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Oral Answers to Questions
(13 years ago)
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Alec Shelbrooke (Elmet and Rothwell) (Con)
1. What assessment he has made of the potential effects of planned changes to Government procurement on UK businesses bidding for contracts.
Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)
6. What assessment he has made of the potential effects of planned changes to Government procurement on UK businesses bidding for contracts.
Mr Mark Spencer (Sherwood) (Con)
7. What assessment he has made of the potential effects of planned changes to Government procurement on UK businesses bidding for contracts.
The Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General (Mr Francis Maude)
On 21 November, I announced a package of measures to transform how the Government buy. We want to save money for the taxpayer and for suppliers and to make it easier for small and medium-sized enterprises and voluntary organisations to bid successfully. That is why we have announced a pipeline of £50 billion-worth of future business opportunities. We will make it 40% quicker to do business with Government and we will, in future, engage proactively with current and future suppliers to discuss upcoming procurement opportunities.
Alec Shelbrooke
Will my right hon. Friend describe to the SMEs in my constituency of Elmet and Rothwell where they should go if they have any problems or issues with Government procurement?
Mr Maude
If there are problems not only in how central Government procure but across the wider public sector, I hope that my hon. Friend’s constituents will make contact with my Department through the helpline that we have set up specifically for the purpose. If they highlight how procurements are being done that entrench the old, inefficient and anti-enterprise way of doing things, we can then intervene proactively, as we have done on a number of occasions, to make improvements.
Mark Pawsey
It is the small businesses that often have the greatest difficulty in accessing Government contracts, and that is because of a regulation from the European Union. Will the Minister tell us what steps he is taking to reform EU regulations to make it easier to secure contracts with Government both at a national and local level?
Mr Maude
The first thing that we are doing is trying to ensure that the way in which we implement the European directives is sensible and not overly bureaucratic and legalistic, which it usually is at the moment. The European Commission is introducing proposals to streamline and simplify the procurement directives, which we welcome. I was talking to Commissioner Barnier in Brussels two or three weeks ago, and he was very open to that happening.
Mr Spencer
Fresh Opportunities is a company in my constituency that supplies water drinkers to jobcentres. Sadly, though, it lost the contract. That was not because it was inefficient or too expensive but because it could not deliver a service on a large enough scale. What can the Minister do to enable SMEs, which cannot operate on a national scale, to be able to deal with Government bodies?
Mr Maude
We have two objectives here. We want to buy as efficiently as we can, which, in many cases, means using the scale of Government to aggregate volume and drive down prices. In many areas of procurement of commodities, goods and services, we are able to get the price advantages of aggregation but, none the less, involve SMEs much more in the process. We have a commitment and an aspiration to increase the value of SME business to 25% of the total.
Ms Margaret Ritchie (South Down) (SDLP)
The Minister will be aware that public procurement guidelines in Northern Ireland are set by EU directives and UK regulations. Will the Minister, therefore, give a commitment to work alongside the Northern Ireland Executive and not to turn his back on Europe in negotiations to tackle the issues of over-complexity, cost and red tape, as those are issues that are affecting local business?
Mr Maude
As I said, we are actively engaged with the European Commission in supporting the good work that it is undertaking to streamline procurement processes, but we need to ensure—and I hope that the hon. Lady will do this—that the Administration in Northern Ireland do not overimplement the directives because we are finding that central Government and the wider public sector in Great Britain tend to do that.
Mr Mark Williams (Ceredigion) (LD)
Notwithstanding what the Minister said about the economies of scale, the Federation of Small Businesses has reported an increased tendency for public sector contracts to be aggregated into much larger ones, thereby penalising smaller businesses. What has the Minister got to say to those small businesses?
Mr Maude
There is a whole range of procurement opportunities that are particularly suitable for smaller businesses. Even when we aggregate, that does not exclude small businesses. For example, we have just let the contracts for travel for the whole of Government and one of the successful two bidders is a very small business, which, as a result of winning that contract, will become a much bigger one.
Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)
Can my right hon. Friend include in that assessment the ability of charities and small organisations, mutuals and so on to bid for public sector contracts as providers of public services? May I commend the report that the Select Committee on Public Administration has published today on the big society, which recommends that the Government extend the eligibility for the VAT refund scheme, which currently applies to public sector bodies, to charities that deliver public services under contract with a public sector organisation?
Mr Maude
I shall ensure that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor takes note of my hon. Friend’s suggestion. We want to make it easier for small voluntary organisations and mutuals to bid successfully. One thing that we aim to do is to get contracts chunked up into smaller lots. We have much bigger contracts, generally, than France or Germany would have in equivalent circumstances, which tends to militate and be biased against the interests of smaller businesses and voluntary and charitable organisations.
Jonathan Ashworth (Leicester South) (Lab)
3. What assessment his Department has made of the role of the big society initiative in tackling social exclusion.
The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Mr Oliver Letwin)
The big society is all about building social capital, which is key to solving social exclusion. There are four places where most of us build the relationships that sustain us: in the family, in school, in our communities and at work. We are taking action to build social capital in all of those through a focus on the 120,000 most troubled families, through competition and raising standards in schools, through community organisers and the community first initiative in communities and through the Work programme, the rehabilitation revolution and the drug and alcohol recovery programme.
Jonathan Ashworth
I thank the Minister for that answer and I know that he is sincere in wanting to see civic society flourish, as am I. In Leicester, many organisations who work with vulnerable people at risk of social exclusion, such as the Shama women’s centre or those at the Saffron Lane resource centre, increasingly find that their grants and pots of money are being cut. Does the Minister think he will be able to create the big society on the cheap?
Mr Letwin
As I said the previous time the hon. Gentleman asked such a question, he is extraordinarily assiduous in this area. I have done some further research on where he has been recently and the Saffron Lane centre that he describes is, I am glad to say, one area where the community organisers to which I referred will be located. While I am at it, it is clear that the hon. Gentleman drags the Government with him every time he goes anywhere. He also visited the Eyres Monsell centre and that is now receiving a £50,000 grant from the community grants system. We can be said to be delivering not on the cheap but on the expensive in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency.
Jon Trickett (Hemsworth) (Lab)
This year, 40,000 households were made homeless. As we approach Christmas and with today’s rise in unemployment, Shelter estimates that every two minutes someone else faces losing their home. Now we hear that Government cuts to the big society have resulted in homeless charities facing 25% reductions in their funding. Will the Minister at least immediately agree to restore the social exclusion taskforce, which the Government shamelessly abolished when they entered the Cabinet Office, so that in the future the homeless and others who suffer from social exclusion will at least have a voice when he and his colleagues make such hard-hearted decisions?
Mr Letwin
I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman misunderstands the changes in the machinery of government that have taken place under this Government. It is perfectly true that the social exclusion taskforce has been abolished, and the reason for that is that we have set up instead a fully fledged first-rank Cabinet committee on social justice—
Mr Letwin
It is not in the least secret, as the hon. Gentleman mutters from a sedentary position, in the sense that it will produce a social justice strategy that he will be able to read along with the rest of the House. I think he will find that we are putting absolutely at the centre of our activities the fostering of the big society in order to help, among other things, those who are homeless. That is also one of the reasons why we recently issued our housing strategy, which does more than the hon. Gentleman and his colleagues did in many years to try to improve housing in this country.
Jim McGovern (Dundee West) (Lab)
4. Whether his Department has considered altering its guidance on the disposal of official Government documents.
Jim McGovern
According to Cabinet Office guidance, what would be the recourse if a civil servant in the Minister’s Department breached the Data Protection Act?
Mr Maude
I can provide a detailed answer to the hon. Gentleman if he requires. If he is concerned about classified Government documents going amiss, I suggest he raises the matter with his right hon. Friend the shadow Health Secretary, who in 2009 had to apologise for leaving a briefcase full of classified Government documents on a train.
Richard Fuller (Bedford) (Con)
5. What recent progress he has made in establishing Big Society Capital.
The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Mr Nick Hurd)
Big Society Capital is all about trying to make it easier for social entrepreneurs to access capital. We think that we are making good progress, moving swiftly through the Financial Services Authority authorisation and EU state-aid approval processes, and we are confident that Big Society Capital will be open for business by spring. In the meantime, the interim investment committee, which made its first investment in July, will announce its next investment shortly.
Richard Fuller
I thank the Minister for his answer. My focus is on the voluntary organisations whose budgets are always tight, so will he advise me on how he can enhance their capacity to take advantage of the opportunities afforded by Big Society Capital?
Mr Hurd
My hon. Friend knows from his lengthy experience in the area that we have fantastic social entrepreneurs in this country, and we want to make it easier for them to access capital, but, as he points out, some of them need more help to become more investment-ready. That is exactly why we have set up a £10 million investment and contract readiness fund—to provide grants for organisations that want to attract investment but know they need more help to become more investment-ready.
Mr Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) (Lab/Co-op)
Among the Public Administration Committee’s many criticisms in its report today, it rightly highlights that Ministers cannot expect the big society bank to provide the solution to the funding crisis that their cuts are causing for hundreds of charities. Given that the report goes on effectively to accuse Ministers of being out of touch and not providing effective leadership to tackle the problems that charities face, would not now be the perfect time for yet another one of the Prime Minister’s big society re-launches?
Mr Hurd
I am not going to take any lectures on leadership and Big Society Capital from the Opposition, because they talked for 10 years about setting it up but did not actually do it. We are doing it because we want to make it easier for social entrepreneurs to access capital. It is on track, and we are very proud of it.
Ian Murray (Edinburgh South) (Lab)
8. What steps he is taking to encourage employee mutuals to develop and run central Government services.
The Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General (Mr Francis Maude)
As we set out in the “Open Public Services” White Paper, we are committed to an ambitious programme of mutualisation, allowing staff to break free of bureaucracy and to spin out from the public sector. To support that, we have put in place the mutuals support programme, the mentoring of mutuals by groups such as John Lewis, the mutuals task force chaired by Professor Le Grand and the mutuals information service, and we are increasing the “right to provide” scheme.
Ian Murray
The Minister for the Cabinet Office expects there to be an extra 1 million workers in organisations taking over the running of public services by 2015. Will he update the House on how many he expects to be doing so by the end of this financial year?
Mr Maude
I have certainly not set a target of 1 million, but it is perfectly feasible that 1 million public sector workers will choose to take themselves out of the public sector in order to deliver in employee-led organisations the services that they currently provide. The number is growing, and, although we cannot make it happen, we are going to make it a great deal easier and to support all those groups. The benefits are huge in terms of productivity. Staff absence falls, staff turnover falls and customer satisfaction rises very dramatically, so I hope that we have the hon. Gentleman’s enthusiastic support for this programme of mutualisation.
Craig Whittaker (Calder Valley) (Con)
9. How small and medium-sized enterprises in Calder Valley constituency can bid for central Government information and communications technology and facilities management contracts.
The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Mr Oliver Letwin)
It is absolutely vital that small and medium-sized enterprises should be able to bid for ICT and other contracts, and that is why the Minister for the Cabinet Office said a moment or two ago that we have set an ambition for 25% of contracts to go to SMEs. We have also simplified the contracting process, making it easier for SMEs to find out what the Government seek to purchase, and I recommend that the enterprises in my hon. Friend’s constituency look at the Contracts Finder website, which I have been on myself, It is an absolutely admirable one-stop shop for finding out about Government contracts.
Craig Whittaker
I thank the Minister for that reply. I am not a cynical kind of guy, but I wonder whether he can give the House some examples of how the Government are helping SMEs by awarding them contracts.
Mr Letwin
Yes, I can, and I refer again to something that my right hon. Friend was saying. Recently, the Government’s very large domestic travel contract was let—the domestic side alone amounts to £1.1 billion a year of travel—and one might have expected it to go to a very large firm, but, because of the way in which my right hon. Friend structured it, it went to Redfern Travel, a company with 33 employees. It is a small or, at any rate and by anyone’s definition, only a medium-scale enterprise, and it was able to win the contract. The managing director said:
“The award of this contract…clearly demonstrates that…any SME can not only bid for major Government contracts, but also meet the challenging requirements”,
so I think that that is a very good test case.
Mr Speaker
Order. It is normally a great pleasure to hear from the hon. Lady, but the Wirral is a little distance away from Calder Valley, to which this question exclusively relates. We will save her up for another occasion.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
10. What progress he has made in reaching agreement with trade unions on the Government’s proposed reforms to public sector pensions.
The Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General (Mr Francis Maude)
We have engaged in intensive and frequent discussions with the trade unions. At their request, talks are continuing at scheme level in the four public sector pension schemes that are currently being discussed, and we continue to make progress, I believe, in all four. We are determined that public sector pensions will remain among the very best available, but in order to make them sustainable and affordable for the long term, reform is urgently needed.
Mr Hollobone
Under the Government’s offer, a teacher earning £32,000 a year could anticipate a pension of £20,000 a year, whereas a private sector worker earning the same salary would have to devote some 38% of his or her wages in order to get a pension of the same size. Given the terms of the Government’s offer, should the trade unions not now call off any threat of further industrial action?
Mr Maude
I simply pray in aid what Lord Hutton, the former Labour Pensions Secretary, said yesterday, when he referred to public sector trade unions “holding a gun” to the taxpayer’s head. He said that the offer was generous and that it was hard
“to envisage a better offer being made.”
I hope that we can now move quickly to resolve the final, outstanding issues, so that we can move on without further disruption to people’s lives.
Mr Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab)
Given that the Minister’s Department is currently the worst in Whitehall for meeting the Government’s business plan targets—targets for which he is responsible—having missed 38 at the last count, would his time not be better spent sorting out his own Department, rather than picking fights with public sector unions?
Mr Maude
The short answer is that we want to get these public sector pension issues resolved quickly. I would be quite interested to know whether the right hon. Gentleman shares our belief—and that of Lord Hutton, his former colleague—that we are talking about a generous offer that the trade unions should accept, and that they should stop “holding a gun” to the taxpayer’s head. Does he agree with that?
John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)
The Minister earlier announced that if he had not secured agreement by Christmas, he would impose a pensions settlement or scheme on the unions. Is that still his intention, and if it is, will he make a statement to the House next week?
Mr Maude
We very much hope that it will not be necessary for the Government to move to the stage of imposition. Our intention is that we should reach agreement. It is necessary that we reach agreement by the end of the year, because there is a lot of work to do to put the new schemes in place as early as possible, so that people know what their future holds and we can implement the new schemes; so yes, we will be making further announcements to the House before it rises.
Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)
11. What steps he is taking to support the voluntary sector.
The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Mr Nick Hurd)
We are supporting the sector through this difficult time by cutting red tape, investing in transition funds for infrastructure and front-line organisations, creating significant new opportunities for the sector to deliver public services, and supporting new initiatives to encourage giving and social investment.
Julie Hilling
The Roots project in Westhoughton in my constituency has been praised by the Government as a beacon of the big society, but Liz Douglas, the founder, has had no wages for six months. Words are no good. When will the Minister take action to support the voluntary and community sector?
Mr Hurd
The hon. Lady knows that we have taken a great deal of action, not least by putting in place a £107 million transition fund to help the most vulnerable organisations. If she is talking about cuts being made locally by Bolton council, she will know that the reduction in its spending this year was only 7%. The questions that she has to ask Bolton council are: “Why were you so badly prepared for this situation?” and: “Why did you block a proposal from Conservative councillors to create a fund to support local voluntary organisations?”
Tom Blenkinsop (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Lab)
T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.
The Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General (Mr Francis Maude)
My responsibilities are for the public sector Efficiency and Reform Group, civil service issues, industrial relations strategy across the public sector, Government transparency, civil contingencies, civil society and cyber-security.
Tom Blenkinsop
Lists for 2010 failed to mention that the Prime Minister met Rupert Murdoch in June 2010. This was amended to ensure transparency only recently. Why?
Miss Anne McIntosh (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)
T2. Mindful of the fact that we have not had flooding for a number of months and mindful of the forecasted storm weather, can the Minister for the Cabinet Office assure us that flood rehearsals are taking place between all the relevant emergency services on a regular basis?
Mr Maude
I can certainly confirm that. Meetings are taking place between the relevant Departments—one took place earlier this morning—to ensure that capabilities are in place in advance of any possible flooding, with urgent consideration given to ensuring that the public receive the right advice. I am glad to say that the forecast is looking a little better than it was.
Mr Speaker
Order. There are far too many noisy private conversations taking place in the Chamber. The House must come to order.
Michael Dugher (Barnsley East) (Lab)
According to figures published by the Cabinet Office last week, the Deputy Prime Minister has appointed four more special advisers at a cost to the taxpayer of at least £190,000. At a time when the average family is set to lose £320 a year as a result of tax credit changes and at a time when almost everyone is asking what exactly is the point of the Deputy Prime Minister, does the Minister think that this is a good use of public money?
The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Mr Oliver Letwin)
I would have thought that the hon. Gentleman would realise that it is extremely important in a coalition that the Deputy Prime Minister as well as the Prime Minister should have adequate research support. It is extraordinarily difficult for Government Members to take comments of that kind seriously, given the previous Government’s record on employing special advisers.
Simon Hart (Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire) (Con)
T5. Can the Minister confirm how many civil servants went on strike in the recent action?
Mr Speaker
Order. I know that the House wants to hear the right hon. Gentleman’s answer.
Mr Maude
I sense that the House is waiting on the edge of its seat for my answer. On 30 November, 146,256 civil servants went on strike, which represents about 30% of the civil service work force. I would like to express my appreciation to the 70% of civil servants who came to work that day as normal.
Karl Turner (Kingston upon Hull East) (Lab)
T4. The Minister is refusing to negotiate with the unions over pension contribution increases, the retirement age, cost ceiling, indexation and other issues. Is that not typical of this Government, proving that they enter into negotiations with no intention whatever of coming to an amicable agreement? Are not the Government spoiling for a scrap with the trade unions?
Mr Maude
Far from spoiling for a scrap with the trade unions, we are engaged in very intensive discussions with them. Even in the week during which the strike took place—a completely unnecessary strike, which the Labour party refused to condemn, massively inconveniencing many people and damaging the economy—a number of meetings took place with the trade unions to try to secure agreement on the much needed reforms. Let me remind the hon. Gentleman that Lord Hutton, the former Labour Pensions Secretary, has said that this is a generous offer and that the unions should stop “holding a gun” to the taxpayer’s head.
Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)
T6. Malvern has a cluster of firms—small, medium and large—with expertise in cyber-security. I invite the Minister down to Malvern to meet them.
Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)
T8. Does the Minister have any regrets about the way in which he has conducted negotiations with the public sector trade unions by using megaphone diplomacy through the media and not providing information in a timely way?
Mr Maude
No, I have no regrets at all. We have engaged in very intensive discussions over a long period with the unions and the leadership of the TUC over the individual schemes. If the hon. Lady thinks we are not negotiating, she should talk to the TUC about the intensiveness of the negotiations. Perhaps she would like to remind her friends in the unions of what Lord Hutton, the former Labour Pensions Secretary, said only yesterday about the Government’s offer. [Interruption.]
Simon Hughes (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (LD)
T7. What contribution are Departments making to greater energy efficiency and reducing carbon emissions following the successful Durban summit?
Mr Maude
In the first year following the forming of the coalition Government, we cut carbon emissions by more than the 10% target that we had set ourselves. We have also committed ourselves to ensuring that carbon emissions from Government buildings—Government property—fall by no less than 25% during the current Parliament, and I am confident that we will fulfil that commitment.
Chris Ruane (Vale of Clwyd) (Lab)
The Electoral Commission announced today that there are not 3 million but 6 million missing, unregistered voters. Does the Minister agree that the equalisation of seats should be postponed, or suspended, until a full investigation has been conducted to establish where those 6 million people are?
Graham Evans (Weaver Vale) (Con)
T9. The national citizens service is an excellent initiative to help young people to develop the skills and attitudes that they need in order to become responsible citizens. Can the Minister tell me what local branches of the service will be available to them in my constituency?
The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Mr Nick Hurd)
I will write to all Members shortly to tell them which providers of the service are operating in their local authority areas, but I can confirm that providers will be working in Cheshire East and in Cheshire West and Chester next year. I strongly encourage all Members to become involved with this programme, which provides a fantastic opportunity for young people.
Richard Fuller (Bedford) (Con)
Q1. If he will list his official engagements for Wednesday 14 December.
The Prime Minister (Mr David Cameron)
I am sure that the whole House will wish to join me in paying tribute to Sapper Elijah Bond of 35 Engineer Regiment, who died in Queen Elizabeth hospital, Birmingham last Thursday as a result of wounds that he had sustained in Afghanistan. He was a dedicated and highly professional soldier, and at this tragic time we should send our condolences to his loved ones, his friends and his colleagues.
This morning I had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. In addition to my duties in the House, I shall have further such meetings later today.
Richard Fuller
Let me associate myself and, I am sure, all other Members with the Prime Minister’s words about Sapper Elijah Bond.
The people of Bedford and Kempston will be disappointed that this week’s report on the financial crisis in the Royal Bank of Scotland contained no provision for the criminal prosecution of executives, directors, regulators and Ministers for their failures. Can the Prime Minister assure me that, unlike the last Government, his Ministers will reinforce financial regulations, and will not undermine them as the shadow Chancellor did when he was in office?
The Prime Minister
My hon. Friend is right, and as he will know, we are considering specific extra measures. We are considering sanctions in relation to what was done by people on the board of RBS. However, the report was not just damning about the board of RBS; it was damning about the politicians who were responsible for regulating RBS. And it did not just name politicians who are no longer serving: it also named the shadow Chancellor.
Edward Miliband (Doncaster North) (Lab)
I join the Prime Minister in paying tribute to Sapper Elijah Bond of 35 Engineer Regiment. He bravely gave his life in trying to improve the lives of others, and all our thoughts are with his family and friends. As we approach Christmas, our thoughts are also with all our troops who are serving so bravely in Afghanistan and elsewhere. Many will be spending Christmas away from their families and friends to ensure a peaceful Christmas for us, and we owe them a huge debt of gratitude.
In this, the last Prime Minister’s Question Time of the year, let me remind the Prime Minister of what he had to say in his new year message of 2011. He said:
“Uppermost in my mind as we enter the New Year is jobs.”
In the light of today’s unemployment figures, can he explain what has gone wrong?
The Prime Minister
First, let me join the right hon. Gentleman in his fitting and right tribute to our forces at Christmas time—those who are serving in Afghanistan, but also those who are serving in other parts of the world. One of the things that strikes you most in this job is that they are the best of the best. They are brave, they are courageous, they are dedicated, and their families, too, give up a huge amount. I join the right hon. Gentleman in saying that.
Let me say about the unemployment figures that any increase in unemployment is bad news and a tragedy for those involved, and that is why we will do everything we can to help people back into work. That is why we have the Work programme, which will help 2.5 million people; that is why we have the massive increase in apprenticeships that will help 400,000 people this year; and that is why we will give particular help to young people through the youth contract and through the work experience places. We will do all we can to help people back into work.
Edward Miliband
But the figures show that the Prime Minister’s economic strategy is failing. The Chancellor said at the time of the spending review last year:
“private sector job creation will far outweigh the reduction in public sector employment.”—[Official Report, 29 November 2010; Vol. 536, c. 531.]
Will the Prime Minister confirm that over the last three months, for every job being created in the private sector 13 are being lost in the public sector?
The Prime Minister
Let me give the right hon. Gentleman the figures. Since the election, in the private sector there have been 581,000 extra jobs. In the public sector, he is right that we have lost 336,000 jobs, so we need private sector employment to grow even faster. But let me make this point to him, because I think this is important: whoever was in government right now would have to be making reductions in public spending. The only way you can keep people in work in the public sector while doing that is to cut welfare—something we are doing and he opposes—or to freeze public sector pay—something we are doing and he opposes—or to reform public sector pensions—something we are doing and he opposes. So it is all very well standing there and complaining about the rise in unemployment, but if we do not take those steps, we would lose more jobs in the public sector.
Edward Miliband
I think the whole House will have heard that the Prime Minister cannot deny that the central economic claim that he made—that the private sector would fill the gap left by the public sector—has not been met. He has broken his promise, and today’s figures also confirm that youth unemployment not only remains over 1 million; it is still rising, and long-term youth unemployment has gone up by 93% since he made his new year pledge on jobs. Is not the reality that he is betraying a whole generation of young people?
The Prime Minister
We will not take lectures from a party that put up youth unemployment by 40%. That is the case—even the right hon. Gentleman’s brother admitted the other day that youth unemployment was not a problem invented by this Government; it has been going up since 2004. But let me explain what we are doing to help young people get a job. Through the youth contract we are providing 160,000 new jobs with private sector subsidies. With the 250,000 work experience places, half those people are actually getting jobs and getting off benefit within two months. That is 20 times more effective than the future jobs fund.
But the absolute key to all this is getting our economy moving. We need private sector jobs. It is this Government who have got interest rates down to 2%—that is why we have the prospects of growth—whereas the right hon. Gentleman’s plans are for more spending, more borrowing and more debt: more of the mess that we started with.
Edward Miliband
The truth is that the Prime Minister’s promises to young people for next year are as worthless as the promises he made in 2011. Let us turn from his broken promise on jobs to his broken promise on the coalition. And Mr Speaker, let me say that it is good to see the Deputy Prime Minister back in the House. This is what the Prime Minister said—[Interruption.] Calm down. This is what he said in his new year’s message for 2011—and I will place a copy in the Library of the House, just so that everyone can see it:
“Coalition politics is not always straightforward…But I believe we are bringing in a”
whole
“new style of government.”
[Hon. Members: “More! More!”] There is more:
“A more collegiate approach.”
I am bound to ask, what has gone wrong?
The Prime Minister
I will answer. No one in this House is going to be surprised that Conservatives and Liberal Democrats do not always agree about Europe, but let me reassure the right hon. Gentleman. He should not believe everything he reads in the papers. It’s not that bad—it’s not like we’re brothers or anything! [Hon. Members: “More! More!”] He certainly walked into that one.
Edward Miliband
I think our sympathy is with the Deputy Prime Minister. His partner goes on a business trip and he is left waiting by the phone, but he hears nothing until a rambling phone call at 4 am confessing to a terrible mistake.
How is the Prime Minister going to pick up the pieces of the bad deal he delivered for Britain? The Council came to conclusions on Friday morning, but the treaty will not be signed until March. In the cold light of day, with other countries—[Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. Some very, very foolish person shouted out “Stop”. The person who did that will stop, because people in this place must be heard. If there is a Member here who does not think so, I invite that Member to leave the Chamber.
Edward Miliband
In the cold light of day, with other countries spending the weeks and months ahead trying to see whether they can get a better deal for themselves, would not the sensible thing for the Prime Minister to do be to re-enter the negotiations and try to get a better deal for Britain?
The Prime Minister
First, I make no apologies for standing up for Britain. In the past two days we have read a lot about my opinions and we have read a lot about the Deputy Prime Minister’s opinions; the one thing we do not know is what the right hon. Gentleman would have done. While he was here on Monday his aides were running around the Press Gallery briefing that he would not have signed up to the treaty. Well, here is another try: what’s your answer?
Mr Speaker
I have no answer on this matter whatsoever—[Interruption.] Order. I am glad the Minister of State, Department of Health, the right hon. Member for Chelmsford (Mr Burns), has returned from his travels. We wish him a merry Christmas, but in his case it should be a quiet one.
Edward Miliband
There was a better deal for Britain that the Prime Minister should have got, and that is what the Deputy Prime Minister himself says. Here is the truth: last week the Prime Minister made a catastrophic mistake, and this week we discover that unemployment is at its highest level for 17 years. This Prime Minister thinks he is born to rule. The truth is that he is just not very good at it.
The Prime Minister
Even the soundbite was recycled from a previous Prime Minister’s Question Time. On Wednesday the answer was no. Today—I think—the answer is maybe. This Leader of the Labour party makes weakness and indecision an art form; that is the fact.
The right hon. Gentleman gave me my end-of-year report; let me give him his. He told us at the start of the year, in his new year’s message, that the fightback started in Scotland. Well, that went well, didn’t it? He told us that he would have credible plans to cut the deficit, but we still have not seen them. He said that he would stand up to vested interests, yet he backed the biggest strike for years. We all know that he has achieved one thing, though. He has completely united his party. Every single one of them has asked Santa for the same thing: a new leader for Christmas.
Mr Speaker
Order. I am sure Government Back Benchers want to hear their own colleague, Mr Martin Vickers.
Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)
Thank you, Mr Speaker. Yesterday’s announcement about local television was good news for my constituency, where Channel 7, the sole survivor from the original batch, is based. Does the Prime Minister agree that local broadcasting strengthens local communities and advances the big society? If he is in north Lincolnshire in the near future, will he find time to pay Channel 7 a visit?
The Prime Minister
I would be delighted to do that. I do not have any immediate plans to visit north Lincolnshire, but I do support local television. I also think that north Lincolnshire had some very good news with the Siemens plant going into Hull. That is excellent news for the whole region.
Mr David Blunkett (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)
Q2. In the early new year the Government intend to announce a wholesale revision of the national curriculum. May I put it to the Prime Minister that it would be perverse—in fact it would be absurd—to require those coming from abroad to settle in Britain to learn about our democracy and to take citizenship courses while withdrawing the teaching of citizenship and democracy to our own children in our schools?
The Prime Minister
I listen very carefully to what the right hon. Gentleman says, because I agree with some of the proposals about citizenship that he put forward when he was Home Secretary. Many Members will have been to the citizenship ceremonies that he was responsible for, which have been a good addition to our country and our democracy. On behalf of the whole House, I pay tribute to him for that. We will look very carefully at what he says about the curriculum, but the key aim has to be to making sure that we teach the basics properly and well, and that we test on those basics, because if someone cannot read and write properly, no lessons in citizenship will mean anything at all.
Justin Tomlinson (North Swindon) (Con)
Ninety-one per cent. of people who get into financial difficulty believe they would have avoided doing so had they been better informed. Therefore, ahead of tomorrow’s debate on financial education, will the Prime Minister support our calls for compulsory financial education for young people?
The Prime Minister
This very much links with the previous question. I strongly support teaching young children about the importance of financial education, but the point of having a proper review of the curriculum is to make sure that we know what is absolutely essential and core and what can be included as extra lessons.
Yvonne Fovargue (Makerfield) (Lab)
Q3. Unemployment is going up and living standards are being squeezed. Many more people are being forced into the hands of the payday lenders and fee-charging debt management companies. Will the Prime Minister act to protect ordinary people who are being preyed on and ripped off?
The Prime Minister
The hon. Lady speaks with great experience, because she worked for Citizens Advice before coming to the House. She stands up for Citizens Advice and is right to do so. All of us know what a brilliant job it does in our constituencies. She will know that the previous Government wrestled with the issue of how best to regulate doorstep lenders and other lenders, and the danger of driving people into the hands of loan sharks if we got rid of the regulated sector. I am very happy to discuss this further with interested colleagues. It is a very difficult subject to get right, but the Government are working at it.
Simon Wright (Norwich South) (LD)
Does the Prime Minister share my concern about the impact of pocket-money priced alcohol on the state of our nation’s health and antisocial behaviour in our town centres, as well as about the damage it does to our community pubs?
The Prime Minister
The hon. Gentleman makes an extremely important point. There is no doubt in my mind that very low-cost alcohol is part of the problem in our town centres. One of the answers that the Government have already come up with is to ban the deeply discounted selling of alcohol, but we need to look at the broader question of low-cost alcohol. I have noted very carefully the letter in the papers this morning from a whole set of people with great expertise on this, and we are looking carefully at the issue.
Mrs Jenny Chapman (Darlington) (Lab)
Q4. This morning we learned that the Teesside airport is up for sale and it seems that, as unemployment is sky-rocketing in the north-east, our planes may be grounded. Is not the loss of infrastructure and jobs in the north-east further evidence that this Government’s economic plan is a catastrophic failure?
The Prime Minister
The key thing about the future of Durham Tees Valley airport, which is a vital airport, is not necessarily who owns it but whether it is being invested in and expanded. Is it working well? That is the key question, and that is the question that I know my right hon. Friend the Transport Secretary is looking at carefully.
Sheryll Murray (South East Cornwall) (Con)
Q5. Has the Prime Minister seen the OECD and National Institute of Economic and Social Research findings this week, which show that soaring immigration was caused not by the prospect of prosperity but by the open-door policies of the previous Government—and will he prevent that from happening again?
The Prime Minister
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The report said specifically that
“the increase in net immigration to the UK was not driven primarily by the economic performance of the UK or other countries.”
Instead, the report points to immigration policy. The fact is that the previous Government quadrupled immigration and let an extra 2.2 million people into the country. The answer is to deal with the bogus colleges, and we are doing that; to put a limit on economic migration from outside the EU, and we are doing that; and to have proper border controls and a border police command, and we are doing that as well.
John Robertson (Glasgow North West) (Lab)
Q6. The autumn statement saw 400,000 Scottish children lose more than £40 million as a result of changes in the tax system. In my constituency that meant that £600,000 was taken from children. Why is the Prime Minister taking money out of children’s pockets, while allowing it to remain in the pockets of bankers?
The Prime Minister
I am afraid the hon. Gentleman is just plain wrong: the child tax credit is going up by £135. He talks about the bankers, but it is this Government who have put in place a bank levy that will raise more every year than Labour’s one-off bonus tax raised in one year.
Julian Sturdy (York Outer) (Con)
Q7. As a York MP, I am extremely proud of our city’s vibrant tourism sector. Does my right hon. Friend agree that tourism plays a key role in our local economies? Will he ensure that northern tourist attractions in particular are promoted in the run-up to the Olympic games?
The Prime Minister
My hon. Friend makes an important point. Millions of people will be coming to this country for the Olympic games. We need to encourage them not just to go to the Olympic games, but to visit other parts of the country and to return to Britain for a subsequent visit. We will be running all sorts of promotions and schemes to encourage that. If we could encourage people more generally to visit other places as well as London—York has many great tourist attractions and things of historical importance to see—we would drive a huge amount of jobs and growth in our regions.
Rushanara Ali (Bethnal Green and Bow) (Lab)
On 16 December Bangladesh will mark its 40th anniversary as an independent nation, following a war that cost 3 million lives. I want to pay tribute to the contribution made by this Parliament in supporting the people in their fight for liberty and self-determination. As Bangladesh is the country that is the second most vulnerable to climate change, with an estimated 15 million to 20 million people likely to be affected in the coming decades, does the Prime Minister agree that it is now more important than ever to support developing countries against the devastating effects of climate change?
The Prime Minister
I absolutely agree with the hon. Lady. The whole House should recognise what she has done in raising the issue at this time, as Bangladesh approaches this important anniversary. Britain can be proud of the fact that we have very good relations with Bangladesh, and our aid programme in Bangladesh is now of the leading ones from anywhere in the world into that country. We are spending specific money on helping the Bangladeshis with climate change, meeting all the promises that we made. I have met the Prime Minister of Bangladesh. One of the issues that we do have to raise, though, is that there are human rights issues in Bangladesh, and we should not be scared of raising them with the authorities in the proper way.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
Q8. An EU-wide agreement on prisoner transfers comes into force this month, which will enable the UK to repatriate to jails in their own country any EU nationals imprisoned here. Given that some 13% of our prison population is made up of foreign nationals, will the Prime Minister ensure that our EU partners stick to these new rules and take their criminals back?
The Prime Minister
If my hon. Friend, with his strong views, is asking a question about a successful EU scheme, it really must be Christmas, so his question is very welcome. He is absolutely right: 13% of our prison spaces are taken up by foreign nationals. That is hugely expensive, and the EU-wide agreement gives us a great opportunity to return people to their national prisons and save money at the same time.
Mr Bob Ainsworth (Coventry North East) (Lab)
Is freezing the pay of young privates and corporals while they are fighting in Afghanistan, without reference to the Armed Forces Pay Review Body, a breach of the military covenant?
The Prime Minister
It is this Government who doubled the operational allowance, which is the best way to get money to the privates and the corporals in Afghanistan who are doing such a good job. The operational allowance, being a flat cash sum, is of disproportionate benefit to relatively low-paid people in the armed forces, whereas obviously a percentage increase would mean more money for the generals, the colonels and the brigadiers, rather than for the people on the front line. Looking at the operational allowance is crucial, but this Government have not just done that. We have extended the pupil premium to forces children, we have increased the council tax rebates for those who are serving, and for the first time we have written the military covenant into the law of our land.
Chris Kelly (Dudley South) (Con)
Q9. I commend my right hon. Friend for protecting our national interest by exercising the veto last Friday. The people of Dudley South thank him for it. The deal that he vetoed commits eurozone members to restricting structural deficits to below 0.5% of GDP. Did the Prime Minister appreciate that this is 16 times the UK structural deficit left by Labour?
The Prime Minister
My hon. Friend makes a good point, which is perhaps why the leader of the Labour party is struggling so much to tell us what his view is on the proposed treaty. On one hand he wants to join the euro, if he is Prime Minister for long enough, and on the other hand he wants to sign a treaty—[Interruption.] That is rubbish? He does not want to be Prime Minister for long enough! He wants to join the euro, he wants a deal with very tough budget deficit limits, and he wants to increase spending, borrowing and debt. He tells us that he has a five-point plan, and I can sum it up in five words: “Let us bankrupt Britain again.”
Thomas Docherty (Dunfermline and West Fife) (Lab)
Q10. Perhaps the Prime Minister could tell us why the Deputy Prime Minister did not support his position on Europe on Monday, and why not one single Liberal Democrat MP voted with the Prime Minister last night.
The Prime Minister
Last night there was something of a parliamentary rarity: a motion tabled by an opposition party praising the Prime Minister. I am very grateful to colleagues in the Democratic Unionist party. I suspect that many people concluded that Labour simply would not get its act together and did not think that it was worth voting, and as a result we won very easily.
Richard Drax (South Dorset) (Con)
I am sure that the whole House will join me in thanking a remarkable man who has served this country and this place with courage and distinction for nearly 50 years. Eddie McKay, who is in the Gallery right now, has been a Doorkeeper here for 23 years and retires on Tuesday. Before coming to this place he served with distinction with the Scots Guards, leaving after 23 years of service as a senior warrant officer. In the Household Division, you are not promoted to drill sergeant unless you are exceptional. He saw action on Tumbledown mountain during the Falklands war in 1982. His company, G company, 2nd Battalion Scots Guards, led that successful and audacious night assault. May I ask the Prime Minister, on behalf of us all, to wish Drill Sergeant Eddie McKay a happy retirement and a happy Christmas?
The Prime Minister
I thank my hon. Friend for raising this issue and, on behalf of the whole House, very much thank Eddie for his incredible service. I think that in this House we sometimes take for granted the people who work so hard to keep it working and keep it going, and I sometimes wonder what they think of all the antics we get up to in this House. We are incredibly grateful that he, after the incredible service he gave our nation, came here and worked so hard for so many years. We are all in his debt, and send him good wishes for his retirement.
Mr Kevin Barron (Rother Valley) (Lab)
Q11. Youth unemployment figures published this morning show that in the last quarter, 22% of 16 to 24-year-old economically active citizens are unemployed—an increase of 1.2% on the previous quarter. The Prime Minister ranted earlier in Question Time about what the Government are doing about youth unemployment in this country. Can he tell us why it is increasing?
The Prime Minister
Every increase in youth unemployment is unacceptable—[Interruption.] I will tell the House exactly what is happening. The number of 16 to 18-year-old young people not in employment, education or training is actually going down, but the problem, as the hon. Gentleman rightly says, is that 18 to 24-year-olds are finding the job market extremely difficult. [Hon. Members: “Why?”] The reason why unemployment is going up is that we are losing jobs in the public sector and not growing them fast enough in the private sector, so we need to do everything we can to get our economy moving. The absolute key to that is keeping our interest rates low. We now have interest rates down to 2%. If we followed his party’s policy of extra spending, extra borrowing and extra debt, interest rates would go up, more businesses would go under and we would not get our economy moving.
George Eustice (Camborne and Redruth) (Con)
Q12. Many Members will have encountered examples of banks using the threat of receivership to extract new charges and higher interest rates from their business customers. Does the Prime Minister agree that it is wrong for banks to use what is effectively an extortionate bargaining position in this way, and will he agree to meet me to discuss some of the proposals I have outlined to limit the power of receivers and require banks to obtain a possession order before selling up small businesses?
The Prime Minister
I am very happy to meet my hon. Friend about this issue. It is vital that we not only get our banks lending properly, and lending to small businesses, but ensure that they behave in an ethical and proper way as they do so. We are addressing the first issue—the quantity of lending—through the national loan guarantee scheme and the other credit-easing measures that the Chancellor set out in the autumn statement, but we also need to ensure that the practices that the banks follow are fair, and seen to be fair. They have an interest in making sure that small businesses are in good health, and they need to follow those sorts of procedures to ensure that that happens.
Mr Russell Brown (Dumfries and Galloway) (Lab)
Q13. Youth unemployment in Dumfries and Galloway has risen by 65% over the past 12 months, and with the British Retail Consortium indicating that almost one in three jobs there are filled by under-25s, does the Prime Minister recognise that the predicted squeeze on the retail sector will only increase the chances of youth unemployment increasing across the entire country?
The Prime Minister
The thing that would put the biggest squeeze on the retail sector is interest rates going up. Just one percentage point increase in interest rates would see the typical family lose £1,000 a year through extra mortgage payments. Everybody knows we are in a difficult economic situation and we have to take difficult decisions, as there is effectively a freeze across the eurozone, but the most important thing is to keep those interest rates low, so that people have money in their pockets and we can see some good retail recovery.
David Rutley (Macclesfield) (Con)
Q14. East Cheshire hospice and many other hospices across the country run Christmas tree collection services that help many families to recycle their Christmas trees in an environmentally sensitive way. Will the Prime Minister join me in this festive season in supporting the great work that such charities do in collecting trees to raise hundreds of thousands of pounds for the important work of our hospices?
The Prime Minister
I certainly join my hon. Friend, at this time of year, particularly, in praising the amazing work that hospices do. Many hospices do not receive a huge amount of Government funding, and they have to be very ingenious about how they raise money from people up and down the country. Collecting and recycling Christmas trees so that we do not just leave them outside the house but do this thing properly is an excellent idea. I am sure that the whole House will want to join me in praising the work that hospices do, particularly at Christmas time.
John Cryer (Leyton and Wanstead) (Lab)
Q15. For the past 18 months the Prime Minister has been promising legislation to create a register of lobbyists, but nothing has happened so far. Will he give us a publication date for a consultation paper leading to legislation—or could he take on my ten-minute rule Bill, which is already published? I am a generous sort of bloke, so he can have it now and get it on to the statute book.
The Prime Minister
I am a generous sort of bloke too, so I can tell the hon. Gentleman that the lobbying proposals will be published within the next month—so this Government will have moved faster in 18 months than the previous Government did in 13 years.
Mr Adrian Sanders (Torbay) (LD)
The Prime Minister will have seen the news this morning of the study on the excess deaths of people with diabetes—unnecessary deaths, if the condition is treated correctly. The national service framework for diabetes comes to an end in 2013. Will the Prime Minister look at NSFs as a way of meeting the challenges in the health service and the health service budget, and helping people with diabetes?
The Prime Minister
I am very happy to look at the national service frameworks, as the hon. Gentleman suggests. The key issue with diabetes is that we need to raise the profile of the condition, because many people have it and do not know they have it—but also to look at the public health issues, because the explosion in diabetes is partly due to bad diet and obesity in childhood. We need to address those issues; otherwise we are always going to be dealing with the disease rather than trying to prevent it.
Mr Speaker
I am in a generous mood too, and it is always a delight to listen to my colleagues, so we will have a little more.
Mrs Anne McGuire (Stirling) (Lab)
Earlier this week in the other place, the coalition Government voted down, by a majority of two, a proposal to protect the benefits of disabled children. Is reducing benefits for disabled children by over £1,300 a year something that reflects the Prime Minister’s often repeated mantra that we are all in this together?
The Prime Minister
First of all, we are not cutting benefits for disabled children. Actually, we are uprating all those benefits by 5.2%, so people will see an increase in the benefits that they receive next year.
Mr Brian Binley (Northampton South) (Con)
The Prime Minister will be aware that capacity levels on the west coast main line are intolerable and getting worse. Does he share the concerns of rail users that delays to High Speed 2 will only make their journeys more unpleasant? Will he provide the assurance that they seek about the future that he promised them?
The Prime Minister
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising that question. Clearly the country has a choice. Because the west coast main line is as congested as it is, we need to replace it with either a traditional line or a high-speed line. It is well known that the Government’s view is that a high-speed line is the right answer. That is why the consultation has been conducted. Not only will it be good for people who use the west coast main line; it will be a successful regional policy that will link up our great cities, shrink the size of our country and ensure that all parts of the country can enjoy economic prosperity and growth.
Mr Speaker
I appeal to right hon. and hon. Members who are leaving the Chamber to do so quickly and quietly so that we can all listen attentively to the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs—preferably facing the House or the Chair.
Park End Community Centre (Middlesbrough)
Tom Blenkinsop (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Lab)
The petition states:
The Petition of residents of Park End, Middlesbrough,
Declares that the Petitioners are concerned about the prospective closure of Park End Community Centre, which recently received £102,000 in lottery grant funding for a multi-games court, a skate park and a garden; that the Petitioners believe that this is a much-treasured community facility used regularly by residents of all ages and that the Petitioners are concerned that the closure of the centre will also have a negative impact on staff and users of the nearby Park End Medical Centre.
The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Government to ask Middlesbrough Council to ensure that funding for Park End Community Centre remains in place and that the centre remains open.
And the Petitioners remain, etc.
[P000989]
BAE Systems (Humber Region)
Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)
I rise to present a petition of 4,385 constituents and others from the Humber area against the proposed loss of 899 skilled private sector jobs at BAE Systems in Brough. While Members will be enjoying the Christmas break, Boxing day will see BAE Systems complete a consultation process on the loss of strategically vital defence jobs in a region badly hit by unemployment and a shortage of decent jobs, as we saw again in today’s jobless figures. Over 100 of the workers met the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition today. We hope that this leads to an outcome that will save as many of the jobs as possible.
The petition states:
The Petition of residents of Humberside,
Declares that the Petitioners support workers at BAE Systems in Brough in their fight to save Humber jobs.
The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Government to support the defence industry by investing in modern manufacturing and regeneration around the Humber and to preserve skilled jobs and apprenticeships in the Humberside area.
And the Petitioners remain, etc.
[P000990]
Hinkley Point
Tessa Munt (Wells) (LD)
I rise to present the petition of the Stop Hinkley campaign. Those who live in the area around Hinkley, particularly in Somerset, would like the Government to look at alternatives to Hinkley Point.
The petition states:
The Petition of supporters of the Stop Hinkley campaign,
Declares that the Petitioners strongly oppose the plan by EdF (Electricite de France) to construct a new nuclear power station at Hinkley Point in Somerset and declares that as an alternative, the Petitioners believe that a Government-backed programme of energy saving and clean renewable energy would combat climate change and avoid the risks of catastrophic accidents and dangers to health resulting from the storage of highly radioactive waste at Hinkley for 160 years.
The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Government to commit to an energy policy based on energy saving and clean renewable energy, in which new nuclear power stations play no part.
And the petitioners remain, etc.
[P000991]
Bovine TB
(13 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mrs Caroline Spelman)
Today I am setting out the next stage in the bovine tuberculosis eradication programme for England.
Bovine TB continues to be a major problem in England. In 2010, nearly 25,000 cattle were slaughtered in England and the cost to the taxpayer is set to top £1 billion over the next 10 years. The problem is particularly bad in the west and south-west of England, where 23% of cattle farms were unable to move stock off their premises at some point in 2010 due to their being affected by the disease, causing much distress and hardship.
As I explained in my statement in July, cattle measures, including routine testing and surveillance, pre-movement testing, movement restrictions, and the removal and slaughter of infected animals, remain the foundation of our TB eradication programme. We have already strengthened cattle controls and will continue to do so. The Government are working in partnership with the farming industry and the veterinary profession to further promote good biosecurity and to provide advice and support to farmers. We also intend to invest a further £20 million over the next five years to develop effective cattle and oral badger vaccines as quickly as possible.
We know that to tackle this disease we need to look at each and every transmission route, and that includes transmission from badgers to cattle. Ultimately, we want to be able to vaccinate cattle and badgers, but there are practical difficulties with the injectable badger vaccine, which is currently the only available option. Badgers have to be trapped and caged in order to administer it. As I told the House in July, we are working hard to develop a cattle vaccine and an oral badger vaccine, but usable and approved vaccines are still years away and we cannot say with any certainty when they will be ready. In the meantime, we cannot just do nothing.
This terrible disease is getting worse and we have to deal with the devastating impact it has on farmers and rural communities. It is difficult to quantify or put a monetary value on that, but a report by the Farm Crisis Network describes the feelings of panic, stress and emotional devastation for farming families as they repeatedly have to send their cows to be slaughtered.
I think that we would all agree that we need to stop the disease spreading further, bring it under control and ultimately eradicate it. Evidence tells us that unless we tackle the disease in badgers, we will never eradicate it in cattle. No country in the world that has TB in its wildlife has been able to eradicate it in cattle without addressing it in the wildlife population. In July, I set out revised proposals for controlling the disease in the badger population. In order to reduce TB in cattle in the worst affected areas we proposed to allow a controlled reduction carried out by groups of farmers and landowners, as part of a science-led and carefully managed policy of badger control. The policy would be piloted in two areas in the first year.
Following the responses to the consultation that we launched in July on draft guidance to Natural England, the policy has been further refined. I am now in a position to announce that we will go ahead with a pilot of the policy in two areas next year, to confirm our assumptions about the effectiveness, humaneness and safety of controlled shooting. An independent panel of experts will oversee and evaluate the pilots and report back to the Government, and we will then decide whether the policy should be rolled out more widely.
This has not been an easy decision to make, and it is not one that I have taken lightly. I have personally considered all the options and evidence, and at present there is no satisfactory alternative. Today, I am publishing a detailed policy document, copies of which will be available in the Vote Office after the statement. We need to strike a balance between taking the actions needed to control and eradicate the disease, maintaining a viable cattle industry and using our resources in the most effective and efficient way possible.
Badger control licences will be issued by Natural England under the Protection of Badgers Act 1992, to enable groups of farmers and landowners in the worst-affected areas to reduce badger populations at their own expense. Guidance to Natural England sets out strict criteria that applicants for a licence will have to meet to ensure that the pilots are carried out safely, effectively and humanely.
Scientists agree that if culling is conducted in line with the strict criteria identified through the randomised badger culling trial, we can expect it to reduce TB in cattle over a 150 sq km area, plus a 2 km surrounding ring, by an average of 16% over nine years relative to a similar unculled area.
Licences granted by Natural England will be subject to strict conditions based on evidence from the randomised badger culling trial, which are designed to ensure that the result is an overall decrease in the disease in the areas where culling takes place. Applications for licences will be considered only for an area of at least 150 sq km over a minimum of four years, and with the pilots to be conducted by trained and proficient operators. Groups of farmers will have to take reasonable measures to identify barriers and buffers at the edge of culling areas such as rivers, coastlines and motorways, or areas where there are no cattle or where vaccination of badgers occurs, to minimise the perturbation effect in places where disturbing the badger population could cause an increase in TB in cattle in the surrounding area.
The Department has assessed the known and estimated effects of badger culling and vaccination, and its veterinary and scientific advice is that culling in high TB incidence areas, carried out in line with the licence criteria, will reduce the number of infected badgers, and thus the weight of TB infection in badger populations in the treatment area, more quickly than vaccination. It will therefore have a greater and more immediate beneficial impact on the spread of TB to cattle and the incidence of infection in cattle.
Nevertheless, we still see a useful role for vaccination, particularly in the future, and I have listened carefully to the views of groups that would like to help develop a vaccination programme. To support and encourage vaccination, DEFRA will make available up to £250,000 in each of the next three years to help meet the costs of badger vaccination in accordance with a badger control plan, with priority given to areas where culling is licensed. We will also support staff or volunteers of voluntary sector organisations wishing to train to carry out vaccination.
I look to the farming industry to show that it takes its responsibility very seriously and that it is committed to delivering the programme effectively, safely and humanely. That will be carefully monitored in the pilots, and on an ongoing basis if the policy is rolled out more widely.
To select the pilot areas, I will invite the farming industry to bring forward a shortlist of areas, from which DEFRA will select two. Those two areas will then be invited to apply for a culling licence. Natural England will assess the applications against the licence criteria and decide whether to grant them a licence.
After the conclusion of the six-week pilots, from what we observe and learn, and taking into account the evaluation by the independent panel, we will take a decision on whether to roll out the policy more widely. Following the pilots, if we decide to proceed with a wider roll-out, a maximum of 10 licences will be granted to start each year.
Ensuring public safety is a key concern. In finalising the policy, we have worked closely with the Home Office and the Association of Chief Police Officers to scope out the role of the police in supporting those licensed operations.
I know that there is great strength of feeling on the issue, but I also know that we need to take action now before the TB situation deteriorates even further. We need to tackle TB from all angles, using all the available tools. I am acutely aware that many people oppose badger culling and I wish that there was a current satisfactory alternative. However, we cannot escape the fact that the evidence supports the case for a controlled reduction of the badger population in the areas worst affected by bovine TB. The impact of that terrible disease shows us that we need to act now. We cannot keep delaying.
In making the decision, I have considered all the evidence and have listened to the full range of views. Having listened to all sides of the debate, I believe that this is the right approach.
Mary Creagh (Wakefield) (Lab)
We recognise that bovine TB is a devastating disease—that is why the Labour Government spent £50 million on randomised badger culling trials. Any decision on a badger cull must answer four key questions. Is it science-led? Is it cost effective? Is it humane? Crucially, will it work?
The independent scientific group on cattle TB, which reported on Labour’s trial culls, stated:
“After careful consideration of all the RBCT and other data presented in this report… we conclude that badger culling cannot meaningfully contribute to the future control of cattle TB in Britain.”
The Secretary of State quotes scientists who told the Government that TB in cattle will be cut by 16% over nine years if the cull is carried out by trapping and then shooting the animals. However, her culls will not be carried out in that way. They will depend on farmers hiring people to free-shoot badgers at night—a method that has never been scientifically assessed as a way of controlling bovine TB.
Perturbation occurred in the first three years of Labour’s trial culls when badgers were humanely captured. What scientific advice has the Secretary of State sought or received on the likelihood of free shooting increasing the perturbation effect, which will reduce that 16% net figure still further?
Is the cull cost-effective? The right hon. Lady’s statement was curiously silent on the costs to farmers, yet DEFRA estimates that it will cost farmers £1.4 million per cull area. Farmers will need to prove they have the funds to complete the cull in the event that one pulls out or sells up. How will she access those funds in the event of a default? Who will access those funds, and on what basis? How will the money be held—in an escrow account or in joint names? How will liability be shared between farmers?
What guarantees can the Secretary of State offer taxpayers that the costs of completing a four-year cull will not fall on them in the event of those indemnities disappearing or becoming the subject of protracted legal wrangling? How many staff will the right hon. Lady need to issue those cull licences? What is the cost to the taxpayer of hiring those extra staff at Natural England, a body that has shed nearly 500 staff since her disastrous settlement in the comprehensive spending review?
We know that the Home Secretary has warned the Secretary of State against proceeding with the cull. Will she confirm that the culls will not start until the Olympic games are over? Will she confirm today that trained firearms police will be needed to police any public protests against the culls?
In the Secretary of State’s 2010 consultation, she estimated the costs to the police at £200,000, yet today’s report has revised those costs up to £2 million per cull area. If 10 cull areas are licensed every year, that is a compound cost of £20 million a year to the police. Will she confirm that DEFRA will meet those costs in full? If so, from which budget, given that the Department has had a 30% cut? How will local police forces access those funds?
In written answers to me, the right hon. Lady estimates that the cull will save the taxpayer £2.9 million in each cull area over 10 years. With 10 cull areas set to go ahead from 2013, that is a saving of £2.9 million a year, which is just 3% of the £85 million cost of testing and compensation to farmers. Will she therefore confirm that the costs of bovine TB will continue to be borne by the taxpayer?
The third question the Secretary of State must answer is this: is her cull humane? In 2010, 48 people were prosecuted for offences against badgers and 29 were found guilty. The police wildlife crime unit is concerned that illegal badger persecution will be carried out under the pretext of culling. Who will monitor cull licences and how will the conditions of the licence be monitored? She mentioned a six-week cull period, but how can she ensure that farmers will not go beyond that?
Between 60,000 and 120,000 badgers will be killed over a four-year period depending on the number and size of cull areas, yet in the Secretary of State’s statement, she curiously failed to mention the new national badger count announced this week, which will cost £871,000. Surely she should have commissioned that survey before announcing her pilot culls. How can we measure the impact of a cull on the badger population when we have no scientific baseline? What measures is she taking to prevent the extinction of badger populations in cull areas, and how will she ensure we remain in compliance of our international obligations under the Bern convention?
Finally, will it work? The scientific group warned that
“several culling approaches may make matters worse”.
Is not the Secretary of State in danger of sleepwalking into a disaster by licensing badger culls, the method of which is unproven and untested, and which could make things worse? The Government have constructed the ultimate game theory test for farmers in TB-hit areas: join in the cull or face increased TB in the herd from badger perturbation. How will the views of farmers and landowners in areas affected by perturbation be collected and considered? What happens to farmers who do not wish a cull to proceed on their land? How will the Secretary of State ensure the health and safety of the people carrying out the cull and disposing of infected carcases, the police firearms officers policing the cull and the protesters who will undoubtedly turn up at cull sites?
Today’s announcement is bad news for wildlife, bad news for farmers and bad news for the taxpayer. The cull will not be cost-effective or humane and it will not work. In “Yes, Minister”, Jim Hacker said: “Something must be done. This is something. Therefore we must do it.” Today the Secretary of State has turned her back on the scientific advice. Page 11 of her own document states:
“It is a matter of judgement, not science, whether the farming industry can deliver an effective, coordinated and sustained cull.”
I hope she has got everything crossed.
Mrs Spelman
The hon. Lady asked a lot of questions so I will answer them as quickly as I can. First, I should point out that this is a science-led approach to the pilots and that when in office the previous Labour Government spent £50 million on trials. The science is important and this Government have responded to what was learned from those trials. We learned that culling could be more effective if the boundaries of the control area were firm ones, to reduce the perturbation effect. In addition, the ground she cited—she said that the cost would be prohibitive—overlooks that fact that the farmers have agreed to pay. I encourage the shadow Secretary of State to look at the long tail from that trial. Five and a half years after the analysis, the trial continues to provide a benefit in reduced TB incidence in those areas.
The method to which the hon. Lady referred—controlled shooting—is commonly used to control other wildlife populations, such as deer, foxes and rabbits. We therefore have reasonable confidence in our assumption that the method will be both effective and humane in relation to badgers, but, to be absolutely clear, those who undertake the culling will be required to have deer-stalking level 1 proficiency or equivalent, and they will be required to undertake an additional course to ensure that they understand badger physiognomy.
On cost-effectiveness, in the end, it is up to farmers to choose whether or not to be part of a controlled reduction of badgers in their area, but the Government make a requirement that groups of farmers form a limited company that puts aside in a bank account the four-year cost of the culling programme plus a 25% contingency, which deals with the hon. Lady’s point about the contingency cost.
Natural England’s existing staff will contribute to the programme. The overall cost to the Government of £6.22 million over 10 years must be seen in comparison with the overall cost of the unchecked progress of the disease, which will be £1 billion a year or more to the taxpayer over the next 10 years. The costs need to be seen in the context of the overall burden on the taxpayer.
I have had helpful and constructive conversations with the Association of Chief Police Officers, but it is up to the police to deal with the precise operational details of ensuring public safety throughout the pilot process. We should not simply extrapolate an estimated cost from the pilots, as, I am afraid, the hon. Lady just did. Part of the point of the pilots is to establish more precisely what the exact cost will be. I have agreed with the Home Office to share those policing costs in so far as additional and reasonable costs are incurred.
On humaneness, we can be assured that Natural England will monitor the cull licences very carefully. If any farmers should be so minded to exceed the six-week period, they would obviously lose their licence. I do not believe, therefore, that that will happen.
It is important to remember that the species is protected but not endangered. The last time the population was surveyed—in the 1990s—there were between 250,000 and 300,000 badgers in Great Britain. Of course, the previous Labour Government had ample opportunity to launch a survey if they had wanted to, but this Government have seen fit to do so. That is important in ascertaining the population in the controlled areas. We have satisfied ourselves that the Bern convention would not be breached by the policy that I have proposed.
Finally, I agree with the hon. Lady on this point. She said that a matter of judgment and not the science alone drives this decision. If the previous Government had exercised their judgment and acted when they had the chance, the disease, and the cost of dealing with it, would not have escalated to the point it has reached today.
Miss Anne McIntosh (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)
Farmers and wildlife conservation groups will welcome the statement. The badger population must be controlled. Any constituency that produces so many cattle, including mine, lives in fear of one rogue animal entering the chain.
Will the Secretary of State address what the position will be when we have a vaccine in place, given that the meat of vaccinated cattle will not be allowed into the food chain? We have the time to address that. Will she bear in mind the conclusions of the Select Committee on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs report adopted in the previous Parliament, by which current members of the Committee stand?
Mrs Spelman
My hon. Friend is singularly well qualified with her experience in the European Parliament to know how difficult it is to get the law changed there. It is currently illegal to vaccinate cattle and to sell or export that meat. We would have to get the 26 other member states to agree to a change in the law. We must accept that that would take many years.
Mr Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab)
Will the Secretary of State be clear with the House about what level of mortality she expects shooting to achieve, because the very clear advice that we received over many years as Ministers was that shooting would not achieve a level of mortality high enough to make any difference to the disease at all? She is allowing only a very short six-week period for the pilots, which cannot be credible.
Mrs Spelman
The science determines the level of mortality that must be achieved for the controlled reduction to be effective, and a 70% reduction in the badger population is what the RBCT trial showed had to be achieved. One key point of the six-week pilot is to confirm our assumption that controlled shooting will achieve that level of reduction in the badger population.
Andrew George (St Ives) (LD)
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right to say that this is a devastating disease. We must hope that this policy will help and not make the situation worse. In the implementation of the culling policy, how will she ensure that there is a proper and rigorous estimate of the badger population and also that there is a proper count of those badgers that are culled within the area and not outside it?
Mrs Spelman
I commiserate with my hon. Friend because his part of the country has been the most badly affected by this terrible disease. Natural England will carry out a survey of the badger population before any culling takes place and will also check that the percentage of badgers culled fits the criteria set out in the pilot.
Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)
Should not the clarion call go out from this House today to all the right-thinking, compassionate people in this country to frustrate this cruel and unnecessary slaughter of animals? Is it not right that this has been founded on greed and bad science by the nasty party?
Mrs Spelman
I hope that an hon. Member is not calling on the public to break the law; that would be very unwise.
Sarah Newton (Truro and Falmouth) (Con)
The compassionate people in my constituency will very much welcome the great thought, care, attention and bravery of the Secretary of State and her team in tackling this issue. I particularly welcome the investment by the Government in the voluntary trials for vaccination. Perhaps the Secretary of State could give us a bit more information about them, because, ultimately, those trials are what we all want to see.
Mrs Spelman
As I have said, this is a difficult decision and it is not one that I have found easy to make. Having spoken and listened to all the stakeholders involved, I understand that the cost of training someone to take part in the vaccination programme is significant, so I hope that with the money that I have announced today, we will be able at least to halve the cost of that training.
Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)
Rather than pursuing this cruel and counter-productive cull, what consideration did the Secretary of State give to reducing the trend towards increasing intensive dairy farming? Around 80% of bovine TB transmission is thought to be caused cattle to cattle and that happens far more easily in crowded conditions.
Mrs Spelman
I am sorry to say that the hon. Lady is misguided in thinking that there is a link between the intensification of dairy farming and the incidence of TB in cattle. There is no evidence of that.
Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)
Farmers across North Wiltshire, many of whom have been devastated by TB and have lost their herd some two or three times, will very much welcome the Secretary of State’s announcement today and will hope to be a part of the first 10, or even first two, trials. However, is she not concerned about the talk from Opposition Members about the security surrounding the cull? Is there not a risk that people will be enjoined by them and others to break the law in a way that was suggested by the hon. Member for Newport West (Paul Flynn)? Will she take steps to ensure that the precise location of the cull is not in the public domain so that such actions can be avoided?
Mrs Spelman
I have had very careful conversations with the Home Secretary and with the Association of Chief Police Officers regarding security. Like members of the public, people who are licensed to undertake a cull have every right to expect their safety to be protected. Careful analysis has been undertaken by the police and I respect their expertise and thank them for their assistance.
Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
Let me follow on from the question of the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas). There is nothing in this statement about dealing with the problem of cattle-to-cattle transmission. All the evidence shows that that is a significant factor in spreading bovine TB. What does the Secretary of State plan to do about that? It seems that the only solution on offer is shooting badgers.
Mrs Spelman
I refer the hon. Lady to the statement that I made in July, setting out the other important elements of the bovine TB package, of which controlled reduction of the badger population is just one part. We have strengthened measures on controlling the movement of cattle and expanded the areas for the testing of cattle. I know that that was very much wanted by the industry. As a west midlands MP, my farmers came to me and said that they would prefer to be part of the annual testing because they want to know more frequently whether their cattle are clear. In my July statement, all those strict measures were cited.
Dr Sarah Wollaston (Totnes) (Con)
The year after Labour came to power, fewer than 600 cattle were slaughtered in Devon. This year, we are well on course for more than 6,000 to be slaughtered. Bovine TB is spreading remorselessly across the UK and many areas of the country will no longer be disease free unless we take action, so I welcome the Secretary of State’s statement today. However, does she not share the concerns of farmers in my constituency who feel that they could be targeted by violent activists? Will she assure them that those who carry out this very difficult task will have their anonymity protected?
Mrs Spelman
The whole House respects my hon. Friend’s medical expertise, and she is right to point out that the disease has spread—it has spread from the south-west to the midlands. That fact demonstrates that doing nothing is not an option. As for her important point about personal information, I can assure her that, in the interests of personal security, personal information will be kept confidential.
Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)
I should declare that I am a member of the British Veterinary Association, which I know will welcome the right decision at the right time under the right circumstances following the right evidence to get the right conclusions. I welcome the Secretary of State’s statement and the fact that her Department has stuck to its guns on this issue. It is important that we reach a solution. I welcome the conclusion of the report that the reduction of the incidence of TB in cattle will be achieved if we follow this licensing procedure. I hope that the Secretary of State will ring the Ministers in the devolved regions and encourage them to follow these actions. We need to put in place a scheme such as this in Northern Ireland.
Mrs Spelman
I assure the hon. Gentleman that we are in close contact with other devolved Ministers. We should of course remember that Scotland is TB-free and would like to remain so. I hope that our policy will give it some comfort in that matter. I have taken the veterinary advice very seriously. It is the vets who point out that no programme of eradicating TB anywhere in the world has been successful without tackling the reservoir infection in the wildlife.
Sheryll Murray (South East Cornwall) (Con)
I know that farmers in South East Cornwall will welcome this news. Alpaca farmers will welcome it, too. Is the Secretary of State aware that bovine TB has been affecting alpaca herds as well as cattle herds?
Mrs Spelman
Sadly, there is no satisfactory test for TB in camelids, which includes alpacas, and that is a source of considerable concern. We will continue to work on that. Alpacas are included in our programme of trying to manage and control this disease.
Sheila Gilmore (Edinburgh East) (Lab)
No one is suggesting that bovine TB is not a problem. However, why does the Secretary of State believe that what she proposes will work given the scientific conclusions of a 10-year pilot by the previous Government?
Mrs Spelman
When a programme of badger control was part of the original randomised badger culling trial, the science showed a clear reduction within the controlled area, and an impact on the edge of the area. We have proposed to build on that science base and grant licences to areas with more firmly controlled boundaries to reduce the perturbation effect. It is indisputable that the original trial saw, on average, a 16% reduction in the incidence of TB in cattle herds.
Dan Rogerson (North Cornwall) (LD)
The Secretary of State has quite rightly set out the sad decision that has had to be taken on this issue. She has also made it clear that the decision is based on the scientific evidence that was provided by the trials. Ongoing monitoring has shown there to be a lasting effect and that perturbation is only temporary. None the less, there will be those who, understandably, will have an emotional response to this issue. They may be inflamed by people in this House and elsewhere who are somewhat removed from the problem. Will she undertake to carry out as much publicity as she can and to work with organisations such as the British Veterinary Association to make the case for those who have an instinctive response and have not had the opportunity to consider the issues?
Mrs Spelman
The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. I understand that this issue excites strong emotions, but for those who feel strongly about it I point to the Farm Crisis Network report, which shows the devastating emotional cost to the farmers who lose their cattle. It is probably right at this point to pay tribute to the work done by Adam Henson and “Countryfile” to make members of the public more aware of the cost to farmers of the slaughter of their animals as well as of the impact on wildlife.
Hywel Williams (Arfon) (PC)
The Secretary of State will know that the previous Welsh Government had intended a cull but the current Welsh Government appear to have had a change of mind. Has she discussed the reasons behind that change of mind with the Welsh Government? Furthermore, will she discuss the contents of her statement with the Welsh Government, given the substantial trade in cattle between England and Wales?
Mrs Spelman
Yes, I can give that assurance to the hon. Gentleman. The Minister of State is in regular contact with the Agriculture Minister. We meet regularly at Agriculture and Fisheries Council meetings that I invite the devolved Ministers to attend and at which we have ample opportunity regularly to share our approach to the control of TB. I shall have that opportunity at the Agriculture and Fisheries Council tomorrow.
Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)
May I welcome the Secretary of State’s statement, which is absolutely right for the farmers in my constituency whose cattle have suffered from this disease for many years? You have made the right decisions. If you tackle the disease in the wildlife, you stop it reinfecting the cattle every year, which is what has been happening for years. I thank you very much for acting on that. The only way they tackled the disease in New Zealand and Australia was by tackling it in wildlife.
Mr Speaker
I am most grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s gratitude, but I think he will intend me to redirect it to the Secretary of State.
Mrs Spelman
My hon. Friend makes a very important point. In New Zealand, the incidence of the disease in possums had to be tackled; in Australia, it had to be tackled among wild buffalo; and in Ireland, it was tackled in the badger population. No part of the world has successfully tackled TB in its cattle population without addressing the reservoir of disease in wildlife.
Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)
The wildlife trusts have said that the scientific evidence does not support the culling of badgers and could even make matters worse by disturbing the remaining badgers, spreading the disease further. How will the Secretary of State ensure that these short six-week pilots get the evidence base to demonstrate whether the wildlife trusts are right or wrong in their suppositions?
Mrs Spelman
I really must nail this point about the science. The science shows that if the badger population is reduced by 70%, TB incidence is reduced by 16%. That is what the original trial shows and we cannot get away from those facts. The judgment is whether the proposed method of controlled shooting will achieve that and that is the point of piloting it.
John Glen (Salisbury) (Con)
The farmers of south Wiltshire and around Salisbury will warmly welcome today’s announcements. Will the Secretary of State confirm that these new provisions will be kept under review to ensure that they are successful in tackling this terrible disease? If they are seen to be successful, will moves be made to extend them as soon as possible so that everyone can have the benefit of the trials?
Mrs Spelman
As I made clear, the two trials that will take place next year—probably at the start of the autumn—will cover a six-week period, after which we would expect the evaluation of those trials to take approximately another four weeks. The evaluation will be undertaken by an independent panel, the composition of which will be announced in the new year. Of course, we will keep that under very close review, as we will all the parts of our package of proposals to eradicate TB.
Thomas Docherty (Dunfermline and West Fife) (Lab)
May I press the Secretary of State to say a little more about these trial areas of 150 sq km? Will all the landowners within that trial area have to sign up? If they do not, will the shooters be allowed to go on to their property to shoot?
Mrs Spelman
What is required for the pilots is access to 70% of the land, in line with the evidence from the randomised badger culling trial. We need access to 70% of the land. There is no element of compulsion on all landowners in the area, but 70% is needed as part of the limited liability company that a group of farmers would set up.
Roger Williams (Brecon and Radnorshire) (LD)
I draw Members’ attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. Today—this very day—cattle will be taken from the farm for which I have responsibility to be shot, because they were found to be reactors last week. I welcome the Secretary of State’s courageous announcement following the incisive scientific analysis by David King, but will she also insist that farmers play their part in maximising biosecurity and following all the regulations on testing and movement, too, so that we can maximise the effect of the announcement?
Mrs Spelman
I commiserate with the hon. Gentleman on the loss of those cattle. The front page of the Farm Crisis Network’s report brings home to anyone who has not experienced that what it feels like. One farmer said:
“I feel there is a constant dark cloud of uncertainty over me, causing stress, anxiety and fear.”
I am sure that the hon. Gentleman identifies with him. I assure him that all aspects of the bovine TB package, including strengthening biosecurity measures, will be available. It is a full toolkit to tackle this terrible disease.
Glyn Davies (Montgomeryshire) (Con)
The impact of bovine TB is as devastating to farmers, cattle and wildlife in Wales as it is in England, but the control of the disease in Wales is devolved to the Welsh Government. Will my right hon. Friend reassure me that all the evidence, experience and information available to her will be shared with the Welsh Government so that the issue can be dealt with in Wales, too?
Mrs Spelman
I can give that assurance. Of course, we will share with devolved Ministers all the evidence and experience from the two pilots as well as from the wider package.
Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)
Will my right hon. Friend confirm that there will be a requirement, particularly in the pilots, for a strict count of the number of badgers culled, that there will be a requirement for those badgers to be tested to substantiate that they are suffering from TB and that in the long term, there will be a requirement that those areas that are going through vaccination will not also have culling at the same time?
Mrs Spelman
I can give my hon. Friend that assurance. Very strict requirements have been set out, and tomorrow I will publish the guidance to Natural England and he might wish to read that to see precisely how this will be controlled and how we will test the infection of badgers. On the point about coterminous vaccination and controlled reduction, it is important to remember that this is a package and the option we have chosen to pursue combines controlled reduction of the badger population with vaccination. Some parts of the area might not be suitable for one method of controlled reduction and boundaries might be secured by a programme of vaccination, too.
Guto Bebb (Aberconwy) (Con)
May I, too, congratulate my right hon. Friend on her statement, which I welcome? In view of our bitter experience in Wales with proposed trials, however, how confident is she that these proposals will not be subject to a legal challenge?
Mrs Spelman
Far from it: I think we can be reasonably confident that they will be subject to a legal challenge and that is one reason why we have taken the utmost care. We have taken our time and we have taken a precautionary approach, and every step of the way we have tried to ensure that we have a copper-bottomed reasoned analysis that is the basis of our judgment that we should proceed with this policy.
Tessa Munt (Wells) (LD)
I am aware that more than 1,200 badgers have been vaccinated over the past 18 months in Gloucestershire in trials under separate projects from the Food and Environment Research Agency and the Gloucestershire wildlife trust to assess the practical use of a vaccine. I am pleased that the new vaccine plans have been announced today and they at least explain that we are trying different solutions to sort out this problem, which is a huge one in Somerset. When will the Secretary of State be in a position to assess the effectiveness and costs involved in that project in Gloucestershire and how will that inform the planned vaccination projects that are to come over the next three years?
Mrs Spelman
It will take some time—many years—before we can finally assess the effectiveness of the vaccination trial in Gloucestershire, but I went and saw it for myself and, as much as anything, it was about the practicalities of trapping and caging the badgers prior to injecting with the only vaccine that is available. There are considerable practical difficulties with the procedure, but today I have tried to make available a fund to help those voluntary groups that want to participate in the vaccination programme.
George Eustice (Camborne and Redruth) (Con)
I welcome the Secretary of State’s proportionate and measured approach to this very contentious issue, and it will be respected by farmers in the west country, many of whom have suffered tragic losses from their herd. I welcome also the long-term commitment to developing a vaccine, but does my right hon. Friend agree that one of the problems with the current vaccine is that it will only inoculate healthy badgers against future infection and cannot cure badgers that already have the disease?
Mrs Spelman
My hon. Friend, who is very knowledgeable, has hit on the problem that the vaccine is effective only in badgers that are clear of the disease. That is one reason why vaccination takes so much longer than the method of controlled reduction by controlled shooting, but I reiterate that the Government have committed £20 million to the ongoing quest to find an oral vaccine for badgers. It has been effective in treating other diseases such as rabies, and if only we could find one, we would all, I am sure, be delighted.
Royal Assent
Mr Speaker
I have to notify the House, in accordance with the Royal Assent Act 1967, that Her Majesty has signified her Royal Assent to the following Acts:
London Olympic Games and Paralympic Games (Amendment) Act 2011
Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measures Act 2011
Public Bodies Act 2011
Charities Act 2011.
Victims of Crime (Code of Practice)
Priti Patel (Witham) (Con)
I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to make provision for a code of practice to be observed by all those working in the criminal justice system setting out the rights of victims of crime and their families; and for connected purposes.
It is a privilege to address the House on a matter of profound importance to the functioning of our criminal justice system, and I am delighted that so many Members have expressed their support for this endeavour.
The Bill sets out to provide more rights and support to the victims of crime and to their families. We all know, from meeting victims of crime in our constituencies, the horrific, appalling and devastating effect that criminals have on their lives, but all too often victims and their families feel let down, unrepresented and abandoned as they are processed through the criminal justice system.
Two sets of figures highlight how scandalous and inconsistent the treatment of victims can be. The 2010-11 British crime survey shows that only 39% of victims were confident that the criminal justice system is effective, compared with 44% among non-victims, and that 56% of victims are confident that the criminal justice system is fair, compared with 63% of non-victims. In other words, once a victim goes through the criminal justice system and has experienced its workings, they believe it to be less effective and less fair, compared with the expectations of non-victims.
The treatment of victims is of even more concern when compared with the treatment of defendants and offenders. Surveys show that only about one third of people believe that the criminal justice system
“meets the needs of victims”.
By contrast, twice as many—80%—believe that the system
“respects the rights of and treats fairly people accused of committing a crime.”
That is no doubt why the former victims commissioner, Louise Casey, whose work I pay tribute to, has said that
“there is a need, if not to take away rights from offenders, to at least give consideration to ‘balancing up’ the system towards some basic needs of victims. Convicted or accused people are afforded a strong position in terms of definite ‘rights’ from the criminal justice system, whereas victims are afforded vague codes and unenforceable charters with no real route of complaint.”
The existing procedures for victims have failed and proved to be inadequate, and the victims commissioner called for a new victims law, which would include the rights for victims and their families to make statements to influence sentencing, to receive information about their case and to be given suitable support. Before Louise Casey left her post, she also called for more support and rights for the families of murder victims. It is deeply worrying that 51% of families bereaved in such circumstances have found the criminal justice system to be the most difficult issue to deal with, and that is why she called for them to receive greater rights to information, greater practical and emotional support and better treatment in the courtroom. She rightly called also for delays in releasing bodies to be overcome, so that loved ones might be buried within 28 days. Measures to introduce those recommendations and others are included in my Bill, as it strengthens the rights of victims and enshrines those rights in law.
In the time I have left, I should like to draw the House’s attention to some other issues that need addressing and are dealt with in my Bill. First, victims’ rights must be enforceable with an efficient and effective mechanism in place for them to seek and secure redress when their rights have not been respected. Offenders and defendants have a range of legal avenues available to them when they feel mistreated in the criminal justice system, including going all the way to the European Court of Human Rights, but the striking absence of a corresponding system for victims is unjust, and my Bill reverses that.
Secondly, as part of making victims the central focus of the criminal justice system, my Bill ensures that they have a genuine say over whether an offender is charged, and when a sentence is passed down once a guilty verdict is secured. Too often, victims are excluded from that process, an appalling example of which was when the police and courts let off an offender responsible for committing some 600 crimes in Essex. Instead of being put in a prison cell, he went into the community to reoffend. Needless to say, victims throughout the county were angered by the judgment and by the fact that they were excluded from the decision-making process and did not get their day in court to press for a more relevant and appropriate sentence. Under my Bill, that would not happen again.
Thirdly, as part of giving more rights to the families of homicide victims, my Bill compels authorities to offer more support to the families of British nationals murdered abroad. In recent months, two horrendous cases have come to my attention, in which constituents have suffered because of the murder overseas of those nearest and dearest to them. Not only have they had a terrible time dealing with the tragic loss, but they have had to encounter a range of practical obstacles, such as translation costs, travel arrangements and an unfamiliarity with foreign legal systems. Currently, only 13% of those families feel as though the British authorities treat them as victims, and there is a wide disparity in the support services available to them. I pay tribute to the outstanding work undertaken by the organisation Support After Murder and Manslaughter Abroad in assisting relatives faced with that tragic set of circumstances, and to its efforts to develop a memorandum of understanding with the authorities in this country. But a firm set of commitments, which my Bill provides for, is needed so that full assistance can be afforded and provided to them.
Finally, my Bill gives victims greater protection from criminals not only when the criminal is out in the community, but when they are in prison. In one shocking case in my constituency, a convicted murderer has been able from jail to torment the family of the deceased, through media articles both authorised by the Ministry of Justice and unauthorised. That cannot be right, and my Bill empowers victims in such circumstances to prevent hurtful statements by their convicted tormentors.
Those are important issues for victims in all our constituencies, and I hope that right hon. and hon. Members throughout the House will show their support by granting me leave to bring in this Bill.
Question put and agreed to.
Ordered,
That Priti Patel, Mr Philip Hollobone, Charlie Elphicke, Mr David Amess, Mr Graham Brady, Mr Andrew Turner, Mark Pritchard, Mr Graham Allen, Bob Russell, Nick de Bois, Stuart Andrew, Mark Durkan and Elizabeth Truss present the Bill.
Priti Patel accordingly presented the Bill.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 27 January 2012 and to be printed (Bill 263).
Business of the House
(13 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
14:20 - The House having divided: - Ayes: 266 / Noes: 187 - Question accordingly agreed to.
The Parliamentary Secretary, Office of the Leader of the House of Commons (Mr David Heath)
I beg to move,
That—
1. Standing Order No. 80A (Carry-over of bills) shall be amended as follows—
(a) in line 7, after the word ‘motion’, insert the words ‘(other than a motion relating to a bill brought in upon a ways and means resolution)’, and
(b) in line 23, at end, insert the words ‘(other than a bill brought in upon a ways and means resolution)’; and
2. the following new Standing Order be made—
‘(1) The Speaker shall put any question necessary to dispose of proceedings on a carry-over motion of which a Minister of the Crown has given notice under Standing Order No. 80A (Carry-over of bills) relating to a bill brought in upon a ways and means resolution—
(a) forthwith if the motion is made on any day before the bill is read a second time, or on the day the bill is read a second time; or
(b) not more than one and a half hours after the commencement of proceedings on the motion if the motion is made at any other time.
(2) The following paragraphs of this order shall apply to any bill ordered to be carried over to the next Session of Parliament in pursuance of a carry-over motion to which paragraph (1) applies.
(3) If proceedings in committee on the bill are begun but not completed before the end of the first Session, the chair shall report the bill to the House as so far amended and the bill and any evidence received by the committee shall be ordered to lie upon the Table.
(4) In any other case, proceedings on the bill shall be suspended at the conclusion of the Session in which the bill was first introduced.
(5) In the next Session of Parliament, a Minister of the Crown may, after notice, present a bill in the same terms as the bill reported to the House under paragraph (3) of this order or as it stood when proceedings were suspended under paragraph (4) of this order; the bill shall be read the first time without question put and shall be ordered to be printed; and paragraphs (6) to (13) shall apply to the bill.
(6) In respect of all proceedings on the bill, any resolution which the bill was brought in upon in the first Session shall be treated as if it were such a resolution of the House in the next Session and any reference in any resolution upon which the bill was brought in to a Bill or Act of the present Session shall be treated in the next Session as a reference to a Bill or Act of that Session.
(7) In respect of all proceedings on the bill, the bill shall be treated as a bill brought in upon ways and means resolutions.
(8) If the bill was read a second time in the first Session, it shall be read a second time without question put.
(9) If the bill was not set down for consideration at any time in the first Session, any committal order in respect of the bill shall apply to proceedings on the Bill in the next Session (subject to paragraphs (10) and (11)).
(10) If the bill was reported from a public bill committee under paragraph (3), it shall stand committed to a public bill committee in respect of those clauses and schedules which were committed to a public bill committee in the first Session and not ordered to stand part of the bill in that Session.
(11) If the bill was reported from a committee of the whole House under paragraph (3), it shall stand committed to a committee of the whole House in respect of those clauses and schedules which were committed to a committee of the whole House in the first Session and not ordered to stand part of the bill in that Session.
(12) If the bill was read a second time in the first Session and was not set down for consideration at any time in that Session, any order of the House giving leave for a committee on the bill to sit twice on the first day on which it meets in the first Session shall apply to the first day on which the committee meets in the next Session.
(13) If the bill was set down for consideration at any time in the first Session, the bill shall be set down as an order of the day for (as the case may be) consideration, further consideration or third reading.
(14) Notices of amendments, new clauses and new schedules given in respect of parts of the bill not disposed of in the first Session shall be reprinted as notices in respect of the bill as presented and proceeded with under paragraph (5).’.
Mr Speaker
With this we will consider the following:
Motion 3—Third Reading (Bills Brought in upon a Ways and Means Resolution)—
That Standing Order No. 77 (Third reading) be amended by adding at the end—
‘(2) The third reading of a bill brought in upon a ways and means resolution may be taken at the same sitting of the House as its consideration on report.’.
Motion 4—Sessionality (Supply)—
That, notwithstanding the practice of the House as to the legislative authorisation of (a) appropriation of expenditure and (b) maximum numbers for defence services, legislative authorisation of appropriation of Votes on Account and maximum numbers for defence services may take place on a day not later than 5 August in the Session following that in which the founding resolutions for the forthcoming financial year were agreed to by the House.
Motion 5—Consideration of Estimates—
That—
(1) Standing Order No. 54 (Consideration of estimates) shall apply for the remainder of this Session as if, for the word ‘Three’ in line 1, there were substituted the word ‘Five’;
(2) Standing Order No. 54 (Consideration of estimates) shall be amended in accordance with paragraphs (3) to (7) of this order;
(3) in line 1, leave out ‘before 5 August,’;
(4) in line 13, at end, insert ‘Provided that the foregoing provisions of this paragraph shall not apply on any day on which time has been allocated pursuant to paragraph (2)(b) of Standing Order No. 24 (Emergency debates).’;
(5) leave out lines 25 to 34 and insert—
‘Provided that on days on which time has been allocated pursuant to paragraph (2)(b) of Standing Order No. 24 (Emergency debates) or the Chairman of Ways and Means has set down opposed private business under paragraph (5) of Standing Order No. 20 (Time for taking private business), proceedings under this sub-paragraph shall not be entered upon until the business in question has been disposed of and may then be proceeded with for three hours, notwithstanding the provisions of Standing Order No. 9 (Sittings of the House).’;
(6) in line 38, leave out ‘hour prescribed under paragraph (5)’ and insert ‘day and hour prescribed under paragraph (6)’;
(7) in line 40, leave out paragraph (5) and add—
‘(5) Any estimates on which questions have been deferred to another day in accordance with the provisions of paragraphs (4) and (6) of this order, together with any questions so deferred, and all other estimates appointed for consideration on any previous day or half day allotted under this order shall be set down for consideration on the day to which the questions have been deferred.
(6) On the day to which the provisions of paragraph (2) or (4) of Standing Order No. 55 (Questions on voting of estimates, &c.) apply which falls after or on any day or half-day allotted under this order, the Speaker shall, at the time prescribed in paragraph (1) of that order, put, successively, any questions deferred under paragraph (4) of this order on any previous day or half day allotted under this order, any questions deferred under paragraph (4) of this order on the day and any questions necessary to dispose of proceedings on all other estimates appointed for consideration on any day or half day allotted under this order.’;
(8) Standing Order No. 15 (Exempted business) shall be amended, in line 41, by leaving out ‘(5)’ and inserting ‘(6)’; and
(9) Standing Order No. 41A (Deferred divisions) shall be amended, in line 23, by leaving out ‘(5)’ and inserting ‘(6)’.
Motion 6—Questions on Voting of Estimates, &c.—
That Standing Order No. 55 (Questions on voting of estimates, &c.) shall—
(1) apply for the remainder of this Session with the following amendments—
(a) in line 1, leave out ‘paragraphs (2), (3) or (4)’ and insert ‘paragraph (2) or (4)’;
(b) in line 2, leave out ‘the Speaker shall at the moment of interruption’ and insert ‘, at the moment of interruption or as soon thereafter as proceedings under the proviso to paragraph (3)(b) of Standing Order No. 54 (Consideration of estimates) have been disposed of, the Speaker shall (after putting any questions required to be put under paragraph (6) of Standing Order No. 54)’;
(c) in line 9, leave out ‘6 February’ and insert ‘18 March’;
(d) in line 14, at end, insert—
‘(c) votes relating to numbers for defence services;
(d) excess votes, provided that the Committee of Public Accounts has reported that it sees no objection to the amounts and modifications to limits on appropriations in aid necessary being authorised by excess vote.’;
(e) in line 15, leave out paragraph (3); and
(f) in line 33, leave out ‘paragraphs (2), (3) or (4)’ and insert ‘paragraph (2) or (4)’.
(2) be amended with effect from the start of next Session as follows—
(a) in line 1, leave out ‘paragraphs (2), (3) or (4)’ and insert ‘paragraph (2) or (4)’;
(b) in line 2, leave out ‘the Speaker shall at the moment of interruption’ and insert ‘, at the moment of interruption or as soon thereafter as proceedings under the proviso to paragraph (3)(b) of Standing Order No. 54 (Consideration of estimates) have been disposed of, the Speaker shall (after putting any questions required to be put under paragraph (6) of Standing Order No. 54)’;
(c) in line 6, leave out the words ‘and limits on appropriations in aid,’;
(d) in line 9, leave out ‘6 February’ and insert ‘18 March’;
(e) in line 14, at end, insert—
‘(c) votes relating to numbers for defence services;
(d) excess votes, provided that the Committee of Public Accounts has reported that it sees no objection to the amounts necessary being authorised by excess vote.’;
(f) in line 15, leave out paragraph (3);
(g) in line 29, leave out ‘, and limits on appropriations in aid,’; and
(h) in line 33, leave out ‘paragraphs (2), (3) or (4)’ and insert ‘paragraph (2) or (4)’.
Mr Heath
For the convenience of the House, it may be helpful if I say that it is not my intention later to move motion 7. There are two reasons for that: first, there is a deficiency in the printed version of the motion on the Order Paper; also, not moving it will allow further discussions with the Chair of the Liaison Committee and others on the consequences of the changes that we are proposing.
Sir Alan Beith (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (LD)
I welcome my hon. Friend’s willingness to use this unexpected interlude to ensure that, at the end of the day, Select Committees can be confident that they will have the opportunity to debate and report on the abolition of public bodies before such matters come to the Floor of the House or a Delegated Legislation Committee.
Mr Heath
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend, with whom I have been in correspondence on these matters. I am keen to ensure that we have a system that fits the needs of the House in dealing with such important issues.
The first motion and the other four motions that we are debating with it arise from three considerations. First, they arise from the need to adapt the House’s procedures to spring-to-spring Sessions. Secondly, they arise from the alignment project, which was initiated by the last Administration and has been taken forward by this Government. Thirdly, it is proposed to take this opportunity to undertake some minor tidying-up of the relevant Standing Orders. Some of the changes before the House are quite technical, not to say rather long. The House will be pleased to know that I do not intend to go through them individually; rather, I shall explain their purposes. The provisions are explained in detail in an explanatory memorandum that has been placed in the Vote Office.
On 13 September last year, my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House announced the Government’s intention to move the usual date of Prorogation and state opening from November to the spring, to create a fixed-term Parliament of five equal, 12-month Sessions. That decision has some consequences for financial business. The first motion before us today would adapt the House’s existing procedures for carry-over to enable the Finance Bill to be carried over from one Session to the next. The House has already passed legislation, in last year’s Finance Bill, to ensure that resolutions under the Provisional Collection of Taxes Act 1968 have continued legal effect from one Session to the next. The motion makes matching provision in the House’s procedures. My right hon. Friend consulted the Procedure Committee on the proposal in February. The Chair replied on 9 March indicating that the Committee was content with the proposal.
Mr Greg Knight (East Yorkshire) (Con)
May I say on behalf of the Procedure Committee that we are grateful that we were consulted on this matter? Is the Deputy Leader of the House aware that we concluded that if the Government wish to continue to have the Budget statement in March—I can understand why they would—then carry-over seems the simplest way of proceeding? We concluded, with cross-party agreement, that this would not lead to any loss of scrutiny.
Mr Heath
I am most grateful to my right hon. Friend on several levels: first, for the work that he and his Committee do on such matters; and secondly, for the nature of his response to the proposal that we are discussing. It is important that a Committee of the House has been able to consider whether any loss of scrutiny would be involved; it is also important for the House to ensure that no such loss would be involved. He and his colleagues have concluded just that, and I am pleased that they were able to do so on an all-party basis.
The first motion modifies the general provisions for carry-over in existing Standing Orders in two main ways. First, it allows carry-over without separate debate before Second Reading. The House will have already debated the substance of the provisions in question during the Budget debate, and there may be cases where Prorogation falls before Second Reading. Secondly, the motion ensures that both the specific character of Bills brought in on Ways and Means resolutions and the practices of the House in considering such Bills are reflected in Standing Orders.
The second motion falls into the category of a tidying-up measure. Because it is seen as the practice of the House that there should be an interval between each stage of the Finance Bill, the House is asked to agree a motion for each such Bill, allowing Third Reading to take place on the same day as Report. Such motions to vary the so-called practice of the House have now been tabled for 100 years, since the chancellorship of David Lloyd George. The House has not failed to pass such a motion since 1972, and has not debated Third Reading on a day subsequent to Report since 1991. Even for the House, I submit that 100 years of settled practice is enough to overturn the presumption that the practice is otherwise.
Mr Heath
I think we may have reached a settled view by this stage. The second motion therefore changes Standing Orders to allow Third Reading to follow Report on the same day without a separate motion in each case.
The remaining motions relate to Supply, which some would say is one of the more obscure aspects of the House’s procedure. Indeed, Supply might be thought to be the House’s equivalent of the Schleswig-Holstein question. I am glad to say that there are at least a few more people who understand the business of Supply, and I believe they are alive and of sound mind—allegedly. I understand that among their number is Sir Stephen Laws, first parliamentary counsel—there is no question but that he is of sound mind—who is about to retire, and for whose services to successive Governments and, indirectly, to this House the Government are very grateful. The changes to be made are not easy to follow, and are explained in detail in the explanatory memorandum, so I will endeavour to describe what lies behind them.
The first factor is the move to spring-to-spring Sessions. The current practice of the House requires that once Supply has been provisionally authorised, an Appropriation Act following on from that provisional authorisation needs to be passed in the same Session. At present, the first stages of authorisation of the votes on account and the limits on numbers for defence services take place in early spring, with final authorisation incorporated in the Appropriation Act, passed in June or July. The retention of that timing makes sense but, given the move to spring-to-spring Sessions, it will involve final authorisation being given in the following Session. The third motion enables this common-sense practice to continue. We are also making provision for five estimates days during the current, extended Session, following discussion with the Liaison Committee. Indeed, this responds to a request from the Liaison Committee.
The second factor is the alignment project, which was an initiative of the last Administration, but which is bearing fruit in the new Parliament. The project’s aim is to achieve better alignment between Budgets, estimates and accounts, and to simplify and streamline the Government’s financial reporting documents, thereby improving Parliament’s ability to scrutinise planning and actual public expenditure. Select Committees were closely involved at various stages in the development of the proposals, which were endorsed by the House in the last Parliament through the passage of part 5 of what became the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010 and, in the present Parliament, through the resolution approving the proposals for the project that was passed following a debate on 5 July 2010. During that debate, the hon. Member for Harrow West (Mr Thomas), speaking for the Opposition, welcomed
“this further opportunity to confirm support for the sensible changes that the last Government created under the alignment project”.—[Official Report, 5 July 2010; Vol. 513, c. 93.]
The changes are being implemented with effect from the estimates for the financial year 2011-12. As a result of the changes already endorsed by the House, the estimates documents requiring formal authorisation are to be published only during two periods each year—between January and February, and between April and May.
Implementation of the project means that there will be two rather than three estimates events during a normal-length Session. There will be no winter supplementary estimates and no December estimates day or votes on outstanding estimates at that time. The motions before us reflect the move to two estimates windows each Session, when estimates day debates will take place and outstanding estimates will be voted on.
As a result of these changes, there will be two estimates days close together, usually in the early spring. The fourth motion thus provides that votable motions on such days will be deferred until the House votes on all outstanding estimates, usually at the end of the second such day. This builds upon the existing practice whereby votes are deferred on estimates days until the moment of interruption.
I hope that that is sufficient to explain the thinking behind these proposals, and I commend the motions to the House.
Chris Leslie (Nottingham East) (Lab/Co-op)
I am grateful to the Deputy Leader of the House for explaining the rationale for these motions, He did so with a certain degree of nonchalance, suggesting that they are quite technical. I am quite keen—I know many hon. Members are eager to speak in the debate—to keep an open mind and I am absolutely ready to be persuaded, but I have a number of concerns about the motions, especially about the first one, which deals with carry-over. It is true that the proposed changes are a downstream consequence of the shift to a fixed-term Parliament, with Sessions divided equally and running from May to May. As ever with this Government, however, we are left wondering whether they have properly thought through the consequences.
There are good reasons for the sessional divisions of the parliamentary calendar from year to year. Let us not be under any illusions: today’s proposals would massively expand carry-over provisions for legislation, potentially ending the convention whereby Bills should normally be introduced, considered and completed within the year in which Her Majesty outlines the Government’s plans in the Queen’s Speech. Carrying over a Bill should happen in special and infrequent circumstances. The previous Government introduced carry-over procedures to accommodate complex and technical legislation, largely where there was a cross-party consensus on the need for reform or where the addition of pre-legislative scrutiny or wider-ranging provisions necessitated a longer time frame for the Bill’s passage. Carry-over has been an exception rather than a rule. The House needs to recognise that, if the proposals proceed, standard legislation such as Finance Bills will routinely span the historical firewall that is in place to protect sessional business spilling over from one year to the next. Back-Bench Members will notice that carry-over is not possible for Back Bench-initiated legislation.
Ways and Means legislation has a set of histories that go back a long time. The motion would take carry-over provisions into quite different and possibly uncharted terrain. Finance Bills are particularly important legislation: they provide, of course, the means by which the public are taxed, businesses are forced to part with their money and resources are taken from consumers and workers to pay for the collective public services such as the defence of our country. This country was at the forefront of democratic innovation through which sovereignty passed from the monarchs to the people represented in this House of Commons. We should therefore reflect seriously on the rationale for the protections and safeguards that have accrued over the centuries to defend the rights of those being taxed. It is, after all, only the House of Commons that considers money Bills. Because these changes to the law do not gain scrutiny in the other place, we should be sure that we proceed with extra care in this place.
The Crown attends Parliament at the beginning of each Session and makes a specific request of Members of the House of Commons that
“estimates for the public services will be laid before you”.
This is the beginning of an age-old process built around the sessionality of supply, guaranteeing time for consideration of votes on account and ensuring that there is no taxation without representation. It might well be that the Government do not consider this cycle of proposal, consideration and approval important enough to retain the sessional disciplines. If so, I would have thought that they would have the courtesy to ensure proper and adequate consideration of the impact of these changes.
I am not sure that enough thought has been given to the consequences. There are some serious constitutional issues at stake. What on earth is the point of going forward with a sessional divide from year to year if the Crown is free to bunch together legislation across the years? The powers of Back Benchers are also an important issue. What powers do ordinary Members have over the timetabling of business if Ministers are not under pressure to conclude their business at the end of a Session and can merely table a motion and slip a whole Finance Bill forward? The hon. Member for North East Hertfordshire (Oliver Heald), who I believe was shadow Leader of the House at the time, said that
“the lack of pressure could encourage even more sloppiness in the drafting, programming and timetabling of legislation.”—[Official Report, 26 October 2004; Vol. 425, c. 1325.]
This pressure is useful to Parliament, to the House of Commons and to Back Benchers—a pressure that can be used to force Governments to accede to amendments and to ensure that they go forward before the end of a Session is reached. Ministers are keen not to lose their Bills. We need to consider these issues carefully. I can, of course, see the logic of the Minister’s arguments; I am simply saying that I am not sure that we have given enough proper and deep consideration to some of the issues.
Sessional disciplines matter. The Treasury, as we know, has already provided some evidence of poor drafting and a number of deficiencies have been seen in its proposals. The new powers to elongate consideration of the Bill to suit the Treasury’s timetable rather than that of Parliament could well lead to a lackadaisical, slapdash approach to what should be an efficient focus on the clear conduct of business. Parliament should, after all, have a realistic and measured work load before it and a legislative programme designed to ensure that each Bill receives fair and equal scrutiny.
Chris Leslie
This is indeed a conundrum. We are misaligning the calendar of the House of Commons with the fiscal year. We have managed to cope historically, but I do not have an answer. I would have liked deeper consideration of the proposals in a form that could be properly debated, rather than to find ourselves confronted with these motions on the Order Paper. I genuinely understand the Government’s problems. I do not wish to be obstructive, but I think it important to take some time to review what are, after all, arrangements that have been in place for many hundreds of years.
Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
The shadow Minister is making a powerful speech. Is not one of the dangers—we hear it often—that the Government want to do something on the surface for very good reasons, but at the same time what happens strengthens the Executive and reduces the power of Parliament?
Chris Leslie
The hon. Gentleman has hit on an important point. If we have a too relaxed approach to the parliamentary calendar, we could see a repeat of the situation whereby this House of Commons is especially busy for a couple of months, but is then twiddling its thumbs for several months longer—perhaps when the Government are struggling to get their business through the other place.
The right hon. Member for East Yorkshire (Mr Knight) asked the right question: how should we proceed from here? I understand the arguments in favour of some of the proposed changes, but I wish that the Government had devoted more time and care to discussing the issues through the usual channels and allowing the problems that had been raised to be considered properly and thoughtfully.
It would be useful if the Minister answered some questions, because I remain to be persuaded. For instance, why should not consideration of a Finance Bill start a month or so later? I am not suggesting that that is necessarily the solution; I am merely speculating on what the consequences might be. We could still have a Budget in March, but proceedings on the Finance Bill proper could start immediately after the Queen’s Speech in May, at the beginning of the new Session. That might be preferable to a Committee stage taking place for a couple of weeks immediately after the March Budget, followed by an elongated break and then a return to the Committee stage about halfway through the clauses that had previously been under consideration. There is, of course, virtue in avoiding a disruptive period of down time in the middle of a Committee stage. I should like to know whether the Government and, indeed, the Procedure Committee have thought about that.
Will the Minister elaborate on the proposals in motion 2 on carry-over of Ways and Means legislation? He has not chosen simply to amend Standing Order No. 80A to remove the reference to Ways and Means. Instead, an attempt seems to have been made to copy and paste carry-over provisions in respect of other Bills into a new Standing Order relating specifically to Ways and Means and money Bills. As far as I can see, however, various elements have not been transposed: for example, Standing Order No. 80A(3), which provides for no more than one Bill to be subject to a carry-over motion, and (4), which prevents a carry-over motion to apply to a Bill carried over from a previous Session. There seems to be nothing technically in place to prevent a Finance Bill that has been carried over from one Session from being carried over again to another. I accept that such a development may be very unlikely, but I do not understand why it was not covered in the copy-and-paste exercise. It could be described as the Schleswig-Holstein question squared, and I should be grateful if the Minister could seek some inspiration in order to clarify the point.
I have heard the Minister argue about the move to the automatic Third Reading of Finance Bills on the same day as Report each year. He says that that it has been happening for 100 years—which, according to my hon. Friend the Member for Hartlepool (Mr Wright), may mean that it is too early to tell whether it is working. Even if it is normal practice, the Government have at least had the courtesy to table a motion seeking the House’s permission, rather than assuming that Third Reading shall always take place on the same day as Report. However, I feel that the practice may erode the purpose of Third Readings as a distinct stage in the passage of legislation. It may be entirely pragmatic, but although I am willing to be persuaded otherwise, I do not think that consequences of some of these changes have been properly thought through.
Can the Minister explain the rationale for the omission of the backstop date applying to the three days allotted to the consideration of estimates? I understand that he is changing the date from 5 August following line-of-sight discussions after the passage of the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011—that makes sense—but why not simply shift the date forward to February or March rather than omitting it altogether?
The Minister also said that he proposed to put back the “roll-up” day for the modification of estimates by only five or six weeks—to, I believe, 18 March—which strikes me as a fairly arbitrary choice. He also touched on the fact that we would lose one of those modification days, as the number would be reduced from three to two. It is a small point, but, again, I wonder whether it should have been considered in more detail.
I have total respect for the Procedure Committee and its Chairman, who engaged in informal discussions with the Leader of the House about the proposals and did not object to them, but—with the greatest respect—I wish that the proposals had been subjected to more adequate scrutiny, and to some form of challenge or review. There have been no public hearings or discussions, and no report has been provided to enable parliamentarians to digest and consider the proposals.
I believe that the changes require serious consideration, because they could have profound and unintended constitutional consequences. I have not yet been convinced by the Minister that we need to rush them through before the Christmas recess, although I shall wait to hear what he has to say. He has, in a statesmanlike way, withdrawn motion 7, and I wonder whether it would be wise for him also to seek to withdraw the carry-over proposals. Perhaps he could ask the Procedure Committee to consider the issues relating to those proposals in more detail, because, as yet, I am not fully persuaded that it would be responsible to support them.
Mr Greg Knight (East Yorkshire) (Con)
The hon. Member for Nottingham East (Chris Leslie) referred to what he described as a “queue” of Members waiting to speak, and went on to express his concerns about the proposals. I think he is seeing shadows on the wall in both respects. It seems to me that if the Government were to abuse the process that they are asking us to approve—having put the matter to the Procedure Committee on the basis on which they have put it to the House today—Members in all parts of the House would seek to hold them to account. The Government have made clear that these are changes of process to accommodate occasions on which the House does not prorogue at the normal time, and I therefore think that the hon. Gentleman’s concerns are misplaced.
The Leader of the House initially wrote to the Procedure Committee on 8 February this year asking whether the Committee was content for the Government to develop proposals to set aside the principle of sessionality in respect of supply procedure, and to provide for the carry-over of Finance Bills from one session to the next. The Committee subsequently engaged in a detailed discussion about a number of issues relating to the proposed procedure, following which we decided that we were content with it and with the Government’s reasons for proposing it..
If the House prorogues in April or May, as the Government propose, proceedings on supply will be interrupted. At present the supply cycle begins with the provisional authorisation of expenditure in November, with legislative authorisation being given in the summer. The Votes on Account are presented in November, and the House is asked to approve 45% of Government spending to cover the period between the beginning of the next financial year in April and the passing of the Appropriation Act in the summer. The principle of sessionality meant that expenditure approved in the Votes on Account had to be appropriated before prorogation.
The problem could, of course, be overcome by means of an Appropriation Act passed in the spring, as happens before a general election, but that was not considered to be an ideal solution. It would mean that the main estimate each year would contain details of only 55% of Government expenditure, the remaining 45% having already been appropriated after the Votes on Account. A further disadvantage of that approach would be that the Votes on Account contain less detail than the main estimates, and 45% of the total of public expenditure would therefore be appropriated on the basis of less detailed spending plans. It might be considered unfortunate if, at the same time as the beginning of the alignment project, a separate change meant that the main estimate only ever included 55% of the expenditure for which parliamentary approval was needed. The Government instead propose that the resolutions on which the Appropriation Act is founded should not fall at the end of a Session but should be time-limited. The Procedure Committee, on a cross-party basis, thought this was quite a reasonable way to proceed.
With a Budget in March or April, the Finance Bill, brought in on resolutions following the Budget, will not have completed its passage before the House prorogues in April or May and will have to be carried over to the new Session. It is also necessary for the Provisional Collection of Taxes Act 1968 to be amended, because under it, the Budget resolutions cease to have effect when the House prorogues.
The Finance Bill could be introduced in the new Session rather than being carried over, but would therefore not be published until May. Although a draft Finance Bill could be published following the Budget, with the Finance Bill itself being introduced in the new Session, the Government of the day would not thereby have the flexibility to introduce some proceedings on the Bill, such as Second Reading, before the House prorogued. The Procedure Committee therefore concluded that the Government’s proposals for the carry-over of the Finance Bill would not affect the opportunities available to Members to scrutinise the Bill and vote on its provisions, and there would be no impact on the length of the Committee stage, for example.
Given that the Government wish to make the Budget statement in March, it seemed to us—again, there was cross-party agreement—that the carry-over of the Finance Bill is probably the simplest solution to the problem of the House proroguing in the spring, and one that does not interfere with Members’ ability to scrutinise the Bill.
We therefore concluded that these proposals were modest and reasonable, and I hope the House will reach the same conclusion.
Thomas Docherty (Dunfermline and West Fife) (Lab)
I am grateful to be called in this—[Interruption.]
Mr Deputy Speaker
Order. I can assure those waiting to speak that the hon. Gentleman did give notice that he would be speaking, so if we can just hold our water. I will be coming to Sir Alan next.
Thomas Docherty
Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker; I hope to keep my remarks relatively brief.
This short debate is obviously a consequence of the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011, which was recently passed, and is an example of why, rather than hastily charging through such legislation and fixing it in this piecemeal way after the event, it might have been more appropriate to work through all the consequences of that change. I hope the Deputy Leader of the House will reflect on what happens when proper pre-legislative scrutiny of such a major Act does not take place.
I have the greatest respect for the Chairman of the Procedure Committee, the right hon. Member for East Yorkshire (Mr Knight). I have the privilege of serving under his leadership—I joined the Committee in the summer—and he has been an excellent Chairman. I do not at all doubt the sincerity of his words today and his genuine conviction that due diligence has been shown on this important, if slightly technical issue, but I hope he will not mind if I show some dissent in that regard. When I asked the Clerk of our Committee on Monday whether it was possible to get copies of the transcript of the informal private hearing that the right hon. Gentleman convened in the spring, the Clerk made it clear that although I, as a member of the Committee, could see it, other Members of the House could not. With the greatest respect to the Chairman, that is an unsatisfactory basis on which to change the Standing Orders of this House. If not all Members of this House are able to read the deliberations of the august Procedure Committee, how can our colleagues simply take our word for it?
I do not object in principle to what the Government are suggesting. Like many Government initiatives, it appears on the surface to be a reasonable suggestion. However, as we have discovered repeatedly over the past 18 months.
Mr David Hamilton (Midlothian) (Lab)
Why does my hon. Friend think that the document has not been put into print, so that the rest of us can see it?
Thomas Docherty
I am always tempted to see the worst in this Government, but on this occasion I think it is probably a genuine oversight. They did not think things through and realise that, if the Procedure Committee simply had an informal session on this issue, it would not be able to share the wisdom of its thoughts. The Deputy Leader of the House shakes his head; perhaps there was some Machiavellian motive that he wishes to outline to the Committee. I was giving him the benefit of the doubt, but apparently it was a deliberate attempt not to have to reveal something.
Thomas Docherty
I can assure the Deputy Leader of the House that the Chairman of the Procedure Committee would not respond favourably to such a suggestion, such is his independence of thought. However, why have the Government made it clear to my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham East (Chris Leslie) that they do not believe it appropriate to pause slightly, so that the Committee can carry out a public, transparent and short inquiry in the new year? Perhaps the Deputy Leader of the House’s diary is so busy in the new year that he cannot do that.
The Government seem to be assuming that we will prorogue in the spring, and I look to the Treasury Bench for some clarity on that. My understanding is that all their Bills are currently jammed up in the House of Lords and there is absolutely no sign of their making any substantive progress on clearing the backlog. That is why, with the greatest of respect, we are having a series of Opposition debates and one-line Whips—because the Government have no business in the House of Commons.
Mr Knight
I remind the hon. Gentleman and ask him to reflect on the fact that not one single member of the Procedure Committee, including the Labour members, asked for any sessions on this issue to be held in public. I say to him seriously that if, having put to the House that this is a technical alteration to accommodate the Government’s wish to change when the House prorogues, the Government were to use this as a lever or mechanism to reduce the House’s scrutiny of its business, there would be one hell of a row which many Government Members as well as Opposition Members would join, saying that the Government had misled the House and would have to retract what they were doing. The hon. Gentleman’s fears do not therefore amount to very much, because the Committee has proceeded with this measure on the basis on which it was introduced to the House today: that it is a technical change. If it became something else, there would be one hell of a—
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. Come on—this is a speech! You have already made one; we do not need a second speech, Mr Knight, do we?
Thomas Docherty
I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his comments. I have to tell him that the consequences of having an informal hearing were not in my view explained, and the Liaison Committee might wish to look at this issue in future.
I am conscious that the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith) wants to speak, so I will sit down.
Sir Alan Beith (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (LD)
I am slightly surprised at the sudden growth of opposition to this motion among Labour Members. I wonder whether there is any other aspect of today’s timetabling, or other matters, that may have entered into consideration, but I could be wrong about that.
I want to welcome the action the Government are taking, but before doing so let me say that the hon. Member for Nottingham East (Chris Leslie) made what is in principle an important point: sessional discipline is significant in the way in which the House operates. It brings pressure to bear in circumstances where, otherwise, Government majorities tend to prevail; it causes them to stop and think as a degree of blockage occurs in the Lords at that stage of a Session.
We are talking about Bills—Finance Bills—founded on a Ways and Means resolution for a limited, specific and entirely explainable purpose related to the whole financial timetable of both the House and the Government. I was bemused by the idea of what state a Government trying to carry over a Finance Bill through three Sessions could possibly be in, other than the one envisaged by some Opposition Members in dealing with our current financial circumstances. This is not the debate to go into that, however.
I will deal first with the increase from three to five in the number of estimates days for this Session, which is a long Session. That is welcome, but I must put on the record the Liaison Committee’s request that there be five estimates days in normal Sessions, and our desire that that request be properly considered when we resume Sessions of the normal duration. There has been some Government resistance to that request—wait until we have at least seen more of the impact of the Backbench Business Committee. We have already seen the beneficial impact of that Committee, though, and I see no conflict there at all. Indeed, the Liaison Committee and the Backbench Business Committee are developing good ways of working together to ensure we maximise use of House time as Members want it to be used.
Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)
Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Sir Alan Beith
I have a choice. I will give way first to the hon. Member for North Wiltshire (Mr Gray), then to his hon. Friend.
Sir Alan Beith
I am an avid and long-standing supporter of the principle of a House business committee. I think you would rule me out of order, Mr Deputy Speaker, were I to stray too far into that subject, but let me say that that is indeed a matter that could be so resolved were that committee in existence. For the moment, however, we must look to the Leader of the House to do such things for us.
Mr Syms
It has always seemed strange to me that on estimates days we have before us vast tomes showing where the Government have switched money from one Department or one heading to another, but we tend to debate leisure centres or swimming or something else—nothing to do with money. If this House is serious about money, surely we ought to look at the estimates rather than debate some odd other subject?
Sir Alan Beith
Absolutely so, and I have been advocating that for some time.
That brings me to my next point, which is about ensuring that Select Committees, which are the proper place to look at some of the substance of the estimates decisions and the movements of money from one thing to another, have appropriate time to consider such matters—as much time as possible, so that they can conduct meaningful scrutiny. Our discussions with the Treasury and the Leader of the House about that are reflected in the motions, but we will watch carefully to make sure that Select Committees are not expected within ridiculous periods—a few days—to produce considered views on the serious substance of estimates.
To sum up, the two major points that the Liaison Committee will certainly be considering and that we want the Government to consider are that due regard is given to the Committee’s previous recommendation of five estimates days per Session, and that Select Committees have time to consider estimates properly and so assist the House in doing what many right hon. and hon. Members have long felt should be done when we deal with estimates.
Mr Heath
With the leave of the House, Mr Deputy Speaker, I shall respond to the debate. I am most grateful to the right hon. and hon. Members who have contributed to this brief debate. I am particularly grateful to my right hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith) for his comments. He is right to say that there are wider questions and more far-reaching changes to the way the House scrutinises spending plans which we need to discuss at some point, but I think that those wider reforms would be best debated in the context of proposals from the Liaison Committee, rather than from Government. It may well be that there are better ways of organising our business. The hon. Member for North Wiltshire (Mr Gray), who is not in his place—
Mr Heath
I beg the hon. Gentleman’s pardon; he is not sitting where I expected to find him. He made an important point about the advent in due course of a House business committee. We are looking at that, as we said we would, but even under existing arrangements it is open to any Select Committee, through the Backbench Business Committee, to seek time on the Floor of the House to debate a motion relating to departmental spending plans. The great advantage of that method is that the time constraints and procedural limitations arising from estimates procedure are absent.
The hon. Member for Poole (Mr Syms) asked why, during estimates day debates, we talk about Select Committee reports on matters that are either at some distance from or fairly peripheral to the essential element, which is scrutiny of Government accounts. Although that is a good question, it is one for another day, as it does not fall within the narrow confines of the motion.
I am grateful to the Chair of the Procedure Committee, the right hon. Member for East Yorkshire (Mr Knight), for his assistance. The idea that this is somehow a rushed process, when we put the proposals before that Committee for its consideration back in February and it is now, let me remind the House, December, or that we did not think of these things in advance, when we passed the proposals for consideration before the announcement of the change to the sessional timetable, is something of a nonsense. These are matters on which we needed the advice of the House; we have received that advice through the Procedure Committee, and that is why the motion has been brought before the House.
Mr Heath
I of course have no idea what goes on in the usual channels, but I hope that the hon. Gentleman agrees with me that it is far more important that a Select Committee of this House has had the opportunity to comment on proposals that affect the scrutiny of Government business by the House. Not only was the Procedure Committee consulted, but it agreed unanimously that the change would assist scrutiny by the House and would in no way diminish the opportunities for Members to have their say on Government business.
Chris Leslie
We have indeed heard that the Procedure Committee looked at the proposals, but it did so in private, informal session and there was no sharing of many of the proposals with other hon. Members until the business appeared on the Order Paper a few days ago, I think. Will the Deputy Leader of the House confirm the day on which it appeared? I saw it only recently and no one approached me to discuss it. To dismiss as nonsense the concern we have expressed about haste is a little overblown.
Mr Heath
I think the hon. Gentleman is making a valiant effort to bring some substance to his objections to the proposals, but he is not succeeding. At various times he accused me of being nonchalant. I hope that I am not nonchalant. Simply that something is technical does not imply nonchalance. Flying a jet liner is a technical business, but one should certainly not be nonchalant about doing so. As I said, we have thought through the consequences.
The hon. Gentleman said that we are massively increasing carry-over, but we are not. We are specifically and precisely dealing with the consequences for Finance Bills of the change to sessional periods. He said—at least, I think I heard him say—that having longer to scrutinise a Finance Bill made it more difficult to scrutinise it effectively. I am not sure that that is always the position of Her Majesty’s Opposition.
To deal specifically with his questions, the hon. Gentleman asked why should not the Finance Bill start in the new Session. The answer is: for the very obvious reason that if it did, the time available to the House to debate and scrutinise the Bill would be reduced. That cannot be right. He asked whether paragraphs (3) and (4) of Standing Order No. 80A apply to Finance Bills. Had he read the explanatory memorandum, he would have seen stated therein that those paragraphs will apply to Finance Bills.
The hon. Gentleman asked whether the provisions of paragraphs (12) to (14) of Standing Order No. 80A apply. Yes, the Standing Order will prevent a Finance Bill from being carried over more than once, as is stated in the explanatory memorandum. However, I have to say that if we had a Government whose Finance Bill was carried over between three Sessions, they would no longer be a Government, because they would not be a functioning Government. They would be a dead Government if they were unable to get their Finance Bill through in three Sessions of Parliament. I think we can safely assume that those circumstances will not apply.
On supply, the hon. Gentleman asked why the cut-off of 5 August under Standing Order No. 54 is being removed without being replaced. The timetable requirements for estimates procedures do continue and are set out in Standing Order No. 55. He asked why the first cut-off for supply is changing from a date in February to a date in March. That change does not affect the spring deadline. The February date was the cut-off for the winter supplementary estimates, which will no longer be published.
Despite the hon. Gentleman’s valiant efforts to try to find a cause on which he could unite his party against these very modest and sensible proposals, he has failed to establish any case for doing so. I commend the orders to the House and I hope that the House will be able to agree them without opposition.
Question put.
The House proceeded to a Division.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
I ask the Serjeant at Arms to investigate the delay in the Aye Lobby.
Opposition Day
Unemployment
(13 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
17:35 - The House divided: - Ayes: 233 / Noes: 307 - Question accordingly negatived.
Mr Liam Byrne (Birmingham, Hodge Hill) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That this House believes that the Government’s policies of cutting spending and raising taxes too far and too fast have resulted in the UK economy flat-lining for 12 months, well before the recent eurozone crisis; notes that unemployment has reached a 17-year high and over-50s unemployment has risen sharply; further notes that slower growth and higher unemployment makes it harder to get the deficit down and that the Office for Budget Responsibility forecasts a further rise in unemployment to 8.7 per cent., a rise in the benefits bill of £29 billion, and an increase in projected borrowing of £158 billion; agrees with the IMF’s warning that ‘consolidating too quickly will hurt the recovery and worsen job prospects’ and that the Government should ‘have a heightened readiness to respond, particularly if it looks like the economy is headed for a prolonged period of weak growth and high unemployment’; and, in light of the Office for Budget Responsibility forecasts published on 29 November 2011, calls on the Government to reconsider its refusal to adopt the Opposition’s five point plan for jobs which includes creating 100,000 jobs for young people and building 25,000 affordable homes using funds raised from a tax on bank bonuses, bringing forward long-term investment projects, temporarily reversing the January 2011 VAT rise, a one-year cut in VAT to 5 per cent. on home improvements, and a one-year national insurance tax break for every small firm which takes on extra workers.
It is a shame that the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions has chosen not to be present for the third Opposition day debate on unemployment and living standards. We rely, I hope, on the Minister for unemployment to relay back the nature of today’s debate and discussion.
The House meets to debate the motion after more grim news on jobs this morning. Grim news on jobs this month has followed grim news on the Budget last month. Once again we have seen this morning how the Chancellor’s decision to clobber the recovery is clobbering families all over our country. Once again we have heard of families losing their jobs because of this Government’s decision to cut too far and too fast, and once again we see the consequences of this Government’s decision to stand easy while millions of people in our country are now standing idle.
Not even the Minister for unemployment could spin his way through the statistics published this morning—unemployment up by 128,000, employment down, vacancies down and the public sector now losing jobs 13 times faster than the private sector is creating them. We do not have to look very far for the root cause of this unalloyed misery for families 11 days before Christmas. The Chancellor laid it out for us just a fortnight ago. Last year he was boasting about delivering cuts that were £40 billion greater than the cuts planned by Labour. Last year he was boasting about how Britain had suddenly become a safe haven. Last year he was so pleased with himself that he said this country was out of the danger zone. How hollow those words ring today.
The autumn statement laid bare the catastrophic failure of the Chancellor’s policy—growth flat lining for a year, borrowing up £37 billion higher than the plan drawn up by my right hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh South West (Mr Darling), welfare up by £29 billion, and debt up an extraordinary £158 billion higher than forecast, which is £6,500 more for every house in this country. Borrowing, welfare bills and national debt are all higher, but growth is nowhere to be seen.
David T. C. Davies (Monmouth) (Con)
The right hon. Gentleman appears to be criticising the Government for borrowing more money. How much more money would he have borrowed, had he been in government?
Mr Byrne
If the hon. Gentleman had been listening carefully, he would have heard me answer that question. The plan that my right hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh South West and I set out entailed borrowing that was £37 billion lower than that outlined by the Chancellor in his autumn statement a couple of weeks ago. That is of grave concern to the number of people who are now out of work, especially young people in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency, where long-term youth unemployment has gone up by 128% this year, which must surely concern him.
The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Chris Grayling)
Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr Byrne
I will in a moment.
Amid these difficulties, people in this country expect the Minister for work to do something about it, and I think that I speak for many Members of the House when I say that most right-thinking people in this country believe that the Government should be doing more to get people back to work.
During Work and Pensions questions a month ago I pressed the Secretary of State to tell us what exactly he is doing to get Britain back to work. A vast constellation of initiatives was set out, including work clubs, work experience, apprenticeship offers, sector-based work academies, the innovation fund, the European social fund, the skills offer, the access to apprenticeships programme, Work Together, the Work programme, Work Choice and mandatory work activity. Listening to that list, I became slightly puzzled. With such sweat being worked up at the Department for unemployment, surely we could expect the country’s unemployed to be positively flowing back into jobs. Members can imagine my surprise when I saw the Office for Budget Responsibility’s forecast that, amid that blizzard of initiatives, unemployment is forecast to go up. How can that be?
We asked the Secretary of State to tell us just how many jobs have been created by this glorious expenditure of energy at his Department. This is what we were told in a written answer in Hansard. On Work Choice, no statistics will be available until spring 2012. On mandatory work activity, no statistics will be available until February 2012. On work clubs,
“the data requested are… not available.”
On work experience, a link was provided to a website that says nothing about jobs actually created. On apprenticeship offers, we were told:
“Information on the number of people placed in work through apprenticeship offers… is not available.”
On sector-based work academies, we were told that
“there is no national requirement for districts to record and report job outcomes achieved.”
On the skills offer, “information… is not available.” On Work Together,
“the data requested are not available.”
On the innovation fund,
“no young people have been placed into work at this point.”—[Official Report, 21 November 2011; Vol. 536, c. 122W.]
Here we are, with unemployment going through the roof and the OBR telling us that unemployment is forecast to rise again next year, but despite the multiplicity of schemes laid out by the Secretary of State, who cannot be bothered even to come along to the debate, he cannot tell us how many people are going into work as a result of the spending his Department has in place, with the exception of one programme. The one initiative—it is buried in his answer in Hansard—run by his Department that he can claim is actually creating jobs is the programme financed by the European Union. He said:
“European Social Fund support has achieved 75,671 job outcomes from July 2008 to October 2011.”—[Official Report, 21 November 2011; Vol. 536, c. 122W.]
No doubt that is why he is urging his right hon. Friend the Prime Minister to get the hell out of the EU.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
Are not leadership, boldness and imagination missing from that catalogue? With 1 million young people unemployed, surely we need something that captures the imagination—for instance, by using young unemployed graduates to train other people in the community and in the environment. We need imagination now.
Mr Byrne
My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and he has been a long-standing champion of the need to get young people into work and, crucially, equip them with the skills to succeed in the workplace, but I am afraid that we have a deficit of that from the Government. It is an embarrassment for the Minister that he is unable to tell the House how many people his schemes are getting into work. The Secretary of State appears to have so much confidence in the schemes that he cannot be bothered to turn up this afternoon. However, I want to make a more substantive point about the Minister’s flagship scheme.
Mr Byrne
I will in a moment, but first I want to make one point about the Work programme.
The Work programme is a new scheme that builds on the flexible new deal. We have said that if it works and delivers value for money we will keep it in place, but the Minister must accept that worries about the programme are growing. [Interruption.] I am delighted that the Secretary of State has been able to join us to hear this important point. The Minister for unemployment has repeatedly told the House that he cannot produce statistics on how well the Work programme is doing, and I completely understand his caution. I think that he is the only Minister who has been formally warned by the chairman of the UK Statistics Authority, who last year said that the Minister’s use of figures was
“likely to damage public trust in official statistics”.
No doubt he has repented for that sin and is seeking redemption, and I understand that he apologised and is certain not to repeat the offence. If the Work programme was working, surely the Department’s statistics would show that more and more people were flowing off benefits and into work. That is a simple test we can apply, but the problem is that the figures do not show that.
Ms Gisela Stuart (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab)
On that basis, how does my right hon. Friend, as a fellow Birmingham MP, react to the fact that in the past year, between November 2010 and November 2011, the number of young people in Birmingham claiming jobseeker’s allowance increased by 19%, which is the worst figure for all core cities in the country?
Mr Byrne
That is an extremely serious problem for Birmingham, and my hon. Friend is absolutely right to draw the House’s attention to it, but there is a more widespread problem if the rate of people flowing off benefits into work is not rising. Research by the House of Commons Library for my office, which we are publishing this afternoon, shows that fewer people are flowing from benefits into work than at any point since 1998. That fall coincides with the Government’s decision last year to cancel the flexible new deal and the future jobs fund. Since January, when the future jobs fund ended, the percentage of people flowing off benefits and into work has fallen by a fifth. Between May and August last year, when the new scheme was being worked up, 86,000 fewer people came off benefits and into work than the year before. Surely Government Members would accept that that is simply not good enough.
Oliver Heald (North East Hertfordshire) (Con)
Does the right hon. Gentleman not accept that the future jobs fund was not about providing long-term jobs, but about short-term work placements of six months in the public sector? What is the point of that? If he wants to talk about solid outcomes for the future, he should not be talking about the future jobs fund, because within weeks the people involved were out of work again.
Mr Byrne
Let me say as diplomatically as I can to the hon. Gentleman that since the future jobs fund closed long-term youth unemployment in his constituency has gone up by 43%. He must accept that the future jobs fund was helping to keep young people in work. We know, as Ministers accept, that keeping young people close to the labour market, close to jobs and close to the habits of work is a good thing.
Oliver Heald
We all agree that keeping young people close to the labour market is important, and the advantage of what the Government are proposing is that it is in the private sector, where the jobs will come, where those opportunities are being given. Does the right hon. Gentleman not accept that in all the years when Labour was in government the number of people not in education, employment or training stood at a very high level and barely moved, despite all the growth?
Mr Byrne
Let me repeat that when Labour was elected in 1997, youth unemployment was about 14%. It came down to about 12% before the recession and then, yes, of course it went up during the recession, as all unemployment did. But rather than sit there doing nothing, as this Government have over the past year and a half, we chose to act. That is why youth unemployment was coming down before the election and why, since this Government were elected, it has gone up to record highs and has done so again this morning. That is surely not a record of which the hon. Gentleman can be proud.
Mrs Main
If the right hon. Gentleman wishes young people to be near the labour market, does he regret presiding over the lowest number of social housing units ever developed under a prosperous Government? That means that young people cannot have social housing at an affordable level and are therefore unable to access jobs in areas where there are high house values.
John Cryer (Leyton and Wanstead) (Lab)
Will my right hon. Friend confirm that 65,000 jobs have been lost in the construction sector alone, and that that is because of the slump in building across the board?
Mr Byrne
That is absolutely right. The construction sector has taken an absolute hammering since this Government took office, not least because of their foolhardy decision to get rid of infrastructure projects and building projects such as Building Schools for the Future that would have equipped many of our young people with the facilities needed to deliver a world-class education in the years to come.
Chris Grayling
Will the shadow Minister be extremely careful about the information that he lays before the House? Last month, in our previous debate on this subject, I told him that Department for Work and Pensions statisticians had made a comparison between youth unemployment lasting for more than six months as of now and two years ago, and that on a like-for-like measure there has been virtually no change. He keeps insisting that there has been a substantial increase, but the civil service statisticians say that that is not correct. Will he please stop making that assertion to this House?
Mr Byrne
I know that, like me, hon. Members will have read last year’s letter to the right hon. Gentleman from Sir Michael Scholar. The letter was very assertive about the way the right hon. Gentleman had used statistics before. I am happy to lay the letter before the House for those who have not seen it. I am also happy to show the Minister figures produced by the House of Commons Library, which show that since January long-term youth unemployment has risen by over 90%. That is a badge of shame for this Government, and the Minister should be doing more to get our young people back to work.
Susan Elan Jones (Clwyd South) (Lab)
Does my right hon. Friend share my view that the Government seem to be stuck in an ideological Tardis in their view of the public-private divide in the economy? A case in point is what they have done to the solar panel industry. We have seen massive job losses in the private sector because of a loss of private and public sector contracts. It is amazing that the Government cannot seem to get hold of this concept.
Mr Byrne
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We were promised that this was going to be the greenest Government ever, but a wide group of green and conservation organisations now say that the Government are comprehensively failing to meet that commitment. We all know that one of the key growth sectors for the future has to be low-carbon industries. The Government should therefore be doing more to get people into work in these sectors, not least by providing some regulatory certainty about the future.
Let me finish my point about the collapse in the rate of people flowing off benefits and into work. There is a very basic test. The Minister’s plan is not working unless it is getting more people off benefits and into work, unless the unemployment bill is coming down, and unless it is really making a difference—and right now, he is failing on every single count.
Steve Rotheram (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that the 227 additional people who have joined the dole queue in Liverpool, Walton may be seen by the Conservatives as just collateral damage from their failed economic policy, but for each of those individuals, although they are a statistic to the Government, theirs is a personal tragedy? Does he agree that they are still the same old Tories who believe that unemployment is a price worth paying?
Mr Byrne
Many will draw exactly that conclusion, not least because when they see a Secretary of State who is unable to come to this House and set out how many jobs his various initiatives are creating, they must conclude that he simply cannot be bothered to find out.
I want to spell out how two particular groups are being pretty badly hit by this Government’s policies. The human cost of the Government’s failure to get people back to work, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Steve Rotheram) alluded, will be on everybody’s minds this afternoon. When families get together this Christmas, there will be plenty of anxious talk about the year ahead. This House has debated many times before the dangers of creating a lost generation, and today that news got even worse. Youth unemployment is up by 54,000. As my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition said earlier today, long-term youth unemployment is up this year by 93%. Two hundred and seventy of us now represent constituencies where long-term youth unemployment has risen by over 100%. That is simply not good enough.
Jim Sheridan (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (Lab)
As someone who spent three years unemployed due to the activities of the Economic League, I well understand the indignity that unemployment brings. One of the things that kept me sane during that period was the ability to go along to the jobcentre and speak to people who could help me to get back into work. This Government are now closing the jobcentres.
Mr Byrne
The Minister says that this is nonsense. I am afraid that he will be giving the House the illusion that he is not taking the figures that we saw this morning seriously enough. He went on the media this morning and said that today’s figures, which show youth unemployment rising to the highest level this country has ever seen, represented a stabilisation in the labour market. When youth unemployment is going up, overall unemployment is going up, and women’s unemployment is going up, that is not stabilisation—it is a tragedy for the people those figures represent, and he should be doing more to get them back into work.
Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that it was a massive strategic error for the Government to announce over a year ago that they were going to get rid of half a million public sector jobs? Public servants spent less because they thought they were going to lose their jobs. Together with two years of a 1% pay freeze, which will reduce real incomes by 17%, and the attempt to dress up a 3% change in income tax as a pension contribution, that has massively deflated the amount of consumption in the economy and given rise to flat lining growth.
Mr Byrne
My hon. Friend makes an extremely good point. The recovery has been clobbered, and as a result the welfare bill is now going through the roof. That is a bill that the rest of us are going to have to pay.
We now have, since we last met, a youth contract on the table. That is a recognition that it was a mistake to get rid of the future jobs fund and to leave instead, for two years, no active programme for getting young people back into work. That was a grave error. The shame is that this contract was paid for by a botched deal between the Deputy Prime Minister and the Chancellor; I do not think that the Secretary of State was even in the room. He should remember that if you are not in the room, it is quite hard to influence the decision. What emerged from the quartet, as I think it is quaintly called, was a shabby settlement that took money off hard-pressed parents with children to pay for this Government’s failure to get young people back to work. In the past, the Secretary of State has talked a lot about the marriage penalty, and there are sympathisers with his argument on both sides of the House. However, he too must now recognise that he is presiding over the biggest parents’ penalty that we have ever seen introduced into the benefits system, with twice the amount of money being taken off children and families than will be taken off the bankers over the course of this Parliament. Surely Government Members cannot be proud of that.
I want to ask a couple of questions about the youth contract to which I hope the Minister will be able to respond. First, will he admit that 53,000 work subsidies this coming year is far too few for the task that we have in hand? That equates to only one opportunity for every 20 young people now unemployed. Secondly, in 2009—this is perhaps of interest to the hon. Member for North East Hertfordshire (Oliver Heald)—Labour introduced a form of work subsidy, but the take-up was not great and the Conservative party attacked it remorselessly. What has accounted for the sudden change of heart over work subsidies? Thirdly, and perhaps most importantly given the Minister’s concern about statistics, when will we find out how many people the youth contract is getting back into work? Will it be Work programme providers who operate the schemes? If so, why do so many of them appear to be completely in the dark about the scheme and its introduction? If the contract proves not to work in short order, will the Government consider reintroducing Labour’s future jobs fund, which was such a success?
Ann McKechin (Glasgow North) (Lab)
I share my right hon. Friend’s concern about the fact that we still have no details regarding the youth contract. I asked the Minister last week how much of the programme would be spent in Scotland and he could provide me with no information whatever. No one in Scotland, including Work programme providers, private employers and those in the public sector, has any idea what they have to plan with or to work with. That is simply hopeless when so many people are out of work.
Mr Byrne
That was indeed a very disappointing answer to my hon. Friend, particularly considering today’s rise in unemployment in Scotland.
I want to highlight one other group of workers who have been particularly badly hit. The over-50s are now losing jobs at a faster pace. The number of people in that group in Britain who have been unemployed for more than a year has risen by about 25% this year. Such workers often fear that they will not get back into work again and that they will be thrown on to some kind of silver scrap heap. The picture of the country that emerged this morning is terrible: long-term unemployment among the over-50s is up by 21% and in seven regions—Wales, the north-east, the east midlands, London, the north-west, the south-west and the west midlands—it is even higher. More than 50 Members of this House now represent constituencies where the rise in long-term unemployment among the over-50s is more than 50%. That is surely unacceptable and it surely demands a response from the Government.
Mr David Winnick (Walsall North) (Lab)
Will my right hon. Friend bear it in mind that that situation is very much like what happened in the 1980s? People in their late 40s, let alone those in their 50s, were made redundant when there were two major recessions. Many of them were never to work again. That is the humiliation that was heaped on our fellow citizens. Although the Government and Tory Members do not seem to be much concerned—only five Tory MPs are present, leaving aside the Parliamentary Private Secretary—the tragedy is that there is now a repeat of what occurred at that time.
Mr Byrne
My hon. Friend is right to remind us of what happened in the 1980s. Of course, that was the decade when the number of those left to languish on incapacity benefit went through the roof.
Our motion calls on the Government to change course. We call on the Government to learn from today’s figures, to remember our young people, and to listen to the worries of the over-50s. We want them to change course and give us a real plan for getting people back to work and for creating growth. We think that there is another way and that the Government need to listen, and fast.
This is perhaps the last debate that I will lead for the Opposition this year. I want to conclude by looking ahead to an important anniversary next year—the 70th anniversary of the Beveridge report. I think that it is appropriate to mark the achievement of that very different kind of alliance; an alliance that genuinely acted in the national interest. The report was commissioned by a Labour Minister, written by a Liberal and welcomed by a nation. The Beveridge report provided the foundation for the welfare state created by the Attlee Administration. It was a welfare state that freed people from fear and it was created on the proceeds of full employment. I believe that the goal of full employment should once again be our aim. I hope that next year we can celebrate the achievement of that progressive alliance by rededicating ourselves to the idea that politics can make a difference, that politics can author the policies that get this country back to work once again, and that politics once again can offer this country freedom from fear.
I commend the motion to the House.
The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Chris Grayling)
I rise to take part in episode two of the debate that we began a month ago.
Let me start by saying, once again, that this Government regard unemployment among people of all ages as bad, although youth unemployment is a particular concern. All unemployment is bad and it will remain a priority for this Government to deal with the issue, to help those who are unemployed back into work, and to create an environment in which businesses are able to grow, develop and create jobs. We will do everything that we can to tackle this genuine blight, which causes concern for Members on both sides of this House. It is a problem that we must tackle.
I must also say, however, that I have seldom in this House heard such a load of complete nonsense as I have just heard from the shadow Secretary of State. He used statistics that bear no relation to the truth and he made an argument based on achievements of the previous Government that bear no relation to reality. We need to remember that it was the Labour Government who brought us youth unemployment of nearly 1 million, unemployment of 2.5 million, a deep recession, the biggest peacetime financial deficit in our history, and a Chief Secretary to the Treasury who was best known not for his taste in cappuccino or the memos that he sent to his staff, but for the note that he left behind, saying that “there’s no money left”.
Mr Byrne
The whole House is enjoying the Minister’s frivolity with such a serious issue. Will he just remind us how much extra the Chancellor proposes to borrow over and above the plans that he set out before the House last year? Is it a figure not unadjacent to £158 billion more than he forecast?
Chris Grayling
Had we followed the economic strategy of the right hon. Gentleman when he was at the Treasury and of his former boss, the former Prime Minister, not only would we be in the same kind of financial predicament today that some of our European partners are in, but we would have unemployment that is much higher today than it is.
Sheila Gilmore (Edinburgh East) (Lab)
The report issued by the Office for Budget Responsibility at the time of the autumn statement made it clear that the boom was greater and the recession sharper and deeper than had previously been thought. It also stated that the recovery in 2009 was stronger than had previously been thought, and that it was brought to an abrupt halt in the second half of 2010. Perhaps the Minister would like to reflect on what happened in 2010 to change things.
Chris Grayling
What the hon. Lady has missed is that the OBR said at the time of the autumn statement that the structural deficit—not the cyclical deficit—that we inherited from the previous Government was much worse than it had previously believed. That means that the economic legacy that we inherited was much worse than we had previously believed. It is therefore a much bigger task to overcome that and to get the economy growing again, to get jobs being created again and to get Britain moving.
Mr Sheerman
I know that the Minister cares about this issue and that we are going to have point scoring. However, a million young people and their many millions of parents and friends are waiting for something to happen. Point scoring will not help them. The shadow Secretary of State finished by remembering the 70th anniversary of the Beveridge report. He was offering an olive branch. In that spirit, why can the Government not say, “Let’s all get around a table and find something together that helps the young unemployed people in this country.”?
Chris Grayling
The hon. Gentleman will learn, if he listens to my speech, that we are already doing things. We have delivered a package of support that will make a significant difference to the lives of the unemployed.
We keep hearing about a mythical two-year gap in provision. I remind the Opposition that the programmes that we inherited from them finished only three months ago. Today’s unemployment figures cover part of the period when the previous Government’s programmes were continuing.
Let me take up the points that the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Mr Byrne) made about this morning’s unemployment figures. He questioned why I had said this morning that the labour market had showed some signs of stabilisation. Let me explain why. It is because over the past month, employment has risen by 38,000 and unemployment has risen by 16,000, a number that is considerably exceeded by the change in activity levels. The youth unemployment figure, excluding full-time students, has remained static, and the jobseeker’s allowance claimant count has risen by 3,000, whereas the total number of people who have moved off incapacity benefit and income support as a result of our welfare reforms is 10,000. Those are one month’s figures and certainly do not reflect a long-term change, but they are at least a sign of some stabilisation in the labour market. I think he would and should welcome that.
Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)
I want to return to the Minister’s point about the previous programmes having only just come to a conclusion. He surely accepts that they were running down. If someone started on a future jobs fund programme at the very end of its life, that individual would inevitably be in work for a further six months. However, that does not mean that there was not a substantial gap between the announcement of the closure of some programmes and the Government finally getting around to opening up a new programme, the youth contract, which we understand will not actually come into effect until next April.
Chris Grayling
That is simply not correct. We managed a transition strategy that kept existing programmes going until the first part of this autumn, precisely to ensure that there was not a gap in provision between what we inherited and what we were putting in place.
Oliver Heald
Does my right hon. Friend share my consternation that Opposition Front Benchers are saying that they would reintroduce the future jobs fund, given that it was an entirely public sector operation providing work placements but no permanent jobs for the future? Surely it is much better to go with the private sector option, as the Government are talking about. That is a way of providing jobs for the future.
Chris Grayling
I absolutely agree, and that is central to what we are trying to achieve. The measures that we are putting in place, which I will set out for the House in a moment, are designed to ensure that we help young people, indeed people of all ages, to move into roles in the private sector, where there is a long-term, sustained opportunity for them to build careers.
Ian Austin (Dudley North) (Lab)
Is it or is it not the case that Jaguar-Land Rover in the west midlands provided placements for young people through the future jobs fund?
Chris Grayling
The hon. Gentleman will know that in order for a private sector organisation to participate in the future jobs fund, it had to set up a special purpose vehicle to work around European Union state aid rules. The result was that virtually all placements under the future jobs fund were in the public and community sector. In putting in place additional programmes, providing apprenticeships and providing a subsidy through the youth contract, we are focusing support on roles in the private sector.
Ms Gisela Stuart
I will focus not on the over-50s, because I would have to declare an interest, but on 18 to 24-year-olds. In Birmingham, 15,600 of them are claiming jobseeker’s allowance. If the Minister is so focused on private sector job creation, will he give me one example of how he is encouraging the private sector in Birmingham to get jobs for that lost generation, rather than providing a programme of aid?
Chris Grayling
I will set out in a moment how our work experience scheme, for example, is succeeding in helping young people to move into work in the private sector.
Mr Robert Syms (Poole) (Con)
Youth unemployment started rising in 2004 and peaked at nearly 1 million in 2009. Will my right hon. Friend set out the facts about that in an honest and straightforward manner? The problems did not start in 2010.
Chris Grayling
My hon. Friend makes an important point. From listening to the Opposition, one would believe that the problem had simply emerged in the past few months. One would not believe that unemployment among young people was almost 1 million when Labour left office. Indeed, the total number of young people not in education or employment passed 1 million during the last recession, but we do not hear about that from Labour.
Mr Byrne
The Minister can try to evade the truth as much as he likes, but he cannot duck the basic fact that youth unemployment was about 14% when Labour took office. Before the recession it came down to 12%. It did go up during the recession, but it was coming down before the election. Since the election, it has gone through the roof to a record high. He simply cannot duck that truth. Why does he not get on and do something about it?
Chris Grayling
I will explain what we are planning to do, but we should remember that youth unemployment was at almost 950,000 when Labour left office, which was higher than when it took office. We are not going take lessons from Labour and its record on youth unemployment.
I wish to set out the approach that we have put in place to try to support the unemployed.
Chris Grayling
No, I am going to make some progress now.
The first priority has to be to help get business moving and growing again. That involves having a stable financial environment in which businesses are confident that this country is not going to find itself in the economic predicament that some other nations are facing. We therefore remain determined to address the deficit challenge, bring our public finances under control and send a message to the world that Britain understands the challenges that we face and is trying to do something about them. That is why we saw such a good response in the bond markets this morning to this country’s attempts to sell its bonds, and why other countries are facing difficulties. I believe that if we had not taken those measures, businesses would not be investing in this country or considering employing people here. I believe that unemployment would be higher than it is today.
We also have to take measures that, within the confines of the financial constraints upon us, do everything possible to encourage and support business. That is why my right hon. Friend the Chancellor set out in his autumn statement two weeks ago a variety of measures designed to do just that. They include investment in infrastructure; an expansion of the regional growth fund; increased capital allowances in enterprise zones; and measures to underpin bank lending to small businesses, so that they can access the finance that they need to grow. Those are essential parts of ensuring that in exceptionally difficult times, businesses at least have the best foundations that we can possibly give them to enable them to grow.
Chris Grayling
The right hon. Gentleman and other Members can read the OBR forecasts, which state that at the end of a difficult economic period unemployment will start to fall again. I remind him that we are dealing with international circumstances that the Governor of the Bank of England described as being among the most difficult in modern times, if not the most difficult.
Of course, alongside the measures that we need to take to support and encourage business growth, we need high-quality support for the unemployed to ensure that we can get them back into work as quickly as possible.
Fiona O'Donnell (East Lothian) (Lab)
The Minister has been on his feet for what feels quite a long time, and he has attacked the public sector and talked about how he will support the private sector but not once mentioned the third sector. That shows the Government’s real attitude to that sector’s role in supporting people into employment, which was what made the future jobs fund work.
Chris Grayling
If the hon. Lady will allow me, I will finish explaining what we are doing. Last night, we published figures showing that 20% of referrals taking place through the Work programme are being handled by the voluntary sector, so it is playing an extremely important part in our work. It is also helping us to deliver a number of other programmes, and it is an integral part of supporting both the short and long-term unemployed.
There are a number of elements to the package that we have put in place. The first is support for the shorter-term unemployed, with a particular focus on the young, through our work experience programme and sector-based work academies. The right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill would know, had he read the figures that we published, that the first statistics, for the period up until August, showed that more than 50% of the young people going through our work experience programme moved off benefits quickly afterwards. Indeed, we know that many of those young people are staying in employment with the employers who gave them their work experience place. The scheme is a great success, and we are doubling its size as part of the youth contract.
I should like to put it on record that I am very grateful to all the employers up and down the country, large and small, that are offering young people work experience and helping to break the vicious circle whereby people cannot get a job unless they have experience, but they cannot get experience unless they have a job. The scheme is cost-effective, costing one twentieth of what was spent on the future jobs fund for a broadly similar outcome. It is a great initiative, and I pay tribute to all the Jobcentre Plus staff who are working on it.
Mr Byrne
I am grateful to the Minister, who is characteristically generous in giving way. I assume that he refers to the statistics that were published on the Department’s website about work experience, which showed that between January and August 2011, 16,360 claimants started a “get Britain working” work experience placement. That is in the written answer that he gave me. Of those 16,000, how many have got jobs?
Chris Grayling
We know that just over 50% of those people were off benefits within a total of 12 weeks from day one of their placement. It is an eight-week placement, so the answer is, in effect, within a month of the end of the work experience period. That is the first set of figures. The right hon. Gentleman said, “No more figures till February”, and he is right. He cannot berate me for misuse of national statistics—he and I can argue about that offline sometime—and at the same time demand that I misuse them to give him more evidence now. We will publish the figures for the programme at the appropriate moment, but I am confident that they will continue to show the real difference that it is making to young people.
Brandon Lewis (Great Yarmouth) (Con)
Does the Minister agree that the best thing is the Government’s bringing everything together to ensure not just that private sector businesses grow to employ people, but that we put good, solid training, work experience and apprenticeships in place so that people can not only get into work but have sustainable long-term employment, unlike through some of the fad projects of the past?
Chris Grayling
I agree. The second part of the support that we are providing to young people—and, indeed, to older workers, for whom apprenticeships are also available—is a substantial increase in the number of apprenticeships. More than 100,000 new apprenticeships have been announced since the general election—the total across the Parliament will take apprenticeship provision far beyond where it has been previously. We believe that an apprenticeship that combines training and a real job for many young people is a better vehicle for delivering a long-term career option for them than simply putting them into a temporary six-month work experience placement at significant cost to the taxpayer, as we experienced with the future jobs fund. I accept that we do not agree on that: Labour Members believe that their approach was better. However, we believe that sustained employment in the private sector with an apprenticeship for a substantial proportion of young people is the best option. I am delighted that my hon. Friend the Minister for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning, who is responsible for that, has put in so much effort and won so many extra resources for apprenticeships.
Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)
I heard what the Minister said about the programmes that he has put in place, but how can he claim that they are successful when there has been an increase in long-term youth unemployment of 88.6% and in long-term unemployment for people over 50 of 59% in my constituency in the past six months?
Chris Grayling
I make the same point to the hon. Lady that I made to the shadow Minister: I wish they would stop producing figures that are not statistically valid. The previous Government had something called the training allowance. Somebody who had been out of work for 12 months and entered the new deal programmes went for a short time on to a training allowance. That meant that their JSA claim was moved back to day one. As a result, the previous Government claimed to have abolished youth unemployment. We have stopped doing that—we do not hide the unemployed. We accept the scale of the problem and try to tackle it properly. The civil service statisticians in the Department for Work and Pensions carried out a like-for-like comparison, which shows that there is virtually no difference in youth unemployment for more than six months between today and two years ago. Opposition figures are therefore simply not accurate.
The third element of the support is through the Work programme, which began at the start of July. It has been going for five months and is the most ambitious welfare-to-work programme that the country has seen. The first signs from providers are encouraging. We will not have official statistics till next year, but there are many examples of people who have been out of work for a long time getting into work. It is a payment-by-results scheme, so providers have every incentive to use the right approach to working with people in a personalised way to deliver the right support to them individually and to match them to the right job; otherwise they will not stay there. Given that the full payment is not made until a conventional jobseeker has been in work for 18 months, there is a real incentive to ensure that it is about not just placing someone in a short-term job but building a long-term career for them.
Gordon Banks (Ochil and South Perthshire) (Lab)
The Minister wants accurate figures, so let me tell him that 130 people in my constituency in highly skilled engineering jobs are losing their jobs today because of cuts in public sector spending. It is a private sector business. Does the Minister not understand that cuts in the public sector impact on the private sector? Here in my hand is the proof to show that.
Chris Grayling
I regret every single redundancy in any sector in any part of this country. It is a terrible blow for the people concerned. I do not know about the case, but if the hon. Gentleman wants to talk to me afterwards, I will ensure that Jobcentre Plus support from a rapid response team is available to his constituents. I regret any such situation. However, we are having to get to grips with the challenges of the public sector because of the mess we were left. If we did not do that, unemployment would be higher, not lower. I stress that we will do everything we can to help the hon. Gentleman’s constituents and those elsewhere who are in a similar position. Any unemployment is too high, and we will do all we can to help tackle it.
Let me briefly consider the youth contract because questions have been asked about it. It was announced shortly after our debate a month ago and I think that it will enhance the programmes that we are already delivering. It builds on the programmes that are already in place and will involve doubling the work experience programme so that we should be able to guarantee every single young person who has been out of work for three months a work experience place. Through the Work programme, it provides a subsidy to employers to take on a young person who has been unemployed for a longer time. The CBI proposed it to us, but it is more generous than the programme that the CBI requested. The shadow Minister made the point about the previous Government’s scheme in 2009, but the difference is that we are delivering something to a template that leading business groups requested. They say that it will make a real difference to the likelihood of an employer taking on a young person. I hope and believe that will make a genuine difference.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
One of they key factors throughout the United Kingdom that perhaps the Minister has not mentioned yet is small and medium businesses. In Northern Ireland, 90% of those in employment are employed through small and medium businesses. What help does the Minister intend to give small and medium businesses to create jobs and thereby address youth unemployment?
Chris Grayling
I agree that small and medium-sized enterprises are crucial. I hope that the subsidy that is paid to employers through the youth contract will be attractive to large and small employers. We are clear that the role that small businesses play is important. Opposition Members raised issues about unemployment among the older generation and I believe that our new enterprise allowance, which is proving successful in the areas where it has been operating so far and is now available throughout the country, will provide a real route for people who want to build their own SME in future.
Mr Deputy Speaker, do not listen to what you hear from the Opposition about the Government doing nothing about unemployment. We have a comprehensive range of support, which I believe can make a real difference to the unemployed. We face huge economic challenges and some of the most difficult economic circumstances that any Government have faced. However, unemployment is and will remain a priority for the Government. We will do everything that we can to tackle it.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. I remind hon. Members that I am imposing a six-minute limit due to the number who wish to speak.
Albert Owen (Ynys Môn) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to follow the Minister. The statistics I will use are from the Office for National Statistics, but my experience is as a manager of a centre for unemployed people before I came into the House. I saw at first hand the failure of economic policy. That is what unemployment is: a failure of an economic system. It is not “a price worth paying” as a previous Chancellor of the Exchequer said.
In the 1990s, I ran a centre that helped young people to get back to work. We gave them life experiences and choices. Whether in the public sector, the private sector or the voluntary sector, those experiences were valuable tools and gave skills to young people. It is a shame that Government Members rubbish schemes involving the voluntary and public sectors, because people need help to get those necessary skills; they do not need Government Members to attack the public sector.
Oliver Heald
Does the hon. Gentleman not accept that it is something of a deception to put a young person in a job for six months with the idea that it will lead to something at a time when the public sector is being cut? Surely it is better to give that young person a private sector job opportunity or work experience that has some prospect of leading somewhere.
Albert Owen
I will tell the hon. Gentleman what a deception is: it is the Government saying that they will introduce a scheme next April when youth unemployment is going through the roof this month and last month.
Albert Owen
Of course it is! The hon. Gentleman really needs to look at the ONS statistics. In every corner of the UK, youth unemployment is going up. Young people are facing unemployment because of the Government’s record.
John Glen (Salisbury) (Con)
Why is it a deception if the Government set out a well thought through policy that they are ready to deliver in three or four months’ time? That is not a deception but a well organised policy. It is ludicrous to trade such cheap remarks about people’s jobs and futures.
Albert Owen
I shall tell the hon. Gentleman my background in a moment—I certainly know what unemployment is like and have worked with unemployed people—but month on month, people are losing their jobs. Saying that there is hope in future of a scheme—he says it is well thought out, but nobody has seen it implemented—is a disgrace when the Government are doing away with schemes that were working and helping people. I met people who went on those schemes. They had the opportunity in a major global recession to gain work experience and skills. That is what the Government should be doing; they should not be talking about some generous scheme of the future that we do not know about.
The Government’s record is one of increasing unemployment, which compares with the Government of the 1980s and 1990s. The centre for the unemployed where I worked was established in the 1930s, and was re-established in the 1980s because of mass unemployment and mass depopulation. People left my area to look for jobs in the 1980s and ’90s as they did in the 1930s. The county of Anglesey, which I represent, was the only county in Wales that had a declining population in two consecutive censuses, because people went looking for work. Yes, they got on their bikes, but it harmed our community. Unemployment is not a statistic to bandy around in the Chamber; it involves real lives and real people. It affects individuals, families and communities. I have seen communities scarred by mass unemployment, which is why I am passionate about standing up here today to say that this Government’s policies are not working. We need to work together to find policies that work. When the Government scrap policies that have been successful in my community, I will stand up and say so—that is the reality of the situation not only in my constituency but in many parts of the country.
In 1992, unemployment in my constituency stood at 3,912—nearly 4,000. By October 2002 it was down to 1,516, and by October 2007 it was down to 1,093, because schemes that targeted the hardcore unemployed to help them back to work were introduced.
I remember that there was no plan to help in the 1980s. In 1992, the Chancellor of the Exchequer said that unemployment was “a price worth paying”—it was an economic tool. The Minister shakes his head, but those were the Chancellor’s words, and he cannot contradict that because they are on the record. The Chancellor said that there were shoots of growth, but people were losing their jobs and livelihoods, and communities were being destroyed.
The buzzwords of the ’80s and ’90s were “downsizing” and “redundancy”. We needed a scheme, and when the Labour Government came to power in 1997, we introduced the new deal for the unemployed. A levy from the excess profits of utility companies was used and targeted to help young people. Between 1999 and 2004, it was hugely successful. I think it should have continued, but after 2004 the scheme was targeted at other sections of society that needed help. With hindsight, perhaps we should have continued to concentrate on young people.
Youth unemployment has gone up in the past 12 months, whatever statistics we use. Young people are losing their jobs or are not able to enter the employment market. My daughter’s peers, who are in their 20s, have taken extra university courses because they cannot get jobs. They are coming out highly qualified and cannot get jobs. That is the reality of the situation today. It is incumbent on us all, whichever party we represent, to get the number down. Although bandying statistics does not help, we must, none the less, use the records of different Governments to paint a picture. The record of this Government is to do away with schemes that were successful and to say, “We’ll replace them with something in the future.” The reality is that unemployment is going up.
Albert Owen
I am afraid that I do not have much time; I have already taken two interventions.
In the 1980s and 1990s, there was a period of stagnation in my constituency. The gross value added, or the gross domestic product, was among the worst in the United Kingdom. The historical scar is there and people are finding it difficult. Between 1997 and 2007, the number of jobs increased by some 7,000 and many skills were brought back to the area through various schemes. There was a partnership between Government, the public sector, the private sector and the voluntary sector, all working together to help people. That is the way forward.
I accept that unemployment went up in 2007, but it started to come down in 2010, which is important. When this Government took office, growth was increasing and unemployment was coming down. The trend has now been reversed and we are back to what it was like in the 1980s, and once again we are facing mass unemployment. Some 2.64 million people are unemployed, which is a disgrace for any Government. This Government should apologise for the fact that their policies are not working.
The Welsh Assembly Government are introducing additional projects to help the unemployed. Austerity alone will not create jobs; it is getting people skilled up and giving them the necessary experience, growing the economy, and bringing down unemployment that will increase the GDP and the GVA of every part of the United Kingdom. Wales has been hammered by unemployment. We need to move forward. Today is a bad day for unemployment and a bad day for this Government’s record.
David T. C. Davies (Monmouth) (Con)
The right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Mr Byrne) and many of his colleagues have basically said that the Government should change course. I listened to them with great interest but did not hear any of them say what their course should be. I heard plenty of criticisms of the Government, but there has been no mention by the right hon. Gentleman of a coherent economic policy.
David T. C. Davies
I have heard about this tax on bankers’ bonuses, which has already been spent in myriad different ways. In any case, the Government have already introduced taxes on banks, which are bringing in far more money. I point out to the right hon. Gentleman—I am sure he knows this, given what his last job was—that the financial services industry in this country is contributing about 10% of all the money that we have, or somewhere in the region of £50 billion. At this moment in time, we cannot do anything too much that will damage that.
Let me explain to the House what I think the Opposition party’s economic policy was. Up until October and the Chancellor’s statement, the economic policy of Labour Members was to borrow even more money than we are being forced to borrow at the moment. Since October, everything has changed and suddenly their policy is to borrow less money. Amazingly enough, they are not only going to borrow less money, but spend more money. The Opposition are going to borrow less money but somehow there will be no cuts in Government expenditure and no freezes on pensions and everyone will have a job. It is a totally incoherent economic policy, but completely consistent with what we have come to expect from Labour.
Albert Owen
The hon. Gentleman says that we did not outline our plans. If he reads the motion, he will find them there, and he should be speaking to the motion. He said two things that were incorrect. He said that we would be spending more than the Government. In the autumn statement, this Government said that they would spend more than Labour. One tool of employment is taxation. Does he agree that reducing VAT temporarily during the previous recession helped employment and consumers? Would he support something of that nature now?
David T. C. Davies
The hon. Gentleman ought to know that I will always support any kind of tax cut if it is affordable and I welcome his conversion to that idea. I recall him talking about what happened when Labour got in, but he forgot one or two important facts. He forgot to tell us that when Labour got in in 1997, the national debt was some £350 billion. By 2007, before the economic crash, the national debt had risen to £650 billion. Yes, the Labour Government had been paying off the national debt for two years but when the election started to loom, all of a sudden off went the spending taps and they were spending at a rate of £30 billion or so on average more than they were earning. That meant that by 2007 they already had a problem, yet they let the spending rip and we ended up with a national debt of £1 trillion and a deficit of £160 billion. Their response was to say up until October that we should borrow even more money—now, they suggest we borrow even less.
What the hon. Ladies and Gentlemen on the Opposition Benches do not understand is that it is very easy to create a little employment in the short-term by borrowing money that one does not actually have, but the problem is that that will always lead to greater unemployment in the longer term because at some point—they do not realise this—that money must be paid back. In the meantime, the interest on it, which is about £30 billion a year at the moment, has to be paid. The only way that money can be paid back is by raising taxes, which destroys jobs, or cutting public spending. That is a basic economic fact that Labour Governments throughout history have failed to comprehend.
Of course, there are more things that this Government can do. We have taken the brave decision as a coalition to get rid of the deficit as quickly as we can. It might take until 2017—[Interruption.] Yes, I accept it is not going to be an easy task, given what we have inherited. It will take a number of years, but we will stay the course and do it, and we will do more, besides.
We must consider immigration. It cannot possibly be right that 250,000 people are coming into this country at a time of recession if we have to find them all jobs, too. My wife is one of them and my sister-in-law, who is from Asia, is another. I am not in any way against those who come here; I welcome the fact that people have come here and are making a contribution, but we must consider whether that is sustainable in the long term.
We must also consider the attitude of some British people—that has to be said. Neither of my sister-in-laws had problems coming over here from Asia and eastern Europe and getting jobs, but there is unfortunately a small minority of younger British people who would prefer to stay on the dole than go out and get a job. It is a harsh fact but it needs saying and it is something that this Government will actively tackle.
We need to look at the attitudes and training of those who come out of our schools, ensuring that they can add up and have basic English and social skills, as it is often people’s attitude that gets them a job. We must consider what our universities are teaching people, because it is no good if everybody comes out with a degree in media studies. There will always be some jobs for some people in the media, but not for all those who want them.
I have spoken to a number of people working in companies that are contributing a lot to this country—gas and oil companies and so on—and they say that they have had to go abroad to find people because there are not enough with the necessary practical skills in this country. By that I mean people who do not mind getting their hands a bit dirty. I spent four or five years getting my hands a bit dirty, as did many people on the Opposition Benches. I have no problem with that whatsoever. Unfortunately, some young people in this country at the moment do.
Grahame M. Morris (Easington) (Lab)
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way, but may I urge him to focus on the issue of joblessness rather than worklessness? I think that was an offensive remark, although I am sure that he made it unintentionally. We have Office for National Statistics data giving the numbers of vacancies and the numbers of people who are unemployed, particularly young people. In neighbouring constituencies, such as Hartlepool, which is just to the south of me—
David T. C. Davies
I take the hon. Gentleman’s point. I am focusing on the fact that there are jobs out there for some people and that there are some people who will not take jobs. I accept that there are not enough jobs and we would all like to see more.
One thing the Government can do—I think they are considering this—is look at the red tape imposed on small businesses. When I ran a small family business, I was reticent to take people on because if we took on a contract to move goods from A to B that lasted for nine or 12 months and took on some extra drivers to do that, we were stuck if we suddenly lost the contract because we found it very difficult to get rid of people. We ought to look at lifting the red tape so that companies can take a risk by taking somebody on. If that does not work out, sadly, they might have to let them go but a lot of companies would hang on to people if they could. It is not the public sector out there—things are a lot harsher. The hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) is laughing, but I wonder whether she has ever tried to run a small business. We are also, I am glad to say, looking at the green taxes that have been levied on the big industries, because there is absolutely no point in hitting big manufacturing companies with carbon and environmental taxes if they are simply going to relocate to the other side of the world and make their goods over there, taking jobs with them and probably creating even more carbon as they ship back whatever it was they were making.
I have only 45 seconds left, but I must mention the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill, who was going to give way to me, but failed to do so, when he mentioned Clement Attlee. We all supported the grandiose schemes of—not Clement Attlee, sorry, Bevin, who was supported by Winston Churchill at the time, the Conservative leader—[Hon. Members: “Beveridge!”] Beveridge, sorry. Not Bevin, no, I accept that.
The right hon. Gentleman will know, however, that Beveridge’s plans were built on the back of a war loan from the United States, which had to be paid off for decades afterwards; that Callaghan’s Government ended in failure; that Wilson had to devalue the pound; and that his own, previous, Government were responsible for the biggest boom and bust in financial history—
Mr Kevin Barron (Rother Valley) (Lab)
May I give the hon. Member for Monmouth (David T. C. Davies) a little history of how the economy is affected from time to time in the United Kingdom, as it has been for centuries and will carry on being, because unforeseen things come along and rock economies, as we experienced in 2008-09 under the previous Labour Government? That should not cloud the issues before us in the motion that my Front Benchers have tabled and I support, because the figure of 2.638 million unemployed people in this country represents a massive amount of human suffering, costs the economy and will go on doing so for generations if it is not tackled. The hon. Gentleman asked whether people are leaving school with the right language, literature and other skills to go into the workplace, but, having been a Member for 28 years, I have listened to such debates, and at certain points we decided to tackle the major issues that needed to be tackled in order to ease the problems that mass unemployment has caused.
Today’s rise in unemployment is our biggest since July 1994. The regional breakdown for Yorkshire and Humberside shows that employment—not unemployment—has fallen by 70,000 over the last quarter; that unemployment has increased by 9,000 on the previous quarter; that it stands at 253,000; and that the number of people claiming jobseeker’s allowance has increased by 500 on the previous month. That tells me and most people that there is something seriously wrong with the path that the Government are taking to turn the economy around, and that a large amount of money will have to be paid from the public purse to keep the figures as they are.
Youth unemployment went up by 54,000 in the three months to October and now stands at more than 1 million, the highest level since comparable records began in 1992. I brought the matter up at Prime Minister’s Question Time today, noting that more than 22% of 16 to 24-year-olds who could be economically active are unemployed, an increase of 1.2% on the previous quarter. That has major implications for the British economy and, certainly, for young people.
Long-term youth unemployment has gone up to 141,200, the highest level since July 1997, and by 68,000 alone since January, a rise of 93%.
Chris Evans (Islwyn) (Lab/Co-op)
Government Members are obsessed with immigration, when there is youth unemployment and young people are leaving school without the skills to fill the jobs that are going to come up. In future we will have to bring more people to this country to fill those jobs for which we do not have the skills.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)
Order. Lots of Members are doing this: when they make an intervention or speak they have to face the Chair, not turn their back to it. So, if everybody could remember that, it would be very handy.
Mr Barron
Long-term youth unemployment has increased. In Yorkshire and Humberside, it increased from 7,160 in January 2011 to 13,895 in November 2011. That is an increase of 94% in long-term youth unemployment. In my constituency it has increased by 68.8%, while in the two neighbouring constituencies in the Rotherham borough it has increased by 125% and 80% respectively. We are talking about the life chances of young people in our constituencies being taken away from them. I have not seen such increases in youth unemployment since the 1980s, when my constituency and neighbouring constituencies suffered from the Government’s run-down of the coal industry, which not only put thousands of people on the dole, but struck off the life chances of people in education trying to get into work, as one of the major employers for young men in my constituency was systematically closed down. The consequences of that have run on not just for a few years, but for generations.
The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Steve Webb)
I do not doubt either the right hon. Gentleman’s sincerity or the fact that he believes the figures that he has been given, but let me tell him that they are simply misleading. What used to happen is that after a young person on jobseeker’s allowance had gone on a scheme, the clock would start ticking as though it were day one, which meant that they had disappeared from the long-term youth unemployment figures. The right hon. Gentleman is comparing figures that exclude those young people with those that include them, so the rise that he describes has not happened in the way that he believes.
Mr Barron
The idea that we should come here and dance around about whether all the figures are accurate, when there are 2.6 million unemployed people in this country, is not sensible. [Interruption.] I do not know: I am not a Minister, and I do not study the briefs that the Minister studies. What I do, and what I have done for over 28 years, is represent a constituency that is largely poor, with far too much deprivation in all sorts of areas, whether in terms of ill health, high unemployment or anything else. I saw that change in my lifetime, over a decade, which affected the lifestyles of many people in my constituency. I see from today’s statistics and what has been happening over the past 12 months that things are returning to how they were decades ago. It is wrong and it is unfair, and I am not going to come to this place and listen to a debate about “the national economy” this or “the national economy” that. We need to look at the crucial issues of how to help the young generation.
Mr Byrne
My right hon. Friend is making a characteristically powerful speech. The truth is that the House of Commons Library is clear: in January 2011, long-term youth unemployment in his constituency was 160, but it is now 270, a rise of more than 68%. Under anybody’s definition that rise is unacceptable, and the Government should be doing more to bring it down.
Mr Barron
I agree entirely with my right hon. Friend.
If anybody wants to know the consequences of youth unemployment—not just now, but in the future—they could do worse than look at the article headed “Future costs of youth unemployment” on the BBC business news website, which refers to an academic paper by Paul Gregg and Lindsey Macmillan that sets out in great detail what happens to people who suffer from youth unemployment. It affects them for the rest of their lives, not only in terms of their jobs, but in terms of their incomes and everything else. It is not acceptable for us to sit in this House today and watch youth unemployment increasing to its current levels, which will disadvantage generations of people and their children, as well as the taxpayer, who will have to pay for it. I will not rehearse how much it will cost, but there will be a cost to the taxpayer—the cost to the individuals concerned will probably be far higher—that we should guard against.
I want to finish on this point. The Government’s ideology was about coming in and saying, “We get rid of the public sector”—I have seen the damage of that—“and we bring in the private sector.” However, for every 13 jobs lost in the public sector in the last quarter, only one has been created in the private sector. It is not good enough. The plan is not working. It is about time this Government tried to protect everybody in this nation.
Jenny Willott (Cardiff Central) (LD)
Of course it is right that we are debating this important issue today. Everybody knows that unemployment is a serious problem across the country. We seem, however, to have had the same Opposition day debate over and over again. The same people have been in the Chamber repeatedly over the last few months, and every debate follows the same pattern. Labour never accepts responsibility for the economic mess in which we find ourselves and no new ideas on how to tackle the problem are offered; the same old failed ideas are repeated in every debate.
Jenny Willott
No, I will not. There will be plenty of opportunities for others to speak later. I hope that by not giving way, as many Back Benchers as possible will have the opportunity to contribute.
The Government are trying to rebalance the economy left to us by Labour. Labour relied on the public sector for far too long to make up for declining growth elsewhere, and it did not support the private sector in the good times. Some areas have stratospheric levels of public sector employment. In Merthyr Tydfil, for example, more than 40% of people—more than four in 10—are employed in the public sector. That is clearly not sustainable across the country as a whole. We must work to increase employment in other sectors—the private sector has already been mentioned and other Members have mentioned the voluntary or third sector—to reduce our reliance on the public sector and ensure that we have a much better balanced economy that is better able to absorb shocks from the global economy and future recessions.
There is some evidence that we are starting to see progress. I would take issue with the figures of the right hon. Member for Rother Valley (Mr Barron). My understanding is that public sector employment fell last year by 276,000, but that employment in the private sector increased by 262,000—a difference of only 14,000 jobs. Almost all the jobs lost in the public sector have been replaced by an increase in jobs in the private sector.
Jenny Willott
I am not going to give way.
There are problems in the eurozone, problems with bank lending and so forth, which have a serious impact on job creation in the private sector, but we can say that we are starting to see some progress, and the Government are trying to encourage even more progress. The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions, the right hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling), who is responsible for employment, announced in the autumn statement measures to stimulate growth. Rather than try to borrow their way out of a debt crisis, the Government are being more pragmatic and sensible. I welcome some innovative ideas for raising money—working with pension funds, for example, to unlock £20 billion of investment. That is better than the Government simply borrowing more and more money, which has been shown not to work.
I share the concerns of some Labour and Government Members about the level of youth unemployment. I know that this is a concern across the House. Under Labour, youth unemployment rose nearly 75% between 2001 and 2010, so it was a serious problem before this Government came to power. There has been an increase, however, in the number of young people who are unemployed, and I know that Ministers, too, are deeply concerned about that. I am glad that the Government are investing in trying to tackle it. We need to recognise that it is going to be tough for young people in the near future, and we need to do more to make them as employable as possible so that when jobs are created and become available, they can take them up.
We know from past experience, and from the experience of unemployed people today, that people who are seeking work and spending all their time going to the job centre and applying for jobs can find the experience hugely demoralising, and it can lead to depression and mental health problems. For decades, that has been a problem for people facing unemployment. We need to make it easier for younger and older people facing unemployment to volunteer in order to build their skills, to learn what they enjoy doing, to get useful information for their CVs, to get good references and to help keep them closer to the job market.
Jobcentre Plus and the Work programme providers could work with the local voluntary sector and others in many areas to identify more opportunities for those on jobseeker’s allowance to volunteer. There are already many opportunities across the third sector, which we have heard about in various debates on this theme. There are other ways in which unemployed people of whatever age can volunteer and build up their skills. For example, it is possible to become a magistrate at 21. That is a good way in which people can gain experience in an area about which they would not necessarily know anything otherwise, while also learning skills that they can transfer to employment. Charity shops are always looking for volunteers, who will have the opportunity to gain retail experience that they too can transfer to employment. The retail sector in my constituency still has a significant number of vacancies, and it is one of the sectors that are most willing to take on those who are furthest from the jobs market.
There are plenty of ways in which we can help people to develop the habit of working by getting up at the same time each day, finding out what they enjoy, learning people skills, and acquiring new skills that they can take into work when jobs are created. Some may be inspired to set up their own businesses—older people who have experience and skills that they can take into entrepreneurship, and young people who are brimming with ideas.
I accept that the unemployment figures are an individual tragedy for all the people affected, and I am sure that we all feel the same, but relying on the ability to borrow more money will not help us to find a way out of this situation. We need to see investment, and to see the Government putting their money where their mouth is.
Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)
The dire news presented by the latest unemployment figures should cause members of the Government to hang their heads in shame, but there are not many present to do that today. The Government have promised much, but instead of delivering on their promises, they have proceeded to devastate the lives of ordinary hard-working people—people such as nurses, engineers, chemical process workers, local authority employees, shop assistants and even members of our armed forces, some of whom return from action on behalf of our country to learn that their jobs are either gone or under threat.
We were promised a private sector jobs revolution, but, as the Prime Minister had to admit today when challenged by my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition, he has failed to deliver on that promise. His failure is proving expensive, not just for the millions who are unemployed, but for our country. Instead of investing billions in infrastructure, house building, new hospitals and other job creation schemes, the Tory Government are throwing that money away on escalating unemployment benefit bills which, sadly, are likely to increase even more in the future.
Gordon Banks
Is not one of the problems the fact that the Government seem to view the public and private sectors as two separate entities, although one cannot survive while the other is being cut to death?
Alex Cunningham
I agree. My hon. Friend provided an illustration of that earlier when he mentioned the job losses that have been announced in a company in his constituency. For some time the Tories said that we did not have a plan for jobs. They may have systematically dismantled our investment programmes for job creation, but it is not too late for them to adopt our five-point plan for jobs and growth.
Like others who have spoken, I shall concentrate on the subject of young people. The acceleration in the number of young unemployed people will help this Tory-led Government to go down in history as the Government who could not care less about our country’s most important asset.
Jim Shannon
It has been suggested that businesses should be given an incentive to employ people aged between 16 and 24, in the form of a £1,500 tax relief which would cover national insurance contributions for a year. Does the hon. Gentleman believe that such initiatives are capable of providing employment for unemployed people?
Alex Cunningham
I welcome all schemes that will encourage employers to take on workers and, in particular, increase the number of young people in employment.
In 1997, my Stockton borough inherited from the Tories an unemployment rate of 14.9% among young people, while the national rate was 8.1%. Hard work by the Labour Government more than halved the Stockton rate to 6.7%, but since then the Tories and their Liberal Democrat allies have allowed it to soar almost to its previous level. It is now 12.9%, which, although it may not seem a huge number, represents 2,300 young lives.
In my constituency, I see countless young people wandering the streets of Billingham, Norton and Stockton, and I worry about their future. I see them peering into shop windows, knowing that all they can do is look. They certainly cannot buy, as they see no positive prospects. They know that there is no longer any support that would enable them to go to college, and that even if they had qualifications, possibly even degrees, their prospects would be extremely low in an economy that is stagnant at home and across the country.
Cathy Jamieson (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (Lab/Co-op)
Will my hon. Friend endorse the work done by Glasgow city council? It has launched a scheme aimed specifically at young graduates, and is using some of its pension fund to give them an opportunity to gain employment.
Alex Cunningham
I have always been a great admirer of Glasgow City council and I am certainly not going to disagree with my hon. Friend there, but it saddens me that for so many young people, the first taste of adult life will not be starting their first job and getting on the career ladder, but waiting in the dole queue and competing for the tiny number of vacancies available, while being lectured by the Tory-led Government that there are jobs out there for them if only they look hard enough. However, in my constituency there are 10 people fighting for every job vacancy. There are 2,335 jobseeker’s allowance claimants aged between 18 and 24—an increase of 18% on the previous year.
Earlier this year, the employment Minister singled out the north-east as his “top priority” in safeguarding and protecting jobs. However, the money received from the regional growth fund—believed to be the cure for all our economic woes—is but a fraction of what has been invested in recent years through the regional development agency. I am grateful for the money we did get in my constituency from the regional growth fund, and I was pleased to visit one of its recipients, Darchem Engineering, last week. It is a fine example of the great British manufacturer we need to encourage, and the Government cash will help to attract new investment to the north-east. However, while that one example is a positive one, the amount of cash available through the fund is extremely limited in my area, and many other companies with strong plans for growing their businesses and increasing the number of jobs found that the Government cash chest was slammed shut in their faces.
In my constituency alone, 166 young people aged between 18 and 24 took up employment and after 26 weeks, 162 of them—98%—were sustained in employment as a result of using part of Stockton’s allocation of the working neighbourhoods fund, thanks to our future jobs fund. Add to that the fact that those successful young people undertook 628 pieces of individual training and achieved 80 NVQs at levels 2 and 3, and we can celebrate an excellent achievement.
Labour also introduced the education maintenance allowance, which subsidised poorer students through the sixth form, helping 650,000 16 to 19-year-olds from low-income families and tackling the long-standing problem of a high teenage drop-out rate from education, particularly among poorer students. However, both these effective programmes were recklessly cut by the Tory-led Government, who dismissed them as bureaucratic and wasteful despite their strong success in helping young people to reach their potential.
The £180 million bursary scheme the Tories replaced the EMA with has instead succeeded in giving 70p extra a week to 12,000 of the poorest students—while at the same time taking away £30 from many of their classmates whose finances are only marginally better. It is simply insulting that the Secretary of State for Education believes that this is concentrating resources
“on removing the barriers to learning faced by the poorest”.—[Official Report, 28 March 2011; Vol. 526, c. 52.]
I strongly urge the Government to reassess their priorities, given that they are currently bent on making access to education far more difficult and are cutting everything in sight—the very things that were helping young people. Such a blatant disregard for the future of young people really is shameful. We should be under no illusions about the damaging effect that unemployment among young people can have. Failing to harness the energy of the younger generations is eating away at the foundations of all our futures.
Work largely defines us and as a society, and we cannot afford to ignore the talent and potential of so many young people. Those one in five young people who cannot find work therefore often cannot leave home. They remain financially dependent on their parents and are trapped in a confidence-sapping cycle of application after application, rejection after rejection.
The current jobless figures are a wake-up call for the future for young people. Youth unemployment scars people for life, particularly if it is prolonged, and at today’s levels it will be costing the country millions of pounds a week. We must not let the scourge of unemployment leave a permanent mark on the hundreds of thousands of young people living through it today. We need to give those young people, and everyone else window-gazing in towns and cities across the country this Christmas, real hope for the future. They see very little of it now.
Oliver Heald (North East Hertfordshire) (Con)
Listening to the hon. Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham), one would have thought, “Oh, the Labour Government did a marvellous job. Then along came this coalition and they mucked it up.” One would never have thought it was the Labour Government who beggared this country, who borrowed and borrowed and borrowed again, who gave us the worst deficit in the G20, who doubled national debt, who sold our gold at a record low price—£23 billion down the drain—who took £5 billion a year out of our pension funds, and who gave back our EU rebate of £7 billion a year and got nothing in return. Then, there was the moment of salvation—the last general election. A moderate coalition Government came in and started to make the sort of decisions that needed to be made in the national interest—the sort of decisions Labour ducked. Now, though, we are told, “The consequences of those difficult decisions—they’re all your fault.” They certainly are not.
If we look at the Labour years, we see that, as always happens with Labour, unemployment went up—to 2.5 million by the time they left office. We see that youth unemployment rose by 270,000 under the Labour Government. Theirs was not a successful Government, but a Government who led Britain to the brink of bankruptcy. It is our Government—the coalition Government—who are rescuing this country. Of course it is not easy. It is right to say that every redundancy is a personal tragedy—of course it is. We must try to do all we can as a country to help people back into work, but my goodness, this Government cannot be blamed for the situation from which they are trying to rescue the country.
That Labour Government were also the Government who tried to hide from the realities. Take the vast number of people claiming incapacity benefit: it is this Government who are testing and ensuring that those who receive incapacity benefit are genuinely entitled to it, and that it is not being used to mask unemployment in areas where there is a particular labour market problem. Take Labour’s measures on long-term youth unemployment, where a training scheme was introduced after 12 months and the clock was started again, to mask what was happening in this country. Although 2.5 million extra jobs—half of them were part-time, of course—were created in the Labour years, they did not seriously affect unemployment, which was reduced by about 300,000. That is because the Labour Government were not really tackling the underlying problem of the 5 million people of working age who were not engaged in the labour market.
Fiona O'Donnell
Given that is now clear that the benefits bill will rise by £29 billion—higher than the Government predicted—does the hon. Gentleman think that the plan is working?
Oliver Heald
I think that this Government are making a serious, determined and honest effort to help people in very difficult times. The hon. Lady talks as though there is no eurozone crisis and the world is not experiencing the problems it is experiencing, but those problems are out there. This is a difficult time politically and economically, yet this Government are trying to help people.
Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)
Does the hon. Gentleman accept that, in fact, the increase in unemployment in the eurozone has been much slower than the increase here?
Oliver Heald
The hon. Lady should talk to young people in Spain, where youth unemployment is very high—as much as 30%, I am told. The same is true in Italy. The fact is that youth unemployment is a European problem that must be tackled in the eurozone and right across the continent.
The Government are concentrating on a Work programme that, after 12 months, gives people individualised help to look at what skills and assistance they need to get them back into work, and that, for the first time, gives the disabled a chance of getting the help they need. That is a good thing. That programme and the youth contract, with its job subsidies and extra incentive payments, are not signs of an uncaring Government.
Dame Anne Begg (Aberdeen South) (Lab)
Everything the hon. Gentleman describes counts for nothing if there are no jobs for those people to get. That is the problem that we face today: there are simply not enough jobs in the economy for everyone who is out of work to get into work.
Oliver Heald
The hon. Lady makes the very important point that we need growth in our economy, and that to achieve that we need a range of measures to stimulate growth. I agree, and that is what the Government announced in the autumn statement. She should not, however, treat the whole country as though it were the same. We have much lower unemployment in my constituency—indeed, it has fallen this month—and there is no doubt that jobs can be found, but that is not true everywhere. The picture is different in different parts of the country, but if one looks at the overall picture one can say, month on month, that we have more people in the work force than we had last month. We have seen an improvement in some parts of the country, such as the part I represent, so the picture is not hopeless. The Government have a difficult task and are tackling it seriously, but sometimes we should look a little more widely at the labour market and the trends within it. We are asking people to work to an older age and to take on jobs that they might not previously have done because they were on incapacity benefit or were otherwise out of the labour market. So, we are asking more people to try to find work against a background in which that is not easy, but I believe—certainly the research shows this—that it is possible for us to see our GDP rise and our people go into work. What the Government are doing is along the right lines.
Sir John Rose said in a speech about a year ago that in Britain we train people to be hairdressers when we need engineers and IT specialists. One of the good things about the Government’s apprenticeships and skills programme is that it is targeted on areas in which we have found it difficult to create skills and on areas that are hard to fill, so there is a better match between skills and vacancies. The number of vacancies runs at between 400,000 and 500,000 each month, about 40% of which are in areas with skills shortages or areas that are hard to fill. If we can better match the skills to the vacancies, that could help. Overall, I think the Government are on the right lines.
Dr Eilidh Whiteford (Banff and Buchan) (SNP)
Today’s employment statistics make extremely sobering reading. They spell out more clearly than any of our speeches today just how much our economy is struggling and how the recovery is faltering. We know from the Office for Budget Responsibility that the UK economy is already contracting in the final quarter of this year and we can predict with some confidence that there will be more turbulent times in 2012.
Fiona O'Donnell
Has the hon. Lady seen the latest statistics showing that Scotland had the second-worst unemployment in the UK in the last quarter? Does she think that her Government in Holyrood have any responsibility for those figures?
Dr Whiteford
I am certainly happy to look at that because the sharp increase in unemployment in Scotland is very concerning. However, over the past year as a whole, unemployment in Scotland has fallen and employment has risen. That compares very favourably with the record of the hon. Lady’s Administration. For most of the past few years, employment in Scotland has outperformed employment in the rest of the UK. That record contrasts sharply with the situation when Labour and the Liberal Democrats were in coalition in Scotland.
We have to look at the big picture and remember that when the Government set us down the path of austerity a year and a half ago, many of us warned that taking the feet out from under the public sector was not the way to boost employment and growth in the private sector. We said that the cuts went too far too quickly and it gives me no pleasure whatever to be proved right on that front. It is now abundantly clear that the medicine is not working and is not achieving the results we want. I accept that the Government have not been in control of some of the external circumstances, but nevertheless those risks were always apparent. The Government need to acknowledge that their plan is not working and that it is time for a change of direction.
What has been disappointing this afternoon is the very ideological and doctrinaire approach taken by Members on the Government Benches to their prescriptions. It would be helpful if we acknowledged the interdependence of the public and the private sectors. The bottom line is that the UK as a whole is losing public sector jobs faster than the private sector can create them. We all know that borrowing is still very difficult for small and medium-sized enterprises, which is a major source of potential growth. We know that business confidence is low, but in that circumstance it makes no sense at all to punish the public sector when the private sector just cannot keep up.
Paradoxically, that is the opposite of what has been happening in Scotland. One of the interesting things—
Dr Whiteford
Not at the moment, thank you.
It has been evident in Scotland over the past year that the growth of private sector employment has outweighed falls in public sector employment. We now have the highest share of private sector employment that we have had since the advent of devolution. [Interruption.] Although unemployment has fallen across the piece in the past year, it shows that the Scottish Government’s decision to boost investment in the public sector and in infrastructure as far as possible has been a way of offsetting the problems of investment that have been apparent in other parts of the UK—[Interruption.] If the hon. Member for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow (Mr McCann) wants to make an intervention, I am happy to accept it. If not, perhaps he could stop heckling.
If we are serious about tackling unemployment, we need to accept that the cuts introduced by the Government are biting very hard indeed across the whole UK, and that the announcements in the Chancellor’s autumn statement do not go far enough. Crucially, they will not address the immediate challenges of high levels of unemployment and a high benefits bill. I am not sure how we will pay for that in the current circumstances.
Dr Whiteford
I will not at the moment, thanks. Time is pressing.
In Scotland we are experiencing 32% real-terms cuts to the capital budgets and even after the announcements in the autumn statement, the Scottish capital budget will still be cut by £3 billion over the spending period. More importantly, 70% of the new consequentials announced in the autumn statement will not be available until the year after next. Waiting until 2013 will not deal with the problem that we need to tackle now. What we need is investment in infrastructure.
Much has already been said today about youth unemployment. For those of us who came of age in the 1980s there is a horrible sense of déjà vu. I was one of those who had to put up with the 1980s and see the problems at first hand. When I hear young people in my constituency bemoaning to me the prospects that they are now facing, I have great empathy. It was exactly the same in the 1980s, when we were all told that unemployment was a price worth paying, and a whole generation was relegated to the scrapheap. We are still living with the legacy of that and dealing with the social consequences of it. It was not just about economics. It was about our society and the prospects of a whole generation.
Across the UK we have seen diverse approaches to tackling youth unemployment. It is far too high everywhere, but, as we have heard today, there has been a range of approaches in the devolved Administrations. In Scotland there have been 25,000 apprenticeships, a significantly higher number than before. It even exceeds what the UK Government are doing. University and college places have been maintained. Efforts have been made to ensure that apprenticeships that fall through because companies have gone under as a result of the recession are continuing and those young people are getting back into work. The Opportunities for All initiative is making sure that every young person aged 16 to 19 will get a work or training opportunity.
I hope Ministers will take the opportunity to sit down with Finance Ministers across the devolved Administrations and look specifically at how we can tackle youth unemployment. There are different approaches and there are good ideas coming from different parts of the UK. It is such an urgent problem and such a challenge with such serious long-term consequences that I hope the Minister will take action. We were told in the 1980s that unemployment was a price worth paying. It was not a price worth paying. It is never a price worth paying. It must be the Government’s top priority.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)
Order. There are still 12 hon. Members remaining to speak. The debate must end by 5.36 pm. I am therefore reducing the time limit from now to four minutes for all subsequent speakers. That will just about get everybody in, unless there are lots of interventions.
Mrs Anne Main (St Albans) (Con)
I shall take no interventions, given the need for brevity. I share the concerns of my hon. Friend the Member for North East Hertfordshire (Oliver Heald) that Labour Members seem to have collective amnesia about exactly how much they frittered away during the prosperous times for this nation and that they now claim that only they know how to fix it.
I am amazed that that flexible old chestnut, the bankers’ bonus, has been wheeled out yet again as a way of solving all the ills. This is from a party that did not tackle bankers’ bonuses in the good times, when there were plenty to tackle, and seems to have found them now as a cash cow that can be used many times—this is the sixth or seventh time the Opposition have proposed using that source of finance. They did not tackle bonuses then, yet they did abolish the 10% tax rate, which they seem to have forgotten about. Many women and low-paid workers were on that tax rate. Indeed, when I was knocking on doors during the 2010 election, many people told me that after that rate was removed it was hardly worth them working. There are still people caught in that trap, which the Opposition have collectively forgotten about.
The Labour party has also collectively forgotten that companies have been disadvantaged by the regulations it put in place. For example, Bombardier could not competitively tender because of the regulations that Labour put in print, which resulted in job losses. Unfortunately, it also presided over the lowest number of social house starts for decades. I read with interest that it now proposes building 25,000 affordable homes—again using the bankers’ bonuses—but with no new funding of the sort that my right hon. Friend the Minister for Housing and Local Government has rolled out. At least this Government are making new funding available, rather than relying on the ever-flexible bankers’ bonus.
Mrs Main
No, I shall not give way.
I am also amazed that the Labour party, while talking about wanting to attack bankers’ bonuses, was so lacking in its support for what our Prime Minister had to do last week, which was to defend London against being raided by the European Union. They do not seem to want to do that either. I can tell Opposition Members that many bankers and wealth generators in the City would otherwise have upped sticks and gone, and there would be no bonuses for them to use in this flexible way.
Labour Members are asking us today to believe their statistics—this from a party that spectacularly underestimated the number of people who would come to the UK through its failed immigration policy at only 5,000. If they looked back at the figures, they would see that they completely underestimated the number of people who chose to come to Britain to work, so I have little faith in the statistics they regularly wheel out. They left us with the highest number of workless households in Europe and only now are coming up with ideas on how to fix that. It bears no credibility. They propose spending bankers’ bonuses multiple times and have few other ideas on how to fix the failed and broken economy that we inherited. They left this Government the note stating that they had spent all the money, but they had in fact mortgaged it. They mortgaged the future of many young people in this country.
I have only a few seconds remaining. If the Government were not taking these tough choices, more and more young people would be looking forward to a fruitless future without hope of social housing or affordable housing, because, unlike this Government, the Opposition had no appetite when in government to tackle the problems, and now they carp from the sidelines and apparently come up with solutions to fix the problems they created.
Mr Denis MacShane (Rotherham) (Lab)
I am disappointed by the previous speech, because it repeated the yah-boo exchanges on what is, frankly, a generalised crisis that has touched us all. The notion that it is all the fault of either the previous Government, or of everything that has happened since May 2010, is simply not valid. In 2008, I wrote in The Daily Telegraph a letter to my right hon. Friend the Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown) stating that we should cut spending and taxes, and he ignored me, but the year before the right hon. Member for Tatton (Mr Osborne), then the shadow Chancellor, wrote in The Times that the model Britain should emulate was that of Ireland. I think that I was right, and I hope that Government Members think that the Chancellor was completely and utterly wrong.
In Rotherham we received news today that 597 more people are unemployed than there were this time last year, which is an increase of about 15%. This is profoundly serious, with families now facing a miserable Christmas.
I do not blame all those problems on this Government—it is absurd to do so. Around the world, we are facing a generalised crisis of the market economics—or, if one prefers, capitalist—model. There is Government debt but, as the remarkable graph put up on last night’s “Newsnight” by Miss Vicky Pryce, the distinguished economist, showed, there is far greater private debt. Everybody is going through the detoxification problem of getting out of debt, and we do not know how to handle it. Niall Ferguson—a distinguished conservative, right-wing historian—writes in Newsweek:
“In normal times it would be legitimate to worry about the consequences of money printing and outsize debts. But history”—
he is writing about how people handled the 1929 Wall street crash and the 1931 Credit-Anstalt crash; there was not one general crash but two—
“tells us these are anything but normal times.”
When Monsieur Hollande, the French Socialist candidate whom I wish to see elected President of France, says that we should be looking at spending more money and at job creation measures, he is shouted down, but I think he is right. Frankly, the Conservatives ought to be in their own little Euro-heaven. We have conservative Governments and conservative presidents of the Commission, the Council and the Parliament proposing fiscal austerity, balanced budgets, making the poor pay, and protecting bankers and the rich. I thought that that was classic liberal—in the Manchester sense of the word—Conservative policy. I do not know why the Conservatives are at odds with Europe, because Europe is doing exactly what they are trying to do with the policy that is having such disastrous consequences in this country.
We look to the BRICs—Brazil, Russia, India and China—but growth in them is slowing down. Today’s figures from the IMF show that Russia, South Africa and Brazil have 3% or 4% growth and China and India have below 10% growth. There is a generalised crisis of world market economics. The United States is in disarray. The United Kingdom is part of the problem as well. We are not the solution to the European crisis—we are intimately part of it. There is no growth, no demand, increasing unemployment and increasing debt.
I am not going to say that this is all the fault of decisions taken since May 2010. I wish we had a Chancellor of the Exchequer of the maturity of Nigel Lawson, Geoffrey Howe or Denis Healey; it is rather disappointing that we have a PPE graduate from Oxford who has just done a little bit of political research in his life. We are going to have to work these problems through internationally.
“No man is an island, entire of itself”,
as John Donne said; every man is a piece of the continent. We will have to find global and European solutions to this crisis or, believe me, we will all be sunk.
Mr Robert Syms (Poole) (Con)
I agree with the right hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr MacShane) that the world did not start in May 2010. There are 30 million people in the work force, and when they were educated, what they were educated in, and how they have skilled themselves throughout their lives makes a very big difference to their employment prospects today. Therefore, whoever the Government are, they are, to some extent, presiding over the legacy of previous Governments.
We all know that, as a country, there are some things we have done well and some things we have done badly. Being out of work is a tragedy for anybody, but over the past 10 or 20 years, this country has not done too badly in keeping unemployment levels below that of many countries in Europe. In Spain, for example, unemployment is at horrific levels. Where we have got it wrong is in having, for understandable reasons, a welfare system that has sometimes become a disincentive for people to take jobs. In the Government’s reform of the welfare system—I hope that it turns out on time and to plan—they are trying to take away the cliff edge from those who are out of work and perhaps not well skilled enough to get a high-paid job so that they can take a job because it is worth their while to do so. That is a very important part of the future of our nation. Over the past 18 months, we have still had people with skills coming in from abroad and taking jobs. Under the last Labour Government, about 2 million jobs were taken by people coming in from abroad. That meant that we have not been able to motivate our own people to take those jobs. Welfare reform must be part of that.
We must look at our education system and put a lot more effort into technical education. Since Beveridge and the Education Act 1944, this country has not done as well as many of those on the continent, particularly the Germans, in technical education, which was never properly developed. When I look at Germany, I am impressed by how well respected people are who have a good technical education and by how workers are trained to provide a highly skilled work force. The success of the German economy has a lot to do with that.
What the Government are doing about training and in trying to recreate the apprenticeships that fell into disrepair is very valuable. When I go around companies in Poole, including many successful companies, the managing directors are often not degree candidates, but people who started on the shop floor with an apprenticeship in engineering and have skilled themselves up throughout their lives. Unless we get back to having good technical education, I fear we will not produce a generation of decent managers and keep the standard of living that we want.
Welfare, training and education therefore need to be part of the picture. However, we need to have a stable economic environment for people to invest. We inherited a big deficit and it will take some years to sort things out. Things do not happen in a straight line. There will be good years and bad years, and good Budgets and bad Budgets. Clearly, this is one of the years when things are going a bit slower, and I suspect that over the next four or five years, there will be years when things go a bit better. I hope that, over that time, we can create enough jobs to take up the slack of the public sector and that we can provide people in this country with a decent living, but it is going to be hard.
Nobody in this Government underestimates the task. We have a coalition of two parties that agree that we need to sort the country out and to provide more opportunities. It is a moderate coalition of sensible people and I think that it will succeed in the end, but it may take all five years before people make a sensible judgment about whether we have succeeded.
Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)
I want to tell the House the story of Chris, a young man in my constituency. I know his story only because a friend of mine gave him a lift home last night.
Chris works at Currys in Bury. Because his boss would not let him leave five minutes early, he had a 40-minute wait for the bus. Usually, when he gets into Bolton he has to catch two more buses. The whole trip takes him two and a half hours each way. If it had not been for my friend last night, it would have taken him nearly three and a half hours to get home. It is not as though it is a great job. He has a contract for six hours, which he believes is so that his employer can get rid of him easier. However, as he says, any job is better than none. It is no wonder that Chris is desperate to keep his job. With more than six people fighting for every vacancy in Bolton West, he knows that he is lucky to have anything.
People in my constituency are scared: scared that they will lose their jobs, scared that they cannot afford to pay their bills and scared that they cannot see anything getting any better. The Prime Minister is proud to state that interest rates are at an historic low, but he forgets to tell everyone that he inherited low interest rates. The much more important measure of the health of our economy is growth. What do we have? We have no growth, borrowing up, ever-rising unemployment and cuts to the public services that we all rely on.
The figures today show that the Government’s policies, like so many people in Britain, are just not working. The economy is flatlining and ordinary people are paying the price. It is back to normal business for the Tories—the rich play and the poor pay. The Government want to blame everyone but themselves—it is our fault, it is the snow, it is the royal wedding, it is the euro. It is time that they took responsibility for their actions and time they accepted that their plans are ruining Britain and ruining the lives of people in my constituency.
It is not just young people who are suffering; long-term unemployment among the over-50s is up by 20%. Just at the time when people should be able to relax and enjoy their lives, and when they should be able to plan for retirement, they are thrown on to the scrap heap.
I have told the House before about the 10 years in the ’80s and ’90s when I worked with unemployed young people. That was the last time the Tories thought that unemployment was a price worth paying. I have told the stories of the young people who took their own lives; the young people who turned to drugs and alcohol; the young people who developed long-term mental health problems; and the young people who spent many years unemployed. It is the truth that when the economy eventually recovered, employers preferred to take on the 16-year-olds who were fresh out of school than the 26-year-olds who had spent most of the previous 10 years out of work with nothing to do and nothing to get up for. Those stories of 15 years ago are starting to repeat themselves. If the Government continue to follow their failed policies, we will have another generation with no jobs, no hope and no future.
The Government also ignore the health costs of unemployment. Unemployed people are twice as likely to have a psychological illness than those who are employed. Many studies in the ’80s and ’90s proved the links between serious diseases of major organs and unemployment. It is true that unemployment makes people ill.
The Government talk about making it easier to hire people, but in truth they mean making it easier to fire people. There are people in my constituency who are not only worried about their employers’ economic future but doubly worried that their terms and conditions could be changed on a whim and that they could be fired despite doing nothing wrong. How can they buy a house or make another major purchase that would get the economy working when they are fearful for their future?
I do not believe that Ministers get it. They do not understand the reality of people worrying about losing their job, or their fear of not being able to feed or clothe their children. It is not too late to change tack and, for the sake of our constituents, the Government should do so.
John Glen (Salisbury) (Con)
In my constituency, 997 people are unemployed, which represents 2.3% of those who are economically active. I recognise that that is a modest number compared with many constituencies, but it is an absolute tragedy for every single one of those individuals, particularly the 85 who have been unemployed for more than 12 months.
I agree with much of what the hon. Member for Bolton West (Julie Hilling) said about the tragedy of unemployment. It means a loss of self-esteem, poor mental health, losing the pattern and discipline of work and losing hope. Listening to the debate this afternoon, I have found it very difficult to take the charge that all Government Members believe that unemployment is a price worth paying. I do not, but I do believe that it is a very sad economic reality.
The question is how the Government should respond. Should they act as though they have all the solutions and can essentially buy a load of jobs to relieve the misery overnight? Would that be a sustainable solution for the affected individuals in six, nine or 12 months’ time? I do not think so.
Looking back to before the general election, I am certain that elements of the future jobs fund were worth while. However, when the Government are constructing a national scheme for getting people into work, there comes a point when they have to consider whether such a programme is the most cost-effective way of delivering sustainable skills and jobs that will lead people to full-time employment for many years.
John Glen
I will not, because I want to give colleagues an opportunity to speak.
I believe that two significant matters need to be examined: supply-side reform and macro-economic stability. Many Members have already spoken about the excellent apprenticeship schemes, the work experience programme and the reforms under the new youth contract, but we need to recognise that if small businesses, such as the many micro-businesses in my constituency, are to be confident enough to take on new people, they need to feel that the Government are on their side. They need to know that the Government understand that they do not need so much regulation. They do not need the 14 new regulations a day that they had under the last Government. They want to know that we will exempt micro-businesses from new business regulation and EU accounting rules. Such issues influence whether a small business man takes the leap and takes somebody on in these difficult times.
We also need macro-economic stability. Low interest rates are important, because they condition investment decisions and how people feel about their finances. They cannot spend money that they do not have in a way that is expensive and does not have a secure outcome. The Government will not have all the answers, but they are on the right trajectory to relieve the misery, and I wish them well.
Sheila Gilmore (Edinburgh East) (Lab)
There has been some dispute about whether the coalition Government are the greenest Administration, but they are definitely good at recycling. In particular, the Prime Minister has recycled figures about private sector jobs in the past year and a half. Today, he said that the Leader of the Opposition was recycling jokes, yet he recycles the figure of half a million private sector jobs. Initially, it was half a million in the Government’s first six months; then, it was half a million in the year since they came to power, and now it is half a million since the election. The problem is that it is exactly the same half a million jobs. Half were created in the first quarter of the financial year that started in 2010. What caused that—the actions of the Government? I think not. It was the stimulus provided by the previous Government, whom the coalition Government are so fond of rubbishing. They do that consistently. After that burst of jobs, almost nothing has happened. The promise that if we squeezed the public sector, the private sector would rise up, take the strain and create jobs is not being fulfilled. Until we and our constituents see signs of that, we will simply not believe the Government.
As well as job figures, the Government are recycling ideas. Part of their approach since the election has been to suggest that unemployment is somehow a problem of individuals—of their not being willing, skilled enough or having the financial incentive to work because the benefits system is so generous. I was fascinated to come across a quotation from Sir John Anderson, who was head of the then Prime Minister’s Secretariat in 1930. At a time when people were worried about unemployment, he said:
“Unemployment statistics give an exaggerated view of the magnitude of the problem”.
Why? Because
“a large number of people really abused the Unemployment Insurance Scheme”.
I do not think that many would say that unemployment in the 1930s was caused by people abusing an extremely low amount of benefit. It shows that nothing changes. The Conservative party has always said that at times of high employment. Increasingly, its coalition partners are also saying it. It was said in the 1930s and it was not true then; it is said now and it is still untrue.
That is not to say that training is not important, but it is not new, either. In Edinburgh, the city council considered employment in the first decade of this century. We had historically low unemployment at that stage, but a residual number of people were out of work, some for a long time. We considered training schemes and specialised job academies. For example, we had a health care academy and a social care academy, and we know that taking action is not always easy. The trouble with the Government is that they think they are at ground zero with many things. They imply that we did nothing and that they have sprung into life to make things better.
Yes, we need to train people properly, but training is not a job. The Work programme does not of itself create jobs. We must be absolutely clear about that.
Alec Shelbrooke (Elmet and Rothwell) (Con)
This debate is about unemployment and what can be done about it. However, the consideration of what unemployment means has been lost in some of our discussion. On Thursday, when travelling, we were delayed for an hour because someone had fallen in front of train in Alexandra Palace. I do not know whether it was a suicide attempt. At the weekend, we had the news in Leeds that a father had murdered his family and killed himself. Suicide is increasing and there must be a link with the economic situation. I hope that all hon. Members would deem that the personal disaster that it is.
I find it deeply offensive that Opposition Members mocked this afternoon every time Government Members said that we were trying to do something for the unemployed in this country. They are laughing at the unemployed. Do you know why you are laughing at the unemployed? Because the left has always used the unemployed as a political tool. If you keep people down, you try to use them as a tool. And what did you do in 13 years of government? You borrowed huge amounts of—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)
Order. I understand the hon. Gentleman feels very strongly about this, but he is addressing me, the Chair. He will not use the word “you”; he will please refer to “hon. Members”.
Alec Shelbrooke
I apologise, Madam Deputy Speaker, but for 13 years, the Labour party bought jobs and did not lay a foundation for moving forward. It was left to this coalition Government—two of the major parties of this country coming together—to try to put in place the proper foundations.
The smiles of glee cannot be wiped off the faces of Opposition Front Benchers when there is bad economic news. That is reprehensible. Jobs cannot be bought by borrowing; economic stability that will last must be put in place. The difference between Government Members and Opposition Members is that we try to govern for the future of this country. Whether or not we are in power, we mean to ensure that we do what is right for this country. All the Labour party did was try to hang on to power, which is why we today face one of the biggest economic crises and the fastest growing level of unemployment in decades.
It is no good Opposition Members harking back to the ’80s and ’90s. We should not forget the very different circumstances, especially of the 1980s. The fact is that this Government have been dealt a terrible economic hand. I make the point again: it is not a Tory Government, as was said earlier, but a coalition Government of the two main parties of this country, which came together to sort this mess out. We have been mocked this afternoon. I have listened carefully and although the hon. Member for Bolton West (Julie Hilling) made a good speech, the most impassioned was by the right hon. Member for Rother Valley (Mr Barron)—he was the one who meant what he said. Other than that, unemployment has been used as a political football.
Grahame M. Morris
If the hon. Gentleman is advocating a particular course, he might give his opinion on this question: would he pay his 15-year mortgage off in five years if it meant sending his children to school hungry and without shoes?
Alec Shelbrooke
My response to that rather strange analogy is that if we were to follow the route taken by the Labour party, interest rates in this country would rise, hard-working families up and down the country would be paying another £1,000 a month on their mortgages and their children would go to school hungry, because of the folly of Labour’s policies.
We have only to look at events around Europe. A 40% cut in public sector wages was proposed in Greece, but Ireland cut public sector wages by 15% to get on top of things, and yet all the Opposition say is that we should spend more money and buy jobs. That does not lay the foundations to move this country forward.
Julian Sturdy (York Outer) (Con)
My hon. Friend is making a powerful point. As a fellow Yorkshire MP, does he agree that if we are to tackle unemployment in the north, we must tackle the north-south divide, which sadly widened under the previous Administration?
Alec Shelbrooke
I could not agree more with my hon. Friend. We could list example after example of when infrastructure spending was removed from the north of England and brought down to marginal seats in the south in what can only be described as an attempt to hang on to power, not operating in the best interests of this country.
A bit of humility from Opposition Members would not go amiss in this debate. Very few Opposition Members have this afternoon spoken about trying to tackle the problem. I go back to where I started: when someone becomes unemployed, it is a massive tragedy for that family. Where will they find the money to pay the bills? Where will they find the money for Christmas? It is no wonder that there is a rise in suicide rates. Opposition Members should not dare say that Government Members believe that that is a price worth paying. We do not. We believe that we need to put in place the strong foundations for an economy that will work in the long run, and that will work for generations beyond the one that has been terribly let down by the previous Labour Government.
Grahame M. Morris (Easington) (Lab)
I rise to support the motion in the name of my hon. and right hon. Friends on the Front Bench. We are aware of the national figures, so in the limited time that I have I will concentrate on the picture as it affects Easington and the north-east region.
As Opposition Members are aware, the north-east has suffered more than perhaps any other region. Unemployment currently stands at 11.7%. In both the public and private sectors, unemployment is rising unabated as a direct consequence of the Government’s policies.
As we already know, the public sector is losing jobs more than 13 times faster than the private sector can create them. We were promised a private sector-led recovery. We were told that the public sector jobs that have been lost in the north-east—we have lost more than 32,000 so far—would be replaced by a growing private sector. That clearly has not happened over the past 12 months.
The latest job figures show that the north-east has lost a larger proportion of jobs than anywhere else in the country. We have 6,000 fewer jobs in the construction sector compared with the same period last year. Clearly, Government policy has had a direct impact on the private sector. Cutting infrastructure projects and the Building Schools for the Future programme has hit construction jobs. The figures produced by the northern TUC show that the public sector is losing 2,000 jobs a month.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham) mentioned, the Conservative Government of the 1980s and early 1990s bear a heavy responsibility for the worklessness that exists in areas such as mine. When the traditional industries were still operating—in my case it was coal mining—the numbers of people who were employed were high and the numbers on benefit were relatively low. It was not until the pits closed that we saw significant increases in unemployment and incapacity claims. As hon. Members have already said, there is a human cost to unemployment. After closing the pits in Easington and in the north-east, the Conservatives left villages, towns and entire communities without work.
Ian Lavery (Wansbeck) (Lab)
Does my hon. Friend agree that the unemployment statistics in Easington are very similar to those in Wansbeck? In my constituency, there is in excess of 30 people applying for each job vacancy and that is intolerable. The Prime Minister has kept one of his promises: before the election, he said that the north-east would be hit the first and hit the hardest.
Grahame M. Morris
Indeed. I share my hon. Friend’s concerns, and that has certainly been the case. We are facing a worsening of the north-south divide. It is also the case that the north-east has faced some of the worst increases in unemployment across the UK. The hon. Member for Salisbury (John Glen) said that there were 1,000 people out of work in his constituency. There is more than three times that number in my constituency. The number of 18 to 24-year-olds out of work in Easington has increased by 65%. For the over-50s, the figure is up 58%, which is just as concerning. The situation for those out of work in the north-east is much bleaker than in many other regions.
Unemployment and worklessness are not evenly spread across the country. Indeed, they are concentrated in particular pockets, largely the older industrial areas of the north-east, Merseyside, Scotland and Wales, and that makes unemployment far harder to deal with. I should like to commend the excellent work carried out by Professor Steve Fothergill and his colleagues at Sheffield Hallam university in identifying some possible solutions. I know that time is short, so I will bring my speech to a close.
There are real concerns about the Government’s intentions in relation to workfare. If jobs exist, why are they not being offered as real jobs with real wages? We need a plan from the Government for jobs and growth. Our Front-Bench team has a five-point plan to kick-start the economy, but the Government could go further. There are some helpful suggestions from the Institute for Public Policy Research for supporting employment, and I raised them with the Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions, the hon. Member for Thornbury and Yate (Steve Webb), in a recent Adjournment debate. I would point out, however, that the Government’s promises on jobs and growth are as hollow as a chocolate Father Christmas.
Fiona O’Donnell (East Lothian) (Lab)
I want to begin by answering some of the accusations made by the hon. Member for Elmet and Rothwell (Alec Shelbrooke). I do not think that it is a price worth paying to see the failure of this Government just so that we can get any kind of political advantage. He should have withdrawn his remarks—Members were not laughing, we were saying that the Government’s plan is not working.
Jobs and employment are the biggest issue in my constituency and the latest figures now show that just under 2,000 people are claiming jobseeker’s allowance and chasing 191 vacancies in East Lothian. That means that if every Member sitting on the Government Benches went for a job, only one would stand a chance of getting one.
I also want to address the comments made by the hon. Member for Cardiff Central (Jenny Willott). She spoke about the voluntary sector and her contribution contained a lot of sense and value. I concede that Government Members care about unemployment. I have no doubt that when the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions went to Glasgow East and saw what poverty and deprivation did that he was genuinely moved, but I think there is a real gap when it comes to introducing policies and systems that help and support people in getting out of poverty and long-term unemployment. The Government talk about the voluntary sector playing a role when they are cutting the public sector, but the voluntary sector, which played such an important role in the future jobs fund, is now less able to respond to people’s needs.
The hon. Member for St Albans (Mrs Main) made the most unhelpful remark in the entire debate when she said that the Prime Minister went to Europe to stand up for London. I remind her—even the Prime Minister knew this—that there are financial services sector jobs across the United Kingdom, not only in London.
Fiona O’Donnell
I will give way, but I am going to try to be disciplined and not take the extra time.
Fiona O’Donnell
What I had really hoped for was a little humility. We have been preached to about humility, but the hon. Lady completely failed to recognise that there are financial services sector jobs in other parts of the country. My constituency is heavily dependent on the financial services sector in Edinburgh, and we will see what happens. The signs since this Government came into office have not been good.
The Government offer us the Work programme. I have been to visit the providers in my constituency. A woman opened up a spreadsheet and said she was not sure whether she was meant to show me it. It was, in effect, a profit and loss account showing at each quarter how many people the providers need to help into work to get a return on the payments from the Government. The most depressing thing was seeing the percentage they expected not to find their way in to work at the end of the two years.
My fear is that providers will not invest the resources in supporting that percentage, whom we could probably all identify when they walk in the door, when they are the very people who need more help and support to take them back into work. This is where the Government do not get it.
I remember during the 1997 general election knocking on a door and meeting a woman who was still in her pyjamas in the early afternoon and trying to convince her that she could get out, vote Labour and make a difference. She did not even have a reason to get dressed. When Government Members hear of a case like that, they think in terms of a drain on resources, and resentment and a grudging feeling come over them. They do not think about how to support someone like that and what it might mean for someone to have reached that low point in their life when they do not think that they have any contribution to make to society.
I am also particularly concerned about the increase of 55% in the number of young people in my constituency who have faced no prospect of finding work since this Government came into power. The future jobs fund gave them hope. Government Members keep yelling that it did not lead to real jobs, but the hon. Member for Cardiff Central, to give her credit again for bringing some reason into the debate, talked about the elements of the fund. She described eloquently how it helped young people to break the habit of not getting up in the morning, to gain self-esteem and to feel not only supported but understood.
We take no joy in the Government’s failure to address the needs of people who are seeking work, or to create the jobs that could lift them out of poverty. It is not a price worth paying for the political advantage that we are benefiting from.
Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)
The latest unemployment figures are absolutely shocking: 133,000 in Wales alone; and, in some areas such as the Rhondda, 20 people are chasing every single job vacancy. As we look around our constituencies, we see people losing their jobs because of the Government’s savage cuts to public services, and because private firms that thrived on public procurement are seeing their order books empty. We see people losing jobs in the private sector because consumer confidence is low and demand is down, and we just need to look at our high streets and town centres to see shops closing, including those of big household names and local businesses.
If any programme to get people back into work, such as the Work programme, is going to be successful, and if people are going to have a chance of getting a job, the Government need to get their act together and get a growth strategy—now, before it is too late; now, before any more firms go bust; now, before any more shops on our high streets close; and now, before any more families suffer the scourge of unemployment.
But we see nothing from the Government that will stimulate consumer confidence or demand. On the contrary, we have seen this shameless coalition Government hike VAT up to 20%, despite the fact that just before the election, in April 2010, the Conservatives and the Lib Dems vigorously denied any intention of increasing it. Now, they are ignoring Labour’s calls to cut it.
The Federation of Small Businesses has described the Government’s abysmal attempts at a growth strategy as
“too timid and out of touch with the reality of the UK’s sluggish economy.”
Indeed, back in July the British Chambers of Commerce said that the Government’s deficit reduction plan was
“already dampening demand and adding significantly to the pressures facing businesses and individuals.”
It called on the Government to strengthen their efforts to stimulate growth. Did the Government listen then? No. Are they listening now? No.
We have not seen the long-term strategies or the certainty that firms need in order to invest. Let us take the feed-in tariff fiasco. In my constituency alone, we are losing many jobs, because a new policy has been introduced in only six weeks, just like that, meaning that nobody has the confidence to put up the £10,000 to install solar panels on their roof. What other scheme do the Government have in mind whereby people put up £10,000 up-front to help to secure jobs in their local economy? I do not think they have one other idea.
In Wales we can show Members a better way—the one mentioned in the motion before us is being put into practice by the Welsh Government. The Labour Government in Wales are creating 4,000 jobs a year for young people in the private sector through the Jobs Growth Wales programme; helping to create jobs in the construction sector by continuing to build schools and houses; and helping businesses by making £55 million available in grants and loans to them. The problem, however, is that the Welsh Government are having to do this against the background of UK Treasury policies, which are making it very difficult for any business to flourish. We have a Chancellor who is determined to suck money out of our local economies, making it extremely difficult for local businesses to keep going.
We all know that people on the lowest and most modest incomes spend their money most rapidly in the local community, because they have to for their day-to-day needs, so let us look at a few examples of how the Government are squeezing hard-pressed families and sucking money out of our local economies. First, there is the VAT hike, which I have mentioned.
Secondly, there is the winter fuel allowance. Most pensioners, certainly in Wales and in many unemployment hot-spots across the UK, are not millionaires but need that £100, so they are transferring money that they would have spent in the local economy and putting it by to pay for their fuel. That money is leaving the local economy, with the economy in Wales alone losing some £31 million.
Thirdly, we have real cuts dressed up as freezes, such as those on public sector pay and on child benefit, and they are translating into money that people do not have to spend in the local economy. Fourthly, the 3% hike in pension contributions is taking £2.8 billion out of the economy; and fifthly, tax credits are being taken away from people who work less than 24 hours a week. But people just cannot, unfortunately, get those hours, and they are from some of the very poorest households. They are trying to work and to keep the family together, yet they are going to have even less money to spend and less money to stimulate the economy, so there are going to be even more job losses. The Government must do something now to put that right and get growth going.
Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)
The last Labour Prime Minister will be remembered in the economic history books as the man who in 2008, alongside President Obama, averted a depression of a 1930s quantum by invoking a fiscal stimulus. The current Prime Minister may well be remembered as the Prime Minister who prematurely used his veto to stop Europe putting together a plan to promote economic stability and growth, and avert a crisis in the euro and a national sovereign debt crisis across Europe. We all know that we did not want the financial transaction tax, but that could have been vetoed at a later date.
We have a deficit, as we all know, two thirds of which was the responsibility of the international financial markets and the banks. The remaining third was due to the excess investment over earnings of the Labour Government. There should be no apology for that, because that investment was in lower VAT, the car scrappage scheme and so on, which stimulated growth on the back of what could have been the worst depression since the ’30s, and reduced the deficit forecasts by some £22 billion. With the change of Government there was a change of focus, from growth to cuts. Growth has now stopped. The immediate judgment of the new Chancellor was to announce 500,000 job cuts and, for instance, 7% cuts in local government for four years. That meant that everyone in local government thought they were bound to lose their jobs and therefore stopped spending. The reduction in consumption and spending has meant a depression in growth. Now the deficit forecasts are not going down, but going up. They went up to £46 billion, and now they are £158 billion.
As for business and inward investment, the Chinese are coming to Cardiff tomorrow. They are concerned about a country whose growth is flatlining, which has strikes and riots provoked by the Government parties’ policies, where crime is rising for the first time and waiting lists are going up—again, through cuts—and where the educational standards of those going to university are beginning to fall off. In other words, this dualist idea—that if we get rid of the public sector, the private sector will be all right—is completely fallacious. The Labour party has a five-point plan. For example, the VAT change would stimulate £46 million in the local economy in Swansea, helping to create new jobs, while lower national insurance rates would also be helpful in stimulating building businesses.
I should mention that the interest rates that we now enjoy are thanks to the Labour Government making the Bank of England independent. We remember the last time the Tories were in, when interest rates hovered between 10% and 15%, so I will take no lessons from the Conservatives about how the austerity plans and unemployment are the reason for low interest rates. In fact, since the summer, interbank borrowing rates—that is, wholesale rates—have increased by 1%, so small businesses are suffering.
Finally, there is a glimmer of hope for the future in Swansea and Wales, thanks to the standard and quality of research and development in both our universities, which are working with UK Trade & Investment to network into international markets. However, with an enterprise zone in Bristol, parked on the gateway to Wales, we are not helped, frankly, by the continuation of rising tolls on the Severn bridge, especially when we see them being cut on the Humber. That is basically leading to disinvestment in many investment projects, whether in St Athan or the Severn barrage. There is hope, but we need a refocus on growth, instead of an endless focus on cuts. Anyone who runs a business that is making a loss needs to focus on revenue, not just cutting everything. The Government need to think again and remember the success of the previous Labour Government.
Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)
Let me make a few brief points. There is a lot of emotion and pain about rising unemployment, for the many reasons that were eloquently expressed by many Members from across the Chamber, including, as the hon. Member for Elmet and Rothwell (Alec Shelbrooke) said, my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton West (Julie Hilling) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Rother Valley (Mr Barron). We make those emotional points strongly not because we want to re-fight the class wars of the 1980s and 1990s, but because we want to ensure that we learn to understand the impact of letting unemployment rise unchecked without properly and effectively intervening. I therefore hope that Government Members will not misinterpret me when I say that one of the things that we should learn about—in addition to what happens when whole generations are lost, along with the insult and disrespect that they feel—is what that leads to, in terms of alienation and the kind of behaviours it can drive. When we look at the lessons from the interim report of the official inquiry into the riots, I hope that we will take note of the rising sense of alienation among our young people and ensure that our employment policies specifically address it.
I want to ask a couple of questions about the Work programme. It cannot resolve the shortage of jobs, but it can prepare people to be better able to take the opportunities if and when they are made available. It is a matter of great regret to many Labour Members that there is so little transparency about how the Work programme is performing.
I hope that the introduction of the wage subsidy, which it seems might be related in some way to the operation of the Work programme, will not mean a double payment to Work programme providers or a double cost to the economy. I hope the Minister can reassure us on that. I hope, too, that he will say something about whether providers continue to see Work programme contracts as viable. Providers in my region are certainly expressing the concern to me that the lack of jobs means that it will not be possible for them to carry on without coming back to have further discussions with the Government about the payment structure and rewards built into the contracts. We need to know just how Ministers see the economic and financial viability of the Work programme in these very different economic circumstances from those in which the contracts were designed and let.
The Minister should acknowledge that the payment structure in the Work programme does not reward people only for getting someone a job and keeping them there for two years. There should be interim payments all the way through. When we look at the way in which people are moving into employment, I am particularly concerned that we do not move them just to short-term, stop-go, sporadic episodes of employment, whereby Work programme providers pick up some of the payment and redesign their model to make it sufficiently economically viable for them to keep the contract manageable, but do not deliver the sort of long-term sustainable jobs that I think we all want.
Finally, let me support the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Llanelli (Nia Griffith). The Government have tools at their disposal not to make the situation worse. I ask them to look urgently at two aspects of tax credits. The first is about the operation of the rule that, as my hon. Friend said, requires couples to work a minimum of 24 hours. We know that employers are not able to offer more hours in the current economic climate, and that rule is going to drive people out of the workplace. I also ask Ministers to look once again at the operation of the child care element of working tax credit. Aviva has shown us that about 32,000 women are leaving the workplace because they cannot make work pay. That is a false economy, and I hope Ministers will—
Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)
We have had an interesting and worthwhile debate.
In June last year, the Prime Minister told the House that cutting the deficit faster would revive private sector confidence. That was the basis for the whole plan: private sector investment and jobs would surge, and new private sector jobs would outweigh public sector job cuts. We now know that that plan has not worked. My hon. Friend the Member for Llanelli (Nia Griffith) and the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Dr Whiteford) were right to underline that the key assumption that confidence would surge has proved to be wrong. The new “Business Confidence Monitor” from the Institute of Chartered Accountants says:
“UK business confidence has collapsed…Confidence has declined across all sectors and all regions.”
My right hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Mr MacShane) was right to underline the seriousness of the crisis we face.
Nobody claims that the coalition strategy has worked to boost confidence. We will take different views about the reasons why it has not worked, but the fact that it has not worked is beyond dispute. Public sector job cuts now far exceed new private sector jobs—by 67,000 to 5,000 in the last quarter. My hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh East (Sheila Gilmore) was right to draw attention to the fact that Conservative Members like to look further back, closer to the election, when there were still beneficial effects from the previous policies. Today, however, private sector job creation has completely stalled.
The Office for Budget Responsibility tells us that more than 700,000 public sector jobs will go; already, for the first time, more than a million young people are out of work. My hon. Friends the Members for Ynys Môn (Albert Owen), for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham) and for Easington (Grahame M. Morris) pointed out what that means in communities around the country.
What are the Government doing? Not long ago, the Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions, the right hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling) told us that all this fuss about youth unemployment was a distraction.
Chris Grayling
May I ask the right hon. Gentleman, who is a decent man, to go and look at the original quotation? If he does so, he will find that I said that the actual figure for youth unemployment was 730,000. The 1 million figure is not a true reflection of the position, because it includes a large number of full-time students looking for part-time jobs. I do not count those as being unemployed.
Stephen Timms
The Minister should take that up with the Office for National Statistics.
Last month the Government finally recognised that they had to do something and announced the youth contract, but they have not made up their minds about the details. There appears to be some haggling with the Chancellor about how it will work, and it is clear that the Government’s providers have no idea how they are supposed to be delivering it from next April. A year after the Deputy Prime Minister said—so he tells us—that something needed to be done, there has still been no action.
Although we do not know the details, we can say one thing for sure: it was folly to scrap the future jobs programme and allow youth unemployment to rocket. As was recognised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Rother Valley (Mr Barron), my hon. Friends the Members for Bolton West (Julie Hilling) and for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green), and, indeed, the hon. Member for Salisbury (John Glen), a generation of young people will bear the scars of that folly throughout their working lives because Ministers were asleep at the wheel. All along, we were assured that the solution would be in the Work programme—that it would solve all the problems—but the truth is that the programme was rushed and inadequately planned. As we pointed out at the time, there needed to be a plan for transition from the previous programmes to the new one, but there was no such plan.
So how has the Work programme fared? As my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston pointed out, Ministers have gone to extraordinary lengths to block the publication of data about what it is achieving. I am told that officials have threatened Work programme providers that if they publish any figures, they will lose their contracts. I well understand the concern of the provider in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for East Lothian (Fiona O'Donnell) who said, “I should not show you this, because if I do I may lose the contract.”
Absurdly, the Minister of State claims that the purpose of the ban was to meet the requirements of the United Kingdom Statistics Authority. As we have been reminded, he has some form with the authority. However, its chairman wrote to me last week:
“The Statistics Authority has not been consulted on whether it would be appropriate for Work Programme providers to publish their own performance data.”
It was the Minister's decision to hush things up, not that of the United Kingdom Statistics Authority. As I told the Minister yesterday in Committee, the same organisations published their performance data in the flexible new deal, under the same United Kingdom Statistics Authority rules. They actually want to tell people what is going on and what is happening. The Minister must lift the ban.
According to the foreword to the White Paper “Open Public Services”, signed by the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister in the days when they used to agree with each other,
“it is only by publishing data on how public services do their jobs that we can wrest power out of the hands of highly paid officials and give it back to the people.”
How true that is, but in this case the Minister is resolute: they shall not know.
As it happens, it is possible to glimpse how the programme has been going by looking at the number of people coming off benefit each month. It is no surprise that the number plummeted in May, when the flexible new deal ended. The fact that it continued to be low as the Work programme got going should also have been no surprise, because that always happens. If we compare the months after May with the same period last year, we see that poor Work programme performance resulted in an estimated 86,000 people who should have obtained work not obtaining it. That is probably a permanent unemployment rise. The damage will be with us for years.
Incidentally, to deliver that worse performance, the Government had to pay out millions. I have heard that they had to pay tens of millions in penalty charges for early termination of flexible new deal contracts. I wonder whether the Minister can tell us how many millions of pounds the Government had to pay to prevent those 86,000 people from obtaining jobs.
The Government told us that the Work programme would enlist an army of voluntary organisations to give specialist help. To begin with, we were told that 508 voluntary sector organisations would be involved. By August, the number had fallen to 423. I met a group of them last month—superb organisations such as St Mungo’s, with a great track record in helping homeless people into work. They had agreements with three different prime providers in London. How many people had been referred to them for help under the Work programme in the six months since it started? None—not a single person. Dyslexia Action has Work programme agreements in six different areas. How many referrals has it received in the six months since June? I checked with it yesterday. None; not a single person; nobody at all. These are good organisations. They tooled up and acted in good faith on what the Minister said. He led them up the garden path; he has not delivered. The Merlin standards that he said would safeguard them have proved completely worthless.
Others who have had referrals told us that relationships in the Work programme are terrible. Prime providers are not talking to sub-contractors; jobcentres are not talking to prime providers; and as was rightly said earlier, there are persistent rumours of serious financial problems ahead in the new year. Can the Minister who is winding up tell us what contingency plan he has for the eventuality of a Work programme provider failure? The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions, the right hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell has indicated that he is relaxed about that eventuality. What will the Department do if it occurs?
It is clear that we need a new approach. We have spoken about the alternative five-point plan, which my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea West (Geraint Davies) was right to underline. That, at last, would give us a chance, and it is a chance we desperately need.
The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Steve Webb)
It is important in the few minutes remaining to put on the record some of the facts about the current situation, because there is a danger that the tenor of what we have heard from the Labour party might talk down the British economy and lead to an unnecessary depressing of confidence at a time when we need realism, not talking down the hard-working people in our economy.
Let me give an example. One would hardly believe from today’s debate that since the general election, the number of people in work in this country has risen by a quarter of a million. In fact, the number of people in private sector jobs has risen by more than half a million.
Steve Webb
In a second. So when it is said that the private sector is not expanding, that is simply not right. People say that there are no jobs, but there are half a million additional private sector jobs. The hon. Lady made the point that that is looking over the whole period, so I will take her at her word. Let us look at the last month. In it, the number of people in work has risen by 38,000. Of course, we can all choose different time periods—Labour Members used the last quarter, for example—but my point is that selective use of statistics, such as that made by the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Mr Byrne), creates a highly misleading impression and talks down the British economy in a way that is in nobody’s interests.
Mr Byrne
The Minister is characteristically generous in giving way. Surely he cannot celebrate the fact that employment over the last quarter has fallen by some 63,000, and that 13 times more jobs are being lost in the public sector than jobs are being created in the private sector. He cannot tell the House today that everything is going well, surely.
Steve Webb
Of course, I did not say that everything is going well, but the right hon. Gentleman cannot deny that in the last month, an extra 38,000 jobs, net, have been created. We can choose different time periods. As my right hon. Friend the Minister of State said, the claimant count rose by 3,000 in the last month, but that is more than offset by the fact that people who were previously on incapacity benefit have been reassessed on to JSA, and lone parents have been required to look for work and moved on to JSA. In fact, without those policy changes, JSA numbers would have fallen in the last month. That is why my right hon. Friend was absolutely right to talk about signs of stabilisation in the job market.
As a number of Members on both sides of the House said—my hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury (John Glen), the right hon. Member for Rother Valley (Mr Barron) and others—every single person on the unemployment roll is a person too many, but if we overstate the doom and gloom, we talk down confidence in the economy, which is to the detriment of all our constituents.
Let me respond to the claim made by the right hon. Member for Rother Valley and others that long-term youth unemployment is up—and I quote—“93%”. Labour Front Benchers have clearly supplied all their Back Benchers with figures for their constituencies. The only problem is that all of them are wrong. Labour Members might be interested to learn that what used to happen is that under measures such as the new deal, people had to move off JSA after a certain period and were paid something else—a training allowance—or they got a temporary job; then, when they went back on to JSA, as so many did, the clock started again. Hey presto—a long-term unemployed person had been converted into a short-term unemployed person. They had not got a job; they had just been taken out of the figures. We have stopped doing that. As a result, if all the factors are taken into account—the people who were excluded from the statistics because they were on training allowances or in temporary jobs—the number of long-term claimants aged 18 to 24 is about the same now as it was in 2010.
To hear Labour Members, one would think that the numbers had doubled. The right hon. Gentleman was very angry about that, and had they doubled he would be right to be so, but they have not doubled—in fact, they are roughly the same.
Steve Webb
The right hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr MacShane) said that it was “absurd” to blame all the problems on this Government. That was gracious of him, although I take great offence at his attack on Oxford PPE graduates, but to hear Labour Members today, one would have thought there would have been no public sector job losses at all had they stayed in power. They were planning tens of billions of pounds of cuts. How many public sector jobs would have gone had they gone ahead with their tens of billions of pounds of cuts? They have no idea—no idea at all.
Several hon. Members mentioned interest rates. We were told that we inherited low interest rates, and the Bank of England base rate was indeed low. The question was what decisions did we, as a new Government, have to make to get the fiscal position under control. Because we took the difficult decisions early—pretty much every one of which has been opposed, item by item, in the course of this debate—the interest rates at which the British Government are borrowing have stayed low while other countries’ debt rates have soared. As a result, in this Parliament we have saved £22 billion in debt interest—money we can spend on services and on helping the unemployed which would not have been available had we listened to Labour.
Early in the debate, my hon. Friend the Member for Monmouth (David T. C. Davies) said that we need to tackle red tape. He is right, and we have the red tape challenge, which has already resulted in substantial deregulation in, for example, retail and hospitality, with much more to come. I am grateful to him for making that point.
My hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff Central (Jenny Willott) highlighted the fact that pension funds will now be asked to invest more in the long-term infrastructure of this country—and rightly so. It is shocking that, for so many years, the money in our pension funds was not invested in our long-term infrastructure. This coalition Government are taking action to tackle that.
The hon. Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham) referred to the regional growth fund money in his constituency, and I am grateful to him for acknowledging the good that it can do. He asked about incentives to take on the long-term unemployed and the young unemployed. The youth contract is being introduced so that when people take on 18 to 24-year-olds from the Work programme—so they are long-term unemployed—they will get an incentive worth £2,275. That is more than a year’s free national insurance, so it is a valuable incentive. Unlike point five of this fantastic five-point plan we have heard about, which would reward small firms that take on anybody—including someone they were going to take on anyway and who would have got a job—our incentive is targeted on the long-term unemployed. That is the crucial point. Only one person in this debate has mentioned cost-effectiveness—my hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury. The right hon. Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms) said that it was a scandal, or something, to have finished up the future jobs fund, but he should know that that fund was costing more than £6,500 per place, whereas our work experience programme costs a twentieth of that and delivers the same sort of outcomes. Cost-effectiveness simply is not on the Labour party’s radar.
In the few seconds available to me I shall not have the chance to go through all hon. Members’ contributions. My hon. Friend the Member for North East Hertfordshire (Oliver Heald) flagged up the record national debt that we were left and my hon. Friend the Member for St Albans (Mrs Main) talked about the collective amnesia of Labour Members and asked why they did not tackle bankers’ bonuses. Just before the election, they introduced a temporary bankers’ bonus tax—
Mr Alan Campbell (Tynemouth) (Lab)
claimed to move the closure (Standing Order No. 36).
Question put forthwith, That the Question be now put.
Question agreed to.
Main Question accordingly put.
Business without Debate
Delegated Legislation
Petitions
Tom Blenkinsop (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Lab)
The petition states:
The Petition of residents of Park End, Middlesbrough,
Declares that the Petitioners are concerned about the prospective closure of Park End Community Centre, which recently received £102,000 in lottery grant funding for a multi-games court, a skate park and a garden; that the Petitioners believe that this is a much-treasured community facility used regularly by residents of all ages and that the Petitioners are concerned that the closure of the centre will also have a negative impact on staff and users of the nearby Park End Medical Centre.
The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Government to ask Middlesbrough Council to ensure that funding for Park End Community Centre remains in place and that the centre remains open.
And the Petitioners remain, etc.
[P000989]
Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)
I rise to present a petition of 4,385 constituents and others from the Humber area against the proposed loss of 899 skilled private sector jobs at BAE Systems in Brough. While Members will be enjoying the Christmas break, Boxing day will see BAE Systems complete a consultation process on the loss of strategically vital defence jobs in a region badly hit by unemployment and a shortage of decent jobs, as we saw again in today’s jobless figures. Over 100 of the workers met the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition today. We hope that this leads to an outcome that will save as many of the jobs as possible.
The petition states:
The Petition of residents of Humberside,
Declares that the Petitioners support workers at BAE Systems in Brough in their fight to save Humber jobs.
The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Government to support the defence industry by investing in modern manufacturing and regeneration around the Humber and to preserve skilled jobs and apprenticeships in the Humberside area.
And the Petitioners remain, etc.
[P000990]
Tessa Munt (Wells) (LD)
I rise to present the petition of the Stop Hinkley campaign. Those who live in the area around Hinkley, particularly in Somerset, would like the Government to look at alternatives to Hinkley Point.
The petition states:
The Petition of supporters of the Stop Hinkley campaign,
Declares that the Petitioners strongly oppose the plan by EdF (Electricite de France) to construct a new nuclear power station at Hinkley Point in Somerset and declares that as an alternative, the Petitioners believe that a Government-backed programme of energy saving and clean renewable energy would combat climate change and avoid the risks of catastrophic accidents and dangers to health resulting from the storage of highly radioactive waste at Hinkley for 160 years.
The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Government to commit to an energy policy based on energy saving and clean renewable energy, in which new nuclear power stations play no part.
And the petitioners remain, etc.
[P000991]
Pedestrian Access (Railway Stations)
(13 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)
I am pleased to have secured this debate. I admit that the subject might seem a little obscure to some Members, but the Minister will know that it is of great concern not only to people in my constituency but to all of Sheffield. I am delighted to be joined by my hon. Friend the Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Angela Smith) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Mr Blunkett). This issue has brought together an extraordinary coalition of local residents and local organisations who are united in their concern to maintain pedestrian access through our station.
I know that similar issues have arisen in other parts of the country. My hon. Friend the Member for Derby North (Chris Williamson) has shared with me his concerns from further down the midland main line. My hon. Friend the Member for York Central (Hugh Bayley), who cannot be here tonight, has shared with me the issues in his city. I know that the Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions, the right hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling), has had problems of a similar nature at a station in his constituency.
This evening, I will explain the problem facing Sheffield and make three points. The first is that established pedestrian routes for non-rail users through railway stations should be respected and protected, not blocked by ticket barriers. Secondly, I will look at the relationship between publicly funded stations and station improvements and the franchise arrangements that have passed the management of our stations to private rail companies. Thirdly, I will challenge the one-size-fits-all approach to ticket barriers of the Department for Transport, and the implications for pedestrian access. I will draw extensively—but not too extensively—on the long-running campaign in my constituency and in the city to maintain access through our railway station. I will illustrate that railway stations are not just places where people get on trains, but can be so much more, as in the case of Sheffield.
In advance of tonight’s debate, in an experiment in participatory democracy, I invited comments from constituents through Facebook, Twitter and e-mail, and I was overwhelmed with responses. I should like to thank those who contacted me for their support, and although I apologise for being unable to use all their comments, I will draw heavily on their views tonight.
Sheffield has an open station without ticket barriers, and it is not simply a place to catch a train. It is connected to our Supertram network via a tram stop at the back of the station, and it is just one minute on foot from the main bus interchange. As my constituent, Roz Wollen, says, we have a
“joined up transport system of tram, bus and train, all linked.”
It is a model of an integrated transport hub and the only point in the city where all forms of transport come together, so the free movement of people around that hub is crucial.
The station is not just a transport hub. It sits at the bottom of one of Sheffield’s seven great valleys. On one side is the city centre and on the other are the communities of Park Hill, Norfolk Park and beyond. The railway line runs down the valley, dividing the two, and the station is the natural link between the city centre and those communities.
The bridge that runs through the heart of the station is the only pedestrian route that unites the city. As Angela Andrassy says:
“The bridge also symbolises for me the joining of our area of the city to the city centre.”
It runs from the main station concourse to the tram stop, then to the communities beyond and to key institutions such as Sheffield college and All Saints school. For residents coming the other way, it provides direct access to workplaces, shops, cinemas, theatres and Hallam university. The bridge and station, as Mark Doel says, are
“part of the civic landscape”.
That landscape has recently been enhanced by the wonderful new South Street park, built with public money, which I was delighted to open in September. Footpaths come down the hill through the park and converge on the station bridge, providing the main route to the city for the communities that I mentioned.
The bridge was redeveloped as a main pedestrian route in 2002, as part of the £50 million redevelopment of the station and the adjacent Sheaf square. That redevelopment created the modern, accessible and award-winning station that we have today and the major pedestrian gateway to the city centre. Funding came from both the public and private sectors, with the city council, the passenger transport executive, Network Rail and the European Union all contributing.
That redevelopment not only transformed the station to give train passengers a fantastic first impression of our city, but crucially opened the bridge to more than 1 million people a year, at a cost of £7.5 million, giving pedestrians a safe and secure route to and from the city centre. Frank Abel, a pensioner, told me:
“I use the bridge several times a week walking into town…At all times of the day and evening there are people going up and down the new steps.”
Gavin Bateman said:
“I use the footbridge through the station daily and my daughters use it on a regular basis. It is my contention that there is not an acceptable alternative”.
As Viv Ratcliffe, who is wheelchair-dependent, asked me to point out:
“The bridge was built to integrate all aspects of transportation including pedestrians.”
The station is not just a pedestrian gateway, a transport hub and a place to catch a train, it is increasingly a destination in its own right. In 2009 the Sheffield Tap opened at the station, and it has won awards. It is a pub that has quickly become a firm favourite not only of the Campaign for Real Ale but of travellers and non-travellers. Its arrival and subsequent success perfectly demonstrate that the station is increasingly a community hub and, in my view, a model station. As Gareth Slater points out,
“removing the bridge will damage the passing trade of the shops”
that have been developed in the station.
I echo the words of former Virgin Trains chief executive, Chris Green, and the president of the Town and Country Planning Association, Sir Peter Hall, who wrote in the introduction to their report for the Government in 2009 on how to improve our railway stations:
“Stations are deeply entwined with their local community and effectively act as the gateway to both town and railway. They leave passengers with their lasting impressions of both.”
Sheffield station’s success is, however, entirely predicated on its being an open station, with pedestrian access right through it. When East Midlands Trains took over the management of the station in 2007 under a new franchise from the Department for Transport and signalled its intention to install ticket barriers across the bridge to tackle fare evasion, there was considerable local anger.
Ticket barriers will block pedestrian access through the station and close the bridge to all but train passengers. Since 2007, the Department for Transport has put pressure on EMT to install barriers, but I am pleased to say that, so far, it has been unsuccessful, not least because of a tremendous campaign against barriers led by the campaign group Residents Against Station Closure—RASC. For more than four years, it has thoughtfully and thoroughly pursued the issue through lobbying, campaigning and regular creative demonstrations. Indeed, this Friday its festive protest will involve seven Santas with their reindeer—[Hon. Members: “Are they real?”] I am not sure whether they are live reindeer, but that is the theme. They will cross the bridge and give out chocolate coins to children, as a reminder that public money built the bridge.
I have worked with RASC for most of the past four years, long before being elected to this place. I pay tribute to its members for their energy, leadership and ability to mobilise extraordinary support across the city and the political spectrum. They do not stand alone. In an online poll conducted by Sheffield council in 2009, 94% of people said that they opposed ticket barriers. All political parties in Sheffield, along with local schools, pensioners, neighbourhood and transport groups have signed up to oppose the barriers. Indeed, earlier this afternoon, the Deputy Prime Minister sent me a note, apologising for missing this, the second most important debate of the week, but saying that he
“continues to urge the DfT to come to a practical solution with the train company and Sheffield City Council which will allow pedestrians to continue to be able to use the bridge.”
Institutions that are key to the city’s economic and social fabric support the campaign to keep the bridge open, including the chamber of commerce, Hallam university, Sheffield college and Sheffield International Venues. They know that breaking up the city’s transport infrastructure is bad for business, and makes Sheffield a less attractive place in which to work, study, live and invest.
Furthermore, the £150 million scheme, which is transforming the iconic and grade II* listed Park Hill flats—the largest listed structure in Europe—creating 874 new apartments and breathing new life into this part of the city, will be cut off from the city centre if access across the bridge is denied. It is madness, and the Park Hill developer, Urban Splash, understandably shares my strong opposition to barriers.
Local opposition has been exacerbated by the use of heavy-handed tactics to close the bridge on occasion. East Midland Trains has randomly shut the bridge to pedestrians, as it did one morning in May 2009, and it introduced human ticket barriers in February 2010. When, in September 2010, it was faced with angry residents who wanted to cross the bridge that it had closed without notice, it called in British Transport police, who handed out 45 cautions.
Underlining all that is the refusal of the Department for Transport and East Midlands Trains to acknowledge that Sheffield station is not just where you catch a train—it is a key part of the lives of the local people.
Angela Smith (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Lab)
My hon. Friend is making a good case for keeping the bridge barrier free. Is it not the case that people from all over the city, who work at places such as Sheffield Hallam could recently expect to get off the tram at the stop called “Sheffield Hallam” to access their place of work?
Paul Blomfield
My hon. Friend makes an important point. In stressing the communities that I represent in Norfolk Park and Park Hill, I do not want to underestimate the impact of closing the bridge on the wider city. That is a crucial tram stop, which is widely used by people coming to work during the day, people studying at Hallam university, and those coming to the cinemas and theatres in the evening. That bridge is crucial for them.
Before the Minister makes the point, I recognise that there is a problem with revenue loss, although attempts to gain accurate information on the scale of the problem have met brick walls. The Minister quantified it in a letter to me, at £2.3 million, only today, but we need more analysis. Fare evasion must be tackled, but barriers are not the one-size-fits-all answer that the Department for Transport seems to believe.
The problem of revenue loss lies with local services—main line services have cracked it through effective ticket checks on trains—but it is not simply deliberate fare evasion. I regularly travel on local services and it is often a challenge to pay. For example, I can join the train at an unstaffed station where I cannot buy a ticket.
The train companies could make much better efforts to collect fares, and on the busy trains, at peak times, when it can be difficult for ticket collectors, they could deploy staff on the platform. They could also install ticket machines at unstaffed stations. They could do a number of things. Barriers are the easy solution for the Department for Transport and the train companies, which are guilty—if hon. Members will forgive the pun—of tunnel vision, because they are ignoring the wider interests of the city. The station and its bridge were rebuilt with public money, so why are the needs of the public not being put first? Our taxes paid for the station improvements, yet the Department for Transport wants to relegate the needs of the public behind those of the train companies.
That raises important questions on future franchising arrangements and what control communities have and should have over our stations. The current franchise expires in 2015, and it is vital that the new round of tendering, which will begin in the next couple of years, takes into account local views, so that the DFT and franchisees are not locked into an agreement that will damage our city.
This issue emerged under the previous Government, but let me reflect on how they dealt with it. The Transport Secretary at the time, Lord Adonis, listened to local people and challenged the policy of his officials, who appear to be the driving force behind the move to barriers. He listened, he came to Sheffield, he looked at the position, he attended a meeting of RASC and he responded to their concerns by announcing a clear and unequivocal commitment that there would be no barriers at Sheffield unless pedestrian access was maintained.
I want to know why the current Government will not honour that commitment and look forward to the Minister’s remarks.
Chris Williamson (Derby North) (Lab)
I have some experience of this problem in Derby. The station was gated, and although the authorities claim that pedestrian access has been maintained, it is complicated and difficult for pedestrians to gain access. Some need to obtain certification from the college on the other side of the railway line. That has caused local residents to object, so if my hon. Friend can prevent similar difficulties arising in Sheffield, I am four-square behind him, because I wish we did not have to contend with those problems in Derby.
Paul Blomfield
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his intervention. I am aware of the situation in Derby. When EMT floated a similar proposal to tackle the problem in Sheffield, we drew heavily on the Derby experience in dismissing it as an impractical and unworkable solution.
That is one reason so many people are opposed to barriers. Indeed, when in opposition, the Minister wrote to a concerned rail expert on the matter. This is from his letter:
“Whilst barriers do work very well in some circumstances...it is by no means proven that revenue protection and passenger safety is achieved in others. For these reasons, I am opposed to the proposed new barriers at Sheffield and York railway stations.”
Will the Minister confirm that that is still his view and, if not, why has he changed his mind?
I look forward to the Minister’s response and his answers to these questions. Is he willing to travel to Sheffield and meet RASC to ensure that he properly considers the issues I have raised tonight?
Will the Minister provide a full breakdown of the revenue loss and explain exactly how it is calculated? What impact assessment has the Department conducted to evaluate the wider consequences for Sheffield, beyond the interests of the Department and the rail companies?
Why was there a reversal of the previous Labour Government’s commitment that there should be no barriers at Sheffield unless pedestrian access was maintained, and will the Minister tell the House who took that decision? Will he state whether it is the Department’s policy that every railway station should be gated? That seems to be the case from the incremental promotion of gating through franchise agreements, but if that is so, should that policy not be open to full debate?
Will the Minister say whether he now believes, as many in his Department do, that ticket barriers are the only solution to tackling fare evasion? Is it right that the DFT are making decisions from Whitehall about stations around the country without taking into account the local situation? Will he undertake to consult local communities before concluding the next franchise agreements for the management of local stations?
The words of my constituents tonight demonstrate that this is a disagreement not just between the Minister and me, but between the people of Sheffield and the micro-mismanagement of the DFT. The Department’s intransigence in pressing this deeply damaging proposal will have a huge impact on our city. I hope that tonight will take us one step closer to a resolution of this issue.
In conclusion, let me quote two of my constituents. Mark Doel says:
“This government says that it believes in devolving power to the local people. Well, the local people have spoken with one voice.”
Roger Donnison sums up Sheffield’s case perfectly:
“All of the recent investment in and around the station has been based on open access via the footbridge. Integration of the railway with the tram, and of Park Hill with the city centre will be lost without it.”
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Norman Baker)
I am pleased to respond to this debate and I congratulate the hon. Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield) on securing it and on putting forcefully the views of his constituents and others in Sheffield.
I fully recognise that there are local concerns regarding the access across the railway at Sheffield and I appreciate the points that the hon. Gentleman made about this long-running and sensitive issue. Let me assure him that I am fully aware of the issues and concerns that surround the proposed gating at Sheffield station. I have had representations not just from him but from other MPs in Sheffield, including the Deputy Prime Minister, who has made his views very plain on this matter as well. I want to be helpful and find a constructive way in which to resolve this matter, and I shall ask the hon. Gentleman for his help in that.
Let me deal with why we are where we are and answer some of the questions that have been raised. A key factor is the cost to the railway. There is another factor, which is access, but the loss of revenue is important. The hon. Gentleman refers to the letter that I sent to him. The costs of ticketless travel relating to Sheffield station is estimated at between 3% and 18%. The sum of £2.3 million a year was given to me by officials and was based on the minimum figure. If it were 18%, the amount would be £13.8 million a year. The hon. Gentleman will agree, as will all Members, that we simply cannot allow money to continue to haemorrhage from Sheffield in this way and that a solution needs to be found that captures the lost revenue as a matter of urgency. This is money that should be going to the railway to help improve services and, at the moment, it is being lost. It is also unfair that many people are paying for their tickets while others are able to travel apparently free of charge. That is not fair on the people who buy the tickets.
Normally with ticketless travel of this magnitude, train operating companies consider ticket-gating options. The magnitude of this issue at Sheffield was such, as the hon. Gentleman rightly and fairly said, that the previous Labour Government put an obligation on East Midlands Trains, when it won the franchise in 2009, to install gates at Sheffield. It should be clear, therefore, that this was an obligation on East Midlands Trains and was not something that it wanted to pursue itself.
Paul Blomfield
There was an obligation to install barriers or, if that proved unviable, to investigate other revenue protection measures. Will the Minister confirm that?
Norman Baker
Yes. My understanding was that the company was required to provide barriers, but I am looking to officials to see whether that is in fact the nuance of it. If there is any further information, I will give it to the hon. Gentleman before I finish my speech.
On ticket barriers—I want to talk about other aspects of the matter too, so the hon. Gentleman should not misinterpret what I say in the next few paragraphs—ticket gates are an efficient and proven method of significantly reducing ticketless travel and increasing rail revenue. That increased revenue has the effect of reducing the costs of the railways, as he will appreciate, for both taxpayers and rail passengers. As he will be aware, the cost of running the railways has increased by 60% in real terms since 1996-97. Sir Roy McNulty’s independent study estimates that UK rail costs are about 30% higher per passenger mile than those of our European competitors, so there is a big issue with general efficiency. Sir Roy McNulty’s study also goes on to state that the evidence suggests that
“the widespread introduction of gating at stations could reduce revenue lost through ticket evasion or the deliberate purchase of “wrong” tickets…The DfT data regarding rates of ticketless travel suggest it is about 12% in London compared with about 7% elsewhere.”
In addition, gated barriers at stations can bring a number of benefits to station users, rail passengers and the industry. Gates at stations are staffed when in use and therefore provide benefits to passengers in terms of safety and security through staff visibility. They also make it more difficult for non-ticket holders to access the railway, which potentially contributes to more enjoyable travel for fare-paying passengers.
The hon. Gentleman asked whether it was policy to require gating everywhere. I think it is a matter of horses for courses and each railway line and each station is different. It would not be sensible, for example, to install gating on very lightly used rural stations. That would be nonsensical in terms of the cost-benefit ratio. The Department and the train companies will estimate the likely consequence of not having a proper method to ensure ticketless travel is tackled—and I shall come to that in a moment—set against the cost of gating. He may be interested to know, for example, that I have recently required the installation of gating at Gatwick airport, a hole in the Southern network that has caused ticketless travel and been a magnet for those who wish to access the railway without paying.
Angela Smith
The point is, however, that as far as Sheffield is concerned, many of those found to be travelling without tickets boarded the trains at some of the rural stations to which the Minister has just referred. Clearly, as my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield) pointed out, the problem is that we have a scarcity of East Midlands Trains staff on the trains to ensure that people have paid for their tickets at stations further down the lines that serve Sheffield.
Norman Baker
Let me try to deal with the point about staff on trains. It is partly about franchise requirements—and, by the way, I am advised by officials that the barrier obligation is ongoing for East Midlands Trains, although alternatives would be considered if gating was not installed by a particular date, which I must say is an interesting franchise condition.
Members will appreciate that there is a significant cost to having staff on trains. Train companies employ revenue protection officers on a regular basis, but it is not possible—particularly on busy trains—to have any guarantee that the conductor, particularly when the train is busy and when there are frequent stops on the service, will be able to get through the train and check all the tickets. Indeed, the hon. Member for Sheffield Central said in his introduction that he is often unable to buy a ticket to travel on the train.
Chris Williamson
In view of his comments about the cost of train managers, will the Minister confirm that the plan to introduce more gates is part of a long-term Government plan to de-staff or run down the number of staff working on the railways? Is that behind his plans?
Norman Baker
I would not infer that at all. As I said a moment ago, if there are gates, staff are needed in case someone gets stuck in them. If the gates are unstaffed, they have to be left open. Gates are in fact a guarantee of staff on the station.
Angela Smith
The Minister mentions a problem with staff getting around to check all tickets on busy trains, but that underlines the fact that on the Penistone line, in particular, which runs into Sheffield station—it is a busy commuter route from Huddersfield and serves my constituents—we have a lack of capacity. So perhaps one answer is to have not just more staff on trains, but more trains.
Norman Baker
I entirely sympathise, but the hon. Lady makes a wider point, and I hope she notices that, notwithstanding our difficult economic situation and inheritance, we now have the biggest investment in railways since Victorian times, a commitment to improve rolling stock on several lines, an electrification programme that has extended way beyond what was originally anticipated and a tram-train pilot in Sheffield. There is a great deal of investment in transport, and any fair-minded person would look at the Government’s investment portfolio and conclude that, since May 2010, transport and, in particular, railways have done rather well.
The Chancellor’s growth statement included several roads that the hon. Lady may notice, but what was not picked up was that £1.4 billion extra is being allocated for rail, as against £1 billion for roads. So we are seeing massive investment in the railways, and that includes—[Interruption]—I wish she would not chunter in the background; I am trying to answer her questions—investment in rolling stock. There is a commitment to new rolling stock for the east coast main line and for the First Great Western line; new rolling stock is being introduced to the Thameslink programme; and we are continuing with our intention to bring in 2,700 new carriages.
I fully accept that we have a problem on the railways, in that more people than at any time since 1929 now travel by rail—if that is a problem—on a network that is between a half and two-thirds of the size it was in 1929. I call it a success in some ways, but it is called a problem in terms of its consequences. The public’s perception of their journey is also much more favourable than was the case even 10 or 15 years ago, and people now regard trains as safe, more punctual and more pleasant to use. That is a problem of success, so the inevitable consequence is that we have to follow people’s increased use of trains, which has largely been recession-resistant, and ensure that there are sufficient orders to pick up extra passengers.
One answer is to invest in high-speed rail, and, if the Secretary of State concludes when she makes her statement in due course that she wishes to pursue the Y-shape proposal, her decision will significantly benefit the Sheffield area, as well as everywhere else in the country. So I assure the hon. Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Angela Smith) that we are doing our best to ensure that there is real investment in carriages and infrastructure. That is quite a long answer to her point, but I hope it assures her that we take rail extremely seriously. Indeed, I would not be doing my job of lobbying within the Government if that were not the case, but I am happy to say that it is.
Let me return to the subject in hand. The welcome increase in the number of passengers using rail services in south Yorkshire—this point follows on from the one I have just made—has also brought problems that the Department is managing in conjunction with local stakeholders. For example, additional rail vehicles have been introduced to provide more capacity. Unmanned local stations are cheap to operate and improve access to rail services, but that does not make it any easier for on-train staff to collect and issue more tickets on board busy trains. Sheffield, as I have mentioned, has a particularly high level of ticketless travel.
Paul Blomfield
In my experience and, certainly, that of others, the problem is not just with busy trains, because companies could make more effort to collect revenue from trains on which it is perfectly easy for collectors to navigate the carriages. On busy trains, which are limited to certain peak times, it would also be possible to deploy ticket collectors on platforms at the station. Has there been a proper economic assessment of that idea, as a revenue-side way of dealing with the problem, in comparison with the capital side? My hon. Friend the Member for Derby North (Chris Williamson) made the point that it could be a win-win for us, because it would not only tackle fare evasion, but create more jobs.
Norman Baker
I am not going to stand here this evening and say that everything possible has been done by East Midlands Trains, or Midland Mainline before it—or, for that matter, any other train company—to minimise the amount of ticketless travel on its trains. Some companies do better than others. It may well be the case—I just do not know—that there is more scope for staff on trains to—
Norman Baker
With respect, I should not know what happens on every single train across the country, because we are now moving into an era in which we avoid micro-management of the trains. We are setting the high-level objectives; we are not seeking to micro-manage every train, let alone every passenger on the network. However, as a general principle, it is right that train companies should try to minimise ticketless travel by whatever means they can; indeed, it is in their interests to do so. As to whether a cost-benefit analysis has been carried out to see whether such measures are more effective, to be honest, I am not sure that one has been, although I will check that and write to the hon. Gentleman.
What I would say, however, is that the problem is a bit like when the police stop drivers speeding: when the police are there, they are effective, both at the time and for about a week afterwards, but then the average speed of the motor vehicles on those roads rises again. A gating solution is a permanent solution; a solution involving people, unless they are permanently there, is not a permanent solution and is less effective than gating. However, I will write to the hon. Gentleman about the point that he has raised.
Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)
But the Minister has said that gates have to be staffed. In fact, my experience of East Midlands Trains—not in Sheffield, but in Nottingham—is that gates are regularly unstaffed, so they are doing nothing to prevent fare evasion.
Norman Baker
If a train company operates gates without regularly staffing them, that will lead to a loss of income, and it is responsible for dealing with that. However, travelling the network extensively as I do, I do not often come across gates that have been left open.
East Midlands Trains, along with Midland Mainline before it, has undertaken manual staffed barriers of ticket inspectors on selective days to ensure that all passengers passing through Sheffield station are in possession of a valid ticket—perhaps those were the instances to which the hon. Member for Sheffield Central referred in his introductory remarks. The increased revenue collected at the station on those days, both by the inspectors and through increased sales at the ticket office, indicates that between 3% and 18% of travel at Sheffield is ticketless—that is where the figure comes from. That means that at least £2.3 million is lost to the railway each year through ticketless travel in the area. I want to deal with that, but I also want to deal with the point that the hon. Gentleman raised—quite understandably—about the views of people in Sheffield and those who perhaps do not want to travel by train, but do want to use the bridge.
I hope that the hon. Gentleman is aware that the station bridge in Sheffield to which he referred is not a right of way. It may be an established route in a non-legal sense, but it is not an official right of way. In fact, he will know that the bridge is locked shut every night after the last train, presumably to prevent it from becoming a right of way. However, I know that for many people—including students, residents and visitors—it has become the most convenient thoroughfare for crossing the railway. I also accept the point about access to the tram stop. As I am keen to promote light rail and low-carbon forms of transport, that is a point that I take seriously. However, although the bridge is not a right of way, I understand that Sheffield council has promoted it as part of the “gold route” access strategy for its redevelopment of the Park Hill area on the east side of the city.
I agree with the hon. Gentleman that it is important to try to ensure that, through the installation of gates—if that is what occurs—the railway does not cut a community in two, and that the community is provided with a satisfactory and easy way of gaining access across the railway. We therefore looked at a number of options, including: the refurbishment of the existing public bridge to the south of the station; the refurbishment and extension of the station goods bridge; dividing the current station bridge to provide separate lanes for railway passengers and public access across the station, which is a solution that I was particularly keen on; building a new bridge at the north end of the station platforms; and building a new bridge crossing over the railway tunnels at the north end of the station. As the hon. Gentleman will be aware, in 2009 the Department for Transport commissioned Network Rail to undertake a feasibility study to look into those options. The report has previously been released to Sheffield city council and the South Yorkshire passenger transport executive. As he requested on 17 November, I have also sent him a copy of the report.
The report recommended that the options of extending the station goods bridge and of trying to split the existing station bridge be discarded, as they were both impracticable and excessively complicated. The report recommended further investigation of the remaining options. We have explored those options at some length, and both my right hon. Friend the Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr Hammond), the then Transport Secretary, and I have visited Sheffield station separately to look at them for ourselves.
In answer to the point about Lord Adonis, I must say that he was a very competent Transport Secretary—and I never hesitate to say that.
Norman Baker
The hon. Gentleman says that Lord Adonis listened; well, we have listened. He went to Sheffield and I have gone to Sheffield. As far as the commitment to no barriers is concerned, there are no barriers there yet, and we are 19 months or thereabouts into this Government. We could have dealt with the matter on day one, but we did not because of the sensitivity of the issue and because we wanted to reach a satisfactory conclusion. I hope that the hon. Gentleman gets some reassurance from that.
Based on the Department’s discussions with Sheffield council over the last two years, a possible alternative to the station bridge has been identified in the form of the building of a new public bridge over the north end of the station platforms. I understand that, as part of its long-term city regeneration plans, Sheffield city council already envisages replacing the existing bridge to the south of the station and building a new bridge over the railway tunnels to the north of the station. The construction of a bridge to the north might address the requirements of both the railway and local stakeholders.
In addition, we are looking at a number of ways in which continued access across the railway for local users could be maintained by using the existing station bridge, while also capturing lost revenue. I stress that we have not yet reached a conclusion: we are looking at these matters in the round in order to find the best options for a solution. For example, East Midlands Trains has offered to provide “timed passes” to local residents and others, which would allow them to pass through any gates and continue to use the station bridge to cross the railway. Officials have been investigating the feasibility of gating at platform level and I have to say that there are serious objections to that as well, particularly in terms of practicality, as some accesses are very narrow and would not be wide enough for the gates, causing congestion. Staff would be required on every single platform, which is hugely expensive—probably more than the ticketless travel costs. Although this may appear to be an attractive option, I am afraid that it does not work. All these potential solutions are in addition to the existing alternative routes that bridge the railway in the proximity of Sheffield station. We have to deal, however, with the problem of ticketless travel.
I said that I wanted to be constructive—and I do—because this is a serious issue for people in Sheffield and a serious issue for the railway. I am keen to resolve the issue constructively and in a way that I hope addresses the interests of all involved. I want to make the hon. Member for Sheffield Central and other hon. Members an offer tonight. [Interruption.] I am not going to ask anyone to put their hands into their pockets; there is no need to worry. The Secretary of State and I are happy to have a round table meeting with all Sheffield MPs, representatives from the council and perhaps a representative from the campaign group. They can come down here—and I will look at the diary and see whether we can go up there—to look at the options openly and frankly in order to make progress. We have nothing to hide; we are happy to share the information to try to reach a satisfactory conclusion. The Secretary of State is keen to achieve that as well. We will both be involved.
The two objectives that we provisionally set are as follows. The first is that we must end, or significantly deal with, ticketless travel on the railway. The second is that we seek to meet the legitimate aspirations of people in Sheffield to be able to cross the railway without restriction. We want to achieve both those objectives. Provided people are signed up to achieving them, we should be able to make some progress. I hope that hon. Members will find that response helpful.
Paul Blomfield
I welcome the Minister’s offer, with those caveats. We share the desire to tackle ticketless travel and I welcome the Minister’s aspirations to address the concerns expressed by local residents and local organisations. The sort of meeting he describes, involving the local campaign group as he mentioned, would be a positive step forward. I thank him for that.
Norman Baker
I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s response. We will try to make progress. As the last Government recognised and as we now recognise, this is not an easy issue, but we are determined to make progress, and I believe that with good will on all sides we can do so. I will write to him and his colleagues in Sheffield shortly.
Question put and agreed to.