of the statement should be reproduced in the Official Report;
That the guidance in the Companion to the Standing Orders on backbench contributions on oral statements should be amended, to indicate that “ministerial statements are made for the information of the House, and although brief questions from all quarters of the House are allowed, statements should not be made the occasion for an immediate debate.”
Lord Pearson of Rannoch
My Lords, I am afraid that this proposal does not really make sense in practice. When a Statement is coming, it is normal practice that the Printed Paper Office does not release it until the Minister or Prime Minister in the Commons has sat down after making it. Under pressure of business in your Lordships’ House, the time between the Minister sitting down in the Commons and a Minister getting up here to repeat the Statement is often extremely limited.
Many of your Lordships who want to contribute by asking questions may be in other parts of the House and do not know when the Statement is coming—it is “at a convenient time” after whatever piece of business has been decided. By the time one gets here and gets into the Printed Paper Office to get hold of the Statement to read it, the Minister is very often several paragraphs down the track. It is rather useful to have the Statement from the Printed Paper Office to catch up with what the Minister has said that one has missed because one did not know it was coming. The monitors over at your Lordships’ House no longer ring the bell when a new piece of business is there, so if you are working in the Royal Gallery or wherever you happen to be, you have to keep a beady eye on the screen to know when the Statement is coming.
I do not feel that this proposal really works. I cannot see why yet again we cannot go on with the existing position. It cannot be taken for granted that, if one wants to contribute to the debate, one will have been able to have absorbed the Statement.
Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville
My Lords, I take slight issue with the noble Lord, Lord Pearson of Rannoch. We had this problem fairly early after the coalition was formed. I raised the question on one occasion when the Leader was making a Statement that was not available to us because it had not finished in the Commons. The Leader was gracious enough to say that the rules of engagement in the Printed Paper Office should be altered and that the Statement should always be available as soon as the Minister got up in this House. I agree that the Printed Paper Office is not always consistent in its reactions. I had no difficulty in persuading it that these instructions had been given and the paper should in fact be released.
Lord Campbell-Savours
My Lords, the Motion actually reads,
“‘may’ (with the agreement of the usual channels)”.
One must assume that the usual channels would have this matter in mind when deciding. Therefore I do not see any problem at all.
Lord Higgins
My Lords, I understand very well the case against reading out extremely long Statements. None the less, I believe that the repetition of Statements in this House is very important because very often they get much more detailed expert scrutiny than in the other place.
As far as television is concerned, it is rather regrettable. As far as I can establish they televise the original Statement in the Commons but virtually never show the Statement being repeated in this House. That is perhaps a point which ought to be taken on board.
Having said that, I think that there is also an important matter of timing—if it is an extremely long Statement, which is then going to be in the Printed Paper Office, one is going to need some time to read and digest it before the Statement is then bounced suddenly into this Chamber. At the very least, while one would not necessarily move a manuscript amendment, those dealing with this discretionary practice should certainly allow at least an hour and a half—and I would have thought two hours—between the Statement being available in the Printed Paper Office and it being taken on the Floor of the House.
Baroness Kramer
My Lords, surely the most important work we do when a Statement is put before this House is to question it and scrutinise it. Making sure there is adequate time for that and that a full range of views is aired is absolutely central to our responsibility.
I have perhaps a personal prejudice. I find that speeches that are read out are extremely difficult to listen to and a second-hand speech is, frankly, even harder to listen to because no one can put any life into it. I am not sure that listening to the speech gets me a lot further in terms of understanding. Perhaps that also applies to other noble Lords in this House. If we need a time delay to make sure that everyone has had an opportunity to actually do the reading, surely that is something that can be organised. It seems to me that the precious time we have should be spent on scrutiny rather than on a second-hand regurgitation of a speech that is sitting on paper in front of us.
Lord Pearson of Rannoch
My Lords, further to what I said earlier, I accept what the noble Baroness has said if there were to be sufficient time to really scrutinise the Statement. Without boring your Lordships’ House too much, in the case of Statements on European Council meetings, one also has to read the European Council conclusions and compare them with the Statement because they are often very different. We need at least an hour and a half for that.
On the matter of saving time, I of course accept that our questions should be briefer, but perhaps this is another opportunity to say that if the answers from the government Front Bench could also be briefer, we would all save a lot of time. That goes for Oral Questions, too.
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean
My Lords, I was a Minister in your Lordships' House for eight years, serving in both the Foreign Office and Ministry of Defence. I know from my experience as a Lords Minister that you have to listen very carefully to what your Secretary of State is saying in another place, because Statements very often get changed from the last time you saw them in your department. It is very difficult for the usual channels to be able to anticipate that. Since we are talking of courtesy in this House, I think that it is courteous for this House to have the same opportunity as another place to listen to a full Statement. If we are talking about the importance of clarity for members of the public, it seems to me quite extraordinary to suggest that, on the one hand, we should have questions in full but that, on the other, that we do not need to have Statements in full. For members of public watching on their televisions, listening on the radio and sitting in the Public Gallery not to have heard a Statement in this House seems to lack the clarity that we have been so keen on elsewhere. For those three reasons, I think that this is a misguided proposal to put before your Lordships.
Lord Butler of Brockwell
My Lords, the proposal refers to exceptional circumstances and I should like to remind the House of one. I remember a public expenditure Statement lasting an hour and a quarter being made in the House of Commons and then being repeated in full in this House on the following day, when everybody had had the opportunity not only to read the Statement but to read everything about it in the newspapers. I suggest that that is the sort of circumstance in which the time of the House should not be taken in repeating a whole Statement.
The Countess of Mar
My Lords, the Leader of the House made clear what happens at Question Time as to which blocs there were. My understanding is that, at Statements, Liberal Democrats are a separate bloc from the Tories, the Labour Party and everybody else. Can he make the position clear?
Lord Strathclyde
My Lords, I think that the Leader’s Group is trying to be helpful, in part because of the example that the noble Lord, Lord Butler, laid out. The proposal is not for the generality of Statements; it is for the most exceptional circumstances; there is the safeguard of the usual channels. The example that the noble Lord gave, of last year’s Autumn Statement, when it was taken on the second day, is precisely the one that we all had in mind. To spend an hour and a half on the Minister reading out the Statement was, I think, a bit much for all of us. The proposal is not designed to deal with most Statements.
On some of what the noble Countess said about blocs during Statements, I am not entirely sure what the situation is. Perhaps I could discuss it with the Chief Whip and the opposition Chief Whip. I think that there is a slightly different system at Statements, with the Liberal Democrats, Conservatives, Labour, Cross Benches and anybody else taken more in rotation than at Question Time.
Baroness Royall of Blaisdon
My Lords, before the Leader sits down, perhaps I may ask him about the important point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, which is that most Statements are currently made available in our Printed Paper Office when the Minister sits down in the House of Commons. It would be extremely helpful if they were made available when the Minister stood up in the House of Commons.
The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Lord Strathclyde)
My Lords, I think so, too. I shall see whether we can make this happen. There may be some extremely good, logical reason why the Statement is not made available earlier, but if it can be changed then I think that it should.
Lord Geddes
My Lords, I should like to add one point that I do not think has been mentioned. The final words of the proposal are almost the most important. They say that,
“statements should not be made the occasion for an immediate debate”.
If this proposal is carried, I hope that the House will bear that in mind.
Motion agreed.
Procedure of the House (Proposal 6)
The Chairman of Committees
To resolve that, with effect from the start of the 2012–13 session of Parliament:
Members be limited to one Question for Short Debate in House of Lords Business at any one time;
Each Question for Short Debate should indicate the date on which it was tabled;
After six months it should be removed from the list;
The guidance in the Companion to the Standing Orders on the wording of Questions for Short Debate should be as follows: “Questions for short debate last for a maximum of 1½ hours and should therefore be limited in scope.”
Motion agreed.
Procedure of the House (Proposal 7)
The Chairman of Committees
To resolve that the following text be inserted prior to paragraph 4.42 of the Companion to the Standing Orders: “The House of Commons may be referred to by name, rather than as ‘the other place’ or ‘another place’.”
Motion agreed.
Procedure of the House (Proposal 8)
The Chairman of Committees
To resolve that the practice of debating “motions for papers” be discontinued, and that in future all general debates not inviting the House to reach a positive decision should take place on “take note” motions, which should be short, neutrally phrased and not subject to amendment.
Motion agreed.
Procedure of the House (Proposal 9)
17:25 - Division on Motion 9. - Ayes: 173 / Noes: 173 -
The Chairman of Committees
To resolve that the House adopt the following practice in respect of appellations:
Members should address the House as a whole, and they should never use the second person when addressing other Members in debate. A Member may refer to any other Member, without specifying his or her title, as “the noble Lord”, “the noble Lady”, “the noble Duke”, “the right reverend Bishop” or “the most reverend Archbishop”. Members may also, if they so wish, use the appropriate rank—for example “the noble Earl” or “the noble Baroness”—but there is no obligation to do so. When referring to another Member by name, the correct form is “Lord W”, “Lady X”, “the Duke of Y”, “the Bishop/Archbishop of Z”. Members may also use the term “my noble friend” to refer to fellow members of a political party. When referring to a Minister of the Crown, Members may refer to “the Leader of the House”, “the Minister” or “the Secretary of State”, as appropriate.
Lord Geddes
My Lords, I did intervene on a previous occasion on this subject, and, as with the previous proposal, I have not changed my mind. I know that the proposal uses the most important word “may”, but I think it is a retrograde step to start changing an age-old custom, particularly when it comes to “noble and gallant”, “noble and learned” and “noble friends”. As I said on an earlier occasion, a right reverend Prelate shall ever be a “right reverend Prelate”.
Lord Pearson of Rannoch
If he does not mind, I will support what the noble Lord, Lord Geddes, has just said. The way we use titles at the moment is something that contributes to a lack of asperity in your Lordships’ House and to the dignity of the House. Just to get rid of it or to say that the correct form is now to talk about “Lord So-and-so”, “Lady So-and-so” or even “the Duke of Y”—although I think it would have to be “the Duke of M”—is a retrograde step and unnecessary. Can we not leave it as optional, without it having to be the correct form? This form of correctness will not help our image or our deliberations at all.
Lord Lucas
My Lords, I entirely agree. I very much hope that this is something that we will allow to evolve naturally. Preserving courtesy is a very important element of this House. I entirely agree that we should never use “you”, let alone the appellations recently used by Mr Berlusconi of Chancellor Merkel. Courtesy is immensely important but to formularise it merely means that people will trip over themselves and get called out all the time. That used to be the way it was in this House when I was first here—people would get terribly upset if you did not stick “gallant” where it belonged. We have got much more relaxed about that now. I find that very comforting and I do not want to go back to a formulaic system.
Lord Higgins
My Lords, should there not be an absolute prohibition on the use of the expression, “The noble Minister”—
Lord Grenfell
My Lords, I am particularly happy at this moment to be able to agree with the noble Lord, Lord Pearson of Rannoch, for the first time in this century. I think he has got it right. If “honourable Member” is good enough for the other place, why can “noble Lord” not be good enough for this place? I do not mind whether eventually this becomes evolutionary progress towards a different system, but I do not think that we have to take the decision now that this change be made. Why chip away at the courtesies of the House—which we have been addressing for a long time this afternoon and saying how important they are—on this particular issue? It is unnecessary.
Lady Saltoun of Abernethy
My Lords, those of us who have been here quite a long time have all had to take the trouble to learn the antiquated modes of address and of referring to people. Why cannot people who have not been here for so long learn them too? Is it laziness? I do not see why we should change this. I also think that if you have to pause for a minute and think about how you refer to or address someone, it gives you a moment just to cool down in case you were thinking of being rather rude about them; rather like counting to 10 before you say anything. I do not think we should change this.
Baroness Noakes
My Lords, I completely agree with the noble Lady, Lady Saltoun. However, we have gone past the era when we strictly enforced the use of the customary forms. I agree with my noble friend Lord Lucas that it is no bad thing that the use of language should be allowed to evolve. If one sits in the House, one hears a great variety being used, both the correct form and various amendments to it, including the language in the proposal. However, those wonderful people in Hansard always correct what we say in your Lordships' House and record it in the correct form. I, for one, would like that to continue.
The Earl of Erroll
My Lords, although I agree in principle with the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, I will feel sad that the loss of the term “most reverend Primates” will allow us to forget our true origins.
Lord Grocott
My Lords, a very small step is being proposed. Therefore, I am sure that it will be rejected.
I strongly support the proposal. I felt that I had to speak today on this issue out of memory of my very good friend Lord McIntosh of Haringey, who was one of the most able Ministers I have ever seen in operation. I watched him when I first arrived, because you are always a bit diffident about making sure that you obey all the rules of the new institution, et cetera. I noticed early on that he never obeyed any of the details of the regulations laid out in the Companion, which frighten new Members to death. I am not normally anxious about those kinds of things, but it certainly caused me some anxiety to get the title absolutely right, to remind myself that it is only lawyers who are learned and that the rest of us are not, and that it is only field marshals who are gallant and those captains or corporals are not.
It is such a small change. Lord McIntosh of Haringey—my late noble friend—completely disregarded the rules from the start. If it was Lord Campbell-Savours, he would say “Lord Campbell-Savours”; he would not say “the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours”. Nothing happened. No lightning struck and everyone knew perfectly well what was taking place. Ditto with the proposal that we have just passed—I was amazed that it got through; Members must have been going for tea, or something. I refer to the one that states that we should no longer refer to the House of Commons as the other place. Just to confuse everyone, we have to call it the other place. What other place? It is the House of Commons, so why not say “the House of Commons”. We have already made that revolutionary decision, so all I am suggesting to the House is that we carry on in that revolutionary spirit.
Lord Cormack
I am grateful to the noble and irreverent Lord, but we have not in fact agreed to any such thing. All we have said is that we may refer to it as the House of Commons. He, of course, will; some of us will not.
Lord Grocott
Well, I am relaxed about what people do individually. All I am saying is that I really think that it would be helpful if we gave a clear indication to new Members, other Members and the public, who find some of the appellations completely bewildering, that it is perfectly in order to do so. Nothing untoward happens; it does not affect the courtesy of debate in the slightest. We are still referring to people in the third person—which is absolutely right; it is essential that we preserve that—but we can simply say “Lord Campbell-Savours” instead of “the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours.”. That has no effect whatever on his nobility. We should cease to use the endless different gradations of rank and of title, which mean nothing to anyone outside. I infinitely prefer to refer to “the Bishop of Leicester” than to “the right reverend Prelate”. I like to know where he comes from; I like to know what his title is. I am a regular, practising attender of the Church of England, but I was only vaguely aware of what a prelate was until I came here. However, I know what a bishop is.
Lady Saltoun of Abernethy
Perhaps the noble Lord will give way. There is nothing to stop him from referring to “the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leicester”.
Lord Grocott
It is “noble Lady”. Well, whatever. It is a matter of supreme irrelevance as long as we can be reasonably courteous to each other. As far as I can recall, only moments ago she was arguing for brevity. Now I have to say “the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leicester”. I prefer “the Bishop of Leicester”.
All I am saying to the House is, for goodness’ sake, we could shorten the Companion if we did not have all these requirements. I shall be very tempted to put down amendments to extend the use of the word “gallant” to everyone who has shown courage on the battlefield, not simply to someone who has become a field marshal.
I know I am pushing water uphill. This is far too revolutionary a proposal for the House to accept, but none the less the opinion of the House should probably be tested on it.
Lord Newton of Braintree
My Lords, it may surprise people who have heard me speak on one or two other things to know that I am a complete reactionary on this, but for a reason that may also surprise them. The Order Paper says:
“Members may also use the term ‘my noble friend’ to refer to fellow members of a political party”.
Where does this leave me with my Liberal Democrat friends?
Lord Tordoff
My Lords, I like to keep the traditions of the House going, but I must say that “the noble and learned Lord” really is a bit odd, is it not? We had two Nobel prize winners in this House at one time, but they were not “noble and learned”, they were just “noble”. That illustrates the futility of this whole business. Of course, “learned in the law” is what it says, but we do not say that.
I am reminded of perhaps one of the best put-downs I ever heard in your Lordships’ House. Lord Hailsham of Marylebone was on the Woolsack, and Lord Mishcon had spoken from the then opposition Front Bench. Lord Hailsham stood up afterwards and said, “I have listened with great interest to the speech of the noble and learned—oh, I do beg his pardon—the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon”. He might as well have walked across the Chamber and slapped him in the face.
Lord Wright of Richmond
I do not know how many people heard, or whether it will be recorded in Hansard tomorrow, what the noble Lord, Lord Higgins, said. I beg the noble Lord’s pardon; he is trying to get up and I think I should give way.
Lord Higgins
My Lords, I was so anxious just now to give way to the noble Lord, Lord Grenfell, that I cut myself off in mid-sentence, so perhaps I may be allowed to complete it. Could we have an absolute prohibition on the use of the expression “the noble Minister”—
Lord Gilbert
In view of the admiration that my noble friend Lord Grocott has expressed for the late Lord McIntosh, who advertised his disdain for many of the matters of procedure when he arrived here, can he reassure me that I will not be diminished in his affections when I tell him that I have not the slightest intention of observing most of the nonsenses that have been agreed this afternoon?
The Countess of Mar
My Lords, perhaps if we accept this proposal it will ease the problem of the government Front Bench, which seems to think that all females are called “Lady”. It seems to have an awful lot of problems in remembering that I am a countess.
The Chairman of Committees (Lord Brabazon of Tara)
I wonder whether the House thinks that we might now come to a conclusion on proposal 9. Before begging to move that, I must say that I have had a very interesting afternoon, as I am sure we all have. The House has conducted itself extremely well. I beg to move that proposal 9 on appellations be agreed.
The Deputy Speaker (Lord Colwyn)
My Lords, there being an equality of votes, in accordance with Standing Order No. 56, which,
“provides that the Question before the House shall be resolved in the negative unless there is a majority in its favour”,
I declare the Motion disagreed to.
Arrangement of Business
Baroness Stowell of Beeston
My Lords, before my noble friend moves the Second Reading of the Protection of Freedoms Bill, perhaps I may highlight the fact that 29 speakers have signed up to speak in the debate. If Back-Bench contributions are kept to seven minutes, the House should be able to rise around the target rising time of 10 pm.
Protection of Freedoms Bill
(13 years ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Minister of State, Home Office (Lord Henley)
My Lords, respect for individual freedoms and civil liberties is one of the cornerstones of our parliamentary democracy. It is the duty of the coalition Government, as it is of any Government, to protect civil liberties and hard-won freedoms. Of course, it is also our duty to protect the security of the public. It is undoubtedly the case that we live in a dangerous world. We have to contend with the threats posed by international and domestic terrorism, and by crime, disorder and anti-social behaviour. The most basic freedom is the right to live in our own homes, and go about our everyday lives, free from the fear of harm from terrorism or crime, but in responding to such threats and discharging the Government’s core responsibility for protecting the public, we must not make the mistake of undermining the very freedoms and civil liberties that we are seeking to preserve and uphold as a beacon to others.
There is a balance to be sought here and that is what we will be endeavouring to achieve in the course of the debate during the passage of this Bill. It is a balance which I am afraid to say the previous Administration failed to achieve. They went too far on a number of issues. I will list a few of them: identity cards and the national identity register; the ContactPoint database; the indefinite retention of DNA profiles of more than 1 million innocent people; hundreds of new powers of entry; a vetting and barring scheme that required the monitoring of more than 9 million, and at one stage possibly 11 million, people working with children or vulnerable adults; indiscriminate and poorly targeted terrorism stop-and-search powers; removing the right to a jury trial in serious fraud cases; and last, but by no means least, 42 days’ and 90 days’ pre-charge detention for terrorist suspects. We have already abolished ID cards and the ContactPoint database, reduced the maximum period of pre-charge detention to 14 days, and your Lordships’ House is separately considering legislation to replace control orders. The Bill deals with the legacy of many of the other measures to which I have referred.
I turn to the detail of the Bill. Part 1 introduces safeguards in respect of the retention and use of biometric material by the police and schools. There is no doubt that DNA and fingerprints are invaluable forensic tools in the investigation of crime. They help to convict the guilty and, equally importantly, can exonerate the innocent. It follows that the national DNA database should contain as many profiles of convicted individuals as possible; nothing in this part of the Bill changes that. Where a person has been convicted or cautioned for a recordable offence, their DNA profile and fingerprints will, as now, be retained indefinitely. However, it is not acceptable that, following arrest, the DNA and fingerprints of a person should be retained indefinitely, regardless of whether that person is charged or convicted of an offence. Few people would support a truly Orwellian universal DNA database, so we should not seek to build one by stealth.
Under the Bill, whenever someone is arrested and has their DNA and fingerprints taken, the police will still be able to undertake a speculative search against the relevant national databases. If they have committed an earlier offence, they should not be able to evade justice. Indeed, it was just such a check in 2006 that led to the link being made between Mark Dixie, who had been arrested in connection with a fight at the pub where he worked, and his rape and murder of Sally Anne Bowman nine months before. If an individual is not subsequently convicted of an offence, their DNA and fingerprints will only be routinely retained where they have been charged with a serious offence, and then only for three years, with the option of extending this to five years with the approval of a magistrates’ court. The police will also be able to apply to the new Biometric Commissioner to retain the DNA and fingerprints of a person arrested for, but not charged with, a serious offence in circumstances where the alleged victim was vulnerable or where retention is otherwise considered necessary for the purposes of the prevention and detection of crime.
These provisions will ensure that the National DNA Database, with over 5 million profiles, remains one of the largest of its kind in the world, continuing to support the police by helping to catch and convict serious violent and sexual offenders, but without in the process stigmatising over 1 million innocent people.
The provisions in this part also give effect to our commitment to prohibit the fingerprinting of children in schools without parental consent. It is properly a matter for schools to decide whether or not to use biometric recognition systems for such purposes as pupil registration, cashless catering and checking out books from the school library. However, schools also need to have proper regard for the sensitive nature of personal biometric information, so it is right that parents should be asked to make an informed decision about whether to accede to the processing of such information. It is also proper that pupils should have a say. Where a parent or child objects, schools will have to take reasonable steps to ensure that alternative arrangements are put in place to enable the child to access school services.
Part 2 deals with the regulation of surveillance. Closed circuit television and automatic number plate recognition systems play an important role in the prevention and detection of crime and anti-social behaviour, and in providing assurance to local communities. I fully recognise that many people want to see more CCTV cameras in order to help protect their neighbourhoods. However, as we saw with Project Champion in Birmingham last year, public confidence in the benefits of CCTV can quickly be undermined if the police, local authorities and others are seen to be imposing camera systems on local communities without proper consultation. In this regard, I look forward to hearing from the noble Earl, Lord Erroll, who assisted the Chief Constable of Thames Valley Police as part of her review of Project Champion.
The Bill takes a measured and incremental approach to the further regulation of CCTV. It provides for a code of practice on the development and use of surveillance camera systems and for the appointment of a Surveillance Camera Commissioner to oversee the operation of the code. The police and local authorities will be required to have regard to the code of practice, and we would expect that other operators of CCTV systems will also wish to adhere to the code on a voluntary basis. However, if the need arises, there is facility in the Bill to extend the duty to have regard to the code to other such operators.
The need to maintain public confidence is also at the heart of the proposals in the Bill in respect of local authorities’ use of covert investigatory powers. The intrusive powers covered by the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, known as RIPA, must be used proportionately. Public trust is undermined if such powers are used to pursue relatively trivial matters, such as to check whether parents live within a school catchment area or to tackle dog fouling or littering. The Bill therefore subjects the exercise of these powers by local authorities to judicial oversight and, separately, we will be bringing forward secondary legislation under RIPA to introduce a threshold test so that local authorities cannot use directed surveillance powers for trivial purposes.
Part 3 of the Bill deals with powers of entry and wheel clamping. There are now some 1,200 separate powers of entry, enabling a wide variety of officials to enter people’s homes and businesses. We do not for a moment suggest that all such powers are unjustified, but there should be a compelling case and clear safeguards before a state official has the right to demand entry into a person’s home. We intend to review all existing powers of entry. Following this review, the provisions in the Bill will enable us to repeal any powers of entry that are shown to be unnecessary or unjustified, and to add further safeguards to those powers that are to be retained. We will also introduce a code of practice governing the exercise of powers of entry.
In many ways, my noble friend Lord Selsdon can take credit for these provisions. In the last Parliament he repeatedly plugged away at this issue, introducing a succession of Private Members’ Bills. I am pleased to say that his tenacity has now borne some fruit.
Moving on from protecting people’s homes to protecting use of their vehicles, I have no doubt that a number of noble Lords will have suffered the fate of having their car clamped. While there are, of course, many reputable clamping companies, the industry is also afflicted with more than its fair share of rogue operators using menace to demand and extract excessive release fees from unsuspecting motorists. This is an area where regulation has failed to tackle the abuses in the industry. We have therefore concluded that, where there is no lawful authority, an outright ban on wheel clamping is the only tenable way forward. We recognise that for some car park operators and other landowners the ban will remove one of the parking enforcement tools available to them. We also recognise that no one has a right to park their vehicle wherever they want—motorists have responsibilities too. So the Bill extends the operation of keeper liability for unpaid parking charges, which already applies to parking enforcement on the public highway, to other land.
I move onto Part 4, which reforms key counterterrorism powers following the government review overseen by my noble friend Lord Macdonald of River Glaven.
The Bill enshrines in law our expectation that the maximum period of pre-charge detention for terrorist suspects should be no more than 14 days. That is an important advance on the position adopted under the last Government, when 28 days became the norm.
The Government recognise, however, that there will be exceptional circumstances where it may be necessary to increase the maximum period of pre-charge detention to 28 days. This view was supported by the Joint Committee chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Armstrong of Ilminster. As to the mechanism for achieving this, the Government reflected very carefully on the views of the Joint Committee but remained of the opinion that any increase to 28 days should normally be decided by Parliament and enacted through primary legislation. We accept that the option of recalling Parliament to pass fast-track legislation is not available during a period of dissolution. That is why the Bill contains a power to enable the Home Secretary to increase the maximum detention period by executive order in those very narrow circumstances.
Part 4 also puts in place the permanent replacement of the no-suspicion stop-and-search powers contained in Section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000. That these powers failed to meet the test of necessity and proportionality is best illustrated by the fact that not one of more than 600,000 stops in Great Britain under Section 44 resulted in a conviction for a terrorist offence. Instead, the Bill provides for a much more targeted power that the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, David Anderson QC, described as a “real and substantial change”.
Part 5 gives effect to the recommendations of the twin reviews of the vetting and barring scheme and the criminal records regime. We have a duty to protect the most vulnerable in society, be they children or adults. The Government will do nothing to increase the risk of such individuals being exposed to harm. However, we need a safeguarding system that is proportionate and promotes responsibility by employers and voluntary organisations while not putting in place unnecessary barriers to employment and volunteering. The existing system fails to live up to these aims. At worst, it creates an illusion of security by encouraging a tick-box approach to safeguarding.
The Bill creates a more balanced approach, putting an end to the requirement on more than 9 million—or, as I said earlier, 11 million—people to be registered and monitored by the state. We are also scaling back the scope of regulated activity and therefore of the barring arrangements so that they cover only those in regular or close, unsupervised contact with children, or those who provide health or personal care for adults. In the case of those working with children or adults but who do not fall within the ambit of regulated activity, it will remain open to employers and voluntary organisations to require such staff to undergo a criminal record check.
We are also streamlining the criminal records regime, including by ensuring that criminal record certificates are portable between posts within the same sector. The fairness of the system will also be enhanced by affording the subject of a criminal record certificate the opportunity to challenge any conviction or other information contained therein before sharing the certificate with his or her employer or voluntary organisation. In addition, we will increase the efficiency of the reformed safeguarding system by bringing together into one new organisation, the disclosure and barring service, the functions of the Criminal Records Bureau and the Independent Safeguarding Authority.
Part 5 also rights an historic wrong. It is now more than 40 years since gay sex between consenting adults was decriminalised. However, men with a conviction for an offence involving such behaviour are still stigmatised by having to disclose any such convictions and seeing them recorded on criminal record certificates. The Bill puts an end to such indignity.
Part 6 has the twin aims of further promoting transparency, including by extending the application of the Freedom of Information Act to additional publicly owned companies, and by enhancing the independence of the Information Commissioner. Given the commissioner’s important role in regulating information rights, including data protection and freedom of information issues, it is critical that he should go about his duties without fear or favour. There is no doubt in my mind that the current commissioner and the previous holders of the office have done that, but the provisions in this part of the Bill will help remove any impression to the contrary.
Finally, Clause 107 is a culmination of the implacable stand taken by your Lordships’ House in defending the historic right to a jury trial of those accused of a serious fraud offence. In 2003 and again in 2007, this House defeated attempts to bring in judge-only fraud trials. Clause 105 consigns the thankfully uncommenced Section 43 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 to the legislative dustbin.
I appreciate that I have spoken at some length and that this undoubtedly is a diverse range of provisions. The golden thread running through them is a determination on the part of the Government to restore a proper balance between protecting our communities, including the most vulnerable, and our hard-won civil liberties and historic freedoms. It is this difficult balance that your Lordships’ House has striven to maintain when discharging its core role as a revising Chamber, and which we shall seek to secure as we debate further stages of the Bill. I commend it to the House.
Baroness Royall of Blaisdon
My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for his comprehensive introduction to the Bill. We may hear many fine speeches today that will characterise the Bill as a choice between protecting historical liberties and the march towards authoritarianism. However, I agree with my right honourable friend the Member for Blackburn, who said in another place that this is more a standard criminal justice amendment Bill than a sweeping redress of the balance of freedoms in this country. Some parts of the Bill present us with a stark choice not between freedom and the Orwellian state but between tiresome, sometimes intrusive inconveniences and increasing the risks to public safety. Regulation of CCTV, limits to the DNA database and crucial changes to the vetting and barring regime all present us with such a choice, and we are deeply concerned about the potential impact that the provisions may have on some of the most vulnerable communities in our society.
I will begin with the positive aspects of the Bill. We give our wholehearted support to the provision to erase historical convictions for gay sex that for far too long have blighted the lives of many gay men. We also welcome the extensions to the Freedom of Information Act 2000, but I ask the Government to look at the needs of universities and other public research organisations in relation to research and progress. In addition, we support amendments to RIPA that aim to obtain greater proportion in the scope and use of powers, and we are very happy to allow people to get married whenever they desire. The reduction in the pre-charge detention of terrorist subjects from 28 to 14 days is another thing on which we can agree on the basis of evidence, and of course we support the restriction on stop and search powers.
We also firmly support the Government's intention to crack down on cowboy clampers who have bullied and harassed members of the public. However, we are disappointed that the Government are not also seeking to ensure that there is proper regulation of the private ticketing regimes that the Bill establishes as an alternative. In the other place, the Minister said that effective self-regulation by the parking industry was the way forward. However, this issue has arisen precisely because industry self-regulation has proved totally ineffective. We are concerned that the Government's best intentions will do little more than squeeze the balloon, turning thug into extortionist as rogue clampers turn into rogue ticketers. Citizens may well turn to Citizens Advice, which dealt with more than 16,000 parking inquiries last year. However, it is under huge pressure as a result of the cuts.
Other aspects of the Bill give rise to deep anxiety and betray a fundamental distinction in our parties' attitudes towards risks to the vulnerable in our society. I am sure all noble Lords would agree that the use of closed circuit television footage during the August riots helped the police to identify and charge almost 2,000 suspects. CCTV forms a central part of police investigations. It makes people feel safer and is especially important to those living in troubled neighbourhoods. Local authorities and police forces are struggling with eye-watering budget cuts and redundancies, yet the Government are proposing to pile extra red tape on authorities that wish to set up CCTV in their area. Do they believe that local authorities and police forces have a fundamentally more sinister use for CCTV than private operators? If there is a genuine need for regulation, why do the Government not think fit to extend the safeguard to the vast majority of CCTV that is privately owned?
Technology has revolutionised the prevention and detection of crime in this country, and nowhere more so than in the use of DNA evidence. DNA provides 40,000 crime scene matches a year and alongside fingerprints provides a critical component of investigations into the most serious crimes of murder, manslaughter and rape. The Crime and Security Act 2010 proposed that the DNA of those arrested or charged with, but not convicted of, a serious recordable offence be held by police for six years. This was based on Home Office analysis that shows that the risk of re-arrest falls to the level of the general population after six years. Part 1 of the Bill reduces this limit to three years. The Conservatives were convinced by this argument in opposition and voted for a six-year limit. Why do they now wish to halve it? What new evidence has caused this U-turn, other than the ideology of their coalition partners?
The retention of DNA of those arrested or charged but not convicted is especially important in the case of rape, which suffers notoriously low charge and conviction rates. We know that it is often only after repeat offences that rapists are finally convicted. As a result of this Bill, 17,000 rape suspects would be immediately removed from the DNA database. Experience shows that some, although not all, of these individuals will go on to commit further serious violent and sexual offences. In fact, the Government know that they are creating a significant public safety problem here, which is why instead of capping retention to three years they have included a provision to extend retention by an extra two years. In an effort, perhaps, to pacify Liberal voices, the Government are offloading responsibility for key public safety decisions on to our stretched police forces.
There are numerous cases in which murderers and rapists have been convicted only because their DNA samples were retained on a database for more than three years. To reduce the number of years is both irresponsible and dangerous. Part 5 of the Bill makes significant changes to the vetting and barring scheme that was introduced in the wake of the horrific murders of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman at the hands of their school caretaker. As noble Lords will know, the previous Labour Government, having recognised the weight of unnecessary burdens, implemented the recommendations of Sir Roger Singleton's report, which reduced the number of individuals needing to register with the ISA by approximately 2 million.
However, we believe that this Bill goes far beyond removing simply “unnecessary” burdens, and presents a serious risk to the advances that the scheme has made to child safety. The new barring regime would no longer include those who work in supervised situations with children or vulnerable adults. Charities, including the NSPCC, argue that this fundamentally misconceives the nature of supervision in places such as schools and care homes, where light-touch supervision means that there is often opportunity for an individual to develop inappropriate and abusive relationships with the child or adult. Furthermore, those convicted of serious barrable offences who do not currently work or express an interest in working with children will not be placed on the barred list at all.
This cannot be right. It is interesting to note that an online survey conducted by Fair Play for Children found that 96.6 per cent of respondents felt that adults convicted of offences against children should be placed on the barring list as soon as they are convicted.
We welcome the introduction of new portable Criminal Records Bureau checks. However, like Girlguiding UK, for example, of which I am a proud member, we are greatly concerned about changes that would mean that the CRB checks are sent to individuals before employers.
The coalition agreement states that the vetting and barring regime should be scaled back to common sense levels. We believe that this Government are at fundamental odds with the “common sense” of the majority of the public in not choosing to err on the side of caution when it comes to the safety of the most vulnerable in our society. I am glad, however, that this Bill presents us with an opportunity to address an important loophole in our law that means that those subject to sustained and harrowing experiences of stalking are not receiving the recognition and protection that they need and deserve.
Stalking behaviour is consistently unidentified and underestimated by the criminal justice system. The lack of legal definition of a stalking offence means that the police, probation officers and the courts will look at offences in isolation; as a result, patterns of behaviour are often not spotted until a serious offence is committed. Clare Bernal, for example, was shot dead in a Knightsbridge store in September 2005 by Michael Pech. Pech had stalked Clare after their three-week relationship ended, following her in the street and bombarding her with threatening calls and messages. However, after being arrested and charged with harassment he was bailed and travelled back to Slovenia, where he purchased the gun that he used to shoot Clare while awaiting sentence. We need greater clarity in the law to ensure that other women do not have to experience what happened to this young woman. There are hundreds of similar harrowing examples of women living in terror and sometimes being murdered.
I know that the Minister is a fan of the Scottish model for other provisions within this Bill, so I hope he will support changes to the Protection from Harassment Act 1997 that are similar to those introduced in Scotland last year and that would make stalking a specific offence, thereby naming and defining this poorly understood crime.
In the 10 years prior to the introduction of the offence of stalking, Strathclyde police reported a total of 70 stalking-related prosecutions. In the first six months after the enactment of stalking laws in Scotland, there were 140 prosecutions in Strathclyde alone, with an estimated 500 to 600 prosecutions in the whole of Scotland by the end of this year.
A similar small but crucial change in the law would mean that the 18.1 per cent of women estimated by the British Crime Survey of 2010-11 to have been a victim of stalking could seek greater protection. I hope that noble Lords on all sides of this House will support an amendment to this effect.
Earlier this year, the Home Secretary announced with much fanfare that this Bill,
“gives us a chance to ... return individual freedoms to the heart of our legislation”.—[Official Report, Commons, 1/3/11; col. 205.]
In many ways this is hyperbole, but by creating barriers to CCTV use, limiting DNA retention and restricting the vetting and barring scheme, exactly whose freedoms are being returned? Certainly not the freedom of local businesses, some of which suffered in the riots but were able to see the perpetrators brought to justice thanks to CCTV; nor the freedom of young women to feel safe walking the streets late at night; nor the freedom of children and young people, who in future could be supervised by paedophiles or others who have been barred.
I note the comments made by the Minister about balance. At the moment we believe that the balance is wrong. Some parts of this Bill are welcome but critical parts of it deserve close scrutiny and amendment. Together with my noble friends Lord Rosser and Lord Tunnicliffe, I look forward to working with the noble Lord and the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, to ensure that there is better balance in this Bill.
Baroness Hamwee
My Lords, the Minister’s careful exposition of the Bill has been most helpful. I welcome the Bill with enthusiasm—such enthusiasm that I look forward to successor Bills taking civil liberties even further forward. It is a pleasure to be repealing legislation, particularly restrictive legislation, even if it takes 200 pages to do so. I do not regard this as a standard criminal justice Bill of the sort that we have become used to in recent years. I depart from the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, on that, but no doubt we will discuss it. However, I would also say that repeal should be a matter for Parliament, not for Ministers.
In our complex society technology seems to be matched by the technicalities of legislation, but the underlying concepts are simple: fundamental human freedoms, historic civil liberties and a state which has become authoritarian—certainly too authoritarian. We have all become accustomed to the demand, “Your ID, please”; we are too used to having to prove who we are. I heard—I think it was on the radio a few days ago—of an 80 year-old who was refused a purchase in an off-licence because she could not prove that she was not a teenager.
The worst thing is not knowing what is known about you. This is about the relationship between the consumer and Tesco—which is almost nil in my case, but one could say any other retailer—or between an IT user and a search engine operator, or, of course, between the citizen and the state. The obtaining and retention of information changes the relationship between citizens and the state.
I am not applying this comparison wholesale or in its entirety; however, thinking about today’s debate, one characteristic of fascist regimes seems to have been an obsessive collection and retention of information. There was certainly one regime of which that was characteristic, anyway; I am not sure whether the Italians were too chaotic to have been able to achieve it.
We talk a lot about policing by consent, and I have been wondering what that means in the year 2011. We should also ask ourselves what is the extent of consent of the citizen to observation, surveillance, the keeping of records and the sharing and use of information. That is not easy because what I may think should be applied to you and to everyone generally—that means everyone else—is not the same as what I think should be applied to me. Ask anyone who has been involved in local government: we all know of the demands for blanket CCTV coverage in order to catch the owners of dogs that foul the streets.
The existence of more than 4 million surveillance cameras makes me wonder whether their very proliferation reduces their deterrent value because they are so commonplace. They are not uniformly applied. There are three times as many automatic number-plate recognition cameras in two predominantly Muslim suburbs of Birmingham as there are in the city centre.
We have more mobile phones than we have people. We rely on them. We have a very high expectation of technology. I have a friend who, in her worst moments of tussling with her computer, calls it “the devil’s work”.
I remember the shock when people realised what information about their movements in London was stored on the Oyster card—so-called, we were told at the time of its introduction, because of the pearl inside the oyster. It is not just a single pearl; it is a whole jewellery box, if that is your view of it.
Our private lives are trespassed upon without our realising it. It is important, and I wish that I had thought of this, to draw the distinction between the right to privacy and respect for privacy. We should remember, too, that there are social pressures to share information. Your own inclusion of information on a social networking site can make you quite vulnerable.
Guidelines and codes of practice can be only as good as their operators. We saw what happened with Section 44 stops and searches. No doubt we will use the words “balance” and “proportionality” a great deal in our debates. We will range from the administrative convenience of using biometric information about children in schools and, I would say, the inevitable pressure on parents to consent to their use, to how appropriately—another good word, but sometimes a weasel word—to protect the rights of landowners from those who see a space and park on it.
At this stage of the Bill I am trying to look at broad principles, not least because a speech on the detail would take me far too long. Another principle is the law of unintended consequences, and the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, has referred to the impact of the extension of freedom of information to university research. I mention it specifically because my noble friend Lady Brinton, who cannot be here today, had wanted to do so. The problem is that even if a subject is still being investigated, is not yet patented, published or peer-reviewed or is part of a commercial and confidential contract with a partner outside the institution, it will still be caught. The Scots, under the guidance of my noble and learned friend Lord Wallace of Tankerness, when he was part of the Scottish Government—ahead of the rest of us, as so often—got this sorted, and so should we.
So we are looking at balance, proportionality and a good dollop of common sense, but the safeguards must not be illusory. I welcome the involvement of the judiciary in many of the matters covered by the Bill. We may have debates about what is appropriate as an executive decision and what should be a judicial decision, but we may need to explore the criteria for decisions that we require our magistrates and our more senior judges to take. I am not talking just about the exercise of powers of entry but, for instance, about the extension of the retention of DNA. What will be the basis for the judicial decision? For instance, what would be the standard of proof for something that was not actually a trial?
I have referred to safeguards and codes of practice. If there is more than a single regime, as there is with CCTV, we will need a lot of clarity and co-ordination between the regimes.
I do not know what the collective noun is for commissioners but we certainly need clarity and joining up about the respective responsibilities of existing and proposed commissioners, looking at it not least from the point of view of the public and trying to avoid confusion in the public mind. Let us also be sure that the independence of commissioners is real, not rhetorical.
I will try to restrain myself from seeking to add to the Bill, not least because I see this as the start of a process of a strand of legislation, but I will indulge myself by mentioning just one issue on which I have heard the current Information Commissioner talk: the need for a more effective response to blagging—that is, the unlawful accessing of personal information by trickery. If a private investigator blags information he can treat it as a business expense, so, far from there being a deterrent penalty, the taxpayer is actually subsidising the activity.
The Bill will be referred to as a Christmas tree Bill and it remains to be seen what baubles will be hung on it. I suspect that the Minister will be very cautious about getting out a piece of mistletoe and—I am searching for a verb—connecting with anyone.
The line of argument with which we are all familiar is, “If you’ve nothing to hide, you’ve nothing to fear”. I have nothing to hide—at any rate, nothing more than the usual embarrassments that we all have—but I fear the invasion of your Lordships’ privacy. This is about the sort of society that we want and how far, if at all, we should condition our rights. I welcome the Bill.
Lord Bew
My Lords, I welcome the main thrust of the Bill. With regard to the reform of counterterrorism powers, the Bill has a good balance. I say that as a Member of this House who has had reservations about the control order legislation that the Minister has before the House. In this case, I am glad to say that the Bill has got the balance right between public safety and a proper liberalisation of our law. I welcome what the Minister said about the removal of an historic indignity with respect to the gay community. I regard that as a wise and noble step in the Bill. I should also like to say that the Northern Ireland matters are handled effectively and well, as they touch on many parts of the Bill.
I have one major problem. It touches on matters dealt with in and around Clause 100 on freedom of information and its working with respect to our universities. This has already been referred to by the noble Baronesses, Lady Royall and Lady Hamwee, and I think it will be referred to again before the debate is concluded. I have to declare an interest. My own university, Queen’s University Belfast, has been rather caught up in the toils of this debate, and I am a professor at that university. While I indicate broad support for the Bill, I wish to explain why there is a case for an amendment to it to provide an exception in certain limited circumstances to pre-publication research in universities in relation to Freedom of Information Act requests. A similar exemption already exists, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, said, in Scottish freedom of information legislation, and there is a strong case for looking at that.
In my own university there has been an intense controversy concerning a well publicised case concerning tree ring data, which has very much influenced the public discussion in recent times about the operation of the Freedom of Information Act in universities. That work on tree ring data, while important, is in no way connected with my own work or the work of my own department. However, anybody who works in a university knows that the operation of the Freedom of Information Act has changed the way that we work often in quite difficult and unpredictable ways. Universities have to work within the broad framework of public law in this matter—that is widely accepted—but this is one area where there is genuine concern, shared, for example, by Universities UK. I am confident that there is a need to protect the timing of publication of research information and results. Research is highly competitive in our universities at the moment and it often has a commercial value of some significance. There are delicate issues of timing involved in such matters, and the publication of incomplete data and premature research prior to proper peer review, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, has mentioned, may damage the reputation of research in the United Kingdom. Perhaps even more importantly, the premature publication of work that is not properly peer-reviewed and fully examined may harm the interests of the general public themselves. In other words, this is a matter of concern not just for universities but for the general public as well.
The Scottish amendment that has been referred to is in fact a qualified amendment where it has to be shown that disclosure would result in substantial prejudice to the research, to those conducting it or to the university. It is not an absolute exemption. It is a qualified and quite subtle piece of legislation. If the Minister is a fan of the Scottish legislation in other respects, as the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, said, I hope that by the time we conclude our discussion of this Bill he will become a fan of the Scottish legislation in this respect also.
The Lord Bishop of Bristol
My Lords, the word “freedom” is a heady one. Throughout the ages people have struggled to resist and overthrow oppression, most recently in the so-called Arab spring. Freedom from violence, intimidation, unjust treatment and arbitrary interference by others, especially by the state, is clearly good. But freedom, having been gained, needs constantly to be protected, and in recent years Governments have become a little careless about this. That is what prompts this Bill and for that reason I welcome it.
However, the exercise of freedom is not entirely straightforward. The freedom that I have been talking about is what Sir Isaiah Berlin famously called “negative liberty”—that is, freedom from outside interference and coercion. That freedom is constantly misused to commit wrongs and damage other people, as repeated historic infringements remind us. The law has to deter and restrain such behaviour, which means that freedoms sometimes need to be curtailed, as the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms—let us not forget its full title—provides.
As my noble friend the Minister has eloquently reminded us, the law has to attempt a balancing act, protecting freedoms, because they are essential to human flourishing, and where necessary restricting them in the public interest. When we have a Bill such as this before us, we have to ask whether the balance that it strikes is right in particular cases. I want to mention several areas in which the balance seems to me to be right and others where it is more questionable.
I welcome the provisions to amend anti-terrorism legislation. The reduction of the maximum pre-charge detention period to 14 days is overdue, though I wonder how viable the scheme for emergency extension will be. Similarly, the replacement of stop and search powers under Section 44 of the 2000 Act is, in view of their misuse, long overdue. The abolition of wheel clamping on private land should put an end to a highly objectionable and exploitative practice. The restriction of powers of entry brings order and proportion to a proliferation of laws that have become highly intrusive. I back the protection of biometric information on children in schools, with parental consent being required for processing information. In view of the accusation that the Church of England is institutionally homophobic, I am glad to support the disregarding of convictions for historic consensual gay sex offences.
There remain two areas of the Bill over which many people have substantial reservations. The first is the retention of fingerprints and DNA data on the police database. I understand why the Government have opted for a three-year retention period, but I worry that it tips the balance too far away from effective law enforcement by reducing the possibility of convictions for serious offences. The shadow Home Office Minister in another place argued that, if a retention period of six years were kept for the moment, a detailed analysis of DNA retention would provide more evidence to decide on the optimum length of the retention period. This argument appears to me to have force, especially since information once destroyed cannot be retrieved. The precautionary principle should be given weight here in case the consequences of the Bill turn out to be unexpectedly adverse.
Secondly, the Christian Forum for Safeguarding and a number of children’s and sporting organisations have serious concerns about safeguarding vulnerable groups and criminal record checks. The reduction of bureaucracy in this area is to be welcomed, but the provisions on barring narrow the scope for scrutinising individuals and the definition of regulated activity, and so make it more difficult to identify and bar people who represent a risk to children. There are also problems with the criterion of supervision for exempting positions from regulated activity and the production of a single certificate to the applicant only. Regrettably, the Bill fails to provide for enhanced CRB disclosures for those outside the sphere of regulated activity who have significant contact with children or vulnerable adults.
One issue raised at Second Reading in another place was the criminalisation in Section 5 of the Public Order Act 1986 of “insulting”, as distinct from “abusive” and “threatening”, words or behaviour. This has sometimes been used against people expressing controversial opinions in the street or elsewhere and it is arguable that it provides too low a threshold for an offence which restricts freedom of expression. I hope that the Government will think again about the matter.
In addition to the negative freedoms protected in this Bill, we must as a society nurture and promote the positive freedom to choose wisely and act rightly. This is something beyond the reach of government and law, but families, communities and institutions have a vital role in teaching and enabling children and adults to use their freedom not for selfish, destructive ends but for good purposes and for the benefit of others.
Freedom is always exercised in relation to others. As Joseph McLelland wrote,
“‘Autonomy’ should not mean freedom to choose … whatever one wills, but responsibility for what one chooses”.
With this background in mind, I support the general direction of this Bill.
Lord Freeman
My Lords, it is a pleasure to speak after the right reverend Prelate and I am very pleased that, given the decision of the House earlier on, I am still able to pay tribute to him with his proper title. I agree very much with what he has just said.
I support this Bill. It has been some time in gestation and, although some parts of it might need further consideration in your Lordships’ Committee, I think that this Bill needs to be hastened to the statute book. It is well balanced. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Bew, in his comments on its construction and content.
First, I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Armstrong of Ilminster, who chaired the Joint Committee of the Commons and the Lords, on which I served, which looked at the provisions dealing with detention before trial. I am sure that my noble friend Lord Goodhart, who will be speaking later, will wish to comment.
I shall concentrate on Clause 58, which deals with pre-trial detention. As noble Lords will well know, this issue has been batted back and forth over many years in terms of the length of detention before trial. For many of us, it has been an annoying bone to gnaw on for many years, so I am delighted that we have now settled on a sensible period of 14 days as the norm. I support the Home Secretary, who has been at the forefront of trying to deliver a message, not just to the police forces and our security services but to the public at large, that this should be the norm. Gone are the days when we were talking about several multiples of that period as an aspiration.
As your Lordships will know, the 28-day period effectively lapsed in January this year, and we are now back to a standard 14-days maximum detention before trial. The Joint Select Committee of your Lordships' House and the other place took evidence from not only the police but former Home Secretaries, who warned of the serious risk that there might be individual cases, and perhaps collective numbers of people, who might need to be detained beyond 14 days before trial, but that was very much the exception.
A lot has changed in the past few years. We have extra resources for the police forces and our security services, new technologies that identify where people are coming from and electronic devices to understand where the threat might come from, whether individuals or groups, but the threat remains. As we come up to the Olympics, our security services are acutely aware of the prospect of—heavens above—multiple terrorist threats. Your Lordships will wish that those never happen, but the security services and the police are taking them very seriously. Therefore, we need a provision to go to 28 days in exceptional circumstances.
The Joint Committee of your Lordships' House and the House of Commons came up with a recommendation that has not been fully accepted by the Government, except that there is a provision that, when Parliament is sitting, the Government in the form of the Home Secretary—and, in your Lordships' House, the Minister responsible for the Home Office—would bring forward an order to extend the period and would explain why that was necessary. However, there is a danger, which we need to reflect on. It is very important not to prejudice the case of an individual or group of individuals, so I think that we must accept this provision but we must make sure that we preserve proper legal proceedings and the justice of the case as well as protect our security.
I am pleased that the Government have accepted that, when Parliament is not sitting, the Home Secretary should be responsible for acting to extend the period to 28 days, subject to a number of provisions, particularly as far as the Director of Public Prosecutions is concerned. If Parliament cannot be recalled because it has been dissolved before an election, there must be a provision, in exceptional circumstances, to go to 28 days. This compromise is workable. It was not the recommendation of the Joint Committee, but I support it.
I very much support the Bill and look forward to its further and rapid progress.
Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer
My Lords, the Bill marks an important moment. It is the start of the turn of the tide from a very low point where sophisticated new technologies, fear of terrorism, authorities with little regard for privacy and a series of illiberal Home Secretaries combined to make the UK “surveillance Britain” under the previous Government. So when Justice called the proposals a sticking plaster, it missed the point. This Bill is a very important first step in addressing what privacy and freedoms should mean in the 21st century. Justice has just published an excellent new publication Freedom from Suspicion - Surveillance Reform for a Digital Age, which highlights the fact that we have moved into a new era that existing legislation is not able to cope with. It did not anticipate the rapidity of technological advance, which is enormous. The scale of technological capability is beyond anything that was imagined, even when the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Bill was drafted.
In common with all noble Lords, I can remember when opening someone's post without proper authorisation was a serious offence, yet in the internet age, popping in to their IP address and having a look at what they are up to is not taken as seriously as it should be. An example is that, legislatively, RIPA offered protection when, in 2006, BT and Phorm decided to run a secret trial of marketing software that intercepted the private internet sessions of thousands of customers. It was illegal, but the CPS took no action. That set a very bad precedent that ignoring RIPA is not serious.
In April this year, the Information Commissioner said:
“RIPA was drafted for the wiretap age”.
The Law Society’s comments are similar. In its written evidence to the House of Commons Public Bill Committee on this Bill, it stated that RIPA is,
“a confused and complex legislative framework for surveillance, along with equally complex and overlapping oversight arrangements”.
Other examples of the technologies give us an idea of the complexity. The Guardian has highlighted that the Metropolitan Police are operating covert surveillance technology with a signal that shuts off mobile phones remotely, intercepts communications and gathers data about thousands of users in a targeted area. That has big implications for the right to protest and freedom of expression. The Met has also purchased software to map digital movements using data gathered from social networking sites, sat-nav equipment, mobile phones, financial transactions and IP network logs.
How should this be regulated? Clause 37 gives the Secretary of State welcome power by order to require judicial authorisation for targeted surveillance authorisations by other public bodies, but I would like us to debate in Committee an amendment providing that prior judicial authorisation would be an integral part of the whole system. Such authorisation would have picked up the disgraceful, long-term and costly surveillance operations undertaken by the police on peaceful environmental movements.
How do we as parliamentarians assure ourselves that such capability is being used in the right way? We have the commissioners—my noble friend Lady Hamwee mentioned that we do not have a collective noun for a group of commissioners—and the Bill adds two new ones: the Surveillance Camera Commissioner and the Commissioner for Retention and Use of Biometric Material. The problem is that the commissioners have different roles and areas of responsibility that have been built up in a very piecemeal way. There are not overlaps but there are gaps in responsibilities. I would like to explore whether we would be better served by one privacy commissioner with an overarching role. We know that the Chief Surveillance Commissioner has quite limited powers. His function is just to keep under review the operation of the powers and duties of directed and covert surveillance. The Interception of Communications Commissioner’s role is limited to the oversight of those who issue warrants and the procedures of those acting under warrants. He has no power to investigate complaints or to advise the public.
The best model—the Information Commissioner—is responsible for promoting and enforcing compliance with the Data Protection Act 1998. It is this role of advising the public that is really important. Citizens need an independent powerful figure—who is outward-facing to them, as well as inward-facing to the authorities operating under the various legislative frameworks including RIPA. We have a lot of work to do in this Bill just to keep up with the capabilities of the technology. I welcome a debate on how to do that.
I particularly welcome the repeal of Section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000: “stop and search”. It is very welcome indeed. I also welcome proposals that will see the destruction of the DNA samples of those arrested and charged with a minor offence but never convicted. I am, however, very disappointed that the position of children arrested or charged but never convicted of serious offences is unchanged. We need to examine that closely in this House. Finally, I am disappointed that there is no amendment to the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 so that it recognises peaceful protest as a fundamental part of democracy. It leaves in place the “aggravated trespass” offence. That was recently employed, for example, against all the individuals who were peacefully protesting with UK Uncut at Fortnum & Mason earlier this year in March. That use of “aggravated trespass” is an affront to the concept of peaceful protest.
Baroness O'Neill of Bengarve
My Lords, this Bill has quite a grand Title but a somewhat miscellaneous feel. Although this is a Second Reading debate, I will concentrate on one part of the Bill, which has already been mentioned. I hope to ask the Minister a range of questions about Part 6, which makes provision for the publication of data sets held by public authorities. I am not against what is generally called “transparency”. In fact, it is a great deal weaker than most people suppose. Transparency is an antidote to secrecy; its defect is that it is no guarantee of communication of any sort. That form of quasi communication can sometimes create an illusory advance in the things we try to do.
As I understand it, the Bill covers data sets which are neither government data—that is, produced or commissioned by government or government-controlled entities—nor official statistics. Both government data and official statistics are, after all, already subject to requirements for openness. The intention of the Bill is to bring data sets held by other public authorities—the term is slightly curiously used here—under similar, though not quite the same, requirements for openness. The other public authorities, I take it, include not only local authorities but, above all, universities, hospitals and research institutions and, no doubt, the publicly owned companies to which the Minister referred. I am not quite sure what sort of companies those are because I note that hospitals, universities and research institutions are not companies and are not publicly owned companies.
It is a complex problem and I should declare a non-pecuniary interest at this point as a member of the Royal Society Working Group on Science as a Public Enterprise. This group is looking specifically at the problem of scientific data sets—which are not always published, even when there are publications—and will report within the next few months.
Let me now return to the Bill. Given that the period within which institutions have to respond to requests to make data available is very short—three weeks or fewer—it seems to me that one effect, or perhaps purpose, of this Bill is to require investigators to make research data available on an ongoing basis, if requested, and in an ongoing way. Can the Minister confirm that the Bill removes any discretion to wait until a data set has been completed or checked, let alone until the research project is completed or the work based on that research project is published? Does the Bill require disclosure to competing research groups if they simply request that the data be made available to them? Does it require disclosure before a decision about possible commercialisation has been reached—or, indeed, can be reached?
I know that some noble Lords hope that there is a Scots remedy to this. I yield to nobody in my admiration for the remedies that have been taken in Scotland for certain matters; but, unfortunately, it is a fantasy that waiting for publication is a real solution to the problem. I will come back to why. Before that, I would like to ask a few questions about the form in which data would have to be released. Clause 100 tells us that,
“the public authority must, so far as reasonably practicable, provide the information to the applicant in an electronic form which is capable of re-use”.
At one level, that is clearly very sensible. The provisions for the release of government data are, of course, even stronger. They must be released in a form that can be freely used, reused and redistributed to anyone—subject only, at most, to the requirement to attribute and share alike.
I do not think that the present Bill demands quite as much, in that it permits controllers of data sets that have to be released to charge a fee for reuse if they are the sole owner of a copyright in the relevant database. Am I right in reading the Bill as requiring these public authorities to release data they control to competitors, subject only to the right to charge a fee? Am I right that there is nothing to prevent those who have secured release of data from reusing them for commercial and other purposes, without needing any consent from those who compiled the data?
Do the Government envisage defining a stage in a research project before which the requirements to release data would not apply? Or does the Bill ensure that a research team at a UK university must share their data with all-comers, including scientific and commercial competitors? Do the Government envisage that overseas researchers will reciprocally open their databases to scientific and commercial competitors? If this is not the picture that the Government have in mind, it would be very helpful if the Minister could say something about the stage of a research project at which data would have to be made available upon request. I do not think we can solve this problem by referring to a point of publication: most big data sets have many publications associated with them, which occur at many stages. Which of them would be decisive for triggering susceptibility to be requested for release of the data set?
Finally, I have some boring questions about costs. A requirement to make data sets available in electronic form that permits reuse does not sound onerous if one thinks about little data sets. However, a great deal of scientific research today compiles massive data sets. We are not talking about megabytes or gigabytes of information, but about terabytes and petabytes onwards. Making data sets of this size available is not done by the click of a mouse: it is expensive, time consuming and skilled. If data sets are to be reusable by others, it is likely that those who provide them will have to make metadata available. Do the Government have a view of the costs of this provision of the Bill? Have the Government identified who will bear the costs? Who is responsible for data archiving, for data integrity and for data security? On which budgets do the costs fall? What provisions do the Government have in mind against data mining that peels away anonymisation from ostensibly anomynised personal data? Do the Government think that these provisions are likely to incentivise public authorities which have such large databases to enter into partnership with private sector organisations which will hold the data—thereby eluding the provisions of this legislation? Open communication matters for science and for citizens; but mandated disclosure of reusable data in response to all and any requests, regardless of costs and time constraints, may not be the best way forward.
Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts
My Lords, I give my strong support to the policy thrust behind this Bill. Of course the title, the “Protection of Freedoms Bill”, is a seductive one—who could possibly object to that?—but there is meat in here that is certainly worthy of our support. There is the destruction rule for fingerprints and DNA profiles, the proper regulation of CCTV cameras, and the proposal to give coherence to powers of entry which my noble friend Lord Selsdon has pioneered for a long time, and which I myself had reason to learn about when my flat was broken into by the gas company on the grounds that the neighbour smelt gas. When no gas was found, the gas company seemed to have little responsibility for repairing the door or, indeed, apologising for what it had done.
The Bill also rolls back some of the ineffective and disproportionate aspects of the vetting and barring regime. This has deterred many people from volunteering to help our fellow citizens. The noble Baroness, Lady Royall of Blaisdon, for whom I have the greatest respect, chided my noble friend about this in her opening remarks. She painted the issue in what I can only describe as primary colours, but I will seek to persuade her that actually this is an issue which requires a more pastel and nuanced approach than she has shown so far.
If I have a concern, it is that we have not followed through the logic of some of the proposals in the Bill far enough. My noble friend has told us how it proposes a three-year retention period with a possible two-year extension for identification material taken from people arrested or charged but not convicted, and I thoroughly support that. However, perhaps I may draw my noble friend’s attention to the Elmer database. This database is maintained by the Serious and Organised Crime Agency. It receives reports about possible money laundering and other criminal activities under the Proceedings of Crime Act 2002 entitled “Suspicious Activity Reports” or SARs. It may surprise the House to know that there are now 1.5 million of our fellow citizens on the Elmer database and that this number is increasing by 200,000 a year. Almost 50 per cent of the entries are more than six years old. It is hoped—I repeat, hoped—to delete these by the end of 2011. But this gives rise to some serious civil liberty issues. People do not know that they are on the database, whether the information held about them is correct, and they have no right to find out.
When the committee of your Lordships’ House of which I am a member inquired about this of the SOCA authorities, they said that they might tell us, but they might not. Some entries are inadvertent, access to the database, at least historically, has not been well controlled, and there is no de minimis level of returns. For some years I was head of the compliance committee of a building society. We made several hundred returns every year, none of which was ever for more than about £200 or £300. So I offer to my noble friend the thought that if regulatory principles are that they should be proportionate, accountable, targeted, transparent and consistent, there should be some amendments to bring the Elmer database under much tighter control than we have had it so far.
I turn next to Part 5 covering the vetting and barring regime, and I begin by saying that I understand absolutely the repulsion—it is not too strong a word—that people feel about the abuse of children and vulnerable adults; any parent would. But there is a really important balance to be struck. I prepared for the Government a report looking into what deters people from giving time and money in volunteering in order to help the charity sector. It was called Unshackling Good Neighbours. The evidence we received from across the country was that many of our fellow citizens are put off volunteering by what they see as a lack of trust and a lack of judgment. This must ultimately damage the welfare of children and vulnerable adults. We had evidence from a doctor in the north of England. She was aged 67 and had retired from the health service. She offered to give some time to the Alzheimer’s Society to deal with patients suffering from Alzheimer’s. The society insisted that she be CRB checked because “frequent and intensive” contact, the level we have at the moment, means one visit a month. She said, “The state has an audit trail for me going back 40 years since I became a doctor. If the state doesn’t trust me, I am not going to do the work”. That was not unique; there were lots of cases like it.
Perhaps I may say to the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, with the utmost respect for her position, that the whole CRB industry has become institutionalised. If you take evidence from charities and voluntary groups, they bring their CRB teams along. Of course they are going to argue that more CRB checks are needed because that is their job. The Charity Commissioners and Ofsted ask charities whether they have carried out their CRB checks. I understand that this is important, but the CRB is a matter of law. The Charity Commissioners are concerned with charity law and Ofsted is concerned with educational standards. They might as well ask whether they ensure that teachers drive at 30 miles an hour when they come to school in the morning.
The police child protection officers ask intrusive and difficult questions of volunteers and there are commercial companies doing CRB checks who like the extension of it because it means more fees for them. Perhaps I may briefly give the House a flavour of this from a letter we had from a lady in Manchester:
“About 8 years ago I decided to get involved in a local Manchester Drama group, whose members range from 7 to 80 years old. A number of us assumed responsibility for teaching the children and preparing them for the annual pantomime and other productions. Naturally, we were CRB checked—a process I had no issue with and wholeheartedly support.
However—having been CRB approved, we were invited to a session with the local child protection officer. I came away from that meeting with a number of very serious questions as to whether I should get involved with this sort of group. The talk left me feeling I would potentially be placing myself in situations of real risk”.
There are many cases which repeat these concerns about the lack of trust and judgment. If you ask some of the other experts, they can explain where the vulnerable points are: they are outside the school gates and on the social networking sites. That is where the grooming takes place, and all too often they are outside any remit of the CRB. I hope that my noble friend will stand firm against any attempt to push back this issue, and I hope also that he may be inclined to think about whether we cannot find another place where the balance can be struck.
I should like his reassurance—I think he gave us one in his opening remarks—that the portable passport is now coming into being. Can he let the House know what the charge for this passport will be? There has been a lot of concern in the sector that there will be a substantial charge. Could he also let us know what the definition of “frequent and intensive” contact will be in the future? If it is to be in new regulations, it would be helpful for us to know this when we come to debate these clauses in Committee.
I want to leave the debate with one further thought. It is a small issue, but one that is growing in importance. In future, how are we going to ensure the accuracy of information placed on social networking websites and who will be responsible for this? This is a freedom which is increasingly going to need protecting. Two sites in particular have given rise to public anxiety: Facebook, which is well known, and a site called TripAdvisor that gives recommendations about holidays and other leisure sites. The importance of these and other social networking websites will surely continue to increase. A situation can now arise where people and their businesses can be irredeemably damaged by completely inaccurate statements that are put up on these websites and for which they can obtain no redress. Last week a case was reported on the radio of a plumber in Southampton whose business was wrecked by the fact that it was alleged that he was a paedophile, and destructive messages are published about leisure sites by rivals to try to ensure that they get a greater part of the business. People are entitled to some clear way of challenging these statements and, where appropriate, of obtaining redress. I would be interested to hear whether my noble friend has any policy developments under consideration to deal with this issue, one that is surely going to increase in importance in the future.
Baroness Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde
My Lords, I, too, welcome many of the provisions of this Bill. Social networking is one of the areas of concern. If it is on the social network, people believe it and do not believe the official authorities. A whole group of young people growing up today look at the social network and think if it is on there, it must be right. People who have bad instincts towards children are drawn to it because that is where young people go. I, too, raise the question referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, a few moments ago.
I welcome very much Clause 58 on detention without charge. I felt that my own Government were going too far in their proposals and I would not have supported them. I support very much the change that is being proposed, and indeed, the removal of a homosexual record. What was then regarded as a criminal act is not so today, so it makes sense to remove it.
My concerns are on Part 5 and this is where I depart from some of the views of the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson. It is very easy to caricature a vetting and barring system as the nanny state gone mad and being completely wrong. We are talking about the protection of children. I agree that we need to get the balance right but much of the provisions in legislation arose out of cases where children were groomed and treated in an appalling way, which, as the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, rightly says, is absolutely repugnant to any decent person. I feel that the balance in Part 5 has swung too much from one part to the other. We need to get some balance into the Bill. I hope that the Minister will listen and perhaps deserve that little bunch of mistletoe at the end of the Bill by getting some changes into this area.
The most popular team sport for youngsters in the UK, which is not one that I follow, is football. I have spoken to the Football Association because I know that it has a very good structure. It has just under 55,000 youth teams up and down the country covering about 1 million children. Each year, around 35,000 people are vetted to work with those youngsters. There is a welfare officer working with the Child Protection in Sport Unit and it is all properly organised. One could repeat that among a number of charities. There are the big organisations and the small ones that do not have that support, which will be affected profoundly by the Bill. The effect will be not from the adults working with them but from the youngsters taking part where parents may be concerned that their children are not being properly protected.
The Government have said that in future only the applicant will complete the form and only the applicant will see the certificate, as I would call it, of the vetting. At the moment, it goes to the employer or the registered organisation, but that will not happen in the future. One of the rationales for this is that only 5 per cent of the applications actually have some content or concern which means that you probably would not want those people working with youngsters. The Football Association says that it does not accept that figure and that it is around 15 per cent. Irrespective of whether it is 5 per cent or 15 per cent, that of itself is a case to argue that the Bill has gone too far. That does not mean that I do not believe that there need to be changes.
We have talked about social networking and we talked earlier about new technology—even looking at our own procedures in this House. I wonder whether the Minister should perhaps give some consideration to saying that, for the 95 per cent, or indeed the 85 per cent, that cause no concern at all and whose applications go through without problem, the notification of clearance could go by e-mail. At the moment it goes in the mail, but e-mail is much quicker and not as expensive. At the moment the whole problem will be loaded on to the voluntary organisations. We know what will happen. There will be a dreadful case that is all over the papers. The Daily Mail will be calling for the Minister’s head because he has not given proper protection to children. We need to find a balance to make it more efficient, so that it is not so overbearing, but protects children. That is one thing that we could have. The ones that cause concern could then go in the normal way to the organisation, whether it is an employer or a voluntary organisation.
The Government say, “Well, sometimes there are errors”. We could allow a period between an individual being told, “We are not going to clear you to work with children”, and the third party—the employer or organisation—being told. It could be a period of two weeks, a month, or whatever to allow the individual to appeal that the information is incorrect. Certainly that would bring back some kind of balance. There is also the issue of transferring the cost entirely under the present proposals from the centre to the organisations, many of which do not have the resources to do it. What will happen? At the moment, they will be able to take a judgment about not having clearance and, again, we will have not one but several public scandals.
The Bill provides—this is very welcome—the portability of the clearance. Once you are cleared, you are cleared, and that is it. Quite often volunteers work not for one organisation but several. That would be extremely helpful in improving matters. The Bill has a number of unintended consequences in this part and I look forward to discussing it as we go through the Committee stage. I hope that the Minister will deserve that little bunch of Christmas fare at the end of it. I am sure he will.
Lord Goodhart
My Lords, in recent years we have had a series of Bills that could be described properly as prevention of freedom Bills. We now have a Protection of Freedoms Bill. The Bill is rightly so named. It is an excellent Bill which I strongly support.
Some people—perhaps particularly some leaders of the Labour Party—argue that the Bill goes in the wrong direction or goes too far. Others say that it does not go far enough. I think that the Bill gets it about right. There are undoubtedly matters of detail that can be corrected but broadly it is about right. There are, of course, some simple and obvious provisions that very few people could possibly challenge—for example, Clause 108 which now allows marriages and civic partnerships to be entered into at any time of night or day, although that might meet with the objection of neighbours who did not like a wedding being conducted at midnight.
A number of people claim that parts of the Bill should go further. Examples include, among others, Part 1 on biometric data, Part 3 on powers of entry and vehicles left on land, and Part 4 on counterterrorism. I do not want at this stage to express my own views on matters where I have had little professional experience. This rules out, for example, Part 1 on biometric data. But there are two matters that I want to speak on tonight: some aspects of Chapter 1 of Part 3 on powers of entry and Part 4 dealing with counterterrorism.
Chapter 1 of Part 3 contains many provisions which give rise to Henry VIII powers—powers for the Government to alter or repeal provisions of another Act of Parliament by order rather than by a separate statute. I am interested in these provisions because I am a former chairman of the Delegated Powers Committee which deals in particular with Henry VIII powers. The 20th report of the Delegated Powers Committee dealing with this Bill found that most Henry VIII powers in Clauses 39 to 41 are acceptable. However, it said that another Henry VIII power in Clause 51 is inadequate because the first exercise of that power should be made by the affirmative procedure and not by the negative procedure.
The report on the same subject by the Constitution Committee is critical of Clause 41. However, the validity of the Henry VIII powers is more of a matter for the Delegated Powers Committee than the Constitution Committee. I believe that no modification is needed to Clause 41. What would then be left to be dealt with by way of altering the Henry VIII clause would be a minor change to Clause 51 which would cause no problem to anybody.
Much more important issues arise over Clause 58 of the Bill which deals with a temporary extension of detention in an emergency involving threats of terrorism. The general position in the Bill as is stands is that the maximum time for detention of a terrorist suspect will be 14 days and there will no longer be a power for the Home Secretary to extend the term to 28 days. There will, however, be a power for Parliament to enact one or other of two now-existing draft Bills which will make it possible to extend the period of 14 days in an emergency.
The proposal was, at an early stage, considered by the Joint Committee on the draft Detention of Terrorist Suspects (Temporary Extension) Bills, which has already been mentioned by my noble friend Lord Freeman. I was a member of that committee and I am very glad that our chairman, the noble Lord, Lord Armstrong, will be speaking shortly on the same subject. It became apparent to us in the committee that although very quick action could be taken even when Parliament was in recess, there was a severe problem if there was no Parliament. That would happen from the time when Parliament had been dissolved until a new one had been elected and its Members had taken office. While it is very unlikely that terrorist activities will be launched at such a time, it is obviously not impossible.
Our committee therefore recommended the introduction of what is now basically Clause 58 to make it possible to deal with this problem. Clause 58 has been fiercely attacked by Liberty and less fiercely by Justice, of which I am a former chair. Liberty said:
“Under Clause 58, 28-day pre-charge could potentially be activated by the Home Secretary (with no need for parliamentary approval) whenever she considered it operationally convenient”.
That is absolutely untrue. Justice said:
“We believe extending the maximum period of pre-charge detention in terrorism cases is unlikely ever to be an appropriate response to a public emergency”.
That is true enough as it is unlikely that danger will arise during the short period that occurs only immediately before and immediately after a general election. However, the risk should not be ignored.
I finish with a broad picture of what I think should be done. This is a Bill that almost all of us can support very largely. Many of us would like, in some respects, to go further but our aim, I believe, must be to produce a good result, not necessarily an ideal one. Therefore we need to be careful about the amendments we consider when we are dealing again with the Bill.
Lord Dear
My Lords, I, too, join the growing chorus of support for the Bill. I support its broad thrust. I welcome it and think it is timely. I will go through the list very quickly because noble Lords have already made the points. So far as the regulation of CCTV is concerned, of course I applaud that. As to the destruction, retention and use of fingerprints and DNA samples and so on, the existing position is totally untenable and the proposals in the Bill will bring us into line with what is already happening in Scotland and will broadly support the judgment put forward by the European Court of Human Rights in the case of S and Marper v United Kingdom in 2008.
So far as local authorities are concerned and the way in which some of them have used the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act to deal with some of their problems, if ever there was a case of sledgehammers being deployed against walnuts, I have not seen a better one. That has to be curbed. The Bill seeks to do so and I applaud it. I also support, as other Members of your Lordships’ House have, Chapter 4 of Part 5, which seeks to disregard some convictions for some homosexual acts in the past.
The issue of terrorism is closer to my own heart for professional reasons. I agree that Section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000, providing for stop and search without reasonable suspicion, is also untenable—a word which I have used already. The move towards using Section 43 instead, where reasonable suspicion is required, is to be applauded. In particular I very firmly support the proposed reduction from 28 days to 14 days in cases of pre-charge detention of suspected terrorists. I was the noble Lord who successfully proposed the amendment to stay at 28 days in the face of a determined attempt a couple of years ago to extend the period to 42 days, so I am speaking with a particular interest at heart. I note, of course, the saving provision for 28 days in emergency circumstances. I think that that is a very sensible move.
I want to draw attention to one freedom that is not covered in the Bill: the freedom of speech, one of the most fundamental of all the freedoms that we cherish in this country, and have cherished for a very long time. I say immediately that I have no intention whatever of seeking to amend the Bill to bring something in to cover freedom of speech, but I ask noble Lords to bear with me for a very short time while I introduce the subject very briefly and give the reasons why.
In common with many other Members of your Lordships’ House and a significant number of Members of the other place, I support the removal of the word insulting from Section 5 of the Public Order Act 1986. The term,
“threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour”,
has been included in legislation from as far back as the Public Order Act 1936, an Act which has been steadily amended as society has become more complex. Under Section 5 of the current Act, “insulting” stands at the very bottom rung of the ladder of descending seriousness. The ladder begins at the top with Section 4 of the 1986 Act, which criminalises intentional harassment and other criminal acts, going down through Section 4A into Section 5, where no intent is required for the offence to have been committed.
I have of course oversimplified that, but it gives you a picture of descending a ladder of criminality until one reaches the very bottom rung, which is insulting behaviour. “Insulting” is obviously the least serious of the range of behaviour encompassed by the current legislation. It is now also the subject of a good deal of debate, not least because on a significant number of occasions the enforcement of the legislation, so far as it applies to insulting, is seen by many to be an impediment to the proper exercise of free speech, whether or not one supports the views expressed by some of the defendants in some of the more contentious cases that have focused attention on this issue.
In normal circumstances, I would table an amendment in Committee to seek to strike out the word insulting from Section 5 of the current Act. However, on 13 October the Government announced a consultation exercise to examine police powers for public order under three heads, one of which is to examine this very issue—the possible removal of the word insulting from Section 5. That consultation period will run until 13 January 2012. For obvious reasons it would not be sensible or proper to press for an amendment while the consultation procedure is in place. I simply ask the Minister at this stage—a stage when we are examining and discussing many other fundamental freedoms, issues such as privacy, due process, freedom from arbitrary arrest and many others—to note my remarks, to recognise the fundamental importance of freedom of speech in this country, and perhaps to endorse my remarks in welcoming the conclusion of the consultation procedure in January next year, when we might have an early opportunity to return to this issue and to debate it fully, a debate which otherwise should and, I believe, would have been featured in this Bill today. As I said, however, the Bill as it stands has my broad support and I welcome it.
Baroness Walmsley
My Lords, I, too, give a general welcome to this important Bill and intend to focus my remarks on Part 5. Like the noble Baroness, Lady Dean of Thornton-Le-Fylde, I feel that a little nuancing may be in order.
I welcome the Government’s intention to streamline the vetting and barring system and to right the wrong about legal gay sex. In particular, I welcome the portable CRB checks, for which there is clearly a need. I have heard many stories of people working in a number of schools, sports organisations or cadet forces who could almost paper a wall with their CRB reports. However, there is a danger of a two-tier system, one free and the other paid for. When the person shows his portable report to an employer, that employer will be able to check online that it is valid and up to date—so far, so good. But this database requires regular updating. Employers can check both the CRB report and whether the person is barred on two separate systems, for each of which they will have to pay a subscription. There will also be a cost to individuals for this portability. I fear that, if the portable check has a cost and the individual check is free, people may choose the latter, thereby frustrating the Government's intention to streamline the system.
We have been approached by a number of highly respected groups that have concerns about the changes to the vetting and barring system. The Sport and Recreation Alliance, which represents 320 governing bodies of sports that work with hundreds of thousands of young people and volunteers, believes that the proposed measures could undermine their effective and efficient centralised systems and transfer significant burdens to volunteers. The Association of Colleges points out that colleges employ 245,000 staff, of which 79,000 are non-teaching. More than 860,000 16 to 18 year-olds study at colleges, whereas only 434,000 of this age group study in schools, yet colleges are to be put under a different regime from schools. When the participation age is raised to 17 and then 18, the number at colleges will probably rise even further. Sixty-three thousand 14 to 16 year-olds currently attend a college at least one day per week, and this number is likely to rise as well, following the Wolf report. Colleges feel that all young people should be given the same protection wherever they study, and that means looking again at some of the proposals as the Bill goes through your Lordships' House.
The problem is that the Bill proposes reducing the amount of regulated activity, which would have the effect of reducing the number of people covered by the vetting and barring regime—all well and good. While this may be desirable for some groups, it must be done very carefully to avoid letting through the net people who would seek to harm children. These people are often very clever and plausible, so we need a system that is cleverer. The key to this is information, so that informed decisions can be made. However, as the noble Baroness, Lady Dean, said, the disclosure will no longer be sent directly to the organisation but to the person being screened, who then has to send it on.
There are a number of problems with this that have been raised with us by a number of children's organisations. I understand that the Government have decided to send the reports to the individual because there have, in the past, been some cases of wrong information going to the employer, which is highly undesirable. However, in 2010, only 0.06 per cent of certificates issued were found to have errors, so it would seem that the proposal is hugely disproportionate. Surely this problem could be catered for by sending it to the individual and giving them a period to correct anything that is wrong before sending it directly to the employer. To prevent employers getting timely information because of such a small percentage of errors is over the top.
Organisations raise a number of other problems besides cost. If the individual does not send in the report, the organisation has to spend time nagging them for it. They may want it passed on to a local volunteer, which would have an effect on the relationship between the two and put too much responsibility on that volunteer. The person would have to be suspended while the report was awaited, giving rise to sometimes quite unnecessary and unwarranted suspicion. As the noble Baroness, Lady Dean, said, the FA says that only 15 per cent of its disclosures have what is called “content”—in other words, material that needs looking at, yet that organisation may have to waste its time chasing up the other 85 per cent quite unnecessarily. So it and all the other 320 sports organisations in the alliance feel that Clause 79 as it stands makes their job of protecting young people more difficult and creates opportunities for determined predators to manipulate and frustrate the safeguarding process.
Another issue that has been raised is the extension of non-regulated activity to include work that has “day to day” supervision. The NSPCC, the Children’s Society, Children England, the Children’s Commissioner and others have raised this issue. First of all, we need to get the right definition of “supervised”—that is vital—but we should also bear in mind that even closely supervised people have the opportunity to develop a trusting relationship with young people that could be exploited at other times and in other places.
Another issue is that people will be placed on the barring list only if the ISA, or its successor, has reason to believe that the person is or might in the future want to work with children or vulnerable adults—the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, referred to that. A survey has shown that nearly 97 per cent of the public believe that if a person has been convicted of an offence that is sufficient to bar them they should not be allowed anywhere near children in any capacity—here we are not talking about reputable doctors. It seems unnecessary for the ISA to have to spend its valuable time and expertise considering whether a person might or might not, at some time in the future, want to work in a regulated role.
This brings us to the information on the CRB certificate. Under the Government’s proposals, if employers choose to perform a CRB check on someone working with children outside of regulated activity, they will not be able to see whether that person is barred. Sir Roger Singleton, chair of the ISA, has estimated that one in five people who are barred by it have never been near the police, so their CRB disclosure would not show this. For this reason, I welcome the proposed merger of the ISA and the CRB.
None of us wants children to believe that all adults pose a threat to them—far from it. We all want a simple, no-fuss system that weeds out the bad guys without deterring the good guys who we want to encourage to work with our young people. We will work with the Minister as the Bill goes through this House in order to produce such a system that does just that: get the balance right. Currently, as I said, I believe that a little nuancing is required.
Lord Selsdon
My Lords, I suppose that freedom and privacy are two of the most important things in my life. My interest in this matter goes back many years to the banking world, when we had the phrases “duty of care” to your customer and “know thy customer”. I found as time went by that nobody knew anybody: you did not know the gasman; you did not know the postman. Strangers started to appear on the doorstep. In the banking world, we were concerned particularly to protect our clients from all sorts of invasions. This started for me and my colleagues along the lines of, “We had better introduce a Bill”, so, way back in the 1970s, we drafted the protection of privacy Bill, because it was about privacy that we were concerned. Gradually, we found that there were more and more opportunities for government or outside bodies to enter people’s property without permission and do all sorts of strange things, whether or not it was the gasman. This led to my drafting, with considerable help, the Powers of Entry etc. Bill.
This was done initially with the help of a professor from Lincoln University, Richard Stone, who produced the authoritative book, The Law of Entry, Search and Seizure. I began by asking Ministers questions—I think there were well over 100, or maybe 200—as to what the powers of entry were. They did not know the answer, and the standard response was, “The information is not centrally available”. They did not say that the cost of getting it was too much. So I drew people’s attention to the book and put it in the Library, and certain Ministers began to reply. Then, rather to my surprise, the Labour Party and Government became interested and were extraordinarily helpful. Gordon Brown made an announcement at Downing Street that we must do something to control the abilities of people to enter people’s homes without their permission. The Bill, which, as I said, was called the Powers of Entry etc. Bill, lasted about three years. There were three editions, and the final one passed the House with the great help of the Labour Government in March last year.
I have learnt in this place that you never get a Private Member’s Bill through unless you find someone who picks it up in the Commons after winning a ballot. You have to drip-feed the right people in the right way, and watch the stalactites and stalagmites grow. It was therefore a great pleasure to me when we finally got this through with the help of the noble Lord, Lord West, despite the objections of his officials at the Home Office for quite a period of time. We had a Public Bill Committee, which people from all parts of the House served on, and I was lucky enough in the end to get the Home Office to join in. I would mention the name of the man in the Home Office—he was brilliant. Together, we found our starting point was 150, then 250, then 300 pieces of primary or secondary legislation. Then the Home Office, working often through the night, arrived at somewhere around 2,500. Of course they change.
However, who can go into whose house? We thought that it might be right to say that, first, they should knock on the door and say who they are, and then perhaps they should prove who they are. They should probably not do it in the middle of the night and they should probably not do it on a Sunday, they should wear good clothes, and they should possibly have something to say, such as, “I am here for this reason”. Your Lordships will have seen in the press from time to time many occasions when, because a postcode was wrong or the wrong button was pressed, someone beat down the door of someone else’s house, took something away or caused problems. What pleased me so much about this was that, gradually, people became interested. I knew the Government would not necessarily take it up, so I was so grateful that the Labour Government lost the election, because it gave me a chance to put a bit of pressure on the Conservative Government, one of whose wise men rang me in the middle of the night when I was abroad and said, “Your Bill is going to be adopted when we win the election”. I said that I would wait and see whether that happened or not.
Anyway, I did not hear much more. Then, suddenly, the Protection of Freedoms Bill emerged and the powers of entry were within it, bearing some resemblance to what I and my team had done. However, the government system had failed to recognise that we did not leave it by pushing a Bill for someone else to take up and do all the work on. We had communicated. I had written to every local authority in the land and asked for their views. I had written to every bishop and asked him to get in touch with the parish councils. We had written to every one of the bodies that had powers of entry asking for their advice and guidance, and I had put out a website that went right the way around different parts of the world. More than that, we had drafted a petition and were just looking for the 100,000 signatures in order to present a petition at the Box. This was all with the help of the Public Bill Office and the people in the House of Lords.
I am now extremely grateful as I stand opposite the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, and I thank her so much for the help of her Government and ask whether she will help me to persuade this Government to do things in the right way. They started off correctly, but I am glad they put the powers of entry section into another box, as it was pretty useless. It did not even list all the powers, because they change from day to day, but said they would introduce a code of conduct.
I wanted to know what that code of conduct did, because the Bill that we had already had said that you must not go into someone else’s property, office or place of work without permission or a court order. Now it is the court order that has not yet appeared, because it is relatively easy for anyone to obtain one at any time. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Scott of Foscote, was on our team. As your noble Lordships will know, he hunts quite regularly and said that he could even issue an order from the back of a horse if necessary. The issuing of orders is not a problem. We took out one particular area within the Bill that was quite important and that separated the powers of entry from everything else—a saving. It said:
“Nothing in this Act shall apply to the issue or execution of warrants in connection with indictable offences, including terrorist offences”.
So it was really about only commercial or other searches. I had some sympathy for the trading standards officers who took me back to the original Truck Acts, which go back over a long, long period. They had a point when they said that when people were mistrading or behaving badly they had to have the right to go in pretty quickly before the goods had gone.
I now ask the Government whether they would be kind enough to help me. They have listed the powers of entry in the Bill, but they have said they will produce a code of conduct. We do not really need a code of conduct, we need the permission in effect to require that powers are granted for the issue of rights of entry, that you should list them all, and, more than that, that you have the schedule that is necessary here.
The powers of entry all change regularly, and this is where we come to that strange thing, Henry VIII clauses, which I am not terrible well briefed on. The Public Bill Office asked me, perfectly simply, “What do you want to do?”. I said that I wanted to stop the Government doing the wrong things in the wrong way at the wrong time. This came to the fact that maybe the Government should not be allowed to introduce any new powers of entry without primary legislation but should be allowed to remove any unnecessary powers of entry on their own.
I sit down with a simple point; when we come to Committee, I will try to introduce that part of the Bill that we did together to save the Government time and money. If they are going to follow the proposal that they are laying down here, it will be two to three years before they manage to get everything sorted out. In the mean time, my great friend and colleague Professor Richard Stone has got the Oxford University Press to agree to issue a new edition of The Law of Entry, Search and Seizure, which will come out quickly. It would be a pity if that came out before the Government had got their act together. I am going to put pressure on my noble friend on the Front Bench when the Bill comes to Committee and ask for his support. In the mean time, I am very grateful to the party opposite for everything they did to help.
Lord Bradshaw
My Lords, I am going to deal with something very down to earth when contrasted with the noble Lord, Lord Selsdon. It concerns Chapter 2 on the clamping and towing away of vehicles. We are concerned that what are now rogue clampers will become rogue ticketers. It was argued in another place that the existing consumer law—the Fraud Act and the Theft Act—provides suitable protection for cities. I do not share that view and neither does Citizens Advice, because resorting to law is extremely long-winded and expensive. We have to deal with these issues effectively during the passage of this Bill.
First, we have to be certain that there is an independent appeals body that is funded by the industry, and that its existence is made plain both on the notices and the parking tickets that are received by people. We should insist that those who have the power to issue tickets should be members of an accredited trade association. I believe there is only one at the moment, but we have to take account of the fact that there will be more than one. The appeals body to which I have referred should be able to decide on a reasonable level of charging by reference to the charges imposed by local authorities or several adjacent car parks. It should be possible, even though charges will vary in many places.
The appeals body should also take account of the fact that the car park is properly lit and that, if people are to be penalised for parking over the dividing lines, those lines are clearly marked on the ground—not a small swab of paint in the corner, but properly marked. All that can be covered in regulations. The most important thing is that we are clear that only properly accredited people can access the DVLA database. That is the key. I am certain that, now, a lot of absolutely awful people are getting access to it.
I shall delay your Lordships for one or two more moments. I was a member of a police authority for a long time, and when I was, we had many cases of people accessing databases on an irregular basis. We have to be certain that only bona fide parking operators have that access.
Lord Armstrong of Ilminster
My Lords, this is a veritable bran-tub of a Bill, as is apparent from the Long Title. It might be more charitably described as a Christmas pie full of plums. I propose, like little Jack Horner, to put in my thumb and pull out a plum—like my noble friend Lady O'Neill, only one plum for consideration at this stage. That plum is Part 4, which deals with counterterrorism powers.
There is clearly around the House a general welcome for Clause 57, which states unambiguously that the maximum period of detention without charge for a terrorist suspect shall be 14 days. That is already a long period to hold anyone in detention without charging him or her—much longer than would be acceptable for any other criminal offence.
However, there remains the persistent fear that there may well be circumstances in which there are compelling reasons for detaining someone suspected of having committed a terrorist offence without charge for longer than 14 days. The need to do so has not arisen during the past four or five years, but in this highly unpredictable area, we cannot exclude the possibility of an emergency in which it might be necessary to be able to do so—in which, indeed, the consequences of not being able to do so might be not just unacceptably serious, but literally fatal: some people might die who would otherwise not have died.
The Government have taken the view that an extension of detention without charge is so serious a restraint of freedom and so grave a breach of the rights of any citizen that it should be effected only by the introduction of emergency primary legislation when the need actually presents itself. They therefore prepared draft legislation, which could be introduced, if and when the need arose, to extend the period of detention of a terrorist suspect without charge for not more than 14 days, up to a maximum of 28 days.
A Joint Committee of Members of your Lordships' House and of the other place, of which I had the privilege of being the chairman, and the pleasure of having the noble Lords, Lord Freeman and Lord Goodhart, as fellow members, was set up to give the draft legislation the sort of pre-legislative scrutiny for which there would not be time if the legislation had to be introduced and passed as quickly as possible in an emergency.
My Lords, we understood and respected the Government's desire to make sure that a power to extend detention without charge should be exercised as rarely as possible, and that, ideally, it should be introduced only subject to the degree of parliamentary scrutiny and discussion which is appropriate to primary legislation. However, we identified certain problems about what was proposed.
First, it might be difficult to pass such legislation with the necessary urgency when Parliament was in recess, and it would be impossible to introduce it at all during the period between the dissolution of one Parliament and the first Queen's Speech in the next. Secondly, it might be very difficult for the Secretary of State to explain and justify to Parliament and for Members of both Houses of Parliament to be properly satisfied about the reasons why the legislation was required without incurring the risk of endangering the success of an ongoing counterterrorist operation or of prejudicing the possibility of a fair trial for someone charged with a terrorist offence.
We feared that those difficulties might be so great that a Secretary of State might be obliged to conclude that it was preferable to run the risk of not extending the period of detention without charge rather than to introduce legislation to provide the necessary powers, whatever the potential consequences of that choice might be. We therefore concluded that the Government's draft Bills did not offer a satisfactory solution to the problem, and recommended that this Bill should create a power for the Secretary of State to make an executive order at any time—not just during a period when one Parliament had been dissolved and the new Parliament had not yet started work—if there was real need to do so.
We recommended that the purpose of such an executive order should be to extend the maximum period for pre-charge detention to 28 days in exceptional circumstances, and that it should expire in three months. We made recommendations to suggest in detail: how to ensure that such an order would be made only in truly exceptional circumstances; how the exercise of the power should be made subject to mandatory review by the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation; how it should be subject to rigorous safeguards and to judicial review; and how it could be made subject, eventually, to parliamentary scrutiny.
The Government have, I am glad to say, accepted many of the Joint Committee's other recommendations, and will introduce amendments to that effect, but they have accepted the committee's main recommendation only in part. Clause 58 would provide the Secretary of State with power to make a temporary extension order when Parliament is dissolved or when Parliament has met after a dissolution but the first Queen's Speech has not taken place, but not at any other time.
I appreciate and respect the Government's wish to ensure that extensions of detention without charge beyond 14 days are as rare as possible. The committee asked the Secretary of State, when she came to give evidence to us, about the difficulties of presenting emergency legislation, to which I have already referred. We admired the confidence with which she assured us that she thought that she would be able to find a way to steer through or around those difficulties in presenting emergency legislation if necessary.
I remain of the view, however, that when the time came, she or a successor Secretary of State might find those difficulties to be insurmountable. She might, despite any advice to the contrary from the police or the Director of Public Prosecutions, decide that it was ineluctably necessary to take the risk of not introducing emergency legislation. No Secretary of State should be forced into a position where such a decision is forced on her.
If the Bill receives a Second Reading today, I hope at a later stage to put forward for your Lordships’ consideration an amendment to Clause 58 that would allow the Secretary of State to introduce emergency legislation for an extension of detention without charge when Parliament is sitting if she thinks that she can safely and properly do so, but would give her the option of making an executive order under Clause 58 if she thinks, even when Parliament is sitting, that the introduction of primary legislation would in the then prevailing circumstances be too difficult.
I hope for her sake and for all our sakes that she is never called upon to make that choice, but better safe than sorry.
Baroness Doocey
My Lords, I focus my remarks on aspects of the Bill relating to policing matters. I declare an interest as a member of the Metropolitan Police Authority.
I begin by expressing concern about the proposals in the Bill regarding the regulation of biometric data, particularly the DNA database. DNA profiling is critical to the successful investigation of crime, particularly in cases of serious violence and sexually motivated crime where the perpetrator is a stranger to the victim. At the same time, the blanket and indiscriminate retention of DNA profiles is wrong, as the recent judgment in the European Court of Human Rights made clear.
There are some very welcome provisions in this Bill: the intention to put the National DNA Database and the National DNA Database strategy board on a statutory footing; the destruction of DNA samples within six months; the assurance that the DNA profiles of those found not guilty of an offence will in future not be loaded on to the database; and the deletion of existing DNA profiles of those who have been found not guilty of an offence.
However, there remain some concerns and areas that I believe could be improved. I have a particular concern regarding the complexity of the new retention regime for biometric data. We need a regulatory system that is robust and which enjoys public confidence, but we do not need one that is excessively burdensome. Deciding how long to retain DNA profiles is a complex business. The retention periods stated in the Bill are not fixed, but are subject to complex decision-making—for example, the provision for the biometrics commissioner to extend the retention period by two years in certain circumstances. While not every profile will need to be assessed, it is unlikely that it will be possible to automate the process of deletion as a result of this provision. The administrative burden on the Metropolitan Police service—and indeed other police services—is likely to be significant. The Metropolitan Police estimates the initial cost of implementing the Bill at £2.5 million plus ongoing costs of £500,000.
There is also an operational risk inherent in the complexity of the retention regime. No system is perfect and, if the deletion process is out of sync and is not carried out at the appropriate time, there is a real risk of “illegal” matches that could connect someone with a serious crime such as rape but then could not be used. The police must not be put in the invidious position of identifying a rapist or murderer but being unable to use the DNA match in evidence.
A further concern in this section is about the regulation of the counterterrorism DNA database. Given the proposals within the Bill to strengthen the oversight and governance of the National DNA Database, for the sake of consistency, similar moves should be made in respect of all police databases relating to DNA and other biometric materials, including the counterterrorism DNA database.
We should also consider Schedule 7 to the Terrorism Act 2000 and how this Bill relates to it. At present, the police may obtain DNA profile data and fingerprints from people stopped under Schedule 7. However, there is a need for clarity regarding the treatment of these data. The proportion of people stopped under Schedule 7 who have their DNA and fingerprints taken is low, but Schedule 7 gives the police very considerable power. An examining officer may exercise his powers,
“whether or not he has grounds for suspecting”.
There is consequently a need for clarity and transparency regarding where this biometric data information is then stored, and if it is subject to the same safeguards governing DNA taken from an individual on arrest.
I will refer briefly to the question of closed circuit television and automatic number plate recognition, included in Part 2 of the Bill. The regulatory framework proposed in the Bill is a positive step. However, the code should specifically address the covert use of both automatic number plate recognition and CCTV. The Minister in his opening remarks referred to Project Champion, which is a very good example of how ill thought through proposals and a lack of engagement and consultation can undermine confidence in policing. We also need clarity as to whether the responsibilities of the proposed Surveillance Camera Commissioner could be undertaken by the existing Chief Surveillance Commissioner. When we move to Committee stage, I shall be seeking to return to some of these issues.
Lord Lucas
My Lords, I like this Bill. There is a lot of it that I shall take a deep interest in as it goes through. I am sure my noble friend is well aware of my interest in the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, freedom of information and vehicles left on land but all those have been very well covered by others. I should make a quick declaration: a proportion of my DNA is on the national database—probably enough to identify me—and there is a clause in the freedom of information sections which will resolve various disputes I have with various universities in my favour. So I shall be careful when we come to that.
I want to concentrate on the section on biometrics in schools. This section is a daffy overreaction. Biometric systems are very widely used in schools. They have great benefits and I am not aware of any instance of serious problems with them. They improve safety. They mean that you know where the kids are, and in some schools that is very important. They improve privacy, because you can no longer tell who is claiming free school meals, and that generally results in a large uptake of free school meals. They greatly improve efficiency, because you no longer have to divert teachers to supervisory jobs which are done quickly and efficiently. Kids are used to it, because a lot of the systems that they are familiar with incorporate biometric systems.
The Explanatory Memorandum talks about risks as if they have been established, but I have not seen anybody create a scenario where there is a believable, practical risk to the kids in any way at all. We are dealing here not with something that is available nationally but with a closed system, a community that is using this data within itself—which we do here. All of us are subject to a highly sophisticated biometric scanning device every day: they are called doorkeepers. They do not scare us, and they are not a danger to us. The fact that they recognise us without difficulty is not something that gives rise to problems.
Within a closed community, the fears that people have on the wider scale do not apply. It is as if we put exclusion zones around hospitals that were using nuclear medicine, in case something exploded. It is just not real. It is an association of words which has been got up by the Daily Mail, of course—that lover of freedom, that respecter of privacy, that hater of intrusion—because it made a good story and it scared people. I am very sorry that both our beloved parties took it seriously and have stuck something in the coalition agreement which I suspect to some extent means that we have to keep it in the Bill. But I very much hope that we will be able to get some amendments through which will avoid or at least reduce the waste of resources which will result from the Bill as it is at the moment, and the increase in the incidents of bullying which will result if we cannot use this system consistently, particularly where free school meals are concerned. It gives me some pleasure that the Daily Mail, that scourge of government waste, is setting out to increase it, but I hope to save them from their own excesses.
Lord Harris of Haringey
My Lords, I declare an interest as a member of the Metropolitan Police Authority. I fear I may be spoiling the consensus that seems to have emerged as to what a wonderful Bill this is. This is a very grandiosely entitled Bill: “Protection of Freedoms”, no less. I am sure that when the title was chosen the Deputy Prime Minister had visions that, like the authors of the Magna Carta, seven centuries on, his creature would still be seen as a cornerstone of British liberties.
Frankly, he can dream on. This Bill is a mish-mash of ill-sorted provisions, a mish-mash without any overarching or underpinning philosophy and, worst of all, a mish-mash that will bring about unintended and damaging consequences. Balancing the civil liberties of the individual against the security of the state and the protection of the lives and well-being of other individuals is never an easy task and I wish that I could be confident that that balance has been appropriately struck in this Bill. Let us take, for example, Part 5, which makes major changes to the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act. The noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, who is not in her place, will remember the time spent in this House trying to ensure that children and vulnerable adults were properly protected against those who might harm them.
When we hear from organisations, such as Fair Play for Children, that this Bill introduces,
“elements of serious risk to children”,
we need to consider the points with very great care. The Government say that the arrangements under the 2006 Act were too complicated and onerous for those who had to implement them. Yet the people who will have to implement this Bill say that its provisions do not reduce or simplify the current system and that it runs the risk of sowing considerable confusion and unnecessary complexity.
There is no evidential basis for these changes. There is to be no pilot and what is being done throws away the broad cross-party consensus on which the previous legislation was based. A major concern lies in the proposed definition of what constitutes supervision in respect of affected activities. This remains worryingly vague. One suggestion is that the definition of supervision should be “line of sight”. This is so vague as to be frankly laughable and out of touch with daily realities. If the activity stays in one or perhaps two rooms and there are two staff or supervisors to monitor all volunteers, perhaps that would be possible. But in a multi-feature environment where there is outdoor activity, and in many other situations, it will be next to impossible for many organisations to provide that level of supervision. It will result in increased costs and/or a restricted number of activities, and, no doubt, fewer volunteers involved and fewer children benefiting.
In any event, supervision misses the point. The supervised activities of a volunteer are one thing but it is precisely during those activities that the trust of the child with that individual is created. It is that trust that makes possible unsupervised contact and the risks that that brings with that trust being exploited and betrayed. Of course, the risk of such exploitation and betrayal taking place during supervised activities can be reduced by good supervision. But what of the contact outside the supervised activity? The child now trusts that adult because they have encountered them in the supervised activity. But that trust is where the potential for abuse is created outside that secure environment.
That is an example of where the balance is being struck wrongly. It is based on the false belief that the bureaucracy involved is stifling volunteering. Fair Play for Children surveyed its member groups and found that more than half believe that the existing vetting arrangements have improved their overall practice. In only one instance in 200 did a group report that the arrangements had made it more difficult to recruit volunteers. Most parents will say that when they hand over their children they want the reassurance that the adults who their children will encounter have been properly vetted. Do the Government really want to put the rights of the potential paedophile above those of the child? That is just one part of an ill-thought-out Bill.
Part 4 reduces the maximum period of pre-charge detention for terrorist suspects from 28 to 14 days. The periods of detention longer than 14 days have been used extremely sparingly and are subject to judicial approval, which has not always been given. The Government, moreover, acknowledge that sometimes a longer period—up to 28 days—may be necessary, presumably because of the nature and complexity of some counterterrorism investigations.
If circumstances require it, it is proposed that the Home Secretary comes to Parliament to introduce emergency legislation to reinstate the longer detention power. That has to be nonsense. It means that during—I repeat, during—a terrorism investigation, the police and security services may have to ask Parliament to be recalled to debate an issue that it cannot discuss without prejudicing a future trial. The remarks made by the noble Lord, Lord Armstrong, are extremely pertinent on this point. Ministers recognise that 28 days may be necessary to investigate or avert a serious terrorist threat, but none the less intend to remove the power, even though there is no evidence that the power has ever been misused.
Part 2 adds to police bureaucracy, which is another example of extra expenditure being incurred as a result of pressure from the Daily Mail. It will make it more difficult for the police and local authorities to use CCTV to prevent and detect crime. This no doubt reflects concerns about a surveillance society, although when I was a local government leader my experience was that communities always—I repeat, always—welcomed the introduction of new CCTV schemes. If that concern about a surveillance society was so important, why are there no restrictions on the use of private CCTV cameras? I do not want to labour the point, but this oh-so-cleverly-worked-out Bill makes it more difficult and more expensive for our already overstretched police service to prevent crime but does nothing to restrict the proliferation of privatised surveillance.
Finally, Part 1 restricts the retention of DNA samples and profiles taken during a criminal investigation. This will make it harder, not easier, for the police to catch and convict dangerous criminals. The Home Office’s own research produced last year contradicts what this Bill will do. It showed that, each year, 23,000 people who will be taken off the database under these proposals will go on to commit further offences. Of these, 6,000 will commit serious crimes, including rape and murder.
Whose civil liberties are we protecting here? It will certainly not be those of anyone like Sally Anne Bowman who was 18 when she was murdered close to her home in south London in 2005. The police investigation initially drew a blank. But a year later, Mark Dixie, a pub chef, was arrested following a brawl in the pub where he worked. No further action was taken for that pub brawl but his DNA was taken and subsequently loaded on the database. It produced a match to the DNA evidence retrieved from the murder victim and within five hours he was under arrest. He was subsequently charged, convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment. So what are we doing removing the ability to protect people like Sally Anne Bowman? There are plenty of other such examples.
This Bill repeatedly gets the balance wrong. Of course, we should protect freedom. But why is it that the only freedoms that this Bill seems to care about are the freedoms of the would-be terrorist, the manipulative paedophile and the serial rapist?
Lord Addington
My Lords, following the noble Lord, Lord Harris, is reassuring because I feel that we have had agreement breaking out all over the place. The noble Lord says that the word “protection” is bad in the Title of a Bill. In my opinion, the word “prevention” is equally bad. Both words have been open to abuse and hyperbole over the years.
However, I wish to talk about Part 5 on which we have limited agreement. As we have already heard, this being a late-night debate, two people who were mentioned are not in their places. We have heard that sporting bodies are a little concerned about the changes in CRB checks and assessments. To sum up, primarily, Clause 79 suggests that the centralised checking that has taken place, which sporting bodies quite like and have got used to, will not be done electronically any more. The RFU is very concerned about that.
As regards freedom and protection, people are using arguments against these incredibly important principles, such as, “This way we can do it and we will have something which is easy to use”. In addition, if you are dealing with a small amateur club environment, personal relationships are incredibly important. Indeed, small amateur clubs die frequently because they break down. If testing comes to you, it will be easier to implement. If you have to provide the testing yourself, for how long can you stall it? I do not know. How long have we stalled handing over anything? Things get lost in the post and do not arrive and that will make things difficult for those who have to take an opinion.
The Government do not need to be very worried about it because there have been hints in another place; my honourable friend Lynne Featherstone said that they are looking at it. Perhaps in response, my noble friend would explain that thinking to the House. This is a practical point relating to large amateur groups which deliver much that is good in our society. How will we deal with it? How can we ensure that protections are in place?
The second point in the same vein is provided in Clause 64, but I think that sporting bodies should consider Clauses 65 and 66 as well. They relate to children and vulnerable adults. In regard to those last two clauses, we must remember that vulnerable adults get involved in sports, and the inclusion of people with learning disabilities in the Olympic movement provides a clear guide to that. The noble Lord, Lord Harris, suggested that people in secondary coaching roles might not be checked.
I turn to my own sport, rugby. It is a technical sport that requires special movements. People will be placed in positions of control, trust and authority. If you are a forwards coach, and your head coach is someone who is predominantly a back, you will require people to engage in very technical activities, involving moving your body and other people’s bodies around a rugby pitch, accompanied by bumps, thumps and groans. Such coaches will be in a position of authority and power and sometimes the junior person is not checked but will be in charge of a session and will control most of it. Other sports, such a cricket, will have similar arrangements. However, I will not talk further about cricket as my noble friend Lady Heyhoe Flint is in her place. All sports have different technicalities. I suggest that such people in incredibly important and controlling positions should be removed. Maybe we should look at that again.
I do not think these matters should wreck the Bill, but sporting bodies would appreciate some changes to make them work better and to make them cheaper and less bureaucratic. I look forward to hearing from my noble friend how such matters can be put into the Bill. I do not think they are deal breakers, but they would help people who take on the kind of work which sums up the idea of a big society perfectly.
Baroness Berridge
My Lords, I believe that there is an irony in the Title of the Bill. The Government are introducing a piece of legislation to protect freedoms which, to a significant extent, have been infringed by their actions. Like many unscientific people, I marvel at the advances in DNA and its role in crime detection, but I am pleased that many of the controversies surrounding the DNA database are dealt with by this legislation. I wish to speak briefly to the principles of Part 1 of the Bill, the nature of DNA material and the impact on communities.
Deeply embedded, not only in our constitution but in the conscience of citizens, is the principle that you are innocent until you are proven guilty. The corollary of this presumption is that citizens can go about their daily lives free from the unwarranted intrusion of the state or, as the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms expresses it positively under Article 8, the right to respect for their “private and family life”.
At a time when the European Court of Human Rights has come in for quite a drumming, it is sobering to reflect that England and Wales needed to be told by the court that the blanket and indiscriminate retention of genetic material indefinitely of innocent people is a breach of Article 8. I am embarrassed that an 11 year- old British child was one of the applicants in the case of S and Marper v United Kingdom. How did the country of ancient liberties and the Magna Carta come to this?
I welcome Part 1 of the Bill, which at long last puts the national DNA database on a statutory footing. Further, the introduction of a nationwide framework for the destruction or retention of genetic material should mean a consistent approach to this issue in future. The Bill brings to an end the inevitable police authority postcode lottery, when the matter was left to the discretion of individual chief officers. Of course, once an offender is convicted, the issue is very different but, from my reading of the Bill, is it really proportionate that an 18 year-old who is convicted of drunkenness or driving without due care and attention should have their DNA profile retained indefinitely by the state? How is such a situation in line with the spirit of the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act? Is there not a point at which, if someone is in no further trouble, the profile is removed?
Secondly, I turn to the nature of the material. “If you are innocent, why worry about being on a database?”, has been the response of some of the tabloid press and even the Home Office under the previous Government. Apart from the fact that we live in a free country, DNA samples degrade over time. Samples do not merely identify you, like fingerprints or the DNA profile; DNA samples are you. Therefore it is valuable material, especially in unscrupulous hands. I welcome the introduction of a strict regime to deal with the destruction of DNA samples because, although I am not a pessimist, not long ago, the names, addresses, and bank details of 7.25 million families in receipt of child benefit were downloaded on to disks, put on a courier bike and never seen again. I did feel for the then Chancellor, just like I felt for Bob Quick who walked into Downing Street with highly classified information on public display. It is easily done.
I hope these serious but rare examples explain why I have been ill at ease with the thought of DNA samples stored somewhere instead of being destroyed. Also I was troubled to read in the report of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, of which I am now privileged to be a member, of the practical difficulties—or perhaps insuperable obstacles—in the destruction of innocent people's DNA profiles. Apparently innocent and guilty people’s DNA samples are held in groupings that are now difficult to separate. To avoid the misuse of these innocent profiles in the future, I hope that the Minister will be able to assure your Lordships’ House that the Bill will result in the destruction of DNA profiles, and not merely the deletion of the connection between the DNA profile and the identity of the person whose profile it is. Further, I urge the Minister to have a strict timetable under Clause 25 for the destruction of existing biometric material, although I understand that there are resource implications.
Finally, I move to the effect on particular communities. In 2007, the Home Affairs Select Committee concluded in its report, Young Black People and the Criminal Justice System, that:
“A larger proportion of innocent young black people will be held on the database than for other ethnicities given the small number of arrests which lead to convictions and the high arrest rate of young black people relative to young people of other ethnicities”.
I understand that you are three times more likely to be arrested if you are a young black man than your white counterparts. The noble and learned Baroness, Lady Scotland, in giving evidence to the Home Affairs Select Committee, predicted that soon three-quarters of young black men would be on the DNA database. According to the Human Genetics Commission, this prediction came true in November 2009. By the end of last year, just over 500,000 black people in England and Wales were on the DNA database. Not only is this a travesty, but it is hard not to believe the anecdotal evidence, supported sometimes by former senior police officers, that the power of arrest has on occasion been used merely to obtain DNA. Against this background, I ask the Minister to consider whether the commissioner should have a defined role in monitoring the ethnic profiles of people on the database.
How did the country of ancient liberties and the Magna Carta come to this? It is not a rhetorical question. Infringements on citizens’ liberties often must occur when public safety is at risk. But people, and Governments, often overreact to a threat to their safety. That is why your Lordships’ House had to prevent the introduction of excessive detention periods. Even if DNA techniques were like “CSI: Miami”, the state keeping the DNA of 1 million innocent people would still be an overreaction. I welcome this Bill.
Baroness O'Loan
My Lords, there is much to be welcomed in the Protection of Freedoms Bill. Issues such as the modification of the rules relating to powers of entry and the new rules on biometric material, including the requirements for the destruction of certain DNA samples, are important. As one who has had responsibility in the past for the destruction of DNA samples, I would ask the Government whether there is an intention to provide also for the destruction of the records which relate to those samples, because we discovered that this was an adjacent need.
I welcome the disregarding of convictions under Part 5, Chapter 4. I share the concerns articulated by the noble Baronesses, Lady Hamwee and Lady O’Neill, and the noble Lord, Lord Bew, in relation to Clause 100 and the freedom of information provisions for data sets.
I would like to endorse the many comments that have been made in relation to the protection of children under Part 5. There are concerns about the extent to which existing protections for children may be reduced by the exclusion of volunteers working, for example, in classrooms, sporting organisations and other supervised groups where the contact may be frequent and ongoing. Those are very important contacts because they help children, but they can also be used by abusers to build a relationship which may result in harm to children. The question that I have been asked is whether the proposed arrangements will, for example, permit an adult who has been barred from taking up a regulated post to volunteer for an unregulated activity? Are the Government satisfied that the proposed arrangements, which would place an individual on a barred list only if they have been, will be or are likely to be engaged in regulated activity, adequate? Will the result of this be that concerns about those not in regulated activity cannot be shared with the ISA?
The second area to which I wish to draw your Lordships’ attention relates to Part 2. The Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act deals with a range of investigatory techniques, including interception of communications, access to communications data, directed surveillance and intrusive surveillance, such as placing bugs in homes and cars. These techniques are widely used by a range of bodies.
I welcome the introduction of Clauses 29 and 34, providing for a code of practice for the development and use of surveillance camera systems and the creation of the Office of Surveillance Commissioners. The commissioner will have the responsibility to encourage compliance with the new camera code, review the operation of the code and provide advice about it. However, that is a very limited remit. There appears to be no provision for complaints about inappropriate use of surveillance cameras. There is currently an investigatory powers tribunal that deals with complaints under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act. It has received 1,120 complaints in 10 years and has upheld only 10. Five of the 10 were upheld in 2010 in respect of members of one family who complained about unlawful surveillance by a local authority. In only six other cases in 10 years has surveillance been found by the tribunal to be unnecessary or disproportionate. This is in the context of some 2.7 million surveillance decisions.
Clause 37 is an attempt to regulate the use by local authorities of surveillance powers by requiring the authority to seek judicial consent for such activity. The Minister articulated the disproportionate use of such powers in his opening address. It is right that there should be a requirement for judicial authorisation. It has been suggested that the police and other public authorities should be subject to a similar control mechanism following the revelations of very long-term surveillance by the police in the context of public protests and campaigns.
Clause 37 gives the Secretary of State power by order to require judicial authorisation for surveillance by other public authorities. The Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act already requires a complex process for authorisation and discontinuance of the use of directed surveillance. There is a very significant problem that lies not in the authorisation process, which requires significant thought, process and decision-making both to initiate and terminate surveillance activity, but in the mechanism created under RIPA for the regulation of surveillance activities. That process was described by the president of ACPO as,
“no longer sufficient to secure the confidence of right thinking people that such interference with citizens' rights (with its foreseeable collateral intrusion on many) is appropriate”.
There is a risk that when Parliament creates regulatory structures, it assumes that the job is being done. That is perfectly legitimate. However, changing circumstances may create an environment in which regulation becomes ineffective.
I will leave aside the operation of the Interception of Communications Commissioner and the Intelligence Services Commissioner. However, I will refer to the regulation of police activities that are overseen by the Office of the Surveillance Commissioner. The office comprises 26 people, including administration and support staff. They regulate, on an annual basis, the activities of some 60 organisations, including all police forces. On a biannual basis they examine some 25 organisations, and on a triannual basis they examine a further dozen authorities and more than 430 local authorities in England, Scotland and Wales. They are responsible for at least 500 organisations, some of which employ tens of thousands of people and have used RIPA powers on millions of occasions over the past 10 years.
The effective use of specified investigatory powers is critical to the fight against serious and organised crime. These powers have enabled some of the great triumphs of policing. Surveillance is a profoundly important tool. Properly used, it can result in the prevention and destruction of criminal activity, and the successful investigation leading to prosecution of crimes such as drug and people trafficking, money laundering and murder. The specific nature of the techniques and processes are rightly protected. However, because of the nature of the powers and the work in which officers engage when using them, there is international recognition of the risk of the corruption of those officers.
The regulatory process, among others, must be capable of acting as a check to the potential for such corruption, with all its attendant risks, by auditing the use of regulated techniques. I have seen situations in which RIPA was not complied with, despite the existence of extensive police command structures and the Office of the Surveillance Commissioner and its inspectors, resulting in the ongoing commission of serious crime by those being paid as informants by the state. In his annual report for 2010-11, the Chief Surveillance Commissioner indicated clearly that he had concerns about how the system was operating. He stated:
“I have commented in previous reports that there appears to be an over-reliance on the capacity of the OSC to examine authorisations. I remain concerned that my limited capacity is misappreciated ... My inspection capability is limited. The sample of documents which can be examined is small and the inspection can only be regarded as a ‘snapshot in time’; it is not an indicator of trends … In order to achieve a reduced budget for the financial year 2011-12 I have reluctantly reduced by capacity by one Inspector”.
He had seven inspectors to do all these inspections. Now he has one fewer. He has also reduced the secretary post and downgraded a further post. He states:
“My capacity has always been limited and I wrote to the Home Secretary to explain the impact of reducing my budget ... I recognise the severity of the country's financial situation but a reduction of nine percent has serious operational repercussions in a tiny organisation”.
This organisation has responsibility for protecting the freedoms of people in this country. The Bill presents an opportunity to address these issues.
I suppose my question is, “Must we wait until there is another scandal, as there inevitably will be?”. I would like to endorse the suggestion of the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, that it would be possible to place the office of Surveillance Commissioners and the Commissioner for the Retention and Use of Biometric Material in the Office of Surveillance Commissioners, thereby avoiding the creation of two new quangos in a term in which we are dealing with the Public Bodies Bill and also ensuring the economies of shared services. Could the Government also make a decision to review the office of the OSC and of the Investigatory Powers Tribunal and in the interim to enhance the budget, so that these regulatory processes will more effectively enable the ongoing protection of the country?
Baroness Heyhoe Flint
My Lords, at the risk of sounding like Little Miss Echo to my noble friend Lord Addington, my interest in the Bill centres on the impact it will have on the sports sector, particularly the work undertaken by national governing bodies of sport, NGBs, to ensure that all participants in sport are given a safe environment in which to play and administer, especially where a vast number of amateurs and volunteers are concerned.
First, I declare my interests as a board member of the England and Wales Cricket Board, an honorary life president of the Lady Taverners, who assist youngsters with special needs to give them a sporting chance, a vice president of Wolverhampton Wanderers Football Club—13th in the Premiership—and trustee of Wolves Community Charitable Trust.
NGBs such as the England and Wales Cricket Board and the Football Association have the duty to promote and regulate sporting activity in a structured environment. One of the duties they take extremely seriously is the welfare of those who participate in sport. We need to send out a message to parents that their children will be well looked after when they are involved at sports clubs or in other forms of leisure and sporting activity. I therefore support the Government’s work to safeguard vulnerable groups and the reforms set out in the Bill, such as the introduction of portable criminal record checks, which will make life easier for governing bodies which undertake a huge number of checks each year on their employees and volunteers.
I have two concerns, which I know are shared by many on all sides of this House, not least the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Bristol. Concern number one is that Clause 79, on the disclosure of information, has the specific intent to remove the requirement that a person must send a copy of their CRB to a national governing body. Concern number two is that Clause 64, on the definition of regulated activity, aims to reduce the number of individuals who are regulated by excluding those who are subject to day-to-day supervision. The ECB, for example, currently processes vetting checks on all in cricket who work with children, whether these are individual coaches coming from overseas for the summer or long-term volunteers in their sporting community. More than 85,000 people have been checked by the ECB since 2003, when checks were first introduced. As the noble Baroness, Lady Dean, has noted, the Football Association does 35,000 checks a year.
Those who manage these vetting arrangements at the ECB and at other sporting bodies tell me that the changes proposed in the Bill increase the risk of dangerous individuals coming into contact with children. The proposed changes would therefore mean that registered bodies would be denied access to relevant information about all individuals who could pose a risk to children. Bodies such as the ECB currently manage disclosure content centrally with experienced and trained staff, ensuring consistency of decisions across the game. Obviously, the average club-level volunteer does not have such expertise. If, in future, an individual has to show their disclosure to their local sports club rather than to the governing body, there will be two problems. First, someone may have to show that they have a criminal record to their immediate peer group, undermining their privacy and possibly increasing the chances of collusion or of falsifying forms. Secondly, training will need to be provided to local club volunteers on how to handle disclosure content, which will increase burdens on volunteers at a local level and will mean extra costs to NGBs centrally to develop and run this training, thus creating a costly and time-consuming level of bureaucracy. All this would be unnecessary if the governing bodies received copies of the disclosure directly, which is what happens now.
The informal nature of volunteering in sport presents opportunities for individuals to withhold information. As a consequence, it is those types of individuals who pose the greatest risk to children and are likely to be manipulative in their behaviour, yet could still integrate into the club. It is surely not right that those who volunteer in sport, doing so no doubt because they love that sport, suddenly have a working responsibility to become experts on criminal record checking procedures.
Clause 64 amends the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act 2006 by narrowing the definition of regulated activity, as my noble friend Lady Walmsley mentioned. Crucially, this would exclude any role fulfilled while subject to the,
“day to day supervision of another person who is engaging in regulated activity relating to children”.
The proposed changes mean that an individual who has been barred would not be prevented from working with children in a supervised role—for example, as an assistant coach at a cricket club, provided that another supervising adult such as a head coach was present, because that assistant coach will no longer be liable to a full criminal record check.
With respect, the new arrangement fails to understand the way in which sports clubs are run. The House needs to note that, for example, many sports coaches, club minibus drivers and match organisers in a sports club could be considered as assistants if the club has a head coach, but unless the head coach were working alongside every volunteer assistant at every session it would be wrong to classify these people as assistants. I ask the Minister to consider how a sports club is to interpret the concept of supervision when on summer or winter evenings successful cricket clubs and junior football clubs may have hundreds of children being coached across a spread of sports fields and pitches. Does the head coach actually spread himself or herself to supervise every one of these sessions and all the volunteer assistants involved? That is an unfair burden to place on the sports club and one that may deter volunteering as well as reduce protection.
I hope that these concerns are well understood. My request at this stage of the Bill is that perhaps the Minister may agree to meet a delegation on this issue, including national governing bodies of sport, the Sport and Recreation Alliance and even Girl Guiding UK, which has also contacted me. I humbly suggest that just small amendments to the otherwise excellent Bill would uphold the protections that this House, the Government and all sports bodies and organisations want to see applied in order to safeguard potentially vulnerable groups of sport-loving youngsters.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark
My Lords, it is fair to say that the Protection of Freedoms Bill contains interesting as well as worrying proposals. Many of the proposals are welcome and noble Lords on these Benches give them their full support. There are, however, other aspects of the Bill that are worrying and we on these Benches will have to oppose them.
The title of the Bill is a bit over the top if you look at the subjects contained in it. They are a collection of issues that do not necessarily fit very well together. Maybe that is why the Bill has a rather grandiose title but not so grandiose items. In some cases, the Bill contains some very risky proposals.
I have the greatest concern about the proposals concerning DNA. When my right honourable friend Alan Johnson was Home Secretary, he brought forward legislation providing for essential safeguards regarding the use and retention of DNA. These are serious matters and we should seek to achieve a sensible balance. I believe that we had that balance, but now the Minister is taking risks with our freedoms in his proposals regarding DNA. What evidence does he have to make these changes in respect of the retention of DNA samples?
Can the Minister also direct some of his remarks to the number of people who have been caught committing serious offences only because their DNA sample was on the database? Under these proposals, the DNA evidence would never have been there. Kensley Larrier, Lee Ainsby and Abdul Azad have all been convicted of the offence of rape, using DNA evidence held on the database. If these proposals had been law at the time that they committed their offence, the evidence that convicted them would not have been available. They would have been free to carry on committing further offences. How is that protecting our freedoms?
Government have a duty to protect their citizens. These proposals weaken their ability to do so. They are wrong, they are risky and they should be opposed. Parts of the Bill, as I said previously, are very welcome. Proposals regarding the express parental consent for the use of children’s fingerprints are welcome. Other proposals, such as those to deal with rogue wheel clampers, making it a criminal offence for cowboy clampers to immobilise, move or restrict the movement of a vehicle without lawful authority, are also welcome and merit considerable support around the House. They are welcomed by the motorists who have had to suffer at the hands of these rogues for far too long.
I am disappointed that the Government have chosen not to deal with the issue of ticketing in this respect, as my noble friend Lady Royall outlined earlier. I hope that noble Lords can persuade the Government that this is an issue that they need to address during the passage of this Bill through the House.
I also welcome the proposals in the Bill to provide a scheme to deal with convictions for consensual sex between men above the age of consent. These proposals have been too long in coming. The Government are right and they should be congratulated on putting these proposals forward.
As my noble friend Lady Royall said, the August riots gave us a timely reminder of the benefits of CCTV. It is an important tool in the fight against crime and it is disappointing that proposals from the Government may make this more difficult. I hope that any code is as light a touch as possible, but it seems odd to me that these provisions will not apply to all. I hope that the Government will keep that under review.
Like many noble Lords, I welcome the proposals regarding freedom of information. I am a big supporter of freedom of information legislation, and proposals to increase its scope and deepen it further will always have my support.
My final comments are around the issues of the detention of terrorist suspects and the proposals for detention periods of 14 days and 28 days. If we can all accept that 14 days should be the norm, where we may differ is how we get to 28 days in exceptional circumstances. There are many noble and learned Lords in your Lordships’ House, and I hope that they in particular will be able to give the Government timely advice on how to proceed carefully in this area.
In conclusion there is a lot that I can welcome in this Bill, but there are some really dangerous, misguided aspects in it. I hope that your Lordships’ House will be able to persuade the Government that they need to think about them again.
Baroness Randerson
My Lords, I strongly support the spirit that unites this wide-ranging Bill. This evening it has been called a Christmas pie and a mishmash. Whichever view you take of it, it certainly covers a great deal of ground. We have had a debate which has touched on virtually every aspect of this Bill and heard some very important points from all sides. I am delighted that there is so much agreement on some parts of the Bill.
In the last 15 years or so, I believe that we have been sliding almost imperceptibly into a society where we take for granted that the state has the right to look into almost every corner of our lives. We take our liberties rather too much for granted in Britain. Because they have not been threatened in a wholesale way in the adult lifetime of almost all of us, we accept that those liberties are there. We have allowed them to be eroded on a piecemeal basis. We have not really noticed it happening, but if you add up one measure after another taken under the previous Government, in total it amounts to a considerable intrusion into our lives.
These steps were of course taken with the best of motives. It is a natural human reaction that when something terrible happens we all say that something must be done to stop it ever happening again. In the name of safety and security, the previous Government eroded the concept of innocent until proven guilty by retaining the DNA of over 1 million people who have not been found guilty of a crime just in case those samples might be useful in the future. They eroded the right to liberty by extending the period of pre-charge detention. They eroded our right to trial by jury. They eroded our right to live safely in our own homes by creating hundreds of new powers of entry so that there are now more than 1,200 separate, different and therefore confusing powers of entry. Significantly, nearly 500 of them were created by secondary legislation.
The previous Government also eroded trust by their plans to introduce the draconian vetting and barring system which would have forced 11 million adults to pay for registration in order to prove that they were not abusers of children. The key issue to me on this matter is that it deters volunteers. I contend that the benefits of community volunteering greatly outweigh the benefits of vetting and barring on the draconian scale assumed by the previous Government.
The previous Government eroded our right to walk peacefully along the streets by empowering the police to stop and search us without needing reasonable grounds for suspicion. The figures on this give a very worrying picture. In 2008-09, there were 210,000 stop and searches that led to only 1,245 arrests, and of them only nine were for terrorism. There has undoubtedly been considerable damage to community relations as a result of this broad-brush approach.
I said at the outset that these steps were taken with the best of motives. Our country faces new threats and challenges. Terrorism, although not new, is newly fierce among us, and there are the old threats, the old evils, that we have been too blind to in the past, such as paedophilia. In attempting to deal with these problems, it is important all the while to keep in mind that the response has to be proportionate. For example, the previous Government legislated to keep biometric data for as long as possible in case they might be useful one day. By spreading the net wider and wider they seemed to hope that they would legislate away crime.
There has been another factor at work, which is technology. Many of the developments that I am referring to—DNA samples, CCTV or the ability to create and interrogate vast databases—would not have been possible 25 years ago. There is a human tendency to feel that if the technology exists, we need to use it, but we have been in danger of making ourselves the slaves of technology, rather than its masters.
I shall briefly tell the story of a lady who was my constituent. She was elderly, frail, very timid and of exemplary good character. She came to see me following a traumatic experience. Her husband, who suffered from Alzheimer’s, had had a stroke, fallen over and hit his head. Following that accident, she was arrested by the police on suspicion of attempted murder. She came to see me after a very traumatic episode to complain not about the arrest but about the fact that they had kept her DNA. We went to see the chief police officer and asked for that DNA to be destroyed. The answer we got was that it would be highly unlikely that that could happen, even though it fulfilled one of the two criteria for the destruction of DNA samples, which is that there was no crime in the first place. A system that ensures that that lady’s DNA is kept in perpetuity is overwhelmingly draconian and needs to be put right.
There are details in the Bill that need questioning and interrogating, and I have concerns about one or two of its provisions—in particular, as some noble Lords have already mentioned, issues in relation to university research. I also wish to probe the Minister about the provisions in relation to CCTV cameras because I have come across two serious abuses of CCTV cameras, one on university property and one on National Assembly for Wales property, and I cannot see that they are covered by the Bill. I will be pursuing those issues in future, but I believe that, in general, this Bill is a proportionate response to the threats and problems of our society.
Baroness Grey-Thompson
My Lords, in this Second Reading I had considered raising in some detail the issue of parking infringements and ticketing, in Chapter 2 of Part 3 of the Bill, especially in relation to how the Bill may relate to the abuse of blue badge parking by large numbers of individuals. I believe that this abuse highlights something of wider concern, which is a widely held, negative attitude that is being directed towards disabled people. Perhaps, however, I will come back to this at a later stage.
Unsurprisingly, I have decided to keep my main comments at this stage to those parts of the Bill which could have a serious effect on British sport. I refer specifically to Part 5 of the Bill, on safeguarding vulnerable groups. I support the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde, in calling for the correct balance for criminal record checks. As a volunteer in sport, I admit that I have felt a certain amount of frustration with the system in the past. Over the years, however, the system has improved greatly. At one point, I think that I held five separate CRB checks—one for a charity of which I was a trustee, where I did not actually meet any children. Therefore, I strongly welcome the sections on portability, which is very valuable.
As a mother whose daughter is involved in many sports, I like the reassurance that checks have been carried out on the volunteers who work with my daughter, and also that these checks have to be periodically updated. Sport currently has a robust framework in place for safeguarding children and it is well placed to determine who should be checked. Those involved also understand the huge risks to their sport of not protecting young people. It is essential that sport and recreation organisations have clear information about volunteers who pose a risk. Volunteers working in sporting environments have access to large numbers of children and vulnerable adults, and are in a trusted position. National governing bodies ask coaches, volunteers and officials to undertake regular continual professional development, and I see the safeguards and CRB checks as a part of that process. They have become an accepted part of being involved in sport.
I understand that one of the aims of the Government’s proposals is to protect individuals who may receive a certificate with inaccurate information. Since registration began in my own sport of athletics, only one check has been returned with a major error, displaying incorrectly that the individual had been barred from working with children. This error was corrected one day later by the Criminal Records Bureau. Athletics—I declare an interest, in that I sit on the board of UK Athletics—is a large sport with many thousands of volunteers. To put this into further context, last year approximately 7,000 checks were carried out through the centralised system. These were carried out by experts in the field. At present, only two individuals within UK Athletics are able to view criminal record disclosures. Clause 79, covering the disclosure of information, would seriously undermine the anonymity of the current system because the safeguarding team would have to chase copies of the disclosures.
The current system, which is centralised within the NGB, prevents the need for the volunteer to get involved. Withholding disclosures from the NGB would mean that the individual is flagged up to the NGB as not having returned their certificate, maybe unfairly, which could lead—again, unfairly—to suspicion. Those who we would not want to be working with children could delay a return of forms, thereby giving themselves longer access to children. The administration also has a financial cost which must be considered.
The provisions in the Bill put the onus on the individual—volunteers who often have many other commitments—to provide information to the national governing body. That could cause many difficulties. For the individuals who have to return the disclosures by post, there are further costs such as recorded delivery. For those who do not want to send their sensitive documents back by post, a volunteer at the club may have to view the disclosure. That puts other club volunteers in a difficult position, as has been well described by the noble Baroness, Lady Heyhoe Flint.
Without volunteers, British sport would not exist. I think virtually all the athletes I know who compete at GB level have been coached at some point in their career by volunteers. But sport also needs young people taking part in it, and parents need to feel a level of reassurance.
I also have some concerns over Clause 64, which narrows the definition of “regulated activity”. It makes an assumption that day-to-day supervision is enough, but I believe that the proposed changes mean that an individual who has been barred would not be prevented from working with children in a supervised role. The issue of “regulated activity” has been raised by many in your Lordships’ House, so I will not talk any more on this point now, but I agree that it places another unfair burden on yet other volunteers. I believe that it might be appropriate for all bodies in this sector to be granted an exemption from Clause 64(5).
I would like to ask the Minister for his reassurance that the protection of young people and vulnerable adults will be uppermost. The role of a coach or volunteer is hard to define. While a coach may say that they “just” spend several nights a week at a club, it is so much more than that. The coach can be a mentor, a friend, someone who challenges the young person to be the best they can or someone who sees you through the difficult teenage years—a confidant. My coaches were all of those. By their very nature, strong bonds are built. The coach is there to help a young person fulfil their dreams in sport. They hold a unique position in a young athlete’s life, and there is great potential for misuse of the role by those who wish to.
Finally, I would like to ensure that we have a system that is as simple as possible, and I would welcome further debate in this area. Record checks should protect coaches or volunteers from error, but they must also protect the children and vulnerable adults who are in sport.
Lord Rosser
My Lords, we have had a lengthy and interesting debate. With a Bill that covers a number of separate issues, it is not surprising that we have heard a number of thoughtful speeches that have concentrated on specific areas addressed in the Bill. These include the impact of Freedom of Information Act changes on universities and their research work, changes to the vetting and barring procedures, and DNA retention. We also heard a glowing testimonial to the last Government from the noble Lord, Lord Selsdon, although I had better add for the noble Lord’s sake that it related only to the specific issue of powers of entry.
This Bill, as my noble friend Lord Kennedy of Southwark said, has a somewhat grandiose title, but as Mr Edward Leigh, the Conservative Member of Parliament for Gainsborough, said in the other place in March this year:
“Compared with the Deputy Prime Minister’s rhetoric last year about bringing in a Bill to ‘protect our hard won liberties’, much of it is a bit tame”.—[Official Report, Commons, 1/3/11; col. 225.]
It is hardly a piece of legislation on a par, for example, with the Human Rights Act 1998, the Freedom of Information Act 2000, the Data Protection Act 1998 or the Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000, all of which were enacted by the previous Government.
However, the Bill affects important issues and makes proposals involving change in a rather different climate from that which existed when some of the original legislation was passed in this House and the other place. My noble friend Lady Royall of Blaisdon went through the Bill in her speech and set out the parts with which we agree, those with which we disagree and areas where the Bill remains silent but which we think should be addressed. I do not intend to repeat all the points made by my noble friend but will concentrate my comments on particular aspects of the Bill.
The proposals for changes to the vetting and barring regime drawn up following the horrific Soham murders are a cause of concern, not because they make changes but because of the nature of the changes that they make. These were referred to by, among others, my noble friend Lady Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde. Under the Government’s Bill, it will be possible for people to spend time working with and in regular contact with children who will not have been subject to the barring arrangements. Such a situation could arise if the individuals concerned are meant to be being supervised by someone else to a greater or lesser degree. In this situation, it will not be possible to ascertain whether the Independent Safeguarding Authority had ever made a judgment that the individual in question should be barred. Instead, it will be left to the organisation or body concerned to seek any information on the Criminal Records Bureau check and make its own judgment, but it will be unable to find out what conclusions the independent authority may have come to, despite the fact that one would expect it to have some expertise in this area.
The objective should be to ensure that if one organisation or authority is aware that an individual has a record of abuse of others of whatever age, another authority or organisation engaging that person either as an employee or a paid volunteer in work with vulnerable people should not do so in ignorance of that individual’s previous record of abuse, including any assessments that have been made. Serious and potential serious sexual offenders are all too often very determined and very good at covering their tracks and activities. It is all very well wanting to reduce regulation, as clearly the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts, does, but not if it is at the expense of someone else’s safety, particularly a vulnerable person or, in extreme cases, at the expense of their life.
The Government are proposing changes to the retention of DNA samples. In the light of reoffending rates and the benefits of preventing and solving crimes, the previous Government had already legislated for a six-year retention period for those who were not convicted. The then Opposition did not oppose the six-year retention period, no doubt because they accepted that a number of serious offenders, including murderers and rapists, were brought to justice after committing other crimes, because of DNA profiles. Yet this Government now propose to bring the retention period down to three years for an adult who is charged with, but not convicted of, a serious offence. We have not yet heard any convincing evidence that supports such a step, which will make it more difficult for the police to solve and prevent serious crimes.
Certainly the Government’s evidence is not convincing. Their proposal appears to reflect the Scottish model of a three-year limit. That was based on a report by an academic and seemed to be determined by a judgment of the appropriate balance and interpretation of an ECHR decision rather than empirical evidence. The Government have undertaken separate analysis of the Scottish model of DNA retention, and the results suggest that the earliest that offending risk in the charged group falls to the level present in a comparable general population is just over three years after the initial charge. That is based on a comparison of only the lowest-bound hazard curve for the charge group and the risk estimated for all individuals in the general population. It really is a case of being highly selective over the figure picked to try and provide backing for a predetermined point of view.
The six-year retention figure in the Crime and Security Act 2010 was based on extensive Home Office analysis on the length of time for which the offending risk of a group of individuals who might be subject to the retention policy is above the level observed in the general population, known as the hazard rate. The analysis suggested that within four years the hazard rate converges with that for the peak offending age group—males aged 16 to 20. The cohort converges with the general population only after a significantly greater number of years.
In its evidence to the Commons Public Bill Committee in March this year, ACPO stated that,
“we felt that the Crime and Security Act 2010 represented fair balance and was evidence-led, in that there was a body of research around how that measure would play out in protecting the public”.
ACPO went on to say that the Scottish model,
“does not appear to be evidence-led in the way it has been constructed”.—[Official Report, Commons, Protection of Freedoms Bill Committee, 22/3/11; col. 8.]
ACPO estimated that there would be a loss of about 1,000 matches per year under the changes proposed in the Bill. In other words, people currently brought to justice for serious offences because of DNA matches would escape justice and quite probably commit further serious offences. This is not an area where we should be taking chances by making a change based on less than convincing evidence.
In addition, in more than two-thirds of rape cases in which a suspect is arrested, there is no charge. Under this Bill, DNA will be kept where there is no charge in only very specific circumstances, so the DNA will be lost in most of these cases, even though, as the hard evidence shows, it can lead to a repeat offender being caught for this particularly unpleasant and violent sexual offence. Associated with this issue we also consider, as my noble friend Lady Royall of Blaisdon said, that a new clause should be added to the Bill to make a specific new offence of stalking. We shall be tabling an appropriate amendment in Committee to this effect. Stalking is currently covered by the offence of harassment, but the two are not the same and, to prove stalking, harassment also has to be established. There has been a change in Scotland where there is now a separate offence of stalking. The number of prosecutions for stalking is already this year some 10 times higher than the number of prosecutions when harassment was the offence that had to be proved.
The Bill addresses the issue of wheel-clamping and in particular the need to take action against rogue car clampers, with which we agree. We need to be sure, though, that the provisions of this Bill will not hamper action against the rogue parker: the kind of individual who leaves their car in your drive because your home is near a station or a football ground, or the kind of individual who leaves their car in parking bays reserved for disabled drivers at supermarkets and in car parks at leisure activity locations. These questions will need to be pursued during the later stages of this Bill.
The Bill proposes changes to the use of CCTV. Many people regard CCTV as a tool for preventing and fighting crime, and we believe that a full report is needed from the police on its effectiveness before we go down the road set out in this Bill. There may well be a case for some regulation on the use of CCTV, but this Bill provides for a new code of practice that appears to contain so much bureaucracy—with more checks and balances on a single camera than the Government are introducing over police and crime commissioners—that it is likely to deter or prevent the use of CCTV in instances where it would increase safety and security.
Local authorities and police forces will have a statutory duty to have regard to the code in their use of surveillance camera systems. Yet most cameras are used within the private sector. If the Government consider there to be a protection of freedom issue at stake, can the Minister say why no code of practice is to be applied beyond local authorities and police forces? Crimes, and particularly serious crimes, affect our security, and our freedom is in jeopardy if a Government do not regard the right to security as of paramount importance. The previous Government had to address unprecedented peacetime attacks, and the continuing threat of such attacks, on this country. We have heard a great deal in this debate about the rights of the individual, but we have to be careful in protecting those rights not to compromise the security and safety of our communities and our nation.
The previous Government presided over a year-by-year reduction in crimes of all kinds and a 43 per cent reduction in crime overall, according to the British Crime Survey. They left this country a safer place in which to live, work and play than when they came to office, and that is an enhancement in freedom that should not be casually dismissed.
This Bill will be the subject of detailed debate and consideration during its remaining stages, as it should be. While there are changes in this Bill with which we do not disagree—indeed, we agree—there are, as my noble friend Lord Harris of Haringey highlighted, other changes that, despite some of the rhetoric from the Government side, weaken not strengthen an all- important freedom: the right to safety and security for the people of this country.
Lord Henley
My Lords, I start with one point on which I am in total agreement with the noble Lord, Lord Rosser. The Bill will be the subject of detailed debate at its later stages and I look forward to those later stages. I also offer my congratulations to all noble Lords who spoke. I never thought it was likely that I would be getting to my feet so soon after 9 pm. I do not know whether the usual channels will notice this but I hope they do not suggest that we start every day with a two-and-a-half-hour debate on procedural matters hoping it will speed up later proceedings.
We have done very well to get through a big and detailed Bill of this sort—a Bill with some 115 clauses and 10 schedules—in the time we have. I will endeavour to be brief in responding because, as the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, said and I agreed with him, obviously a great deal of this must be discussed in further detail at later stages.
The Bill was described rather cruelly by the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Haringey, as a “mishmash” and by others as a “Christmas pie”. It is possibly a bit too early to describe it as a Christmas pie so I was going to use the word “pudding” because it is a mix of a number of things. The reason I wanted to use the word pudding is thinking of those great remarks of Winston Churchill to emphasise the fact that it has a theme running through it—it is not a pudding without a theme. There is a theme relating to the protections of freedoms that I hope I outlined at the beginning of the debate. There is also a theme that runs through the Bill which I again think is important—the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, referred to it—and that is one of balance. On each of the different issues that we will deal with, it is important that we address the question of the right balance between the protection of our freedoms and the protection of security. Very difficult judgments have always to be made in this area, which is what we will have to do. That is why I will come back to the word “balance” time and again.
The noble Baroness, Lady Royall, thought that the balance was wrong, but a great many other speakers, including my noble friends Lady Hamwee and Lord Goodhart, thought that the balance was right. The noble Lord, Lord Dear, thought that the balance was right, but he wanted to see extensions in the Bill in areas such as freedom of speech. He said that he would not bring forward amendments relating to freedom of speech or removing “insulting” from the Public Order Act while our consultation was out, but he asked whether it might be possible to have some debate on that. As always, I will say that that must be a matter for the usual channels, but no doubt the noble Lord will find some way of introducing it in Committee.
In the time available to me today I hope to run through the various parts of the Bill and make a few brief comments on them, starting with Part 1, on DNA and biometrics. I shall deal first with biometrics in schools, particularly because my noble friend Lord Lucas referred to the proposals as—I think that I have got his words right—a “daffy overreaction” to a perceived problem which would do nothing to improve safety or privacy. I note what he said, but I noted also that his general reaction to the Bill was positive. I can assure him that, although the coalition agreement is generally our bible and something that we always abide by, the proposals have been included not just for reasons of the coalition agreement. No doubt my noble friend will want to come back to that in due course.
On the wider question of DNA and whether we should keep the DNA of people who have not been convicted for three years or six years, again there was a division of opinion within the House. My noble friend Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts and the noble Lord, Lord Dear, both thought that the current position was untenable. I had the support of my noble friend Lady Randerson, but others, such as the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, and the right reverend Prelate, had considerable concerns. I think that it was the right reverend Prelate who used that dread expression “the precautionary principle”, which always worries me. I tend to run away when I hear about the precautionary principle, because it implies that one cannot do anything because something might go wrong. I do not know what it would prevent us doing if one took it too far, but, again, I note what he says.
It was my noble friend Lady Berridge, speaking from her experience as a barrister, who reminded us of the importance of the presumption of innocence, the right to privacy and the risk of a breach of Article 8 and rights of privacy if we kept an excessive amount of data. Again, these matters will have to be looked at in considerable detail, but it is important that we get this right. It is important also that we come to address the questions raised by my noble friend Lady Doocey and by the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, who discussed possible costs to the police in dealing with that.
I will cover two other points in relation to the question of retention of DNA. I think it was the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, and the noble Lord, Lord Harris, who suggested that we were going to be taking some 17,000 rapists off the database and that potentially some 23,000 offenders’ details per year will not be entered on the database under these provisions. The contention that every single person suspected of rape will instantly come off the database is simply not true. It is about keeping the details of thousands of innocent people, who have not been convicted, on the DNA database because of a hypothesis that a proportion of them may go on to commit—
Lord Harris of Haringey
The figures I quoted were from the Home Office’s own figures, reanalysing the cases where individuals would have been taken off the database as a result of these changes and subsequently —these are facts and involve real people—gone on to commit other crimes in 6,000 or 7,000 cases. I will have to check my notes again on the figures, but these were serious crimes, including rape and murder.
Lord Henley
I will obviously allow the noble Lord to check his facts again in due course, but I stand by what I said. The presumption that he was making—along with, I think, the noble Baroness, Lady Royall—was that we were taking all these people off and that they were all going to be guilty. I was trying to make clear that simply keeping the details of those people on the database, because of a hypothesis that a tiny proportion of them may go on to commit serious crimes in future, is not actually going to do anything to increase the conviction rate for rape. As I explained in opening this debate, those charged with a qualifying offence, including rape, obviously will have their DNA retained for three years. It is then up to the police to apply to the courts to extend that by a further two years. That is set out in the Bill. For those arrested but not charged with a qualifying offence in cases where the victim is vulnerable, the police may still apply to the independent commissioner to retain their DNA for three years.
My noble friend Lady Berridge also raised the very important question of the over-representation on the DNA database of those from black and ethnic minority backgrounds. Obviously, the database is not self-populating, because for a person’s DNA to be taken the person must have been suspected of committing a recordable offence and that arrest in law must have been necessary. You cannot, as another noble Lord said, simply arrest so as to get the DNA. That is a significant threshold. However, our proposals will mean that the vast majority of those who are arrested, but not subsequently convicted, will have their DNA profiles destroyed very soon unless they are convicted of a crime in due course.
We have very difficult questions to address, again, on the regulation of surveillance and very difficult questions of balance between those who feel that we need further safeguards and those who feel that people always welcome more cameras, as I think the noble Lord, Lord Harris, suggested. I have to say he ought to look at Project Champion in Birmingham, which I referred to in my opening remarks, and he will find that that is not always the case. I had better stop mentioning the noble Lord if he is going to rise to his feet on every occasion, but I will give way.
Lord Harris of Haringey
Perhaps I will not rise on the next occasion you mention me. The issue about Project Champion was that people welcomed the original introduction. It was when they found out they had been misled about the purposes of the cameras that the anger—the very real and justifiable anger—arose.
Lord Henley
My Lords, it was a real anger and it was quite right that something should be done about it. I think he is wrong, though, to imply that people welcome more and more cameras on every single occasion.
Obviously, we have got to get this right, so I was very grateful that the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, for example, welcomed the fact that we were going to have a code of practice and a new commissioner. Again, she said it was important that further things should happen. I think she saw that there was insufficient provision for complaints to be made and she also suggested that there was not—I think I have it right—sufficient oversight. I will certainly look at that, and these are obviously matters that we can examine in Committee.
The last point that I should pick up on is that made by my noble friends Lady Miller and Lady Doocey, and the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, when they talked about the number of commissioners and considered whether there could be a merger of commissioners. I appreciate that the number of commissioners seems to be growing, but their roles are distinct. Again, that is a matter of detail that we should be able to consider in due course in Committee.
Turning to powers of entry, my noble friend Lord Goodhart, who generally welcomed the Bill, for which I was very grateful, raised the issue that it includes a number of Henry VIII powers. Whenever that expression is mentioned, I think back to what was almost the first Bill that I handled at this Dispatch Box, which related to statutory sick pay, which was one of the earliest modern reintroductions of Henry VIII powers. I remember the savaging that I received from the then good friend of the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, Lord Russell, and the problems that we had with the Bill. When I die, no doubt Henry VIII powers will be found engraved on my heart. However, the noble Lord accepts the fact that it is possibly appropriate here, in removing powers of entry, to use those Henry VIII powers. I stress—in particular, to my noble friend Lord Selsdon—that that power is only for the repeal of powers of entry. Clause 41, which allows amendments to be made to powers of entry, makes it quite clear that those powers can be used only where they do not reduce the protection for the individual. Again, I pay tribute to all the work that my noble friend Lord Selsdon has done over the years in trying to reduce the number of powers of entry. In due course, I will write to him with further details on the code of conduct.
Turning briefly to wheel clamping, that is a matter for Committee on which I know that my noble friend Lord Attlee, who has great expertise in the area, will be able to deal with it. As my noble friend Lord Bradshaw said, this is something that we need to look at with very great care, especially access to the DVLA database. I shall also consider, as the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, said, what we need to do about ticketing and abuse in that area. I have also noted what the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, did not have to say about the abuse of blue badge parking, which concerns all of us and which we should address. However, clamping in a disabled parking area is not the solution to that problem, because once you have clamped a vehicle in that area, you cannot use that area. There are other, better ways to deal with that problem.
Moving to counterterrorism and the questions raised about the reduction to 14 days, I note that most noble Lords are happy with the reduction from 28 days to 14 days, but I note the concern about the measures that would have to be used to raise that 14 days to 28 days if we were in a difficult situation where we needed to do that. The noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, was very honest when he said that it was difficult to see how we could get from the 14 days back to the 28 days. We have to look at that. At the moment we have Clause 58 and the powers in the Bill as set out, but certainly we will want to look at those again very carefully. I note what the noble Lord, Lord Armstrong, had to say, that he thought that we had not gone far enough in what we were doing, and that it would be too difficult to do it. He would certainly want to try to extend Clause 58, as I understood him, to allow the Home Secretary to extend the period in other circumstances where appropriate. I was grateful that he made it quite clear that he hoped she would never have to make use of any of those powers.
I come now to vetting and barring, and again that expression I used at the beginning about getting the balance right is more important here than in virtually any other field. Of course, as the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, put it, our first priority must be the protection of children and young people, and that will remain our priority. However, we obviously have to have the right balance, as was stressed by my noble friend Lord Hodgson, though others thought that we had got this wrong and thought more protection ought to be brought in. As I said at the beginning, I want to stress that if you bring in too great a control and too great protections, there is the danger of encouraging a tick-box mentality, which might not provide the better protection for children and young people that we want. Again, I will look at that as we discuss these matters in Committee.
I would say to my noble friend Lord Addington, and the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, but more particularly to my noble friend Lady Heyhoe Flint, who all spoke about sporting issues, that I would be more than happy to see a delegation of sports bodies if she would like to bring them to see me in due course.
I would also like to suggest to the noble Lord, Lord Harris, who said that he was not happy about what might happen to volunteering and the risk to volunteers, that he look at some of the briefing provided by Volunteering England, which states:
“However, we would not want to see this wording tightened up by use of terms such as ‘close’ or ‘constant’ supervision, as has been suggested by other organisations, because it could further restrict the involvement of volunteers. If the requirements for supervision are too prescriptive, organisations may be put off from involving volunteers and potential volunteers deterred from volunteering”.
Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts
Will my noble friend give way momentarily? One of the questions now is: what is “frequent and intensive” when dealing with children and vulnerable adults? Are we going to have a new definition of it, and if there is a new definition of it, will it be available for discussion in Committee? Clearly, there is a wide range of opinions around the Chamber about how we should tackle that.
Lord Henley
How you would interpret those words is really a question of fact and degree. I will have a further look before we get to Committee to see whether I can write in greater detail on that. If I cannot, I am sure that it is something that we would want to discuss in greater detail in Committee and at later stages.
Finally, I come to freedom of information and data protection in Part 6. I will touch on this only very briefly because I understand the concerns expressed by my noble friend Lady Hamwee, the noble Lord, Lord Bew, and the noble Baronesses, Lady O’Neill and Lady O’Loan, about the publication of research, particularly early publication. I accept that there is a genuine concern coming from Universities UK.
Baroness O'Neill of Bengarve
I just want to clarify that. There is absolutely no concern about the publication of research. That is what researchers aim to do. The concern is about applying the publication criteria to databases which are of a size that precludes their being published in journals, monographs or any other way. These are causing concern for large numbers of research institutions which have such databases but are committed to open publication.
Lord Henley
I am sorry if I misunderstood the noble Baroness. I have written down “pre-publication”. I will look carefully at what she had to say. Certainly, I hope that we can address that in due course. The noble Lord, Lord Bew, said that we should copy Scotland but I think that the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, was not so keen on that idea. Again, we need to address these matters in due course and examine them in a manner that I properly understand, particularly as I just seem to have misunderstood the noble Baroness on this occasion. The noble Baroness went on to ask what she described as some boring questions about costs. As they are allegedly boring questions—I am sure they are not—I will address them in a letter.
That is a rather rapid gallop through some of the comments that we have received today. I thank all noble Lords for their contributions. If we can agree on nothing else, we can agree that we will have an interesting and possibly somewhat lengthy Committee stage. As noble Lords will know from the Motions that I will move after this Bill has had its Second Reading, it will move down a novel line with some of the Committee stage taking place in the Chamber on the more contentious issues and some taking place in Grand Committee. I hope that that will have the agreement of the House and that once the Second Reading Motion is agreed, your Lordships will permit me to move the other Motions that stand in my name.
Protection of Freedoms Bill
(13 years ago)
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Lord Henley
That (a) the following provisions of the Protection of Freedoms Bill be committed to a Committee of the Whole House—
(i) Clauses 1 to 25 (destruction, retention and use of fingerprints etc.);
(ii) Clauses 54 to 56 (vehicles left on land);
(iii) Clauses 64 to 78 (safeguarding of vulnerable groups);
(iv) Clauses 79 to 84 (criminal records);
(v) Schedule 1 (destruction, retention and use of fingerprints etc.);
(vi) Schedule 4 (recovery of unpaid parking charges);
(vii) Schedule 7 (safeguarding of vulnerable groups: Northern Ireland); and
(b) the remainder of the bill be committed to a Grand Committee.
Protection of Freedoms Bill
(13 years ago)
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Lord Henley
That it be an instruction to the Committee of the Whole House to which provisions of the Protection of Freedoms Bill have been committed that they consider those provisions in the following order:
Clauses 1 to 19, Schedule 1, Clauses 20 to 25, Clauses 54 to 56, Schedule 4, Clauses 64 to 78, Schedule 7, Clauses 79 to 84.
Protection of Freedoms Bill
(13 years ago)
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Lord Henley
That it be an instruction to the Grand Committee to which provisions of the Protection of Freedoms Bill have been committed that they consider those provisions in the following order:
Clauses 26 to 39, Schedule 2, Clauses 40 to 53, Schedule 3, Clauses 57 to 61, Schedule 5, Clauses 62 and 63, Schedule 6, Clause 85, Schedule 8, Clauses 86 to 109, Schedules 9 and 10, Clauses 110 to 115.