House of Commons

Thursday 15th March 2012 Commons Chamber

Thursday 15 March 2012

The House met at half-past Ten o’clock

Prayers

Thursday 15th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker in the Chair]

Oral Answers to Questions

Thursday 15th March 2012 Commons Chamber

The Secretary of State was asked—

[Matthew Hancock (West Suffolk) (Con)]

2. What steps he is taking to promote apprenticeships; and if he will make a statement.

[The Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills (Vince Cable)]

The Government have prioritised apprenticeships. As a consequence, final figures show that in the full 2010-11 academic year there were 457,200 apprenticeship starts, an increase of 63.5% over the previous year. Over the past two years, the number of apprenticeships for 16 to 18-year-olds has increased by a third and that for 19 to 24- year-olds has increased by two thirds.

[Matthew Hancock]

May I commend the Secretary of State most warmly for what he and his Department have done on apprenticeships? In particular, may I shower praise on the absent Minister for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning, who has driven this programme forward? The number of apprenticeships in my constituency has increased by almost two thirds in the past year, so will the Secretary of State ensure that some of the pre-work training—for instance, at the British Racing School, where I joined an apprenticeship scheme on the gallops—can continue under the new scheme being set up?

[Vince Cable]

I am happy to be showered with praise by the hon. Gentleman, and I entirely share his appreciation of the work done by the absent skills Minister. Indeed, there has been praise from a more independent source than either of us: I believe that the Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee has, rather unusually, acknowledged the considerable contribution we make through our apprenticeship programme. I am not aware of the anomaly that the hon. Member for West Suffolk (Matthew Hancock) points out, but it is an important one and I promise to investigate it.

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

The Secretary of State knows that Labour Members like apprenticeships and welcome anything that expands genuine, good apprenticeships. But the fact is that if we are to end this inter-generational worklessness in our country, we need a new culture where nobody expects to go into unemployment at least until they are 25—that is the way to go. To change the culture, people need to be in training, education or work—no alternative.

[Vince Cable]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right and I do not disagree with a word he says. The culture is changing; there is a great appetite in business to take on apprentices and among young people to apply for apprenticeships. I am sure that everybody in the House agrees that apprenticeships are important—we are actually doing something about them.

[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)]

Is my right hon. Friend aware that the number of apprenticeships in Harlow has increased in the past year by 76%? Is he also aware that we have a very strong bid for a university technical school in Harlow? Does he not agree that university technical schools will put young people on the conveyor belt to apprenticeships?

[Vince Cable]

Yes, I do agree, and we need to acknowledge the contribution that Lord Baker has made. He worked on this idea for a long time before it became fashionable, and it is now being implemented. It is extremely popular with young people and with employers, and the Government are getting behind it with financial support.

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

I recently visited a number of apprentices in my constituency in apprenticeship week, and I commend the work of Hackney community college in this respect. Interestingly, the apprentices were doing training courses, but a lot of them had no real prospect of a job at the end of their apprenticeship. What can the Secretary of State say about the Government’s plans to convert apprenticeships into long-term employment for these young people?

[Vince Cable]

The whole point about apprenticeships is that they are training for people in work, which is why they are attractive to employers and to people who apply for them. The normal practice is that people are in work, they upgrade their skills and they proceed. The overall economic benefit to the economy was recently spelt out by the National Audit Office: for every £1 of taxpayers’ money that goes in, the overall economy derives a benefit of at least £18.

[Peter Aldous (Waveney) (Con)]

3. What steps he is taking to enable small and medium-sized companies to offer high-quality apprenticeships to young adults.

[The Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills (Vince Cable)]

We are making it easier and quicker for small and medium-sized companies to take on an apprentice by simplifying and speeding up the process for employers. Additionally, we are making available up to 40,000 incentive payments of £1,500 to help small employers recruit their first 16 to 24-year-old apprentice. A small and medium-sized enterprise review is under way to identify further ways of engaging SMEs in high-quality apprenticeships.

[Peter Aldous]

Although the apprenticeship grant for employers initiative is welcome in my constituency, where there are many SMEs, does the Secretary of State agree that the scheme would have even more impact if the rule prohibiting the participation of companies that have taken on apprentices in the past three years was relaxed?

[Vince Cable]

I understand the frustration of employers who have a good record on apprenticeships and feel that they are penalised in such a way. If we had unlimited money, we would meet the hon. Gentleman’s expectations, but the scheme that I have described is restricted to new companies that are taking on apprentices for the first time. It has to be that way for financial reasons, but I would have hoped that companies with a good record in apprenticeships will have seen the benefit of them and will offer them for good commercial reasons.

[Derek Twigg (Halton) (Lab)]

Terrible youth unemployment figures were released from my constituency yesterday. Companies continue to tell me that they cannot get banks to lend them money. What representations has the Secretary of State made to his colleague, the Chancellor? He promises to ensure that more money is available for small businesses, but what representations is he making to ensure that more money is available so that such businesses can take on more apprentices?

[Vince Cable]

The Chancellor and I discuss this problem constantly because it is a real issue for SMEs. As a result of the Merlin agreement last year, there was a significant increase in lending to small-scale enterprises beyond what they would otherwise have had. I recognise that it is a continuing issue and I am sure the Chancellor will have some ideas in the Budget about how to extend it further.

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

4. What assessment he has made of the level of applications to English universities for courses commencing in September 2012.

[The Minister for Universities and Science (Mr David Willetts)]

With permission, Mr Speaker, I shall answer this question with Question 17.

[Mr Speaker]

Order. The Minister will not do so, notwithstanding his extremely good intentions, as the grouping is broken for the very good reason that the hon. Gentleman in question has withdrawn his question. Nevertheless, we look forward to hearing the Minister’s mellifluous tones.

[Mr Willetts]

In that case, Mr Speaker, I shall reserve my answer to the question before us.

The latest UCAS figures show that 30.6% of UK school leavers applied to university, down from 31.4% the year before but still the second highest on record. This will still be a competitive year for access to university, like any other, as people continue to understand that university remains a good long-term investment in their future.

[Andrew Gwynne]

I am grateful to the Minister for that reply, but what measures are the Government taking to ensure that the supply of places in 2013 and beyond matches the demand for places at English universities given the drop in applications for the 2012 entry and the confusion over student number controls for 2013 and beyond?

[Mr Willetts]

We will continue to offer a large number of places at university and they will continue to be very well funded. Indeed, the latest figures from the Higher Education Funding Council for England show that the funding for university teaching will go up from £8.9 billion this year to £9.1 billion next year and £9.6 billion the year after. That money is coming through in fees and loans—not fees that students have to pay up front—to ensure that we have strong, effective universities that can continue to educate many students.

[Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)]

That is welcome news, but from what my constituents have said one would not judge that from what is said at university open days. Institutions seem still to be seeking to attract students on the basis of their existing facilities, be they educational or otherwise, rather than providing information about value for money for the cost of their tuition. What is the Minister doing to encourage universities to publish data such as drop-out rates, teaching time, contact time with students and student satisfaction rates?

[Mr Willetts]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right that students need to have access to such information. That is why we have identified the 17 key sources of information to which students attach most importance, and that should be available on Government websites before the start of the next round of university applications.

[Mr Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab)]

Is the Minister aware of the double whammy faced by universities such as Plymouth that are losing hundreds of students because of a combination of two of his policies, which are to redistribute 9% of their students to cheaper universities while allowing the elite universities to have unlimited numbers of students who get two As and a B. Will he look again at that policy, which will have a serious impact on the south-west economy?

[Mr Willetts]

Our policy of saying that universities are free to recruit students with AAB or better without number controls puts more power and choice in the hands of students, which is one of the key propositions of our White Paper. We need to strengthen students in the system to get universities to focus on high-quality teaching and we intend to go further with that proposal.

[Shabana Mahmood (Birmingham, Ladywood) (Lab)]

The Minister caused unacceptable confusion and uncertainty for students making applications and to higher education institutions last year through his introduction of the core and margin model. Will he take this opportunity to agree with us and to heed calls from across the sector that there should be no further changes to core and margin in the next academic year?

[Mr Willetts]

We are considering this in the light of the experience that universities are having, but we have made it absolutely clear that the direction in which we want to go is for more choice for students and more flexibility for universities. The timings will depend on the experience of universities.

[Stuart Andrew (Pudsey) (Con)]

5. What recent progress he has made in increasing inward investment.

[The Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills (Vince Cable)]

In December 2011 the Office for National Statistics reported a record stock of foreign direct investment in the UK at £731 billion. The Government are determined to continue to improve the UK business environment to make us a global investment location of choice. The recent major automotive investment by Nissan and the expansion of Jaguar Land Rover are very good examples of that.

[Stuart Andrew]

I am grateful to the Secretary of State for that answer. Attracting inward investment is going to be a key element of aiding our economic recovery. Will he inform the House of any figures he might have showing how the United Kingdom is doing in this area compared with the rest of Europe?

[Vince Cable]

Britain is the third-best attractor in the world of direct foreign investment and the leading country in Europe. That remains the case; indeed, the position has been strengthened by the decisions we have taken over the past 18 months.

[Mr Geoffrey Robinson (Coventry North West) (Lab)]

I draw attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. The Secretary of State knows that this news is very welcome throughout the House and that we are delighted to see new jobs and production coming to the UK. I gather that JLR is doing that at Halewood, as well as Nissan, which is great news. Is there a danger, however, that the money for the investments being supported by the Government could be coming from the regional growth fund? If that is the case, will he confirm that there will be enough funds in it? Is there a danger of the smaller companies that are applying being crowded out? It is a challenge fund, as he knows, and on those grounds even very good and worthwhile projects could be rejected.

[Vince Cable]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that the regional growth fund played an important part in key decisions such as Nissan’s decision to expand its operation in the UK. There is, of course, a limited amount of money; it is a challenge fund. It is because we recognise that the regional growth fund is a very valuable source of funding that we have extended it by a further £1 billion, and there is currently a new process of application taking place.

[Alok Sharma (Reading West) (Con)]

We are rightly hearing a lot about the special and essential relationship between the UK and the US this week, but one of the other special and essential relationships the UK has is with India. Does the Secretary of State agree that growing inward investment into the UK from countries such as India clearly demonstrates the success of UK Trade & Investment’s inward investment strategy?

[Vince Cable]

Indeed, and I am flying out to India tonight to pursue this issue—I think it will be my third visit since I became Secretary of State. I shall be making exactly that point—that Indian investment in the UK is extremely welcome. We are attracting more such investment and leading Indian companies such as Tata and Sahavirya Steel Industries are absolutely valuable to our economic recovery.

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

But it is not just about increasing inward investment; it is about retaining it. I welcome the Secretary of State’s statement about the automotive industry and the increased inward investment, but there are persistent rumours that there might well be reductions in inward investment in parts of the automotive industry. What actions is the Secretary of State taking to retain that investment and to retain jobs in this country?

[Vince Cable]

The hon. Gentleman’s starting point was a positive one and a right one. I understand that production in the automotive industry has increased by 20% over the past year, and a lot of that is due to inward investors. If he is referring to uncertainties about the future, I am of course well aware of the problems surrounding General Motors. Within the Government, I am working very closely with the Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, my colleague the Member for Hertford and Stortford (Mr Prisk). I was in the United States two weeks ago talking to the chairman and chief executive about that. I have to say that the Government, the trade unions and the British management have put forward an extremely powerful case not just for staying in the UK but for expanding.

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

6. What steps he has taken to encourage universities to publish data about the employment of their graduates.

[The Minister for Universities and Science (Mr David Willetts)]

Improving student information on employment to support informed choice is at the heart of our university reforms. From this September, the new key information set will provide the information that students say they want, including on graduate salaries and employment. Going to university improves job prospects overall, with 84% of graduates in employment compared with 67% of non-graduates.

[Mr Wilson]

I thank the Minister for his answer. Speaking as a history graduate who went on to be an entrepreneur, I should like to know whether he has a view on why only 3.5% of graduates set up their own business in the first six months after leaving university. What can we do to increase that figure?

[Mr Willetts]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right that we ought to be doing better on this, and that was one of the tasks that we set Sir Tim Wilson, who has just produced his excellent report. We are doubling the number of enterprise societies to which students have access and we want every university and college in the country to have an enterprise society that helps students know how to do what my hon. Friend did.

[Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)]

While visiting an engineering company in Luton this week, I was told yet again that companies are finding it hard to recruit British engineering graduates and are having to take graduates from overseas. Are the universities simply not producing enough engineering graduates, or are graduates going to other jobs and working overseas?

[Mr Willetts]

We are seeing an increase in the number of engineering places in universities, which is very important because it is just what the British economy needs as it rebalances. There is also a challenge on where engineering graduates go, and we of course hope that more of them will work in industry. As we see manufacturing in Britain strengthening, as it is under the coalition’s policies, I am sure that more recruits will go into industry.

[Mark Lazarowicz (Edinburgh North and Leith) (Lab/Co-op)]

7. What assessment he has made of the ability of other Departments to encourage business growth.

[Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)]

18. What assessment he has made of the ability of other Departments to encourage business growth.

[The Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (Mr Mark Prisk)]

With your permission, Mr Speaker, and assuming that both Members are present, I will answer Questions 7 and 18 together.

All Departments are assessing how they can remove barriers to growth through the growth reviews. That has led to more than 300 actions being identified, and the Cabinet has met twice in the past month to ensure that delivery of these actions is on track.

[Mark Lazarowicz]

The Minister and the Secretary of State might recall that over a number of months I have called for the headquarters of the Green investment bank to be located in Edinburgh, so it is only right that I record my welcome for the decision to do just that. The Minister’s Department might be supporting the green economy, but other Departments do not always seem to see its value in supporting growth. Will he have a word with the Chancellor to emphasise the importance of supporting the green economy, particularly in the light of some of his recent statements on the matter?

[Mr Prisk]

I am pleased that the hon. Gentleman is pleased that the headquarters of the Green investment bank will be located in Edinburgh, which is important so that we can get a genuine centre and cluster of green finance expertise, although there was a “but” at the end of his question. I can say to him that the entire Government are committed to ensuring that we develop renewables. Whether in relation to finance or technology, we are committed to making real progress, and in the past 12 months we have done precisely that.

[Nick Smith]

The Public Accounts Committee has found that small and medium-sized defence contracts, such as those for new armoured vehicles, are being squeezed out by big-ticket items that are over budget, such as aircraft carriers. Will the Minister ensure that the Ministry of Defence backs prime contractors and supply chains, such as General Dynamics UK in south Wales, so that British business can deliver the best equipment and the jobs that we need?

[Mr Prisk]

Absolutely. Defence Ministers and I regularly discuss that. There is a clear White Paper and a strategy. The hon. Gentleman is right that we need to look at not only prime contractors, but the UK-based supply chain, on which we are making good progress, but we are alert to the danger that larger contracts can sometimes block out some of the smaller opportunities for indigenous UK businesses.

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

The Department currently administers 48 different business support schemes, many of which have further sub-schemes that run from them, all rightly aiming at supporting and assisting business, and other Departments also run such support schemes. Does the Minister accept that there could well be a need to rationalise some of those schemes in order to simplify the process and take out some of the inefficient bureaucracy behind them?

[Mr Prisk]

My hon. Friend is right. Two things need to be done: first, we have to cull the schemes that have not worked, a good number of which we inherited, I am sorry to say; and, secondly, we have to ensure that the schemes are easier for businesses to use. We have created a finance finder so that businesses, rather than having to look at which scheme to use—an equity investment, export or loan support scheme—can secure finance with a number of simple questions. We will be developing and launching that app so that every business, small or large, can apply and get the answers they need quickly.

[Gavin Williamson (South Staffordshire) (Con)]

The International Monetary Fund recently published a report stating that it expects the British economy to grow faster than those of France and Germany. Is not that down to the fact that this Government are cutting corporation tax, reducing regulation and encouraging businesses, such as Jaguar Land Rover in my constituency, to invest? We are making the difference, unlike the Labour party.

[Mr Prisk]

That was a tricky question. My hon. Friend is absolutely right and is a fantastic supporter of industry. I think that the Labour party, beyond the jokes, needs to remember that 1.7 million people lost their jobs in manufacturing over the 13 years it was in government.

[Mr Iain Wright (Hartlepool) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State, in his leaked letter last week, wrote that “a connecting thread” in the failure to provide a “compelling vision” or economic growth is

“the need for strategic and long term thinking about supply chains and the role played in them by public procurement decisions,”

but that there is

“no connected approach across Government.”

That is presumably the objective of the advanced manufacturing supply chain initiative, which was launched in December. Almost five months after the launch, however, will the Minister of State confirm that no firms have yet received help because not a jot of progress has been made? In the light of missed opportunities throughout Whitehall, whether in green technologies, feed-in tariffs, trains, Royal Navy tankers or nuclear technology, how on earth does Ministers’ dawdling help British businesses grow and win contracts? No firms helped—yes or no?

[Mr Prisk]

In that diatribe—[Interruption.] In that diatribe, which I think we all recognised—

[Mr Wright]

Yes or no?

[Mr Prisk]

The point—to answer the hon. Gentleman’s question, if he would like to have an answer—is very simple: we are making good progress on skills, innovation and the supply chain. But is it not right for a Secretary of State to look at progress over 10, 15 and 20 years? Is that not what Governments should do? The Opposition need to bear it in mind, because, if the Labour party in government had looked 10 or 20 years ahead, this country would not be in the mess that we are having to clear up.

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

8. What steps he is taking to ensure universal access to independent and professional careers advice and guidance.

[The Minister for Universities and Science (Mr David Willetts)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on his work as chair of the all-party group on social mobility. Social mobility is at the heart of our plans for careers guidance, and I am pleased to confirm that we will publish a document, alongside the launch of the national careers service in April, setting out everything that the Government are doing to ensure that young people and adults have access to information and advice on learning and work, and receive support to move forwards in their lives.

[Damian Hinds]

I thank my right hon. Friend very much for that answer. It is absolutely true that good information, advice and guidance are essential for social mobility. Will he place a particular focus on disadvantaged youngsters to ensure that their ambitions are not limited, bearing in mind that often the best advice is to “Keep your options open”?

[Mr Willetts]

That is absolutely correct, and often even the most disadvantaged young people have high ambitions, but they do not know the route to achieve them. That is one of the crucial things that information, advice and guidance can secure, including advice and guidance on the key A-levels that will be needed if they wish to study at university.

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

I thank the Government for the work done so far. May I encourage Ministers to keep pressing so that all youngsters at school have guaranteed face-to-face careers advice and guidance, and all school leavers and older people have access to careers advice and guidance in their local colleges? The Association of Colleges is very keen on schools and colleges being a place where such information can be provided to all in the community, of all ages.

[Mr Willetts]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his very important work in that area. The Department for Education will publish statutory guidance for schools very soon, and it will make it clear that schools cannot discharge their duty simply by relying on in-house support or by signposting to a website. My right hon. Friend is absolutely right as well about the importance of face-to-face guidance.

[Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

9. What recent assessment he has made of the UK’s science base.

[The Minister for Universities and Science (Mr David Willetts)]

Britain’s research base is the most productive among the G8, and the Government are committed to maintaining that world-leading position. That is why funding for science and research programmes has been protected with a flat-cash, ring-fenced settlement of £4.6 billion. On top of the £1.9 billion capital funding announced as part of the spending review, we have since announced a further £495 million of capital investment in science.

[Stephen Timms]

It is national science and engineering week, and the Minister and I are both taking part in a mathematics event today. Does he agree with his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, however, in the letter to the Prime Minister that was reported last week, that the Government’s science policy is “piecemeal” and:

“The Technology Strategy Board…is operating on a shrinking core budget and thereby missing valuable opportunities”?

Do we not need a long-term strategy, such as the one that was set out in 2004?

[Mr Willetts]

The Technology Strategy Board does an excellent job and has a crucial role, and if the right hon. Gentleman looks at the board’s core funding, together with the funding that is available for its new technology and innovation centres, he will see that its funding has increased.

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

The Minister will be aware that Britain produces tens of thousands of enthusiastic and bright science graduates every year, yet the majority of them go into non-STEM—science, technology, engineering and maths—jobs. What can the Government do to ensure that more of these skilled science graduates go into manufacturing and engineering?

[Mr Willetts]

Ultimately, of course, these decisions must be made by individuals, but we want to make it absolutely clear that students have the opportunity to understand the options available; that is why there is going to be an enterprise society in every university. It is also very important that in the recruitment milk round during the months up until taking their final degrees, students have the opportunity to learn about work in SMEs and work in manufacturing, alongside work in the other classic recruitment areas.

[Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)]

Research undertaken by the House of Commons Library this week shows that our science investment is being cut by 14% by this Government, while Germany and China are increasing theirs. Moreover, it says that the UK is becoming an innovation follower, as one of only a handful of countries in Europe to cut its science investment—and the Secretary of State would appear to agree. In this science and engineering week, will the Minister finally explain why he is damaging our science and engineering base?

[Mr Willetts]

Given that we had to sort out the mess in the public finances that we inherited from the previous Government, the cash protection for our science budget is evidence of the coalition’s commitment to science. We can be proud of the fact that with only 1% of the world’s population we produce 14% of the world’s most important science articles. We are increasing investment in capital. It is a great pity that the hon. Lady did down what is still the world’s finest science base.

[Roger Williams (Brecon and Radnorshire) (LD)]

The Government’s investment in the new technology and innovation centres will allow the excellence of UK science to be used to develop commercial technologies. Will the Minister give us a short update on the setting up of these important institutions?

[Mr Willetts]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We will be setting up seven such centres, which will tackle the long-standing problem that we have excellent science in Britain but do not always make the connection between research and its commercial applications. These new centres, all across the UK, will bridge that gap and strengthen our economy as a result.

[Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)]

10. What representations he has received on the potential effects of his proposed reform of employment protection law.

[The Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills (Vince Cable)]

I receive a wide variety of different representations on employment law reform, including from business groups and trade unions that I meet on a regular basis. The reforms aim to give business greater confidence to take on staff, while protecting fairness for employees.

[Nia Griffith]

Will the Secretary of State confirm that his consultation on no-fault dismissal has been delayed because, as one Lib Dem put it, “Conference delegates will go mental”? If even his own party members are against it, why does he not stand up to Downing street and reject this despicable policy?

[Vince Cable]

Actually, it is proceeding today.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that countries with flexible labour laws have the best growth and those with inflexible labour laws have the highest unemployment; that the more we can do to ease employment by reducing regulation the better; and that this should be done as a matter of urgency, especially in the context of Europe?

[Vince Cable]

My hon. Friend’s basic premise is correct. I am sure that he has read the recent report by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, which said that Britain has the second most flexible labour market in the OECD, and that is what we want to retain.

[Ian Murray (Edinburgh South) (Lab)]

First, I congratulate the new Minister for employment law, the Under-Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, the hon. Member for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb). I am disappointed that he is not answering this question, but let me put it on record that he has been courteous and constructive in his role so far, and I wish him at least a modicum of success. [Interruption.] That is as far as my generosity goes, I am afraid.

With no plan for growth and consumer confidence at its lowest in decades, the Government are trying to make it easier to fire, rather than hire, people. There is an ongoing pitched battle between the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and Downing street, with the Secretary of State being dragged kicking and screaming to a no-fault dismissal consultation on which, indeed, a written statement was issued only 10 minutes ago. The new Minister said in October:

“I think it would be madness to throw away all employment protection in the way that’s proposed, and it could be very damaging to consumer confidence”,

and suggested that it was crazy. Does the Secretary of State agree with his new Minister?

[Vince Cable]

The interesting thing about this controversy is that we are being attacked with such vehemence from the left and the right, which suggests that we are just about in the right place.

[Lorely Burt (Solihull) (LD)]

We welcome the publication of the Beecroft report today. Leaks reported in the media suggest that something of a fire-at-will culture will be instilled. Does my right hon. Friend agree that, at a time when many employees are suffering an uncertain future and feel vulnerable, that would do nothing for good employment relations or, indeed, for productivity?

[Vince Cable]

The so-called Beecroft report had a series of recommendations, most of which were sensible and unobjectionable, and are being implemented. Indeed, we are championing some of the recommendations, for example those on visas, in Government. So far, there is one area of disagreement, which relates to the no-fault dismissal issue. We want to strike a balance between making it easier for micro-companies, which have genuine difficulties with staff management because of their small scale, and the danger of creating general insecurity in the labour force. I will proceed on the basis not of ideology or vested interests, but of evidence. That is why we are calling for evidence today.

[Sajid Javid (Bromsgrove) (Con)]

11. What steps he is taking to promote the status of traditional craft industries.

[The Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (Greg Clark)]

Our craft industries contribute £3 billion a year to the British economy and are an important source of new apprenticeships. As they have been neglected in the past, the Government have formed the craft skills advisory board to ensure that practitioners have a voice in Government, and have established the craft awards to give our craftsmen and women the national recognition that they deserve.

[Sajid Javid]

In his absence, may I commend the Minister for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning for the passion that he has shown for our traditional crafts? May I also thank His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales for the interest that he has shown in this area? Does the Minister agree that we should do all we can to encourage more young people to work with their hands as well as their brains, which will not only allow them to earn a decent income, but build their self-esteem?

[Greg Clark]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. On the subject of traditional craft skills, the enthusiasm and support of my hon. Friend the Minister for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning are matched only by His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales. Indeed, I understand that the Minister for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning granted an audience to the Prince and that the main topic of their conversation was the importance of traditional craft skills for the future. On that, I think there is complete agreement.

[Mr Adrian Bailey (West Bromwich West) (Lab/Co-op)]

13. When he proposes to bring in the Groceries Code Adjudicator Bill.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills (Norman Lamb)]

I hope to introduce the Groceries Code Adjudicator Bill into Parliament as soon as parliamentary time allows. The Leader of the House confirmed on 15 December last year that it was a strong candidate for the second Session of this Parliament.

[Mr Bailey]

Given that the Select Committee on Business, Innovation and Skills was asked to carry out pre-legislative scrutiny on the draft Bill before the summer recess last year, and that over the past six months we have had the lightest legislative programme that I can remember, what reassurance can the Minister give to suppliers that the Government are still committed to introducing the Bill, in line with their manifesto commitments?

[Norman Lamb]

I can give absolute reassurance to the hon. Gentleman that the Government remain completely committed to implementing the Bill, and that we will do so as soon as parliamentary time allows.

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

The Select Committee on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has taken some compelling evidence from growers who have virtually no protection from month to month in their agreements with supermarkets. Will the Minister assure the House that the adjudicator will have powers of investigation and the power to levy fines on those who do not obey the code?

[Norman Lamb]

The adjudicator will have powers of investigation. On the question of fines, there will be a reserve power in the Bill. However, the Government take the view that the other powers, particularly the power to name and shame supermarkets, should be sufficient to have a significant effect on behaviour. If they do not have that effect, there will be the reserve power to introduce fines.

[Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)]

Will the Minister ensure that when the Bill emerges, it has the necessary legislative consent motion from the Northern Ireland Assembly, so that it can apply across the jurisdiction?

[Norman Lamb]

I will certainly look into ensuring that it does.

[Angela Smith (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Lab)]

14. Whether his Department plans to develop an industrial strategy; and if he will make a statement. [R]

[The Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills (Vince Cable)]

Yes, I am developing an industrial policy, and I will continue to work closely with my ministerial colleagues on that important work. In speeches on 27 February and 6 March, I set out what that policy should be and where our future industrial capabilities should lie.

[Angela Smith]

In his leaked letter last week, the Secretary of State said:

“Where we know big investment decisions are going to be made…we need to put in place a strategy actively to plan how we will strengthen the supply chain”.

Does he therefore agree that a good start would be to work towards ensuring that the new Ministry of Defence tankers are built in Britain, not in Korea, and that our new nuclear reactors are made in Sheffield, not in France?

[Vince Cable]

A great deal of progress is being made in developing British supply chains that were whittled away to a disastrous extent with the decline of manufacturing under the last Government. If the hon. Lady looks at what is happening in the car and aerospace industries, for example, she will find that a lot of supply chains are coming back to the UK. As for her last point, on the nuclear industry, I think she is aware that the company that she represents is a regional growth fund recipient.

[Tony Lloyd (Manchester Central) (Lab)]

19. The Secretary of State will not know this, but a high-tech company in my constituency that spawned out of Manchester university was told by its would-be venture capitalists that unless it moved from Manchester to within the golden triangle of Oxbridge and London, it would not obtain finance. Will he look into that financial gap, which has been around for a long time and prevents the dynamic growth of industry, particularly in the northern regions?

[Vince Cable]

As it happens, I was in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency yesterday, and I met groups of businesses with similar concerns. He is right that there is a long-standing financing gap, particularly for small and medium-sized companies looking for risk capital. The business growth fund, which is a private sector initiative rather than Government money, is already beginning to fill that gap. It is headquartered in Birmingham but, I think, has substantial outreach into Manchester.

[Michael Connarty (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (Lab)]

15. What his policy is on the retention of post offices in villages.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills (Norman Lamb)]

Government funding of £1.34 billion is in place to modernise and maintain a national post office network of at least 11,500 branches, with particular regard to retaining village post offices in recognition of their important social and economic role in the communities that they serve.

[Michael Connarty]

The Minister will recall that we went over this in some detail on Tuesday, relating to the closure of the sub-post office in Torphichen village. Can he assure me that he will contact Paula Vennells, the chief executive, and her counterpart in Scotland, Sally Buchanan, and make it quite plain that when they intend to close a post office or change the service to a Post Office Local, they must have the courage to meet the public and discuss with them what they intend to do within a month of any change becoming apparent? It appears that at the moment they are hiding from my constituents.

[Norman Lamb]

First, may I say that I appreciated the kind words of welcome from the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Edinburgh South (Ian Murray)? I guess that wishing me a modicum of success is about as good as it will get, so I thank him for that.

I appreciated the chance to debate the issue of post office closures, and particularly the temporary closure, because of the sudden resignation of the sub-postmaster, in the village of Torphichen in the constituency of the hon. Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Michael Connarty). I absolutely confirm that Post Office Ltd will always abide by the code of practice to ensure that action is taken quickly to restore post office services wherever possible. In his village community, everything is being done to restore those services.

[Jo Swinson (East Dunbartonshire) (LD)]

I welcome my hon. Friend to his new position.

Under the last Government, post offices closed in my constituency in Courthill, Auchinairn, Westerton, Killermont and elsewhere, so I very much welcome the Government’s £1.3 billion of investment in the post office network. Will the Minister outline what the next steps will be in modernising the network so that we can all be certain that it will have a secure and sustainable future in all our constituencies?

[Norman Lamb]

I thank my hon. Friend. I am proud of the fact that the Government are investing £1.34 billion in ensuring that we retain the post office network, in marked contrast to the Labour party, which spent public money on closing down great chunks of the network. There is a lot of work to be done, and we particularly need to ensure that the post office becomes the front office of both local and national Government services. Post Office Ltd has already had significant success in that regard.

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

16. What steps he is taking to promote observance of section 172 of the Companies Act 2006.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills (Norman Lamb)]

Directors’ duties were codified in the Companies Act 2006, providing legal clarity for directors and raising awareness of their duty to have regard to long-term factors in promoting the success of the company. A variety of guidance is available to directors to help them observe their legal duties.

[Alun Michael]

I thank the Minister for that reply. He spells out the need for directors to make judgments that look after the long-term interests of the company in accordance with section 172. Will he take this opportunity to confirm that specific regulatory requirements, which are very often referred to as tick-box requirements, in no way trump, or have to be regarded as superior to, the responsibility of directors to make the sort of judgments referred to section 172, to which he referred in his reply?

[Norman Lamb]

I can confirm that the duty in section 172 is absolutely clear. The evidence of surveys shows that the duty is well understood, and it is important that directors abide by it.

[Mr William Bain (Glasgow North East) (Lab)]

20. What steps he plans to take to improve access to finance for small businesses.

[The Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (Mr Mark Prisk)]

The Government are providing a comprehensive package of finance support, whether it be debt or equity funding, financial support for exports, or indeed a Business Angel co-investment fund. Next week, the Chancellor will launch the national loan guarantee scheme.

[Mr Bain]

With just 136 net business start-ups in Glasgow North East in the last year, and with net bank lending having fallen in every quarter of 2011, when will firms in my constituency benefit from credit easing? It is more than five months since the Chancellor first announced it.

[Mr Prisk]

It will be launched next week.

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

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

[The Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills (Vince Cable)]

My Department has a key role in supporting the rebalancing of the economy and business to deliver growth while increasing skills and learning.

[Paul Blomfield]

As the Government have stumbled from the tuition fees debacle, through the uncertainty caused by core and margin and AAB, the reputational damage of international student visa policy, and the failure to develop policy on postgraduate education, will the Secretary of State admit—he has rightly identified this in other areas of Government policy—that the Government lack a compelling vision for UK higher education, and that that is behind today’s fall in our international reputational rankings?

[The Minister for Universities and Science (Mr David Willetts)]

We set out our approach to higher education in our White Paper. It shows how, even when public expenditure has to be reduced, we have been able to ensure that our universities remain well financed. It ensures that we still have more young people applying for university than in any year of the previous Labour Government. We are backing our universities.

[Peter Aldous (Waveney) (Con)]

T2. Given that we now know that the new Offshore Renewable Energy Catapult centre will be in Glasgow, with a base in Blythe but with no regional hubs around the country as originally envisaged, will the Minister outline how the considerable expertise and resources found on the East Anglia coast can be best utilised?

[Mr Willetts]

The Government recognise the strong energy and offshore renewable sector in East Anglia. It is the intention that the Offshore Renewable Energy Catapult will provide a national capability that will be available fully to companies from all the English regions.

[Mr Chuka Umunna (Streatham) (Lab)]

May I congratulate the Secretary of State on his leaked letter to the Prime Minister? I know he had some choice words to say about the Opposition, but the letter describes the Government’s action to promote growth as “frankly rather piecemeal”. I could not have put it better myself. When that was put to the Prime Minister last Wednesday, he said that the Secretary of State was wrong. I think it is grossly unfair that the Prime Minister should have the last word on this, so will the Secretary of State explain why the Prime Minister is mistaken?

[Vince Cable]

I am delighted the hon. Gentleman is focusing on that issue. As far as the leak is concerned, I am sure he is aware that it emerged from a Government Department—not mine—and was given to the Labour party, which gave it excellent publicity. If he ever finds himself out of a job, he is welcome to apply to be a press officer in my Department.

The letter had many choice words on Labour’s record in government, but it makes a strong case, which my colleagues in the Government share, and which I have set out in more detail in a couple of long speeches, for the need to get behind successful British companies and sectors, as we are doing through our training, our innovation policy and our support for supply chains. That will happen to a growing degree as we proceed.

[Mr Umunna]

Well, let us look at the support. The national loan guarantee scheme, also referred to as credit easing, has already been mentioned. Last October, Ministers said that they would urgently implement the scheme, yet they only submitted it to the EU Commission for approval on 10 February—more than four months after it had been announced. At our small and medium-sized enterprise lending summit in the House yesterday, RBS told us that the scheme would make little difference, that the benefits in the main would not be felt by SMEs and that the promised reduction in the cost of borrowing would be insignificant. If this is what the country’s largest bank is saying about the scheme, why should we believe it will make a blind bit of difference?

[Vince Cable]

The hon. Gentleman needs to wait until the Chancellor announces the scheme. It is a very, very large scheme, far exceeding other forms of Government support. The detail clearly needs to be got right, and we clearly need EU state aid approval, but I believe, as does the Chancellor, that it will make a significant difference to the terms on which small companies can borrow. He should be a little patient and wait for the Budget next week.

[Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)]

T4. There are almost 4,000 small businesses in my constituency, in towns such as Alsager, Congleton, Sandbach and Middlewich, and many of them are micro-businesses. What are the Government doing to support micro-businesses and to enable them, when they want to, to develop and grow?

[The Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (Mr Mark Prisk)]

Alongside helping with things such as bank lending and the new equity schemes, I would point most obviously to the business angel co-investment fund, which is crucial to plug that equity gap for micro-businesses—not the larger equity businesses but the ones looking for funding of between £200,000 and £2 million. It is a £50 million package, and I commend it to my hon. Friend.

[Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)]

T3. Recent evidence has shown that those from a lower socio-economic background make up only 14% of those applying for medicine and dentistry, whereas the figure is 29% to 30% across other courses. Will the Minister say what steps he is taking to ensure that those from a lower socio-economic background are not priced out of the courses where, as Professor Sir Les Ebdon has said, they are needed most?

[Mr Willetts]

It is important that we have true meritocracy in access to our universities, including to medical courses. I am a great admirer, for example, of a programme run at King’s College London, linked to Guy’s and St Thomas’, that provides an extra foundation year for young people who have an aptitude for medicine but not the necessary A-levels. That is a good example of how access funding can be used to improve social mobility.

[Gavin Williamson (South Staffordshire) (Con)]

T5. Many people in South Staffordshire are concerned when they see the directors of large public limited companies awarding themselves large pay increases despite the fact that the companies are not performing. Will my right hon. Friend assure my constituents that the voice and votes of shareholders will be listened to when it comes to remuneration packages?

[Vince Cable]

Yes, that is absolutely the direction in which the Government are going. Following the Prime Minister’s announcement that we intend to proceed on binding votes, I announced a set of detailed proposals that will give shareholders a significantly enhanced role in the setting of pay and which will, I hope, have the moderating effect that the hon. Gentleman described.

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

T6. I am still receiving numerous complaints from small businesses across Denton and Reddish facing problems accessing finance for their viable business propositions. Given that the economic forecasts are continually being revised downward and the quarter 4 gross domestic product figures are showing a contraction, will the Secretary of State now act and get the banks lending to viable small businesses in my constituency?

[Mr Prisk]

Although two thirds of businesses seeking a loan get it, I fully understand, having run a business myself, that for those who do not it is immensely frustrating. That is why we have extended the enterprise finance guarantee and saw a 13% improvement in bank lending under Merlin. But is there more to do? Yes. The Chancellor will deal with that next week.

[Guy Opperman (Hexham) (Con)]

T7. Does the Minister agree that Newcastle upon Tyne, with its great industrial heritage, will be the ideal location for a university technical college, which will provide exactly the sort of technical education that can cure youth unemployment and help meet the needs of modern manufacturing and engineering employers?

[Mr Willetts]

The coalition is keen to see more of these university technical colleges. They are an excellent way of linking universities and schools, and I am sure that his eloquent bid will have been noted.

[Ann McKechin (Glasgow North) (Lab)]

Given that UK companies are sitting on some of the highest levels of cash reserves of any western nation, what steps will the Secretary of State’s Department take to release those funds for the much-needed investment in British industry?

[Vince Cable]

Perhaps I should say that because of the problem of large piles of liquidity in the big corporates—this is not a new problem: it has been building up over the last decade—I asked Tim Breedon, who was formerly the chief executive of Legal and General, to look at practical ways of dealing with it, such as building up supply chain finance and new forms of trade credit. It is a serious problem, but we need business to invest, and the cash is there in many companies.

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

T8. I was reassured earlier to hear my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State describe the work that he is putting in with GM to help protect the future of Vauxhall at Ellesmere Port. In his discussions with GM, will he remind the company that Ellesmere Port is one of its most productive plants in Europe and ideally placed to build its next-generation cars, such as the all-electric Ampera?

[Vince Cable]

My hon. Friend touches on the core argument. We are talking about a very productive plant, which reflects well on the management, and also on the labour force, who have been consistently co-operative. Currently the plant does not operate at full capacity; the issue for the company is how to use that production in a way that minimises excess capacity. We are confident that the UK has a strong case in ensuring that existing production—but also new models, as he said—is secured in Ellesmere Port.

[Huw Irranca-Davies (Ogmore) (Lab)]

The Business Secretary has just described himself as being under attack from left and right on his proposals to weaken employment protection laws. Where on that spectrum would he put Fiona Dawson, the managing director of Mars UK, who has said:

“I would like to see something that makes it easier for the workforce but it’s got to be fair. So I would not support employees’ rights being removed. I think we’ve got to make sure that it is fair, not just for businesses but for employees as well”?

How does he respond to that?

[Vince Cable]

It is precisely for that reason that we are having a call for evidence, and the company that the hon. Gentleman has mentioned and others can contribute to it.

[George Eustice (Camborne and Redruth) (Con)]

There is currently complete inequality between the bargaining position of small businesses and that of their banks. Many small businesses find themselves threatened with receivership unless they concede to higher interest rates or new charges. What can the Government do to rebalance the law in favour of enterprise?

[Mr Prisk]

We can do what good Conservatives do, which is to introduce competition. That is why we are ensuring that we get new entrants into the market, so that the four or five that take the view that they have an opportunity to dominate the market are unable to do so. Let us get the new entrants in. I am proud that, as a coalition Government, that is precisely what we are doing.

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

The most successful defence-exporting countries procure and buy from their own home-grown industries. How will the approach that the Ministry of Defence is now taking—buying off the shelf in open competition, without any regard for British firms—help us to export more to the rest of the world?

[Mr Prisk]

We need to ensure that we get the very best value for money on behalf of the taxpayer, but do we need to ensure that procurement contracts reflect good indigenous British businesses? Yes, and that is exactly what is reflected in the White Paper. That is the approach we want to take.

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

Does the Minister agree that when a company goes into administration, wages owed to its staff should be the top priority? Will he take steps to ensure that redundant Thamesteel workers in my constituency take priority over all other creditors?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills (Norman Lamb)]

I certainly agree that the interests of workers should absolutely take priority, and I would be happy to look into the case that my hon. Friend has raised.

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

I was very disappointed that despite an invitation, no Minister from the Department was on the Treasury Bench when I moved a motion to introduce the Eradication of Slavery (UK Company Supply Chains) Bill. Will one of the Ministers in the Department meet me to discuss the Bill’s ambition to eradicate slavery from the supply chains of large UK companies, following legislation in other countries?

[Norman Lamb]

I would be happy to meet the hon. Lady.

[Margot James (Stourbridge) (Con)]

I welcome this week’s report by Cranfield School of Management, which shows an increase in the number of women on company boards. Does my hon. Friend agree that this shows both how success can be achieved without imposing quotas and how much further there is to go before British industry can access the much-increased pool of talent that including women will reveal?

[Norman Lamb]

The initiative taken by the noble Lord Davies has been remarkably successful. Some 26% of appointments to directorships of FTSE 100 companies over the last year have been women. That is a dramatic improvement on the previous position, and we have every confidence that it will have a continuing improving effect in the boardrooms in this country.

[Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab)]

Given that the Higher Education Funding Council for England is predicting more mergers and turmoil in the higher education sector, and that Asian universities are overtaking UK universities for the first time in our history, will the Minister come to the Dispatch Box and reassure the sector that it has a future?

[Mr Willetts]

I have absolute confidence in the future of our universities. Indeed, the Higher Education Funding Council has produced a report in the last few days that confirms that our universities are in a very healthy financial position. The extra income that they will receive through fees and loans should also increase in the years ahead. We inherited from the previous Government plans for a reduction in university science funding but, fortunately, those plans have not had to be implemented.

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

Does the Minister agree that, regardless of the success of the one-in, one-out policy, the fact that European Union regulations are not included in it means that the overall burden of regulation on businesses is likely to increase?

[Mr Prisk]

We are alert to that danger, which is why we have ensured that we have the agreement of the Commission that, for the first time that I can recall, micro-businesses will be exempt from future European directives. I hope that my hon. Friend will welcome that change.

[Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)]

An inquest is taking place this morning into the tragic death of 22-month-old Joshua Wakeham, who died after becoming entangled in a looped curtain cord. Sadly, such events are not rare; there were three in one month recently, and 360 in America in a 15-year period. Joshua’s mother has fairly asked why no one warned her of the danger. A campaign has been mounted by my hon. Friend the Member for Ochil and South Perthshire (Gordon Banks) and other Members to expose the danger of those cords. Will the Minister agree to meet Joshua’s family, so that we can discuss the dangers and the need for an advertising campaign so that everyone knows about the 250 million such cords in this country?

[Mr Speaker]

Order. It sounds as though that matter is strictly sub judice. The hon. Gentleman has been felicitous in the way he has worded his question, but I know that, in response, the Minister will want to focus on the broad issue, and possibly on a meeting, rather than on the details of a sub judice case.

[Mr Prisk]

With your guidance, Mr Speaker, I would say to the hon. Gentleman that the broader issue is clearly one that we should all be concerned about. In the light of your advice, I would certainly be happy to look at that broad issue on behalf of the Department.

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

I applauded the Secretary of State’s announcement, back in 2010, that the Government would cease the practice of gold-plating European Union regulations, but the vast majority of businesses in this country would like to see him take a more backward-looking stance and review the 13 years of gold-plating that took place under the previous Administration. Can the business community rely on the support of the Secretary of State in that regard?

[Mr Prisk]

My hon. Friend is clearly thinking along exactly the same lines as the Government. We are going to look at precisely that problem, by going back through the stock of regulations that were introduced by Labour during those 13 years.

[Mr Geoffrey Robinson (Coventry North West) (Lab)]

The Government will be aware that this is national science week, and that the Big Bang Fair is taking place at the national exhibition centre in Birmingham. I am sure that the Minister will be pleased to hear, as I was, the good news that Coventry schools have more finalists in those events than any other schools in the country. Will he find time to join me at the national exhibition centre, where we hope Coventry will win some of the prizes in the finals when those decisions are taken?

[Mr Willetts]

On this occasion, I can confirm that I should be delighted to accept the hon. Gentleman’s invitation. I plan to be at the science festival in Birmingham on Friday, and I look forward to meeting him there. It will be a celebration of the strength and excellence of science in Britain.

[Andrew Jones (Harrogate and Knaresborough) (Con)]

Small and medium-sized enterprises in Harrogate and Knaresborough have been telling me about the charges they face for late payments. This is a broader, national issue as well. Will the Minister please update the House on what he is doing to tackle the issue?

[Mr Prisk]

As we have learned, the Labour Government introduced legislation on this, but it is not working. We want to do more. We want to ensure that the Government lead by example, and we are working with business on that. We also need to reflect on the fact that half of all business transactions are entered into without any prepayment agreements. There is therefore a fundamental problem with how business is transacted. I want to look at that, rather than simply reaching for the legislative button at the first opportunity.

Business of the House

Thursday 15th March 2012 Commons Chamber

11:34

[Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

Will the Leader of the House give us next week’s business?

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

The business for the week commencing 19 March will be:

Monday 19 March—Consideration of Lords amendments to the Protection of Freedoms Bill, followed by a debate on a motion relating to the waste water national policy statement.

Tuesday 20 March—Consideration of Lords amendments to the Health and Social Care Bill.

It may be helpful if I remind colleagues of your statement, Mr Speaker, in which you set out the arrangements for Tuesday 20 March. The House will meet for prayers at 9.45 am and the sitting will then be suspended until 2.30 pm in order to facilitate the attendance of the two Houses on Her Majesty in Westminster Hall for the presentation of Humble Addresses.

Wednesday 21 March—My right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer will open his Budget statement.

Thursday 22 March—Continuation of the Budget debate.

Friday 23 March—Continuation of the Budget debate.



The provisional business for the week commencing 26 March will include:

Monday 26 March—Conclusion of the Budget debate.

Tuesday 27 March—Motion relating to assisted suicide. The subject for this debate has been nominated by the Backbench Business Committee.

Colleagues will be aware that the House will meet at 11.30 am on Tuesday 27 March.

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

Monday 16 April—Second Reading of the Finance (No. 4) Bill.

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

Thursday 19 April—Debate on regeneration.

[Ms Angela Eagle]

Last weekend, the Liberal Democrat spring conference voted against the health Bill. This week, Liberal Democrats in Parliament voted for the health Bill. It could not be clearer: the Liberal Democrat leader now takes his instructions only from the Prime Minister. Would the Leader of the House join me in congratulating the five Liberal Democrats who defied their leadership and voted against the health Bill? Does he not agree that when the legislation returns to this House next week, the Government must publish the transition risk register, as they have been ordered to by the Information Commissioner? Much better still, the Government should just drop the Bill.

This week at the Leveson inquiry we learned further details about how the deputy Mayor for Policing in London put pressure on the Metropolitan police to drop their investigation into phone hacking. The Met say that they had to remind him that the police are operationally independent of politicians and that operational decisions are taken by police officers, not the Mayor’s political appointees. It is especially worrying when it is a Conservative deputy Mayor pressurising the police on an investigation that involved one of the Prime Minister’s senior aides, Andy Coulson. Will the Leader of the House therefore arrange for the Home Secretary to make an urgent statement about how such inappropriate interference by the Mayor’s political staff can be stopped?

We now know that the Prime Minister is fond of going horse riding with his old school friends—when they are free. As it is the Cheltenham festival at the moment, may I suggest some horses that Government Members might want to back? As the Prime Minister is conveniently out of the country when unemployment reaches another high, he could back American Spin in the 2.40 today. With the Health Secretary’s career in terminal decline after his disastrous mismanagement of the NHS, his horse is clearly Final Approach. The Education Secretary, who is doing everything he can to undermine the Leveson inquiry, will no doubt want to put his money on Time for Rupert. And the only possible horse for the Deputy Prime Minister is running today in the 2.05: Palace Jester.

The Deputy Prime Minister has been keeping himself busy floating various suggestions for the Budget in the media. Clearly bored with hearing from him, the Chancellor decided to follow Steve Hilton to America. As his economic strategy has unravelled, the Chancellor, rather like the Prime Minister, has been increasingly reluctant to come to the House. Could the Leader of the House confirm that he is actually planning to turn up for the Budget?

I raised last week the Chancellor’s proposals to cut child benefit. The Leader of the House said that the Government’s view was clear. He said the Government’s view was clear three times, but by some strange oversight, he forgot to tell us what the Government’s view actually was. Perhaps the Leader of the House could clear up this issue. Is it fair that a household in which one parent works and earns £43,000 a year will lose child benefit, while a household in which both parents work and take home £84,000 will not? Will the Leader of the House find time for a debate on fairness before the Budget? The debate on the Budget within the Government has been a shambles.

Are the Government in favour of a mansion tax or not? The Business Secretary thinks it is a good idea; the Local Government Secretary thinks it is a terrible idea. Conservative Back Benchers want a tax cut for the top 1%; meanwhile, Liberal Democrat Cabinet Ministers and Back Benchers wander around claiming that while the Tories favour tax cuts only for the rich, they themselves do not. The truth is, however, that every member of the Government has voted for Budgets that take the most money from those who have the least.

Can the Leader of the House find time for a debate on families? It is families who have been hardest hit by the Government’s Budgets, and what families want from this Budget is not Government in-fighting, but real help now to reduce the squeeze on their living standards and get the economy moving again.

Perhaps, while he is in the United States, the Chancellor might ask why the economy there is growing and unemployment is falling, while in Britain the economy is flatlining and unemployment is rising. The Government's economic strategy is failing, and the Cabinet cannot agree on what to do next. No wonder the Business Secretary thinks that the coalition lacks a “compelling” case, and no wonder the Prime Minister decided that he was better off out of the country on the ides of March, as far away as possible from the Mayor of London.

The right hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr Laws) has taken to warning about Government paralysis. His heart may still be in the coalition, but there is only one horse for Liberal Democrat Back Benchers now. It is running in the 2.05 this afternoon, and it is called Get Me Out Of Here.

[Sir George Young]

We welcome the new career that the hon. Member for Wallasey (Ms Eagle) is developing as a tipster. It will be interesting to see how well the horses that she has commended to the House actually perform.

The hon. Lady raised—yet again—the subject of the Health and Social Care Bill. It is interesting: we have had three Opposition day debates on the Bill, and I still have not the faintest idea what the Opposition’s policy is on health. Nor, apparently, does the former Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown). He turned up the other day to support the amendment tabled by a Back-Bench Liberal Democrat, but disappeared when the time came to vote on the Labour party’s own motion. Perhaps he had not realised that the negotiations with the Liberal Democrats had ended, some two years ago, in failure. Perhaps he, and indeed the hon. Lady, should heed the wise words of his former Transport Secretary Lord Adonis, who wrote today:

“Labour will get back into government by having a better plan for the future, not by opposing changes which are working well.”

[Interruption.] Lord Adonis clearly thinks that they are working well.

The hon. Lady asked about the risk register. As she knows, we are awaiting the detailed judgment of the tribunal before deciding what further action the Government might take.

The police are operationally independent of politicians, and rightly so. The Home Secretary will be at the Dispatch Box on Monday, when she will be happy to answer questions.

As the hon. Lady may have noticed, the Chancellor will be making a Budget statement on Wednesday. I think that the best thing to do is to put to one side the speculation in the papers about what he may or may not do, and then come along on Wednesday and listen to the real thing.

The hon. Lady mentioned child benefit. Is it fair for someone earning £20,000 a year to pay, through his or her taxes, for the child benefit of someone earning five times as much? That is the question that she needs to address. As for growth, she will be aware that the International Monetary Fund has pointed out that growth in this country this year is three times that in France and twice that in Germany.

Finally, the hon. Lady always obsesses about the relationship between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats, but when even The Guardian reports, as it does today, that Labour is in “turmoil”, we know something must be going very badly wrong with the Opposition, and when another report uncovers that morale at Labour HQ is

“even worse than the dark days under Brown”,

we have to wonder how bad it has to get before the hon. Lady stops worrying about the coalition and starts to focus more on the chaos in her own party.

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

May we have a debate on avoiding false economies? Has the Leader of the House seen the report released this week that states that at the current rate of progress it will take local authorities some 11 years to complete the backlog of road repairs? Is he aware—he ought to be—that potholes are dangerous for cyclists and damage car suspension systems? What more can the Government do to ensure that local authorities complete roadworks diligently and speedily?

[Sir George Young]

As a cyclist, I am all too aware when there is a pothole on my route into the House of Commons. My right hon. Friend may have seen a recent statement by one of the Transport Ministers that said that, following last year’s severe winter, additional resources were made available to local authorities to address the pothole issue, and I think I am right in saying that the resources for local authorities over the next three years are higher than in the preceding three years before we took office. I shall, of course, pass on my right hon. Friend’s concern to the Secretary of State for Transport in order to see what can be done to make my right hon. Friend’s ride around his constituency more comfortable than it clearly is at present.

[Natascha Engel (North East Derbyshire) (Lab)]

On Monday, 186 Members voted against all-House elections to the Backbench Business Committee. Of those, 119 were payroll Members. Without those Front-Bench votes, Back Benchers would have secured all-House elections by 38 votes. We all saw the pain on the face of the Leader of the House on Monday night. Can he explain the tortuous logic by which he squares the coalition’s promise to give more powers to Back Benchers with Monday’s Front-Bench intervention?

[Sir George Young]

My hon. Friend the Deputy Leader of the House set out in his speech on Monday the reasons why he and I believed the House should support the amendment in question. As the hon. Lady knows, all we have done is bring the Backbench Business Committee into line with all the other Select Committees and ensured that, for example, the Conservative party cannot choose which Labour Members serve on her Committee. That would be an abuse, and the House agreed, through a Division in the normal way, with the proposals put forward by my hon. Friend—and supported by the hon. Lady’s Front-Bench party colleagues. We have had that debate, and the time has come to move on.

[Jo Swinson (East Dunbartonshire) (LD)]

Two years ago, the Speaker’s Conference recommended that we should have a review of sitting hours, and one year ago the Procedure Committee launched an inquiry into that. It has been very thorough, with both written and oral evidence having been taken, and there was then a further consultation exercise, which closed three months ago. When does the Leader of the House think we will have the chance to vote on options for reform?

[Sir George Young]

There is a missing ingredient in the equation, in that we have to wait for the report from the Procedure Committee. I understand from the Chair of that Committee, my right hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire (Mr Knight), that good progress is being made. I have given evidence on this topic, and I am sure my hon. Friend has, too. When the report is placed before the House—I do not know whether that will be before the end of the Session—it will be important to find time so that the House can reach a decision on whether to stay with the existing sitting hours or to make changes. In the first instance, however, my hon. Friend’s question should, I think, be addressed more to the Chair of the Procedure Committee than to the Leader of the House.

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

Even at this late stage, will the Leader of the House use his good offices, and his significant influence with the Chancellor, to make a special plea to him to reflect again on the proposed 10% increase in air passenger duty? I fully accept that that duty was introduced by the last Labour Government, but it has risen significantly, and is now the highest in the world. If this tax goes ahead, we will be totally uncompetitive in relation to our European partners, and there will be job losses and impacts on tourism, especially in Scotland. I therefore ask the Leader of the House to speak to the Chancellor about this important issue.

[Sir George Young]

The hon. Gentleman makes a last-minute submission to my right hon. Friend the Chancellor as he puts the finishing touches to his Budget, and he will understand that I cannot give any undertaking whatsoever. However, there will be a number of days in which to debate the Budget measures, when the hon. Gentleman may have an opportunity to develop his case at greater length.

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

May we have a debate on local government finance? Wolverton and Greenleys town council has applied for grant funding under the Portas pilot project but has been told that if—and, we hope, when—it is successful, it is not deemed to be a suitable authority to handle the money. Given the Government’s commitment to localism and the fact that the local town council is deemed competent to raise the precept, is this situation not slightly odd?

[Sir George Young]

My hon. Friend may know that section 31 of the Local Government Act 2003 says that a Minister can make a grant to a local authority, but the definition of “local authority” excludes the body to which he has referred—the town council. If the bid is successful, I see no reason why the money should not be “laundered”, if I may use that word, through the district council, which would be an intermediary between the Government and the town council. That may offer a way through.

[Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)]

Equity member Michael Sheldon recently provided a reference for a passport application for his daughter’s boyfriend, but the application was turned down because the passport office apparently said that acting was “not a proper job.” Will the Leader of the House make time for a debate on the massive contribution to our economy, and to the world of culture and entertainment, made by the many fine and great actors produced by Britain?

[Sir George Young]

Acting is a proper job, and many Members in the House prove that on a day-to-day basis. I will draw the hon. Gentleman’s concern to the attention of the Home Secretary, who will be at this Dispatch Box on Monday. I pay tribute to the acting profession, which is an important invisible earner of foreign exchange. This country leads the world in providing high-quality actors, and, indeed, some of them have been Members of this House.

[Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)]

May we have an early debate on the Government’s perverse and bizarre definition of equality? Why are they saying that same-sex partners should be able to have access to marriage while denying the opportunity for heterosexuals to have access to civil partnerships?

[Sir George Young]

As my hon. Friend knows, we have just published a consultation document with the proposition that access to marriage should be available to same-sex couples. We have already made some changes to civil partnerships; there is now access to services in church. During the course of the consultation on that document, my hon. Friend will be able to develop his argument for extending the opportunities in the way that he has just outlined, but the debate has just been launched by the consultation document and the written ministerial statement published a few moments ago.

[Mr Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab)]

May we have a debate or a statement from the Education Secretary on the implementation of the Government’s academy schools policy, following revelations that the first school in Exeter to apply for academy status pays its head £10,000 more than the Prime Minister and employs the head’s wife as the deputy head, as well as allegations about a company car and trips abroad on school expenses? Does that not show that there is real risk and a real accountability problem with the Government’s academy policy?

[Sir George Young]

The right hon. Gentleman says that it is the Government’s academy policy, but it is actually his own party’s academy policy which we are building on and strengthening. The regime for academies was developed by his party and, if I may say so, we are building on one of the successes of the previous Administration.

[Mr David Amess (Southend West) (Con)]

May we have a debate on why Southend-on-Sea, the finest seaside resort in the country, was not granted city status yesterday? The word on the street is that we were robbed, and I agree.

[Sir George Young]

I would hope that my hon. Friend will be broad-minded about this, in that there was success for Essex—

[Sir Bob Russell (Colchester) (LD)]

No there wasn’t!

[Sir George Young]

I do not want to get drawn into a battle between the various tribes in Essex. I understand the sadness in Southend, but this is not a matter for the Leader of the House. I just join in commending the towns that were successful on their graduation to city status.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

Will the Leader of the House arrange for a statement or a debate in this House on the control of raptors—birds of prey? In parts of the United Kingdom, the number of birds of prey has increased, to the detriment of songbirds, as the statistics show. Will such a statement address a review of the occasional licences to control raptors, as in parts of the UK the control of raptors is urgently needed?

[Sir George Young]

I understand the concern that the hon. Gentleman raises, and I will share it with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, where responsibility for that rests, to see whether we should review the current legislation in view of the damage—the extinguishing of songbirds—to which the hon. Gentleman has referred.

[Brandon Lewis (Great Yarmouth) (Con)]

The figures published this week show a growth in private sector employment, and the enterprise zones, which promise even further employment and growth in the private sector, will start in April. I am thinking, in particular, of new enterprise zones such as New Anglia’s in Great Yarmouth, which really is the best seaside town, because we have leisure and business in one place. With these zones coming into force in April, may I ask that we have a statement from the relevant Minister to reinforce and reaffirm the excellent opportunities that they offer?

[Sir George Young]

My hon. Friend reminds the House that 24 enterprise zones will be providing real opportunities for inward investment and fresh jobs in those particular areas. The Budget debate will provide an opportunity to develop this further. He also reminds the House that the figures that came out yesterday show that the increase in private sector employment more than outweighed the decrease in public sector employment, and we all hope that trend will continue.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

May we have an urgent debate or statement about the shortage of branded prescription drugs in pharmacies? Early-day motion 2801 states:

[That this House is deeply concerned that prescription drugs intended for UK patients are being sold abroad; notes that a recent survey of pharmacists found that 85% were very concerned that patients were being adversely affected by shortages of such drugs; further notes with alarm research that found 40% of pharmacists had seen patients hospitalised because of the problem; and calls on the Government to hold urgent discussions on what can be done to combat this immoral activity with devastating consequences.]

Given that figure of 40%, could we please have an urgent debate on the subject?

[Sir George Young]

There will be an opportunity to discuss that on Tuesday week, when my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health will be at the Dispatch Box answering questions. In the meantime, I will draw his attention to the shortage of certain branded prescription drugs and the very unfortunate consequences to which the right hon. Gentleman has referred, to see whether there is any action that the Government can take to ensure that supplies are available where they are needed.

[Mr Marcus Jones (Nuneaton) (Con)]

I welcome the introduction of neighbourhood planning, which will allow local communities to help shape a vision for their future. May we have a debate to encourage the take-up of neighbourhood plans, as councils such as Labour-controlled Nuneaton and Bedworth borough council have failed, thus far, to engage in empowering eager constituents of mine who want to embrace neighbourhood planning?

[Sir George Young]

I hope that many parish councils, town councils and, indeed, neighbourhoods will take up the opportunity to which my hon. Friend referred and draw up neighbourhood plans, which will ensure that the views of local people are taken on board as the local authority then produces its district plan. We are committed to publishing our response to the national planning policy framework consultation exercise shortly, and there may be an opportunity subsequently to have a broader debate about the planning regime.

[David Wright (Telford) (Lab)]

Unemployment continues to rise, and it now stands at 7.2% in Telford. May we have a debate entitled “Unemployment: the Government’s strategy and how it is failing”? Perhaps the Prime Minister could lead the debate and he could tell us about what is happening in the United States.

[Sir George Young]

Again, there will be an opportunity in the context of the Budget debate to talk about such issues. However, it is worth putting on the record the fact that employment is also up. Women’s employment was up by 10,000 in the past quarter, long-term unemployment was down by 12,000 and the number of vacancies was up by 15,000. It is important to put things in context, and to remind the hon. Gentleman of the measures the Government are taking to develop sustainable growth and ensure that unemployment comes down.

[Christopher Pincher (Tamworth) (Con)]

The Range leisure outlet, which began life in Plymouth in 1980 on a market stall, is about to open an outlet in Tamworth, creating scores of new private sector jobs. That is the sort of entrepreneurial spirit we need to see more of, so could the Leader of the House grant a debate on how the Government can help entrepreneurs to grow their businesses, create more private sector jobs and rebalance the economy?

[Sir George Young]

I am delighted to hear what is happening in my hon. Friend’s constituency. I can grant such a debate—indeed, I have announced such a debate for four days of next week when we can explain that we are encouraging the enterprise to which my hon. Friend has referred, by cutting corporation tax, extending the small business rate relief holiday to small and medium-sized enterprises and making it harder to make vexatious claims for unfair dismissal. We want to encourage yet more firms to set up shop in my hon. Friend’s constituency.

[Mr Nigel Dodds (Belfast North) (DUP)]

This Saturday, the Royal Irish Regiment and the Irish Guards will be holding a number of St Patrick’s day parades in Northern Ireland. Following on from the excellent news that the city of Armagh will be awarded a lord mayoralty in this diamond jubilee year, can we look forward to the statement that St Patrick’s day will become an official public holiday in the United Kingdom?

[Sir George Young]

Speaking from memory, I believe that I have seen a response from my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, if not to the right hon. Gentleman then to one of his colleagues, that explains the issues that surround the declaration of new public holidays. I think it is best if I draw the right hon. Gentleman’s attention to that letter, which is somewhere in the system.

[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)]

May we have a debate on supporting local newspapers? In my area in recent years, we have gone from having three local newspapers to having one, so will my right hon. Friend lobby the Department for Transport to ensure that they continue to push for transport notices to be published in local newspapers, to ensure that people who do not use the internet can see the adverts and to create a level playing field?

[Sir George Young]

I am surprised that there is any space in the Harlow Star for anything other than reports on my hon. Friend’s activities in the House of Commons. We are consulting on proposals that would devolve to local authorities responsibility for deciding how to reach their target audience, and I am sure that my hon. Friend’s local authority will bear in mind the importance of a vibrant local newspaper when it decides how to place advertisements in the future.

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

I remind the Leader of the House that at no time in the history of this country have power, influence, employment and wealth been more dominated by London and the south-east. Is it not about time—or is it too late—to influence next week’s Budget so that we can start to redistribute some of the wealth and power to the northern and midland regions that make this country what it is?

[Sir George Young]

I hope that the hon. Gentleman will recognise some of the steps that we have introduced, such as the regional growth fund and the exemption from national insurance employers’ contributions for those outside the key areas to which he has referred and the launch of enterprise zones. I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor is alert to the importance of bridging the north-south divide to do more to help areas with high unemployment. The hon. Gentleman should await my right hon. Friend’s Budget statement.

[Sir Robert Smith (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (LD)]

Following the tragic news from Afghanistan about the loss of those brave soldiers’ lives and the murder of many civilians by an American soldier, and the discussions coming out of the United States about the future of Afghanistan, will the Leader of the House look in the forward programme and find time for a full debate in the House on our strategy in Afghanistan, both in the military and in development, and on the long-term future for Afghanistan?

[Sir George Young]

We are committed to making regular quarterly statements on the position in Afghanistan. I think I am right in saying that one of those quarterly statements is due quite soon and there will then be an opportunity to ask my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State about those issues. I agree on the broader question and I hope that, if not in the immediate future then at some point in the new Session, we can have a broader debate about foreign policy in Afghanistan—and in Iraq, Syria and other places.

[Phil Wilson (Sedgefield) (Lab)]

May we have a debate or a statement on the state of public transport in Country Durham, which even the Minister responsible for employment has called poor? Things are now so bad that the Jobcentre Plus in Newton Aycliffe is considering purchasing bicycles so that people can get to work. Is it now the Government’s policy to purchase bicycles so that people can get to work rather than providing public transport?

[Sir George Young]

I think I am right in saying that the previous Government introduced a scheme whereby employers could make bicycles available on preferential terms to their employees, so there is a precedent. I understand the hon. Gentleman’s concern about the poor quality of public transport in his constituency, and I shall raise it with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport to see whether she can take any action to relieve that problem.

[Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)]

With more than 300,000 school governors in this country, may we have a debate to celebrate the work they do for their schools and communities and, secondly, to highlight the need to change and adapt their role to respond to the welcome changes in our school policy, particularly on academies?

[Sir George Young]

That would be an excellent subject for a Westminster Hall debate; I commend my hon. Friend on his work in setting up an all-party parliamentary group on education, governance and leadership. He is right that as the school system develops and we have more academies, it is even more important that there is good local leadership and that we recruit good-quality governors to remove unnecessary burdens and distractions for schools. We need to get the right people in the right position with the appropriate skills, abilities and experience, and I think that a debate in Westminster Hall would do exactly what my hon. Friend has recommended.

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

May we have a debate about the mixed messages from the Government, who are telling people from the north to move to the south for jobs and people from the south to move to the north for housing? How will that help rebalance the economy?

[Sir George Young]

That is a travesty of the Government’s policy. We want to grow more jobs in the north, where people are, and the news that Nissan is creating 2,000 new jobs in the north-east is something that I hope the hon. Lady would welcome.

[Dan Byles (North Warwickshire) (Con)]

Coal continues to play a key role in our energy mix, accounting for a third of our electricity generation. May we have an early debate on the importance of domestic UK coal production in energy security, particularly in the light of yesterday’s worrying news that the Daw Mill colliery, which borders my constituency and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Nuneaton (Mr Jones), might shortly close, with a devastating impact on the 800 men and women who work there, resulting in an increase in coal imports to the UK?

[Sir George Young]

My hon. Friend is right that we need a balanced energy policy, and there is a role for coal. We have put resources on one side to promote clean coal technology, and if we can overcome the environmental problems associated with the traditional coal-fired power stations, I am sure that coal can play an important role in the future supply of this country’s energy.

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

To mark the re-establishment of the all-party group on folk arts, following the sad death of Alan Keen MP—I was elected chair, by the way, and the vice-chair is the be-knighted Member for the town of Colchester—may we have a debate on the importance of folk arts to the economy, and in particular on the Government’s position on representing the folk traditions of the nations and regions of these islands in the Olympics opening ceremony?

[Sir George Young]

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point, and I am sorry if I misconstrued the same point when it was made a fortnight ago by my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Sir Bob Russell). I congratulate the hon. Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan) on his election to the chair of that important group; I am sure it was done by secret ballot of Members from all parties and I commend the group for its work. It is important that the opening ceremony for the Olympics is taken as an opportunity to portray all that is good about the United Kingdom, and I agree that the elements the hon. Gentleman has identified should be part of that ceremony.

[Sir Bob Russell (Colchester) (LD)]

The population of England is 52 million and the combined population of the other three countries in the UK is 10 million. Over the part 12 years, 11 places have been granted city status but only four have been English towns. May we have a debate on this discrimination against England and the extraordinary criteria used by the committee that came up with the conclusions, bearing in mind that in Wales, with only two applicants, a town with a population of 130,000 was deemed not appropriate to become a city of the 21st century whereas a small community with a population of 3,500 was? Where is the logic and sanity behind that decision?

[Sir George Young]

There are some questions that the Leader of the House is totally unable to begin to answer, and the turf war that has broken out in Essex is something that I do not want to venture into. I understand my hon. Friend’s disappointment that his town was not recognised, but I am sure that his town is proud that he now has a knighthood.

[Mr Iain Wright (Hartlepool) (Lab)]

Let me follow up the question asked by my namesake, my hon. Friend the Member for Telford (David Wright). The Leader of the House might recall that two or three weeks ago I asked for a debate on unemployment in the north-east, but he was somewhat dismissive, in his usual courteous and gracious way, about the impact of Government policies on jobless totals in my region. Given yesterday’s publication of figures showing that 4,678 people in Hartlepool are unemployed—a rise of nearly 10% year on year—and that the north-east is still the worst region in the country for unemployment, will he rethink his position, and may we have an urgent debate on unemployment in Hartlepool and the north-east?

[Sir George Young]

I commend the way in which the hon. Gentleman fights for more jobs in his constituency, and I am sure that no discourtesy was intended when I last replied to his question. However, I think the answer is the same as I gave to his hon. Friend. We are going to have a Budget in a few days’ time, the Government have made it clear that we want growth to be a key part of our agenda, and I can only suggest that the hon. Gentleman should wait for the Budget and take part in the Budget debate. I very much hope there will be something in the Budget that he is able to welcome and that will help his constituency.

[Karen Bradley (Staffordshire Moorlands) (Con)]

One thousand schoolchildren in Biddulph in my constituency have each designed a unique footprint to mark the “Take a Step for Fairtrade” campaign. Will the Leader of the House find time for a debate on the important subject of Fairtrade and other initiatives that help to support those in the greatest poverty in developing countries?

[Sir George Young]

I commend what the schoolchildren in my hon. Friend’s constituency have done to mark Fairtrade fortnight. This issue would be an appropriate subject for a debate in Westminster Hall. Through the Department for International Development, we are a committed Fairtrade partner, and DFID provides support to Fairtrade International—some £12 million over four years—helping to strengthen the Fairtrade certification scheme, broaden its scope and deepen its impact. I commend what is happening in her constituency.

[Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)]

The recent terrible events in Afghanistan have convinced 73% of the public that our troops should be brought home immediately. Similar public opinion in the Netherlands and Canada convinced those countries to bring their troops out of that combat two years ago and one year ago respectively. Should we not reflect public opinion and have a debate and a vote in this House so that we can say what the public are saying—that our brave troops should not be asked to continue a mission impossible and risk their lives for a single day longer than necessary?

[Sir George Young]

The hon. Gentleman has put this view forward consistently over a period of time and I commend him for his persistence. Such a matter would be for the Backbench Business Committee to find time to debate, but he might have seen in reports from my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister’s visit to America about the timetable for withdrawal that we will have withdrawn from the combat role by the end of 2014. Also, there will be regular statements on a quarterly basis updating Members on the position in Afghanistan; he might want to ask a question in response to one of those statements.

[Guto Bebb (Aberconwy) (Con)]

A report in last week’s Sunday Telegraph highlighted the mis-selling of complex interest rate swap products to small businesses, such as a hotel in my constituency owned by Mr Colin Jones. Those businesses clearly did not have the financial expertise to understand the risks to which they were being subjected as a result of signing the forms. The cases that have been highlighted are merely the tip of the iceberg, so may we have a debate about this issue and about the reluctance of the Financial Services Authority and the Financial Ombudsman Service to get involved in this mis-selling and protect the businesses in question?

[Sir George Young]

There might be an opportunity for my hon. Friend to raise this issue when the Financial Services Bill returns to the Floor of the House having completed its Committee stage. In the meantime I shall raise it with my hon. Friends at the Treasury. I would say, however, that anyone who is thinking of investing in such products should take independent professional advice before signing any contract.

[Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)]

Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency figures show that requests from private car park operators for vehicle registration data have increased dramatically—by more than 300%—in recent years. Those data are used to issue fines to motorists, and more than 1 million motorists have received fines in the past year. Transport Ministers say that new measures coming on stream will tackle this problem, but they will not. Motorists deserve a fair deal, so may I press the Leader of the House again for a debate on car parking management?

[Sir George Young]

I understand the issue that the hon. Gentleman raises, and I shall touch base with my right hon. Friend the Transport Secretary on this, but he will know that we are banning cowboy clampers. I hope that will bring some consolation to the motorists to whom he refers.

[Gavin Barwell (Croydon Central) (Con)]

Given the interest on both sides of the House, may we have a debate on the labour market? As the Leader of the House has acknowledged, the statistics published this week show, beneath the headline figures, a fall in long-term unemployment. They also show that while there has been a 380,000 reduction in public sector employment since the general election, the private sector has created more than 630,000 jobs.

[Sir George Young]

As my hon. Friend says, we are seeking to rebalance the economy so that there is less cost in the public sector, which is being downsized, with that being compensated for by growth in the private sector. The figures he has mentioned outline the progress we are making in that regard. He also underlines a point that was made in earlier exchanges about having a well-educated work force. The investment we are making in apprenticeships is part of the process of giving people the skills they need to find work in the private sector as it grows.

[Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)]

Given the very belated statement we had last week on Remploy factory closures and the point-blank refusal of the disability Minister, the Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, the hon. Member for Basingstoke (Maria Miller), to take up the offer of the Welsh Government to take over responsibility for Remploy factories in Wales and put in expertise to improve their viability, may we have an urgent debate on the Floor of the House about strategies for making Remploy factories viable?

[Sir George Young]

My hon. Friend the disability Minister made a statement to the House on this last week, and then answered questions. I point out that the party of the hon. Member for Llanelli (Nia Griffith) closed 28 Remploy factories, and that there is a change in the way we are helping disabled people. There is more and more emphasis on finding work in mainstream employment for those with a disability, and less reliance on places of employment such as Remploy, which is sometimes referred to as being segregated. The money saved by the closure of Remploy factories is being diverted into giving more personal help to people with a disability to find work in mainstream employment. We are not saving any money at all; indeed, we are putting £15 million more into the access to employment scheme within that budget. I would welcome a debate on the future of Remploy, but I honestly believe that the policy on which we are embarked is in the best long-term interests of those with a disability, and it has been supported by most disability organisations.

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

Conservative-led Dudley council has launched a £1 million new business loan fund. Given the figures that were published yesterday showing that 60,000 more people were in work in the west midlands than at the time of the election, could we have a debate on how local initiatives can help to drive jobs and business growth?

[Sir George Young]

We can indeed have such a debate: on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and—[Hon. Members: “Saturday?”] No, not Saturday—on Monday. We are doing everything we can to support businesses through this difficult time, and I was interested to hear about what is happening in Dudley. We also have the business growth fund of £2.5 billion—a bank-led investment scheme without any Government money—investing in businesses across the country in return for a 10% equity stake. My hon. Friend might like to promote that scheme in his constituency.

[Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)]

Can the Leader of the House arrange for a statement or debate about the appointment of an independent oversight team to watch over current live police investigations? Does the Leader of the House not find it peculiar that one of the members of the team is a political appointee and a Member of the other place? Should not the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland make a statement about this matter, especially as it has national security implications because some of the murders involve key witnesses in national security cases?

[Sir George Young]

I understand the sensitivity of this matter and its importance in Northern Ireland. I will relay to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State the concerns that the hon. Gentleman has expressed and will ask him to write to the hon. Gentleman responding to these serious issues.

[Andrew Stephenson (Pendle) (Con)]

In April last year Conservative councillors on Pendle borough council created a business start-up grant scheme, which over the past year has supported 76 small businesses, created 21 jobs and brought four vacant premises back into use. Given that other Government initiatives have helped to create more than half a million new jobs in the private sector since the general election, may we have a debate on the role that local initiatives can play in supporting the Government’s initiatives on job creation?

[Sir George Young]

I am delighted to hear about what has been happening in my hon. Friend’s constituency. Local enterprise partnerships have a key role to play in delivering this policy and helping to grow jobs in particular areas. This is part of the process, to which other hon. Members have drawn attention, of creating extra jobs in the private sector to compensate for the necessary decisions we have taken to downsize the public sector. I am delighted to hear about the rebalancing taking place in his constituency.

[Mr Wayne David (Caerphilly) (Lab)]

May we have a debate on the fact that the chief constable of Gwent police has embarked on a programme of draconian spending cuts at the behest of the Home Office without any consultation whatsoever with elected representatives, the police authority or, indeed, members of the public?

[Sir George Young]

There will be an opportunity to raise the matter on Monday, when the Home Secretary will be at the Dispatch Box. Many police authorities, certainly in England, have been able to manage with the reduced budget available to them and ensure that front-line services remain unaffected. They have secured the necessary economies through joint purchasing and by pooling resources and moving people from back offices to the front line. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary is now forewarned that the hon. Gentleman is on the war path.

[Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)]

In the light of yesterday’s welcome news that there has been a 70% increase in job vacancies in West Worcestershire, and a 22% increase in the west midlands as a whole, may we have a debate on the wonderful role played by our network of jobcentres, which are working so hard with local private businesses to add vacancies to the database?

[Sir George Young]

I agree entirely with my hon. Friend and know that colleagues on both sides of the House regularly visit their jobcentres to see at first hand the heroic work being done to find suitable jobs for those currently out of work. She reminds the House that jobcentres are notified of around 10,000 new vacancies every day, and over the past 12 months Jobcentre Plus has received more than 4 million vacancies. The figures released yesterday show that the number of vacancies is up, so jobcentres have an important role to play in ensuring that those vacancies are taken up by people currently out of work.

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

The UK’s triple A credit rating is essential to our economic recovery. Will the Leader of the House agree to a debate on the logic or otherwise of the argument, presented by some Members, that the way to get out of a debt crisis is simply to borrow more money, and on the implications that would have on employment prospects?

[Sir George Young]

I entirely agree with my hon. Friend, who might like to catch your eye, Mr Speaker, during the Budget debate. It is important that we maintain our triple A status. A 1% increase in interest rates would cost the average family with the average mortgage £1,000 more a year, which is the last thing they want at the moment, and it reminds us of the importance of sticking to the deficit reduction strategy.

[Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)]

May we have an urgent statement on the operation of London transport during the London Olympics and Paralympics? All tube workers have been offered an £850 bonus because they will be required to work at short notice and possibly for longer hours, but members of the Unite union have rejected this and are calling for a no-strings-attached bonus just for turning up for work. May we have a debate so that we can expose this intransigence?

[Sir George Young]

It is important that the Olympics are a great success, as I am sure they will be, but it is equally important that the presence of the Olympics is not used to make wholly unreasonable demands. I think that I am right in saying that the issue my hon. Friend raises is more a matter for the Mayor of London than for the Government, and I am sure that Boris will have listened to what he has said. I hope that there will be a sensible resolution of the dispute between Unite and Transport for London so that we can get ahead and everyone can enjoy the Olympics and get there and back on public transport.

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

This morning The Times carried an encouraging report that there might be some movement on the extradition arrangements between the US and the UK. Given this, and the presence of the Scott Baker report, will the Leader of the House require a statement from the Home Secretary on when the House will hear the Government’s conclusions and recommendations?

[Sir George Young]

As I mentioned a few moments ago, the Home Secretary will be at the Dispatch Box on Monday, and I am sure that she will respond to my hon. Friend during topical questions. The Scott Baker report was published in October and my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary is reflecting on it, together with the debates that have taken place. My hon. Friend refers to the statement issued after the US President and the Prime Minister met yesterday, which indicated that their teams will now get together and look at how the extradition arrangements are operating. The Prime Minister has made it clear that he would prefer more cases to be tried in the UK, rather than in America. I hope that the Home Secretary will be able to give a more authoritative reply on Monday than I have done.

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

May we have an urgent debate on the state of the construction industry? The industry is not only of huge importance to the UK economy, but of particular importance to my constituency, where we have some of the largest brick factories in the country, and many companies involved in the supply of building materials. I am sure that Members on both sides of the House will be heartened to hear that growth in the construction sector is at an 11-month high, and I hope that they would all agree that that is something we need to build on.

[Sir George Young]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. He reminds the House that under Labour, house building fell to its lowest peacetime rate since the 1920s. He will have seen the announcement by the Minister for Housing and Local Government on Monday about the NewBuy scheme, which will give new purchasers the opportunity to buy their first home without having to find a huge deposit. I hope that this will help to kick-start the building industry, and that builders will buy lots of bricks manufactured in his constituency.

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

A Westminster Hall debate this week debunked a whole string of myths about the Government’s work experience programme. May we have a debate in Government time on how we can move on, grow that programme, get more employers on board and, crucially, give Opposition Members an opportunity to break the Labour party’s eerie silence and express their support for helping young people on the road to work?

[Sir George Young]

I agree with every word my hon. Friend has said. It is worth remembering that some 50% of those who do work experience then find a job. We all have a role to play in our own constituencies by encouraging more employers to offer work experience to constituents who are looking for jobs, and I welcome the fact that more and more employers are offering work experience. I would welcome a debate, which might take place in the context of the Budget and would provide Opposition Members with an opportunity to show their hand and, on reflection, hopefully support the initiatives that the Government have introduced.

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

May we please have a statement on how the one-in, one-out policy on regulation applies to private Bills? This week the London Local Authorities and Transport for London (No. 2) Bill received its Third Reading, and there are two further private Bills in the pipeline, all of which will add more to the mountain of regulation.

[Sir George Young]

Repealing regulation might require a Bill to be introduced, so it would be somewhat perverse if a Bill that introduced deregulation counted as more regulation, but I take my hon. Friend’s point, which he has developed—at some length—during debates on private business. We are determined to reduce the burden of regulation. He mentioned the one-in, one-out policy. There has been a review of regulation, and I hope that we can announce more progress on relieving businesses of the burden of red tape in due course.

[Andrew Jones (Harrogate and Knaresborough) (Con)]

We learned this week that the trade deficit for January was better than expected, one of the factors being strong exports of cars to the United States and to Brazil, Russia, India and China—the BRIC countries. We have also learned some further encouraging news from the automotive sector, with increases in production for Land Rover and Nissan, and data published this morning suggest a sector-wide production increase of almost 20% year on year. Of course, the vast majority of cars made in this country are exported. May we please have a debate on the progress we are making on rebalancing our economy towards manufacturing and exports?

[Sir George Young]

My hon. Friend reminds the House of the encouraging news about the motor industry, particularly our success in export markets. We had the good news about Nissan and about Land Rover providing more jobs in Merseyside. I hope that in the Budget debate he will be able at greater length to give examples of success in regenerating the manufacturing sector and getting a more healthy balance, with less reliance on financial services and more reliance on manufacturing, engineering and industries of that nature.

[Mr Speaker]

I am grateful to the Leader of the House and to colleagues, whose succinctness enabled 44 Back Benchers to question the Leader of the House in 43 minutes of exclusively Back-Bench time.

Speaker’s Statement

Thursday 15th March 2012 Commons Chamber

12:28

[Mr Speaker]

I have received a report from the Tellers in the Aye Lobby for the Division at 4.21 pm yesterday on the Question that amendment 2 be made to the Water Industry (Financial Assistance) Bill. The hon. Members for Midlothian (Mr Hamilton) and for Rochford and Southend East (James Duddridge) have informed me that the number of Aye votes was erroneously reported as 231 rather than 222. I will direct the Clerk to correct the numbers in the Journal accordingly. The Ayes were 222 and the Noes were 300.

Points of Order

Thursday 15th March 2012 Commons Chamber

12:30

[Mr Chuka Umunna (Streatham) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Two written ministerial statements have been issued in the past two hours. One is the Government’s announcement on proposals for the reform of our competition regime, and it was sent to the Vote Office at 10.10 am, 20 minutes before Business, Innovation and Skills questions. The other relates to a consultation on no-fault dismissal, which the Vote Office received at 10.30 am, when Business questions started. Clearly, those are both matters of huge national importance.

First, the deadline for applying to you for an urgent question is 9.30 am, Mr Speaker, so the timing of the publication and appearance of the statements meant that we were not able to make such an application on those statements. Secondly, we were not given any time to prepare in a way that would have enabled us to raise during Business questions any issues to which the statements related.

Were you, Sir, given any notice of the statements in advance? Have you—[Interruption.] Have you been given any notification that we can expect oral statements on those matters of national importance—

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Office of the Leader of the House of Commons (Mr David Heath)]

This is outrageous.

[Mr Umunna]

The Deputy Leader of the House says that this is outrageous, but the Government’s behaviour in relation to those statements is outrageous, and shows an utter contempt for this House. I should be grateful for your views on the matter, Mr Speaker

[Mr Speaker]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his point of order. I received no advance notification of the Government’s intentions beyond that which was on offer to, and could be seen by, Members of the House as a whole. The Government did give notice of their intentions on the Order Paper today.

I note, however, the hon. Gentleman’s further inquiry, namely whether I have had any indication of any Government intention to make an oral statement on either or both matters to which he refers, and my answer to that is no.

The wider response to the hon. Gentleman is that nothing disorderly has occurred. It is helpful to the House to have the maximum possible notice, and I can understand his disappointment that some of those matters appeared in the Vote Office, in the form of documentation, only at the time when Business, Innovation and Skills questions were taking place. He may think that that is unseemly or disappointing, and it may be something that he would not himself be inclined to do, I do not know, but nothing disorderly has taken place.

[Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. The Leader of the House, in responding to my question about the Government’s definition of equality, said that the issue of extending civil partnerships to heterosexual couples was part of the consultation being launched today, but I refer you to paragraph 1.5 of the consultation document’s executive summary, which states:

“The consultation therefore, does not look at reforms to civil partnerships, for example opening up civil partnerships to opposite-sex couples.”

May we have a statement from the Government either adopting the policy endorsed by my right hon. Friend on the Front Bench, for which I would be very grateful, or putting him right so that he has to correct the record?

This is a very important issue, because you will recall, Mr Speaker, that when people served on the Standing Committee on the Civil Partnerships Bill, some of us, particularly myself, moved amendments stating that civil partnerships should be available to heterosexual couples, and we were told then that civil partnerships were the exclusive domain of same-sex couples because there was no such thing as gay marriage. Now the situation seems to be changing, but there needs to be some equality-consistency on the part of the Government.

[Mr Speaker]

My response to the hon. Gentleman is as follows. First, he has a beady eye and is a keen student of detail, and I am not in any way surprised that he is familiar with the detail of the consultation document and has studied the various numbered paragraphs. He has made his point, and it is open to the Leader of the House to respond if he wishes, and perhaps to accept that on that factual point the hon. Gentleman is correct.

Secondly, the hon. Gentleman refers to the Standing Committee on the Civil Partnerships Bill and suggests that I might remember that experience. That experience is etched upon my mind and is likely to remain so permanently, because I remember serving on the said Standing Committee with the hon. Gentleman, and it was—shall we say?—an immensely stimulating and, some might think, a protracted experience.

I feel sure that the hon. Gentleman will find further opportunities to develop his points—on that issue, on the issue as a whole and on particular points that are of concern to him today—in the weeks and months ahead, in the Chamber and possibly elsewhere. If the Leader of the House wants to respond, he can—[Interruption.] But he does not wish to do so.

[Sir Roger Gale (North Thanet) (Con)]

Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. Just as a matter of information, you will recall that I had the great privilege of chairing the Civil Partnerships Bill Committee, and the memory of my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) and, I believe, your own is absolutely correct.

[Mr Speaker]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for confirming the memory of the hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) and my own. I just mention in dispatches that of course I remember the chairmanship of the Committee by the hon. Member for North Thanet (Sir Roger Gale), which was frankly unrivalled in its brilliance and in its tolerance—characteristic tolerance, of course. We will leave it there.

Backbench Business

Thursday 15th March 2012 Commons Chamber

Charging for Access to Parliament

Thursday 15th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Relevant document: The statement by the House of Commons Commission of 14 March.]

[Mr Speaker]

Just before I call the hon. Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon) to move the motion, I should say, for the benefit of the House, that I have selected the amendment in the name of the Chairman of the Finance and Services Committee, the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (John Thurso), and that of the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Thomas Docherty).

12:36

[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House accepts the need to make financial savings, but considers that the fundamental principle that the House of Commons is a people’s Parliament should not be put at risk; and concludes that since British citizens pay for Parliament, they should be free to visit it without paying, including the Big Ben Clock Tower.

I am very grateful to the hon. Member for North East Derbyshire (Natascha Engel), the Chair of the Backbench Business Committee. I had problems with the proposals that were debated on Monday evening, but I am glad to say that I shall still vote for her if she decides to stand for a second term. I had to appear before the Committee only twice this time, as opposed to three times last time, but nevertheless I am very grateful.

I thank also the hon. Member for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi) and my hon. Friend the Member for Lincoln (Karl MᶜCartney), who went with me to the Committee, and my Tellers today, my hon. Friends the Members for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers) and for North West Leicestershire (Andrew Bridgen).

Above all, I must thank the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (John Thurso), the Chairman of the House of Commons Commission, because on any problem that I have had in dealing with this issue he has at all times been courteous and, I would say, outstanding. Although I may have disagreements with him, I believe that he is an outstanding Chairman, and I wish I had the chance to vote for him—were the Commission democratically elected.

I have three points to make in this debate about the planned charges for access to the Big Ben Clock Tower. First, the decision is unprecedented but nevertheless creates a dangerous precedent; secondly, it has been decided in a somewhat undemocratic manner; and thirdly, it is unnecessary and unaffordable. I shall deal with those points in turn.

It is true that the House of Commons charges for tours when Parliament is not sitting, but this is the first time that it has chosen to charge for tours during parliamentary hours and, particularly, for tours organised by Members. Those who support the charges argue that Big Ben is not part of our democracy but simply an adornment—a luxury, if you like. That is patently not true. Big Ben is not only the most recognisable British icon in the world, but the most recognisably parliamentary icon.

[Thomas Docherty (Dunfermline and West Fife) (Lab)]

Surely Her Majesty the Queen is the most recognisable icon in the world.

[Robert Halfon]

I am delighted to see that Labour Members have suddenly become monarchists after all these years.

[Brandon Lewis (Great Yarmouth) (Con)]

A couple of weeks ago, I was at a primary school in Great Yarmouth where people were asking about coming down to the House to Commons for a tour. The young children, who were five and six, were talking specifically about Big Ben. The head teacher said that they would love to come here but coming all the way from that part of Norfolk is expensive enough as it is. Does my hon. Friend agree that adding a charge for Big Ben—the very thing that some of those children want to come and see—would put it beyond the reach of people in areas such as Great Yarmouth?

[Robert Halfon]

As so often, my hon. Friend speaks for the common man. He is absolutely right. He will see from some of my later remarks that I completely agree with him.

[Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)]

My hon. Friend—our mutual hon. Friend—the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (John Thurso) has the unenviable task of having to balance the budget for the Administration Committee. Is it not better to treat the Houses of Parliament in the same way as museums, with free access as a principle, rather than balancing it off the back of the Administration Committee?

[Robert Halfon]

My hon. Friend, as always, makes a very good point. I will talk about those issues later.

The history books tell us that the bells of the Great Clock of Westminster rang across London for the first time on 31 May 1859, and Parliament had a special sitting to decide on a suitable name for the great hour bell. Many suggestions were made during the course of the debate. It is alleged that the Chief Lord of the Woods and Forests, Sir Benjamin Hall—a large and ponderous man known affectionately in the House as Big Ben—rose and gave an impressively long speech on the subject. A wag in the Chamber shouted out, “Why not call him Big Ben and have done with it?” The House erupted in laughter, and Big Ben had been named. There are many other stories about why Big Ben is called Big Ben, but I use that as an illustration of its importance: when the bell was brought to Parliament, there was a parliamentary debate to show how central it is to our parliamentary democracy.

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

If I may disagree gently with the hon. Member for Dover (Charlie Elphicke), this place is not a museum but a democratic institution and Members should be able to arrange for their constituents to visit every part of it free of charge. I congratulate the hon. Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon) on the debate. He is right that this could set a precedent. If we start hiring this place out to corporate bodies, massive banks and so on, there is a danger that we will lose the essence of this democratic House.

[Robert Halfon]

The hon. Gentleman has hit the nail on the head. In my conclusion, I will repeat some of the things that he said. He points to a very great danger as regards what our Parliament may become.

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

My hon. Friend rightly talks about the different suggestions as to why Big Ben is called Big Ben. I do not want him to lose sight of part of the argument, which is that Big Ben is not just for Parliament but for the wider populace, and part of popular culture. Indeed, many say that Big Ben was called Big Ben because of Benjamin Caunt, a prize fighter who had a rather large stomach. That shows its attraction to the public and why we must make it as accessible as possible.

[Robert Halfon]

My hon. Friend, who has been a friend for many years, is absolutely right. It is clearly not true to say that Big Ben is an adornment and is not part of our democracy. Moreover, those who claim that it is not part of our democracy and then say that we do not charge for tours elsewhere might ask themselves why we charge for tours during the summer and at weekends.

As I said, the proposal is unprecedented but creates a dangerous precedent. Now that this has been suggested., what will happen in a few years’ time when it is proposed to charge to go through Westminster Hall or to see the Royal Gallery? The hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross, the Leader of the House, the Speaker and so on will say that of course nothing like that would ever happen. I agree with them, in the sense that they are benign individuals, but who is to say that in future years there will not be such benign individuals and that these decisions will not be made?

[Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend accept that there is a clear distinction between viewing democracy in action here in the Chamber from the Gallery, and in Committee Rooms, and touring Big Ben? The tour is fascinating—one can see the mechanism of the clock and the little room in which MPs were incarcerated—but in no way is it central to our democracy, unlike viewing, and being able to be part of in some small way, what goes on in this Chamber and in Committee Rooms. There is clearly a distinction between the two.

[Robert Halfon]

That is where I have a fundamental disagreement with my hon. Friend and with people who believe that we should charge for visiting Big Ben. I believe that Big Ben is central to the whole of Parliament, and the symbol of Parliament. If one asks anybody what is the one symbol of Parliament in the United Kingdom and across the world, they will say it is Big Ben. It is completely wrong to say that it is just a separate tourist thing.

[Mr Nigel Dodds (Belfast North) (DUP)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on bringing this motion to the House. He is absolutely right to say that Big Ben is integral to the fabric of democracy and the institution here at Westminster. I know from personal experience that one of the first things that visitors coming from Northern Ireland say is, “Is it possible to visit Big Ben and go up the tower?” It would be outrageous to charge people to do that who have come all the way from Northern Ireland and paid their air fares; it would put them off coming to Westminster.

[Robert Halfon]

The right hon. Gentleman is right. People in Northern Ireland have been victims of terrorism, and they will know that the bells of Big Ben rang through the blitz and have a central part in everything good about being British.

This is an undemocratic decision because it has been made by the House of Commons Commission. The decision opens a can of worms. Yes, there have been consultations, chats, discussions and e-mails with MPs, but surely we in this House should have a say over major decisions about the costing and planning of expenditure at Westminster. The Commission says that we have to cut 17% from Parliament’s budget. I recognise, as does everybody else, that we have to make cuts. The 17% figure might be the right one, but it might be the wrong one—perhaps it should be 20% or 15%—but we in this House and in this Chamber have had no say in it, and that is wrong. The Commission should come to the House and present a list of the savings it is making, and then MPs should have the right to say whether they agree or disagree and answer to our constituents as to whether we are giving the taxpayer value for money.

The plans to charge for Big Ben raise much wider issues about the remit of the House of Commons Commission and whether Members should be elected to it.

[Kate Hoey (Vauxhall) (Lab)]

I fully support the hon. Gentleman’s motion. He is talking about savings in the House, but very much of what the Commission does is totally undemocratic. We never get asked about it and suddenly find out things from other people who work in this House. Does he agree that over the past five or six years what happens in the House has become incredibly top-heavy, with managers who are managing everything and have no understanding of what is going on at the bottom here in the House of Commons?

[Robert Halfon]

I do agree. Sadly, that is true of the whole public sector, not just Parliament, but the hon. Lady makes a very powerful point.

My next argument is that the decision is unnecessary. The Commission states that Clock Tower tours cost roughly £93,000, which will go up to about £111,000 over the next year or so. I would question that. Now that we are going to bring in charges, I suspect that not as many people will be able to afford to come here. I know from an e-mail that I have received that up to 200 people have e-mailed to ask for Clock Tower tours as soon as possible to try to avoid the cut-off date.

As I said, Parliament needs time to debate where these savings could be made. We need to think first in generalities, but I will offer some specific savings for Members to consider. We could look at the cost of publications and press cuttings. As regards the dining rooms, on Mondays they are barely used at lunchtime, so one of them could be closed at those times, saving a fair bit of money. Then there are the properties owned by the House of Commons. I am particularly disturbed about the waste of food in this place, which is absolutely obscene. I therefore welcome the ten-minute rule Bill on the subject of food waste that was introduced by the hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) yesterday. The other day, when I went to the Members Dining Room, I asked the staff, who are wonderful and hard-working, “How many people have been in here today?”, and they said “About three.” This was a Monday lunchtime, and there was a huge banquet of food, as there always is. I asked what happened to the food, and they said, “It has to be thrown away.” I replied, “Well, why can’t it be given to charity or why can’t less food be made?” The answer on the charity point was that they might be sued if the food was contaminated and somebody got food poisoning.

I tabled a written question to ask the House of Commons Commission how much food was thrown away in the last year. The answer was the shocking figure of £100,000-worth. That cannot continue. When we are looking for savings, we should look at that issue seriously. Again, MPs should have a chance to debate this matter.

[Sir Roger Gale (North Thanet) (Con)]

On the issue of savings, my hon. Friend said that the cost of the Clock Tower tours is about £100,000 a year. Given that the tours are likely to diminish in number as a result of charging, has anybody told him what the cost will be of employing the person to administer the charging scheme, and does he know how much the administration of the project will cost in total? I suspect that it will be more than £100,000.

[Robert Halfon]

My hon. Friend, as so often, has come up with a very good question, which I hope the Chairman of the Commission or the Leader of the House will answer.

We cannot talk just in generalities, so I will propose some real savings to the Commission.

[Mrs Anne Main (St Albans) (Con)]

I will expand on this point in my contribution, should I catch the eye of Mr Deputy Speaker, but I have discovered through questioning that there are additional ongoing costs of £1.5 million simply for Parliament to come back for two weeks and then be off for another two weeks in September. If we compressed that time and did not have a break for party conferences, which are for political purposes after all, we could save £1.5 million.

[Robert Halfon]

With that point, my hon. Friend augments my argument that we should be able to debate savings on the Floor of the House, and not just through consultations or by filling out surveys, which people rarely notice among their e-mails.

I am grateful to the director of the savings programme and the Secretary of the Commission for providing me with a lot of detail about the important work that the Commission is doing to save money. I recognise that a lot of savings are being made. However, let me add a few ideas. We could cut corporate initiatives by an additional 10%, which would save £150,000 a year and leave 80% of the original budget. We could trim overseas trips and delegations by just another 10%, which would save £125,000 a year and leave 80% of the original budget. We could streamline parliamentary outreach by just another 10% in both the House of Commons and the House of Lords, which would save £194,000 a year and leave 80% of the original budget. The total savings from those things would be £469,000 a year. Hon. Members may have other ideas, but we have never had the chance to debate properly on the Floor of the House what savings there should and should not be. That is why the decision that has been made is fundamentally wrong.

I have also said that this decision is unaffordable. We received an e-mail late on a Friday afternoon a couple of weeks ago, saying that individuals would be charged £15 a head. A family of four would therefore have to pay £60. For people on average earnings of just £20,000-odd, that is unaffordable. It will therefore discourage people from coming to Parliament and coming to see Big Ben. To return to the precedent argument, even if that figure was reduced—I accept that the Chairman of the Commission has said that it will consider that—it would be likely to increase in future years. First it will be £15. In two years’ time it might be £20, then £30, and then £40 or £50. Where does it stop?

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

Does my hon. Friend agree that one of the most important pillars of our democracy is transparency, and that part of that transparency is that this Palace is open to the public? We should encourage the public to visit their Parliament—it is not just our Parliament—and should not put them off with petty charges.

[Robert Halfon]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. My view is that the House of Commons Commission has come up with the easy option. Money needs to be saved, so why not target members of the public, who cannot really fight back, by slapping on a charge? That is the easy option, which is why I believe the decision is so wrong.

A leaflet that is sold in most of the tourism shops around Westminster states:

“Who owns Big Ben? You do! If you are a citizen of the UK, and if you pay taxes, you are one of the owners of Big Ben. In fact, you own the whole clock tower and the Houses of Parliament too!”

That is something that the British people believe. That is why it is so wrong suddenly to institute charges for people to come to see their heritage. In essence, it imposes double taxation because people pay for Parliament anyway.

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

I am interested to hear my hon. Friend’s comments. He mentioned that this is about British taxpayers. As no foreigner is currently allowed up Big Ben, so we have obviously managed to twist the rules on how we treat these dodgy foreigners. Should we not stitch them up, as we do in the summer, and charge them to go up the Clock Tower?

[Robert Halfon]

I can always rely on my hon. Friend to ask such a question. I have no objection to people who are not British citizens paying to come into Parliament.

[Mrs Main]

Perhaps I can be helpful, because I have looked into that very point. The reason given is that it takes two weeks to provide security clearance and to do passport checks before people are allowed to go up Big Ben. That might not be possible for visitors, foreign or otherwise. That might be the answer.

[Robert Halfon]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that information. I hope that these points are brought out in discussion.

In conclusion, I have a romantic belief in Parliament. I still genuinely believe that this is the best Parliament in the world, even with all the problems that we face as a country. I came here as a small boy when I was 10 years old, and from that day on, I wanted to sit in this place. We have to make our Parliament a special place and encourage people to come here. The hon. Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan) made an important point a moment ago. I worry hugely that, rather than being a Parliament for the people, this place is becoming—

[Mrs Main]

A theme park.

[Robert Halfon]

As my hon. Friend says, it is becoming a theme park. It is advertising itself for weddings, bar mitzvahs, engagement parties and big corporate entertainment shows. I have no problem with businesses coming here and having dinners at which particular issues are discussed. However, this is not a theme park. We should not be selling ourselves short to businesses and hiring ourselves out to them when ordinary people cannot come here. Businesses will inevitably be privileged over ordinary people. I am reminded of the parable of the moneylenders at the temple. Let us not become a place of moneylenders and be just about money, money, money; let us be the Parliament of the people, by the people, for the people.

[Dr Murrison]

On that rather churchy theme, does my hon. Friend not accept that people who want to pray in our great cathedrals do so, of course, free of charge, but that people who visit them as sightseers are invited to pay a fee? In a similar way, people who wish to participate in democracy here can view the proceedings, but if they want to be sightseers in the tower, they should perhaps be invited to contribute.

[Robert Halfon]

I have two points in answer to that. First, Parliament is part of our democracy and so is slightly different. Secondly, people who go to churches do not already pay for local churches through their taxes. We already pay for Parliament through taxation, so why should we be taxed again?

Finally, perhaps the House of Commons Commission could set up a foundation to look at the heritage of Big Ben and to keep Big Ben tours free. In the interests of that, I will make a pledge to the Chairman of the House of Commons Commission. Some Members will know that I have difficulties with my legs. I pledge to walk up Big Ben to raise money so that we can keep our Parliament free for all our citizens and to ensure that many people can come to see our greatest landmark for many years to come.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

I have to bring in a time limit of six minutes owing to the number of Members who wish to speak. The arguments have already been well rehearsed and I am sure that people will only want to add to them.

12:59

[John Thurso (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)]

I beg to move an amendment, to leave out from ‘risk’ to end and add

‘and invites the Commission to reconsider its current proposal to charge for Clock Tower tours.’.

I begin by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon) on securing the debate and on speaking to his proposition so passionately and eloquently. May I first correct one or two small points of fact? I am not actually the Chairman of the Commission, and Members of the House did vote for him, because it is ex officio the Speaker. He is always the Chairman of the Commission. I am merely its representative, tasked with speaking on occasions such as this and answering my hon. Friend’s many very good questions.

I should like, if I may, to divide my hon. Friend’s motion into two parts. I shall speak initially to the first part of it, with which I entirely agree, and then to the second part, with which I have some difficulties. I will then suggest to him that he and other hon. Members might like to accept my amendment, which I hope is a gracious way forward that will enable the Commission to take on board all the points made in the debate, reconsider the matter and see how best to accommodate what has been said.

May I pick up on a couple of points that have been made? My hon. Friend spoke about the waste of food. I am a qualified caterer—it was what I used to do for a living, and I am a fellow of a variety of professional bodies. Food wastage here is below the average for professional caterers. At the end of the day, there are always things left over on a plate, and they get thrown away. There is always a degree of food wastage, but the wastage here is at a much lower level than in many commercial companies and the House works extremely hard to keep it down.

[Thomas Docherty]

Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will also note that there has been more wastage in the evenings, because there are fewer Members here owing to the Government having no business and therefore constantly running a one-line Whip.

[John Thurso]

The hon. Gentleman might say that; I think I will move rapidly on.

On the first part of the motion, I thank my hon. Friend for succeeding, in one debate, in giving more publicity among Members to the savings programme than I have managed to do in the past 18 months. In fact, the process began shortly after the election and continued through 2010. I have carried out a number of consultations and had the honour of speaking to various party groups. I have twice been honoured to appear in front of the 1922 committee. All the points that have been set out in the current savings programme were contained in the consultation documents that were put out, as they were in e-mails, reminders and a number of surgeries for which I made myself available. The Commission and the management have tried very hard to consult Members on all aspects of what is proposed.

[Mrs Main]

It was the hon. Gentleman, of course, who responded to my inquiry about the ongoing and additional costs of breaking up our sitting and coming back for two weeks in September. Has he made any further progress on that? There could be a massive saving in one lump.

[John Thurso]

I cannot update the hon. Lady on that point at this particular moment.

At a time of national austerity, when we are seeking to reduce the cost of public services to the taxpayer, it is absolutely right that Parliament and parliamentarians are in the vanguard. Indeed, it would be absolutely wrong to exempt ourselves from that process.

[Sir Bob Russell (Colchester) (LD)]

I appreciate that my hon. Friend is trying to gain consensus, but I fear he is failing. I was on the Administration Committee, and I was bored to tears and managed to escape. May I ask him when the House agreed to the total savings programme that his Commission is forcing through?

[John Thurso]

The Commission put forward the overall figure of 17% savings in real terms during the summer of 2010. That figure informed all the documentation that has come out since, and it is the target. I actually hope that we can go further than that, because the process has demonstrated that many of the ways in which we do things have remained unchanged for many years, decades even. When they have been properly examined and re-engineered, it has been found that there are real and considerable savings to be made, not only monetary savings but increases in the efficiency of our work patterns.

[Jake Berry (Rossendale and Darwen) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[John Thurso]

I will.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. May I remind the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (John Thurso) that he is up against the clock, and that when he gives way he is not getting any extra time?

[Jake Berry]

How can we be talking about charging people for tours of Big Ben when we still have people who work in the House occupying grace and favour mansions at the taxpayer’s expense?

[John Thurso]

I accept the hon. Gentleman’s point, but you have just reminded me, Mr Deputy Speaker, that I have substantial progress to make in a very short time, so I will move on.

In 2004-05, the estimate—our total cost—was £189 million. In 2009-10, it was £278 million. Even taking out the one-offs and exceptionals, that was an increase in excess of 25% in the cost of this place in five years, more than twice the rate of inflation. This year, the out-turn is expected to be in the order of £205 million to £206 million, which is a substantial saving. The programme has been undertaken by the Management Board, and I think it has done an excellent job of examining very professionally what is going on. I see that the hon. Member for Vauxhall (Kate Hoey) is leaving her place, but before she does so, may I say to her that I do not believe there are too many managers here or that they are distant from those at the bottom? The board is well constructed and does its very best to ensure that it is in full touch with both the staff and Members’ needs.

There is no question, nor has there ever been, that access to the Palace and the parliamentary process will be charged for at any time. However, I put it to hon. Members that we get more than £1.5 million in income from tours. We have been charging for summer tours for 10 years, and we are piloting art tours for which we charge £15. I say in parenthesis that the other place charges £30 for its tours—I do not know whether the art is better. We have a long history over the past 10 to 15 years of opening up the parts of this place that are not available to the public for a variety of reasons, and recovering the specific costs of doing so. I put it to my hon. Friend the Member for Harlow that what we are proposing for the Clock Tower is very much in line with that principle.

I invite my hon. Friend to accept my amendment, which would allow the Commission and the Finance and Services Committee, which I chair, to consider the points that he has made, take them on board and return with an appropriate proposal. I ask him and other hon. Members to accept that as a better way forward. The answers to all his other questions will have to wait for another day.

13:07

[Thomas Docherty (Dunfermline and West Fife) (Lab)]

I support the amendment in my name and that of the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (John Thurso). The approach to the subject is bipartisan, and I note that there are Members on both sides of the House speaking for the amendment or the motion.

I am a member of the Administration Committee, which is a far duller Committee since the hon. Member for Colchester (Sir Bob Russell) is no longer a member. The Committee was consulted by our colleagues on the Finance and Services Committee prior to the proposal going to the Commission. I accept that the workings of the Administration Committee are not the most exciting, but we have been appointed by our peers, so to speak, in this place. I remind the House that the Members who represent their parties on the Commission have to be agreed to in a motion in the remaining Orders of the Day. However, I accept the point made by the hon. Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon) that it is not the most transparent process.

[Kevin Brennan]

Is not the difference in principle between the summer tours, which the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (John Thurso) mentioned, and the Clock Tower that while the paid-for summer tours are going on, Members can still have their constituents in and take them around for free? That is not the proposal for the Clock Tower. It is a completely different matter.

[Thomas Docherty]

That is entirely why the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross and I propose that the Commission be asked to look at the detail. It occurs to me that a more pragmatic way forward is to take away the privilege that only Members of Parliament can decide who goes on the tour. If we genuinely want to open up Big Ben, we could take Members out of the equation and give all members of the public that opportunity. That might be the way forward. I hope in that spirit that the hon. Member for Harlow will support the amendment.

I do not wish to be political, but many of my constituents would look with some surprise on some of the arguments being proposed not by the hon. Member for Harlow, but by other hon. Members who might speak in the debate from the Government Benches. They would be surprised that, at a time of cuts to benefits, and cuts to support for our armed forces and front-line workers, hon. Members think that Clock Tower access is a priority for public spending. Many of my constituents would find that wrong.

[Sir Roger Gale]

As the representative of the Commission did not have the time to answer this question, perhaps the hon. Gentleman can answer it. Will the administration and the person hired to administer the scheme cost more than the amount saved?

[Thomas Docherty]

I can absolutely assure the hon. Gentleman that that will not be the case. It is important, however, that we take the opportunity to look carefully at the best way of administering access. My view is that it should be administered in the same way as central tours.

[Charlie Elphicke]

As the hon. Gentleman has made a political point on deficit reduction measures, how can he justify the continuation of grace and favour apartments? How can he justify the parliamentary outreach programme? Surely we should have a parliamentary in-reach programme to encourage people to come and see the great work done here. It is not a museum, but the working heart of our democracy.

[Thomas Docherty]

I am most grateful to the hon. Gentleman for making that point and I entirely agree with him. As you know, Mr Deputy Speaker, I have repeatedly raised in the House at business questions the issue of grace of favour apartments, because those arrangements need to be looked at.

[Jake Berry]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Thomas Docherty]

I need to make progress.

On accessibility, the hon. Member for Dover (Charlie Elphicke) may wish to know that only seven of his constituents have taken the opportunity during his term of office to come and see the Big Ben Tower. If we are to find money for transparency, it would be better to take Parliament to places more far-flung than central London.

[Jake Berry]

I intervened during the previous speech on the issue of grace and favour apartments. Will the hon. Gentleman confirm whether any discussions have taken place with the Chairman of his Commission as to whether his grace and favour apartment should be surrendered?

[Thomas Docherty]

I was not aware that the right hon. Member for Saffron Walden (Sir Alan Haselhurst) has a grace and favour apartment. Perhaps the hon. Member for Rossendale and Darwen (Jake Berry) knows something I do not—the right hon. Member for Saffron Walden, who is in his place, is the Chairman of the Administration Committee, of which I am a member.

I should make progress on the point I was making. The hon. Member for Harlow made a point about the 17% saving, but I should point out that that is the Government’s figure—

[Jake Berry]

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. Could you give me some guidance as to a remedy? The hon. Gentleman did not hear what I said. I referred to the Chairman of the Commission.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

That is a point of clarification and it has been well made.

[Thomas Docherty]

I am most grateful for that point of clarification. I thought the hon. Member for Rossendale and Darwen (Jake Berry) had referred to the Administration Committee, so I apologise to him for that. The right hon. Member for Saffron Walden will also be most relieved that that has been cleared up.

The coalition Government said that 17% should be the average saving across public spending. That is why the Commission—rightly or wrongly—set that target. You, Mr Deputy Speaker, know that my view is that it is wrong, but if we are to meet that target, some difficult decisions have to be made.

Let us also be clear that the proposals are not about profiteering. This is not about making money, but simply about recouping the costs of running the tours.

[Robert Halfon]

Is the hon. Gentleman aware that roughly 60 of my constituents have come on Big Ben tours? Tomorrow, 15 people from the Prince’s Trust are coming and I will meet them all. How can we justify telling those people that they have to pay £15 a head to come and see Big Ben?

[Thomas Docherty]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that there is a difficult choice, but the reality is that we must make cost savings. He knows that there are difficult decisions to make. I see the Minister of State, Department of Health, the right hon. Member for Chelmsford (Mr Burns), chuntering away next to him. He knows more than anybody that the real-terms cuts—they have been made in his Department—are difficult, yet he does not say that we should not make them. [Interruption.] Real-terms cuts have been made.

We are not all in this together. Members on both sides of the House do not recognise that the House needs to show fiscal responsibility.

[Mrs Main]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Thomas Docherty]

No. I have given way enough and the hon. Lady is on the list of speakers.

We must make fiscally responsible decisions. Those are not choices that any of us wish to make, and I agree with the hon. Member for Harlow that we should look carefully at whether or not we proceed and how the proposal is implemented, but I hope he therefore graciously accepts the amendment. We can then look at the fine detail.

We must accept, however, that some difficult choices must be made. We should not for a second interfere with the rights of our constituents to come and see how the democratic process works—that should be an absolute red line, and hon. Members on both sides would not allow those rights ever to be compromised. However, I say again that if we are to be taken seriously and show the public that we mean what we say about the need for fiscal responsibility, that must begin at home.

13:16

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

For the purpose of this speech, Mr Deputy Speaker, I propose to regard myself as a Back Bencher and to stick very strictly to the six-minute limit. That is appropriate, because I speak as a member of the Commission. This is not a Government issue, but very much a matter for the House.

I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon) for his energy in pursuing this matter and for finding time for a debate. There is a genuine risk in unpicking a budget that has been put together and taking one item out without knowing what the consequences will be. That is why I am in favour of the amendment, which invites the Commission to have a look at the proposal in the light of the very strong views that have been expressed in the debate and to come up with alternative proposals. That would be a responsible way forward, rather than taking that particular item out and then obliging the Commission to find some other measure, which for all I know might be even less acceptable to the House than the one that is before it.

I agree that the House needs to accept the same discipline to make economies that has been imposed on other public bodies, and I support the commitment to reduce the annual costs by 17% by 2014-15. We are having to make exactly the same difficult decisions as public bodies in our constituencies. There is no easy way out of this.

The proposal to charge for visiting the Clock Tower was included in a package of proposed initial savings back in November 2010. From memory, there was no violent reaction when that was floated some 18 months ago. I should say to my hon. Friend that there is a distinction between the public having free access to lobby their MPs, to see the Chamber, and to view the work of Public Bill Committees and Select Committees, and access to the Palace as a visitors attraction. That principle has been conceded: visitors already pay to visit the Palace of Westminster for tours on a Saturday. That has already been accepted by the House.

[Kevin Brennan]

But at the same time as those paid visits take place, hon. Members can bring along their constituents for free. It is therefore not the same.

[Sir George Young]

One advantage of the amendment is that we could look at whether visits to the Clock Tower should be free if the Member of Parliament accompanies visitors, in the same way that we can take people around the House.

We could look at that option if that would meet the point that the hon. Gentleman makes, but the ability to climb the Clock Tower is not essential to the enhancement of our democracy or an insight into how the political system works. There is a difference between access to the Clock Tower and access to the Chamber.

[Sir Roger Gale]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Sir George Young]

Very briefly, and for the last time.

[Sir Roger Gale]

I am very grateful to my right hon. Friend. If the Clock Tower is not important to the democratic process, and if it is not the symbol of the United Kingdom democracy, why did Hitler spend so much time trying to bomb it out of existence?

[Sir George Young]

No one is suggesting that we should pay to look at Big Ben. The Clock Tower would remain as a visible icon. My hon. Friend would be free to look at it and we are not debating that—we are looking at the option of charging for going up it.

My hon. Friend the Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (John Thurso) has done something that no one else who has held his position has done. He has come to the Back Bench committee of my party twice and answered questions about economies. I suspect that he has also been to parliamentary Labour party meetings. The process of consultation about the measures necessary has been very wide, and I commend what he has done.

I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Harlow is minded to accept the amendment, which is the responsible way forward, so that the Commission can revisit the decisions in the light of the strong views that have been expressed. That would allow us to think again and come forward with some alternatives. I hope that on reflection, having listened to the debate, he will feel able to accept the amendment so ably moved by my hon. Friend the Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross.

13:20

[Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon) on his persistence in getting this debate and on his passionate advocacy of the position that he has taken. However, I hope that the House will accept the amendment moved by the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (John Thurso) for the Commission to have another look at the issue.

My hon. Friend the Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Thomas Docherty) made the profoundly true observation that we, and all our constituents, are struggling with how to prioritise difficult decisions in tough times, and this is one such example. We are not in an ideal world where perhaps all access to this building could be free, but we have to make the savings that—at the beginning of this Parliament—Mr Speaker, in his role as head of the House of Commons Commission, committed us to making.

It is also important to remember that this issue is about the Clock Tower, not about access to this building in its working sense as a Parliament. Our constituents will still have free access to see their Members of Parliament and to watch proceedings in the Chamber from the Public Gallery, as well as to visit Committees. I for one would not support the amendment if I thought that there would be any slippage in that very important principle. We need to separate the two issues, although I do understand the worries that people have.

[Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)]

I agree with some of the hon. Lady’s basic tenets, but is it not true that as a result of the opaque and antediluvian nature of the Commission and the Management Board, we are effectively held accountable for decisions over which we have had no real, effective or demonstrable say?

[Ms Eagle]

That is a very timely intervention from the hon. Gentleman as I was about to deal with that point, especially as I am a very new member of the House of Commons Commission. I have been in the House for 20 years and always thought that the way in which the House was managed was rather antediluvian and opaque, to put it kindly. I expected when I was given this job that I would dash into the Commission and everything would be revealed. I thought that I would see how the House and all of its domestic Committees worked. I have to confess that after a few months I am still rather of the hon. Gentleman’s view, and light, transparency and more debate about such matters should be organised. We need to think as a Parliament about how we can bring that about.

We are all busy. Doubtless everybody read the e-mails that were sent in 2010 about this issue, but perhaps they did not fully take them in. I therefore have much sympathy with the hon. Gentleman’s point, and we should consider how we might ventilate the serious issues that the Management Board has to deal with so that hon. Members on both sides of the House become aware of them in a more timely way. E-mails go out, but we cannot force Members to notice them or read them in detail. The system is antediluvian and lacks transparency, and we might want to think about more modern approaches.

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

One of the points made by the hon. Member for Peterborough (Mr Jackson) is very important. We have the Administration Committee, which I sit on and which has made various recommendations to the Commission that have been overruled without any justification. Surely that is not a transparent or fair system, especially when we are considering cost savings.

[Ms Eagle]

I have considerable sympathy with that point, and perhaps we can all thank the hon. Member for Harlow for bringing this issue to the attention of the House so that we can consider how we might manage the House in a more modern way that brings people along at an earlier stage in the process and ventilates some of the darker, cobwebby areas of the old management systems.

[Kate Hoey]

My hon. Friend talks about Members not necessarily being involved. Does she agree that what seems to be happening more recently is that long-serving and dedicated staff of the Palace—especially at the lower paid level, such as cleaners and others—feel very much that they are taken for granted? They have lost the feeling of being part of a community: they are now part of a tick-box management mentality.

[Ms Eagle]

It is really important that, as these substantial attempts to save large amounts of money happen, we ensure that the pain is felt as much at the top of the structures as it is at the bottom. The only way we can have a savings process with any legitimacy is if everybody involved is affected equally and the pain is not visited most on those at the bottom or those least able to bear it.

[Charlie Elphicke]

I completely agree with the hon. Lady. Does she agree that we need to look again at the issue of grace and favour apartments, which do seem outdated in the modern age? Does she also agree that we should look at parliamentary outreach and perhaps talk more about parliamentary in-reach? Parliamentary outreach is perhaps better left to the Electoral Commission.

[Ms Eagle]

The House should always modernise the way in which it looks at things. I would be happy to see the Commission look at all of the grace and favour apartments and see what they cost. I assume that the information is available, and it should be ventilated. The House should also think about that issue so that we can have a zero-based look at everything that is done. The way that things have been done in the past is not necessarily the way that they have to be done in the future, especially if they can be done more cheaply, but without taking away our special and important position as a House of Commons, given the job we have to do in holding the Government to account and our independence in doing so. We must facilitate the effectiveness of that work so that we do not have false economies.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Harlow on obtaining the debate. I do not feel as strongly about charging for tours of Big Ben as he does, and I hope that the House will support the amendment—so ably moved by the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross—so that the Commission can have another look at the issue.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. I have to reduce the speaking limit to five minutes.

13:28

[Mrs Anne Main (St Albans) (Con)]

It is a delight to support my hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon) in this very valuable debate. I accept completely the surprise expressed by the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Thomas Docherty) at the fact that we are focusing on costings when there are so many savings to be made, but then I am surprised that the Commission is focusing on this issue. I wrote and elicited the response that it is costing us £1.5 million every year to have a break for two weeks just because we all choose to go off to party conferences. Surely in this day and age we can make that work. If we saved £1.5 million there, it would give us some spare money to keep the Clock Tower free and open to those who choose to go up it. The number of people who can go up the Clock Tower will always be limited to those able and fit enough to walk up the 344 steps—I have not done it yet—and because we need the clearances put on it.

[Sir Robert Smith (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (LD)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Mrs Main]

I will not give way, because I only have five minutes and many other colleagues wish to speak. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman was going to be helpful though.

There are so many other things that we can look at. I have asked various questions about costings here, and was amazed to find out that £750,000 was spent developing a crèche that is hardly ever used. Early-day motions cost Parliament £1 million. When EDMs started out, they were relatively few and far between. In 2009-10, they cost £87,000 but £776,000 to print. That is £1 million. Since then, we have developed online petitions, so there are other ways of flagging up issues of importance to members of the public. EDMs are an outmoded way of doing so. We could scrap them and save another £1 million. There are plenty of ways to save money in this place.

The savings to be made—or not made, if the figures drop off—from charging a mum, a dad and a couple of youngsters £60 to walk up the Clock Tower will be paltry. Potentially, it will cost that family even more if, as a consequence, fewer people go, because the administration costs will remain the same and therefore they will have to ratchet up the prices. It will become something that only wealthy people can do. Many people come here because they want to see inside this place. With great respect to hon. Members and interesting though many of our debates are, many people also come here because of Big Ben. It is in all the London guides that it is free to come in this place. It is one of the few places students can visit for free—the Crown Estate parks are another example of that.

If we are to save money, which I completely agree we have to do, do not let us pick on a relatively small saving in an area that delivers so much pleasure. Even those people, like me, who have not gone up the Clock Tower always believed that at least we could if we wished. That opportunity is there for visitors who might wish to watch a debate and look around the House, but who might also wish to say, “I went up Big Ben.” This is important. What happens once we start picking off little bits of the estate and saying, “We’re charging for this, and we’re charging for that”?

There is some confusion about the fact that we already charge for tours in the summer recess. I say to hon. Members who raised this point, however, that constituents can visit for free on only three mornings a week unless accompanied by their Member of Parliament, in which case it is free with the tour. For most of the summer, then, constituents could be in the barmy position of having to pay to come into the House of Commons, because their MP is not there to accompany them, but then being able to go up the Clock Tower for free. There are daft anomalies in this place, but I do not think that we should be picking on a very small saving when we could be looking at so many other low-hanging fruits which would save a lot of money.

Unfortunately, we are sending the message that this iconic part of our British heritage is closed for business unless someone can afford to pay. That is a bad message to give, and I hope that the House votes for the motion. We do not want to send this back to the Commission. It could have tackled many other bigger issues but it picked this one. It was the wrong one to pick, and the House should be the decider of that.

13:33

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

I do not normally involve myself in these sorts of debates—like a lot of hon. Members who do not read the relevant e-mails and so on—simply because I trusted in those who take responsibility to do the right thing for us. This might be a lesson to me: perhaps we should take more interest. The issue concerns the principles by which we should go about the fiscal discipline that the House has undertaken. I believe that, because of all the troubles and what has gone wrong in recent years, the House of Commons has decided to beat itself up significantly in all sorts of ways, and this is symbolic of the end product of that.

The principle being breached in this proposal is that hon. Members, when approached by their constituents, should always be able to arrange for them to tour this place, their Parliament, free of charge, accompanied either by their MP or a passholder on their behalf. The Commission should consider that important principle, regardless of whether the motion or the amendment is passed—although I do not know whether that can have the effect of directing the Commission to do anything, to be quite honest.

[Sir Bob Russell]

I am a long-serving Member of the House. When I arrived here in 1997 representing the premier borough in Essex, which I still do, visitors on tours were charged, but the House authorities dropped it because the administration costs were so great compared with the income.

[Kevin Brennan]

That is an interesting point. The arrangement that I am suggesting is more practical, which is in addition to the principle that Members should be able to help their constituents tour this place.

We have heard about other things that could be looked at if we are to stick to this 70% real-terms cut over the next few years, including the grace-and-favour apartments. Sometimes in this place, when a stone is lifted, one is staggered to find what is underneath. How many members of the public are aware that there are grace and favour apartments still lived in by Officers of the House? It is astonishing in the 21st century. There is little transparency or ventilation of such matters until something like this makes people prod further under the stone. The Commission should consider very seriously what Members have said about such arrangements.

It is important that people can come here, listen to our debates and see the House operating. It is also important that our constituents, particularly our younger constituents, can come here and understand the history of the constitution of this United Kingdom as expressed through these buildings. This is a modern, purposefully designed Parliament, albeit designed as a modern Parliament for the 1840s and 1850s. However, it was so designed to express our constitution, and I have found that the young people whom I show around this building have understood much better how our constitution works and what our democracy is all about. The very design of this place is a physical expression of the British constitution, and we should remember that. It is very important that our constituents can come here, free of charge, and have an opportunity to understand that.

This proposal is taking us in a dangerous direction. The Commission will see this as a fairly innocuous proposal to raise a bit of revenue, but my fear is that in a few years we will see the supreme irony in this place of huge corporate events and dinners for the bankers—the very people who put us in the mess that necessitates all this fiscal cutting. They will be the only people in here, having their swanky champagne parties and dinners in Westminster Hall or on the Terrace, while our constituents are charged simply for the privilege of looking around their own Parliament. That is where all this is headed. Whether we accept the amendment or the motion, the Commission needs to listen to the voices of people in the House and think again.

13:37

[Nadine Dorries (Mid Bedfordshire) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon) on bringing this debate to the House. He seems to have developed a trend and penchant for securing debates that get everybody very excited and hit right on the nerve the issues we want to talk about.

Everybody has said what needs to be said, so I will make only a couple of short, substantive points. I visited years 3 and 4 in a school in my constituency recently. A teacher asked the pupils to prepare questions for when I spoke to the class and to draw pictures of what they thought was my job as an MP. Almost every single picture contained Big Ben, and almost all the pupils thought I worked in Big Ben—that was my job. This charge will affect schoolchildren. Any barrier that we put in the way of schoolchildren coming to the House of Commons to learn about what we do and about democracy and to visit Big Ben is a mistake. We should not be doing anything to prohibit school parties and schoolchildren from coming here.

My hon. Friend the Member for Harlow said that he always wanted to be an MP. Anyone who has known him for many years, as I have, will know that that is true. Since he got here, he has never stopped talking about how he always wanted to be an MP. This place inspires schoolchildren.

[Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)]

Is the hon. Lady aware that last year 950,000 people visited the Houses of Parliament without taking part in a Clock Tower tour? Clearly none of them was deterred from visiting Parliament by not taking part in a tour.

[Nadine Dorries]

I take the hon. Gentleman’s point, but I want to keep to the substantive points, as we are down to a five-minute limit.

As everybody has said, Big Ben is owned by the people—the taxpayers. It is their Big Ben, not ours. It is not ours to make such a decision. Richard Branson owns Virgin. No one says to him, “You have to pay to get on your planes”—I should mention, for all the twitterers, that I have received that comment from Twitter. The people own Big Ben, and they should not be charged to visit it. Just as they own the House of Commons, they should not be prohibited from seeing their MPs working in their Committees. People should be not be barred from going up into the Public Gallery, or charged for doing so, to watch what takes place in the Chamber; nor should they be charged to visit Big Ben, because it is all the same. There is the option—I am sure that there must be a way round—of saying that UK taxpayers should not be charged to visit Big Ben. There must be a way of pre-booking tours from overseas where a charge would apply. That would be perfectly reasonable. There must be a way of administering that.

Let me turn to waste in general, which many Members have mentioned. In my previous life, before I became a Member of Parliament, I worked for organisations such as SmithKline Beecham, Pfizer, Shell and Coca Cola-Schweppes. All those organisations, along with many other big corporations, had subsidised canteens and restaurants. The reason they were subsidised was that the overhead costs of the building had been met, so there were no losses from food sales. We have a captive audience in this place for meals in the restaurant from 8 o’clock in the morning, sometimes to midnight, with no overhead or infrastructural charges. Why do the restaurants in this place not make a profit, when they have a captive audience, very long hours and no overhead charges? It must be due to labour costs being too expensive, management being overburdened by costs and inefficiency. If there is inefficiency and money being wasted in this place, it is down to the managers, the Commission and others who are paid to do this work to find out where that waste is. We should not be saying, “Let’s plug the gap by charging people to go up Big Ben,” but then throwing good money after bad; rather, it is about finding out where there is waste at the moment, and there is indeed gross inefficiency and waste.

Those are the only points that I wanted to make. There is huge waste, and we should not be charging British taxpayers to go up what is their own property.

13:39

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I rise to support the motion moved by the hon. Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon), and I congratulate him on bringing this matter to the House. I have received a fair bit of e-mail correspondence on this issue, and it is also one that people have spoken to me about personally.

Two years ago or thereabouts, I was privileged to become a new Member of this House. People might say that that was a natural progression from being a councillor for some 26 years and a Member of the Northern Ireland Assembly for 12 years. The reason I mention that is that when I became mayor of Newtownards council, I made it my business as mayor that year to invite as many people as possible from the borough to visit the council offices and see some of the history. I was also one of those people who would drive by the bottom of the Parliament buildings at Stormont, look up at the building on the hill and say, “I wonder what it’s like up there.” When I was elected to the Northern Ireland Assembly and had the opportunity to serve there, I followed the same principle that I had followed at the council. I made it my business to send invitations out to all the people and all the schools, irrespective of whether they were Protestant, Roman Catholic, integrated or whatever. They all got an opportunity to come and look round, along with many other organisations, because it is important to do that. Therefore, when I had the opportunity to come to this place, I felt it was important that my constituents from Strangford should have the opportunity to come and visit Westminster, including the Clock Tower.

[Thomas Docherty]

I am looking at the figures for how many tours each Member has sponsored, and the hon. Gentleman has not sponsored a single tour of Big Ben in the two years since the general election.

[Jim Shannon]

With great respect, that is not the point; the point is that those who wish to visit should have the opportunity.

Let me turn to the reasons why some of my constituents are unable to attend—it is important to reiterate this point. The first thing that I should mention about Northern Ireland is that, with the political progress that we made and the stability that came off the back of that, we had the opportunity to open the Parliament buildings at Stormont in Belfast. Every Mayday there is an open day, and tens of thousands come to visit, because it is accessible, which is important. That shows the natural direction in which we are going. All traditions come to visit, from all across the community, because all the political parties are represented there. Yes, people have to pay for their lunch and tea, but the tour is free. It is good if people’s own Members are there, but if they are not, tours can still go ahead.

The reply to one of the questions asked to some of those on the Commission said that a take-up of 90% had been assumed. If people are charged £15 a head, I would question whether that is achievable. I would say that it was not.

The distance from my constituency to this place means that the journey to get here, from when I get up in the morning, takes four to four and a half hours, plus the flight. We can use Flybe and perhaps get a cheaper flight, or British Airways or British Midland, or we can go by train and ferry. The cost to get here—by return flight, or whatever it may be—will be from £100 to perhaps £500. That perhaps puts into perspective the situation for those from my constituency—who, by the way, have come here, including people from a number of schools. Everything is arranged through our main office, so my name might not be on the paper as the sponsor, but I was the person who took them round, and I was quite happy to do so. We should not be imposing a £15 charge on a visit when people should have the opportunity to visit the Clock Tower free, just as they have the opportunity to make a similar visit—although not as magnificent a visit, I have to say—in Northern Ireland.

It would be great to be able to walk up those 334 steps; other Members have said that they have not done it yet, and neither have I, but I intend to make it my business to do so. I have talked to some of my colleagues who have done it. They told me that it was one of the most emotional experiences that they have had in this House, because when they got up there, they saw how high up they were, and the clock struck, and so on. All those things make the day special.

Just a few weeks ago a group came here from Glastry college in my constituency. There were 26 young people who wanted to look round as part of their citizenship studies; they do that work in their schools, but they also come to Westminster to see how Parliament works, whenever the opportunity arises, as well as to Stormont. If those 26 young people had been subject to a charge of £15 a head, their visit to this place would have cost them another £390. How is that fair to young people who want to come along and enjoy the occasion of a visit to Westminster, including a visit to the Clock Tower? Those are things that have to be part of a visit. Those young people visited Westminster abbey on the day—again, it was a wonderful occasion and a lovely visit. It cost them £16 or £17 a head to go there. They did not mind paying that, but there has to be a limit to how much a young person—a student, or a person attending school—pays, and also a limit to how much the teachers who take them there pay.

The comparison is this. We are all committed to democracy. We are privileged and honoured to be here and to represent our people. A visit to the Clock Tower, along with a visit to Westminster, is so important. It is important for citizenship and for people to see the democratic process. The hon. Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan) mentioned the impact of a visit on young people. Let me say this in conclusion. A visit does indeed have an impact on young people: it gives them an idea of how Parliament and the democratic process work. It also gives them a chance to see the fantastic history in this place. Let us support that; let us not have a £15 charge.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. Before I call the next speaker, let me say that there are six Members who want to speak. I was aiming to finish at about 2.15 pm, so if people can try not to intervene, that would be helpful.

13:48

[Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon).

I first visited this great Palace of Westminster in the summer of 1976, at the age of 11. It was part of a school visit. My parents were not particularly well off; we could not afford a foreign trip, so we came and visited all the London sights, one of which was the Palace of Westminster. The Palace of Westminster, including Big Ben, has been intrinsic to our national Parliament—some may call it the mother of Parliaments—for 150 years. It was Sir Giles Gilbert Scott who said:

“We shape our buildings and afterwards our buildings shape us.”

Ever since William Rufus built the great hall in 1099, a Parliament has existed on this site. In 2008 Big Ben was voted the most popular UK landmark, and this debate is very much about that. This is not an administrative housekeeping issue; this is about setting a precedent. I believe that the public, who have already paid their taxes—as people have done over the hundreds of years there has been a Parliament here—should not be charged twice to visit a place that is theirs. The influence, power and discretion that we exercise here is done on the basis of a leasehold in the name of the people we represent. They ultimately own these buildings, and we are responsible and accountable to them.

That leads me on to the discussion that we have had today—thanks to my hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon), who secured this debate—on the antediluvian, opaque nature of the governance of this place, and on the Commission and the Management Board in particular. I was never consulted on the closure of Bellamy’s bar in order to create a crèche, or on the closure of Annie’s bar. I have not been consulted on the alternative proposals on sitting days, on early-day motions or on the duplication of administration and paperwork in the House, all of which should be presented to us. We really need to have a proper debate on all that.

Are the House of Commons and the House of Lords really to become a kind of glorified Harry Potter-esque theme park? In this, the 200th year since Dickens’s birth, are we really so focused on taking a Dickensian, “Mr Gradgrind” approach that we must destroy the basic tenet that the people of this country who pay taxes should have free access to all the public parts of the precincts of the Palace of Westminster?

[Duncan Hames]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Jackson]

I will not give way, if the hon. Gentleman will forgive me.

We must keep that access free, because it sends an important message. If we do not, we could find that only the wealthy, the well connected and businesses will have access to the mother of Parliaments. That would be a sad day, and a tragedy for democracy. It would further undermine people’s faith and trust in us. Let us imagine that a husband and wife and their two children get on the train in my constituency of Peterborough and pay £90 return each to come to London. Why should they have to pay £15 each to visit the Clock Tower? Why should we charge them an extra tax to visit part of the political and historical heritage of this country, one of the most famous buildings in the world? I do not believe that that would be right.

We need to explore the governance that has led to this proposal, because it has not involved ordinary elected Members. This feels like the script for “The Da Vinci Code”, because it is not open and transparent; far from it. I also reject the amendment tabled by the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (John Thurso). His remarks have been erudite and eloquent, as ever, but I nevertheless smell an establishment stitch-up.

[John Thurso]

May I tell the hon. Gentleman that on this occasion his sense of smell is a touch out? What he should be smelling is a desperate attempt—if I can put it like that—by those of us who are in charge of these things to seek to accommodate the views being expressed. I put it to him, to the hon. Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon) and to his other hon. Friends that I really am seeking to arrive at where they want to go.

[Mr Jackson]

I take on board the hon. Gentleman’s comments, but one of the points of the Backbench Business Committee, if it is not to become the nobbled shih tzu of the Executive, is to ensure that the emphatic will and opinion of the House is sought on certain matters. We voted on such matters on Monday. Today we are looking at the thin end of a wedge; a precedent could be set that would result in our constituents being effectively excluded from part of the precincts of the Palace of Westminster. If the House divides on the motion, we must be emphatic in making it clear that we are not minded to enter into any kind of long-drawn-out scenario of kicking this matter into the long grass, and that we need to make a decision now. We need to set our own precedent. This is the people’s Parliament; they have paid for it through their taxes and they should have free rein here. We represent them, and we should be mindful of their opinions. We should keep the status quo.

13:54

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

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon), and I can confirm, having known him since the age of 10, that he has always wanted to be here. He made his case as a 10-year-old, and he does so now with great passion and verve. I rise to support his motion.

No one disputes that Big Ben is iconic; it has featured in our culture on many occasions. Hon. Members will recall “The Thirty-Nine Steps”, in which Richard Hannay was hanging off the second hand. They will recall it featuring in the James Bond film, “Thunderball”. They will remember the extra chime. They might also recall, as my children do, Doctor Who watching the Clock Tower being blown up, and more besides. The sounds of Big Ben also have iconic value. The chimes are broadcast worldwide by the BBC, and “News at Ten” gives us the image.

No one disputes that that is all of great value, and we should not understate that value and importance. Many Members have described speaking to primary school children about Parliament. We talk to them about what happens in this Chamber and in the House of Lords, and soon their eyes start to glaze over. As soon as we mention Big Ben, however, they wake up and come alive. They see it as an important part of Parliament.

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

Many years ago, when I was 10 years old, I was able to walk up to the front door of No. 10, and I was duly inspired. We have lost the ability to do that, because of the daily threat of terrorism that we face, but surely we do not want to lose the opportunity to visit Big Ben as a result of the accountants.

[Mr Burrowes]

Absolutely not. It is excellent to hear what inspired and motivated my hon. Friend as a 10-year-old, and we can help to inspire others.

This is not just about primary school children attending this place as a tourist attraction, however. I recently hosted a tour of students from Burma. They were unable to access Big Ben, but they were nevertheless amazed at the direct access that the public have to their Members of Parliament. Obviously, that does not happen in Burma. I want to see that access maintained for primary school children and others. It is important to maintain that relationship, and part of that involves the access to Big Ben that Members of Parliament and Officers can provide. That access would be lost under this proposal.

We also need to recognise that this is not just about MPs acting as tour guides; it is about us opening up the doors of our democracy. That involves not only the working part of our Parliament but access to Big Ben. It is part of our heritage, and people having access to Parliament helps them to understand where we have come from as a democracy and where we want to go. Big Ben is very much part of our heritage, and we need to ensure that it is as accessible as possible.

The hon. Member for Chippenham (Duncan Hames), who is no longer in his place, gave the House some statistics, including the number of people who visit Parliament but do not take the tour of the Clock Tower. My view is that not enough people know about the tour. Those who do know about it grab the opportunity to do it, and we need to make it more accessible, not less.

There are hidden gems that we discover only when we climb those 344 steps inside the Clock Tower. I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Harlow for attempting the climb; it has defeated many others. Anyone who goes up the Clock Tower is reminded of our heritage, including our Christian heritage and the relationship between Church and state. Among the hidden gems are the chimes alongside Big Ben, near to which are written these words:

“All through this hour

Lord, be my guide

And by Thy power

No foot shall slide”.

Those who go up there can see those words, near to the chimes that are broadcast worldwide by the BBC each day. They illustrate our recognition of our Christian heritage, which is an important part of our democracy. We would lose that under the proposal, and I hope that our feet here will not slide into the realms of the accountants and others. Let us keep the Clock Tower open so that many more feet can go up and down it, and so that people can recognise our democracy for what it is.

13:59

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

It is always a great pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr Burrowes). I hope that I shall not be viewed as some kind of establishment stooge this afternoon, as I rise to put forward a different view on the issue of charging.

The motion, which is supported by many hon. Members and hon. Friends with whom I am usually in agreement, is one that I cannot agree with on this occasion. I take the different view that there is no such thing as a free lunch. Generally speaking, I believe that the principle that the user pays should be adopted, and I see no reason to change it for the Clock Tower. I think it is preferable that those who use a service should be those who pay for it. In 2011 only 9,319 people used this service and went up the Clock Tower, so it is easy to see that over the course of an average lifetime, at least 99% of the population will be completely unaffected by whatever is decided on this issue.

I believe that the current system whereby everybody effectively pays for the benefit of very few people is wrong. I submit, too, that the current policy is likely to favour those who live closer to London, who find it easier to visit the Palace of Westminster. I do not know the statistics on how many of my constituents have been up the Clock Tower—I know of a few, but not very many. I submit that having paid to come down here, many visitors would not be surprised to find that they were being asked to contribute £15 towards the cost of that service. It is a once-in-a-lifetime visit, and I think it entirely reasonable for a small charge to be made to cover the cost of providing that tour.

14:01

[Mel Stride (Central Devon) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon) on securing this debate. I start by declaring an interest in that, as a hobby, I am a qualified blue badge tourist guide, so I have some experience of some of our more important sites. I am qualified to guide in the British Museum, Westminster Abbey, St Paul’s Cathedral, the Tower of London, the castle at Windsor and many other places. I am not qualified to be a guide here: for that, I would have to do a one-day familiarisation course, which could be quite valuable in my case. There is no doubt, however, that of all the places I know something about in this country, none is more important than our Parliament.

Although I respect the fact that we are going through an age of austerity, access to the Clock Tower is something I believe should be kept open and free. It is not that I fail to recognise that the House of Commons Commission has made considerable progress in advancing the cause of cutting costs. We have heard about a 17% reduction and that £2 million should be saved by putting official papers in electronic form on the internet; I strongly encourage and welcome those things. For certain goods and services—and indeed accesses—I would go so far as to say that we have a moral duty to ensure that they are provided free of charge. I would include access to NHS services, for example, which should be free at the point of delivery and universally available irrespective of the ability to pay. I would apply the same principle to museums and to libraries, from which my children regularly benefit when I take them to the local one every couple of weeks. I believe that if we can apply that particular approach to those places, we should certainly apply it here in the Palace of Westminster.

Some will say that the Clock Tower is not the same as the Chamber, where real democracy is transacted. Physically, that is a true statement, but in my opinion nobody can disentangle the two. As we have heard from many speakers this afternoon, if we ask people from overseas for their favourite image of British democracy, the chances are that they will cite the Clock Tower.

Let us look at the arguments in the House of Commons Commission’s statement, to which I do think anyone has referred this afternoon and a number of which I believe to be erroneous. First, the fact that we already charge for tours in certain parts of the Palace of Westminster does not mean that we should be able to charge to see the Clock Tower. That is erroneous because the fact that there are charges for some tours does not mean that there cannot be free tours in the same area, as, for example, with the Clock Tower.

The Commission says that only a small number of people—9,000 to 10,000—are affected, but I would say that a principle is at stake here and that whether we are talking about 10,000 or only half a dozen people, it is the principle that matters in this case. We are told that many savings are to be made and that it is only the cost of the tours that the charges cover. Once again, however, the principle of free access is fundamental here. Whether we are covering just our costs, more than our costs or only half our costs, I still believe it is fundamentally wrong to go down this route.

I know that other Members want to contribute, so I will conclude by re-emphasising that this issue is about a very important principle. This place—one of history, democracy and debate, perhaps one of the pursuit of truth—is not “our” Parliament; it is the people’s Parliament, and it is the Parliament for all the people.

14:05

[Jake Berry (Rossendale and Darwen) (Con)]

May I say what a privilege it is to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Central Devon (Mel Stride)? I was not originally intending to speak in today’s debate because I felt that charging people £15 to go up the Westminster Clock Tower might seem remote to the people of Rossendale and Darwen—from where it costs nearly £100 to get here on a train. I changed my mind because on my most recent leaflet, “Rossendale and Darwen Matters”—delivered free to the door by the MP—I included a line about Parliament belonging to the people, saying that it was always open for them to visit me here. I have been overwhelmed by the response of so many Lancashire people saying that they want to visit this great building.

As MPs, I believe we should look at how to save money within Parliament, and I commend the 17% target. I read in a newspaper recently about proposals to turn Parliament into a theme park, including the idea of charging people £2,000 to use the Terrace, £20,000 to use Westminster Hall, and now £15 to go up the Clock Tower. I believe that we Members should resist that. We should stand by the principle that this is a place that our constituents pay for; it belongs to them and it should be free for them to visit.

I will not support the amendment, because I believe that more can be done than simply looking at the issue again. When we look to save money, we should look to our own first of all. That is why I draw the House’s attention to what I believe is the scandal of the grace and favour apartments enjoyed by people who work in this place. When the last Clerk of the House retired, there was a great opportunity to remove the grace and favour apartment attached to the job. However, we did not take the opportunity. I think that as long as we provide such facilities to people who work here, we should not charge our constituents for going up the Clock Tower.

We should definitely not charge our constituents in what is an Olympic year, as this building will be at the front and centre when people visit our country. In this Olympic year, there is great interest in finding London hotels for people to stay in. I made an inquiry of the Ritz to find out how much its most expensive suite was, and I did the same for the Dorchester and all the posh places where I could never afford to stay. These suites cost thousands of pounds—some as much as £7,000 a night. What an opportunity for we Members to make these grace and favour apartments available all day to save the taxpayer some money. Why do people choose to pay thousands of pounds to stay at the Ritz and the Dorchester? It is clearly location, location, location—and security. That is what these grace and favour apartments have—location and security.

[Thomas Docherty]

The hon. Gentleman is making a compelling argument. I wonder whether he is aware that there are some other grace and favour places down the road in No. 10, 11 and 12 Downing street. Perhaps the Patronage Secretary could make his place available to his constituents.

[Jake Berry]

But that is completely different. Government is for 365 days a year and 24/7; Parliament is having an early recess to enable Members to avoid the Olympics, so surely those who work in Parliament will not be here.

We are not talking about a Big Brother-style eviction; we are simply talking about the possibility of those with grace and favour apartments, including the Chairman of the Commission, the Speaker of the House of Commons, giving them up for the period of the Olympics. Speaker’s House would, of course, command the biggest premium. I suggest that we could charge £20,000 a night for it, perhaps more, and that simply making it available during the Olympics could save half a million pounds.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. I think we are in danger of losing out on the Clock Tower by discussing the renting of the Speaker’s apartments. We are getting a little wide of the mark.

[Laura Sandys (South Thanet) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend think that the price would be enhanced if the Deputy Speakers were present to attend the visitors?

[Jake Berry]

Well, I cannot speak for—

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

I assure that the House that that would not be the case.

[Jake Berry]

All joking aside, it is true that we must save money, but I suspect that charging our constituents to go up the Clock Tower is in the easy pile. When we start talking about the things that are in the difficult pile—such as Speaker’s House, the grace and favour apartments of the Clerk and the Serjeant at Arms, and the crèche—we do not hear so many voices.

It is important for us to establish what we are here for. I think that we are here to speak up for our constituents, and to ensure that they continue to have free access to this building that they lease to us for five years at a time. If we want to save money, let us look at ourselves. Let us look in the difficult pile. Let us work out where the money can be saved without our charging people for access to Big Ben.

14:11

[Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)]

I much enjoyed hearing from my hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale and Darwen (Jake Berry) an impassioned plea for the House to be turned into a glorified hotel with a free clock tower attached. I am not entirely convinced that that is the right order of priorities. It seems to me that the House is united in feeling that savings must be made, but that whenever a specific saving is suggested, everyone is against it.

I wish to defend the Commission against the charge that it never consults people. It does, as one will see if one reads one’s e-mails. I replied to one which dealt with the question of whether or not the bound copies of Hansard should continue to be available. I actually like re-reading my own speeches—somebody has to—and I therefore wish to receive the bound copies, but I quite understand that a very expensive process is involved. It might be appropriate for Members to keep their old copies together or to make a contribution if they want to continue to receive bound copies.

I believe that there are two clear principles when it comes to cost savings in the House. The first is that we, and our electorate, can hold the Government to account, and that anything that enables us to hold the Government to account should not be cut. That includes most of the papers that are produced for us, such as the daily Hansards, the Order Papers, and the lists of early-day motions. All the things that enable us to hold the Government to account ought to be retained, even if they are expensive; and all the things that allow our constituents to hold us to account—their freedom to visit the Galleries, to attend Committee meetings, and to exercise their important right to come to the front desk and ask to lobby us and to see us—should also be free, and not subject to any cuts.

The second principle is that we must be able to serve our constituents and meet their requirements when they have problems, and that, too, should not be subject to any cuts. It is important for Members of Parliament to have the staff they need and the facilities they need—the writing paper and the postage stamps—to deal with matters that affect their constituents’ lives.

Not a penny should be saved in those areas, and all Members of Parliament should be united in defending us against any such cuts; but—and it is a very big but—there are some things that are not essential to holding the Government to account and do not provide an essential service for our constituents. In those instances, even if the savings are small, it is important to make them. We are not only doing this in the context of Parliament’s £200 million budget; we are doing it symbolically, to show that we are not just imposing costs and cuts on our constituents, but tightening our own belts. Let me put this question to Members who do not want to charge people for going up the Clock Tower. How can we say to our constituents who are on £43,000-and-a-bit a year that they will not receive their child benefit, when we are not willing to accept even a modest charge for a visit to the Clock Tower?

[Robert Halfon]

My hon. Friend says that we must tighten our own belts. It is not our belts that we will be tightening, but the belts of our constituents who want to come and see Big Ben. I am not one of those who say that the House of Commons does not need to make savings. Indeed, I suggested a series of savings that the House could make in my opening remarks.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

As I mentioned in my own opening remarks, everyone is in favour of savings, but if we can make an additional saving, we should be pleased about it. I hope that the Commission has heard all my hon. Friend’s recommendations for savings and the recommendations of others who have spoken, because they all ought to be considered. However, it is difficult to accept that going to look at a clockwork mechanism and a large bell, however great and however splendid, is essential to the democracy of this country which has served us so well for hundreds of years. It is a curiosity, it is something of interest to do, it is a delight and a pleasure, but it is not at the heart of how we scrutinise the Government or how we serve our constituents.

We know that times are hard. If I wished to be party political, I could say that our friends on the other side had maxed out the credit card; but whether it is due to that or to bankers, the fact is that the country needs to make savings, and a charging £15 each to 9,000 people a year who want to see a clockwork machine strikes me as not unreasonable.

I seem to be in the same position as my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall). I seem to be more establishment than the establishment itself. I understand that, as we have been debating the matter, a compromise has been agreed, and I am sorry about that, because I think that this would have been a right and proper thing to do.

14:16

[Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to sum up the motion proposed by my hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon). One thing that can certainly be said of my hon. Friend is that he has his finger on the pulse of public opinion.

[John Thurso]

I have listened carefully to the debate, and I have talked to the Commissioners who are present. We have agreed that were the hon. Member for Harlow to accept my amendment, the Commission would ensure that there was no charge for entry to the Clock Tower during the current Parliament. We cannot, of course, bind successor Parliaments. As written, however, the motion is such that it might affect other parts of the important savings programme to which the hon. Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) referred, and we should therefore prefer to listen to the will of the House on this occasion in order to preserve the greater good of the programme.

[Martin Vickers]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his comments. I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Harlow and I will agree to support the amendment, but one thing I have learned in my short time in the House is that, when I am on my feet, the fact that I might repeat something that has been said, or the fact that the outcome is inevitable, should not stop me saying what I intended to say. I shall therefore take advantage of my moment in the sun to make a couple of comments, if I may.

As has just been pointed out by my hon. Friend the Member for Harlow, those of us who support his motion recognise that savings must be made. A number of important issues have emerged from the debate, most notably the urgent need to consider other possible areas of savings. Grace and favour accommodation seems to be at the top of most people’s hit lists, and that may well be one of the areas that should be considered.

My hon. Friend the Member for Mid Bedfordshire (Nadine Dorries) spoke of schoolchildren imagining her working in Big Ben, and, in a rather strange way, it is a symbol of our democracy. I remember coming up from Cleethorpes on my first visit to London at the age of eight, and one of the photographs in my album shows me with the Clock Tower in the background. The Clock Tower is capable of sparking people’s interest in the whole democratic process. That is something extremely valuable, and something that we should not lose.

Bearing in mind the offer that has been made, I shall cut my remarks short. I was going to urge the House not to support what I had described in my notes as a “Sir Humphrey amendment,” but, of course, Sir Humphrey has ways of achieving his ends in the end. My hon. Friend the Member for Harlow and I are prepared to accept the amendment, with the on-the-record statement that no charges will be made, at least for the period of this Parliament.

Amendment agreed to.

Main Question, as amended, put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House accepts the need to make financial savings, but considers that the fundamental principle that the House of Commons is a people’s Parliament should not be put at risk; and invites the Commission to reconsider its current proposal to charge for Clock Tower tours.

[Mrs Main]

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. I am delighted that the hon. Members for Dunfermline and West Fife (Thomas Docherty) and for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (John Thurso) have put it on the record that they will look at this matter again. If decisions are made that do not accord with what has been stated in this debate, however, what recourse might we have to bring the matter back before Parliament?

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

I think the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (John Thurso) has given his word, and I am sure that he is a man of his word and that we do not need to bring that into question today.

[Robert Halfon]

Further to that point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. I should have said in my opening remarks that I am a member of the British Horological Institute, but I also want to put on record my gratitude to the representative of the Commission, the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (John Thurso), for listening to Members and agreeing to drop the Big Ben charges.

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

I think the hon. Gentleman made the first point in the debate, and the second point is not a point of order.

Common Fisheries Policy

Thursday 15th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Relevant document: the Twelfth Report from the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, EU Proposals for Reform of the Common Fisheries Policy, HC 1563.]

14:21

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

I beg to move,

That this House considers that the Common Fisheries Policy has failed to conserve fish stocks and failed fishermen and consumers; welcomes the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee’s report, EU proposals for reform of the Common Fisheries Policy; and calls on the Government to use the current round of Common Fisheries Policy reform to argue for a reduction in micro-management from Brussels, greater devolution of fishing policy to Member States, the introduction of greater regional ecosystem-based management and more scientific research to underpin decision-making in order to secure the future of coastal communities and the health of the marine ecosystem.

It gives me great pleasure to have the opportunity to move this motion. I thank the Backbench Business Committee for allowing us to debate the issue, and I thank my fellow Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee members—from all parties—for the excellent work they did in drafting the report on this topic. I also thank the witnesses, both those who appeared before us and gave so generously of their time and those who submitted written evidence.

In my local area, I visited the coble fishermen in Filey, who are some of the heroes of the smaller—under-10 metre—fishing fleet in this country. The Committee visited Hastings, accompanied by my hon. Friend the Member for Hastings and Rye (Amber Rudd), and we were very warmly received. It was a highly productive visit—once we had negotiated the London tube network—and I thank everyone who shared that day with us for the warm welcome we received and the evidence they shared with us.

It was a particular pleasure for me to take the Committee to Denmark and to meet the Danish President of the Council of Ministers, the Danish Minister for fisheries, farming and food. We also met the local fishermen in Gilleleje. I have to confess that I had not visited that little fishing port for some 15 or 20 years, but we were impressed by the work and co-operation of its fishermen, and persuaded by the science we saw there. We were allowed to partake in a non-live auction mart, buying and selling some of the fish, which expanded our knowledge of the live internet auction mart that they use. We were interested to see the selective gear those Danish fishermen use, a detail that is particularly relevant to the motion.

This debate is timely. The Danish presidency is expected to reach a political decision in the European Council in June—in the well-known coastal resort of Luxembourg! Seriously however, Luxembourg does have a genuine interest in freshwater fish and aquaculture—the Minister can correct that term, if it is wrong. We are expecting a political decision in the EC in June. For the first time, it will be a co-decision. The European Parliament is seeking to reach an agreement on the financial regulation in January 2013, and we will have co-decision on all the fisheries reforms. A final agreement is not expected until June 2013.

I commend the motion. I think we can all confirm that the common fisheries policy—particularly the last round of reform—has failed everybody. It has failed to conserve fish stocks, and to help fishermen or consumers. I want to dwell for a moment on what I believe is the most exciting part of the motion and of our report, and I am grateful to the very senior lawyers in this place and elsewhere who have advised us on the report. We have a once-in-a-decade opportunity. We have a one-off opportunity to end the centralised micro-management by Brussels, which I think we can all agree has failed to deliver. We want to support the commissioner, who agrees that, as an essential first step, we must look at the possibility of handing power back to member states to enable them to work together to find a local solution.

I applaud the openness of the commissioner, and the immediate past chairman of the Brussels Committee on fisheries, Carmen Fraga, who is a personal friend of mine and who is affectionately known in the European Parliament as “madam fish.” The commissioner was especially open in the meeting we had in Brussels, during our evidence session of some 18 months ago, and more especially when the commissioner gave evidence on the record. I am delighted that there is now a picture on the commissioner’s website of the commissioner and me handing over the report we are debating this afternoon.

I believe we have given the Department, the Commission and the European Union the opportunity—which we were all looking for—to drive decision making down to the most local and regional level. Our proposals are truly groundbreaking. I believe the fault has been that there has been too much micro-management from Brussels and a lack of overarching objectives, which we would like the Commission to remain in charge of.

The Commission should have a strategic high-reaching overview, but the day-to-day decisions on how fisheries are managed in local waters should be decided among the various coastal states on the basis of scientific evidence, which is missing at present, and through working much more closely with the fishermen. We will talk shortly about giving the advisory councils more power.

[Mr John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

I support the motion, but will my hon. Friend make this point clear to me: presumably, she would want the British Government to be able to get rid of the much-hated and stupid discards policy and be free to decide ourselves how to conserve stock?

[Miss McIntosh]

I am going to be very methodical and discuss discards later, as we have some interesting things to say about them and I hope that hon. Members from all parts of the House will elaborate on the matter.

On the treaty base, I hope that the Minister has now had the opportunity to analyse what we are proposing. This is the first time anyone has identified what is staring us in the face—that all we have to do is amend the regulations, which form the whole context of this round of the common fisheries policy reform. The feedback we have had from the fishermen we have consulted, as well as from the Danes and others, has been very positive.

It is important to recognise that the little fish do not swim around with a Union Jack on them. Much as I would like to say that the fish outside Filey have a Yorkshire flag on them and the fish in the Scottish waters have the saltire on them, they do not; they swim across the various waters. So it is absolutely right that the Commission should retain some competence in this area, and I, for one, do not wish to reopen the treaty base that gives exclusive competence on the resources to the Commission. By allowing the coastal states that neighbour the individual fisheries to take the day-to-day management decisions, we will save a lot of the Minister’s time every December, as things will be managed on a more regular basis. The approach will be much more local, it will be based on science and it will be about working more closely with the fishermen.

[Mr Redwood]

Nor do the fish swim around with an EU flag on them. We should accept that it is our fishing resource if it is in our wider waters—we have to pay the bills, so we should be responsible for it.

[Miss McIntosh]

My right hon. Friend has put his finger, possibly inadvertently, on the nub of the issue. This is a shared resource and we need to conserve it. The Committee has gone through things and we have identified many ways in which we believe we can do that.

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

Does my hon. Friend agree that the best outcome for our country’s relationship with the common fisheries policy would be what was described to us as a “toolbox”? We would operate our own toolbox, given our certain allocation, and that would perhaps give us the best option in terms of the European balance and the UK fishing balance.

[Miss McIntosh]

I am most grateful to my hon. Friend for putting it so eloquently and so well. This approach would, indeed, be part of the toolbox, and it would give the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, negotiating for the UK, a much greater say and devolve decision making right down to the regional level, with a tremendous positive impact on fishermen and on coastal communities.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

The hon. Lady has outlined the need for regionalisation, and that is the approach I would seek for Northern Ireland on this issue. Does she feel that regionalisation would mean that the days at sea, which have been reduced, would be increased to reflect the number of fish in the sea? Would the cod in the Irish sea be included in such an arrangement? Would the quotas also reflect that? What would happen with the discards? Does she agree that the approach to discards should be following the direction of the fisherman’s initiative? Does she agree that it should not be about bureaucrats in Europe, but about local people making decisions?

[Miss McIntosh]

Yes, and I will discuss discards momentarily. Our approach has to be taken on the basis of science, and that is what is missing at the moment. We need to set clear boundaries and give direction to the role of the Commission, and we have to give member states the power to act not only independently, but together in each of the individual fisheries. We will, thus, give them genuine freedom and responsibility.

[Dr Sarah Wollaston (Totnes) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that extending the limit to 12 miles is crucial? People in Brixham, in the area I represent, have done a great deal to conserve stocks, but they see Dutch vessels coming in to fish inside the 12-mile limit and that causes great resentment.

[Miss McIntosh]

I am sure that the Minister will be more knowledgeable than I am on matters relating to the high water mark and the 12-mile limit. What I hope we can achieve, in principle, is agreement on each fishery—those in the Baltic sea and the North sea, as well as the Irish fisheries. These are a shared resource, and I hope that they can genuinely be determined by those coastal member states.

[Sheryll Murray (South East Cornwall) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend explain how, under a system of qualified majority voting, and given that the basic regulation contains the principle of equal access to a common resource, she is going to be able to achieve what she wants? A lot of member states, albeit that they have a blocking minority, will oppose her proposals, so how will she get them through the Council of Ministers?

[Miss McIntosh]

Happily for me, I will not be arguing the case, and I hope that today’s debate will convince the Minister. I am pleased that the European Parliament has reached out to the national Parliaments and I hope that ours is the first leading report in that regard. We should amend the regulations—we should not accept them. My hon. Friend the Member for South East Cornwall (Sheryll Murray) looks baffled, but it is blindingly obvious that that is where we have gone wrong in the past. We should grasp the bull by its horns and amend the regulations for the duration of the piece, recognising them as a shared resource. That is key.

The television campaign against discards by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall captured the public imagination last year. Discards are deeply unpopular and unsustainable and they are failing to conserve our fish. The conclusion we reached was that we agree there should be a discard ban, but it is very clear that there is no scientific evidence on the survival rates for each species for which the ban is proposed. We believe that we should proceed with caution on the basis of the scientific evidence. Rather than having an end date of 2014 or 2015, we should start gradually. We do not want a discard at sea being substituted by a discard on land, with the fish going to landfill. That would not meet the wishes of the great British public.

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

First, let me apologise profusely to the hon. Lady for not being in my seat when she began her speech. Does she agree that part of the problem with discards is that in mixed fisheries fishermen do not have a quota for catch that they cannot avoid catching, which they then have no alternative but to discard at sea?

[Miss McIntosh]

I shall share the comments I made earlier with the hon. Lady, but we do have a recommendation along those lines on mixed fisheries. There is simply insufficient information. When we launched our report, The Guardian had a website that entirely distorted our proposals so, for the sake of clarity, we are saying that there should be a ban on discards but we need to proceed on the basis of scientific evidence. If that is available in 2014, we will be the first to welcome it and to proceed on that basis. I believe that it would put my hon. Friend the Minister, who would be negotiating such a ban, in a very difficult position if we were just to substitute a discard ban. We believe that it should switch to catch, but it should do so gradually. Let us have an end date of 2020 but proceed with caution on the basis of scientific evidence.

[Jim Shannon]

The Minister is aware of this issue, because we spoke about it last November and he has followed through on it. Scientific evidence for the Irish sea shows that the stocks of cod and whitefish are increasing. The hon. Lady is saying, I think, that we need to have time for the scientific evidence to be in place. If that is the case, it will be too late for our whitefish fleet in Northern Ireland, as the crews have already been cut dramatically. Does she not feel that there are perhaps occasions—this is one of them—when urgency is of the utmost importance and that we must respond immediately to the scientific evidence that shows that there are more cod and more whitefish in the Irish sea than there have ever been before? That would sustain the cod and whitefish industry in Northern Ireland.

[Miss McIntosh]

I hope that if we can amend the regulations on how we will proceed, the reformed common fisheries policy will go forward. I understand the hon. Gentleman’s sense of urgency and I am sure that my hon. Friend the Minister, who takes part in the annual negotiations, will see this as welcome relief, but it will happen after the regulations are amended.

The Committee was persuaded that there are other means of conserving fish stocks—the tools in the box, as my hon. Friend the Member for Hastings and Rye said. We were hugely impressed by the work on selective gear being done by the Danish fishermen and by the agreement that the Danish and Swedish fishermen and their Governments had reached about fishing in their waters. We believe that that model could be used.

We applaud the work done under successive Governments off the Devon coast to reduce discards. We want to hear more of it and to see such schemes rolled out. As we said in our earlier domestic fisheries report, we believe there is a role for celebrity chefs and supermarkets to persuade the public to eat species that are not widely eaten at the moment. That would also help to conserve fish stocks going forward.

The Commission mandated member states to introduce a system of long-term fishing rights; it is looking to introduce transferable fishing concessions. In our earlier report on domestic fisheries, which we reported to the House on 3 June 2011, we highlighted the problem of slipper skippers and those who trade fishing quotas who are not actively involved in fishing. My local fishermen are absolutely convinced that there are football clubs trading in this way. We have not established that as a fact, but equally no one has denied it, which makes me believe that it is probably happening. May I challenge the Minister on this? We asked for a register to be introduced and I would like him to report where we are with that when he sums up. Local fishermen in Filey and across the Yorkshire area would warmly welcome that.

[Sheryll Murray]

Did my hon. Friend establish that a fishing quota can be attached only to a vessel that is held by a fish producer organisation? So either a dummy vessel that has been invented in a producer organisation or a real vessel has to be owned by a football club before a quota can be attached to it.

[Miss McIntosh]

We have not always established whether football clubs or others are involved, but my hon. Friend raises a very telling point. We believe that transferable fishing concessions would make the situation worse and would not necessarily reduce over-capacity. What we propose is a siphon mechanism to reallocate fishing rights away from potential slipper skippers. I hope this addresses her point. Under our proposal, if an operator chooses to lease his fishing rights, a percentage of that allocation would be returned to the national envelope. That could then be reallocated to active fishermen so as to maintain traditional fishing activities in coastal communities. We urge the Minister to recognise the role of active fishermen, who are the lifeblood of coastal communities such as those in Filey, Hastings and elsewhere. We also emphasise the need to protect small-scale fishermen, such as those in our under-10 metre fleets, by keeping them outside any market-based system of fishing rights.

[Fiona O'Donnell]

The hon. Lady makes a very interesting suggestion. Does she agree that that envelope could be used to incentivise sustainable fishing?

[Miss McIntosh]

The whole thrust of the motion is very much about sustainable fishing. We mention in particular

“the introduction of greater regional ecosystem-based management and more scientific research to underpin decision-making”.

The whole thrust is about how we define what is sustainable; we clearly do not have sustainable fishing at the moment. I hope the Minister will go down the path of avoiding excessive fleet consolidation and I make a personal plea that we could give more quota to our inshore fishermen. I ask the Minister please not to go near a quota for shellfish for inshore fishermen.

[Dr Wollaston]

Does my hon. Friend agree that there is a great discrepancy in the way that the EU and the UK define these vessels, with the EU using the under-12 metre definition and the UK using the under-10 metre definition? Would we not be better using a definition based on the extent to which vessels are high catching? There is sometimes an assumption that all under-10 metre vessels have to be low-catching, sustainable vessels, whereas some of them catch large amounts of fish.

[Miss McIntosh]

My hon. Friend reminds me of the evidence we took in Hastings. I thought we should perhaps pursue an amendment along the under-10 metre/under-12 metre line, but this is more about the fact that such vessels do not have access to the quota under the current system and that they could be disadvantaged if there is over-consolidation—a point that was raised earlier. We were not persuaded that the under-10/under-12 issue was so significant.

I urge the Minister and his Department, when negotiating for the whole of the United Kingdom and all its constituent parts, which are well represented in the Chamber this afternoon, to press for an additional general objective for the common fisheries policy: contributing to the socio-economic development of coastal communities. By all means let us look at the new European maritime and fisheries fund to see how that can be done, particularly to help fishermen purchase and use more selective gear. I reiterate our desire to see more scientific research underpin decision making. I underline the fact that the Commission proposes a general objective of restoring stocks to levels above those that can produce maximum sustainable yield by 2015, which we believe will be extremely difficult to achieve. We suggest that the marine strategy framework directive, which aims to restore commercial stocks to within safe biological limits by 2020, is a more realistic and achievable aim.

In conclusion, we greatly welcome this opportunity and urge the Minister to grasp it and to get to Brussels or Luxemburg to make friends and use his charm to persuade our allies to introduce this groundbreaking change. We applaud his efforts and are 100% behind him in that regard.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. I am going to have to introduce a time limit of 11 minutes, due to the number of Members who wish to speak.

14:45

[Mr Frank Doran (Aberdeen North) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Miss McIntosh) on securing the debate and on the good work the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee has done. I managed to secure a debate in November through the good offices of the Backbench Business Committee in November and in my capacity as secretary of the all-party group on fisheries. The message we tried to get across in that debate, which came across strongly, was that we are all in this together—it is one area where we are—and pushing in the same direction, and I think that the Committee’s report is an extremely valuable addition to the material we have at our disposal. Like the hon. Lady, I want the Minister to go to the Fisheries Council and make sure that these points are hammered home after he has built alliances and got the votes needed to make Britain’s position secure.

It would be foolish of me to try to mention all the points covered in the Committee’s report. I think that it comprehensively covers my concerns and those of the fishing industry and makes a number of useful comments. We need to continue to make the point about discards. We are all opposed to discards, but there are no easy solutions to the problem. It is a very complex issue, particularly in our mixed fisheries. I know from people in the industry that they felt that in publishing its proposals the Commission handled the problem of discards in a way that was more like issuing a press release to get them out of a spot than it was about providing a strategy. The problem needs an awful lot of careful consideration, clear rules, technical improvements, which are being made all the time, a process of consultation and, crucially, a buy-in from the industry.

The Committee highlighted the weakness of the science. That area needs to be worked on, but that cannot be done by the UK alone. Around 60% of our fish species are not properly recorded, and other nations with an interest in fishing are in an even worse position, so effort is needed at Government level and at Commission level. Overcapacity is an important problem, and there have been many attempts to deal with it over the years, most of which have failed. I was interested in the concept of transferable fishing concessions. The hon. Lady rightly pointed to what we have at the moment, which strikes me as a transferable fishing concession system, because quotas are freely available, which I think causes a number of problems for the industry. I was interested to hear the hon. Lady talk about the impact of transferrable concessions on our coastal communities, because they are being damaged already. When the quota system was introduced, following the Commission’s introduction of total allowable catches, or TACs, a market in transferrable fishing concessions was effectively created in our country.

[Sheryll Murray]

Does the hon. Gentleman not agree that the problem with transferrable quotas was exacerbated from 1 January 1999, when his—Labour—Minister agreed to introduce fixed-quota allocations? Before that we had a rolling track record, but in 1999 his Minister agreed to fix the track record of every vessel to the historical average between 1993 and 1996. That is where we had the problem.

[Mr Doran]

We have always had a problem with quotas. I agree with the hon. Lady to a certain extent, but all Governments since 1973 have had problems and made mistakes in that area.

We have a system in which quotas are bought and sold, and many are held by individuals and companies that once operated fishing vessels which have since been decommissioned. Quotas are often leased out, and sometimes at eye-watering prices. I shall not cite any because I have not seen the details, but the figures that I have been given are staggering, and that has a perverse effect on the industry, because the lower the TAC in any one year, the higher the quota price, distorting the industry quite seriously.

When we have ever-more expensive fishing vessels, fuel, insurance, labour and other costs as we do now, we have a market in quotas which distorts the industry. I strongly support the point, made by the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton, that the register of who owns quotas should be published. That area is in complete darkness, and the system should be looked at seriously.

[Jim Shannon]

Does the hon. Gentleman feel that any transferrable quotas should go to those registered boats that are active fishing boats only, not to football clubs or to whoever else seems to have control over quotas?

[Mr Doran]

There are many ways in which we could resolve the problem, but the starting point is to shed a little light on the system and to see what is happening. That is extremely important.

One area that the report does not cover, but which I should like to say a word or two about, is black fishing. I have had brief conservations with the Minister about it, and I have mentioned to him twice now, once on the Floor of the House and once in private, that I want to have a meeting with him and will write to him, and I am in the process of gathering material for our discussion.

We are working on the assumption that the whole issue of black fish is not a problem any more, but I am not sure that that is correct. Everyone in the Chamber will be aware that there have been some serious criminal cases—they were not trials, because everyone pleaded guilty—in the Scottish courts in which a number of fishermen and fish processors have been found guilty of serious offences.

We are talking about tens of millions of pounds, and everyone I know in the fishing industry, no matter at what level they are, knows that the figures that have been quoted, and which were prominent in the individual trials, are just the tip of the iceberg. It was a much more serious issue. I shall not say much more than that, because, although a number of cases been dealt with, one more has still to be dealt with and will be in court later this month.

From the information that we have so far on the way in which the system operated, it is apparent that a very sophisticated process was under way. Skippers falsified their log books as they landed their catches, lying about how much fish was on board. Weighing scales at the factory were rigged. I am told that at a factory at the centre of one case there were two computer systems—one computer, recording a false weight, was visible to the regulators, and the other one was in the loft recording the true weight. There was separate pumping equipment on the quay, with the legitimate fish to be declared sent through one system and the black fish sent through another. I am talking about pelagic fish; I should have emphasised that. Exactly the same thing has been happening in the white fish industry.

The situation has not yet been dealt with, and it might not be, because the trials may have been just for effect, to try to focus on the problem and make sure that it was properly killed. A police officer who made a statement at one of the trials said that there is an assumption that nobody is a victim in these cases except our fish stocks. In fact, there have been a large number of victims, most of whom are in the fish processing industry.

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

I do not know much about what the hon. Gentleman is talking about as regards white fish, but could there be a difference in the case of the pelagic stocks, given that any black fish in a white fish area could be non-discarded fish that people are planning to land rather than dump?

[Mr Doran]

No. The operation was much more systematic and organised, and on a much bigger scale, than that. This did not happen by accident; it was not by-catch.

[Andrew George (St Ives) (LD)]

The hon. Gentleman referred to the view that there are no victims in these cases. The sustainable mackerel hand-line fishery in Cornwall has one hundredth of the catch of the pelagic quota that is available to the purse seine industry in Scotland, and as a result of over-fishing in Scotland, people are losing quota in Cornwall.

[Mr Doran]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. There are victims everywhere, and that is just another example.

Over the past few years, I have been involved in taking a large number of statements from people involved in the industry, and I will read out a selection of their comments. There are no police inquiries relating to this material. One fish processor with many years of experience told me:

“The system would work on a basis that a skipper would telephone the agent and declare his real catch, whilst at sea. If it was 1,000 boxes, the agent may find a buyer for 500 boxes and tell the skipper to fill in the log for 500 boxes after he had landed at the market. Before the market the 500 boxes would be unloaded from the vessel and transported to the buyer’s premises.”

In other words, the boxes would not go through the system. He continued:

“The agent would record the sale at the true value and alter the species if required to show the ‘black’ fish as non-pressurised stock. At the end of the quota year he would advise the skipper on which species to show in his catch records to ensure he retains his quota.”

So it is not just about volume but species. If coley were being landed, it might, in order to retain the quota, be recorded as some other fish—haddock was the most popular—and haddock might be shown as whiting. A fish merchant said:

“The situation with black fish started to get silly and I am aware that on one occasion a local fish merchant had 4000 boxes of fish in his yard—all black fish which had been transported from the boats to his yard. Meanwhile there were only 1900 boxes of fish in the market at Peterhead and about 1400 boxes in the market at Aberdeen.”

This wide-scale corruption of the system is a direct product of the introduction of the CFP and total allowable catch—and, I have to say, of the failure of Government and Government agencies properly to monitor the system. I want to discuss that with the Minister at length when we manage to get our evidence together.

To finish, I repeat that the Select Committee report is extremely important. I hope that the Minister will take note of the points that were made in the debate in November, which I know will be made again today, and the points that have been made by the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton and her Committee, and take the argument to Brussels.

14:59

[Sheryll Murray (South East Cornwall) (Con)]

In just over a week’s time, it will be a year since the best husband and father in the world was snatched from me in a sudden and cruel manner. I would like to make one final tribute to Neil. I have been able to steer a relatively straight course, navigating the various hitches on the chart, such as anniversaries, birthdays, the accident report and the inquest, because of the kindness and support that this House has given me. I would just like to convey a simple message: thank you.

I thank the Backbench Business Committee and my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Miss McIntosh) for securing this important debate. The opportunity to get some sort of reform of the disgraceful common fisheries policy comes once a decade. This time, we have to secure positive results for the fish stocks and for British fishermen.

Last Thursday I secured an Adjournment debate on the external arm of the CFP, which I am aware that the report does not cover. That arm of the CFP is often forgotten, but it, too, has been a disaster. As I said, that was highlighted clearly in the report by my hon. Friend the Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham (Daniel Kawczynski) following his visit to Mauritania last year.

However, it does not follow that third-country agreements are always completely wrong. Pieter Tesch, now of the fishing company, Industrie de Peche & Representation, who joined and funded the Mauritanian delegation of four, confirmed that the agreement with Mauritania has the potential to provide alternative opportunities for responsible pelagic vessels, which are currently struggling to stay viable in the north-east Atlantic fishery. He also confirmed that it could assist with the development of processing facilities in Mauritania. I am pleased that the Minister will raise those issues in the Council of Ministers.

The CFP is very complicated. I consider it to be the greatest maritime disaster of the past four decades. The Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee report raises many issues. I will look at three that concern my constituency of South East Cornwall.

The first issue relates to under-10 metre vessels and the quota available to them. As I have mentioned in the past, under-10 metre vessels were done an injustice by the inaction of the previous Government. It is wrong that about 76% of the UK fleet is allocated about 3% of the available quota for white fish.

On 6 March the hon. Member for East Lothian (Fiona O’Donnell), the shadow Minister, visited Plymouth and told the Plymouth Herald:

“The inshore fleet plays an important role in the local economy and provides sustainable local products for customers in Plymouth and the surrounding areas”.

She continued:

“It is clear that the current management system for the small scale fleet—under ten metres—is not working.”

Finally, she said:

“I want to see a more profitable, sustainable fishing industry in the South West. Politicians need to listen to the voice of the industry.”

Does the hon. Lady realise that her Government’s inaction over 13 years and the introduction of fixed quota allocations from 1 January 1999 worsened the problem considerably? Given her words to the local press in Plymouth, perhaps when she speaks she would like to apologise and acknowledge that fact. I was the chairman of a fish producers’ organisation when those allocations were introduced, so I know exactly what happened.

[Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)]

The hon. Lady’s poignant remarks will have touched the heart-strings of everyone here.

In Northern Ireland we have come to an interesting and amicable way of resolving the issue of the under-10 metre fleet. The Minister saw that when he came to Portavogie. I wonder whether he has shared that experience, so that English fleets will not have to face the pariah status that has been placed upon them.

[Sheryll Murray]

One problem is that when fixed quota allocations were introduced there was no quota restriction for under-10 metre vessels. The Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food secured an agreement with the European Commission to estimate the catches of the under-10 metre fleet, and, sadly, they were grossly underestimated. A few years later, the registration of buyers and sellers was introduced. Sales notes had to be submitted to the European Commission for every fish landed, so the flaw in the estimates of the under-10 metre vessel catch was there for everybody to see.

[Amber Rudd]

Does my hon. Friend agree that it seems extraordinary that when the register of buyers and sellers was assessed and it became evident to everybody that there had been a huge mismatch in the numbers, something was not done to address it? Instead, our fishing industries were left with the damaging consequences.

[Sheryll Murray]

I was at a meeting in Plymouth at the time, with DEFRA officials at the highest level. The Department was thrown into disarray and had no idea how to address the problem. On top of that, when the fixed quota allocations were introduced, a figure was put in place to underpin the catch of under-10 metre vessels. If the quota available to them in December fell below a certain level, those vessels were guaranteed to be able to catch that set amount. Again, however, it was set far too low. That was how the problem arose.

Because of the last Government’s inaction, our current Minister has been left in a complicated situation. I know that he is doing his best to sort things out. Evidence given to the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee by the South West Fish Producers Organisation described the absence of a separate management system for small vessels as “lamentable”. I thank the Minister for at least looking for a solution to the under-10 metre quota, and I ask him to consider the economic implication of leasing quota for those small vessels. We do not want economic strain to compromise safety.

The second matter that I wish to raise is the 12-mile limit. Article 6, paragraph 2 of the new proposal states that the current access, which includes equal access to common resource as well as access to the area between the six and 12-mile limits, will continue. In a previous speech I have told the House how the UK is disadvantaged, with other member states having 28 rights of access to UK waters compared with just three for the UK in reciprocation. Members need only to have watched “The Fisherman’s Apprentice”, with Monty Halls, last night on BBC 2 to have seen the evidence.

[Andrew George]

The hon. Lady is making a very strong case. She will be aware that the historic entitlements between the six and 12-mile limits are often used by boats from France and other places that are not the ones that originally had those entitlements.

[Sheryll Murray]

That is my point precisely. That agreement was made based on historic rights 40 years ago, and none of the boats that were fishing then are now accessing the six to 12-mile limit area. There is a strong case for our Minister to go and argue that those entitlements should end. I know that some of the member states that have acceded in subsequent years do not have other member states’ vessels accessing their 12-mile limit, so I urge my hon. Friend the Minister to go and make that case very strongly.

Marine protected areas are different from the special areas of conservation introduced under the Natura 2000 programme. The latter cannot take account of socio-economic aspects to protect our coastal communities, but the former can, and indeed must, do so. Will my hon. Friend the Minister consider providing lifetime rights if a fishing method is excluded from a marine protected area? Those rights would be for the duration that the vessel was fishing or the skipper was operating, but it would allow fishermen to continue to earn a living using the very expensive gear in which they have invested.

I know my hon. Friend fully understands my closeness to the industry, which I have worked with for more than 20 years, and that he has fishermen’s interests in mind. Fishermen work hard in the most dangerous conditions, and I am sure the House will agree that they deserve the utmost respect for earning a living in such a precarious way. They keep Britain eating fish.

15:10

[Austin Mitchell (Great Grimsby) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for South East Cornwall (Sheryll Murray), with whom I agree almost totally. We should express our gratitude to the Backbench Business Committee for allowing this debate, and to the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee for its excellent report. It is the best report on fishing since the report of the old Agriculture Committee, which I chaired. That was 20 years ago, and that long space goes to show how much importance such Committees attach to fishing.

I was sorry that the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Miss McIntosh), the Chair of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, eschewed the use of the slogan “Yorkshire Fish for Yorkshire Chip Oils”, because it would be a winning slogan in any campaign in Yorkshire. I shall certainly use it—not in Grimsby, but in Yorkshire—come the election.

The report is good, but the one quarrel I have with it is a substantial one. It says that the principle of relative stability should be looked at, which is a dangerous precedent. Just because fish that normally swim off the coast of Spain migrate north because of global warming does not mean that we should allow Spanish fishermen to disturb the principle of relative stability, which excludes them from our waters.

The debate is important because crunch time for the common fisheries policy is approaching. It is a very centralised policy—it is Gosplan, Soviet Union-style planning for fishing. It applies one-size-fits-all regulations for varied waters and fleets, and dictates to fishermen instead of working with them. It is also very political. There are increases in quota for political reasons, and when that leads to over-fishing, cuts are made by stopping fishermen fishing, either by limiting the number of days at sea or by reducing the catch. That is an insane way to carry on.

The common fisheries policy remains a folly that will not work, cannot be made to work and should be ended. The one thing I cheered when the Conservatives won the election—there was only one thing—was that they promised to repatriate powers from Europe. That, presumably, has been diluted by the coalition with the Liberal Democrats, who will probably smuggle those powers back across the channel in the boots of their cars. That promise was a good sign, because this is the time to repatriate powers, and power over fisheries is the power we should repatriate.

[Andrew George]

rose—

[Austin Mitchell]

I do not want to get into Liberal by-paths on this issue. Just because I get up and speak the European truth does not allow the Liberal party to interfere with my speech in the way that it interferes with the Government’s policy.

Having asserted the position and said what I would like to see, I will put my “moderate but non-new Labour” suit on. To deal with the situation as it is, we must take the approach of accepting the Committee’s recommendations. The preliminary proposals from the Commission, which are expanded in the so-called non-papers—a good European term—telling us what the Commission’s decision means, are unacceptable. They are particularly unacceptable on handing powers down to the regions, because we want regionalised decision making in fishing. That is essential, but the Commission proposes the bare minimum it could get away with—

[Jim Shannon]

I am not a Liberal, so the hon. Gentleman is allowing me to say a few words. Does he agree that the potential for a genuine regional approach is immense, as it would involve the community and the fishing industry? Regionalisation would make the fishing industry sustainable for the future, and it is the way forward.

[Austin Mitchell]

It is certainly the way forward, as I shall argue. We need the 10-year approach and the regional basis that the hon. Gentleman suggests. We probably have to accept that the Commission will set the standards and objectives up there in the stratosphere in Brussels, but we must hand management—including the technical measures, the timetables and implementation of the decisions taken in Brussels, and what kind of quotas are used—to the regional advisory councils, which are far better at handling it and can do so in consultation with fishermen—the stakeholders in the industry. The regional advisory councils can also work with the scientists, bringing them together with the fishermen. That is the basis of management, and that is what the Minister has to fight for. Bringing all the stakeholders in is effectively what the Committee recommends.

Decision making on these matters should be brought down from Brussels. Unfortunately, the Commission is proposing not only to maintain the old control system, but that it should have co-decision-making powers with the Parliament, which is potentially disastrous.

[Mr MacNeil]

Is not one of the problems that the template of the common fisheries policy will continue? Rather than the fishermen feeling contempt towards Europe, they will feel contempt towards the regional bodies. What we need to do is look at other jurisdictions, such as the Faroe Islands, that have days at sea and area closures, accompanied by a zero discard policy because fishing has been moved out of an area. The template needs to change.

[Austin Mitchell]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman—that is what we have to do and what we could operate regionally if we got the powers to do so. That is the way that we have to go, but if co-decision making is handed to the European Parliament, politics will be involved again. I can imagine the Spanish MEPs will fight vigorously for their industry in a way that the English MEPs are not conditioned to do.

I imagine, too, that the conservationists will have a much louder voice than the fishermen, because there are no fishermen in the European Parliament but there are lots of conservationists. Although some of my best friends are conservationists, their interests are not necessarily those of the commercial fishing industry. Conservationists are also over-alarmist about stocks, and on the basis of panic about stocks, they propose measures that will never work. It is vital that we separate policy and implementation. Implementation should go down to the RACs and policy stay in Brussels.

[Ian Paisley]

On the hon. Gentleman’s point about discards and conservationists—as a parliamentarian, he will be interested in the nuances of this—the hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) yesterday introduced a very useful ten-minute rule Bill on food waste. She said that surplus should be donated and redistributed in preference to disposal. We can apply the same food waste policy to fish. We should not be throwing it back in the sea: we should be landing it and redistributing it.

[Austin Mitchell]

The hon. Gentleman will have the opportunity to make his own speech—or discard it, as the case may be—and I shall come to that point in a moment.

The second failure in the Commission’s proposals is the failure to deal with over-capacity. They say that decommissioning has failed to reduce capacity, which is just not true. It has certainly reduced the impact of fishing on North sea stocks, especially cod, plaice, sole and round fish. Instead of proposing a European decommissioning system, financed by Europe and not by the national Governments, the proposals would throw the problem back to the nations through the transferable fishing concessions. They are an improvement on football clubs owning quotas, which was very odd, and, as the Committee suggested, they could give preference to coastal fishing communities, which certainly should be done. However, we have to phase them in much more slowly than the Commission envisages. The Danish transferable fishing concessions were successful only because they followed several rounds of decommissioning of Danish vessels. It is wrong, therefore, to impose this as mandatory on all states.

On discards, the Commission has jumped on the populist bandwagon and passed the odium back to the member states. Its proposal is that discarding should be stopped between 2014 and 2016. That ignores the fact that most discards are due to CFP measures. If we set quotas and total allowable catches in mixed fisheries, we inevitably get discards because fishermen cannot land anything outside their quota. The proposal also takes no account of the fact that the Commission’s cod plan led to more discards—the cod catch did not increase as the cod stocks grew, so cod was being caught and chucked back. That was a failure to adjust the policy quickly enough.

These proposals also ignore the fact that the industry has already reduced discards by 50% over 10 years. That is the way we have to go. The industry has to do it by technical measures. Square-mesh panels, for example, were a great innovation and helped to reduce discards. Let us work from that path and to a longer timetable, as the report suggests, and not to the too-intense, too-tight timetable in the Commission’s proposals.

The same goes for the maximum sustainable yields. It is a good idea to identify the mortality level that will maintain high yields, but it is crazy to propose that the most vulnerable stock should determine the limits of exploitation for all other species in that area. That is folly. It will place limits on all catches in areas where one stock is threatened. Once again, that decision needs leaving to the regions to develop an approach that is suitable to their areas.

I will briefly mention common fisheries efforts to buy quotas and fishing rights in foreign jurisdictions at our expense—we pay for it. They are usually taken by the Spanish. They have about 400 vessels doing that, whereas we have about nine—so there is nothing in it for us. If the industry wants to buy quotas overseas—it has taken a fairly aggressive approach towards the small fishing fleets of poor nations—it must buy them itself and not use money from our contributions.

I shall wind my speech to a conclusion. These proposals in the so-called non-papers are not what we envisaged. The Minister has to fight against them along the lines recommended by the Committee. I shall conclude with one interesting fact in the representations from the National Federation of Fishermen’s Organisations. The approach to resource management is on YouTube, so I refer all Members to YouTube for the rest of my speech. It has a presentation by Elinor Ostrom pointing out that when we manage resources, we need the involvement of stakeholders, polycentric governance, which is what we are suggesting on the regional advisory council, and solutions tailored to the specific needs of the area, and the centre should provide oversight only. I recommend that everybody now exit the Chamber and turn to YouTube.

15:24

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

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Austin Mitchell) and to hear his support for our report.

The common fisheries policy is friendless—I think we will hear more about that from hon. Members this afternoon. However, it is not just we who say that: it is the fishermen, the environmentalists, to whom it has not been the solution they expected, and—let us face it—now the population at large, to whose attention the issue of discards has been brought. Discards are the very manifestation of the failure of the CFP. However, we have to be careful, as my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Miss McIntosh) said in opening the debate, to ensure that we do not wish for the end of discards without explaining how to get there. We all want to see the end of discards, but the current system, with the mixed quota and a mixed fishery, does not allow for it. We therefore have to proceed in a measured, step-by-step way that will allow for what we all ultimately want: the end of discards.

I cannot overstate the mess and confusion that the industry faces. If Mephistopheles himself had tried to design a system intended to confuse and inhibit people, and to get the worst possible outcome for all the stakeholders, he just might have come up with the current system.

[Jim Shannon]

Just to step back to the issue of discards for one second, the hon. Lady will be aware of the progressive steps that local fishing organisations have taken to try to address it—through net sizes and so on. Does she feel that those steps—put forward by fishing organisations and coming straight from the industry itself—should be taken on board as a way of addressing the issue of discards directly?

[Amber Rudd]

I agree entirely. Local organisations and local communities are coming up with their own solutions, which is absolutely to be recommended. It also points the way even more to what we have been hearing this afternoon, which is that we should have regional solutions, so that although we will allow a common fisheries policy to exercise overall control, we want regional solutions, selected within Governments.

[Mr MacNeil]

I am sure that the hon. Lady is aware that there is a zero-discard fishery quite close to UK waters, off the Faroe Islands. The boats go and fish, the area is closed, and they move on. The common fisheries policy is a manifestation of the obtuseness of European policy. Europe cannot move quickly to a working solution that is already being used off the north-west of the UK. A discard is only a bureaucratic label for a fish that cannot be landed, owing to other problems created by that very mechanism. The way out is already in existence. However, I have been in this place for seven years and I have attended many of these debates, and we face the same problem all the time. We cannot move the obtuse juggernaut that is the common fisheries policy—end of story. We are stuck.

[Amber Rudd]

I am not really familiar with the context of fishing off the Faroe Islands, but I am sure that the Minister is and that he will throw some light on the issue.

I return, however, to the main issue I have with discards, which is that that they are, I believe, down to the quota system being allocated for particular fish stocks, rather than for what we actually have, which is mixed fisheries. In part, that is an indication that we have a major problem with the fishing industry. I am entirely sympathetic—I know that many other Members here are too, as are those on our Committee—when it comes to the difficult pass that the Minister has been given. He has to find a difficult balance between the different interests in the fishing industry.

[Sheryll Murray]

Does my hon. Friend agree that part of the problem with a mixed fishery is that different sized nets are needed for different species of fish? Some fish, such as cephalopods—squid or octopus—grow a lot more quickly than other species. That is why we have such a big problem, and there is no simple solution.

[Amber Rudd]

My hon. Friend is well known for being incredibly knowledgeable about these issues, and she refers to one tool of the trade—changing the mesh size—that could be used to limit the quota and the type of fish stocks landed. She is also absolutely right in her final point. This is indeed a complicated issue, and there is no simple solution. Indeed, looking back on it, it seems that every time a Government or a Minister has tried to make a change for the better, the law of unintended consequences applies—we move a little bit this way and something happens on the other side. At the moment, the Minister is caught between trying to manage the divergent interests of the larger fishermen, in the POs, and those of the smaller fishing communities, in the under-10-metre fleet.

[Andrew George]

The hon. Lady says that there is no simple solution. As the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Mr MacNeil) suggested, either the quota system, which is a blunt instrument, could carry on in its present form, or we could get rid of it and base fishing policy on effort control. The problem with getting rid of it is that quota is marketable and has great value, and I do not think that any Government would want to compensate all those people who have valuable fishing—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. Can we have shorter interventions? A lot of Members still want to speak, and I would say to anyone who tries to make a speech by means of an intervention that it is not going to happen.

[Amber Rudd]

The hon. Gentleman makes an interesting and quite radical suggestion, which brings me to my next point. Perhaps the Minister should consider an independent review of some sort. There are so many different interests involved, and so many ways of trying to move the goalposts and achieve one outcome or another, that I am not sure it is possible for one Minister to act as referee. Perhaps he should consider appointing an arbitrator to conduct an independent review, in order to achieve an outcome on which all the stakeholders could agree.

One proposal on common fisheries policy reform that our report has looked at involves transferrable fishing concessions. My concern, and that of other Members, is reflected in the report. It is that such concessions would not be good for the under-10 metre community. The evidence from other countries is that they have worked against smaller communities, and that the under-10s tend to suffer under them. Those communities tend to lose out in the initial allocation of quota, there is no route for new entrants, and the environmental and social performance is not taken into consideration. Under the present proposals, there is 5% of potential quota allocation for environmental and social performance. I would propose—this is not in the report—that, if we had such a system, there should be a far greater amount allocated to social and environmental performance, which is incredibly important. That would also help to stimulate the under-10 metre communities, which tend to do a lot of social and environmental work locally

The nub of the matter is the question why can we not have a fisheries policy that supports fishing communities? Our current policy has failed—the evidence of that is in our report. Communities find themselves diminished, and the discards continue. We need a new impetus, a new effort and new ideas. Under the new Government, we definitely got the new effort. We began well, by introducing a measure that the smaller, under-10-metre communities had been seeking for a while—namely, a one-off re-allocation of the quota. Obviously, as someone who comes from such a community, I would say that that was not enough, and that it was too conservative, but the Minister will have found, when he embarked on the re-allocation, that he had entered a swamp of divisiveness and infighting between the different interests. The previous Government tried to work with the under-10-metre communities, but they ended up suffering from fishing reform fatigue and gave up on their effort to help. Another great advantage of having a Conservative coalition Government is that we have a new impetus and a new effort. I say to the Minister: keep up the energy and the enthusiasm, so that we can get the reforms that this country so badly needs.

I want to reiterate my concerns about the transferrable fishing concessions. We must not allow them to cement what should be a public resource as a private commodity. When the Committee went down to Hastings and held discussions with both sectors, they acknowledged the need for decommissioning. As hon. Members have said, however, there have been problems with that in the past, even though it was supported by Government money. The hon. Member for Aberdeen North (Mr Doran) mentioned that the process had had limited success.

In Hastings, we also welcome the support for alternative initiatives. We have been lucky enough to receive £1 million of the £8.7 million put aside under a European initiative involving Fisheries Local Action Groups—FLAGs—to help to support fishermen into new initiatives. I urge fellow Members to come and look at the exciting, adventurous work being done on the Stade in Hastings, where our fishing fleet is, to find alternative methods of employing fishermen and to upgrade their kit and provide new tractors. That is a positive way of trying to help our fishermen into the future.

Above all, when we consider how we can help our fishermen, we need to try carefully to find the balance between satisfying the environmentalists, which we all are, the fishermen who need to continue their lives and the needs of the population who will not accept a system that has so many discards. I am fortunate to come from Hastings, where fishing is so important. It is crucial that my residents in Hastings and Rye know that this issue is taken very seriously. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s reply and the remaining comments from other Members.

15:35

[Dr Eilidh Whiteford (Banff and Buchan) (SNP)]

I begin by congratulating the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Miss McIntosh) on securing the debate and particularly on the work she and her Select Committee have done on the reform process for the common fisheries policy. It is very important for this to get the scrutiny it needs. The CFP is of huge significance for the fishing communities in Banff and Buchan, but coastal communities all around the coastline have a real stake in the outcome of these negotiations.

The successful reform of the common fisheries policy is going to stand or fall on whether or not measures can be put in place to decentralise decision making. That is very much at the heart of the debate, and I welcome the focus that the Chair of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee placed on that issue in her remarks. I am concerned that, if we do not achieve that decentralisation, we will preside over the further demise of our fishing communities and the destruction of our marine environment.

I suspect that the commitment to decentralisation is shared across this House, and it is widely shared in many other fishing nations in the European Community. The problem is that the Commission’s proposals to date do not set out any workable mechanism for that to happen. There is no framework for regional co-operation among member states. Until we have that framework and that mechanism, I am afraid that our ambitions for decentralising the CFP will remain aspirational.

The part of the Committee’s report that was rightly the focus of its Chair’s remarks—and it has rightly attracted considerable attention outside this Chamber, too—is, of course, the suggestion that the exclusive competence of the Lisbon treaty could be interpreted to allow aspects of fisheries management to be devolved to member states. It goes without saying that I would like that to be the case and I hope that the treaty can be interpreted in that way. I am sure that many lawyers are rubbing their hands in glee at the prospect of a process of legal debate on the wording of the treaty to see whether it can be interpreted in that way.

It would be fair to say that, to date, the Commission has taken quite a restrictive view on how the treaty can be interpreted. In that sense, I do not want to be the party pooper, but I think we need to temper our expectations. I would love to be optimistic, but I want to hear from the Minister whether the Government have taken legal advice on this aspect of the Committee’s report. I would be very keen to know what progress we might be able to make at the European level from the proposals in the report. I look forward to hearing his remarks; I hope his legal advice will give us some cause for optimism. We also need to know from him what progress has been made in building support for decentralisation across the other member states, which will, of course, be crucial.

Decentralisation is also crucial to the sustainable management of our fish stocks and the sustainability of fishing communities and our fishing industry. If we look at the progress made since the introduction of the regional advisory councils and the industry’s involvement in fishing management, we can see that it is much better for the people affected by the decisions to be involved in the decision making. In those circumstances, we get much better outcomes.

What we have seen in Scotland with the conservation credit scheme—with increased use of selective gears, catch quotas and real-time closures—is that all its measures have contributed to significant improvements in sustainability. We have seen dramatic reductions in discards and dramatic increases in the number of stocks certified by the Marine Stewardship Council as being from sustainable sources. Crucially—this is the key point on the issue of discards—it prevented the need to discard fish by avoiding unwanted catches in the first place. That has to be the top priority.

If we are serious about tackling the causes of discarding, we need to do it fishery by fishery, and we need to take on board the challenges of our mixed fisheries. I will not repeat the remarks of the hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Austin Mitchell), but they were extremely salient. We must look in a practical way at how we do this, and be very clear that one size simply will not fit all.

[Andrew George]

The hon. Lady said that conservation measures had resulted in a drop in discards. A seasonal closure of the Trevose ground off the north Cornish coast has led to an abundance of cod, and as a consequence most fishermen are using their monthly cod quota on the first day of every month. There is a now great deal of discarding.

[Dr Whiteford]

The hon. Gentleman makes a valid point about what is happening in his constituency, and clearly there are similar stories all along our coastline. That is a prime illustration of the fact that—as I think Members in all parts of the House agree—the present system does not work, and is not fit for purpose.

A deep-seated and long-standing problem is the issue of compliance across the European Union. It is very frustrating for our fishermen to see the rules applied so inconsistently. The fact that quota restrictions are being flouted with impunity in other parts of the EU not only causes great resentment, but undermines confidence in the system and people’s sense of ownership of the system of fisheries management. We know from the experience of recent years that conservation measures that have been developed in co-operation with the fishermen have been the most effective in conserving fish stocks. The current problems are symptomatic of a top-down CFP, and of that lack of a sense of ownership.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

Having pointed the finger elsewhere in Europe, would the hon. Lady care to comment on a recent case in the United Kingdom—indeed, in Scotland? There was a parallel landing industry, and the Government were taking levies from it.

[Dr Whiteford]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving me the opportunity to take up the comments made by the hon. Member for Aberdeen North (Mr Doran). I know that the hon. Member for Brent North (Barry Gardiner) was not present to hear that speech, but it dealt extensively with such problems.

Obviously I cannot discuss the situation while criminal proceedings are taking place, but the fact that the police launched such a successful investigation into the criminality that was taking place has taught us the lesson that we cannot take our eye off the ball in terms of our own compliance. However, we must ensure that criminality is not also symptomatic of people’s loss of confidence in the system. We should bear in mind that otherwise law-abiding people resort to it because they do not believe that the system is working.

I was glad that the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton referred to aquaculture. Because of the crisis in the sea fisheries sector, it is often not given the attention that it deserves. I am concerned about by the Commission’s proposal for multiannual national strategic plans, and, buried in there somewhere, the rather bizarre suggestion that there should be a regional advisory council for aquaculture.

I believe that Scotland is the largest producer of Atlantic salmon in the EU, and the third largest producer in the world. In 2010 we produced 154,000 tonnes of salmon, worth more than half a billion pounds at farm gate prices, which represents more than a third of Scotland’s food exports. We also export substantial amounts of shellfish including mussels, oysters and scallops, and other species such as trout and halibut. The rapid growth of the sector at a time when the rest of the economy has been stagnant has been very encouraging. It is a success story for job creation and for economic growth, including growth in remote rural communities that do not have much else going for them. I see no benefit whatsoever in imposing a new layer of European regulation and bureaucracy on that sector, and I expect a great many risks to be posed to it if we go down that road.

I have a particular constituency interest. Although Banff and Buchan is often thought of as being at the heart of the fishing industry, it is also a major centre for fish processing. The factories in the north-east process large amounts of farmed fish, and at a time when the sea fisheries are so unstable and uncertain and can fluctuate so much, the farmed fish sector has a hugely stabilising effect on the viability of the processing sector. An increase in political interference in the aquaculture sector from Brussels—or from anywhere else—would not be in anyone’s interests. We must not try to mend successful businesses that are not broken.

There is no consensus across the UK about transferable quotas—or individual transferable concessions as they are now being called. I welcome the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee’s remarks about the problems the ITCs cause for the under-10 metre fleet. Those problems are not confined to that fleet, however. Other communities will also be affected, including some in my constituency.

The real issue is that most of the fishing industry in Scotland still involves family-owned vessels that maintain a strong link to a local port. They are at the heart of communities, and I do not want those communities to be bought out by large multinational fishing conglomerates.

[Mr MacNeil]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the ITCs are a gift for speculators and that we would be bemoaning them in five or 10 years’ time?

[Dr Whiteford]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right.

My real fear is that any safeguards we put in place to protect the economic link between the quota and the community or the member state will not be robust enough to withstand the law. I suspect that they will be open to legal challenge, and that we will quickly find that our fishing communities become tradeable commodities. That would be a death blow to communities that are heavily dependent on fishing, and where there have historically been strong family and community ties at the heart of the industry.

I make this plea to the Minister, therefore: any system of quotas must not be mandatory. I would like an assurance from him on that. We must introduce a workable system that does not make such quotas mandatory.

I want to conclude by talking about the objective of social and economic sustainability. Stating that in the legislation would mark a huge step forward; it would make it clear that we want the sustainable development of our coastal communities. That recommendation in the Committee report is important, and I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton for putting it there. That move would change the whole terms of how we discuss fisheries in Europe. It would make it clear that the subject is about not only the fish in the sea, but the people who live in harmony with the ecosystem in our coastal communities, and who have done so for centuries. I urge the Minister to push for that at the European level, and, as always, I wish him well in the ongoing negotiations.

15:48

[Peter Aldous (Waveney) (Con)]

I welcome this debate, and I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Miss McIntosh) for securing it. It provides an opportunity to review the progress and speed of CFP reform, a subject in which many people across the country, and not just in coastal constituencies, are extremely interested.

My initial thought was to start with an apology for being parochial, as my main objective is to promote the interests of the under-10 metre fleet and local fishermen fishing out of Lowestoft in my constituency. I then thought again, however, and concluded that there is no need for an apology because local fishermen, fishing sustainably, are a very important part of the solution. They are best placed to help manage fisheries sensibly and responsibly and to promote what is an important part of the economy in coastal communities.

CFP reform is long overdue, and it is right that this issue is now centre stage and that there have been a number of debates on it during the first two years of this Parliament. A number of groups and people are responsible for raising the profile of the issue, but I shall single out four. The first is the Minister, who may represent a constituency as far from the coast as one can get, but who has approached his task with determination, sincerity and understanding. The second is Maria Damanaki, whose approach has, in many respects, been a welcome breath of fresh air in the corridors of Brussels. She understands the problems and has come up with proposals, which, although they may need some amendment, provide a foundation stone on which reform can take place. The third is the Select Committee on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, under the chairmanship of my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Miss McIntosh)—

[Daniel Kawczynski (Shrewsbury and Atcham) (Con)]

The exemplary chairmanship.

[Peter Aldous]

The exemplary chairmanship, indeed. The Committee has now carried out two inquiries and has published two detailed reports setting out the challenges that need to be tackled. My fourth mention goes to the fourth estate, in the form of Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall. He has brought the scandals and obscenities of the CFP into the nation’s living rooms. He has reached the parts that politicians today cannot reach on their own.

The stage has now been set. It is accepted that the system is broken and that it has failed both fish and fishermen alike. We now need to press ahead with putting a new system in place. That will not be easy, as there are those with vested interests, such as other countries in the EU and those who hold quotas and do not fish, who will resist reform.

As the motion sets out, there is a need to move from a centralised, bureaucratic decision-making system to decentralised arrangements that respond to the needs of local fisheries and local communities. If we go on as we are now, fishing communities around the country, such as the community in my constituency, which is in any case a very pale shadow of its former self—

[Sheryll Murray]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the port of Lowestoft has probably lost more vessels than any other? I am particularly thinking of the Colne fleet and a lot of the inshore vessels, too.

[Peter Aldous]

I agree entirely with my hon. Friend. I am conscious of the fact that Samuel Richards, who built a lot of the trawlers over the past century or so, was originally a Cornishman who moved up to Lowestoft where he set up his shipyard. In Lowestoft, people used to be able to walk across the trawl basin, from one trawler to the next, but now we have no more than 15 under-10 metre boats and we cannot do that. It is not just trawlers and the fishermen who go; the whole supply chain is affected, too. Remarkably, despite that utter devastation, the infrastructure is still in place in Lowestoft, and that is what we now need to save.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

I have been listening carefully to my hon. Friend. My constituency is miles from the coast, but it does seem that the CFP is a disaster and that things are going to be really dreadful. A little fisherman—one in the under-10 metre fleet—will have to be illegal or will go out of business, as is clear in Lowestoft. Does he agree with that perception?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

Order. Before the hon. Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous) starts speaking again, may I remind hon. Members that we have an 11-minute time limit? We are going to overshoot because of interventions, so either the interventions will have to decrease or the time limit will go down. Time has not been docked from the hon. Gentleman, but we will not conclude this debate on time if we do not follow that approach.

[Peter Aldous]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I agree entirely with what my hon. Friend has just said.

We also need to have regard to our fish stocks. Three quarters of the EU fish stocks are over-fished, and only eight of 47 fish stocks in UK waters are in a healthy state. There is a need to protect spawning grounds and to manage fisheries responsibly.

Fisheries from the Mediterranean to the sub-Arctic are so varied that a one-size-fits-all approach cannot continue. There is a need for a range of tailored measures designed to suit the needs of individual fisheries. Maria Damanaki’s vision of the EU as a lighthouse, with member states steering the ship, is the course that we should look to pursue. There is a need to involve local fishermen, such as those in Lowestoft, to make full use of their expertise and knowledge, which has been built up over generations. They should be working alongside scientists, such as those at the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science, which is also in Lowestoft.

The European Commission has stated that it wants a scientifically set maximum sustainable yield for all fisheries to be in operation by 2015, while the Environment Food and Rural Affairs Committee has questioned whether that is realistic and whether we should instead be aiming for 2020. I am aware that in reaching that conclusion the Committee has carried out much research and its approach is underpinned by pragmatism, but I am worried about whether the recommendation sends out the right message. Commercial fishing in many of Britain’s coastal communities is in the last-chance saloon and some fish stocks are severely depleted. There is no time to waste. We need to be tackling the problems that we face now, putting in place a more sustainable management regime as quickly as possible.

The campaign to eliminate discards should be stepped up as soon as practically possible. That is what the nation wants and as their representatives we must do all that we can to deliver. There is no single solution; there is a need for a range of measures. We should develop new markets for less valued species. Consumers and retailers have responded positively in this regard in the last year and the Government need to work with them to go a step further. For example, we should be considering clearer labelling so that shoppers can make informed purchasing choices. An extension of the catch quota system that the Minister has piloted should be considered, alongside the adoption of more selective fishing practices as trialled in CEFAS’s Project 50%. Fishermen should also be making full use of modern technology, using the equipment that organisations such as CEFAS are developing.

There is a need to win over the hearts and minds of groups and countries that might see things differently. MEPs have a role to play and, indeed, in the east of England, Geoffrey Van Orden is doing that work in Brussels, while through the media Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall is taking his campaign on to the international stage in France, Germany and Poland and, some might say, going into the lion’s den in Spain.

An issue about which I feel strongly is quotas, the system through which the domestic industry is managed. The current arrangements are discredited and do not work in a fair and equitable way. The fish in our seas are a public resource yet they seem to have acquired proprietorial rights with companies and organisations, often with no connection to fishing, leasing them out for substantial profit. The under-10 metre boats that make 76% of the domestic fleet have access to only 3% of quota.

[Dr Wollaston]

Does my hon. Friend accept that Marine Management Organisation statistics reveal that only 33 English vessels caught more than 80% of the monthly catch limits for quotas for more than six months in each of the past four years?

[Peter Aldous]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. I was going to come on to the fact that when the under-10 metre boats in my area have used up their quota they have been reduced to going to these slipper skippers with a begging bowl to rent quota, so that they can continue to go to sea to earn a living. It is not reasonable to expect people to run a business and invest in it while such a bizarre scenario prevails.

We also have the bizarre situation whereby we do not have a register of who holds quota and do not know what proportion of it is used each year. In the 21st century, no industry should be regulated in such a lazy way with such a lack of transparency. The CFP reforms envisage quota being traded at a national level, and although I can question whether such a rights-based approach is appropriate, I believe that if we are to go down that road, we must wipe the slate clean and start again. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Hastings and Rye (Amber Rudd), I urge the Minister to give full consideration to commissioning a full independent inquiry on the quota system, providing the inquiry team with a brief to make recommendations as to the future form and use of the system which takes account of the needs of the whole national fleet, not just a small part of it. We should not just tinker with a system that was originally devised in the 1970s, when conditions were completely different and the under-10-metre fleet were not as prominent as it is today.

In the past two years, the Minister has achieved a great deal. The proposals coming forward offer the prospect of a new deal for fish and fishermen, although an awful lot of work is still required on the detail of new schemes, both at European and domestic levels. I am concerned about the pace of reform and that vested interests could delay progress. My concern is that we cannot afford to wait. Fishing has been part and parcel of Lowestoft for centuries; if we delay reform, there will not be an industry left.

16:00

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

First, I apologise to the House because I was introducing a debate in Westminster Hall at the beginning of the debate and was therefore unable to listen to the remarks of the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Miss McIntosh), who chairs the Select Committee. I pay tribute to her for the report. I also pay tribute to the Minister, who has worked assiduously on these matters. I know that he is trying to get a very reasonable voice heard in Europe, where Commissioner Damanaki is doing a wonderful job, but is meeting rather large obstacles along the way.

Decades of intensive fishing in European waters have led to dramatic declines in once-abundant fish populations. It is estimated that 88% of all the assessed fish stocks are over-exploited and that almost a third of all assessed stocks are being fished beyond safe biological limits, threatening their very future. Of the stocks for which a scientific assessment is available, 60% of north Atlantic stocks and 40% of Mediterranean stocks are currently outside safe biological limits. Continuous over-fishing has resulted in less productive fisheries and a gradual loss of jobs and livelihoods. Words such as overfishing, discarding, habitat destruction, unemployment and subsidy dependence characterise EU fisheries. However, we have a unique opportunity, with the reform of the common fisheries policy, to rectify some of those failures.

At the heart of the motion is the demand that CFP reforms should adopt greater regional ecosystem-based management, but if such management is to succeed, it must recognise and respect the commercial interests of fishing communities. Ecological sustainability must go hand in hand with economic sustainability. The New Economics Foundation recently published a report that concluded that more than €3 billion is lost every year due to over-fishing. That money could support an extra 100,000 jobs in the industry. When fish stocks are mismanaged, fishers, their communities and the whole economy suffer.

Some people misinterpret ecosystem-management as putting the benefit of fish before that of fishers, but without sustainable fish stocks there is no fishing industry. The history of our coastal areas sadly bears witness to that, as fishing communities from Stonehaven to Newcastle and from Grimsby to Cornwall have declined over the past century and a half. It is always comfortable for Members of Parliament to support small fishing communities, particularly those in their constituency, but we should also have the courage to point out that the demise of fishing communities is the result of their parents and grandparents’ over-fishing.

The ecosystem-based approach is fundamental to sustainable environmental management. It establishes a strategy for the management and sustainable use of natural resources by considering them in the context of their role in the entire ecosystem. The current CFP and the EU marine strategy framework directive already commit the EU in principle to that approach. Indeed, the CFP was significantly reformed in 2002 with a view to implementing the principles of ecosystem-based management. The tragedy is that that has not been reflected in practice. True ecosystem-based fisheries management would require systemic reform through the introduction of a regionalised management framework. A regionalised management system within Europe would divide EU fisheries into management regions according to ecosystems rather than nations. Unfortunately, fish do not carry passports and do not know when they are travelling from one nation’s waters into another’s, so we must look at ecosystems and not simply national boundaries.

[Mr MacNeil]

When the hon. Gentleman talks about ecosystems, is he talking about migratory stocks, non-migratory stocks or straddling stocks? What sorts of stocks does he mean?

[Barry Gardiner]

Let me give the hon. Gentleman a good example: the Baltic ecosystem and the surrounding countries engaged in its regional management structure. He will know that in recent years east Baltic cod had gone into sharp decline. As a result of the regionally based management structure in the Baltic, those countries agreed, on the advice of the regional fisheries management organisation, to halt the catching of east Baltic cod. After putting that moratorium in place, they then allowed an increase each year of only 15%, which was actually below the fishing maximum sustainable yield; if they had had FMSY the biomass of the stock would actually have recovered less quickly. They put that moratorium in place on a regional basis and in accordance with the ecosystem, and those stocks have now recovered to a level that has far surpassed what they were and what they would have been had those countries opted for FMSY: the stocks have actually achieved biomass MSY.

[Mr MacNeil]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way again and allowing the debate to continue. Does he not see that one stock’s ecosystem is not the same as another’s? When he moved to ecosystem management he would start to have a geographical impact and to impose geographical limits on that, and very quickly he would go down the slippery slope with the common fisheries policy, which at the moment is an utter mess.

[Barry Gardiner]

rose—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

Order. Would the hon. Gentleman ensure that he faces the Chair when replying to that intervention? I could not catch everything he said when he responded to the previous one.

[Barry Gardiner]

Yes, Madam Deputy Speaker.

Of course ecosystems interact with each other, and in so far as the hon. Gentleman makes that point it is absolutely unexceptional. None the less, scientists and fishermen look at those ecosystems. Of course there are migratory stocks, straddling stocks, nurseries where fish spawn and spawning grounds that need to be protected, but the point is to look at this as part of the ecosystem and not simply to divide it up into national countries’ interests. We need a regionalised framework based around significant ecosystems so that we can manage those stocks more effectively.

At present, even detailed technical decisions are taken centrally in Europe. The Lisbon treaty provides that the EU has exclusive competence under the CFP. However, the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee report makes an interesting case for a lawful way of qualifying the EU’s exclusive competence over the conservation of marine resources, thereby creating a framework for genuine regionalisation. It argues that exclusive competence does not apply where the CFP does not apply. Therefore, if the CFP regulations were amended to exclude certain marine conservation policies, the scope of the exclusive competence would be limited to the amended CFP.

The establishment of regional advisory councils is cited as a key success of the 2002 CFP reform because they have served as forums for stakeholders to inform policy implementation at a regional level. The trouble is that they have no decision-making powers. Although the draft basic regulation that sets out the main rules for the CFP would address centralised decision making through a combination of multi-annual plans and regionalisation of decision making, I think that a fully regionalised management system should include the following features: quotas allocated on the basis of ecosystem regions in order to manage fishing pressures according to the necessities of those different ecosystems; regular scientific assessment of all marine species, not just fish stocks, within a given eco-region in order to establish the impact of fishing on the ecosystem as a whole; and quota allocation on the basis of eco-regions with different licences used in different ecosystem regions and with no transfers between those regions.

Certain decision-making powers need to be devolved to regional management bodies in order to tailor the application of central policy objectives for EU fisheries to the specifics of each ecosystem. The main tool for fisheries management is the annual setting of total allowable catches. Currently, the European Commission requests scientific advice for the establishment of fisheries management plans on the basis of sustainability. However, the European Council is under no obligation to adhere to that advice when agreeing total annual quotas for stocks.

The result is that the European Fisheries Council sets total allowable catch limits that are on average 34% higher than scientifically recommended sustainable limits. In the period 1987 to 2011, European Fisheries Ministers set fishing quotas above scientific recommendations in 68% of their decisions. In the case of one hake stock, quotas were set 1,100% higher than scientists advised.

Over-fishing has made the fishing industry economically vulnerable, but over-fishing does not have just economic costs; it has social and environmental ones as well. At the Johannesburg world summit on sustainable development in 2002, the EU committed to achieving MSY—maximum sustainable yield—for all fish stocks by 2015 at the latest, but in 2010 it estimated that 72% of its fisheries remained over-fished, with 20% fished beyond safe biological limits, risking the wholesale collapse of those fisheries.

The zero draft for the forthcoming United Nations sustainable development conference in Rio calls on states to maintain or restore depleted fish stocks to sustainable levels, and further to commit to implementing science-based management plans to rebuild stocks by 2015.

The EU marine strategy framework directive requires that all EU fisheries achieve good environmental status by 2020, including the attainment of sustainable fishing levels for all stocks.

[Andrew George]

On the primary thesis that the hon. Gentleman seeks to advance, he claims that fishing communities are in decline because of over-fishing, but might it not also be because of inept policy, whereby fishermen have to catch far more fish but most are thrown back dead?

[Barry Gardiner]

Discards have been widely debated in this Chamber, and I shall try to come on to that issue, but time is limited, so I must press on. I acknowledge the force of the hon. Gentleman’s remarks, however.

MSY is the largest catch that can be sustained over the long term, but there is FMSY and BSMY, fishing maximum sustainable yield and biomass maximum sustainable yield. The argument that I made to the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Mr MacNeil), who speaks for the Scottish National party, was precisely to that point, because we can go on getting FMSY out of a small stock, but if we want to achieve the largest possible catch we need to build the biomass MSY to ensure that we then get a sustainable yield out of that much larger biomass.

That is why I absolutely urge the Minister to support Commissioner Damanaki in saying that we have to achieve FMSY by 2015, albeit that biomass MSY might not be achieved until sometime after that—I hope as soon as possible, but no later than 2020, as the stocks demand.

Achieving that aim by 2015 will necessitate the following key measures: first, rendering scientific advice binding, thus preventing quotas from exceeding biologically sustainable limits; and, secondly, introducing stock assessments and management plans for all fish and shellfish, including non-commercial species that are currently unmanaged, in order to establish sustainable limits for harvesting. Ensuring that all fish and shellfish are harvested at sustainable levels is an absolute prerequisite of the future profitability and survival of EU fisheries.

But we also need to think about the issue in terms of biomass—something that the Committee’s report does not address. A biomass MSY is the biomass that can support the harvest of that maximum sustainable yield. Achieving MSY as set out in the draft CFP means rebuilding fish populations to a level of biomass maximum sustainable yield in order to support the level of annual catches—and viable fishing communities, their economies and their social needs.

In an effort to limit fishing to sustainable levels, EU regulations under the common fisheries policy prohibit the landing of commercial species above a given annual quota. In practice, however, that often results in the discarding of thousands of tonnes of saleable fish—but just at the point when I am about to answer the question asked by the hon. Member for St Ives (Andrew George), I fear, Madam Deputy Speaker, that you are going to tell me that I have run out of time.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

Order. Absolutely spot-on. The hon. Gentleman is quite correct.

16:14

[Eric Ollerenshaw (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Con)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Miss McIntosh) for the report and for the way in which she introduced the debate, and I thank the Minister for his support in the past.

I am in a somewhat different situation from other hon. Members in this regard. My hon. Friend the Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous) talked about the cuts in Lowestoft. In Fleetwood, we already have hardly any boats left as over time there has been virtually a complete destruction of the fishing fleet. I remember as a child on holiday in Blackpool, because my father would only take us to Blackpool— [Interruption.] Well, he always used to say that Blackpool has got everything you want—it has got the sand, it has got the sea, and there is always something to do when it rains. On some days, we used to go to Fleetwood to see the fishing boats coming in. For 100 years, that was the core of Fleetwood’s very existence. It has been sad to see, now as its Member of Parliament, the heart almost ripped out of it over the years.

To be fair, that was not just due to the common fisheries policy: it began with the cod war. I thank the hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Austin Mitchell), who is in his place, for giving me an induction lesson in cod war compensation schemes when I first entered the House, as well as teaching me how to deal with fishermen. I thought that dealing with farmers was complex, but dealing with fishermen is certainly so—and, one hopes, rewarding. I have certainly learned a lot.

Every hon. Member has referred to the failure of the CFP. The hon. Member for Brent North (Barry Gardiner) talked about mismanagement of fish stocks by coastal communities, but the mismanagement of this policy has been much worse. Anyone can go to Fleetwood and listen to people’s stories about seeing boat after boat disappear and trying to deal with the quota system, and then the disgrace of the discard system, which has finally come to the fore publicly. The CFP has been an absolute and utter failure that could have resulted in the destruction of the town were it not for the resilience of Mr and Mrs Fleetwood in getting on and doing other things, although they still feel the loss when they see the harbour. I think that we have 27 licensed under-10-metre boats that go out part time. The number of boats that fish full time is probably fewer than the fingers on my hand, and they are usually fishing for shellfish, particularly Dublin Bay prawns. I thank the Minister for ensuring that there were no cuts to the quota for Dublin Bay prawns in the Irish sea in 2012. That was extremely welcome.

Unless there is some chance of bringing home these powers, and therefore some possibility that we might get new Fleetwood people going into fishing, this is, for them, an intellectual debate that they have heard many times before. Perhaps understandably, their distrust of politicians of all persuasions is massive. As the Minister secured the quotas, it would be fantastic if he could come home with some other measures showing that there might be a possibility of British ships and British seamen fishing in British seas. That is what people are after.

We have discussed the worry about regionalisation, which has been mentioned by the National Federation of Fishermen’s Organisations and by the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Dr Whiteford), who is not in her seat at the moment. Are we going to end up in a similar situation to that under the cod management plan, with the appearance of regionalisation but still with all the rules set centrally so that all that is left for the region is to try to deal with that while seeing more people go out of business? As a north-west MP, I have to ask what will happen in the north-west if we get proper regionalisation? What will that mean on the ground? Presumably we will still have to deal with the situation in the Irish sea. Perhaps there could be an Irish sea forum between us in the north-west, the devolved Scottish Parliament, the devolved Welsh Assembly, the Isle of Man Government, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. I am sure that common sense could prevail in terms of what the fishermen of all those countries know and do.

Again, I take issue with the hon. Member for Brent North. Conservation is the sole interest of all the fishermen I have met, because they see it as vital to their future business. They want to do it, but they distrust all the scientific evidence because it has often come from Europe and resulted in scientists telling them to follow the policy of discard and throw back healthy fish that they could have landed. That is what has taken away their belief in any so-called scientific analysis of what is going on.

[Barry Gardiner]

I do not want to take up time, but does the hon. Gentleman acknowledge that it is the scientists who have been pressing for the discards to be landed so that they can make a proper assessment of the biomass and look at the ecology as a whole?

[Eric Ollerenshaw]

I do acknowledge that. However, I am trying to explain how a Fleetwood fisherman who now has to fish part time sees a wealth of different evidence and wonders who pulls the strings on the evidence.

I want to introduce another matter—one which I know will delight the Minister. Once he has dealt with the problems of the common fisheries policy, another issue that we face is that of wind farms and wind farm applications in the Irish sea, and the compensation for fisherman resulting from those developments. We have to deal with the Department of Energy and Climate Change on that matter and on new transmission lines, with the Department for Transport on ferry links, and with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs on the so-called common fisheries policy. This might sound revolutionary, but perhaps we need a Secretary of State for the Seas to bring those issues together so that fishermen can go to one door and find out what is going on.

I do not want to detain the House any longer. As I have said, I feel as though I am in a different position from other Members. To people in Fleetwood and beyond, this is a test case of whether the coalition Government can deliver. They are enthusiastic about much that the Minister has done. I am grateful to him for the extent to which he goes out to meet fishermen. However, this remains a test case of what is possible. People in Fleetwood hope to see the day when one or two more people can at last take up fishing in what they regard as their waters.

16:21

[Ms Margaret Ritchie (South Down) (SDLP)]

I commend the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Miss McIntosh) and the Backbench Business Committee for facilitating this debate. I recently became a member of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee and I commend it for its report and for the motion.

I pay tribute to the Minister, who visited my constituency some weeks ago. In particular, he visited the fishing port of Kilkeel and saw at first hand the good work that is being undertaken by the fishermen, the fish producers’ organisations and those involved in fish processing. He will also have witnessed and heard about the problems faced by the fishermen and the fish producers’ organisations, such as the cabling in the Irish sea and the potential for wind farms, to which the hon. Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood (Eric Ollerenshaw) referred. The fish producers’ organisations are actually working with the Crown Estate to ensure that there is no interference in the fishing effort and that there is a future livelihood for the fishermen of the County Down ports.

Other issues confront the County Down fishermen, such as reduced fishing effort, the closure of the Irish sea at certain times and quota restrictions. Those issues all impact on their livelihood and on the onshore fish processing industries. However, I assure hon. Members that those fishermen and the local fish producers’ organisations possess an indomitable spirit, despite all the problems that they face.

There is a consensus among environmental campaigners, politicians and those who work in our fishing industries that the common fisheries policy is in need of serious and drastic reform. We have an opportunity to make that reform and it is vital that we create a viable, economically productive and sustainable fishing industry in our waters. Nobody disagrees with that, although people’s emphasis may differ. It is clear that the existing Brussels-based regime has severely damaged the industry and has not delivered a sustainable and environmentally sound fisheries market.

At the root of the problems with the common fisheries policy are the single species fishing quotas, which are often rigidly enforced, but are supported by the flimsiest scientific data. It is more than likely that we will find ourselves having the same argument, and probably the same problems, with the concept of the maximum sustainable yield. Fish species do not exist in a vacuum. They inhabit an ecosystem, and surely they should be managed on that basis. We must take into account the fact that most fisheries are mixed, and an approach must be taken of close co-operation with those who work on our waterways and throughout the industry on a daily basis.

It is sometimes suggested or implied that fishermen do not have much regard for sustainability, but of course they do. Nobody has more knowledge of, or as much at stake in, the sustainable management of our waters. Indeed, the Minister was fortunate enough to see that during his recent visit to Kilkeel.

As we have heard, the rigid and inflexible single species quotas that are set on dry land are unresponsive to the requirements of the marine environment and those who earn their living from it. That is most strikingly problematic in the case of Irish sea cod, and I urge the Minister to focus his attention on it. We must seek solutions to the problems that the fishing industry faces with that stock. The current measures rely heavily on the single easily obtainable metric of fish mortality, which has not proved a realistic indicator of overall species levels and mortality. It is essential that the Minister work with the fishing industry, his colleagues in the Northern Ireland Executive and the Irish Government to ensure that we navigate our way out of that problem in the Irish sea.

Many of the problems are said to be related to an over-reliance on particular stock such as cod, but we must realise that the fishing industry partly responds to demand rather than simply creating it. Thankfully, there have been encouraging trends suggesting that consumers and retailers are beginning to respond to sustainability measures, with certified retailers stocking 41% more certified products last year and a corresponding sales increase, according to the Marine Stewardship Council. However, there clearly remains much work to be done to create a broader base of fish species that underpin and drive the market.

I turn to the vexatious issue of discards. Nobody disagrees that we need to reduce and, I suppose, eliminate them, but the question is how we do that. When we do it is also important. A high proportion of discards are what I would call legislative discards—those that are brought about by an inefficient policy regime and inflexible quotas. When the Minister visited Kilkeel, he saw at first hand the progress that the local fish producers’ organisation had made in its attempt to deal with the issue of discards. My constituents have been particularly innovative in trying to address the problem.

[Mr MacNeil]

I imagine that before there was a common fisheries policy, there were in effect no discards at all. That underlines the hon. Lady’s argument that the problem of discards is a creation of the CFP.

[Ms Ritchie]

I thank the hon. Gentleman, and I agree that the problems of sustainable yield, discards and the need for regionalisation all derive from the problems presented by the common fisheries policy. All the Members who have spoken have mentioned those problems. Any effective measure must respond to those who fish in our waters, because for a fisherman nothing goes against the grain more than wasting perfectly good fish. We must acknowledge the good work that has already been done.

[Andrew George]

Although of course I agree with the thrust of the hon. Lady’s argument about quotas and discards, does she accept that it is not possible to distinguish between intended and unintended by-catch?

[Ms Ritchie]

I suppose I could agree to a certain extent with that assertion. There is no doubt that our fishing industries in Britain and Northern Ireland face many similar problems, one of which is discards. To go back, however, that is one of the problems that is derived directly from the common fisheries policy.

On the need for decentralisation, at a broader level the common fisheries policy needs to be more regionally sensitive. There needs to be more regional input and representation in respect of the reforms and throughout EU fisheries negotiations. We also need meaningful and impactful regionalisation that delivers real change rather than talks about it. At the same time, we should recognise that such regionalisation needs to be enacted in a coherent, not disjointed, manner.

I urge the Minister to work closely with his ministerial counterparts in Dublin and the Northern Ireland Executive to develop an approach that makes the fishing industry economically productive and sustainable across these islands, and one that is operational for us on a north/south basis in Ireland. Measures enacted in the Irish sea have a clear impact on the movement of fish shoals to other areas. Fish do not recognise national identities. We must remember that fish shoals are not static and management of them can be successful only if it is done in a joined-up manner with clear regional input.

In summary and in conclusion, the reform of the common fisheries policy provides the British Government and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs with an opportunity to work with the EU to provide a framework whereby the fishing industry and the coastal communities that are pivotal to it are safeguarded, and whereby a clear, positive path is provided for the sustainability of the industry, both onshore and offshore. We in Northern Ireland—I represent a constituency that has the two fishing ports of Ardglass and Kilkeel—believe that one of the best approaches is through decentralisation from the common fisheries policy and some degree of control being devolved to the local area.

16:29

[Oliver Colvile (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Miss McIntosh) on securing the debate, and add my tribute to her. I have known her for 30 years since she worked for the European Democratic group in the European Parliament. She has retained her interest, vision and energy in a very big way.

As many hon. Members will be aware, I represent a constituency that has one of the principal fishing ports in the south-west—it is second only to Brixham, which is in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes (Dr Wollaston). The port has been significantly affected by the former and late Prime Minister Edward Heath’s disastrous decision to hand over fishing waters to the Common Market as part of those 1972 negotiations. The arguments at that time were that European fishing waters should not be owned by one country, but be considered as a common European resource. That approach has been far too isolationist and protectionist, and has failed to take fully into account the impact that other parts of the world, and specifically the Antarctic, have on the Atlantic ocean’s fishing grounds.

In just a few days’ time, on 29 March—coincidentally the birthday of the former Conservative Prime Minister, the right hon. John Major—we will commemorate at St Paul’s cathedral the centenary of the deaths of Captain Robert Falcon Scott and his companions on the ice during the ill-fated Terra Nova expedition. Just days earlier, Her Royal Highness the Princess Royal will come to Plymouth, around the corner from where Scott himself lived, to rededicate a memorial that represents courage supported by devotion and crowned by immortality, with fear, death and despair trampled underfoot. That is a very good approach. At the base of the memorial is an inscription from Tennyson’s “Ulysses”:

“To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.”

Those are very fine words.

I was delighted that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister was able to pay a private visit to the Scott memorial when he recently came to Plymouth to meet 3 Commando Brigade. I am very grateful that he has taken such a keen interest in this son of Plymouth.

While until recently Scott was considered by some as a failed British hero who lost a race to the south pole to Amundsen, the Norwegian explorer, he is now recognised by many as the father of maritime and scientific research, and 29 March will be a very proud day for all of us who revere this great British hero. The legacy of his research and that of the British Antarctic Survey, based in Cambridge, shows us very clearly the impact that climate change is having on the world’s seas and fishing stocks.

During a recent visit to the British Antarctic Survey, I learned how it is extracting 800,000 years of ice. Its analysis of the captured air bubbles allows it to estimate the atmospheric composition and the temperature of the planet over those 800,000 years. While for much of this time there has not been much change in the global climate, there has been significant change since industrialisation began some 300 years ago. The BAS explained how plankton—a staple diet for many of our fish and which can be found in the Antarctic—are in much shorter supply and, combined with over-fishing, could have a significant impact on our fishing stocks.

Just last month, my hon. Friend the Minister and I visited Plymouth marine laboratories on the Hoe. Staff there confirmed that climate change is responsible for changes in our fisheries. They noted that European anchovy and sardine—southern, warm-water species—can now be seen in the North and Baltic seas after about 40 years of absence. They believe that the dynamics of the Atlantic’s fishing stocks are strongly affected by the atmospheric conditions of all the seas throughout the world. They confirmed that half of European fishing stocks are in trouble and that there has to be better international co-operation, especially where UK waters overlap with France, Holland and Ireland.

As my hon. Friend the Minister knows, I personally continue to be a strong advocate for bringing the 200-mile UK fishing waters back under UK control, and I would be grateful if he could indicate where this suggestion has got to in his discussions with other European Fisheries Ministers.

[Mr MacNeil]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Oliver Colvile]

With great trepidation, yes.

[Mr MacNeil]

The hon. Gentleman need feel no trepidation. It has been acknowledged in common fisheries policy documents that the successful area for a fishery under national control is up to 12 miles. In the event of a possible failure by the Minister to bring back a 200-mile limit as the hon. Gentleman wants, perhaps we should look to extend the 12 miles to 199 miles, thereby leaving the area of the common fisheries policy between 199 miles and 200 miles.

[Oliver Colvile]

I have total confidence in my hon. Friend to make sure that he negotiates to bring UK fishing waters back under UK control, and I shall carry on reminding him of the need to do so.

In preparing for this debate, I also spoke to Terri Portman who runs Scott Trawlers—coincidentally—which is based in my constituency. She is in the Public Gallery today. She talked to me about some practical measures that the fishing industry is thinking about. She pointed out that since the last time we debated this subject more fisherman have lost their lives. I am reminded of this on a daily basis as I share an office with my hon. Friend the Member for South East Cornwall (Sheryll Murray), who lost her husband just a year ago under very tragic circumstances. Terri argued that our fishermen come under a great deal of pressure and are more inclined to take risks when they find the economic climate so challenging—especially with the rising cost of fuel and the lack of help from banks.

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the fisheries Minister for all his work in representing my local fishing industry’s views in Europe and for how often he has come down to Plymouth. I would be most grateful if he could tell the House how much discussion his fellow European fisheries Ministers are having on the impact of climate change on our fishing waters and about what work we are doing to ensure that we do not fall behind the United States of America, Canada and Japan, which are researching this matter in a very big way indeed.

16:40

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

It is an honour to follow the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Oliver Colvile) and to hear about the historical links to modern fishing. I also thank the Backbench Business Committee and the Chair of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Miss McIntosh), for securing this debate. It is a pleasure to serve under a Chair with so much knowledge of EFRA issues and the huge enthusiasm to match it. It rubs off on all Committee members.

It was extremely useful and informative to take part in the Committee’s visits to Hastings and Denmark, particularly to speak with the fishermen at the heart of the industry. I was truly amazed by their patience, perseverance and resilience in working with the common fisheries policy as it is now. It was a humbling experience to meet those people. My one regret was visiting the fish-gutting factory. As one of the queasiest people on this planet and despite having a heavily perfumed handkerchief, I can smell it in my nostrils to this day.

[Mr MacNeil]

I hear the hon. Lady’s criticism of the work she had to undertake, but perhaps I could make a suggestion and possibly a criticism. In researching the report, it might have been worth visiting areas and jurisdictions outside the EU perhaps running more successful fisheries policy. Perhaps the Committee could do that if another report is required. It could do some useful work visiting Iceland, the Faroe Islands and Norway, for instance, and produce another report for us next year perhaps.

[Mrs Glindon]

Discussion of that might fall within the jurisdiction of the Committee at a later date.

I spoke when the House debated the CFP last November. The fish quay at the port of North Shields had a thriving industry when I was a child. Like the hon. Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood (Eric Ollerenshaw), I, too, have seen the industry diminish slowly over the years, and it is now a shadow of what it once was. In that debate, I raised issues from the point of view of the Northumberland Inshore Fisheries and Conservation Authority. I will now relate those observations to some of the conclusions and recommendations in the Committee’s report.

NIFCA knows, from local experience, that achieving the vision and reform of the CFP has practical limitations, and it is clear that local factors need to be taken into account. The area covered by NIFCA stretches from the Scottish borders down to the Tyne, and is a mixed-fishery area, so achieving maximum sustainable yield by 2015 would be unrealistic. Having a more flexible date would therefore be a great help to our fishing industry. The recommendation in the Committee’s report to adopt the less rigid time scale of 2020 is therefore welcome and supports NIFCA’s view.

NIFCA also feels that achieving maximum sustainable yield would be crucial to determining multi-annual plans, but that the ambitious target date of 2015 could create the danger of unnecessary fishery closures. The emphasis should be on local measures to ensure sustainable and viable fisheries. Some such measures are deployed in our area now.

Like many colleagues in the Chamber today, NIFCA has stressed the need for regionalisation, down to the district level—indeed, as far as IFCAs—to strike the right balance and fully involve stakeholders. The Committee’s identification of a means to interpret the EU’s exclusive competence over certain aspects of fisheries policy—so as to allow member states to act independently to amend the common fisheries policy, albeit without requiring treaty change—gives hope for achieving NIFCA’s vision of regionalisation. DEFRA and the Government should seize on that recommendation and work with other member states to bring it to fruition.

NIFCA is continuing the commitment shown by the former sea fisheries committee to reforming the EU’s policy on discards, but believes that the Government should stress to the Commission both that there must be investment in appropriate infrastructure to enable local fleets to dispose of unwanted catch and that technical advances must also be taken into account. The authority thinks that the Government should play a bigger role in consumer education, to ensure that the extra catch landed can be marketed more effectively, as part of the overall discard reduction strategy. Ultimately, our local fishermen believe that the prospect of a complete end to discards has not been set out in sufficient detail to be viable, and that there needs to be a further debate with the industry on the issue. The recommendation to delay the discard ban until 2020 is therefore justified by those observations.

It is in the Government’s hands to negotiate a fair deal in reforming the common fisheries policy and ensure a sustainable marine environment and a viable future for our fishing communities. To that end, the Government should heed today’s motion and the Committee’s report on the proposals to reform the common fisheries policy.

16:46

[Richard Drax (South Dorset) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for North Tyneside (Mrs Glindon), who sits with me on the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee.

As I think most of the House knows, I have a healthy disregard for anything to do with the EU, and the CFP—which I would describe as a disaster—is no exception. To use “Dad’s Army” lingo, hopefully both the EU as it stands and the CFP are doomed. I entirely concur with my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Oliver Colvile). I will not rest until our waters are back under national control and those who want to fish in them are given licences by our country, so that we can control which stocks are taken from our waters. Sadly, however, that is a dream, and I have to deal with reality.

I congratulate the Minister—my good and honourable Friend on the Front Bench—on his valiant and continued efforts to ensure that the CFP is reformed, and reformed it desperately needs to be. He is right that the CFP has failed to maintain healthy fish stocks and deliver a sustainable living for our fishing industry. His demand for genuine reform of what is a broken policy must be supported. Fishing is vital to our coastal communities. I represent the coastal community of South Dorset. Fishermen there are part of our DNA, providing the lifeblood of the coastal settlements, and probably their very origins. Today, like the fish they catch, those fishermen are hopelessly enmeshed—in a net of bureaucracy, struggling against the ever-tightening rules and regulations imposed on them by a distant and unresponsive EU. Designations, quotas, fuel costs, environmental concerns, discard policies, types of tackle to be used—it all adds up to one huge snarl-up, from which they despair of escaping.

[Oliver Colvile]

Does my hon. Friend agree that as this issue affects the whole of the British isles, including Ireland—as well as the Isle of Man and Scotland, and, of course, the rest of England and Wales—it should therefore be considered by the British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly? I am a member, and I am very willing to take the issue back and encourage the assembly to consider it.

[Richard Drax]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. I would welcome any means whereby the people of this great United Kingdom could sit down and discuss how we should control our waters—so, yes!

The endless red tape is particularly difficult for fishermen working in the smaller inshore fleet, of whom we have a preponderance in South Dorset. In fact, it is impossible for some of our small fishermen to make a living. The result is a healthy scepticism, and compliance among those with the greatest stake in the process—that is, the fishermen—is perhaps not full as it should be. In constituencies such as mine, we operate small boats, as we have done for generations. Such communities have nurtured, loved and cared for their fishing areas, because to do otherwise would be to destroy their very livelihoods. There is no doubt that there is a high level of distrust between fishermen and those who we in the press used to call the suits.

[Sheryll Murray]

Does my hon. Friend believe that that is because a lot of the people representing the industry in the past have in fact represented the larger boat owners, and because the small boat owners have always felt that they did not have a voice?

[Richard Drax]

I entirely concur with my hon. Friend. Let us hope that, through people like us and others, the small fishermen will have a bigger voice in future. It will be important for them to do so.

Among the fishermen I speak to, the environmental lobby—of all kinds and colours—appears to hold sway. That is the perception. I know that my hon. Friend the Minister is aware of that, as I have written to him about this on many occasions. Indeed, he has visited my constituency on more than one occasion, for which we are all grateful. We all know that we should not plunder our seas, but we must go forward working on the basis of fact, not fiction. I am encouraged that the motion mentions the need for

“more scientific research to underpin decision-making”.

Hurrah! I welcome that.

[Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Richard Drax]

I am not allowed to; I have given way twice. I hope that my hon. Friend will forgive me if I struggle on, although I can assure him that I am not going to go on for another eight minutes and 44 seconds.

Scientific research is in the interests of all fishermen, whether from the warm Mediterranean or the icy sub-Arctic. If we do not protect our fisheries now, we will not have a fishing industry. That is a fact. Much attention has been paid to the campaign to end the practice of fish discards, in which perfectly good but dead fish are thrown back into the sea in order to meet arbitrary quotas. The rules are endlessly bent, however, because the targets are so unrealistic. I applaud the Minister’s efforts to tackle that problem on a local basis.

I acknowledge, just for once, that the European Commission has recognised the failure of the CFP and set out a series of proposals. However, the Select Committee has pointed out that the Commission is embarking on the journey without a clear plan—nothing new there! I know that the Minister has already fought off proposals that would have damaged our national interests, and I am confident, as are my fishermen, that he will continue to do that. I am also confident that our fishermen respect his work, and it is a tough job to gain the respect of fishermen, but the Minister is operating with his hands tied behind his back. Once again, our national interests are threatened by those of a much bigger entity, which purports to act for us but fails to do so. None of this comes as any surprise to those of us who are familiar with the workings of the European project.

The motion invites us to call on the Government

“to use the current round of Common Fisheries Policy reform to argue for a reduction in micro-management from Brussels”,

and, of course, I agree with that. It must be no secret by now that I would like the Government to extend that goal far, far beyond fishing. I know that the Minister will pass on that message to all the relevant people. I urge him to continue to stand up for our downtrodden fishermen around the country and, of course, those in South Dorset in particular.

16:54

[Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)]

I shall not detain the House for long, as the hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Austin Mitchell) speaks for the same fishing community as I do. His constituency takes in about 90% of Grimsby docks, and I am left with the 10% that is now called Grimsby fish dock east. I want to make a few general points but focus, as did my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood (Eric Ollerenshaw), on the impact on the livelihoods of fishing communities. When my hon. Friend spoke about his childhood visits to Blackpool and Fleetwood, it brought back my memories of my childhood, as both my father and my grandfather worked on Grimsby docks, and I can recall visits to famous trawlers such as the Northern Sceptre, the Northern Jewel, the Northern Sun and the famous consolidated fisheries boats that bore the names of Arsenal, Aston Villa and other football teams—most famous of all, of course, the Grimsby Town.

I shall make a couple of comments. The first thing that struck me when I read the Select Committee report was the part of the executive summary that stated:

“They are embarking down a path of reform without a clear plan”.

Well, I am not sure that the EU has ever had a clear plan for anything, but it has still embarked along that road.

On the main issue of the impact on communities, an interesting parallel can be drawn. I was part of the all-party delegation that visited Cairo and Gaza last weekend. Without venturing into broader debates about that part of the world, let me say that one of the most interesting visits we made was at dawn last Monday morning when we went down to the Gaza fish market. We had an opportunity to speak to the fish salesmen and, more notably, the fishermen.

[Sheryll Murray]

Did my hon. Friend see any similarity between the small boats working out of Cleethorpes and Grimsby and the vessels he saw in Gaza, or were they more like the vessels we see displaced through the European third-country agreement such as the artisanal-type open canoe or open-boat vessels that are described as pirogues?

[Martin Vickers]

My hon. Friend raises an interesting point. There was a great similarity between the boats of the communities. Their boats were similar to the ones that sail out of Grimsby nowadays, which are unlike the deep-sea trawlers of 20 or 30 years ago.

I was accompanied on the Gaza visit by the hon. Member for Birmingham, Northfield (Richard Burden) and my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone). Sadly, the former fisheries Minister, the right hon. Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw) had to leave a day early, so he missed this part of it. What we heard from the fishermen there was the sad tale of their inability to earn a living. There was a further similarity inasmuch as if they venture out beyond the 3-mile limit, they find themselves entering Israeli waters. Needless to say, they receive some hostile treatment. The point is that they cannot venture the normal fishing grounds because of what they see as the intervention of a foreign power. Whether we like it or not, the fishing community I represent regards the EU as a foreign power.

[Neil Parish]

Does my hon. Friend know whether the Israelis have fish quotas? Are there any restrictions on the amount of fish that can be caught from the seas off Israel? How do the Israelis manage their stock? I know that it is not a vast amount of water, but how is it managed?

[Martin Vickers]

If I attempted to reply to that, Madam Deputy Speaker, I would be entering into very deep waters! I have not brushed up on my knowledge of the Israeli fishing fleet over the last two or three days, so I will leave my reply for another occasion.

As has been said many times, what we want is the repatriation of powers. Whether it be in Gaza or in Grimsby and Cleethorpes, there is a deep sense of grievance about the restrictions. The report states that

“a more effective system of European fisheries governance could be achieved if high-level objectives only are set centrally by the European institutions”.

As has been pointed out by many other speakers, that would mean leaving the day-to-day management of stocks at regional and local levels, which would be a welcome development.

I am being urged to speak slowly in order to take up the time, but I know that at least one other Member wishes to speak, so I shall make only one more point. We must recognise that we are dealing with communities, and with the livelihoods of people in those communities.

[Oliver Colvile]

Some European Union countries have a say on the common fisheries policy, but have absolutely no coastline. I am thinking particularly of Hungary and Czechoslovakia.

[Martin Vickers]

That is a very good point. It stands to reason that those who are involved in the fishing industry and who know how to manage stocks should manage those stocks.

It is interesting to note that all three Members whose constituencies are bounded by the River Humber—the hon. Member for Great Grimsby, my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy), and me—oppose our membership of the EU. The Grimsby-Cleethorpes community has never really recovered from the decline of the fishing industry, which was sacrificed in the original negotiations for entry to what was then the Common Market. The scars run very deep, and I would be failing in my duty if I did not represent those feelings in the House.

[Richard Drax]

Is not the use of the expression “common resource” disingenuous and misleading? I do not see how the fish in our waters can possibly be a common resource for others to tuck into whenever they want.

[Martin Vickers]

That is an entirely valid point.

[Sheryll Murray]

In 1976, in response to Iceland’s declaration of a 200-mile limit, other member states did the same, but exclusive competence was handed over to the European Community. That is the origin of the concept of common resource and equal access to that common resource, which is enshrined in article 2 of the current proposal.

[Martin Vickers]

My hon. Friend has made her point very concisely. I could not have put it better myself.

Let me emphasise again that this is about communities and their livelihoods. Whether in Cairo or Cleethorpes, Gaza or Grimsby, the livelihoods of those local communities is what matters. I do not envy the Minister his role in the Brussels negotiations, but I know that he will perform his duties very well, and that he will go armed with statistics from his officials. Above all, I urge him to consider the livelihoods of the communities that we in the House represent. They have been let down badly by the common fisheries policy, and they urgently need change.

17:04

[Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to be called to speak in this debate on fisheries and the common fisheries policy. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Miss McIntosh) for securing it and for chairing the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee. We have heard from several Committee members, including my hon. Friends the Members for South Dorset (Richard Drax) and for Hastings and Rye (Amber Rudd), as well as the hon. Member for North Tyneside (Mrs Glindon)—I was going to say “North Teesside”, but I know that it is somewhere up north—who has great expertise in this topic.

May I also pay tribute to my great friend, my hon. Friend the Member for South East Cornwall (Sheryll Murray)? She has huge knowledge of fishing and the fishing industry—indeed, her knowledge of those areas is probably second to none in this House. She endured a terrible tragedy last year, and all our hearts go out to her. In the circumstances, it is very brave of her to speak about fishing issues as she does.

I also wish to join many other Members in commending the Minister on the very good job he has done battling away in Brussels. We certainly do need to battle away. It is difficult enough trying to manage and organise fishing policy for the seas off the coasts of Cornwall, Devon and the north of England—and even Scotland, if I may dare say so—from here in Westminster.

[Sheryll Murray]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the situation we are in now is similar to what happened a decade ago? We heard similar promises then, but the end result was not what we anticipated. We should bear that in mind when we send the Minister to Brussels to negotiate.

[Neil Parish]

We have, of course, a new Minister and a new—coalition—Government, and I have every faith in both this Minister and this Government to deliver what we want.

It is essential that we fight our corner. The European Commission offers great gifts of devolving powers. It offers the tools to achieve that, but when we look into the toolbox we find that it contains very few tools. In the end, the instinct of Brussels is not to give powers away but to grab powers. It has done that for decades. That is why the CFP is in such a mess. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Oliver Colvile) that we should not have just six-mile and 12-mile limits, but should extend that and have a 200-mile limit.

Let us consider what the Norwegians can do. If an area of the Norwegian sea is being over-fished they can shut it down within hours. In the European Union, however, it would take months—if an agreement is ever, in fact, reached. In the EU we have Austria, the Czech Republic and Slovakia all arguing about fishing. They have a few lakes, but they have no coast. The European Commission plays that situation, of course.

[Oliver Colvile]

Does my hon. Friend agree that such countries can use their CFP votes as leverage to negotiate on other matters that have nothing whatever to do with fisheries? That is wrong.

[Neil Parish]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Austria receives probably the largest amount of rural development money of any EU country. I suspect it has traded many times with the Commission to achieve that situation, by agreeing to go along with what the Commission wants on fishing. We must sort that out.

Not only should we manage our waters in a way that enables us to act quickly from a conservation point of view, but we also need the fishermen to sign up to the regulations. The CFP is a little like communism: there is a lovely warm feeling that we are all going to work together for the greater good, but in reality nobody does that. Our fishermen try to conserve fish by doing all the right things such as reducing the size of their nets and reducing the number of discards, but then they are terrified that the Spanish or others will come in and hoover up the fish whose stocks they have conserved through their actions. That highlights a key problem with the CFP.

[Richard Drax]

Does my hon. Friend think the Europeans would care one jot if local fishermen such as mine in Dorset disappeared entirely?

[Neil Parish]

No, I do not think they would. They offer great platitudes to those who go out of fishing, but all they are interested in is having a centralised policy whereby the total amount of fish caught within the EU meets their targets. They are not actually worried how many fishermen there are to do the fishing, even though they will tell people otherwise. This, again, comes back to the problem of managing things from Brussels, so we have to deal with the principles of the CFP.

I suspect that the Minister may well not be able to come back with a 200-mile limit yet, but we have great confidence that over a period of years he will achieve that. I say that because of what we are doing now with this limited resource: we are throwing it into the sea, dead. A lot of those fish actually putrefy on the sea bed. Local fishermen tell me that a lot of sea lice attack the dead fish and that when they catch fresh fish that are alive they often bring up in their nets some of those dead fish, which contaminate the healthy fish. Is this situation logical? Is it right? No, it is absolutely wrong.

[Sheryll Murray]

Does my hon. Friend agree that rotten fish on the sea bed not only contaminate the catch, but prevent other fish from coming into these areas to swim? This is like having a graveyard on the bed of the sea, and we would not go into a room full of dead bodies, would we?

[Neil Parish]

We would hope that we would not. As my hon. Friend says, the last thing we would want to do would be to go into a room full of dead bodies. She summed up the situation well, because all those dead fish are being put back into the sea and they are contaminating the other fish that we catch. The dead fish are a health hazard and that needs to be dealt with. We talk a lot about sustainability, but we need to talk about how we manage that particular side of things.

I have spoken directly to the Minister about the particular concerns of a fishing company in my constituency. It has a lot of vessels, it fishes around the whole of the United Kingdom and it has 140 tonnes of cod quota, but of course it is allowed to fish only 35 tonnes of that. This is a mixed fishery; we have been talking about whether fish understand what flags they have on them, but they certainly do not understand that they should conveniently swim along species by species, so that one fisherman can catch cod, another can catch hake and so on. That does not happen, so all those healthy cod are being caught, and because the fishermen do not have the necessary quota, they are then discarding this excellent fish, which people in this country love to eat. The fishermen have every right to go out to sea because they have quota for other species and they are not fishing directly for cod. We have to find some flexibility and a way of ensuring that the fish that are caught are landed.

Another argument is that if we are to know what is being caught in the sea, and what the stocks are, we have to land much more of a given fish to be able to analyse exactly what is being caught and what those stocks are.

[Oliver Colvile]

The other point I made was that we are finding that anchovies and sardines are coming into our waters now. How easy will it be for the fishing industry to adapt to catching that sort of fish, which have not traditionally been found around the British isles?

[Neil Parish]

It might well be difficult for our fishermen to catch some of the types of fish that are now coming into our waters, for the simple reason that the type of nets being used may not catch them. Alternatively, those fish, too, may be caught in the nets being put out in a mixed fishery, so we may have an even greater loss, as I suspect that our fishermen will not have quota for those particular species. So the whole situation gets worse and worse, and we want our fishermen to be able to earn a living. That is why our Minister has such a nightmare to sort out.

The next matter is very difficult to deal with, because fishermen and the fishing industry have made big investments in quota and are keen to see it maintained, but our 10-metre fleet and the under 10-metre fleet want to catch more fish sustainably, which has a huge impact on our coastal communities. Even that is complicated, because of the super 10-metre fleet, which has large engines and can catch as much fish as the large boats. It all becomes very complicated—and that is why we have such a marvellous Minister to sort it out.

[Sheryll Murray]

Not only do some of those 10-metre boats have large engines, but some tow two nets at the same time. I have heard that they are now considering towing three nets, so they are fishing at the same intensity as some of the larger vessels with which we are all familiar.

[Neil Parish]

My hon. Friend is right, because fishing boats’ engines, the type of satellite, the equipment used for navigation and to see exactly where the fish are, and all the other equipment on those boats, are getting so much more sophisticated that it is almost impossible for the fish to escape. It is not a case of putting one’s finger up and seeing which way the wind is blowing: the fish can be found. We need to find the balance in how we share a limited resource. We must get rid of the discards one way or another, and we need to ensure that fish are shared out between the different fishermen in our waters. We need to manage our waters not just in the six and 12-mile limits but out to the 200-mile limit.

As has been mentioned, what has happened has been a travesty of justice. When we joined the Common Market in 1973 we presented a low figure for the number of fish we caught, whereas other countries, especially France, Belgium and others, inflated their figures. We have suffered from that ever since, and it needs to be put right.

I want to raise one last point, and that is the problem of the slipper skippers—people who, year after year, do not have the boats to catch their fish and are leasing out their quota. I feel that the Minister should impose a siphon—perhaps 10% or 20%—every time they lease out their quota, so that over five or 10 years they will lose their quota. That quota could then go to the smaller fleets and the under 10-metre boats. That would send out the message that when someone is sitting on a sofa and not fishing, it is not right for them to hold quota.

17:17

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

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish). Let me begin by apologising to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, to the House and especially to the Chair of the Select Committee, the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Miss McIntosh). I am sincerely sorry that I was not in my place when she rose to speak. My mother always said that saying sorry is good for the soul—and, for the benefit of Hansard, that is soul spelled S O U L. If the rest of the hon. Lady’s speech was as informed and clear as the comments I heard, I certainly look forward to reading the transcript in Hansard.

We have had a very good natured debate today and the Minister will be pleased to hear that I am not going to spoil it. I think we have even had some humour. My hon. Friend the Member for North Tyneside (Mrs Glindon) spoke about how squeamish she felt on her visit to the fish gut processing plant. I have no problem with the smell of fish, but when I returned from Plymouth I found some days later that I had left a handkerchief that I had used to wipe my hands in my jacket pocket and the jacket had been near to a radiator, so I may have to revisit the question of whether I have an aversion to the smell of fish at some point in the future. I have also been informed by my hon. Friend the Member for Brent North (Barry Gardiner) that Hansard has been in touch to clarify whether he said “sub-sea” or “subsidy”, so there we are. It has been an afternoon with some serious, thoughtful and well-informed contributions.

I say to the hon. Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous) that no one in the debate should apologise for being parochial or speaking up for their own communities. If there is one thing I have learned in my short time in this shadow role, as I have travelled from the Western Isles of Scotland to Fraserburgh and Peterhead all the way down to Plymouth, it is that there are very distinctive concerns, issues and voices when it comes to fishermen—and at times, they are in direct competition. I know that we should always want to be in government, but I feel that we are placing a lot of pressure on the Minister today and we wish him well in the forthcoming negotiations.

As I have said, I want to be constructive in my remarks. Labour supports reform of the common fisheries policy and the time has come for a radical rethink. In government, Labour Ministers fought for fisheries reform in Europe and I say to the hon. Member for South East Cornwall (Sheryll Murray), who asked about our record in government, that the common fisheries policy has failed everyone under every Government. I pay tribute to one of my predecessors, my hon. Friend the Member for Ogmore (Huw Irranca-Davies), who encouraged the under-10-metre fleets to come together in one association so that they would have a voice that could be heard at the heart of Government and so that there would be a stronger profile for their members’ needs.

[Sheryll Murray]

I accept what the hon. Lady says, but Europe did not force the previous Government to introduce fixed quota allocations. Until 1998, the quota to which each vessel was entitled was based on a rolling track record of the previous three years. It was not until 1 January 1999 that her predecessors, when they were Ministers, agreed to fix the track record for the period between 1993 and 1996.

[Fiona O'Donnell]

I think that if the hon. Lady speaks to the under-10-metre fishermen now she will find that they do not necessarily feel that the situation is getting any better under this Government. We should all have the humility to admit that when we leave government we often leave thinking that more could have been done. I expect that Government Members will have that feeling sooner than they think.

I look forward to hearing from the Minister how the EU negotiations are progressing. First, I want to examine some of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee’s key recommendations. I congratulate the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton on her work and that of her Committee and on making sure that we have been able to debate this important issue in the House. I will then go on to outline Labour’s main priorities for reform.

As many Members have said, the genuine decentralisation of powers from Brussels towards a system of regionalised management will be key to the success of the reforms. Labour supports greater regionalisation. We think it is important that countries should work together in regional groups to ensure that fisheries are managed more sustainably. It would be helpful if the Minister could tell the House which European member states he is working with to ensure that meaningful regionalisation is delivered. Who are our allies on this issue and what progress is he making? Will he also update us on any discussions he has had about regionalisation with the devolved Administrations?

In the run-up to the EU’s draft proposals published last summer, Commissioner Damanaki spoke of her desire to overhaul the CFP to get away from the micro-management of Brussels and install a bottom-up approach. Concerns have been expressed, however, that the Commission’s proposals are falling short of the mark. The commissioner insists that that is not due to a lack of political will but is the result of the limitations of the Lisbon treaty to devolve powers and says that she has gone as far as she can go. The Committee has put forward an alternative legal framework and asked the Minister to explore that option. That issue was also raised by the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Dr Whiteford).

Last year, in a Back-Bench debate on the reform of the CFP in the House, the Minister said that

“currently the proposals lack crucial detail on how regionalisation will work.”—[Official Report, 15 November 2011; Vol. 535, c. 741.]

What discussions has the Minister had with the commissioner on the regionalisation of powers to member states, and has he sought any legal advice on the devolution of powers from Brussels to regional advisory councils?

The Committee gave considerable thought to the implications of introducing maximum sustainable yield deadlines by 2015 and concluded that a target of 2020 is more appropriate. I think that it has benefited the House to have on the record a more reasoned explanation of the targets the Committee recommended than those we have seen in the media lately. With 75% of European stocks now exploited beyond safe levels, compared with 25% for stocks worldwide, it is clear that we need to take urgent action now. MSY has already been achieved for some stocks, but Europe is lagging behind. Labour believes that achieving MSY by 2015 should still be the goal. Does the Minister share that view? The Government must play their part in ensuring that we move towards that goal in line with our international commitments. Will he update the House on what progress is being made to achieve MSY for all commercial UK stocks by 2015?

There has been much to say on discards, which is something the public certainly care deeply about. Members from both sides of the House agree that Europe must get to grips with the problem, because throwing perfectly good fish back into the sea is utterly unacceptable. Labour is clear that we need a specific timeline. I am concerned by reports in The Guardian today that a group of member states, led by France and Spain, are attempting to pass a declaration that includes a clause dismissing the ban as unrealistic and too prescriptive, which could effectively lead to the indefinite continuation of discards. That is simply unacceptable. What discussions has the Minister had with France and Germany on that, and will he reaffirm his commitment to ending discards? Furthermore, will he tell us when and how that should be achieved? We are not asking much of him. The industry, north and south of the border, has demonstrated that using more selective fishing methods is part of the solution. Catch quota trials and Project 50% have been very successful in reducing discards. Does he agree that the scheme should be expanded in the period leading up to a ban on discards?

I would like to set out Labour’s main priorities for reform of the CFP. Overcapacity has led to the destruction of Europe’s fish stocks. The problem is simple: we are over-fishing our seas. I think that the most remarkable comment we heard today was from the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Mr MacNeil), who harked back to a time when there were no quotas or discards and people simply went out and fished. The reality is that technology has moved on and countries can now fish in areas far from home. The idea that we could pull out of a common framework for managing our fisheries is simply unrealistic. The European fleet has grown too large and is catching too many fish. The current system favours the short-term interests of large-scale, often unsustainable, industrial operators. That has led to the lion’s share of resources and profits becoming concentrated in the hands of a relatively small number of fishing enterprises in Europe.

[Dr Whiteford]

Does the hon. Lady agree that the Scottish fleet, which has halved in size in the past 10 years, should not have to pay again for the overall European reduction in fleet sizes that is required and that the people who have done more than anyone else to promote sustainability and change the way they work should get the credit for what they have achieved?

[Fiona O'Donnell]

I think that Members everywhere in the Chamber, apart from where the hon. Lady sits, have the interest of the whole UK fishing industry at heart; that is certainly the case for me. What is certain, however, is that if Scotland became an independent nation, our fishermen would face a very uncertain future.

We have not heard much mention of fishing in external waters. One Member raised the issue, but I certainly do not want to disappoint her by returning to it today.

I congratulate the hon. Member for South East Cornwall on the Westminster Hall debate that she secured and for exposing the actions of trawlers in the waters off Mauritania. European waters have been over-fished, and now we are shipping our problems overseas. The EU fleet takes 25% of its annual catch from outside European waters, and EU taxpayers are subsidising the expansion of some of the biggest and most powerful trawlers in Europe into the waters off the western coast of Africa.

Neither EU member states nor fragile coastal fishing communities in western Africa can afford the reform of the CFP to become a missed opportunity. Reform is a real chance for change in Europe, and it could tackle over-fishing by EU fleets in external waters, so will the Minister update the House on his discussions with other member states about the exploitation of fish stocks in external waters?

Secondly, on the inshore fleet, Labour wants a reformed CFP that rewards those who fish more sustainably and selectively and with less impact on the environment. The UK’s inshore fleet represents more than three quarters of the entire UK fleet and employs 65% of its work force, yet it receives just 4% of the quota allocated to the UK under the CFP.

Labour believes that that imbalance must be addressed, and we want a fairer distribution of quota among the fleet. The draft CFP regulations contain a proposal whereby member states may withhold up to 5% of their national quota to encourage and reward operators that reduce discards and improve environmental performance. Labour thinks that should be increased to 20% to reward fishermen, including small-scale fishermen, who operate in a more environmentally sustainable way and who contribute positively to coastal communities.

Fisheries are a Government-held public resource, so we think it right that Government decide who should be able to access them, but, as the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton has pointed out, astonishingly the Government do not even know who owns the quota that they hand out. We want to see an entirely transparent register of quotas, and I join the hon. Lady in asking the Minister to update the House on progress in that area.

The New Under Ten Fishermens Association, NUTFA, the organisation that represents the domestic under-10-metre fleet, is calling for root-and-branch reform to create an inshore fleet that is fit for purpose. The Minister has responded with six community quota group pilots, so will he update the House on their progress and on the response to them from the under-10s? May I suggest to him that a crucial part of reform could be the creation of an inshore producer organisation? I have heard the proposal when meeting fishermen from the under-10-metre fleet. Is the Minister willing to consider it?

The rules that govern our fisheries are broken. Ahead of Rio+20, where food security and our oceans will be high on the agenda, it is vital that we put our own house in order. It is not too late to turn the tide. Now is the time for the Government to show renewed determination and leadership, and to pursue truly ambitious reform.

17:29

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Richard Benyon)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Miss McIntosh) for securing this important debate in the House, and I commend the excellent report that her Committee has produced. This debate has benefited from some very interesting interventions and speeches by hon. Members on both sides of the House, and I hope to refer to as many of them as possible.

My hon. Friend launched the debate with real knowledge and enthusiasm. Her enthusiasm for and interest in the subject are apparent from how she speaks about it, and they are very welcome. I enjoyed taking part in one of her Committee’s sittings on this subject, and I was impressed by the level of knowledge and interest across the Committee.

In answer to the hon. Member for East Lothian (Fiona O’Donnell) and others, I am happy to report on how we are progressing with our discussions in the European Union. On Monday I am going to Brussels, where I will be discussing, not least, regionalisation, as well as the external dimension, on which we are making some progress, although it has not yet got to where I want it to be. I entirely share the position taken by the hon. Lady and my hon. Friend the Member for South East Cornwall (Sheryll Murray) in abhorring the dreadful practices that we have learned about in recent years regarding the external footprint of fishing vessels that are subsidised by our constituents’ taxes so that they can fish unsustainably in the waters of some of the poorest countries in the world. I am looking forward to putting forward a very robust line on that, and I am impressed by the progress that my officials are making on it.

We will also be talking about discards, which I will discuss later. The hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Dr Whiteford) will be interested to know that we will deal with the thorny issue of mackerel and the perhaps not-very-sustainable activities of the Government of Iceland and the Faroe Islands. The hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Mr MacNeil), who extolled the virtues of the Faroe Islands, might like to reflect on the fact that that country is not behaving at all properly in this matter.

I know as well as anyone how complex the issues are surrounding the whole area of the common fisheries policy and how difficult it is to unpick the diverse and interlinked problems that we face in reforming this failed policy. The Committee’s inquiry gets to the heart of these issues with a remarkable degree of perspicuity, and it has, as I said, delivered a very impressive report. The Committee’s thinking also reflects the stance that we are taking across a range of important priorities for reform of the CFP. It is crucial that we get past the “one size fits all” mindset that has served European fisheries so badly.

My hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Oliver Colvile) hosted my visit to the wonderful Plymouth marine laboratory, where we saw the impact of climate change. We saw how the fronts that change the temperatures of our seas in different places are moving, and how fish populations are moving. It is clearly ridiculous to have one constraining system for managing our fisheries that goes from the sub-Arctic waters of the north to the waters of the south Mediterranean. We must have a system that is much more fleet of foot, and we can do that only if it is more locally managed. I will come on to talk about how we are going to try to achieve that.

We are facing a critical stage in the negotiations in the coming months, and I will continue to press for radical reform; as I said, I will do that at the Fisheries Council in Brussels next week. In addition to those discussions on reform, we will have further discussions in April, May and June. The European Parliament is also considering the proposals in its committee stages, and we expect a plenary vote there on the whole package by the autumn.

The Committee’s report rightly highlights the importance of regionalisation. We must find ways to allow member states to work together regionally on the detail of fisheries management—in discussion, of course, with stakeholders—and I agree that we can do that within the bounds of the current treaty. Technical and legal constraints should not overshadow our aims in this regard, and that has been our message to others. I hope that I will discover that the issues of competence are as clear as the Committee suggests. We have been exploring with other member states the types of provision that it has identified in order to build support for potential solutions. I can assure my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton that members of her Committee are not the only ones with access to legal opinions. In my experience, there are many and varied legal opinions on the subject, and it is important that they should be robust and able to stand up to the rigours of challenge.

The Commission’s proposals reflect that same concept of empowering member states to take some of their own decisions. However, we are concerned that conferring more delegated powers on the Commission, as the proposals have the potential to do, might end up centralising decisions again.

I made an interesting visit to the constituency of the hon. Member for South Down (Ms Ritchie). I quite understand why she is not in her place, because she informed me that she would have to depart. I was shown a net in which an eliminator panel had been put in precisely the right place to allow cod to escape, but the net was deemed illegal by people who manage fisheries about 1,000 miles away from the fishermen who use it. They insisted that the eliminator panel should be further towards the cod end, even though the fishermen knew that by that stage the fish would be too tired to swim up through it. How crazy is that? What lunacy it is to have a system that does not allow the fishery in a particular area to develop the means to do virtuous things such as excluding discards.

I recognise that what I can achieve will probably never be quite what my hon. Friend the Member for South Dorset (Richard Drax), the hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Austin Mitchell) and others would like, but I will do my best to achieve as much as I can.

The genuine regionalisation that the Government and the Select Committee are calling for will need the robust co-operation of member states on shared fisheries for it to be credible and to win support from others. Empowering member states to take some decisions may form part of the process, but it might not solve the whole problem. As many hon. Members have said, many of our fish stocks are shared with other countries and can best be managed on a regional basis. I believe that a properly devolved system, with close co-operation between member states, operating with an ecosystem-based approach, as the hon. Member for Brent North (Barry Gardiner) mentioned, is the right way forward.

The hon. Member for East Lothian asked if we have friends in Europe on this matter. We do. There are many like-minded states that share my sense of exhaustion over and rhetoric on how appalling this system is, and we are working closely with them. It is mainly, but not exclusively, the northern European states that have a like-minded view. I hope that we will find plenty of allies in the coming weeks.

[Dr Whiteford]

Does the Minister think that the regional advisory council model is appropriate for aquaculture?

[Richard Benyon]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for reminding me of the very good point that she made. I share her view entirely that this is an area where the European Union does not need to tread. We have a successful aquaculture industry in the United Kingdom. We are all aware of the agenda here. Some of the more land-locked countries, which are seeking to access some of the European fisheries money, are interested in developing a competence over aquaculture. I assure her that I am robust in trying to exclude that possibility. How successful I will be remains to be seen.

We remain hopeful that the reformed CFP can build in a robust process to regionalise decision making. That will require agreement not only on issues of legal competence, but on practical processes for co-operation on management decisions with other member states which are transparent and enforceable. We will continue to press for that and will build support with the member states that share our fisheries.

The hon. Member for East Lothian asked when I last met the commissioner. It was just a few weeks ago. I meet her regularly and count her as an ally and a friend. I think she needs friends at the moment. I will be robust in giving our support for what she is trying to do. She needs legal advice as well. There are legal opinions coming from all directions on these matters and we are keen to provide her with ours.

I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Aberdeen North (Mr Doran), who made a thoughtful speech. He addressed a serious problem that goes to the heart of the credibility of an industry for which I have the highest regard. We should not minimise in any way the fact that when black fish are sold on the scale that he described, those fish have been stolen from legitimate fishermen. That is a crime of multi-million-pound proportions, and he was both brave and right to state that.

To achieve what we want to, we will require improvements in how we collect data and develop scientific evidence. A number of Members have referred to that. At the moment, the process can often lack robust data or be too narrowly focused on the short term to be credible with fishermen or to help policy makers. A more grown-up relationship is needed between scientists, fishermen and policy makers so that we can gather more effective data on the impact of fishing on the whole marine environment, and build trust. The fisheries science partnership that we have in the UK will help to pave the way to achieving that.

Nearly every Member who spoke referred to discards. I say to the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar—[Interruption.] That pronunciation is the best I can do at this stage of the week, I am afraid. I remind him that more than half the tonnage of discarded fish has absolutely nothing to do with the European Union but is because it is made up of species that we do not eat and for which there is no market. There is a supply chain solution to that if we are imaginative. I am not diminishing the blame that must be apportioned to the system of management that creates the remainder of the discards, and we must not stop trying to deal with that, but more than 50% of discards are because there is no market. Great progress is being made on that, not least by DEFRA, through good projects such as Fishing for the Markets.

I am glad that my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton mentioned my evidence to the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, in which I said how wrong it would be if we created a system that transferred a problem over the horizon at sea to one of landfill. Through a discard ban or an elimination of discards, we need to progress a supply chain solution to creating new markets for fish.

[Fiona O'Donnell]

Does the Minister also support fishermen in identifying markets overseas? For instance, there is not much of an appetite for cuttlefish at home, but there is in other parts of the world.

[Richard Benyon]

Those who watched Monty Halls’s programme last night will have seen the export of fantastic-quality spider crabs, which we should be eating in this country. We have to develop more eclectic tastes, but that is a debate in itself and I want to press on.

I agree with the Select Committee that we need to get our measures right and proceed carefully in setting targets. However, that has to be done on a fishery-by-fishery basis. I am also mindful that if we equivocate, we could find a thousand reasons why we should not do anything about discards. I believe that the Commission is right, and there should be an absolutely clear determination to move as near to an elimination of discards as we possibly can. That is why we will not sign up to the French declaration next week and why we must go into the next stage of negotiations on discards as robustly as possible to achieve a solution.

The debate on the CFP objectives raises similar challenges in a variety of areas. On the achievement of maximum sustainable yield, for example, I agree that we have to be guided by the best available scientific advice, particularly about complex mixed fisheries, and do so in a credible way. That is why we want clear objectives that are linked to existing commitments and enable us to get the specifics right for each fishery through multi-annual plans. That requires an intelligent approach to getting scientific data and advice. We have some good examples in the UK of partnership working with the industry, and I agree that member states must be more accountable for delivering the data needed to manage fisheries effectively. I appreciate the words of the hon. Member for Brent North about the need to define what we mean by MSY. FMSY is a different target from others, so we must get that right.

The Select Committee is right to sound caution about the Commission’s proposal for transferrable fishing concessions. My hon. Friend the Member for Hastings and Rye (Amber Rudd) raised that matter with passion. Although I recognise the benefits that a market approach can bring, I want our fishing rights to be managed in an economically rational way, by decisions on the allocation of rights being left to member states. If it were run and organised at that level, we could achieve real results. In certain circumstances, groups of fishermen might invest in an increasing biomass and see the attraction of a transferable fishery concession, which would in turn benefit the marine environment. It is important to look at that, but we should do so with caution, as advised by the Committee’s report.

A number of hon. Members asked who owns quota. I do not want to break with the cross-party consensus of the debate, but I suggest that the hon. Member for East Lothian has a bit of a nerve criticising the Government. We must get a grip on this problem. My Department intends to produce a register of who owns quota. To do that, we are working with producer organisations, which hold much of that information. I am constantly told of celebrities and football clubs that are alleged to own quota, but I have never found evidence of it. As the fishing opportunity should sit with vessels, the situation becomes complicated.

[Sheryll Murray]

As I pointed out, people who have quota must have a vessel, or a dummy vessel that is held in a producer organisation. Quota can transfer between different producer organisations, but it is impossible for somebody to go out and buy fish quota without having a vessel.

[Richard Benyon]

The argument centres on who owns various companies, which makes things complicated, but my hon. Friend is, as always, absolutely right. The work we are doing to reform domestic management of English fisheries reflects those principles, but a lot has been said today on what we are trying to achieve. She knows more than anybody how important that is, but many hon. Members represent constituencies where there is a small inshore fleet.

A measure that has been raised in the debate—it is essentially independent from our reform measures—is my decision to give an opportunity to others to catch stocks that have been left unutilised for four consecutive years. I hope all hon. Members agree that where valuable fish quotas have been left unfished for four consecutive years, it is reasonable to look to give others the opportunity to catch them, so that we make the best of our national quota.

The Government’s reform measures are a response to our consultation in 2011. Many fishermen were uneasy at the prospect of the rapid introduction of an allocation system based on fixed quota allocations to the under-10 metre fleet. Therefore, we have since explored other ways in which we can give fishermen in that sector more control over their future fishing activity, and are seeking to establish voluntary pilots to set out the benefits and challenges of a more local approach to management.

To align those pilots as closely as practicable with the measures on which we consulted, in particular the proposed foundation quota, we are temporarily taking from producer organisations a percentage of quota allocations if they were increased at the December Council. That will apply only where vessels in the prospective pilots hold a track record of catching the increased quotas. Producer organisations will still benefit from having greater amounts of quota than last year, but they will have slightly less of an increase than they would otherwise have enjoyed.

There have been rumours regarding the suspension of all leasing and swapping by certain POs to the under-10 metre fleet in reaction to those proposals. I would be very disappointed if any PO looks to penalise other fishermen for circumstances that are not within their control and hurt their members financially. Should such attitudes and behaviours take place, it would not bode well for our wish to impart greater management and responsibility for fisheries to those who fish them. DEFRA officials are in close touch with colleagues at the Marine Management Organisation, who are monitoring the position and will be assessing likely impacts on the profitability of our fishing sectors should those rumours develop.

As I have said, I will be discussing the external dimension of the CFP at the Council meeting next week. I believe that the principles of the sustainable use of marine resources must apply in the same way outside EU waters as within. Proposals for agreements with third countries should be strengthened to ensure better value for money; integration on fisheries development projects; clauses on human rights; greater transparency to ensure appropriate spend of money and science to improve sustainability; and improved fisheries governance to ensure that the benefits of the agreements are delivered in reality. I think we are making progress on this, but there is more work to do.

The Committee questioned the links between Government advice on healthy eating and the sustainability of fish stocks. Current Department of Health advice suggests consuming two portions of fish per week, one of which should be oily. This level of consumption can readily be sustained if we manage our stocks effectively.

I fully support the motion. The failures of the CFP cannot be allowed to continue eroding the livelihoods of our fishermen and blighting the marine environment. This is why the current reform process is so important, and why I am committed to making sure we get the right policy during the discussions this year. That means a policy that allows member states to work together regionally to manage their fisheries more effectively, and a policy underpinned by better scientific knowledge of what is happening in our marine ecosystems.

On a point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood (Eric Ollerenshaw), I am proud to be the UK fisheries Minister. It is important that I represent a noble industry, one that I wish to see revived, but if I restricted my actions to the management of fisheries, in a myopic, silo way, I would be letting down fishermen and all who care about the marine environment. So my hon. Friend is right: we should take a holistic view in our policies on fisheries, our marine policies and the reform of the common fisheries policy.

17:56

[Miss McIntosh]

We have had an excellent debate, summed up brilliantly by my hon. Friend the Minister. I thank everyone for their kind words and warm welcome, both for the motion and the actual report. I wish to draw the Minister’s attention to the fact that he has a suite of opportunities and a menu on which to draw. It is indeed our first call that he should seek to devolve decision making to the regions, but if that attempt were to fail, it would not be the wish of the Select Committee—or indeed the House—to allow the Commission more discretion in taking delegated powers.

The way is open for DEFRA to persuade the Commission to pursue our recommendation or press it to produce a clear road map for regionalisation—or, at the very least, legally binding regional agreements. We cannot proceed with a situation in which we have reliable scientific advice for only 30% of all EU fish stocks—for just 21 out of 60 in the Mediterranean.

The Committee would love to travel to Iceland, as I am sure would others, so perhaps that is a bid that may be looked on favourably. In any case, it gives me great pleasure to ask the House to support the motion.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House considers that the Common Fisheries Policy has failed to conserve fish stocks and failed fishermen and consumers; welcomes the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee’s report, EU proposals for reform of the Common Fisheries Policy; and calls on the Government to use the current round of Common Fisheries Policy reform to argue for a reduction in micro-management from Brussels, greater devolution of fishing policy to Member States, the introduction of greater regional ecosystem-based management and more scientific research to underpin decision-making in order to secure the future of coastal communities and the health of the marine ecosystem.

Legal Aid

Thursday 15th March 2012 Commons Chamber

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—(Jeremy Wright.)

[Relevant documents: The Third Report from the Justice Committee on the Government’s proposed reform of legal aid, HC 681, and the Government response, Cm 8111.]

17:58

[Karl Turner (Kingston upon Hull East) (Lab)]

I am pleased to have secured this very important debate on the effect of the reductions in legal aid on legal aid providers. I refer Members to the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, as I was a practising lawyer before my election to this House. As a criminal lawyer, I relied on the public purse for much of my income.

The Lord Chancellor offered up 23% cuts without any fight and blindly conceded to the Treasury’s demands without looking at the real impact on justice and legal aid providers. The Government’s own impact assessment states:

“The lack of a robust evidence base means that we are unable to draw conclusions as to whether wider economic and social costs are likely to result from the programme of reform or to estimate their size.”

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

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate. As a fellow Hull MP, he will know the importance of citizens advice bureaux and community legal advice centres in providing legal help and advice and of the genuine concern out there that people will not have access to good-quality legal advice. I am sure that he shares the concerns of many people in Hull.

[Karl Turner]

Absolutely. My hon. Friend makes an important point. As I understand it, 97% of funding to the—

18:00

Motion lapsed (Standing Order No. 9(3)).

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—(Jeremy Wright.)

[Karl Turner]

Some 97% of funding to Citizens Advice will go as a result of the Government’s plans, so my hon. Friend makes a valid point.

I am not just talking about the for-profit providers. The non-profit providers also provide important legal advice to people in our constituencies. I want to attempt to bust a myth that the Government are perpetuating. There seems to be the suggestion that publicly funded lawyers are fat cat lawyers earning fat cat salaries. In reality, publicly funded lawyers, whether solicitors or barristers, earn very modest incomes if funded by legal aid. The Lord Chancellor says that he does not want to hit women and children, but he does want to target fat cat lawyers. Why, then, is he making 53% cuts to social welfare legal aid?

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

I declare an interest as a non-practising barrister. I worked for a number of years as a solicitor at a law centre. These cuts will affect some very poorly paid solicitors who work in law centres and who were previously doing work such as immigration before that was taken away. The profession will suffer because we will not be able to attract people and give them the expertise to do this kind of work.

[Karl Turner]

My right hon. Friend makes a very important point and one that solicitors and barristers have raised with me in recent days. There is certainly concern about attracting people into training contracts and even attracting people to study law as a result of the Government’s plans.

As I understand it, £350 million will be removed from legal aid as a result of the Government’s plans. The vast majority of that will be in social welfare law. In an attempt to bust the myth that publicly funded lawyers are fat cat lawyers, I spoke to some legal aid providers in my area today. I spoke with Keith Lomax, the senior managing partner of Davies Gore Lomax, which is based in Leeds. He represents the most vulnerable clients on such issues as housing, debt, welfare benefits and education, particularly special educational needs, and he told me that the Government’s 10% reduction in fees across the board was difficult for his firm to cope with. I was staggered when he told me that his hourly charging rate was £48.24. He charges the Legal Services Commission £3.78 per letter—hardly fat cat lawyers rates. The people who work for him earn very modest incomes—between £18,000 and £24,000 a year for fully qualified solicitors, he tells me.

Tim Durkin, the managing partner of Myer Wolff solicitors in Hull, runs a long-standing firm reliant on legal aid. Mr Durkin estimates that the cuts to his business in relation to child contact and residence applications will amount to about £300,000 per year. He describes that as simply unsustainable.

Max Gold, from the Max Gold partnership in Hull, reports to me that he has not been in a position to pay himself or his solicitors and staff an increase in salary for some six years. He says

“the Government are not living in the real world to describe legally aided lawyers as fat cats”.

In his view, the Labour Government were far from profligate when it came to legal aid. He says that the previous Government were not particularly generous in relation to publicly funded lawyers. However, he says that the previous Government at least understood the requirement to offer legal advice in areas such as social welfare law. Indeed, he also mentions immigration, which is particularly important, given that the other place almost accepted an amendment—it was defeated by, I think, 19 votes—a couple of days ago.

In 2000, there were 10,000 legal providers. There are now 2,000—a reduction of 8,000 firms in the last 12 years. Many closed their doors in the last 12 months. The impact of the cuts on legal aid providers is clear for anybody to see. Many firms that provide help mainly in family and social welfare law will have to withdraw from the market. The Law Society says

“firms already operate on the margins of viability…specialist firms and advice agencies…providing social welfare law services…are likely to be wiped out with catastrophic consequences for people in need”

of legal help. The Law Society says that it

“does not see how many firms can continue to operate in this environment.”

The current changes could reduce firms offering family law by as much as 60%.

The Government’s impact assessment, which accompanies the Green Paper, estimated a 67% decrease in income for law firms in rural areas and a 59% decrease in urban areas. That is simply unsustainable. It will not be economically viable for those firms to continue offering services on such tight margins. The Legal Action Group believes that legal aid will cease to be viable as a nationwide public service, with an overall decrease in civil legal aid to 900 firms, down from 2,000. My concern is about the potential for advice deserts to emerge as a result of those reductions. The impact on access to justice is therefore clear. If no service is available, our constituents will be left to paddle their own canoe. Some 75,000 children and young people are set to lose legal aid. Some 6,000 children under the age of 18 and 69,000 vulnerable young adults aged 18 to 23 will lose access to legal aid in their own right as a result of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill.

The Government claim that advice will be available elsewhere, from places such as the Free Representation Unit, jobcentres and Age UK. That claim has been disputed by the Advice Services Alliance. The Free Representation Unit represents clients in tribunals, but it does not cover the initial advice stages of, say, a welfare claim. The Child Poverty Action Group has stated:

“Unfortunately we do not have the resources to provide direct advice to people who are claiming benefits”.

Age UK has said:

“Our concern is that while it is true that both Age UK nationally and our partners in local Age UKs and Age Concerns do provide some help and advice with welfare benefits it is most often not at a level comparative to that provided through legal aid.”

The Government’s defence until now has been to talk about the telephone advice service. However, that is not the answer to advice deserts. Face-to-face legal advice is crucial. Fortunately, the Government suffered a defeat on this issue in the other place yesterday evening. I would respectfully urge the Government to take that on board. The Ministry of Justice predicts between only 4,000 and 10,000 additional mediation starts, despite withdrawing legal aid from 255,000 cases. It has simply not made a proper assessment.

The impact on for-profit and non-profit providers will be substantial, but it will be most keenly felt by those who rely on their services. The Government’s own impact assessment states that the proposals

“have the potential to disproportionately affect female clients, BAME clients”—

that is, black and minority ethnic clients—

“and ill or disabled people, when compared with the population as a whole”.

Despite that evidence and advice, the Government seem to want to plough on regardless. At a time when unemployment is rising and pressure is increasing on squeezed families, it is wrong for the Government to withdraw support for legal advice.

Opposing the legal aid cuts is not done due to narrow interest or to ensure that lawyers’ bank balances stay buoyant. It is about ensuring that people have not only these important rights but the means with which to exercise them. The Government must listen to the experts and base their cuts on the evidence. The Justice Select Committee, on which I serve, has said that the full cost implications of the Government’s proposals cannot be predicted. I therefore ask the Government to reconsider these cuts and not to take a gamble with justice.

Many eminent judges—not least Lord Hope, Lord Justice Dyson and Lady Hale—have also voiced their concern, along with academics and professionals, telling the Government time and again that there will be an increase in court administration due to the increased number of litigants in person, but that advice has been completely ignored. The Lord Chief Justice has echoed those concerns.

The opposition to the cuts in social welfare legal aid is, for me, about protecting the vulnerable and allowing access to justice. Of course, we are living in a time of austerity, and this must also be about saving money to the taxpayer, but there are alternatives. The early intervention provided for debt, employment, education, housing and family law matters through a mixture of voluntary and private sector organisations offers value for money. I shall not bore the Minister with the statistics produced by Citizens Advice, but it has provided Members with a helpful report that shows, pound for pound, the advantages of providing early advice. Unfortunately, however, the Tory-led Government have ignored crucial advice from, among others, the Lord Chief Justice, the Bar Council of England and Wales, and the Law Society.

The Lord Chief Justice has stated that the proposed reforms of public funding for civil cases will damage access to justice and lead to a huge increase in people fighting their legal battles alone. It is obvious to anyone that litigants in person will delay court time. The hon. Member for South Swindon (Mr Buckland) is in his place. He sits as a recorder in the Crown Court, and he must know from experience the advantage of having a solicitor advocate or a barrister representing a client in court, as opposed to someone representing themselves.

The chairman of the Bar Council, Michael Todd QC, has told me today that

“legal aid barristers, working across a broad range of practice areas, are public servants, overwhelmingly operating in the public interest. Over a number of years, many members of the Bar and the junior Bar in particular, have found it increasingly difficult to sustain a financially viable career on legal aid work, which poses a grave threat to access to justice. Successive fee cuts and now the threatened removal of whole areas of law from the scope of legal aid means that many vulnerable people will be denied effective access to the Courts. It also means that many highly skilled and publicly spirited Barristers will be forced to leave the profession with a particularly heavy impact on female and BAME practitioners. That cannot be in the public interest”.

The Lord Chancellor needs urgently to take on board the defeats that the Government have suffered in the other place, and to look again at the real impact of these legal aid cuts before overturning those amendments in this place.

18:14

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Jonathan Djanogly)]

I declare any interest I may have as a non-practising solicitor. First, let me congratulate the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull East (Karl Turner) on securing this debate. I recognise that this is a timely and important discussion to have at present.

Let me start by saying that measuring and understanding the effects of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill on the providers of publicly funded legal aid services is something to which the Department of Justice has been committed throughout the policy development process. I invite hon. Members to consider both the impact assessments and the equality impact assessments published alongside the Government’s consultation paper and our response to that consultation. These are extensive in their consideration of the impact of the reforms on legal aid providers, with the equality impact assessment providing very granular detail on the potential for differential impacts in respect of different provider types—whether for solicitors, not-for-profit organisations or barristers.

We recognise that such assessments have their limitations. They use a method analysts refer to as counter-factual assessment. This operates by taking a given set of assumptions—in this instance, a snapshot of income in the legal aid market in a given financial year—and applies a narrow set of changes to this snapshot, which here means the reduction in income implied by the changes in the Bill. What the assessment cannot do is measure things like how providers will respond to those changes in terms of the structure of their firms, the business model they employ, their employment profile or the areas of law covered by their organisations. This is a crucial point for me in this debate. In other words, one cannot say with any real certainty how individual providers will respond to the changes, and that will be major factor in the overall “effect” experienced by the providers of legal aid. However, following the commitment made in our consultation response, we have commissioned a study that we hope will provide a better understanding of the dynamics of legal aid providers.

It should also be recognised that our discussions today are not purely theoretical. I simply do not recognise the picture of a failing environment for providers that the hon. Gentleman portrayed. Almost half the savings being taken from legal aid for the spending review period are derived from the remuneration changes implemented last October, which have now been in operation for up to six months—and there have been no discernible negative impacts on the supply. In fact, there has been strong confirmation that the market is willing to work at the new rates. The most recent Legal Services Commission tenders for family work were conducted using the new reduced rates, and were over-subscribed. This suggests that the rates offered are sustainable, and that providers are able to absorb and respond to the impact of reduced fees.

Returning to the Bill, at the macro level there are, of course, some obvious realities. I have always been very open about these, as the hon. Gentleman will know, both in Parliament and in my extensive engagement with the sector. A contraction in the range of services funded under legal aid will most probably mean a contraction in the number of firms providing such services, as well as a reduction in the numbers of lawyers practising in legal aid. I disagree, however, that this will translate into widespread advice deserts; it is certainly not the case at the moment.

This is a natural corollary of the changes we are making to scope, and I make no apology for that. I agree with the hon. Gentleman that in most, but not all, cases, this is not a debate about so-called “fat-cat lawyers”. The legal aid system is there to provide advice, assistance and representation for those who need it most, not to maintain existing numbers of lawyers—but we do, of course, need a sustainable provider base, because without those who deliver services there would be no legal aid system. To this end, we are finalising our approach to the first round of contracting under the new scheme, which we expect will commence soon after Royal Assent.

There are, of course, two sides to this coin, and sustainability is not something that Government, as the purchasers of services, can or should provide purely on their own. No market is static, nor should it be. The legal aid market has historically shown itself to be adept at responding to changes and seeking out commercial opportunity—and I see no reason why it should not do so again.

If any business is to thrive, it must be flexible and adaptable—that is true of any sector—and the Government are creating the conditions that will allow legal aid providers to flourish. The Legal Services Act 2007, for instance, establishes a new licensing regime, which is now fully operational and which affords more flexibility, innovation and opportunity in terms of the type of business structures and providers that can offer legal services. The significance of that change, and the commercial opportunity that it represents, cannot be overstated.

That is not to suggest that the innovative models made possible by the 2007 Act are the only way in which providers can remain sustainable under the new scheme. The impact assessment figures published alongside the Government response to consultation suggest that even after the reforms have been implemented, approximately £1.7 billion a year will still be spent on publicly funded legal aid services. It is likely that, following the savings, we will still be spending more on legal aid than any other country, and it is undeniable that that level of expenditure represents a viable market. Given the range of services that will still attract funding, it will be open to providers to diversify and seek income across a range of areas of law, although for some providers the most prudent option will be to concentrate on their area of core expertise and expand their market share in that field.

It will also possible to bid for complementary services. The Government have made clear their commitment to alternative dispute resolution. They expect to fund an additional £10 million in mediation services within the new framework, and the Legal Services Commission will be tendering for additional mediation contracts to provide those services. The introduction of the mandatory telephone gateway—which the hon. Gentleman mentioned, and which we intend to reinstate in the Bill—also presents opportunities. Providers will still be able to run telephone-based contracts alongside face-to-face contracts in areas that will continue to attract funding.

The overall message that I wish to convey is that—while challenging and sometimes traumatic—the changes will not come without opportunity, provided that there is a willingness to engage with them and think constructively about how to respond to them. Although steeped in great tradition, the legal profession has demonstrated resilience and fluidity throughout its history, and I would expect nothing less in response to these changes.

As the hon. Gentleman said, some people outside the private legal profession will be affected. Both he and the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson) pointed out that the equality impact assessments also consider the likely impact of the proposals on not-for-profit organisations. Such organisations have traditionally had a significant presence in a number of the areas that the Bill removes from scope, and the Government fully recognise the cumulative effect that the changes could have when coupled with local authority reductions in funding for them. However, as I have consistently made clear to the House, the Government also recognise the benefits that early generalist advice can have in a range of contexts. We want to help the sector to continue to deliver such services, but not necessarily in the context of legal aid.

We have already seen the creation of the £107 million transition fund and the £20 million advice services fund to help the sector to deal with the legal aid changes and with what will happen after that. The Chief Secretary to the Treasury has now indicated that additional funding will be available after the current financial year to help the sector further, and it will be announced in the forthcoming Budget statement. That underlines the Government’s commitment to the provision of advice services such as this, and it is expected to ameliorate the effects of other funding reductions.

However, that is not to say that everything will remain the same. Because of our current fiscal situation, savings must be made, and the not-for-profit sector will need to demonstrate the same adaptability and resilience that I have described in respect of the legal profession.

The Government understand, and are sympathetic to, concerns about the scale of the change that the Bill represents, but we stress that it is incumbent upon the providers of services to think constructively and creatively about how they will establish themselves in the new market. Change will, naturally, be a challenge to the sector, not least because the current system has operated for a significant time, and providers will have become accustomed to a particular way of working. However, for the reasons I have given, there will be real opportunities for those who wish to take them, and for those outside the scope of the new scheme additional funding is being made available to provide for the future.

May I conclude by returning to the topic of the—rather technical-sounding—counter-factual assessment, to which I referred at the outset? We must avoid falling into the trap of predicting the future on a basis that does not allow for the very human response of adapting to changing circumstances. There is a future for legal aid providers, and the market can thrive, but the willingness of providers to adapt will be key to achieving that. Given what I have seen to date—not least providers’ response to the fee reductions—I have every confidence that that will be achieved.

Question put and agreed to.

18:25

House adjourned.