House of Commons
Prayers
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Hon. Members
Object.
To be considered on Tuesday 8 May.
Leeds City Council Bill
Motion made,
That so much of the Lords Message [23 April] as relates to the Leeds City Council Bill be now considered.—(The Chairman of Ways and Means.)
Hon. Members
Object.
To be considered on Tuesday 8 May.
Nottingham City Council Bill
Motion made,
That so much of the Lords Message [23 April] as relates to the Nottingham City Council Bill be now considered.— (The Chairman of Ways and Means.)
Hon. Members
Object.
To be considered on Tuesday 8 May.
Reading Borough Council Bill
Motion made,
That so much of the Lords Message [23 April] as relates to the Reading Borough Council Bill be now considered.—(The Chairman of Ways and Means.)
Hon. Members
Object.
To be considered on Tuesday 8 May.
City of London (Various Powers) Bill [Lords]
Motion made,
That so much of the Lords Message [23 April] as relates to the City of London (Various Powers) Bill [Lords] be now considered. —(The Chairman of Ways and Means.)
Hon. Members
Object.
To be considered on Tuesday 8 May.
City of Westminster Bill [Lords]
Motion made,
That so much of the Lords Message [23 April] as relates to the City of Westminster Bill [Lords] be now considered.— (The Chairman of Ways and Means.)
Hon. Members
Object.
To be considered on Tuesday 8 May.
Transport for London Bill [Lords]
Motion made,
That so much of the Lords Message [23 April] as relates to the Transport for London Bill [Lords] be now considered.— (The Chairman of Ways and Means.)
Oral Answers to Questions
Guy Opperman (Hexham) (Con)
1. What steps he is taking to promote the refurbishment of empty and vacant homes in Northumberland.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Andrew Stunell)
I have allocated £150 million to bring empty homes back into use, and £160,000 has already been committed to a project in Northumberland, subject to contract. In addition, of course, Northumberland has received a reward of £630,000 through the new homes bonus for bringing 256 long-term empty homes back into use.
Guy Opperman
I thank the Minister for that answer. Does he agree that Northumberland county council, in drawing up its local development framework, should promote and maintain brownfield sites for development before any greenfield sites?
Andrew Stunell
I certainly agree with my hon. Friend, and I draw his and the council’s attention to the publication, two weeks ago, of the national planning policy framework, which sets out the importance of making sure that all such plans are founded on the principles of sustainable development. Of course, the Government want to encourage every local authority to focus on land of the least environmental quality, and that, of course, includes brownfield sites.
Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)
In Newcastle, which is right next to the constituency of the hon. Member for Hexham (Guy Opperman), 99% of empty homes are in private landlords’ hands, so why are the Government increasing from six months to two years the amount of time that a property has to stand empty before the council can issue an order to bring it back into use?
Andrew Stunell
A high proportion of the 280,000 long- term empty homes are indeed in the private sector. That is why we have provided funding to support bringing them back into use for social homes, and a second round of funding where there are clusters of empty homes, which will be helpful in those areas. As for the orders that the hon. Lady referred to, only about 50 homes in the whole country have been subject to that procedure in five years. It is not a very effective measure, but it should be a back-stop, which is why we have put in place a new two-year limit.
Sir Alan Beith (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (LD)
Is my hon. Friend aware that one category of accommodation that is now often empty is bedsitting rooms in sheltered accommodation for the elderly? We have an example of that in Wooler in Northumberland. Does he recognise that it will be necessary for us to create more suitable accommodation for elderly people, both to enable such properties to be taken out of use permanently, and to meet the requirements of an ageing population?
Andrew Stunell
I thank my right hon. Friend for his question, and draw his attention to the national planning policy framework. In drawing up its housing strategy, Northumberland unitary authority must take account of the needs in its area. Of course, the Government are funding a social and affordable homes programme, which will deliver 170,000 affordable homes by 2015. I very much hope that housing providers in Northumberland will be bidding for money from that fund in a suitable way.
Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)
2. What assessment he has made of the potential effect of funding reductions on the operational activities of fire and rescue services.
Mr Kevin Barron (Rother Valley) (Lab)
4. What assessment he has made of the potential effect of funding reductions on the operational activities of fire and rescue services.
Bridget Phillipson (Houghton and Sunderland South) (Lab)
5. What assessment he has made of the potential effect of funding reductions on the operational activities of fire and rescue services.
Grahame M. Morris (Easington) (Lab)
13. What assessment he has made of the potential effect of funding reductions on the operational activities of fire and rescue services.
Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)
17. What assessment he has made of the potential effect of funding reductions on the operational activities of fire and rescue services.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Robert Neill)
Operational matters are best assessed at the local level. It is for each fire and rescue authority to determine the operational activities of its fire and rescue service through its integrated risk management plan, which is subject to consultation with the local community.
Alex Cunningham
I am extremely proud of the Cleveland fire service, which looks after the area of highest industrial risk in Europe. Its proactive work in Teesside communities has driven down house fire numbers, which have gone down and down, and it has excellent working plans with local companies. I am told that owing to the drastic agenda being pursued by the Tory Government, Cleveland has lost or will lose 180 firefighters. The Government are playing with people’s lives so I would like to know what the Minister’s message is to people in my communities, and who he will blame when there is a tragedy there.
Robert Neill
The Cleveland fire service does excellent work. The risks that it deals with on its territory are recognised by the fact that its funding per head of population by formula grant is the highest in the country and more than twice that received by many authorities in other areas.
Mr Barron
It is estimated that South Yorkshire fire and rescue service will lose 100 firefighters’ jobs. It is all very well for the Minister to say, “We’ll pass the budget cuts down and somebody else has to take the responsibility.” What happens if response times increase in South Yorkshire and the people in South Yorkshire, who are not a party to the decision that has been taken by the Government to cut the budgets, feel unsafe in their beds at night?
Robert Neill
Response times are dealt with through the integrated risk management plan. I say gently to the right hon. Gentleman that the reductions in expenditure of formula grant to the fire service are less than those for local authorities as a whole. They are part of the deficit reduction strategy, and he might like to reflect that part of the deficit caused by the Labour Government was the better part of half a billion pounds wasted on the aborted FiReControl project, which did nothing to keep anyone safe.
Bridget Phillipson
Tyne and Wear fire and rescue service has already made significant savings, including cuts of 28% to back office staff, but we are facing deep front-line cuts. May I urge the Minister again to look carefully at the situation faced by metropolitan areas such as Tyne and Wear, and ensure that he brings forward a funding settlement that is fair?
Robert Neill
I have met representatives of metropolitan fire and rescue authorities and meetings continue to take place at an official level, and we will meet representatives of any fire authority, regardless where in the country they come from. In Tyne and Wear, the formula grant per head at £29 is significantly above the average, which reflects some of the risks. In fact, the formula was updated by this Government to give a greater weighting to population density.
Grahame M. Morris
I refer the Minister to the answer he gave a few moments ago to my hon. Friends in relation to risk assessments. The hon. Gentleman will be aware of the excellent report that was carried out on fire deaths and injuries by the County Durham and Darlington fire and rescue brigade, which showed that poor health, social issues and deprivation are key contributory factors to high levels of fire risk. We are losing 40 firefighter posts, so what risk assessments were carried out before cuts to central funding were made to the Durham and Darlington fire and rescue brigade?
Robert Neill
With respect to the hon. Gentleman, he has not grasped the point that the risk assessment is dealt with at a local level by the integrated risk management plan, which is consulted upon with the local community and then approved by the fire authority. Durham’s funding per head has been maintained over two years at a steady level of £21 per head. It is worth saying that all metropolitan fire authorities have had increases in their capital grant of 50% to 80%, which is significantly more than under the previous Government.
Julie Hilling
Two hundred firefighter posts are being lost in Greater Manchester, but Cheshire and Essex are getting a 2% increase in their budgets. As there is a greater risk of fire, civil disturbances and industrial incidents—and in my constituency motorway incidents as well—in the metropolitan boroughs, how can the Minister possibly justify such a huge cut to the metropolitan authorities and an increase to the leafy counties?
Robert Neill
I was just looking at the figures that the hon. Lady gives me for her authority. It is worth observing that Greater Manchester is funded at the rate of £26 per head in formula grant. Cheshire, which was referred to, gets only £18 per head in formula grant, so I do not think she is giving a fair comparison.
Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)
At Castle Donington in my constituency there is a monument to the waste and profligacy of the previous Government with regard to fire services: a £14 million unused regional FiReControl centre that is still costing the taxpayer £5,000 a day. Particularly galling is the fact that Leicestershire has the lowest funded fire authority in the country. Will my hon. Friend remind the House how much the previous Government wasted on regional FiReControl centres?
Robert Neill
The figure that the Public Accounts Committee of this House gave was not less than £469 million, and I observe that in one year, 2010, the Labour Government spent £69 million on consultants, which is broadly the amount that the fire services have contributed to deficit reduction over two years.
Mr Tobias Ellwood (Bournemouth East) (Con)
Will the Minister congratulate Dorset fire and rescue service on its work in co-ordinating its efforts with the police and ambulance services in preparation for the Olympics? However, there is a worry that the improved resilience infrastructure will fall away after the Olympics. Will he do what he can to ensure that the much-needed blue light improvements are not dismantled after the games?
Robert Neill
I can certainly assure my hon. Friend that we will seek to do that. I have had the pleasure of visiting Dorset fire and rescue service and am impressed by the joint working that is being done. The Government, in all Departments, are anxious to continue improving interoperability.
Chris Williamson (Derby North) (Lab)
I have to say that I am a little puzzled by the Minister’s responses this morning—[Hon. Members: “This afternoon.”] That reinforces my puzzlement, as his answers have been so confusing. The point is that the Prime Minister, prior to the general election, gave a solemn pledge that he would veto any ministerial plans that involved cuts to front-line services, yet in the Minister’s Department we have seen thousands of firefighters losing their jobs, dozens of fire stations closing and response times going through the roof. As a consequence, he is putting the safety of the public at risk. Did he forget to tell the Prime Minister about his cuts, or is this simply another broken prime ministerial election pledge?
Robert Neill
A lot of fire and rescue authorities are making the savings not by cutting firefighter posts or reducing fire stations, but through shared operations, better joint working and, interestingly, amended shift practices—one thing that the hon. Gentleman seems to have taken on board rather literally.
Mr Dennis Skinner (Bolsover) (Lab)
3. What assessment he has made of the potential effect of council tax benefit localisation on low-income families.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Andrew Stunell)
An impact assessment is on my Department’s website. These reforms will give councils a greater stake in getting people back into work and will help to reduce the budget deficit. The Government are committed to supporting the most vulnerable in society and have been clear that pensioners should be protected and changes should support work incentives.
Mr Skinner
At a meeting on Friday local authorities from areas of high need, such as Chesterfield, Bolsover and North East Derbyshire, were still bemoaning the fact that they have just suffered a 19% cut in the money they receive from central Government. This proposal will mean another £500 million cut in areas of high need, which is equivalent to 10% for all those local authorities. It is high time the Government started listening less to press barons like Murdoch and more to the democratically elected voices in local government.
Andrew Stunell
I think that the hon. Gentleman is letting his phobias get the better of him. No local authority has faced a reduction in its spending power of more than 8.7%, and the figures he talks about are not real at all. I know that he did not always support the Labour Government’s policies, but he was right behind them on building up the deficit. He now needs to get behind this Government in tackling that deficit.
Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)
What impact has the two-year council tax freeze had on low-income households?
Andrew Stunell
Of course, it has been very beneficial to those on low incomes who are paying council tax and those who rely on council tax benefit support. I think that the Government should be commended for the action they have taken, and it is astonishing that some Members on the Labour Front Bench condemned the introduction of this proposal.
Mr Nick Raynsford (Greenwich and Woolwich) (Lab)
May I draw attention to my interest as declared in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests?
I remind the Minister that we are talking about cuts in council tax benefit, that the Government’s own proposal is for a 10% cut, not 8%, and that that will translate into a 16% cut for those who will bear the burden because of the protection of those over pension age, but extraordinarily, if the Government believe in what they are doing, why have they been so embarrassed as to have done nothing for the past three months? We have been waiting for Report stage of the Bill leading to the introduction of those changes, but it has been parked. Where has it been?
Andrew Stunell
The right hon. Gentleman is of course a doughty fighter on these matters, and I assure him that the Bill will be back in the House within a week or two.
Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)
Is not the best way to help those on low incomes to freeze council tax, and is the Minister aware that Harlow’s Conservative district council has frozen council tax not just for one or two years, but for three years?
Andrew Stunell
Clearly, a good way of reducing the cost to the state of the council tax benefit system, and the cost to the householder, is to freeze council tax, and I commend the hon. Gentleman’s local council on the work that it has done.
Helen Jones (Warrington North) (Lab)
The Government’s own figures show that a cut of 16% in council tax benefit will cost the poorest families more than £161 a year, but does the Minister accept that, in fact, the cuts are likely to be far higher than that, up to 25%, depending on the number of pensioners in a local authority area? Does he think that this postcode lottery for the poorest families is fair? How can the Government justify cutting the incomes of 1 million struggling families while increasing the incomes of millionaires?
Andrew Stunell
The hon. Lady of course is completely off track. In reality, local authorities will have choices about how they manage the reduction and be able to choose, through the design of their scheme, whether some awards should be reduced. They can manage the reduction by reconfiguring the funding of other services, through efficiency savings, by using reserves or with flexibility over the council tax, which the same Bill before Parliament gives to local authorities.
Charlotte Leslie (Bristol North West) (Con)
6. What steps he is taking to devolve political power to cities.
The Minister of State, Department for Communities and Local Government (Greg Clark)
For more than 100 years power has been remorselessly sapped from our great cities, and I am determined to restore power to them. The Localism Act 2011 gave a general power of competence; our city deal programme devolves more powers; and this week’s mayoral referendums will allow local people to decide how their cities should be led.
Charlotte Leslie
Last week Bristolians heard about the resignation of Barbara Janke, the city council leader, making it six changes of leadership in the city in the past 10 years. Does my right hon. Friend agree that such chopping and changing makes a strategic vision for the city very difficult, and that what Bristol needs to fulfil itself is the vision, accountability and stability of an elected mayor?
Greg Clark
I do agree. I have the greatest respect for Councillor Janke, but six leaders in 10 years is no way to run a city as great as Bristol. The leaders of Liverpool, Leicester and Birmingham city councils have all said that they could lead their city better as an elected mayor. The mayoral referendum offers an historic choice to the people of Bristol: they have the chance to make it a turning point in the city’s history.
Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)
At the most recent meeting of the Liaison Committee, the Prime Minister, in a response to a question that I asked, said that
“I can absolutely assure you that on the city deals…we can do those deals with individual cities whether or not they are going to have a mayor.”
Yet, in the Yorkshire Evening Post on Saturday, the Minister agreed that there were powers that the Government would be happy to give to an elected mayor, but not to a traditional council. Does the Minister agree with the Prime Minister that powers can be devolved to cities irrespective of whether they have an elected mayor or an elected council leader, as long as they have strong governance arrangements?
Greg Clark
The hon. Gentleman and his Select Committee on Communities and Local Government know that I am always and everywhere keen to devolve power to local government, including to cities. What we have said to conclude our city deals is that there has to be stronger governance, and the case of Bristol demonstrates that. When there is a revolving door of leaders, it is impossible to have the necessary accountability, so there needs to be stronger governance, and an elected mayor meets that model.
Mr David Ward (Bradford East) (LD)
If the Minister is so convinced of the benefits of elected mayors, why did he require dictatorial powers to force local authorities to hold elections? Would it not be fairer to have a yes/no question, rather than one loaded so much in favour of elected mayors?
Greg Clark
My hon. Friend will know that the Electoral Commission set the question. In fact, the terms of the referendum are very similar to that which the previous Government introduced in London to give the people of London a chance to vote on whether to have a mayor. I think that most people in London conclude that it has been a success.
Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)
Why does the Minister persist in selling his reforms as introducing London-style city governance in other large cities in England? If he genuinely believes in London-style city governance, why will his proposed mayor of Manchester be responsible for governing only one tenth of the city region?
Greg Clark
The election is based on the current boundaries of Manchester, and that seems perfectly reasonable. I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman is asking me to abolish the councils that exist in Greater Manchester. Salford, which is part of Greater Manchester, will have a mayor who will be elected on 3 May, and the people of Manchester have a choice as to whether they want to join it.
Mr Adrian Sanders (Torbay) (LD)
7. What steps he is taking to simplify the regulation of private landlords.
The Minister for Housing and Local Government (Grant Shapps)
Excessive red tape in the sector would push up rents and reduce choice for tenants. That is why we are streamlining licensing processes for houses in multiple occupation and scrapping plans for an expensive and counter-productive state register of every landlord. This afternoon I am chairing a taskforce on rogue landlords in order to try to drive them out of the market.
Mr Sanders
One way of alleviating the regulatory burden on landlords but also improving safety and security for tenants would be to provide a simple standardised document containing all landlord and tenant responsibilities, from fire safety to antisocial behaviour. The planning system is about to benefit from a process of simplification. Will the Minister do likewise with the private rented housing sector?
Grant Shapps
I am pleased to report to my hon. Friend that standards are certainly improving in the private-rented sector. For example, satisfaction levels are higher than in the social sector and rates of energy performance are better than in the private sector. I like the sound of his idea, and I will certainly have a look at it. It sounds as though it might be comparable with a template lease, and it is worth further consideration.
John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)
There are now more than 1 million families with children whose home is privately rented, and Shelter says that a third of them cut down on food to pay their rents and they can all be kicked out with less than a month’s notice. Why are the Government so out of touch with the pressure that people face that they are denying even the basic security of a legal right to a written tenancy agreement?
Grant Shapps
The right hon. Gentleman, who knows a thing or two about housing, is absolutely right to indicate the pressure in the system caused by more than a decade of building far fewer homes than are required, which has led to rents rising very quickly. There are now some signs that rents have started to moderate. The English housing survey shows that rents rose at a slower pace than inflation; LSL Property Services shows falls for the third month in a row; and Professor Michael Ball reports that they fell by a tenth in real terms between 2008 and 2011. The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right, following on from the question by my hon. Friend the Member for Torbay (Mr Sanders), to suggest that we must always drive for improvements, and that may well include looking at leasing documents.
Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) (Con)
8. What discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for Transport on whether a precedent exists for a property bond to be established for homeowners whose properties are affected by High Speed 2.
The Minister of State, Department for Communities and Local Government (Greg Clark)
The Government’s approach to compensation for property owners was set out in the HS2 document, “Review of Property Issues”, which was published on 12 January by the Secretary of State for Transport, who, together with colleagues, was consulted in the usual way before publication.
Andrea Leadsom
I thank my right hon. Friend for his answer. Does he agree that as there have already been two years of property blight, which potentially remains until 2026, whereby people are unable to sell their houses normally, it might be necessary to consider a property bond to normalise the property market? Will he reassure me that if that were the case, his Department would not veto such a decision on the grounds that it might create a precedent for other national infrastructure projects?
Greg Clark
My hon. Friend, who is a great campaigner on this issue, knows from the answer that the Transport Secretary gave her in the previous session of oral questions that my right hon. Friend recognises the impact that the plans for HS2 are having on residents along the route of the line and has given an assurance that she will make sure that the package is fair to all those residents.
Dr Julian Huppert (Cambridge) (LD)
9. What recent discussions he has had on funding for Cambridgeshire and Peterborough fire authority.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Robert Neill)
On 31 January, I met representatives from Cambridgeshire and Peterborough fire authority, together with representatives of Suffolk fire and rescue authorities, to discuss their interest in the control centre building in Cambridge and funding matters. They also discussed their bid for joint control working. On 8 March, there was a follow-up meeting at official level.
Dr Huppert
I thank the Minister for those comments. Fire services such as ours in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, which are already low cost and largely have retained firefighters, are extremely vulnerable to excessive funding reductions. Beyond a certain point, there is no alternative other than the withdrawal of appliances and station closures. I accept the need for some savings, but there is still a lack of clarity about how much the service will have to save. Will the Minister meet me, staff from the authority and the service and other local MPs, who are also concerned, to discuss how much funding will be made available in future?
Robert Neill
The overall reduction in funding to Cambridgeshire and Peterborough fire authority is 1.5% of its spending power. I am glad to say that the joint bid with Suffolk to improve fire control room services was successful, and that it will receive £400,000 in revenue and £180 million in capital funding. I am always happy to meet hon. Members to discuss the circumstances in their constituencies.
Mr Speaker
Order. Poplar and Limehouse are a little way away from Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, to which nevertheless I feel sure that the hon. Gentleman’s question will exclusively relate.
Jim Fitzpatrick
I am humbled by your confidence, Mr Speaker, in my ability to speak about the funding of Cambridgeshire—and Suffolk, which the Minister also mentioned in his response to the hon. Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert). In his discussions with those two county authorities, and others, did the Minister consider their funding of the fire service college, which is about to be privatised? How will he maintain control over the college and can he assure hon. Members about its future?
Robert Neill
I will happily answer that at an appropriate moment, but I doubt whether I shall be in order if I try to do so now. I acknowledge the hon. Gentleman’s interest in the fire service, but the discussions were about joint control room bids—a facility made available to all those interested in bidding. As he will recognise, the need to have such discussions about the future of joint control rooms arose partly because we were stuck with 30-odd-year leases on control rooms that were not usable because the previous Government never delivered the IT to go inside them
Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)
For the avoidance of doubt, the fire service college is in the Cotswolds rather than the Fens.
Will the Minister support me in saying that we should pursue further shared and combined services with other fire authorities on, for example, payroll, administration and human resources rather than moving immediately to front-line cuts such as the closure of Stanground or Dogsthorpe fire stations in the city of Peterborough?
Robert Neill
I agree with my hon. Friend that there are sensible means of meeting deficit reduction targets, without having an impact on stations and staffing. I pointed that out in a letter to the shadow fire Minister, the hon. Member for Dudley North (Ian Austin), in December 2010. References to shared service, joint working, joint procurement, flexible shift patterns and working patterns are exactly the sort of issues that go-ahead fire authorities are taking on board.
Lorraine Fullbrook (South Ribble) (Con)
10. What steps his Department is taking to support local high streets.
The Minister for Housing and Local Government (Grant Shapps)
I published the Government response to the Portas review on 30 March. We have accepted almost all Mary Portas’s recommendations, and added some of our own.
Lorraine Fullbrook
I am proud to champion Leyland’s bid to be a Portas pilot, which will focus just as much on invigorating community spirit as on invigorating the high street. Does my right hon. Friend agree that local town teams can best support the regeneration of the high street and our town centres through full engagement with every level of the community, as Leyland in my constituency has done?
Grant Shapps
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. There have been a remarkable 371 applications by town teams to become Portas pilots. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for her incredible work, which will doubtless be noted in the Leyland Guardian when it is next published, and wish her every success.
Hugh Bayley (York Central) (Lab)
Does the Minister agree that out-of-town shops can attract shoppers away from high streets? Will the Government consider introducing the opportunity for local authorities to impose car parking charges, even on privately owned car parks, for out-of-town shopping?
Grant Shapps
It is, of course, the case that the balance between out of town and town centre has a considerable impact. It is for local authorities to make those decisions. In the national planning policy framework, we set out a clear town centre first policy, but ultimately local authorities need to make decisions about parking. I strongly suggest to local authorities that it would be advantageous to them—Mary Portas backs up the point—to think carefully about the parking charges in town and concentrate on reducing those to make town centres more popular.
Andrew George (St Ives) (LD)
A useful tool to support high street shops and town centres is the Sustainable Communities Act 2007 (Amendment) Act 2010. The Act was passed more than two years ago. Can the Minister let the House know when the regulations that support that excellent legislation are likely to be laid so that local communities can take full advantage of it?
Dame Joan Ruddock (Lewisham, Deptford) (Lab)
I wonder whether the Minister agrees with me and Mary Portas that the clustering of betting shops in high streets is becoming a real problem. It means a lack of diversity in high streets and, in the case of Deptford high street, much antisocial behaviour. Why will the Government not give local authorities more and better powers to deal with that menace?
Grant Shapps
The right hon. Lady is absolutely right that the balance of shops is often very important. The Government said in our response to Mary Portas that we were carrying out a use class order review, which is ongoing. The right hon. Lady’s local authority, and those of all hon. Members, already have more options than they perhaps realise through article 4. They would certainly want to work with town teams to make the best possible progress.
Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)
11. What recent assessment he has made of the rate of house building.
Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)
12. What recent assessment he has made of the rate of house building.
The Minister for Housing and Local Government (Grant Shapps)
In 2011 just over 98,000 new houses were started—25% up on the numbers from 2009—and we are building 170,000 homes for affordable rent in the next three years.
Seema Malhotra
In London, private rents are rising and families are being forced to move away from relatives, and children from their schools. With 360,000 Londoners on social housing waiting lists, why did construction start on only 56 new affordable homes in the latest six-month period? When will the Minister take his responsibility seriously, and how will he address this grave problem in London?
Grant Shapps
It is important to give accurate figures in the House. Once again, the most comprehensive and accurate figures available must be those from the English housing survey, which demonstrates that rents have been not rising, but falling. Her Majesty’s Opposition refuse to accept those basic facts and keep repeating incorrect information about rents. They ignore the fact that under this Government, homelessness right now is at half the average level that it stood at in 13 years under Labour.
Debbie Abrahams
The Government cancelled housing market renewal, and only 210 houses were built in Oldham last year—for the Minister’s information, those are independent figures—which is the lowest level in seven years. Fewer than half those houses were affordable homes. With nearly 6,500 households on housing waiting lists in Oldham and 1.8 million nationally—that is also an independently validated figure—when will the Government get a grip on housing?
Grant Shapps
Here are the facts: the housing market renewal programme in places such as Oldham and elsewhere destroyed 10,000 homes in this country, but by contrast, the previous Government built only 1,000 through that pathfinder programme. That is what destroyed housing in this country. By contrast, through the demolition of the housing market renewal programme, this Government are building 170,000 more homes for affordable rent in the next three years. That will be more than were built in 13 years when affordable housing numbers declined under Labour.
David Tredinnick (Bosworth) (Con)
Is my right hon. Friend aware of the massive housing developments proposed under the old top-down system for Barwell and Earl Shilton in my constituency? There are to be 2,500 houses for each town, which is a 25% increase. Does he agree that meaningful consultation is absolutely vital, and that simply putting a notice up on a church wall or placing an advert in a free sheet is inadequate?
Grant Shapps
It is essential that there is proper consultation. Ending the top-down targets that the regional spatial strategies represented is absolutely the right thing to do, and will lead to more building in the longer run, simply for the fact that local communities will take responsibility and ownership, and, of course, take up the new homes bonus, which, I notice, Opposition Members have yet to return to the Treasury.
Mary Macleod (Brentford and Isleworth) (Con)
Will my right hon. Friend join me in recognising the work that Boris Johnson has done in London on housing? There are 50,000 more affordable houses in London, with more than 1,600 of those in my London borough of Hounslow. He has promised to bring another 55,000 houses to London if he wins on Thursday. What can my right hon. Friend do to help him to deliver them?
Grant Shapps
Unlike his predecessor, Mayor Boris has been a champion for affordable housing in London, and indeed it seems very likely that he will have delivered 50,000 homes for affordable rent. It is worth bearing in mind that fewer than that were delivered throughout the entire country under 13 years of Labour.
Jack Dromey (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab)
The Housing Minister said that house building would be the gold standard on which this Government would be judged and that what brought him into politics was homelessness, yet we know from figures released today that house building is down 26% on average compared with what was achieved under a Labour Government, and that homelessness has risen by 23%. With millions in desperate need of a decent home at a price they can afford, will he now accept that his housing policies, like the Government’s economic polices, are hurting, not working?
Grant Shapps
The whole House has noticed that there have been no housing policies from the Opposition since the election. Housing starts in England in 2011 were up 25% compared with 2009, and in the same period the value of new housing construction was up 33% and construction orders were up 35%. Not for the first time, then, I am afraid that the hon. Gentleman has got his figures plain wrong.
Mr Graham Allen (Nottingham North) (Lab)
14. What his policy is on taking localism further towards independence of local government.
The Minister of State, Department for Communities and Local Government (Greg Clark)
I warmly welcome the public debate that the hon. Gentleman has led with the Local Government Association. He and I share a strong view that we must disperse power in our society. The Localism Act 2011 is an important step in that direction, but I regard it as a point of departure rather than a destination, and I encourage every council to respond to his report.
Mr Allen
The Minister will know that there is a strong and growing all-party campaign in the House and outside for statutorily defined independent local government. Does he think there is something in the DNA of the British people that means that, unlike the Italians, Germans, Americans, Canadians and everyone else in a western democracy, they are incapable of deciding how to run their own affairs locally and need Whitehall to tell them how to do it?
Greg Clark
Like the hon. Gentleman, I think that exactly the opposite is the case and that our towns, cities and communities across the country will prosper when they have the opportunity—and, indeed, the right—to do things their way, rather than the way Whitehall dictates.
Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)
The Minister’s determination to devolve political decision making to the lowest possible level is extremely welcome. Can he, for example, think of any circumstances under which he would dictate to a local city or local authority what flag to fly outside the town hall?
Greg Clark
I cannot imagine such a thing. How a community chooses to represent itself and with what images and emblems seems to me the epitome of local choice.
Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)
15. What contribution to economic growth he expects his planning reforms to deliver.
The Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Mr Eric Pickles)
Our planning reforms have simplified the system and put power into the hands of local communities to deliver the growth they need. Thanks to the excellent work of the Minister of State, Department for Communities and Local Government, my right hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark), who has responsibility for planning, our reforms arrive at a balance between economic activity, the environment and heritage.
Andrew Selous
Is the Secretary of State aware of a pioneering partnership in my constituency that is getting built not only a much-needed bypass but thousands of vitally needed homes? Does he agree that this is a case of where Central Bedfordshire leads today, others should follow tomorrow?
Mr Pickles
I congratulate my hon. Friend’s authority. This was the kind of thing we wanted to do when we embarked on the reforms. None of this would have been possible without the general power of competence or devolving local authority finance. It represents the future of local authorities.
Roberta Blackman-Woods (City of Durham) (Lab)
With planning applications running six times higher in the south-east than in the north-east, how does the Secretary of State envisage his planning reforms will contribute to reducing regional growth inequalities?
Mr Pickles
I am sure the hon. Lady will be pleased to know that our planning reforms were welcomed by the North East chamber of commerce, which saw, as perhaps she will come to see, that the reforms are a liberation and will enable a good partnership between local enterprise partnerships and local authorities. They will enable them to work together with people in the north-east for the people of the north-east and will release them from some of the burdens that her Government left on the people of the north-east.
Chris Heaton-Harris (Daventry) (Con)
16. What criteria he uses when calling in or recovering planning applications; and if he will make a statement.
The Minister of State, Department for Communities and Local Government (Greg Clark)
The Government believe that planning decisions should be taken in, and by, local communities, and so use their call-in powers sparingly. Essentially, the powers are used when matters are of national significance.
Chris Heaton-Harris
The planning inspector’s decision on the Kelmarsh wind farm in my constituency helped to spark a massive campaign against onshore wind in this place and beyond. In such cases, how long does the Secretary of State legally have to recover or call in decisions, and what is the Department’s policy in this area?
Greg Clark
My hon. Friend will know that I cannot comment on a particular case—the quasi-judicial status of ministerial decisions is well understood at the moment. Once a decision notice has been given, that is the end of the Secretary of State’s discretion in the matter.
Andrew Stephenson (Pendle) (Con)
T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.
The Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Mr Eric Pickles)
I have been reviewing my Department’s plan to abolish the Audit Commission. Ministers have told the House previously that the abolition would save £50 million. I am afraid that was wrong: the revised estimate suggests that the abolition will save taxpayers not £50 million, but £650 million over five years. Combined with the scrapping of 10 other quangos, from the Standards Board to the Government offices for the regions, the reductions in my Department’s running will save £1 billion of taxpayers’ money.
Andrew Stephenson
Empty homes are a big problem in Pendle, so I welcome the £100 million of funding to bring empty homes back into use as affordable housing, and the additional £50 million to tackle some of the worst concentrations of empty homes. Does my right hon. Friend agree that that is far more than Labour did in its 13 years of power?
Mr Pickles
The Labour party’s idea of a housing policy was to demolish perfectly good houses. We felt it was important to get houses that had been left unoccupied back into business. That is why the scheme is available through the new homes bonus, and it is also the reason for the reforms to get clusters of unoccupied houses back together, which the Under-Secretary of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Hazel Grove (Andrew Stunell) spoke of earlier. We are determined that what are perfectly good houses, in areas where communities have lived together for many years, should be brought back into circulation.
Hilary Benn (Leeds Central) (Lab)
Conservative councillors must have been very encouraged over the weekend to read the Secretary of State’s admission in The Sunday Times that lots of them are going to lose their jobs come Thursday. Families are struggling because of the failure of the Government’s economic policy, but at least they know that council tax is lower in areas with Labour councils than in Conservative ones. Would the Secretary of State like to congratulate Labour councils on their achievement?
Mr Pickles
I congratulate the shadow Secretary of State, not only on attending his son’s wedding last week, but on continuing the trend of fiddling figures. The only way he can get at those figures is to ignore all the district councils. In band D, the Labour party continues to be £62 more expensive than the Conservative party.
Hilary Benn
I know that the Secretary of State does not really do detail, but I would have thought that even he could work out the figures for himself. The band D council tax rate is £81 lower in Labour areas than in Tory areas. He has made great play of trying to keep council tax down, but as we heard earlier, because of his legislation, his plan next year is to increase the council tax paid by a lot of people who are on low incomes. Does that not show that, far from us all being in it together, the Secretary of State is determined to dump some people in it more than others? Is that not the real reason why he has thrown in the towel before polling day?
Mr Pickles
I understand that the right hon. Gentleman has form on council tax. When he was deputy leader of Ealing council, it increased by 65% in one year only, although we should not be surprised, because council tax has doubled under Labour. However, I repeat: the only way he can arrive at anything close to those figures is by ignoring every single district council in the country. As the small print of his figures clearly shows, he has ignored a third of councils in order to arrive at those ridiculous figures.
Mike Freer (Finchley and Golders Green) (Con)
T2. Does the Minister believe that the BBC’s recent coverage of Newham’s housing policy was fair and accurate?
The Minister for Housing and Local Government (Grant Shapps)
I do not believe that the coverage was fair, balanced or timely, given that the election for the Mayor of London is taking place in Newham exactly a week after the coverage. Given that the BBC chose not to mention to any Department that it was running the story, it is impossible to understand how it thought it could be running a fair and balanced story.
Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)
T4. Does the Secretary of State agree with the Minister for Housing and Local Government that Birmingham’s claim to have only nine rough sleepers is ludicrous? Furthermore, is that the only thing that he finds ludicrous about the antics of those who are running Birmingham city council?
Grant Shapps
There is a wider point about the homelessness and rough sleeping numbers, which is that before this Government came to power, the figures were simply inaccurate. The majority of authorities did not return the relevant numbers. The change now is that we have required every local authority to send in its numbers and regularised the way in which rough sleeper numbers are collected, so that we can properly focus resources on tackling the scourge of rough sleeping.
Mr Edward Timpson (Crewe and Nantwich) (Con)
T3. In Crewe, I have been helping a community of elderly residents at Linden Court after the local housing association attempted to move them out on just a few months’ notice in order to redevelop the site. Will my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State use his good offices to encourage housing associations to treat the elderly with the care, courtesy and respect that they deserve, particularly those whom they are considering moving out of their homes?
Mr Pickles
I am not sure that I need to use those powers, because my hon. Friend has used his considerable influence and I now understand that the housing association is having a rethink and looking into other ways of dealing with Linden Court, which I visited with him a few years ago. It is important that, when elderly persons are being moved out of their homes, they should be treated with enormous dignity, and local authorities and housing associations need to go about that task at a leisurely pace.
Tony Lloyd (Manchester Central) (Lab)
T7. An antisocial neighbour, whether the tenant of a private landlord, a social landlord or a public landlord, can not only make their neighbours’ lives a misery but destroy a whole estate. On that basis, rather than reducing the role of communities through local councils, why does not the Government give them real powers to ensure that they can deal with antisocial neighbours? Instead of calling it “getting rid of red tape”, we could talk about doing something positive.
Grant Shapps
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. That is why we are proposing to criminalise certain types of antisocial behaviour and ensuring that previous offences can be taken into account. For example, if someone engaged in antisocial behaviour in someone else’s community during the riots, that should clearly count against them when it came to their own housing situation.
Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)
T5. Many of my constituents believe that there should be less, not more, influence on our daily lives from the European Union. Will Ministers therefore take a vigorous stand against the EU proposal that the EU flag be flown permanently above 1,000 of our public and private buildings? Our country’s flag is the Union Jack.
Mr Pickles
This obligation is likely to be placed on us because of our control of the European development funds. We are currently under an obligation to fly the EU flag for one week a year. It seems to me that the flying of a flag should be a joyous act, rather than one imposed by another authority. The idea that we should be fined for not flying the EU flag is utterly ridiculous and a sign of a lack of confidence on the part of our EU partners.
Grahame M. Morris (Easington) (Lab)
T8. In the national press today, there are at least three reports of dramatic increases in bed-blocking. Bed-blocking occurs when patients cannot be discharged from hospital because social care packages have not been put in place by hard-pressed local authorities. This is now costing the taxpayer about £600,000 every day. Is not this more evidence of this Government’s failed policies on social care in local government? They are cutting too far and too fast.
Mr Pickles
We have put in an extra £7.2 million, but the hon. Gentleman makes a reasoned point. I feel that the reforms in the national health service and giving local authorities more responsibility for health should enable us to get a much better and much more closely co-ordinated and integrated process. The movement from hospital into care or into a person’s home needs to be better organised. The Government will certainly produce a White Paper soon to deal with this. I hope that it will meet some of the problems that the hon. Gentleman mentioned.
Mark Menzies (Fylde) (Con)
T6. Ahead of the London elections, do Ministers share my concerns over alarms raised by local councillors in Tower Hamlets about alleged voting fraud? What steps are being taken to ensure the integrity of the ballot?
Grant Shapps
I do share my hon. Friend’s concerns, and I share the concerns of six Labour councillors who wrote to the Electoral Commission on Monday last week, pointing out serious worries about electoral fraud. I think the Electoral Commission should have picked this up sooner—back in February, when two Labour Members of Parliament complained about this. I have written to the Electoral Commission today to propose that it moves a lot faster and ensures that the police are present, as required, on polling day.
Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)
It is increasingly difficult to find housing in Newham within the rent cap that the Government have set. Instead of criticising the BBC for exposing what is happening, will the Minister take action to improve matters?
Grant Shapps
The right hon. Gentleman will be interested to hear that immediately that the Newham story was flagged up, we went on just one website to search for properties and we could find within the Newham cap of £15,000 rent a year—not the £21,000 maximum cap—1,000 properties available in Newham or within five miles of it. That is why it is a disgrace that the council was considering sending people halfway across the country.
Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)
T9. My right hon. Friend the cities Minister, the Minister of State, Department for Communities and Local Government, the right hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark), will have noted, not least from the Centre for Cities annual report, that progress in Gloucester is encouraging on a number of fronts, including the regeneration of major sites and the expansion of our specialist training company to provide apprenticeships and skills for our thriving small and medium-sized enterprises engineering centre. Gloucester would be delighted if the Minister could visit the city to look more closely at some of our successes and our challenges.
The Minister of State, Department for Communities and Local Government (Greg Clark)
It would give me the greatest pleasure to visit Gloucester, especially in the company of my hon. Friend.
Tristram Hunt (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab)
The reason why Newham council is thinking of sending tenants to my constituency of Stoke-on-Trent is as a result of the massive failure of house building under the Tory Mayor of London. What assurances can the Minister give my constituents that they will not face an unplanned influx of residents because of Tory failings in London?
Grant Shapps
That is simple. This Mayor has delivered 50,000 affordable houses for rent, outperforming the previous Labour Mayor. If constituents vote for him again, he will deliver even more next time.
Jane Ellison (Battersea) (Con)
Has the Secretary of State had the opportunity to compare the track records on council tax for the current Mayor of London and his Labour predecessor?
Mr Pickles
It is a very straightforward comparison. Each year under Ken Livingstone, the council tax went up; each year under Boris Johnson, the council tax was either frozen or went down.
Dr Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test) (Lab)
Does the Secretary of State intend to continue with his Department’s consultation on home improvements and related energy efficiencies in the green deal, or is he proposing to scrap it in the light of the advice from a No. 10 spokesman who said that the proposals were bonkers and would not happen?
Mr Pickles
We are currently considering all applications during the consultation. We will be looking closely at that and we will ensure that we do not place an undue burden on the public.
Tessa Munt (Wells) (LD)
Those on the housing list whose change in situation, such as having an extra child or additional medical needs, means they meet the criteria for higher banding of need for housing, or those who change the nature of their request, such as for a new location, have to restart their time on the housing list. Does the Minister think that that is fair, as it prevents us from collecting accurate data?
Grant Shapps
What is required is for local authorities to have a far greater say in the way their housing lists are run. That is why I am pleased to be able to report to my hon. Friend that that is exactly what is being proposed through the Localism Act—and it is exactly what is about to come into force.
David Simpson (Upper Bann) (DUP)
What discussions have taken place with the regional assemblies about the new planning proposals?
Mr Pickles
We have engaged in a number of discussions with the assemblies in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. They have been very constructive, especially at officer level, but it is still up to individual constituent parts of the United Kingdom to decide whether to implement the proposals.
Graham Evans (Weaver Vale) (Con)
The last Government shamefully ran down the right-to-buy discount. Does the Minister agree that that acted as a brake on the aspirations of those who wished to join what we Conservatives call the great British property-owning democracy?
Grant Shapps
My hon. Friend is absolutely correct. The right to buy, which enabled 2 million hard-working families to buy their own properties, was disgracefully run down, so that only 3,000 a year could take advantage of it under the last Administration. The right to buy is back, however: there is a £75,000 discount, and for every home that is sold another is built. That is the way in which to meet hard-working families’ aspirations in this country.
Ministerial Code (Culture Secretary)
(12 years, 7 months ago)
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Edward Miliband (Doncaster North) (Lab)
(Urgent Question): To ask the Prime Minister if he will refer the conduct of the Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport, in respect of his dealings with News Corporation, to the independent adviser on ministerial interests.
The Prime Minister (Mr David Cameron)
I answered questions on this issue at Prime Minister’s Questions last Wednesday, and the Culture Secretary made a full statement, but let me set out the position again.
I set up the Leveson inquiry last summer to investigate the culture, ethics and practices of the media, and the relations between the media and the police and the media and politicians. It is a full, judge-led inquiry, with evidence given under oath and full access to papers and records. No Government before have ever taken such comprehensive action. It is this Government who are putting these issues properly on the table and getting them dealt with.
Let me deal with the three issues raised in the question: the conduct of the Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport, the nature of the inquiry that is needed to get to the bottom of these issues, and the wider issues surrounding the relationship between politicians and the media.
First, let me deal with the issue of the Culture Secretary. As was made clear in his statement last Wednesday, in every respect with regard to the News Corporation bid, the Culture Secretary asked for independent advice and acted on it. He was not required to ask for or to follow such advice, but he did so. He acted fairly and impartially, and in line with the advice of his permanent secretary. Indeed, as he said in his statement to the House on Wednesday, he acted against the interests of News Corporation on four key decisions: on being minded to refer the bid to the Competition Commission, on refusing to accept News Corporation’s undertakings without taking advice first from the OFT and Ofcom, on extending the consultation, and on going back to Ofcom for further advice about the impact of phone hacking. I have seen no evidence to suggest that, in handling this issue, the Secretary of State acted at any stage in a way that was contrary to the ministerial code.
As for the Secretary of State’s responsibilities towards his Department, let me say this. The permanent secretary to the Department approved the approach that his department took to the quasi-judicial process, which included a small number of people acting as contact points with News Corporation, as is required and normal in such a process. The permanent secretary has stated that he was “aware” and “content” for contact to be made between the Culture Secretary’s special adviser and News Corporation. However, it is quite clear that that contact became improper and inappropriate, and went beyond the requirements set out by the Secretary of State or the permanent secretary. That is why the special adviser resigned, and he was right to do so.
There are correct procedures to follow in this regard, and they need to be followed scrupulously. That is why last week I asked the Cabinet Secretary, Sir Jeremy Heywood, and the head of the civil service, Sir Bob Kerslake, to write to all Departments clarifying the rigorous procedures that they should have in place for handling cases of this nature.
That leads to the second issue: the nature of the inquiry, or inquiries, best suited to getting to the bottom of this issue. I consulted the Cabinet Secretary, and decided that it was right to allow Lord Justice Leveson to conduct his inquiry and not to commission a parallel process to establish the facts. Let me repeat that what we have is a judge-led inquiry, witnesses required to give evidence under oath, full access to papers and records, and cross-examination by barristers, all live on television. There is nothing this tough or this rigorous that the civil service or the independent adviser could provide. Of course, it is not for Lord Justice Leveson to determine whether a Minister has broken the ministerial code. That is an issue for me, and I will deal with it properly. [Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. Members are getting over-excited; they must not shout at the Prime Minister. They want to hear what the Prime Minister has to say, as do I, and it must be heard with courtesy.
The Prime Minister
I will not wait until the end of the Leveson inquiry to take action if action is needed. If new evidence emerges from the Leveson inquiry that the ministerial code has been broken, I will either seek the advice of Sir Alex Allan or take action directly, but the key point is this: in order to do this, it is neither necessary nor right to have a parallel investigation that could duplicate, cut across or possibly pre-empt what Lord Justice Leveson is doing. Lord Justice Leveson offered his own view on Wednesday, when he said that
“although I have seen requests for other inquiries and investigations…it seems to me that the better course is to allow this Inquiry to proceed.”
I agree with him entirely.
Let me briefly turn to the bigger picture. I am, and always will be, a fierce defender of the freedom of the press in this country—it is one of the central pillars of our democracy—but the relationship between politicians and the media has been too close for decades. The Leveson inquiry, which this Government have set up, gives Parliament and politicians of all parties the opportunity to get this right for the future. Already we have introduced transparency about the meetings we have with the media. Everyone can see which proprietors or editors I meet, whether publicly or privately.
Like other party leaders in our country for decades, I have tried to convince media outlets to support the policies of my party and, now, my Government, but let me be clear: there was not—there never has been—any grand bargain between the Conservative party and Rupert or James Murdoch. Indeed, look for one moment at the number of meetings Tony Blair and Gordon Brown had with Rupert Murdoch when they were Prime Minister: Blair seven; Brown 13; me four. The idea that there was some agreement that, in return for their support, we would somehow allow this merger to go through is simply not true. I have to say that if that was the case, while I respect him deeply, what on earth was I doing making the right hon. Member for Twickenham (Vince Cable) the Business Secretary responsible for this? [Interruption.] The proprietors of News Corporation have denied under oath at the Leveson inquiry—[Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. Members must calm down. There will be a good opportunity for questioning, but let’s hear the Prime Minister’s statement.
The Prime Minister
The proprietors of News Corporation have denied under oath at the Leveson inquiry any type of deal, and I will do the same.
Let me make this last point: unlike the Labour party, we were not trying to convince a centre-right proprietor of a set of newspapers with solidly centre-right views to change the position of a lifetime. We were arguing a simple proposition: that the last Government were irresponsible, exhausted, bad for our country and ought to go.
While I have said that the relationship between politicians and the media has been too close, I note that none of the Members on the Labour Benches have disclosed any of the meetings they had with News International or other newspaper executives while in office. While the country wants to hear about jobs, investment, living standards and the great challenges we face, like debt, they just play one-sided party politics. Instead of endlessly trying to use the Leveson inquiry for party political purposes, is it not time they were honest about what they did in government and faced up to the real mess they left this country in?
Edward Miliband
The reason why it was essential for the Prime Minister to come to the House today is that the Culture Secretary is in clear breach of the ministerial code—and the Prime Minister stands by and does nothing. He asks why this matters. It matters because we need a Government who stand up for families, not the rich and powerful. He is failing that test. Playing for time, he says we should wait for the Leveson inquiry, but Lord Justice Leveson could not be clearer. This is what his spokesperson said: “the simple fact is” that Lord Justice Leveson
“is not the arbiter of the ministerial code, whatever anybody else is saying. There is somebody else who has that role…Alex Allan”.
Lord Justice Leveson is doing his job; it’s time the Prime Minister did his.
Can the Prime Minister confirm that there are no fewer than three breaches of the ministerial code by the Culture Secretary? First, in the House on 3 March the Culture Secretary told the hon. Member for Banbury (Tony Baldry) that
“all the exchanges between my Department and News Corporation”—[Official Report, 3 March 2011; Vol. 524, c. 526]
—were being published. But he has now admitted that he knew, when he gave that answer, that there were exchanges that he himself had authorised between his special adviser and News Corporation. Yet none of those exchanges was disclosed, and we have 163 pages to prove it. The Prime Minister does not need to wait for the Leveson inquiry. Will he confirm to the House that this was a breach of paragraph 1.2 c of the code, which says that Ministers must provide full and accurate information to Parliament?
Secondly, on 25 January the Culture Secretary gave a statement to the House. We now know that two days before that statement, News Corporation was given confidential inside information—and this when the Culture Secretary had a constitutional duty to act in a quasi-judicial manner. The Prime Minister does not need to wait for the Leveson inquiry; will he confirm that that breaches paragraph 1 of the code, which requires the Minister to act with the “highest standards of propriety”, and paragraph 9.1, which says that Parliament must be told first?
Finally, the Culture Secretary would have us believe that his special adviser was on a freelance mission—six months of daily e-mails, texts, leaks and the leaking of confidential information about what opposing parties were saying. On one of the biggest media bids for decades, is the Prime Minister really reduced to the News of the World defence—one rogue individual acting alone? If the Culture Secretary really was that clueless about the biggest issue facing his Department, he should be sacked anyway.
The central question that the Prime Minister must answer, in view of three clear breaches of the ministerial code, is: why will he not refer the matter to the man whose responsibility it is—Sir Alex Allan? The Prime Minister is defending the indefensible, and he knows it. He is protecting the Culture Secretary’s job while up and down the country hundreds of thousands are losing theirs. We all know why the special adviser had to go to protect the Culture Secretary; the Culture Secretary has to stay to protect the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister has shown today that he is incapable of doing his duty—too close to a powerful few, and out of touch with everyone else.
Mr Speaker
Order. Members on both sides need to calm down. The Prime Minister wishes to be heard. I wish to hear him, and I hope the House does.
The Prime Minister
First of all, 15 years of secret meetings, pyjama parties, christenings and all the rest of it—and not one word of apology. Let me answer, very directly, the three points that the right hon. Gentleman made. First, he spoke about the response to my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Tony Baldry). If the right hon. Gentleman had done his research, he would have seen that the Secretary of State set out in full the proper answer to the hon. Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) in September 2011. If you are going to make these accusations, get your facts right before you come here.
On the second issue, the right hon. Gentleman raised specifically the information provided to News Corporation, and was completely wrong. On that, the special adviser has said:
“While it was part of my role to keep News Corporation informed throughout the BskyB bid process the content and extent of my contact was done without authorisation from the Secretary of State.”
So the second accusation is completely wrong.
The third accusation is also about the special adviser and the ministerial code. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State took responsibility. He came to the House, explained what had happened and gave a full account of himself. While we are on the subject of Ministers taking responsibility for their special advisers, can anyone remember a Minister taking responsibility for Charlie Whelan? Can we remember anyone taking responsibility for Damian McBride? What a lot of self-serving double standards we have had from the Labour party.
Let me just make two further points. The right hon. Gentleman says that this is an issue of judgment about what steps to take. Let us examine, briefly, what the judgment of the deputy leader of the Labour party was. She was asked very specifically, “You called for the Secretary of State’s resignation within 23 minutes of the evidence being provided to the Leveson inquiry. Did you read that evidence?” She said, “No, I didn’t need to.” She was asked, “Why didn’t you need to?” She said, “Because I heard the evidence of James Murdoch.” So that is it: he is Labour’s arbiter of standards and the ministerial code. What complete nonsense.
I am not belittling this issue. It is a serious issue, but it is not as serious as the eurozone, the jobs, investment and debt that we have to deal with. It is time we focused on that. Let me just say this to the right hon. Gentleman: endlessly questioning the integrity of someone when you do not have the evidence is bad judgment, rotten politics and plain wrong. We have learnt something about the Labour leader today and I think it is something he will regret.
Simon Hughes (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (LD)
I hope that the Prime Minister accepts that for more than 25 years every Liberal Democrat leader and colleague in both Houses has sought to break the insidious relationship between Labour and Tory Governments and the media. We therefore welcome the Leveson inquiry, which is doing an excellent job. If the Prime Minister accepts that that gives confidence to the public, will he also accept that referring this matter next month to the independent adviser will also give confidence to the public and that possibly, in the future, that should be done independently and not at the discretion of the Prime Minister of the day?
The Prime Minister
First, I very much agree with what my right hon. Friend says about the opportunity provided for the Leveson inquiry. I think we should be frank: the relationships between the media and the police, and between the media and politicians, and some of the ethics and problems in the media, have not been dealt with properly under Governments both Labour and Conservative, and this gives us an opportunity to deal with the matter. On the specific issue of the Secretary of State, what is more robust than a judge-led inquiry, with Ministers under oath—holding the Bible, speaking under oath and answering questions? That is the point on which we have heard absolutely no answer from the Labour party.
Margaret Hodge (Barking) (Lab)
On Wednesday, the Secretary of State told this House that the permanent secretary had “agreed”, “authorised” and “approved” the role of Adam Smith. On Thursday, the permanent secretary refused 10 times to confirm to my Committee that that was the case. On Friday, he then wrote to me stating merely that he was “aware and content” with Adam Smith’s role. Either the Secretary of State failed to provide full and accurate information to Parliament or he failed to require his civil servant to provide full and accurate information to a Select Committee of Parliament. Both are breaches of the ministerial code—[Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. If Members, rather than braying noisily, would allow the question to be finished, we will get on with it. The last sentence, please.
Margaret Hodge
Both are breaches of the ministerial code, both ride roughshod over the rights of Parliament and surely both need to be properly investigated by the independent adviser.
The Prime Minister
I did watch some of the permanent secretary’s appearance in front of the right hon. Lady’s Committee, when he thought he was going to be discussing the Olympic Games. What he said, over and over again, was that he backed what his Secretary of State had said at this Dispatch Box. When asked to clarify it, he made it absolutely clear that he agreed the arrangements within the Department, as I said in my statement, and he was aware of and content with the role of the special adviser. I know that the right hon. Lady sometimes allows her Committee to drift into these areas, but I am afraid that she is completely wrong.
Mr John Whittingdale (Maldon) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend accept that there is an urgent need to restore public confidence in the process that led to decisions in this matter and that to achieve that an inquiry needs to be held, in the open, in which witnesses give evidence in public, subject to cross-examination and under oath? Will he confirm that if at the end of that process there remain questions to be answered, he will refer the matter to the ministerial adviser—or it might be appropriate that it be looked into by a Select Committee of this House?
The Prime Minister
I can absolutely give my hon. Friend that assurance. I agree with him. Having seen some of the Leveson inquiry on television, I know that it is immensely powerful that people are questioned under oath, that all the documentation is carefully gone through and that questions on that documentation are properly followed up. As I say, that is far more robust than anything the independent adviser or the civil service could provide. As my hon. Friend says, I am not waiting for Leveson to complete his investigations. If at any stage information comes out that shows that anyone has breached the ministerial code, of course I will act. That is the right approach and I think people should respect the integrity of the fact-finding mission in which Leveson is engaged. It does not remove from me the necessity to police the ministerial code; that is my job and I will fulfil it properly.
Mr Jack Straw (Blackburn) (Lab)
One of the clear duties on any Secretary of State, for which they in turn are responsible to the Prime Minister and not to Lord Leveson, concerns the conduct of their special advisers. Given what the Prime Minister knows already about the palpable dereliction of duty by the Secretary of State in supervising that adviser, does he not believe that there are matters under the ministerial code that now merit investigation by the independent adviser? No one understands why he is seeking to shelter behind the smokescreen of Lord Leveson’s inquiry when the duty to have this investigation is on him.
The Prime Minister
I respect hugely the right hon. Gentleman and his experience in government and I think he would know that I consulted the Cabinet Secretary, asking the question, “What is the right process to follow to ensure we get to the truth and we deal with this issue?” The right process to follow is to allow Lord Leveson to find the facts of the case and if at any stage there is a question of the ministerial code being broken I can act. The ministerial code in respect of special advisers is absolutely clear: Ministers are responsible and they have to take responsibility, and that is what my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State did when he came to the House.
Mr Peter Lilley (Hitchin and Harpenden) (Con)
Given that the role of the adviser on the ministerial code is purely to advise the Prime Minister on whether a Minister’s actions are in breach of that code, and not to investigate or establish the facts of those actions, is it not sensible to allow the Leveson inquiry to establish the facts and, in the unlikely event—in my view—that it discovers that there is a prima facie case to answer, then to refer it to the independent adviser on the ministerial code?
The Prime Minister
My right hon. Friend is entirely right. It is worth examining for a second what would happen if the independent adviser was commissioned to set off down a process of factual discovery. He would have to look at all the information that is about to be provided and is being provided to the Leveson inquiry, which would literally duplicate the findings of fact and would literally be prejudging what the judge himself will be judging.
Mr Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab)
The Prime Minister has just claimed again that in relation to the BSkyB bid, the Government sought independent advice and followed it “at every stage”. Will he confirm that on 31 December 2010, Ofcom advised the Government to refer the bid to the Competition Commission and that the Government did not do that, so what he has just said to this House—they both said it last week—is simply not true?
The Prime Minister
I have to say to the right hon. Gentleman that he ought to know that we were acting in accordance with a law passed by his Government, the Enterprise Act 2002. That Act requires consideration of the company’s representations in terms of reference to the Competition Commission. If that is not taken into account, the matter could be subject to a judicial review. What I said, and what the Secretary of State said, which is that each stage he took independent advice and followed that advice, is correct.
Nicholas Soames (Mid Sussex) (Con)
All sensible people will welcome the Prime Minister’s approach to this very serious matter, but does he agree that it would be quite wrong to rush to judgment and that he has a duty to follow a just and exhaustive process?
The Prime Minister
I do think this is right. Perhaps we can recognise, if we go back over 10 or 20 years in politics, that it is frankly the easiest thing in the world for a Prime Minister to stand at this Dispatch Box and say to a member of the Cabinet, “Oh, it’s all getting a bit difficult—off you go.” I think it is important to get to the facts—to get to the truth. That is what I believe in doing. It is called natural justice, and we should have some more of it.
Mr Kevin Barron (Rother Valley) (Lab)
The Prime Minister is well aware that for many years now, the machinery has been in place for investigations of breaches of the codes of conduct for Ministers and for Members of the House of Commons. Why does the Prime Minister not implement that, as opposed to going to a third party?
The Prime Minister
Again, I say, “Can you think of a process that is more robust than a Minister having to provide, under oath, information to an inquiry, and answering questions under oath, knowing all the time that if anything in that information in any way breaches the ministerial code, it can trigger another judgment?” That is what is happening. That is what I agreed with the Cabinet Secretary, a civil servant of impeccable standing, and I am absolutely convinced that it is the right approach.
Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
This morning, I checked with my office in Wellingborough to see whether there were lots of complaints about the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, and Mrs Bone said that there were hundreds and hundreds. They all wanted to know why Harry is not to become the England football team manager. There was not a single complaint about the Secretary of State. The message that Mrs Bone wanted to give was “Let the Prime Minister get on with running the country and solving the economic crisis.”
The Prime Minister
As ever, Mrs Bone is spot on, and I am sure that there are many like her, round the country, saying to us, “This is important—don’t belittle the issue—but there are many more important issues about jobs, living standards, and dealing with the debt that you should be getting on with.”
Frank Dobson (Holborn and St Pancras) (Lab)
Does the Prime Minister not accept that all his problems spring from his original misjudgment? Having taken responsibility for the News Corp bid for BSkyB away from the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills because he had expressed antipathy towards News Corporation, it was stupid of the Prime Minister to hand that responsibility over to the Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport, who was already on record as being in favour of the bid.
The Prime Minister
I am afraid that I do not accept that at all. To be fair to my right hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham (Vince Cable), it was not just antipathy; he was recorded saying that he wanted to destroy the business. He could not carry on running that part of his Department. I sought advice from the Cabinet Secretary, and the Cabinet Secretary sought legal advice from the Cabinet Office. The view came back that it was appropriate to ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport to fulfil that role.
Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
Can the Prime Minister reassure the House that we are getting maximum value for money, in these cash-strapped times, from the office of the independent adviser?
Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)
I was at the meeting of the Public Accounts Committee at which, according to the Prime Minister’s statement, the permanent secretary said that he approved the approach taken by the Department in relation to using Adam Smith as a conduit. That is not what the permanent secretary said. He said:
“The Secretary of State made a full statement to Parliament…and he has made it clear that he is providing full written evidence and looking forward to providing oral evidence to the Leveson inquiry.”
Given that the terms of reference of the Leveson inquiry make no reference at all to the accountability of Ministers to Parliament, how can Leveson deal with the concerns that have been expressed?
The Prime Minister
Let me be absolutely clear about what the permanent secretary has done and approved. He approved the approach taken by the Department to the quasi-judicial process relating to the BSkyB bid. This included a small number of people—including Adam Smith, the special adviser—acting as a contact point with News Corporation. It is normal—indeed, required—in such a process to have contacts, and the permanent secretary has made it clear that he was aware and content for Adam Smith to be one of those points of contact. You can keep digging into this area, but I am afraid that it is not getting anywhere.
David T. C. Davies (Monmouth) (Con)
Will the Prime Minister tell us whether he, like previous Prime Ministers, has ever phoned the Murdoch empire to offer his services as a godfather, or perhaps offer No. 10 for a pyjama party? If not, does he think that what we are seeing is a call for openness, or more naked opportunism than one would find on page 3?
The Prime Minister
My hon. Friend puts it well. The point is this: I am perfectly prepared to admit that the relationship between politicians and media proprietors got too close. What is interesting about the Labour party is that it has not revealed any of the meetings that it had while it was in government, whereas we have been completely transparent.
Mr Tom Watson (West Bromwich East) (Lab)
The Prime Minister has insisted on the Leveson process to decide the fate of the Secretary of State, and he will be judged by that. May I ask that he assist the inquiry by providing the Leveson team with the private texts and e-mails of Treasury special advisers to Mr Frederic Michel and Graham McWilliam of BSkyB?
The Prime Minister
The point about the Leveson inquiry is that it is a judge-led inquiry. He is able to ask for any papers or material that he wants and this Government will provide it.
Conor Burns (Bournemouth West) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that the principles of fair play and natural justice dictate that accusations made about the Secretary of State at Leveson should be determined only after the Secretary of State has had the opportunity to give his side of the story at Leveson? Does he also agree that the motivation for this urgent question today has more to do with the failure of the Opposition to engage on the issues before the people of London and the people of Britain at the ballot box on Thursday?
The Prime Minister
The motivation is probably that the Opposition would rather do anything than get out and campaign for Ken Livingstone. I am willing to keep them here as long as they like. They must answer for their own motivation, but that is my guess.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
The one fact that the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State cannot get away from is the fact that James Murdoch knew precisely, word for word, what the Secretary of State was going to say before he said it, before the House knew on three occasions and before commercial operators in opposition to Murdoch knew it. Is that not a clear example of collusion between the Government and of a shabby deal between the Prime Minister and the Murdochs?
The Prime Minister
While we are on the subject of people who say things before they should, I would have thought that when the hon. Gentleman stands up in the House, he should make an apology. He stood up last week and claimed a whole series of facts about meetings that I had had with Rupert Murdoch based on privileged access that he had had—and he is not denying it—to this inquiry, and the facts turned out to be wrong. A man of honour would stand up and apologise.
Alec Shelbrooke (Elmet and Rothwell) (Con)
The press have a proud and historic role in British politics and it is right that political parties communicate their policy to the nation, but does my right hon. Friend agree that that is in stark contrast to a political party that thinks that national politics should be directed by the highest union bidder?
Mr Speaker
Order. Most questions have focused on the terms of the urgent question. I have sadly to tell the hon. Gentleman that that was a million miles away from it and does not require an answer. It was completely out of order. We will take another Member who, I am sure, will be in order—[Interruption.] Order. I do not require any sedentary chuntering in the background.
Mr David Evennett (Bexleyheath and Crayford) (Con)
Can my right hon. Friend provide any information about the last time a proposed takeover bid was given the same level of scrutiny and independent advice as the BSkyB bid has been given?
The Prime Minister
My hon. Friend is entirely right. The scrutiny that that was given, the process, the transparency—that was a proper process. As my right hon. Friend the Culture Secretary has explained, on four occasions he took steps that were not welcomed by News Corporation, but in everything he did, he was open, transparent and taking independent advice.
Mr Dennis Skinner (Bolsover) (Lab)
Why is the Culture Secretary getting better employment rights than the rest of the workers in Britain? Is it possibly because the Prime Minister knows that as long as the Culture Secretary is in the firing line, it prevents the bullets from hitting him, the Prime Minister?
The Prime Minister
The hon. Gentleman has the right at any time to take his pension, and I advise him to do so.
Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)
I welcome the open and thorough process that Lord Justice Leveson will be engaged in. I also welcome a Prime Minister who will be personally responsible for ensuring that his Government adhere to the ministerial code of conduct. Will he also make the decision that his Ministers cannot make, and require Lord Justice Leveson to report on his inquiry directly to him?
The Prime Minister
The point about the Leveson inquiry is that its report will clearly be a major political, media and regulatory event. He is effectively reporting not only to all in the Government, but to everyone in Parliament, in politics and in public life who care about this issue. I do think—I do hope—that all parties will be able to engage in this, because we have an opportunity to deal with issues of press regulation and relations between politicians and the media that have not been right in our country but that, frankly, we will only get right if we work on a cross-party basis.
Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)
As the only defence that the Secretary of State has is based on the fiction that the only way Ministers communicate with their special advisers is by e-mail, why has the Prime Minister forgotten the lesson of the David Mellor scandal, which is that a resignation delayed is a disgrace multiplied?
The Prime Minister
If the hon. Gentleman is really concerned, as I am, about making sure that all the information about this is properly looked into, what is preferable: a civil service-run process where you can look at papers and ask questions, or a judge-led inquiry with Ministers answering questions under oath where all the documents have to be revealed and the whole thing is pursued properly by a team of barristers who are expert at finding out the facts? This is why I do not really understand where the Opposition are coming from. If they want full factual disclosure before making a judgment about whether any ministerial codes were broken, this must be the most robust process.
Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)
In a previous scandal affecting Damian McBride, a very respected Member of this House, the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Alan Johnson), suggested that the then Prime Minister could not take responsibility for every single initiative or text from advisers in No. 10. Will my right hon. Friend say why he thinks the situation is any different now?
The Prime Minister
My hon. Friend makes a very important point. Taking responsibility for a special adviser means coming to this House and explaining what has happened. In this case the special adviser resigned immediately and gave his reasons for resigning, so on that basis I am very confident that my right hon. Friend has not broken the ministerial code.
Mr Gerry Sutcliffe (Bradford South) (Lab)
The permanent secretary will not be giving evidence to the Leveson inquiry, so when will parliamentarians have the opportunity to question him on the role he played? This is a very important issue, and DCMS has been used to these issues before, so when will parliamentarians have the opportunity to know exactly what the permanent secretary’s advice was and when it was given, and is the Prime Minister not shocked that the key person was the special adviser?
The Prime Minister
Let me answer all those questions. First of all, it is up to Lord Justice Leveson whom he calls to his inquiry. He has full access; he can call any civil servant, any politician—anyone he wants. That is the first point. The second point is this: in this House, our Select Committee, excellently chaired by my hon. Friend the Member for Maldon (Mr Whittingdale), is able to call, whenever it likes, whatever civil servants it likes and to ask those questions. On the issue about the way the Department ran the quasi-judicial process, yes that is why the Cabinet Secretary, Sir Jeremy Heywood, has written to all Departments to make sure that rigorous processes are followed in all quasi-judicial cases.
Mr Julian Brazier (Canterbury) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that a company that automatically sacked the director because one of his subordinates had got something wrong would never achieve anything worth while?
The Prime Minister
I have to say, on the argument made by the Labour party, that if its Ministers had resigned every time one of their special advisers had got something wrong, we would have had a new Government virtually every week.
Mr Michael Meacher (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab)
Is it not obvious that the real reason the Prime Minister is so reluctant to refer this matter to the independent adviser on the ministerial code is that, if the Secretary of State were forced to resign as a result, the Prime Minister would find himself on the front line and having to answer for every future revelation about the covert links between the Murdoch empire and the Conservative party? In those circumstances, is it not inappropriate that the Prime Minister, who has a vested interest, should take this decision, rather than Parliament, based on a substantive motion and a vote in the House?
The Prime Minister
The right hon. Gentleman could find any sort of complicated, circuitous explanation he wants, but he could always go for the simple one, which is that, having consulted the Cabinet Secretary and listened to the views of others, the best way to find out the facts is to allow Leveson to run its course. That does not in any way excuse me from exercising my duties under the ministerial code. That is the answer. Sometimes the simple explanation is actually the right one.
Jake Berry (Rossendale and Darwen) (Con)
Will my right hon. Friend confirm that, if any major business were bidding for a large UK company, it would be perfectly normal for that business to have dialogue with the Department involved?
The Prime Minister
My hon. Friend is right. It is important that that dialogue is carried out appropriately. In this case the special adviser did not act appropriately or properly, and that is why he resigned, but I do believe that it raises some wider issues, and that is why I asked Sir Jeremy Heywood to write to all Departments to make sure that in any quasi-judicial matters we get it right.
Hywel Williams (Arfon) (PC)
People in Wales will compare the privileged access that Mr Murdoch and his friends had to the Culture Secretary with the cavalier way in which the right hon. Gentleman treated campaigners for public sector television in Wales. That is a small matter in the grand scheme of things, but is it not just another example of his double dealing and double standards?
The Prime Minister
I do not accept that, because I think that we have done right by S4C and that broadcasting in Wales is a great success. Let me just make this point, which perhaps will get some all-party agreement. All media companies have their great causes and lobbies, and I would say, after seven years of being leader of the Conservative party, that one gets as much pressure from the BBC, from regional newspapers and from other papers about things that they are concerned about. It is worth putting that on the record.
Brandon Lewis (Great Yarmouth) (Con)
Having had a statement less than one week ago, and with the facts having remained unchanged since then, does the Prime Minister agree that, rather than listening to flip-flopping from the Leader of the Opposition, we should remember that just a week ago he himself said, quite rightly, that we should let Leveson do its job?
The Prime Minister
That is exactly what the right hon. Gentleman said. Let me just remind him. He said:
“I think…it’s right that the Leveson Inquiry takes its course.”
That is what he said—just a week ago. The trouble is that he was bounced by the deputy leader of the Labour party, who thought that this issue would get a good headline, 23 minutes after the evidence had come out, and because he has no judgment he backed it.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
Can I push the Prime Minister on something that really concerns me: the role of the special adviser? Any of us who knows about the role of the special adviser knows that they are not one of many officials, but people who work intimately and closely with their Minister. I do not believe for one moment that the Prime Minister does not know that that special adviser must have known everything that was going on, and have told his Minister on an hour-by-hour and a day-by-day basis.
The Prime Minister
All that information is going to be provided to the Leveson inquiry. My right hon. Friend the Culture Secretary has been very clear about the role he played and the role his special adviser played. The special adviser has been very clear about the role he played and the fact that he went way beyond anything that he was authorised to do, but the difference between the process we are about to go through and a normal Cabinet Secretary or independent adviser process, is that people are going to be answering questions under oath—questioned by a barrister, in a court. That is pretty powerful.
Damian Collins (Folkestone and Hythe) (Con)
Does the Prime Minister agree that, even if the matter should have been referred to the independent adviser, they would almost certainly be heavily guided by the Secretary of State’s evidence in front of the Leveson inquiry anyway, given that it provides for the highest level of public scrutiny possible?
The Prime Minister
My hon. Friend makes a good point. We could not even guarantee that the independent adviser would be quicker, but as I tried to explain earlier there would be a danger of a duplicative fact-finding process that would cut across what Lord Justice Leveson is doing. But let me repeat again: I am not in any way denying that I am responsible for the ministerial code. If breaches occur, I must act, or ask the advice of Alex Allan in order to do so. I could not be clearer about it.
Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)
The Prime Minister told Andrew Marr yesterday that he did discuss the BSkyB bid with James Murdoch at the Rebekah Brooks dinner. I wonder why, since there is nothing to hide, the Prime Minister felt unable to admit that last July, when it was put to him eight times by Members of this House.
The Prime Minister
What I have always said is that I have not had any inappropriate conversation about this issue—and, indeed, I have not. But clearly it is very important, in the context of this inquiry, to recall everything possible, and what I recall is that, because of the frankly rather embarrassing situation that we were in, whereby a Minister had said that he was trying to “destroy” a media company, it was perfectly appropriate for me to say that that was not correct or appropriate and that these things would be dealt with properly in future. That is a thoroughly responsible and sensible thing to say.
Louise Mensch (Corby) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend share my mystification as to how the Leader of the Opposition can deduce that there has been a breach of the ministerial code without seeing the texts and e-mails that passed between the Culture Secretary and Adam Smith, which are to come out in the Leveson inquiry?
The Prime Minister
My hon. Friend absolutely puts her finger on it. The fact is that the Leader of the Opposition does not want to wait for the evidence and does not want to wait for the information; he saw a passing bandwagon and jumped on board it. That is what happened.
Chris Leslie (Nottingham East) (Lab/Co-op)
Is the Prime Minister seriously disputing the fact that the Culture Secretary said that he would publish
“all the documents relating to all the meetings…all the exchanges between my department and News Corporation”?—[Official Report, 3 March 2011; Vol. 524, c. 526.]
Is he disputing the fact that 163 pages of e-mails were published last week? Does he see no problem in that omission whatsoever?
The Prime Minister
The point I made is that my right hon. Friend dealt with that in the statement that he made on Wednesday, because his answer was subsequently given to the hon. Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) to explain the situation, as is absolutely correct.
Mel Stride (Central Devon) (Con)
Will the Prime Minister confirm that a civil service-led inquiry would have absolutely no power to summon a Minister under oath and that nor would it be held in public? Does he therefore agree that at this stage following the Leveson route is the best way of giving the Secretary of State his opportunity to clear the record and to find the truth?
The Prime Minister
My hon. Friend is right. I do not want in any way to belittle what the Cabinet Secretary, a former civil servant or Sir Alex Allan are capable of in terms of proper inquiries, because this has happened in the past; it happened with my right hon. Friend the Member for North Somerset (Dr Fox). It so happens that the process that we are currently engaged in—the Leveson inquiry—is many times more robust in getting to the facts of the case. Once we have the facts, and if they throw up any extra information, the situation in terms of the ministerial code has not changed.
Jack Dromey (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab)
Does the Prime Minister agree that if market-sensitive information was passed to News International in advance of an announcement being made, that would not only be a breach of the code but illegal?
The Prime Minister
I agree with the hon. Gentleman that a very serious accusation has been made about what the special adviser did and the information that has been passed, and that does need to be properly investigated.
Sajid Javid (Bromsgrove) (Con)
Charlie Whelan and Damian McBride were both special advisers to the former Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown), and both resigned in disgrace. Can the Prime Minister tell the House whether a ministerial inquiry was held at the time or, indeed, whether the matter was looked at by a judge-led public inquiry?
The Prime Minister
My hon. Friend makes a very good point. There have been occasions when special advisers have misbehaved and the Minister involved, far from taking responsibility, as my right hon. Friend the Culture Secretary has done in coming straight to the House, has just tried to shrug it off.
Mr David Winnick (Walsall North) (Lab)
Is not the core of the matter this: did the Secretary of State know what e-mails were being sent out and what was being leaked by a special adviser on this issue? If he did not know, how could it be argued that he was in control of his Department? Surely, therefore, this is a matter for the ministerial code and not for Leveson.
The Prime Minister
I agree with the first half of what the hon. Gentleman said, which is that it is important that we establish the full facts of the case. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has been absolutely clear, and so has the special adviser. The difference between this case and other cases where Ministers are involved in these sorts of accusations is that this is going to be examined by a judge in a court.
George Eustice (Camborne and Redruth) (Con)
As long ago as 2006, the Information Commissioner revealed that newspapers were driving an
“illegal market in personal information”,
and yet there was no judicial inquiry and the former Prime Minister, Tony Blair, did not dare criticise what he called the “feral beast” of the media until days before he left office. Now that we have the Leveson inquiry, does the Prime Minister agree that Ministers in the last Government should be given the opportunity to explain why they did so little in response to that report?
The Prime Minister
My hon. Friend makes a very important point. Frankly, it is, yes, a point for the last Government, but it is also a point for the last Opposition. These were powerful reports by the Information Commissioner, but the problem is that our political system did not react properly to them. That is one of the reasons it is so important to have the Leveson inquiry and to try to get to a situation where we have an appropriate regulatory system, so that when problems are thrown up, as they were by Richard Thomas in those reports, they are properly dealt with.
Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)
If it is the Prime Minister’s case that Adam Smith, who was appointed by the Secretary of State, exceeded his authority in his dealings with News Corp, will he explain what benefits Smith, rather than the Secretary of State, expected to get from pleasing the Murdochs?
The Prime Minister
Adam Smith, the special adviser, has made his role absolutely clear. He said:
“While it was part of my role to keep News Corporation informed throughout the BSkyB process, the content and extent of my contact was done without authorisation from the Secretary of State.”
That is what he said and the hon. Gentleman should listen.
Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)
Does the Prime Minister recall the words of his noble predecessor, Baroness Thatcher, who said that advisers advise and Ministers decide? Does not a judicious Prime Minister consider things thoughtfully and carefully before making up his mind, and would not only a socialist Yahoo make up his mind in 23 minutes?
The Prime Minister
My hon. Friend is quite right. It is the easiest thing in the world to react to any Opposition leader or politician calling for a scalp or asking for a resignation, but one has to take the time and get the issue right. That is exactly what is being done in this case, and people will just have to be patient while the full facts are looked at.
Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)
As a former competition Minister who dealt with some quasi-judicial matters, I do not understand why a special adviser was involved in any case, since they are appointed purely to carry out political work on behalf of a Minister. Has the Prime Minister got to the bottom of whose idea it was that the special adviser should be involved? The House has still not been told.
The Prime Minister
Let me try to explain. A range of people were authorised to have contact with News Corporation. Clearly, if a company is involved in a transaction, it has to have some contact with the Department about process and the rest of it. The authorisation was given—it was agreed by the permanent secretary—so I think that the hon. Gentleman is barking up the wrong tree.
Gavin Barwell (Croydon Central) (Con)
Fred Michel said:
“Throughout the bid process, I met senior teams from all political parties on a regular basis to update them, ask their advice or share views on the situation.”
Does my right hon. Friend agree that, in the interests of transparency, all parties should publish all correspondence between their representatives at those discussions at News Corporation?
The Prime Minister
That is very good idea. To be fair, Fred Michel even met the Liberal Democrats, so we all need to be transparent about this.
Mr Speaker
The urgent question has run for 52 minutes and I have heard 42 Back Benchers, who had the chance to question the Prime Minister and receive replies. We now have another urgent question and we must move on to that. [Interruption.] I think that that is pretty fair.
Immigration Queues (UK Airports)
(12 years, 7 months ago)
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Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
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Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)
(Urgent Question): I think that that is most fair. Thank you, Mr Speaker, for granting the urgent question.
To ask the Minister for Immigration if he will make a statement on the immigration delays at UK airports.
The Minister for Immigration (Damian Green)
The Government’s priority is the security of the UK border. The right checks need to be carried out to control immigration, protect against terrorism and tackle crime. We maintain thorough border checks. Despite those robust checks, the vast majority of passengers pass through immigration control quickly.
Let me give the House the actual figures. Between January and March, the average waiting times across the UK were six minutes for UK and EU passengers, and 25 minutes for non-EU passengers. The latest internal management information shows that, in the first two weeks of April, 99% of UK and EU passengers queued for less than 25 minutes and 96% of non-EU passengers queued for less than 45 minutes.
At Heathrow, the information shows that those target times were met every day throughout that period for UK and EU passengers, and on 11 out of 15 days for non-EU passengers. Over the weekend, there were some breaches of acceptable waiting times at Heathrow. That was caused mainly by the severe weather, leading to flight diversions and changing flight schedules, and the bunching of arrivals.
However, I stress to the House that our information shows that queuing times bore no resemblance to some of the wilder suggestions. Border Force data show that the longest queuing time for immigration control was one and a half hours on Friday night at terminal 5 for non-EU nationals, and times for UK and EU nationals were significantly lower.
These times are too long. Passengers demand an efficient service and the British public demand tough border controls. We need both. That is why we are establishing a new central control room for the UK Border Force at Heathrow; why we are putting in place mobile teams that can be deployed rapidly across the airport to deal with pressures; and why within weeks we will be implementing new rostering and shift patterns, which will provide additional flexibility, so staff can be deployed individually to meet unexpected surges in passenger flows. We are also working with airport operators and airlines to ensure they provide more accurate passenger manifests and flight schedules to help the UK Border Force to deploy staff at the right time, in the right place, to meet demand.
On top of those permanent improvements, as passenger numbers increase in the run-up to the Olympics, the UK Border Force will increase its staffing at ports and airports. The important factor is to have staff flexibly deployed in the right numbers, at the right times. That is what we are doing. The UK Border Force will ensure that all immigration desks at Heathrow and other key ports and airports in the south-east are fully staffed during peak periods over the summer. A contingency force of appropriately trained staff will be sent to the border to provide extra help to ensure passengers are processed as quickly as possible.
Border security is Britain’s first line of defence—it must not and will not be compromised—but our border force is also the first impression presented to overseas visitors and those returning home. Therefore, while we maintain the right levels of security checks, we will always seek to improve performance. That is what I—and UK Border Force—are focused on doing. This country needs a secure and efficient border, and this Government will deliver it.
Keith Vaz
I thank the Minister for his response and for acknowledging that there have been delays at Heathrow airport. As he knows, there is considerable concern about the length of waiting times in immigration halls at our airports at peak times. Of course, we must ensure that proper security checks are carried out—we do not want a repetition of the case of Sheikh Raed Salah, who was banned by the Home Secretary but able to enter Heathrow airport—but the queues have sometimes been in excess of two hours and they are and have been a serious embarrassment.
The Home Secretary made a decision in the aftermath of the Brodie Clark saga to suspend all risk-based checks. Given that, why are border desks not fully staffed at peak periods and why are electronic gates, including iris scanners, so often broken? The Home Secretary has appointed Brian Moore as the temporary seconded head of the UK Border Force, and his post has been advertised. How many times has Mr Moore visited terminal 5 at peak times?
Will the Minister confirm reports that BAA has been asked to refrain from handing out leaflets to passengers that apologise for the very long delays and advise them how to complain about them? Does he accept that hundreds of people in the arrival hall after 12-hour flights will be extremely frustrated and angry at having to queue for two hours at unattended border desks and at using—or trying to use—broken iris scanners? Does that situation not pose a public order risk?
As the Minister knows, over the weekend, the British Air Transport Association, border staff and BAA have all called for urgent action. I acknowledge what he has said today about what he intends to do, but it is important for him to hold a meeting with all those affected—all the stakeholders—and if necessary to hold it at Heathrow airport.
The UK Border Force is re-hiring former border officers to help with the Olympics. However, excessive delays in our immigration halls are not only an Olympic issue; they affect travellers today. What further action does the Minister propose to take to ensure that the reputation of Heathrow as a world-class airport and a premier international tourist destination is not damaged?
In my view, the Minister has a choice. He either hires more staff or looks again at the risk-based policy, which the Home Secretary has said she is open-minded about. The third option, which is to do nothing, is simply not acceptable.
Damian Green
I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his question. I hope I reassured him in my opening response that doing nothing is precisely what we are not doing. We are doing quite a lot, as I will detail a little more in a moment.
The right hon. Gentleman asked some specific questions. In the few weeks he has been in charge of Border Force, Brian Moore has visited Heathrow twice, including over Easter—one of the peak busiest times of the year—to see precisely how Border Force coped over that difficult and challenging period. The answer was that, despite the predictions we had that Easter would mean gridlock at Heathrow, actually it did not. Heathrow coped well over Easter.
The right hon. Gentleman also asked about e-gates and iris recognition immigration system gates. The IRIS gates commissioned by the previous Government are being phased out because they have come to the end of their technological life. They are less reliable than the e-gates that we are replacing them with and which provide a much better passenger experience.
The right hon. Gentleman asked about risk-based controls. As he knows, I have said—as has the Home Secretary in front of the Home Affairs Committee—that the principle of risk-based controls is a sound one to explore, but he will know that, as the John Vine report showed, what we had, when we thought we had risk-based controls, actually were not risk-based controls. Information had been withheld from successive Ministers over the previous five years.
The right hon. Gentleman asked, quite reasonably, what we have done. I have mentioned some of the actions we have already taken. We have rebalanced staff across Heathrow’s terminals; we are opening the new control room to allow us to monitor and deal with demand across the airports, so Border Force staff will not be stuck in terminals, as they used to be; we have completed our recruitment to mobile teams that can deal with unexpected surges; and we are encouraging all eligible passengers to use the e-passport gates, and are now getting close to 50% of those eligible to use them doing so, which significantly improves the flow-through, particularly for UK citizens.
We have, as a result, freed up more experienced staff from those e-passport gates to man the non-EU desks and to help reduce queues there. We are cross-training more and more of our staff so that they can work flexibly across all areas of border control. So very significant steps have been taken in the past few months to make the airports work more efficiently, and I am sure that passengers and the House will see the effects of that in the coming months.
Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his comments, but is there any way to give greater priority to British passport holders when there are very long queues?
Damian Green
British and—I suspect my hon. Friend might not wish to hear this—other EU citizens have priority. We do fewer checks on them, for obvious reasons. Our service level agreement is that 95% of them should go through in fewer than 25 minutes, as opposed to 95% in fewer than 45 minutes for non-British and non-EU passengers. We try to make the welcome back to this country for British tourists or business people travelling abroad as good as possible.
Mr Speaker
I beg the hon. Gentleman’s pardon. More particularly, I beg the right hon. Lady’s pardon. I am sorry. I had it down that she would be performing, but of course it would not be a normal day if we did not hear from the hon. Gentleman.
Chris Bryant
Thank you, Mr Speaker.
I have to say to the Minister that his was a ludicrously complacent answer. Surely it cannot be beyond the wit of man, especially with increased technology, to do two things at the same time: secure the borders and have reasonably swift queues. The problems at Heathrow and Gatwick have given a shocking impression of a Government who are out of control, just when Britain is facing a special security challenge in advance of the Olympics and when the British tourism industry is keen to make as good an impression as possible. I gather that No. 10 is now blaming it on the weather.
The figures that the Minister gave are not the full story. Even before last week, between 1 April and 15 April, Border Force missed its waiting targets for non-European economic area nationals on 13 out of 15 days, and even for people returning home to their own country, it missed them on four days. There was not a single day in that two-week period when it met all its targets.
It might be understandable if long queues meant better security, but no airport in the world is designed to kettle thousands of passengers for hours prior to passing through immigration, which is why it is vital that the Government provide enough resources to Border Force.
Sir John Vine expressly recommended that a clear understanding of what constitutes health and safety grounds for suspension should be agreed. Has that happened? Have there been any such suspensions in the last month? I ask the Minister that because I have been contacted by one passenger who says that on arrival on a Kenya Airways flight from Nairobi to terminal 4, his passport was not swiped at all. How many UK or other European nationals have had to wait more than the target of 25 minutes?
Will most people not be perplexed by the Government’s priorities? They have already cut 500 border staff—they are going to cut another 1,000—while at the same time they are spending £2.5 million on new uniforms. How can that possibly be the right set of priorities? Numbers at Heathrow are set to rise, not only for the Olympics and Paralympics, but year on year into the future, yet Border Force is running at 100% capacity, with no room for the unexpected—and clearly the Government are running way past their capacity. Is it not time that the Government shouldered their responsibility and gave Border Force the resources it truly needs to do the job properly?
Damian Green
Up to that point, we had heard the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz), the Chairman of the Home Affairs Committee, make a thoughtful contribution to what is a serious debate. Sadly, the shadow Minister for Immigration has let the side down, with a rant that had no purpose whatever. He also clearly wrote it before he had heard my statement, which addressed the measures we are taking in some detail. The only solution he has—this is instructive, as a glimpse into Labour’s approach to everything—is to spend more taxpayers’ money; and this from a member of the Government who left this country bankrupt, because of their profligate spending over 13 years.
In the midst of that rant, the hon. Gentleman raised one or two issues, so let me deal with them. First, he talked about the uniforms and implied that it was a terrible waste of money to buy new uniforms. I have to tell him that the current Border Force uniform was bought by the previous Government and was designed to last only three years, so it is now out of date and has to be replaced anyway. That money would therefore have to be spent under any circumstances.
The hon. Gentleman also asked about what was happening at the border. However, I am afraid that he is relying on unreliable reports. The monitoring for this period shows that in the first two weeks of April, we met all our targets for EU passengers, meeting targets for non-EU passengers on 11 days out of 15. Of course I would prefer to meet our targets for non-EU passengers on 15 days out of 15, but he is relying on information that does not accord with the official figures given by Border Force.
I am afraid that the hon. Gentleman has no particular answers to give. Indeed, what is quite surprising about everything he said was—[Interruption.] He should agree with this statement, which was made last November:
“We seemed to have a consensus from Labour ministers and I thought from…Tory ministers as well that with every year that went by, you should be strengthening the checks at the borders, adding better technology and that kind of thing”.
That was said by the shadow Home Secretary. The hon. Gentleman is now saying that we should make fewer checks. I suggest that he and she get their act together.
Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)
May I ask my hon. Friend to ensure that the hard-pressed border officers, who in times of pressure are told to get a move on, are still able to put their top priority—the safety and security of our country—first?
Damian Green
My hon. Friend is exactly right that, beneath this debate, we all need to remember—I can absolutely assure him that every member of Border Force securing our border knows this—that our first priority must be the security of our border. That is what had been compromised, we discovered, over many years, because when the queues rose at airports, people were ordered to reduce the checks. The big change that has happened in the past few months is that we now conduct proper checks at every airport, all the time, which is significantly improving the security of every citizen of this country.
Mrs Louise Ellman (Liverpool, Riverside) (Lab/Co-op)
What representations have been made by the Transport Secretary to ensure that Home Office services enable our airports to operate efficiently and safely?
Damian Green
The Secretary of State for Transport—who is here, as is the Minister of State, Department for Transport, my right hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet (Mrs Villiers)—the Home Secretary and I meet regularly and we all agree on this matter. Although the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) does not seem to agree with his boss, I agree with mine, and we all agree on the need for proper checks and efficiently flowing airports. That is obviously a priority for the Department for Transport as well. It is a dual priority for every Government, and certainly for this one. I can only re-emphasise that we will not compromise border security in any circumstances.
Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)
Will the Minister tell the House whether equipment failures have been the source of any delays, and whether the contingency arrangements relating to equipment failure have been reviewed? If the problem is the result of the sheer volume of passengers, would he consider introducing genuine risk-based passenger assessment, which would have the potential to speed up the passage of people through airports and to improve security?
Damian Green
There have been one or two specific incidents in which either equipment failure or wider technical failure has contributed to problems. For example, there was a problem at Birmingham airport that was caused by a power surge that knocked out all the electrical equipment across the airport for a time. Accidents such as that will happen. On my right hon. Friend’s point about ever-rising numbers, which might well happen, this is a question of being able to deploy staff flexibly enough so that, when we know that more people are coming in, we can have more staff at the right gates and encourage as many people as possible to use the technology at the e-gates, which enables more people to go through more smoothly. That is the focus of what we are trying to do.
Mr Jack Straw (Blackburn) (Lab)
While no one doubts the Minister’s good intentions, does he not understand that quoting averages at passengers who have been waiting for two or three hours in very difficult conditions only makes Britain’s reputation worse, rather than better? Does he also understand that, among many senior business people—in Turkey, for example, but elsewhere as well—there is a high level of frustration at being put through an unnecessary number of hoops to get a visa in the first place, when they have been coming to this country quite safely for years, then at having to face an insulting environment when they get to Heathrow or Gatwick?
Damian Green
I make no apology for the fact that our visa checks are more thorough and more secure than they were when the right hon. Gentleman was Home Secretary in the previous Government. His other point is simply wrong. If he had listened to what I said, he would have heard me quite deliberately quoting the longest queuing times. I am not trying to hide behind averages. I said that the longest queuing time was one and a half hours, and that that was unacceptable and we would seek to do better. I should also say that the use of average times was not invented by this Government; the previous Government did it as well.
Glyn Davies (Montgomeryshire) (Con)
My hon. Friend the Minister will know that everyone in the House—except perhaps those on the Opposition Front Bench—welcomes the steps that he is taking to improve efficiency in airports in order to move people through. Does he accept, however, that the absolute priority of the Government and the UK Border Force has to be national security?
Damian Green
That is right, and it cannot be emphasised often enough. Of course people feel frustrated when they are in a queue. We all feel that, but we would all feel much worse if we thought that our country was not being made as safe as possible. The borders are a significant line of defence against people who want to commit criminal acts, as well as those who want to commit acts of terrorism, and I am absolutely determined that we will not compromise our security in any way.
John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)
Will the Minister join me in paying tribute to the staff of the UK Border Agency, who have been working incredibly hard and flexibly over the past few months and, indeed, years? There are real concerns on the front line about the lack of staff numbers, and real worries about what will happen during the Olympics. We must not score an own goal in that regard. Will he take up the suggestion of my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) that he visit Heathrow and meet the front-line staff, the trade unions and other stakeholders to explore their views on what could be done to improve matters?
Damian Green
The hon. Gentleman can be assured that I visit Heathrow regularly. I am happy to join him in paying tribute not just to the hard work of those who work as immigration officers and customs officers at our borders, but to the dedication they bring to the job. They are very serious about keeping the wrong people and the wrong things out of our country. As I say, I visit Heathrow extremely regularly and will be glad to go there in the coming weeks to see the new control room and the more flexible rostering that we are setting up and to see the better use we intend to make of those dedicated staff.
Nigel Mills (Amber Valley) (Con)
Does the Minister agree that airports themselves as well as Border Force can do more to improve this process and make sure that the right number of staff are available at the right times to deal with the expected flight volume?
Damian Green
I do. There are two significant areas where work could be done by our partners at airports. One is in the provision of information so that Border Force can respond as quickly as possible to any delays caused by wind or that sort of thing that makes planes occasionally bunch in their arrivals. The other is the physical layout of the airports, which is a role for airport operators. For example, people need to have clear lines of sight so that they can see the gates for as long as possible, and as much emphasis as possible should be given to reassuring passengers that they are going through a process smoothly, as often happens on the retailing side of airports.
Nicholas Soames (Mid Sussex) (Con)
May I welcome the efforts that the Minister is making and join in the tributes to the important and hard work of the border staff? Does my hon. Friend agree that these delays, which he has explained this afternoon, are not limited to Heathrow, as they apply to Gatwick and Stansted? While I know he agrees—and has made the point—that the delays harm Britain’s reputation, does he also agree that British business men who have to go in and out of the country all the time as they engage in the hard work of the export industry are extremely irritated by the way in which they are regularly kept in unacceptably long queues? I know that my hon. Friend will do his best to get this matter resolved, but will he acknowledge the fact that these queue problems really need to be resolved quickly?
Mr Speaker
Order. It is always a great pleasure to hear the right hon. Member for Mid Sussex (Nicholas Soames). Erroneously, however, I called two Government Members in succession, so I will subsequently call two Opposition Members in succession to redress the balance. [Interruption.] It is certainly not the fault of the right hon. Member, to whose dulcet tones I feel sure we listened with considerable enthusiasm.
Damian Green
If the rules can be relaxed for anyone, Mr Speaker, they should be relaxed for my right hon. Friend. I take the importance of what he says. It is of course annoying not just for British business men coming back, but for foreign business people who also want as smooth a procedure as possible. That is why we worked so hard to introduce the e-passport gates. With every year that passes, 10% more British people get a new modern passport that enables them to use those gates, which can often provide a considerable improvement in itself. This debate is bedevilled by anecdote, with everyone having an individual story to tell, either good or bad. My own is that I came through Heathrow last Thursday and used the e-gates. I am happy to say that from arriving in the immigration hall to leaving took precisely four minutes.
Kate Hoey (Vauxhall) (Lab)
Does the Minister understand that British subjects and British passport holders are not really interested in targets, but in getting back into their own country as quickly as possible? Will he now answer the question asked by one of his hon. Friends? Why can we not simply say to the European Union that we are going to give priority to our British passport holders, who are going to have a separate queuing lane so that they can join it and get in first? Surely that is what we should be doing as an independent country.
Damian Green
As the hon. Lady knows perfectly well, that would require significant changes to the law going way beyond immigration policy. I gently suggest to her that all her constituents who want to go on holiday to other countries in the European Union would feel slightly short-changed if they had to wait much longer because there was a separate lane there, too.
Mr John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)
Terminal 5 was a triumph of British construction whose reputation was seriously marred by inept management on its opening day. Now the country is spending billions on arrangements for the Olympics, brilliantly built and organised, and our international image is already being damaged by the queues being caused once again by the useless Border Agency management. Today the Minister’s main excuse seemed to be the weather at the weekend: the wrong sort of rain. When will he really get a grip?
Damian Green
I am not conscious that the word “rain” has passed my lips. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman would care to listen to what I am saying. Let me also gently point out to him that the management of terminal 5 has nothing to do with the UK Border Agency or Border Force, and that it was an entirely commercial operation at that time.
The right hon. Gentleman mentioned the Olympics. Of course we are aware that this summer will be much busier, which is why we will ensure that all immigration desks at Heathrow—terminal 5 and the other terminals—and at other key ports and airports in the south-east are fully staffed whenever necessary during peak arrival periods. We are working closely with the British Airports Authority and other airport operators to ensure that the supply of information to which I referred earlier is better than ever during that period, so that we can provide the best possible experience at our airports at a time when the eyes of the world will indeed be upon us.
Alok Sharma (Reading West) (Con)
We all want passengers to pass efficiently through passport control and immigration, but can the Minister confirm that what we will never see repeated is what happened on occasion during Labour’s watch in 2004, when all passport gates at Heathrow terminal 3 were left open and no checks were made at all?
Damian Green
I can only agree with my hon. Friend. That was indeed shocking. The whole point of the reforms that we have instituted since the John Vine report is to avoid the sort of crisis in which the first reaction is often to say “We will just let everyone through to avoid queues”, because that creates a much less secure border.
Jim Fitzpatrick (Poplar and Limehouse) (Lab)
When passengers arrive at airports and experience problems, they think that they should complain to the airports. We recently tried to amend the Civil Aviation Bill to require the Civil Aviation Authority to publish annual figures for delays at immigration desks, but we were effectively rebuffed by the Minister of State, Department for Transport, the right hon. Member for Chipping Barnet (Mrs Villiers). Will the Minister assure the House that those who wish to complain will know how to complain and who to complain to, and that his Department will publish those annual figures?
Damian Green
I am happy to report to the hon. Gentleman, who I know has transport expertise, that I too have asked the question about the ability to complain, and that Border Force is now very alive to the fact that it needs to advertise the complaints procedure and make forms available at terminals. It is aware of its responsibilities in that regard.
Richard Harrington (Watford) (Con)
I am sure the Minister is aware that Hilton Hotels runs its entire worldwide operation from Watford, where it is a very large employer in my constituency and brings many, many tourists into the country. It is not concerned about the short-term matters that have been discussed by many people who have tried to take political advantage of the situation, both inside and outside the House. It is concerned about the need for the Government to make long-term arrangements to ensure that tourists arriving in this country from all over the world benefit from a world-class operation that ensures security for the country, and also makes it clear that it is as good as any other country in the world at putting people through immigration.
Damian Green
First, I must confess to my hon. Friend that I did not know that Hilton Hotels was based in Watford. I am ashamed of my lack of knowledge of a fact with which I have now managed to catch up.
Damian Green
The shadow Immigration Minister says that even he knew that, which makes me feel doubly ashamed.
My hon. Friend has made a very good point. It is not just for this summer and the Olympics that we need an improvement, although the summer will clearly be a hugely important time for our airports and the British tourism industry generally. What we need is a permanent improvement, which is why I hope that my hon. Friend has been reassured by the many changes that I announced in response to the original question. It is important not just to do something for the summer, but to change the way in which our Border Force operates and the way in which our airport operators and airlines go about their business, to ensure that there is a permanent improvement for all who travel into and out of the country.
Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)
As the Minister knows, my constituency is close to Heathrow. He may not know, however, that more headquarters of European multinational companies are located in it than in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland combined. In recent meetings with different representatives of those companies, the first question I am asked is, “Why are the queues so long and what are you going to do about it? We may move our investment elsewhere.” The Minister will be aware of Brodie Clark’s article in The Times on 23 April, in which he said that targeting in border checks led to a 10% increase in detections and seizures. Why is the Minister not using a targeted system, as that saves money and works better?
Damian Green
The problem with the figures Brodie Clark quoted—and which I am sure I quoted in the past—is that they came out of the pilot that we now know was tainted by the fact that, unknown to anyone else, Border Force was relaxing the controls in an unauthorised way. We will need to think about that again, when, and if, we get to that point. I have said that, in principle, risk-based controls are an option any Government should consider, but I hope the hon. Lady will be reassured by the fact that that pilot was ended because it was tainted, and since then we have taken, and are taking, a number of practical measures to ensure that the many important businesses in her constituency can do their job efficiently.
Mr Speaker
Order. I call Mr Richard Fuller. [Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman was previously interested, but he does not have to ask a question if he does not want to; it is not obligatory.
Richard Fuller (Bedford) (Con)
Thank you, Mr Speaker, but the question I was going to ask has already been asked.
Mr Speaker
The hon. Gentleman is in danger of setting a real precedent: that because it has already been said, it does not need to be said again. That really is setting a new precedent in parliamentary practice! I call Mr Stewart Jackson.
Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)
Given the news that next year Hungary will issue Hungarian passports to ethnic Hungarians who do not live in the European Union, I am somewhat surprised by the Minister’s rather nonchalant response to the hon. Member for Vauxhall (Kate Hoey). Why in this particular situation is it impossible for a sovereign nation to disaggregate in respect of its treatment between its own citizens and European Union citizens, and why are we not doing more, for instance on criminal records checks of EU citizens at our ports of entry?
Damian Green
Criminal records checks depend on the quality of information we get from the sending country, and that will differ between different European countries. I am conscious of my hon. Friend’s attitude to the EU, but as we are talking about the immigration laws under the current laws of this country, I think we have said enough on that particular topic for this afternoon.
Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)
The queues at Heathrow are unacceptable, but there are also reports of long queues at Gatwick and the channel tunnel. Three weeks ago, I came into Gatwick at about half-past midnight and had to wait for more than half an hour to enter the country. I witnessed families with young children who were struggling badly with the delay. What inquiries has the Minister made into queues faced by travellers outside the capital?
Damian Green
As I have already explained, the service level agreement is that 95% of UK and EU passengers should be processed within 25 minutes and non-EU passengers should be processed within 45 minutes. Those are the targets Border Force has been set. Without knowing the details of the individuals to whom the hon. Lady refers, I cannot say whether or not they were processed in accordance with service standards. The point she makes about Calais and Coquelles is particularly ill-advised in that we have been told that, along with Easter, the February half-term is one of the busiest weeks at Calais and Coquelles because of schools coming back from half-term trips, and we prepared and planned, and there were no problems over that busy weekend.
Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)
What steps is my hon. Friend taking to prepare our borders for next week’s planned strike, and does he detect, as I do, a whiff of political opportunism in the timing of this urgent question?
Damian Green
On my hon. Friend’s second point, I think that that is taken as read. On the strike set for next week, I simply say that, as on previous strike days, we will make contingency arrangements to ensure our borders are open and Britain is open for business, and if any members of the immigration service are planning to go on strike, I urge them to think again. It will do them no good, and it may do some damage to this country. I very much hope this strike does not take place.
Shabana Mahmood (Birmingham, Ladywood) (Lab)
This morning, the Prime Minister’s spokesman sought to blame the bad weather for the meltdown at Heathrow last week, but bad weather cannot be blamed for machines that are not working properly, or—worse—a lack of adequate staff training. What is the Minister going to do to make sure, in particular in advance of the Olympics, not only that all the machines will work, but that all relevant staff will know how to use them?
Damian Green
As I have already explained, we are ensuring that more staff will be available at peak times during the Olympics. We are proceeding on the assumption that every flight landing at Heathrow for a seven-week period will be 100% full. That assumption is likely to be wrong, but it seems a prudent assumption to make. We are making all our plans about technology and people with regard to that overall plan. I hope that that will reassure the hon. Lady that we are fully aware of the importance of the Olympics period for this country’s reputation and we are doing absolutely everything that we can to make sure that our reputation is preserved.
Karen Bradley (Staffordshire Moorlands) (Con)
Can the Minister tell the House what steps he is taking to ensure that the most up-to-date working practices are used by the UK Border Force to ensure that the supply of labour meets demand, particularly at peak times?
Damian Green
My hon. Friend hits on exactly the right point. The deployment of staff in a flexible and efficient way, particularly around Heathrow, makes all the difference. That is why we have now set up the central control room, which will enable us to see minute by minute where queues may be building up and where the mobile teams that we have set up in the past few months can best be deployed. In that way, we will get the best possible value out of our many hard-working members of staff.
Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)
London Luton airport is seeking to expand and make a greater contribution to south-east airports’ capacity. However, the airport operator, Luton borough council and the staff themselves have serious concerns about undercapacity at immigration control and long queues. Will the Minister give specific attention to Luton airport?
Damian Green
Absolutely. We all want better airport capacity in the south-east of England, and I am sure that Luton airport will play an important role in that. One of the jobs of the UK Border Force is to make sure that people get through all airports as fast as possible. I know that e-gates were introduced at Luton airport relatively early, so that we can get the benefits of the technology. We will continue to treat Luton airport very seriously.
Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend agree that having secure borders is always more important than having short queues?
Damian Green
I hope that my hon. Friend has been reassured by my repeated assurance that absolutely the first priority of this Government and any responsible Government is the security of our border. That will not be compromised in any way.
Mr Denis MacShane (Rotherham) (Lab)
We want secure borders and decent queues. When we turn left on to a long haul plane, it is usually a nice experience. When we turn left at Heathrow terminal 5 or Gatwick, leaving the American, Canadian, Indian or Turkish passenger whom we have been chatting with, to struggle through those queues, it is a very unpleasant welcome.
I welcome what the Minister has said; it is a good idea to have squads who can run around filling in the holes. But every time I have come back to Britain recently—and I come back a lot—it is embarrassing that there are so many empty control points. I really hope that hon. Members—
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. Hon. Members should be asking short questions, not making speeches. [Interruption.] Mr MacShane, you can throw yourself back on the Bench as much as you want, but it is not going to impress me. I brought you on early to get you in, and I am sorry that you are disgruntled.
Damian Green
The right hon. Gentleman cannot come back often enough for some of us in the House. I take his point, but the whole purpose of having flexible rostering and flexible use of staff is that when large numbers of people are arriving, more gates will be open. It is not rocket science; that is a sensible way to run an airport.
Kris Hopkins (Keighley) (Con)
The British public have not forgiven the previous Labour Government for their reckless open-door immigration policy, which reached the point where they could not put a number on how many people had come into the country. Will the Minister reassure us that we will give our officers as much time as they require to check who is legally allowed to enter the country?
Damian Green
Yes, and not only will we give them the time required, but we will allow them to use, on all occasions, the relevant technology. That was the problem before: when queues started building up, the technology was simply turned off. The investment made, in large part by the previous Government, in getting these electronic systems to make our border secure was not being allowed to do its job. We are determined not to repeat that mistake.
Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)
I know that the Minister travels with ordinary people on planes all the time, separated only by a thin curtain, but, in the light of his statement, will he condemn the remarks the Mayor of London made today that this crisis at Heathrow is damaging the reputation of the country?
Damian Green
I say to the hon. Gentleman that he is not up to date with the new era of Government austerity and that Ministers travel steerage class these days. The Mayor of London is, of course, concerned about the reputation of London and the ability of its airports to cope, and I look forward to working with him after he is re-elected triumphantly on Thursday.
Mrs Helen Grant (Maidstone and The Weald) (Con)
Does the Minister agree that queues at Heathrow are not the sole responsibility of the UK Border Agency?
Damian Green
My hon. Friend is quite right. When people talk about their experience, they will obviously measure it from the moment the plane touches the tarmac. Their view will depend on how long it takes to find a stand; how long the walk is to the immigration hall; and how long it takes to collect their baggage at the end of it. Immigration control and the actions of the UK Border Force are some of the things that people have to go through, but clearly people have other experiences between getting off the plane and getting out of the airport. We must all work together to ensure that that goes as smoothly and efficiently as possible.
Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)
This may not be popular, but I am not sure that the Minister has any need to apologise for queues that result from genuine border security operations. However, will he give a commitment to update the House at the earliest available opportunity if subsequent investigations reveal that any of these delays were in part due to staff shortages or bad management decisions at UKBA?
Damian Green
I believe that the hon. Gentleman is a member of the Select Committee on Home Affairs—
Damian Green
Well, I will be appearing before the Committee in a couple of weeks’ time, so the hon. Gentleman will be able to ask me the question again then. Of course this will be a regular discussion to be had, because it is important, but I should remind him of what I said to my hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Mrs Grant): the UK Border Force has part of the responsibility for ensuring that airports run smoothly, just as airport operators and airlines do, and we all need to work together to make the experience of going through Britain’s airports as smooth and efficient as possible.
Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)
The hon. Member for Bradford South (Mr Sutcliffe) and I attended a briefing held by BAA, which led to our Select Committee writing to the Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport. I am pleased to say that he has responded and we have published the letter today, which suggests that greater co-operation is needed. Does the Minister agree that it is imperative that BAA takes its fair share of the responsibility to make sure that passengers get through the airport and that the UK Border Force and BAA do not drop the baton between them?
Damian Green
I am absolutely convinced that that is right. This is about not just BAA, but the airlines and Border Force. All of us need to work together, to share information and to share systems. As we do that, the experience will get better.
Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)
Despite the length of time that the Minister has been answering questions, I have still not heard him explain why there were 107 breaches of waiting times in the first 15 days of April, what caused them and what part staff cuts played in those delays.
Damian Green
I am sorry if the hon. Lady does not feel that she has been given enough information in the past 50 minutes or so, because I have tried to explain, repeatedly, that a range of things need to be improved at our airports to reduce these queues. To say that one reason accounts for all the delays that individual passengers may face is overly simplistic. That is not the way the world works and it is not the way airports work. What the Home Office, the Department for Transport, the airline operators and the airport operators agree is that a team effort is needed to make this better, and it is very important that we get it right.
Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)
Under the previous Government, the morale of the UK Border Force was in freefall. Will my hon. Friend tell the House what steps are being taken to improve rostering and shift patterns to improve the morale at Border Force as well as to improve the experience of passengers at airports and ports?
Damian Green
We are changing the rostering arrangements to ensure that we have the people who are needed at the right time and at the right place. I am sure that the many hugely conscientious and hugely keen members of Border Force will recognise that having them in the right place at the right time will enable them to do their very important job more effectively than ever before.
Gavin Shuker (Luton South) (Lab/Co-op)
Further to the question from my hon. Friend the Member for Luton North (Kelvin Hopkins), the Minister said that he intends to run Heathrow for seven weeks at 100% border capacity. What assurances will he give that regional airports and smaller London airports will not have staff taken away to bring about that goal?
Damian Green
As I have said—I am happy to repeat it—for the seven-week Olympic period, the UK Border Force will ensure that all immigration desks at Heathrow and key ports and airports in the south-east are staffed whenever necessary during peak arrival periods. I hope that will reassure him.
Conor Burns (Bournemouth West) (Con)
May I welcome the characteristic moderation and competence with which my hon. Friend has replied to this urgent question? Interruption.] His response has been much better than that of the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant). My hon. Friend will be aware that it is not an unreasonable expectation of returning British citizens or foreign visitors that we should be able to combine both speed and competence. My hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon) asked about shift working and the like. Will the Minister tell the House whether he has had any conversations with the trade unions about their likely support for those measures and others that are necessary?
Damian Green
As I said, new rosters are coming in at Heathrow in the coming weeks, which have been agreed with the work force. That is a significant step forward, because it will mean that they can be there when they need to be there to do the most effective job. I can only repeat what I have said before: the vast majority of the workers in Border Force are extremely knowledgeable about their job and know how important it is. They want to do it as effectively as possible and it is the job of the management of Border Force to enable them to do that.
Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)
I happened to be in the immigration queue in Birmingham airport when the systems went down—the incident to which the Minister referred. I must thank members of the UK Border Force and staff at Birmingham airport who were on hand at the time to ensure that it was resolved as soon as possible. I noticed that there seemed to be a bit of confusion about what action should be taken when the systems go down. Will he reassure me that steps are in place so that, should that happen again, we will not have the kind of delays that could have happened?
Damian Green
One of the lessons we drew from the John Vine report was that there needed to be much clearer instructions about what to do in those very rare emergencies. That work is now advanced and is an extremely important part of the improvements that we will see.
Gavin Barwell (Croydon Central) (Con)
Given the combined challenge of securing the border, keeping unavoidable delays to a minimum and doing all that within a very constrained budget, does my hon. Friend agree that one of the things we most urgently need is a better working relationship between the UK Border Force and our airport operators?
Damian Green
Yes. We do work closely together, but we can always work more closely together. The Home Secretary, the senior management of Border Force and I are absolutely determined to set up systems that make it instinctive for Border Force, the airport operators and the airlines to work together, not only for the mutual benefit of all those organisations but, even more importantly, for the benefit of the hundreds of millions of passengers who use our airports every year.
Christopher Pincher (Tamworth) (Con)
Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, and thanks to my fans for that unsolicited testimonial.
I should like to recapitulate a sentiment that has already been expressed, certainly by Government Members: having a few queues occasionally may dent Britain’s reputation, but security lapses do infinitely more damage to our reputation, and that is what our constituents are most concerned about.
Damian Green
That may be an appropriate thought on which to end this session, because it is absolutely correct that the first priority has to be the security of our borders; that is the first priority of this Government.
Points of Order
Helen Jones (Warrington North) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. The Prime Minister told the House earlier this afternoon that the Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport had, in answer to a question from my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann), published all the correspondence between the Government and News Corp relating to its bid for BSkyB, yet the answer makes it clear that that is not the case. It says:
“Records of meetings, telephone calls held between officials and press officers with outside parties and records of telephone calls and email exchanges between officials and Ministers and outside parties are not recorded centrally and would incur a disproportionate cost to collect.”
The answer concludes:
“A search for correspondence from officials, press officers and special advisers to and from all the individuals listed would incur disproportionate cost to collect.”—[Official Report, 7 September 2011; Vol. 532, c. 616W.]
Will you consider the matter, Mr Deputy Speaker, and see whether there is any way in which the Prime Minister can be brought here to correct the record, so that the House has accurate information on what actually occurred?
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
The point has been made and is certainly on the record. If the hon. Lady is unhappy, perhaps it would be an idea for her to write to the Speaker with her views.
Shabana Mahmood (Birmingham, Ladywood) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. Last Friday, the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills announced the Government’s plans for student number controls to be applied to higher education institutions for the academic year 2013-14. The announcement was made in a press release on the Department’s website. This is the second time that the Government have not brought an announcement on student number controls to the House first. In addition, the Department has not yet provided a response to the consultation on student number controls following the publication of the White Paper last summer. Will you advise me, Mr Deputy Speaker, on how we can ensure that such important decisions, which have far-reaching consequences for higher education institutions and students alike, are made in the House first, and subject to full parliamentary scrutiny?
Mr Deputy Speaker
Mr Speaker has a strong view and opinion on the subject. He believes that this House should hear announcements through oral or written statements. Of course, the point is now on the record.
Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. In the Prime Minister’s statement earlier today, he refused—not for the first time—to answer a question from my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr Skinner) on account of his age. That sort of discrimination would not be accepted against black or female Members, so I have no idea why this House has tolerated, on numerous occasions, Members at the Dispatch Box refusing to answer my hon. Friend’s questions. Will you—or, indeed, Mr Speaker—say what action can be taken? I ask not on behalf of my hon. Friend, who can stick up for himself, but on behalf of every person in my constituency who gets discriminated against because of their age, and sees the Prime Minister do exactly that. This House should be above that. What action can be taken to make sure that today is the last time we have to see this disgusting spectacle?
Mr Deputy Speaker
There is no place in this Chamber for racism, ageism, gender discrimination—I could go on. That is about respect to all Members. The point has quite rightly been put on the record; I hope that people will take on board what I have said, and what the hon. Member for Chesterfield (Toby Perkins) has stated. Dennis Skinner is a long-serving Member of this House, and like all other Members, he should be treated with respect.
Mr Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) (Lab/Co-op)
On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. I wonder whether you or the Speaker have received a request from the Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General to make a statement on a report, published today by the National Children’s Bureau, that suggests that 25% of the children’s charities that took part in the research could close as a direct result of Government funding cuts, despite the importance of such charities in helping some of the most vulnerable in the country. Will that not be just one more reason for the country to think that the Prime Minister and the Chancellor are out of touch with reality and the rest of us?
Mr Deputy Speaker
As you know, that is not a point of order for the Chair, but the point is now on the record; anybody who wished to hear it has either heard it, or can read it in Hansard.
Sittings of the House (1 May)
(12 years, 7 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Parliamentary Secretary, Office of the Leader of the House of Commons (Mr David Heath)
I beg to move,
That at the sitting on Tuesday 1 May—
(1) the House shall sit at 1.30 pm;
(2) there shall be no sitting in Westminster Hall; and
(3) the Speaker shall not adjourn the House, if a Message from the Lords Commissioners is expected, until that Message has been received.
All good things must eventually come to an end, and this extraordinarily productive Session of Parliament is no exception to the rule. The motion before us is quite usual in the run-up to Prorogation to facilitate the meeting of the House as it comes to the end of the Session. The first part of the motion sets out the time that the House shall sit tomorrow. Of course the House would normally sit at 2.30 pm on a Tuesday, but it is quite usual when the House is meeting to prorogue that it meets earlier than usual. Perhaps the proposed time is slightly later than would be normal in these circumstances. The reason for that is that the other place is debating the Joint Committee report on House of Lords reform on Tuesday morning and, as Parliament prorogues as a whole, the proposed time at which we are sitting reflects the negotiations in the other place to conclude the debate on the subject which began there today.
It is also in accordance with the past practice of arrangements for Prorogation to cancel the sitting in Westminster Hall, and paragraph (2) of the motion achieves that aim. It is unfortunate for Members who were successful in the ballots that their debates will not take place. Also, it is quite usual at the end of the Session that some scheduled business has to fall, once the House sets the time for Prorogation. I hope those hon. Members will be successful in securing debates early in the next Session.
By the time of Prorogation, we will have sat for a total of 290 days in this Session.
Mr Heath
As the hon. Gentleman says, as always from a sedentary position, it is the longest ever. This stems from the move to spring-to-spring Sessions, which moves the start of the Session to the spring from the autumn. It is the longest Session that I can remember, and it is right that we now bring it to an end with the final piece of legislation in the Government’s planned programme.
The business managers have aimed to balance the needs of the House this Session, providing adequate time for scrutiny of legislation, including the provision of multiple days on Report for nine Bills. Members should also be aware that 18 Public Bill Committees finished their work early. As well as introducing 40 Bills implementing a wide range of coalition policy, we provided 58 days for the Backbench Business Committee, with more than 40 of those enabling debate on the Floor of the House. I know that Members around the House will welcome this inclusion in the balance of time available to the House. I look forward to the outcome of the Procedure Committee report on the work of the Backbench Business Committee, as the House continues to improve it in the future. In addition, extra time was provided both for private Members’ Bills and for Opposition time, in recognition of the unusual length of the Session. I commend the motion to the House.
Question put and agreed to.
Sunday Trading (London Olympic Games and Paralympic Games) Bill [Lords] (Allocation of Time)
17:40 - The House divided: - Ayes: 281 / Noes: 112 - Question accordingly agreed to.
The Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (Mr Mark Prisk)
I beg to move,
That the following provisions shall apply to the proceedings on the Sunday Trading (London Olympic Games and Paralympic Games) Bill [Lords]:
Timetable
1. (1) Proceedings on Second Reading, in Committee, on Consideration and on Third Reading shall be completed at today’s sitting.
(2) Proceedings on Second Reading, in Committee, on Consideration and on Third Reading shall so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion at the moment of interruption.
Timing of proceedings and Questions to be put
2. When the Bill has been read a second time—
(a) notwithstanding Standing Order No. 63 (Committal of bills not subject to a programme order) it shall stand committed to a Committee of the whole House without any Question being put;
(b) the Speaker shall leave the Chair whether or not notice of an Instruction has been given.
3. (1) On the conclusion of proceedings in Committee, the Chair shall report the Bill to the House without putting any Question.
(2) If the Bill is reported with amendments, the House shall proceed to consider the Bill as amended without any Question being put.
4. For the purpose of bringing any proceedings to a conclusion in accordance with paragraph 1, the Speaker or Chair shall forthwith put the following Questions (but no others) in the same order as they would fall to be put if this Order did not apply—
(a) any Question already proposed from the Chair;
(b) any Question necessary to bring to a decision a Question so proposed;
(c) the Question on any amendment moved or Motion made by a Minister of the Crown;
(d) any other Question necessary for the disposal of the business to be concluded.
5. On a Motion so made for a new Clause or a new Schedule, the Chair or Speaker shall put only the Question that the Clause or Schedule be added to the Bill.
6. If two or more Questions would fall to be put under paragraph 4(c) on successive amendments moved or Motions made by a Minister of the Crown, the Chair or Speaker shall instead put a single Question in relation to those amendments or Motions.
7. If two or more Questions would fall to be put under paragraph 4(d) in relation to successive provisions of the Bill, the Chair shall instead put a single Question in relation to those provisions, except that the Question shall be put separately on any Clause of or Schedule to the Bill which a Minister of the Crown has signified an intention to leave out.
Subsequent stages
8. (1) Any Message from the Lords on the Bill shall be considered forthwith without any Question being put.
(2) Proceedings on any Message from the Lords shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion one hour after their commencement.
9. (1) This paragraph applies for the purpose of bringing any proceedings to a conclusion in accordance with paragraph 8.
(2) The Speaker shall first put forthwith any Question which has been proposed from the Chair.
(3) The Speaker shall then put forthwith the Question on any Motion made by a Minister of the Crown which is related to the Question already proposed from the Chair.
(4) The Speaker shall then put forthwith the Question on any Motion made by a Minister of the Crown on or relevant to any of the remaining items in the Lords Message.
(5) The Speaker shall then put forthwith the Question that this House agrees with the Lords in all of the remaining Lords Proposals.
Reasons Committee
10. (1) The Speaker shall put forthwith the Question on any Motion made by a Minister of the Crown for the appointment, nomination and quorum of a Committee to draw up Reasons and the appointment of its Chair.
(2) A Committee appointed to draw up Reasons shall report before the conclusion of the sitting at which it is appointed.
(3) Proceedings in the Committee shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion 30 minutes after their commencement.
(4) For the purpose of bringing any proceedings to a conclusion in accordance with sub-paragraph (3), the Chair shall—
(a) first put forthwith any Question which has been proposed from the Chair, and
(b) then put forthwith successively Questions on Motions which may be made by a Minister of the Crown for assigning a Reason for disagreeing with the Lords in any of their Amendments.
(5) The proceedings of the Committee shall be reported without any further Question being put.
Miscellaneous
11. Standing Order No. 15(1) (Exempted business) shall apply so far as necessary for the purposes of this Order.
12. (1) The proceedings on any Motion made by a Minister of the Crown for varying or supplementing the provisions of this Order shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion one hour after their commencement.
(2) Standing Order No. 15(1) (Exempted business) shall apply to those proceedings.
13. Standing Order No. 82 (Business Committee) shall not apply in relation to any proceedings to which this Order applies.
14. (1) No Motion shall be made, except by a Minister of the Crown, to alter the order in which any proceedings on the Bill are taken or to re-commit the Bill.
(2) The Question on any such Motion shall be put forthwith.
15. (1) No dilatory Motion shall be made in relation to proceedings to which this Order applies except by a Minister of the Crown.
(2) The Question on any such Motion shall be put forthwith.
16. The Speaker may not arrange for a debate to be held in accordance with Standing Order No. 24 (Emergency debates) at today’s sitting before the conclusion of any proceedings to which this Order applies.
17. (1) Sub-paragraph (2) applies if the House is adjourned, or the sitting is suspended, before the conclusion of any proceedings to which this Order applies.
(2) No notice shall be required of a Motion made at the next sitting by a Minister of the Crown for varying or supplementing the provisions of this Order.
18. Proceedings to which this Order applies may not be interrupted under any Standing Order relating to the sittings of the House.
19. (1) Any private business which has been set down for consideration at 7.00 pm, 4.00 pm or 3.00 pm (as the case may be) on a day on which the Bill has been set down to be taken as an Order of the Day shall, instead of being considered as provided by Standing Orders, be considered at the conclusion of the proceedings on the Bill on that day.
(2) Standing Order No. 15(1) (Exempted business) shall apply to the private business for a period of three hours from the conclusion of the proceedings on the Bill or, if those proceedings are concluded before the moment of interruption, for a period equal to the time elapsing between 7.00 pm, 4.00 pm or 3.00 pm (as the case may be) and the conclusion of those proceedings.
The motion applies to the proceedings on the Sunday Trading (London Olympic Games and Paralympic Games) Bill. I shall not detain the House unduly as I am aware that a number of Members will wish to speak on Second Reading. The motion seeks the approval of the House to consider all stages of this short but important Bill in a single day.
By way of background, briefly, the Bill will suspend the current restrictions that govern when some large shops may open on Sundays for the duration of the London 2012 games period. Currently, the Sunday Trading Act 1994 limits the opening times on Sundays of certain shops with the relevant floor area of more than 3,000 square feet. In particular, the Act restricts them to opening on a Sunday for a maximum six-hour period between the hours of 10 am and 6 pm. The Bill will temporarily ease those restrictions, allowing for a suspension that will be in effect between Sunday 22 July and Sunday 9 September this year. I should point out the inclusion of a sunset clause, which means that the Bill will cease to have effect after that date.
Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)
Will my hon. Friend reassure a significant number of Harlow residents who have written to me that the Bill is just a temporary Bill for the Olympics, and that there are no plans to extend Sunday trading per se?
Kate Hoey (Vauxhall) (Lab)
Everyone in this country has known for many years that we would be hosting the Olympics and Paralympics, so why has the Minister come forward with this Bill at the very last minute?
Mr Prisk
As usual, the hon. Lady is entirely prescient, because that is exactly what I was about to explain. The permanent relaxation of the Sunday trading laws was considered and rejected as part of the Government’s red tape challenge in June last year. A private Member’s Bill subsequently brought forward by my hon. Friend the Member for Fylde (Mark Menzies) proposed the suspension of the rules for the period of the games, albeit in a different form from the one being proposed today. Although his proposal was subsequently withdrawn, it focused our thinking on the issue and we came to the conclusion that we should provide for a temporary suspension of the rules, hence the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s announcement in the Budget.
To take full advantage of the suspension, businesses will need to prepare well ahead. They will need to agree trading hours and working hours with staff and ensure that customers know about their extended hours. More importantly, we believe that we need to ensure that shop workers have time to choose whether to work on those eight Sundays.
Helen Jones (Warrington North) (Lab)
I am grateful to the Minister, who is being generous in giving way. Does the fact that he, as a Treasury Minister, is moving this allocation of time motion—[Interruption.] I am sorry. As a Business, Innovation and Skills Minister, can he confirm whether the pressure for this change came from the Treasury and not from BIS, because BIS is more concerned about the effect on smaller shops than the Treasury seems to be?
Mr Prisk
The hon. Lady’s question might have worked better if she had my correct job title. The point is that this is the policy of the Government, devised by the Government and supported by the Government, and we believe that it will add considerably to the opportunities that the Olympics present.
Using the fast-track legislative process will give businesses and shop workers the necessary time to make their own arrangements for the period of the Olympics and Paralympics. In deciding to use the fast-track procedure, we have consulted those directly affected and Members of both Houses. Indeed, consultations have been held with, among others, representatives from the Association of Convenience Stores, the Federation of Small Businesses, the National Federation of Retail Newsagents, the CBI, leading supermarkets and the unions, including USDAW and Unite. Indeed, Ministers have consulted senior religious representatives, the official Opposition and Members of this House. We are grateful to everyone for engaging in this process in what has been a very positive fashion, regardless of their views on the wider issue of trading or working on a Sunday.
Mr David Anderson (Blaydon) (Lab)
Is not the truth that the Minister had a consultation and then, as is normal for the Government, ignored the views of people, because most of the people he has just mentioned were actually against this happening? If he had listened to the views expressed in the consultation, we would not be debating this tonight.
Mr Prisk
Again, I do not want to stretch your patience too far, Mr Deputy Speaker, but the fact that the Bill was amended during its passage in the other House after we listened to those representations and on the very question of the notice procedure demonstrates that the hon. Gentleman is wrong on that point.
Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton) (Lab)
My point is about the speed and programming of the Bill. The hon. Gentleman will be aware that Sunday trading is one of the most controversial items in this House. I think that I am right in saying that it was the only item on which Margaret Thatcher was defeated when she was Prime Minister. Does he agree that that makes the Bill completely inappropriate for fast-tracking at the last minute and that this is a sneaky way of dealing with a very difficult issue?
Mr Prisk
I do not accept that at all. This measure does not do anything beyond eight Sundays and the Act will leave the statute book on 10 September, so the idea that it is some kind of Trojan horse is a false argument. As a practising Christian, I understand the concerns, and we have done our level best to ensure that we listen carefully to Members of both Houses.
To conclude, we believe that the Bill strikes the right balance between addressing legitimate concerns and ensuring that retailers have the flexibility to take full advantage of the tremendous commercial opportunities presented by the games. As such, I commend the motion to the House.
Mr Chuka Umunna (Streatham) (Lab)
I do not wish to speak for long on the programme motion, because I do not intend to extend the discussion beyond what is necessary, having already indicated our agreement to use the fast-track procedure. I shall explain more about that on Second Reading. I have a number of substantive points in relation to the Bill, but again the proper time for me to raise them is on Second Reading. I have a number of things to say about the handling of this matter, which has necessitated the use of the fast-track procedure, but again I shall mention those later.
In relation to the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Blackley and Broughton (Graham Stringer) made, I am happy to confirm that, with an awareness of the sensitivities of this matter, Her Majesty’s official Opposition are going to treat this as a free vote for all concerned on our Benches.
Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)
I was not going to make a speech, but the Minister refused to give way, and that forces me to stand at this point.
I shall make two brief points on the programme motion, which is what we are discussing. First, it is interesting that the Minister is proposing to allow shops to open for as long as they like, but allowing us to discuss this matter only until 10 pm this evening.
Secondly, the Minister mentioned all the people whom he had consulted on the matter. I do not think that any of us were surprised that he ignored the work force in shops or some religious organisations, but I was quite surprised that he ignored the chief executive of Sainsbury’s, who said that the measure was unnecessary. What everyone is trying to get to the bottom of is: who is the driving force behind putting through this temporary legislation? Who is really behind it? Perhaps this evening we might discover the answer to that question. I have read the Lords debate and I am none the wiser.
Mr Tom Harris (Glasgow South) (Lab)
I shall address my comments specifically to the programme motion.
We have known about the Olympics since 6 July 2005. Today, at the fag end of a weary and exhausted parliamentary Session, we are being asked to go through every single stage of a Bill that, as the Minister rightly said, is short but important. It is important because of the effect that it will have on the lives of many thousands of workers and their families in London. For him to say from the Dispatch Box that he does not want to speak for too long but wants to allow the rest of us to have our say, when we have to stop talking about such a massively important Bill at 10 pm, is rather disingenuous. I have a lot of time for the Minister—he is a good Minister, for a Tory—but on this particular issue I do not think that he is being entirely fair.
Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)
Is the hon. Gentleman saying that if somebody has a good idea towards the end of a time scale, it should be ignored because it comes at an inconvenient moment? If somebody comes up with a good idea, albeit late in the day, surely it is right that the Government take notice, listen and do something about it. He should commend that, not criticise it.
Mr Harris
The hon. Gentleman has a strange idea of what is a new idea. This proposal was debated and defeated under the Thatcher Government, and as the Minister said, one of his own Back Benchers, the hon. Member for Fylde (Mark Menzies), brought forward proposals on it last year. This is not a new proposal; it has been on the take-off ground for a long time.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. We are in danger of opening up the debate. We are just dealing with the allocation of time. I am bothered that the intervention was sidetracking you, Mr Harris.
Mr Harris
I am grateful for your instruction, Mr Deputy Speaker.
I also question the fact that this debate is taking place on, essentially, the last day of the Session, given that the issue has always been subject to a one-line Whip and is a matter of conscience. So the Government knew that a great many Members would not be in the Chamber, but would be out campaigning in the local elections. That shows a degree of cynicism that, even for this Government, is quite outrageous.
The Government knew that many people who are opposed to this measure on principle would not be here. That is a question for their business managers. In my notes, I have put an asterisk after the term “business managers”, because when it comes to this Government, that is a very generous term. We have had very many days during this Parliament when the Whips have been frantically running around looking for stuff to vote on and not being able to find it, and we have all been sent home early. Day after day, there has not been a vote, and suddenly an issue of importance comes before us on the last day of the Session and we are all expected to come down to London to vote on it. That is a disgrace.
Kate Hoey (Vauxhall) (Lab)
I, too, oppose the timetable motion. During my years in Parliament, the House has not passed legislation as quickly as this unless there really was an emergency and it was crucial to get it through in a very short time by taking it all on one day. I genuinely think that the Government have messed up on this. The Bill could have come at any time during the past year, or even earlier, particularly once the Back-Bench Bill had been introduced, and there is no need to rush it through like this, leaving aside the principle of the issue, about which I have very strong feelings. As those of us who were around in 1994 remember, it has been an incredibly contentious issue about which people feel very strongly and on which Labour Members have always had a free vote.
I am very concerned that pushing the Bill through in this way is yet another example of the increasing tendency to say, “If it is about the Olympics and the Paralympics, anything can be changed or moved.” I think that the Olympics and the Paralympics are incredibly important to this country and that they will be a huge success, but people could be cynical about the fact that they increasingly seem to be used as excuses for all sorts of things to be done, changed and made different—including those who suddenly discovered at the weekend that they might have missiles of some kind on top of their houses.
We have to be very careful, as a Parliament, that we consider legislation within a time scale that treats it with the seriousness that it deserves. The Bill does not need to be rushed through in this way, and it should not be. I hope that many hon. Government Members—I presume that they have a free vote as well; if not, they should—will join us in opposing the Bill, or at least its timetabling.
Hugh Bayley (York Central) (Lab)
I cast my mind back to 1994, when the House passed the current Sunday trading legislation, which has passed the test of time. A good compromise was struck in that legislation—particularly in giving some Sunday lifeblood to small high street traders by preventing the bigger shops, particularly the out-of-town shops, from taking business away from them—but it was achieved only after hours and hours of debate. The Government are making a big mistake in using a procedure that was intended to deal with a national emergency such as a terrorist attack to take through a piece of legislation that it would be very easy to get wrong. Indeed, by rushing it through in a single sitting of the House, there is a danger that the Government will get it wrong.
Like my hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall (Kate Hoey), I believe that the Olympic games are extremely important, but they are a festival of sport, not a festival of shopping. The Government should think again and bring back a proposal when we have more time to debate it after the Queen’s Speech.
Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)
My hon. Friend the Minister knows that I have concerns about the Bill, and I wish that more time had been set aside so that amendments about geography could have been debated rather than being perceived as wrecking amendments.
Kevin Brennan
The hon. Lady says that she has concerns. Has she a free vote on the matter?
Dr Coffey
As the hon. Gentleman knows, every vote in the House is a free vote.
I stress to my hon. Friends on the Front Bench that the amendments that some of us thought about tabling would have tried to be helpful. As was mentioned earlier, we are considering a festival of sport—one of the greatest things that will ever happen in our country. The route from Stratford or Pudding Mill takes people through a shopping centre, and it would be odd if they could not buy something on their way home, but I am not sure what excuse there is for some of the shopping centres further afield to be open.
I understand that the matter is important for the Government and I did not table any amendments because I did not want to be perceived as trying to wreck the Bill, but I hope that any other debate on Sunday trading hours will be given time for hon. Members to discuss the subject properly.
Question put.
Sunday Trading (London Olympic Games and Paralympic Games) Bill [Lords]
22:00 - The House divided: - Ayes: 273 / Noes: 131 - Question accordingly agreed to.
22:15 - The House divided: - Ayes: 272 / Noes: 125 - Question accordingly agreed to.
The Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills (Vince Cable)
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
I will start by setting out the context of the Bill. The opportunity to host the 2012 London Olympic and Paralympic games is a unique, once-in-a-lifetime national event, and we have to make the most of the opportunities that hosting them will bring. The games will attract significant numbers of visitors from around the world to the UK, and consequently the economic benefits to the UK are expected to be considerable. By way of contrast, the Australian 2000 games attracted 1.6 million additional visitors, and Beijing 4.4 million. We have had an independent estimate that about 6 million additional visits will be made to the UK as a consequence of the games.
The UK retail sector stands to be one of the prime beneficiaries of the additional demand, and the Bill will give retailers the flexibility to capitalise on the commercial opportunities presented by the games.
Vince Cable
I will happily give way, but may I first finish my introduction? Hon. Members know that I am always generous with interventions. I will take the hon. Gentleman’s in a few seconds.
The Government recognise that plans to relax temporarily the restrictions on Sunday trading between 22 July and 9 September—eight Sundays—have caused concern, but before I address those concerns, I will briefly outline the benefits that we believe relaxing the rules will deliver.
David Wright
I know that the Secretary of State is trying to outline the broad principles of the Bill, but I would like to ask him a simple question. Telford is 150 miles away from where the Olympics will be held. Why should shop workers in Telford have to work longer during the Olympics on Sundays, when they want to be at home with their families watching the games?
Vince Cable
They will not have to. We are discussing how individual workers can opt out, should they wish to do so or have a conscience, and to make that as easy as possible for them. As I will say later, though, there will be many opportunities across the UK, not just in London, for people to enjoy the benefits of the games.
Mark Field (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con)
I have some sympathy with the point made by the hon. Member for Telford (David Wright), but will the Secretary of State explain the difficulties there would have been with introducing a hybrid Bill, making exceptions for particular parts of London and other areas where the Olympics will be held? In comparison, this Bill will provide for a temporary measure that could apply to the whole of the UK but which, obviously, is unlikely to be utilised in areas outside where the Olympics will take place.
Vince Cable
Undoubtedly, there are practical difficulties in defining geographical boundaries, but actually that is not the real reason. The reason is that we believe that the whole of the UK will benefit, and we want the potential benefits of flexibility in the retail sector to apply.
Mr Andrew Smith (Oxford East) (Lab)
In the light of that answer, what sort of assurance can the Secretary of State give the House that the Bill, or the experience of deregulated trading during the Olympics, will not be used as a Trojan horse to introduce wider deregulation measures? Will he promise the House that that will not happen?
Vince Cable
The Trojan horse was invoked several times in the earlier debate, but I can give the right hon. Gentleman an absolute assurance that this is not a precedent. I shall dwell later on how we will reinforce that absolute commitment.
Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)
I am extremely grateful to the Secretary of State for giving way. He is being extremely generous very early on in his remarks. Will he give me some reassurance? What protection will be in place for, say, volunteer sports coaches or church workers with commitments on Sundays, if their volunteer commitments are threatened by having to work extra hours?
Vince Cable
Of course, they could opt out of the commitments, as is already provided for under existing legislation, which means that they will receive all the protections subject to unfair dismissal legislation.
Dame Joan Ruddock (Lewisham, Deptford) (Lab)
The Secretary of State will have had discussions with the major shopping chains throughout the UK. Have they indicated to him that they would wish to use this provision for all their stores throughout the UK, rather than just in London?
Vince Cable
The different companies will avail themselves of the Bill to varying degrees and in various parts of the country. The whole purpose is not to provide a blanket provision; it is to provide flexibility, both in time and in different parts of the country.
Sir Roger Gale (North Thanet) (Con)
I am sure that my right hon. Friend knows that I have been opposed to Sunday trading since day one. I voted against it under Margaret Thatcher, and I am still opposed to it. Will he give the House an absolute assurance that under this Government—he cannot bind a future Government—the Bill will not be used to introduce a more permanent arrangement thereafter?
Vince Cable
Yes; I have already given that assurance to the right hon. Member for Oxford East (Mr Smith), and I can repeat it to the hon. Gentleman. That is absolutely not the intention of the Government. I do not think I need to repeat it again, but I am happy to do so—
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. The Secretary of State is trying to answer one intervention and there are about 10 people on their feet. I understand that people want to intervene on him, but they should give him a little time to get through his answers.
Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin) (Con)
I am grateful to the Secretary of State for giving way, and I have a lot of sympathy with the comments that the hon. Member for Telford (David Wright) made. Some moments ago, the Minister of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Hertford and Stortford (Mr Prisk) gave a commitment that the legislation would not go beyond September. However, that commitment appeared to be a personal commitment, albeit well meant. Ministers come and go, and I am sure that my hon. Friend is likely to be promoted upwards from Minister of State. Indeed, even Secretaries of State come and go. I wonder whether the Secretary of State will put it on the record that it is the commitment of the Government not to go beyond 10 September, and not the personal commitment of Ministers.
Vince Cable
I can repeat what I have already said. This is not just a personal commitment by the Minister of State or me; it is a Government commitment. There is a sunset clause in the Bill, which can be debated in detail as we make progress through the rest of the day.
Vince Cable
I will take further interventions later if hon. Members still have unanswered questions.
Let me say a little about the benefits. It is difficult to quantify them in a very precise way, but the Centre for Retail Research has estimated that an additional benefit to the UK economy of something in the order of £190 million will be generated by the games. Using old Department of Trade and Industry methodology, we estimate that the effects of today’s change will generate something in the order of £175 million, although we recognise that these figures are extremely imprecise.
As I have mentioned, the flexibility provided by the Bill will boost sales for retailers. Longer opening hours will be an effective showcase for British retailers, allowing visitors to sample the outstanding shopping we offer at a time that suits them. For shop workers, the Bill will create a welcome opportunity—for those who wish to take it—to earn extra money by doing more shifts, while at the same time protecting the right to opt out from Sunday working for those who wish to do so. In addition, it is likely that the suspension of Sunday trading restrictions will increase the opportunities for temporary employment. For consumers, the Bill will allow flexibility over when to go shopping, enabling individuals to combine it with attending Olympic events or watching the coverage on television as they wish. The Bill applies across the country, as was raised in an earlier intervention. The games are a national event, not just a London event. We want families, whether they live in the east of London or the east of England, to have the freedom to plan their weekends so that they can participate in the 1,000 events that will happen right across the country.
Luciana Berger
The Secretary of State has been kind in allowing interventions. He has said twice in his opening remarks that workers will have the opportunity to opt out. However, the date by which they would have to do so is 22 May, which is just over three weeks away. Does he acknowledge that that leaves people very little time?
Vince Cable
We are reducing the period to two months, in order to give everybody the opportunity to opt out before the games period begins, and we are talking to employers about how to ensure that they communicate to their work force the fact that that opportunity is available to them.
Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)
I very much support the Government with this Bill. However, if the Secretary of State believes it is right for shoppers and workers to have the right to shop and work any time they wish on a Sunday during the Olympic games, can he explain why he does not think the same people should have exactly the same rights to shop and work when they choose outside the time scale of the Olympic games? I do not understand why there is this great distinction.
Vince Cable
All the interventions so far have made a clear distinction between a temporary exception and a permanent change. I know that the hon. Gentleman feels strongly about the need for a permanent liberalisation, and there may be others in the House who do so too, but they will have to make that case separately, should an opportunity arise. This Bill does not reflect on the argument for a permanent change.
Mr David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)
I share the concerns expressed about the way in which the work force will be treated, but I want to turn the Secretary of State’s attention to the economic argument. I have received representations from those running small convenience stores in my constituency who have told me that the extra hours will simply mean the larger stores—the main supermarkets—hoovering up any extra business, thereby damaging the smaller stores’ marginal profits in that period. Has the Secretary of State taken that into account in his economic assessment of the benefits of the Bill?
Vince Cable
Yes, we have indeed taken into account the Association of Convenience Stores, which has submitted some impressive evidence. The point that we have made back is that it is not simply a question of switching demand from one type of shop to another; rather, there will be substantial additional shopping and other activity. We believe that there will be net benefits, although they are very difficult to quantify.
Yasmin Qureshi
But 60,000 shopkeepers are saying that they will suffer as a result of the extension for larger stores, which will hoover up the rest of the market, as has been suggested. Is the Secretary of State really saying that those 60,000 shopkeepers are wrong?
Vince Cable
I think those 60,000 shopkeepers—that is indeed the number—are probably being too pessimistic. As I have said, there will be two effects. One will be an increase in demand, with more visitors and more shopping opportunities. At the same time, there will be some degree of switching. Looked at as a whole, the change will have considerable benefits for the British retail sector.
Mr Tom Harris (Glasgow South) (Lab)
An hon. Member no longer in his place made a valid point, even though I come at this from a completely opposite direction. The Secretary of State is responsible for business and enterprise in this country. He has said that there will be a huge economic benefit from the Bill even outside London during the Olympics and Paralympics. If he is correct and we see however many hundreds of millions of pounds-worth of economic growth outside London, is he saying that, as someone who is responsible for the economic growth of the country, he will be willing and able to resist the inevitable pressure to extend the measure, irrespective of when the Olympics takes place? Will he be able to resist all those pressures, especially in the current period of austerity?
Vince Cable
We will return in more detail to the areas outside London, but the Centre for Retail Research, to which I have referred, estimated that something in the order of 40% of the additional retail spending would take place outside London and the south-east.
Let me address the concerns that have been expressed. The Government are aware that the temporary suspension of Sunday trading is causing anxiety for some groups of people. Let me try to address those concerns. First, there is the suspicion, which we have already had aired, that the Bill is a Trojan horse preparing the way for a permanent relaxation of the rules. It is not: the Bill sets out clear time limits and contains a sunset clause. It is worth noting that Germany, which—for people who worry about these things—has notoriously tight restrictions on Sunday trading, eased its restrictions during the football World cup and then re-imposed them. They have remained in place subsequently. Any move towards the abolition of the UK’s Sunday trading laws would require new legislation, a full consultation and extensive parliamentary scrutiny. Let me repeat, therefore, that the Bill is not a signal of the Government’s intent on the broader issue of Sunday trading; rather, it is motivated by a desire to capitalise on the unprecedented benefits that accrue from the privilege of hosting the Olympics.
Frank Dobson (Holborn and St Pancras) (Lab)
Have the Government given any consideration to the impact of this proposal on drunkenness, in view of the fact that one of the major contributions of the big stores is to sell booze at less than cost price? Is it not likely that, given the celebratory atmosphere, they will do so even more? I am a strong supporter of the Olympics and the Paralympics, but I am fearful that in many town centres this proposal will be more about people getting paralytic than about the Paralympics.
Vince Cable
That was a good pun, but the right hon. Gentleman will know that the licensing of alcohol is governed by separate provisions overseen by local authorities, so the Bill will not have the negative effect that he describes.
Mrs Madeleine Moon (Bridgend) (Lab)
The Secretary of State has talked a great deal about capitalising on the Olympics and showcasing the UK. Surely we ought also to be showcasing the tourist opportunities in our countryside and coastal resorts, where we do not, on the whole, find the large shops whose opening hours he is talking about liberalising. Is the Bill not going to draw people away from other trading and employment opportunities in the countryside and in our tourist resorts on the coast?
Vince Cable
I am just as great a fan of Welsh tourism as the hon. Lady, but as she says, large shops do not exist in many of the coastal areas of Wales, and they will therefore not be competing with the small shops either.
Gavin Shuker (Luton South) (Lab/Co-op)
I do not want the Secretary of State to move on before we have dealt with his substantive point. He said that any future Sunday trading legislation in this Parliament would be subject to consultation. Will he now rule out any further legislation in this Parliament relating to Sunday trading?
Vince Cable
Of course I cannot commit Her Majesty the Queen or the processes of the House in deciding on its business. I can say absolutely unequivocally that it is not the intention of the Government to proceed to permanent liberalisation.
Stephen Pound (Ealing North) (Lab)
It might come as a shock to the Secretary of State and to the House to learn that this will be my second London Olympics, although I was swaying in a bassinet in Queen Charlotte’s hospital in 1948. If the Secretary of State will not accept that the Bill represents a win, win for Westfield and the end of the line for the convenience stores, will he tell us what the great body of consumers will be so desperate to purchase during the Olympics that they cannot purchase at the moment? What evidence does he have of a vast pent-up longing to go out and buy goods in east London that is not being met at the moment?
Vince Cable
The evidence for the pent-up demand comes from the additional number of visitors; it is as simple as that. We need to ensure that the retail sector can be as flexible as possible.
Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)
The Secretary of State has gone to great pains to state that this will be a temporary position, and that it is not part of a longer-term Government strategy. I have sympathy for him as someone who has been the victim of briefings from the Treasury, but does he acknowledge that there would be less concern about the measure if the Treasury had not briefed that this would provide an opportunity to determine whether there was demand for further liberalisation in the future?
Vince Cable
I am not aware of any such separate briefing from the Treasury. I am working alongside my colleagues on this; it is a Government initiative, not one from any particular Government Department.
Let me turn from the Trojan horse issue to the very genuine religious concerns that have been expressed. The Government are sensitive to the fact that, for many people, Sunday has particular religious significance as a day that is set aside for worship. We have therefore consulted the Churches in advance of the Bill—the Church of England, the Roman Catholic Church and the Church in Wales; Scotland and Northern Ireland have their own separate arrangements—in order to emphasise the temporary nature of the changes. I should add that the Lords Spiritual in the other place did not oppose the measure when they were reassured that this would be a one-off change.
Mr Chuka Umunna (Streatham) (Lab)
Given what the Secretary of State has just said about the religious sensitivities surrounding the issue, why will there not be a free vote on the matter for Government Members?
Vince Cable
I will endeavour, through my eloquence, to persuade my hon. Friends to vote for the Bill on its merits, and I am sure that they all will. This is an important piece of Government legislation designed to ensure that the games are a success.
I want to move on to the issue of workers’ rights. There is a worry that the temporary relaxation of the rules will water down the right of most shop workers to opt out of Sunday working. That is a unique employment protection that is not shared by the vast majority of the work force. It is also worth remembering that most workers in the retail sector do not come within the existing protections, and that many people choose to work on Sundays. That is their choice.
I want to stress that the Bill is not a charter for retailers to exploit their workers during the Olympics. Indeed, in response to concerns raised in the first instance by the Opposition, the Government tabled an amendment, which was accepted in another place, in order to ensure that the opportunity to exercise existing legal rights would not in any way be adversely affected should the Bill become law. The amendment reduces from three months to two months the notice period for some employees exercising their right to opt out of Sunday working. Shop workers for whom a one-month notice period already applies—which is the case in several leading chains—will be unaffected by the change.
Hugh Bayley (York Central) (Lab)
If the Bill is passed, the suspension period will run from 22 July to 9 September, covering the whole of the school holiday period. Shop workers, like other people, like to go on holiday with their children during the summer. Does the Secretary of State believe that retailers will allow their employees to take their holidays at that time, or might they put a block on them doing so during August if the legislation goes through? Has he consulted the trade unions on the holiday issue in particular?
Vince Cable
Perfectly normal contractual arrangements will apply in respect of holidays. We are speaking extensively to the main employers to ensure that they respect and support workers who wish to opt out, and protect their employment rights in the process.
Ian Lavery (Wansbeck) (Lab)
Can the Secretary of State confirm whether an employer has the right to deny a valid application not to work?
Vince Cable
The existing rules and rights will apply; they will not be changed in any way.
Mr Umunna
Will the Secretary of State explain the practical effect of the change in the notice period for employees giving notice of their wish to opt out? For the benefit of those outside the Chamber, will he tell us how long the notice period would last if notice were given on, say, 10 May, and how long it would last if it were given on 10 July?
Vince Cable
I am trying to understand the logic of the hon. Gentleman’s question. As I understand it, if notice is given in good time within the two-month period, a worker will be covered for the whole of the period of the Olympic games. I would be happy to clarify that in writing if he wishes.
Lorely Burt (Solihull) (LD)
I am very supportive of many elements of the Bill, but one aspect that concerns me is the fact that the two-month notice period will mean that shop workers will have only 21 days before 22 May in which to give notice of their wish to opt out. What methods will my right hon. Friend use to ensure that shop workers understand that they must give that notice within the next three weeks?
Vince Cable
We are giving the message very strongly to employers that they should communicate that to their work force. There is now adequate time for workers to opt out of Sunday working, should they wish to do so. I want to make that absolutely clear; that is the purpose of the reduction of the notice period from three months to two months.
Mr David Anderson (Blaydon) (Lab)
Is the Secretary of State aware of the survey carried out among 20,000 members of the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers? It showed that 78% opposed extending opening hours during the Olympics, that 51% of staff already felt that they were being forced to work on Sundays when they did not want to, and that 73% said that the measures would add more pressure on them to work on Sundays in the future. That is what is happening in the real world. If the Secretary of State is serious about people being able to give notice of their wish to opt out, is it not incumbent on the Government to inform employees about that, rather than employers?
Vince Cable
I am not sure what is meant by saying that 73% of people believe this will affect future rights. These provisions are temporary and, as we have made clear, they do not extend beyond the period of the Olympic games. We have made it absolutely clear that existing rights are fully protected.
Vince Cable
I shall take one more intervention, but then I want to make some progress.
Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab)
Does the Secretary of State recognise that the average retail worker in London is a woman who has a family? Does he also recognise that when we are on holiday in continental Europe and want to go shopping we often find the shopkeeper having a siesta? Why does he think that those visiting London are not able to shop between 11 am and 4 pm on a Sunday when they can shop for hours on six other days? Are these people so stupid that they cannot work out our current laws?
Vince Cable
I understand that, as I occasionally go on holidays across the channel. Several European countries are very pragmatic about how they deal with this. For example, the centres of major tourist areas are de-restricted in order to enable retailers to take full advantage of the provisions. Of course I am aware that most shop workers are women and have family responsibilities. That is why it is important that all workers, particularly women in this case, have the right to opt out.
Vince Cable
I shall move on now and take further interventions later.
The provision that I have described will ensure that, following Royal Assent, any shop worker who wishes to exercise the right to opt out so as to avoid the possibility of having to work on Sundays during the games will be able to acquire the right not to work on Sundays by the start of the suspension period. We have been working with employers—we are talking about 6,000 large stores—to help ensure that employees are aware of this right and of when they can use it. We know that many employers are talking to their staff about this Bill and how they can all take advantage of the benefits it offers in a way that suits all parties. In addition, the Government have given an undertaking to publish guidance for employers and employees outlining what the suspension means for them in respect of the right to opt out of Sunday working.
Vince Cable
I shall take the intervention from the Ulster Unionist Benches.
Jim Shannon
For the record, I am a Democratic Unionist, not an Ulster Unionist. In an earlier response, the Minister said that he was not sure what 73% of shop workers were after. What they were saying was that they were concerned about legislative change being made permanent for the future. The issue they were worried about was changing Sunday trading for ever.
Vince Cable
If that was the worry, we have dealt with it effectively, making it absolutely clear that this is a one-off, temporary and very specific change.
John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)
Let us be clear. Will employers be legally obliged to inform their workers of the new regulations?
Vince Cable
No, they are not legally obliged, but we are working with them to ensure that they do. I think most will welcome the commitment and loyalty of their work force, and they will take good measures to ensure that they are informed. There is no legal compulsion.
Joan Walley
For the sake of clarity, given that employers will not be required to set out the new arrangements, will the Secretary of State set out the rights of those who have already opted in to Sunday working, but who do not wish to work the extra hours that would be required as a result of the legislation?
Vince Cable
We have heard many negative interventions, expressing worry about the impact, but for most people, whether they be workers or consumers, the Bill provides wider opportunities. I am grateful to the hon. Lady for stressing an obvious, but much-neglected point in the debate.
Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)
Will the Secretary of State tell us what legal advice he has had about what will happen if, in the period between now and the Olympics, someone decides to mount a legal challenge? Will that lead to a delay in implementation, or will it go ahead regardless?
Vince Cable
I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman is talking about a legal challenge to the Government, or a legal challenge to an individual employer. If the latter, there will no wider ramifications.
Vince Cable
Well, if the trade unions or others wish to make legal challenges, applying for a judicial review or through any other mechanisms, they are perfectly entitled to do so. We are not aware of any significant problem in that respect, but we will wait to see what happens.
Vince Cable
I have already allowed the right hon. Lady one intervention, so I hope she will not mind if I move on.
Let me return to the question of the wider impact on the rest of the UK. Some have argued that the provisions should apply only in London or only in those areas hosting Olympic and Paralympic events. We believe that that would be the wrong approach. We believe the games are for the whole country and not just for London, so the benefits should be shared as widely possible. As I said in response to an earlier intervention, research suggests that 40% of the benefit would accrue outside London and the south-east. That is why the Bill will apply to the whole of England and Wales. Scotland is already deregulated in respect of Sunday trading, and Northern Ireland has its own laws.
Vince Cable
I shall give way in a moment. If the hon. Lady waits patiently, I will take her intervention.
It would make no economic sense to relax the rules purely for London, which would merely extend the competitive advantage the capital enjoys in comparison with regional retail centres. Let us say we used the M25 to demarcate where the suspension would apply. It would mean that the Bluewater shopping centre, just outside the M25 could open late, whereas the Lakeside shopping centre just the other side of the Dartford crossing would be barred from extending its opening hours on a Sunday. [Interruption.] Moreover, tourism will not be confined to London.
Vince Cable
Let me finish this point. Then I will take hon. Members’ interventions, as I have done throughout the debate.
Tourism will not be confined to London. Sports events are taking place in a number of locations: football in Cardiff, Manchester, Newcastle and Coventry; sailing in Weymouth; mountain biking in Essex; rowing in Eton Dorney; Paralympic road cycling at Brands Hatch; and canoe slalom in Hertfordshire. In addition, big screens are being put up in towns and cities around the country to enable people to get together to watch the games. We want tourists and visitors right across the country to be free to take advantage of longer shop opening hours.
Ann Coffey
Like many others, Stockport town centre is struggling. Can the Secretary of State tell me what on earth the benefit will be to Stockport town centre to have the shops at Old Trafford open for extended hours on a Sunday, thus dragging shoppers out of Stockport. What is the economic benefit to Stockport there?
Vince Cable
There will be significant additional activity in the Manchester area. I cannot decide at this stage—and I am sure the hon. Lady cannot decide either—how the benefits will be distributed between north, south, east or west Manchester.
Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)
What economic impact assessment tells the Secretary of State that all these visitors in London for the Olympics want to travel to Bluewater to shop on a Sunday? What does that say to the independent traders in my high street in south-east London who will be decimated if Bluewater can open for longer hours during that period?
Vince Cable
We have covered that already in our earlier discussion and I have provided figures on economic benefit. There is no question of traders in the hon. Gentleman’s area being decimated, but there is a genuine issue about how much shopping will be displaced from one type of retail outlet to another.
Mr Lammy
Why was it not considered appropriate to change our rules for the Commonwealth games in Manchester? When I was responsible for Liverpool as the city of culture, we did not think it important to change our rules for that city. Why are we reducing the Olympics to a culture of shopping, when it is supposed to be a celebration of sport and family life? How is this going to do justice to British culture; is it all about a shopping mall?
Vince Cable
I know that the right hon. Gentleman is, like me, a strong supporter of the Commonwealth, but I am sure he agrees that the Commonwealth games did not constitute an event on anything remotely like the same scale as the Olympics. However, it is possible that an opportunity was missed in Liverpool: perhaps we should have taken the same action then.
Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)
The Secretary of State is being very generous in allowing Members to make their points. The headquarters of Nisa Today’s, a major supplier to convenience stores, is in my constituency. Research conducted by the Association of Convenience Stores shows that each convenience store will lose £1,500 a week as a result of the Bill. What has the Secretary of State to say to those small businesses, which are the backbone of the country?
Vince Cable
I am familiar with the research carried out by the Association of Convenience Stores, which has done a significant amount of work. I am sure the hon. Gentleman agrees that it is fair to say that its calculations were based on the most pessimistic assumptions. In other words, the ACS assumed that the bigger stores would take the maximum possible advantage of the opportunity, and that there would be the maximum possible switching of shopping from its stores to the supermarkets. I think we agree that, in the real world, we are probably not dealing with the extremes.
Vince Cable
I will take two more interventions, one from each side of the House. I am sure that other Members who wish to ask questions will be able to ask them during the main part of the debate.
Mark Field
I think many of us feel that, 25 years ago or thereabouts, we reached a sensible compromise over Sunday trading, which would benefit smaller businesses while imposing certain restrictions on the large supermarket chains. I support the Bill, especially because the west end shopping organisations desperately want its provisions to be adopted. However, I fear that the lobbying has been carried out solely by the largest supermarkets. I broadly support what those supermarkets do in general, but does the Secretary of State recognise that there is an overwhelming feeling that they not only maintain a dominant position in many of our high streets, but will use the Bill as a precedent for the future?
Vince Cable
First, those supermarkets will not be able to use the Bill as a precedent, because we have made it clear that it is not a precedent. Secondly, many other stores—not just supermarkets—will benefit. We have already explained, in some detail, that a large number of consumers and workers will be able to take advantage of the Bill.
Vince Cable
I will take one more intervention, and then I must conclude my speech.
Susan Elan Jones (Clwyd South) (Lab)
Is the Secretary of State not creating a precedent in terms of large sporting events? What if, on the next occasion when the Welsh win the rugby grand slam, the supporters say, “They have already done it for the Olympics; why should they not do it for us?”
Vince Cable
Given that I represent Twickenham, I think that I have some sense of the impact of major sporting events, and no one has suggested that the legislation should be changed specifically for rugby union events.
Vince Cable
I want to end my speech now. I have taken a great many interventions, and there will be further opportunities for Members to intervene later.
The Government have listened to the concerns expressed about the proposal to suspend temporarily the restrictions on Sunday trading, and we have made every effort to consult and work with a wide range of interested parties. We have spoken not only to the Churches, but to large businesses including supermarkets and other retailers, and to representative bodies such as the British Retail Consortium, the CBI and the British Council of Shopping Centres.
Vince Cable
No, not on this occasion.
We have also spoken to representatives of small businesses such as the Association of Convenience Stores, the National Federation of Retail Newsagents and the Federation of Small Businesses, and to trade unions including the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers and Unite. We believe that the Bill strikes the right balance between stressing the legitimate concerns expressed by those groups and securing the flexibility that is needed to ensure that British retailers can take full advantage of the opportunities presented by the Olympic and Paralympic games, such as the opportunity to showcase the United Kingdom’s skills, talents and businesses to the rest of the world.
The games will be an occasion for unparalleled entertainment, and we want to make certain that everyone can take advantage of them to the full. Allowing UK retailers extended Sunday trading is a small change that could have a significant impact on the enjoyment of the games, on the national economy, and on our international image. I commend the Bill to the House.
Mr Chuka Umunna (Streatham) (Lab)
I am a London boy and very, very proud of it. I believe that the richness, the dynamism and the energy and drive of this city are unrivalled. We were all immensely proud when, on 6 July 2005, we watched the president of the International Olympic Committee announce that our country’s bid to host the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic games here in London had been successful. I remember seeing, on television, the shadow Olympics Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Tessa Jowell), the former—and future—Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, and assorted athletes such as Denise Lewis leap about and jump for joy when they heard that the bid had been successful. That was a wonderful moment. Now we find ourselves just 87 days away from the start of the opening ceremony—from seeing the Olympic flame flicker above a state-of-the-art stadium in Stratford, east London.
Robert Flello (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Lab)
Does my hon. Friend recall hearing, at the same time as the announcement of the fantastic news of the bid’s success, the announcement of a synchronised shopping trolley event? If it happened, I missed it, but the Secretary of State seems to be suggesting that it is the new Olympic sport.
Let me now make a serious point. What would my hon. Friend say to workers up and down the country who have tickets for a Sunday Olympic event, and who now know that they will not be able to attend other than through the back door or through devious means because their employers will not let them go?
Lyn Brown
I am minded to support the Bill, although I feel sad about the fact that I will not be in the same Lobby as many of my colleagues. Can my hon. Friend tell me whether there have been discussions with the Government, and specifically with the Secretary of State, about an Olympic premium for those who will be expected to work on a Sunday and to give up much more of their time than they have had to give up hitherto? I am particularly worried about the fact that it seems likely that there will have to be two lots of shift patterns on Sundays, and that there will not be enough staff to work those shifts on a voluntary basis.
Mr Umunna
We have raised that issue with the Secretary of State. Although, according to the Government’s Business Link website, a premium should be considered in circumstances such as this when employees are required to work at unusual times, the Government have decided not to do anything about it.
David Wright
At what point did the Government raise the issues in the Bill with Opposition Front Benchers? How much notice was given? Does my hon. Friend not find it rather strange that there has been week after week of Back-Bench business when the Government could have presented the Bill and we could have had a proper debate, but it is being rushed through the House in a single day?
Mr Umunna
I was coming to that point.
With the bid won, our party, in government, proceeded to work in close collaboration with others to make a success and a lasting legacy of this once-in-a-lifetime event for the United Kingdom. The stability and transparency of the cross-party working to which my hon. Friend has referred was crucial to the success of our Olympic planning. It was therefore a huge disappointment that the first we heard of these measures was in the omnishambles that was the pre-briefing of this year’s Budget in the Sunday newspapers during the weekend before the Chancellor’s Budget statement. That was the first that we, and others, heard of the proposal to suspend the restrictions on Sunday trading between 22 July and 9 September this year, during the period of the Olympics.
Mr Gerry Sutcliffe (Bradford South) (Lab)
I am a former Sports Minister who sat on the Olympic Board, and a former consumer Minister who had to deal with the issue of Sunday trading. I wonder whether my hon. Friend knows the origin of the motivation for this proposal. I certainly never heard anyone call for it during my time on the board, and when, as consumer Minister, I talked to organisations such as the Association of Convenience Stores and the Federation of Newsagents, no one said that they wanted it. Where has it come from?
Mr Denis MacShane (Rotherham) (Lab)
It is interesting that this Bill has been introduced so very recently. Never has a major legislative proposal emerged so quickly, especially when the opposition to it is so very strong. I have received many e-mails, letters and constituent complaints about it. It is causing a great deal of stress to all small shopkeepers, who are the very people who keep our local communities alive. Only a Liberal Democrat could have invented the idea of giving power to Walmart in America—and with that company’s scandal in Mexico!
Mr Umunna
I have not received a single representation in favour of this Bill, but I have received many opposing it.
This proposal was briefed and released with no advance warning, consultation or negotiation with either us or relevant affected stakeholders. That breaks with the previous spirit of collaborative working. Since taking office, the Government have had many months to plan for the games, and preparations had already been well advanced by my right hon. Friend the shadow Olympics Minister and other colleagues when we were in office.
Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)
Some time ago, the Prime Minister said that
“from here on I want a family test applied to all domestic policy. If it hurts families, if it undermines commitment, if it tramples over the values that keep people together, or stops families from being together, then we shouldn’t do it.”
I know my hon. Friend does not have much time for the Prime Minister, but does he not think that that is reason enough to abandon the Bill?
Gavin Shuker
My hon. Friend is being characteristically generous in taking interventions. He has tabled a number of amendments that would significantly improve the Bill. It is telling that we are dealing with this Bill on the final day of what has been a two-year parliamentary Session. That tells us everything we need to know about the coalition. Does he agree that this Bill speaks volumes, as it shows that in the coalition’s view, working people are for the economy, rather than the economy being for working people?
Mr Umunna
That is certainly the view of many outside this House, too.
One has to ask why the Secretary of State and his colleagues have introduced this legislative change so late in the day when they have been in office for almost two years. That raises a further question: what other matters have they forgotten to consider in advance of the Olympics? It is worth reminding the House that the Government brought the London Olympic Games and Paralympic Games (Amendment) Act 2011 before Parliament six months ago, after the ten-minute rule Bill to which the Secretary of State referred. Would not the more competent and sensible course of action have been to deal with this matter then, instead of thrusting it on us now, out of the blue, in this rather rushed and haphazard fashion?
Mark Field
Despite the concerns that have been expressed, the reality is that this measure is likely to end up being something of a damp squib. Many shops will not open. Does the hon. Gentleman not accept the Secretary of State’s assurances that no precedent will be set and that this measure will definitely last for only a short period, and that Members will have the opportunity to hold all supermarkets to account to ensure that Sunday trading is not extended beyond sensible limits in years to come?
Mr Umunna
The problem in this respect is that the silence of the Chancellor of the Exchequer on these matters has been deafening. If he had said something publicly to reassure people, many of the questions the Secretary of State is having to deal with may not have been posed in the first place.
I mentioned the sensitivities that arose from tampering with the existing settlement under the Sunday Trading Act 1994. Given those sensitivities, it would have made sense for this Bill to have been considered in a more timely manner. Because of the sensitivities, the convention has been for there to be a free vote on these matters, and I have said that that is how the Labour party is treating tonight’s vote. We do so not least because for some the Bill raises important issues of conscience.
Mike Gapes
Will my hon. Friend say to those people who will be affected by these measures that, even if the Government get this appalling legislation through, our party will resist any erosion of the rights of retail workers in this country and that we will fight tooth and nail to ensure that the Government will not make this a long-term change?
Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)
Did my hon. Friend notice that when the Secretary of State was explaining why he considered the Olympic and Paralympic games to be a special case, he referred to the football World cup in Germany, which is a completely different event? Does my hon. Friend share my concern that this Bill will set a precedent for future sporting and cultural events in this country, and open the door to far wider changes to the Sunday trading laws?
Ian Mearns (Gateshead) (Lab)
We in Tyneside have a long history of putting on large, huge participation sporting events, such as the great north run—and St James’s park is full most weekends. The great north run has taken place annually for the past 30 years or so, and there has been no great demand for the shops to be open on the Sunday while it takes place. Where is the demand for this change coming from? I cannot see it.
Mr Umunna
I agree. As I have said, no representations have been made to me arguing in favour of the measures in the Bill.
I was talking about those who may object to the Bill as a matter of conscience. For many, Sunday is a day of worship, but for many others, it is not. For everybody, however, Sunday is more than a day of rest. It provides us with something no amount of money can buy: quality time with friends, family and loved ones. Members may have an unhealthy fascination with Sunday political television programmes such as the Marr and Murnaghan shows, but we do not let that get in the way of a good slap-up Sunday roast with our nearest and dearest.
Dame Joan Ruddock
My hon. Friend makes a very valuable point. We should also think about those workers who currently work on Sundays. Does he agree that the Bill allows for a doubling of the number of hours—and, therefore, shifts—that can be worked on Sundays in the big stores, and that that may well lead to a doubling of the number of people involved? Does he agree that it is utterly disingenuous to suggest that the measures will be a matter of choice for those workers?
Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)
In 2004, I promoted the Christmas Day (Trading) Bill, which became an Act later that year. One of the main supporters of the Bill were the Christian Churches in this country. Does my hon. Friend agree that it is a little ironic for the Prime Minister and his Cabinet colleagues to introduce this Bill given that they talk about the importance of Christianity to the nation?
Hugh Bayley
I am trying to make up my mind whether the Government have been caught napping and forced to ramrod this legislation through the House in a single day or whether they are just trying to avoid scrutiny. In making up my mind, I would be interested to know whether the Secretary of State has indicated that he will accept any of my hon. Friend’s good amendments, which would mitigate the measure.
Mr Umunna
I do not know about the hon. Lady, but when I spend time with my family on a Sunday, we do not necessarily go shopping in large stores, although I suppose that there may be those who do. The point that we seek to make, which I think is appreciated, is that whether people object to the Bill as a matter of conscience or whether they do not have a great religious affinity, we all regard our Sundays as special, regardless of our creed or background. For that reason, when the noble Baroness Thatcher sought to end Government regulation of Sunday trading through the Shops Bill in 1986, she was defeated; unfortunately, that represented her only defeat in the House of Commons during her time in office, despite the best efforts of my party.
There was, however, a relaxation of the law in 1994, and it allowed large stores to open on Sunday for a maximum of six hours between 10 am and 6 pm. Small shops are not subject to those restrictions and can open when and for as long as they like. Our small shops estimate that they do 15% to 20% of their trade on Sunday, so they see the current rules as an important way of levelling the playing field with their much bigger rivals. That point has been made forcefully by the Federation of Small Businesses and the Association of Convenience Stores.
There have been consultations on changing the permanent Sunday trading settlement. We consulted on it in government, but the response always indicated little desire, if any, for an alteration of the permanent settlement. That situation does not appear to have changed. The Government have twice consulted on the matter, in their retail growth review and the red tape challenge, and neither of those consultations elicited evidence of a desire for change. Likewise, in a GfK NOP poll for the Association of Convenience Stores in 2010, 89% of the public opposed further liberalisation of Sunday trading laws.
I will say it again: as a point of principle, and given the importance that we all attach to our Sundays, we would strongly resist any attempt to alter the existing Sunday trading regime on a permanent basis, and there is clearly no desire for that change. As the Secretary of State said, the Government have introduced the Bill as a temporary measure in the light of the exceptional event that will be happening on our shores. He and the noble Lord Sassoon have said that the Bill will not be used as a Trojan horse to effect any permanent change. As I said, the Chancellor has not been forthcoming with a reassurance in that regard, but if he were to seek to use the success of a temporary relaxation of restrictions in the Bill as justification for permanent change, he would be wrong. As the former Olympic athlete Baroness Grey-Thompson said on Second Reading in the other place last week, given the completely and utterly exceptional nature of the games, the temporary measures in the Bill could not be treated as an accurate trial of whether such a relaxation would work or be justified on a permanent basis.
As has been said, the rationale advanced by the Government for the relaxation on a temporary basis is primarily economic. The Government say that the Bill presents an opportunity to show that Britain is open for business. As was pointed out in the other place, that would tend to suggest that at the end of the eight-week period, we will be shut for business, but that is surely not the message that we intend to convey.
We asked the Government to publish their impact assessment for the Bill so that all could see it. Unfortunately, they did so only after Second Reading in the other place last Tuesday, although thankfully this House had the benefit of seeing it before today’s debate. It is clear from the assessment that although it would be foolhardy to deny that substantial economic benefits are likely to flow from London’s hosting the 2012 Olympic games, it is far from clear what economic benefits will flow from the measures in the Bill.
The impact assessment states:
“The unique nature of the Olympics and Paralympics makes an accurate assessment of the potential impact difficult”.
It is not clear how many large shops will choose to take advantage of suspension or how shopping patterns and demand will change. I suspect that the substantial economic benefits that we are likely to derive from the games will, in the main, be unaffected by the Bill. Notwithstanding that, and at the risk of contradicting myself, we do recognise that a temporary lifting of Sunday trading restrictions during this historic and exceptional event does at least deserve consideration; the fact that it is difficult to discern the economic benefit does not mean that there is not any. That is why, on pragmatic grounds, we agree to the fast-tracking of the Bill and have sought to reach a constructive consensus on the way forward.
At this juncture, I should point out that all along, we have approached negotiations on the Bill in good faith in the interests of ensuring that the country gets the maximum benefit from the games. In fairness to the Secretary of State, the Minister—the hon. Member for Hertford and Stortford (Mr Prisk)—and the noble Lord Sassoon, although the handling of the Bill has been somewhat wanting, I believe that they have approached the matter in good faith as well, for which I am grateful to them.
That said, we were clear from the outset that, if we were to recommend support for the Bill, we would need to be satisfied that sufficient employment protections would be put in place. Of course, it is the employees who would be required to work on the Sundays in question, and who otherwise might not be required to do so, who stand to be most adversely affected. In particular, we would need to be satisfied that those employees would be free to choose and would not be forced into working on those Sundays given that they, like everyone else, may want to be able to enjoy what the Olympics will offer.
Ian Lavery
I asked the Secretary of State a question earlier and was a little baffled by the response; perhaps my hon. Friend could be clearer. Is it misleading to suggest that individuals could simply opt out of working on a Sunday during the period? Would they be able only to apply to opt out, it being up to the employer whether to grant that application?
Mr Umunna
On the first part of the question, I should say as a former employment lawyer that, notwithstanding the technical rights in the Bill and in legislation, the reality of the situation may be different. The employee may have rights, but they may feel under pressure to agree to a request to work. In relation to my hon. Friend’s second point, if somebody has served notice to opt out and objects to working on a Sunday, the employer legally could not force them to do so.
Yvonne Fovargue (Makerfield) (Lab)
My constituents have been going to their employers saying, “We need extra hours because we lose our tax credits unless we do 24 hours.” Does my hon. Friend agree that it is totally unrealistic to expect them to say that they do not want to work on Sundays because they object to losing their family time?
Mr Umunna
It is reasonable for any employee to object to working on a Sunday so that they can spend more time with their family.
Members on both sides of the House will have been contacted by USDAW, the shop workers’ union, on this issue. USDAW does an excellent job for its members and we are proud to be associated with it. Its members power one of our most successful and internationally competitive sectors. In short, its 400,000 members are wealth creators and we should celebrate and take notice of them. USDAW has surveyed more than 20,000 members, and some 78% of those surveyed oppose longer opening hours on Sundays during the period of the operation of this Bill; 51% said they already felt pressurised to work on Sundays against their will; and 73% said that longer Sunday opening would lead to pressure on them to work on Sundays against their will.
Helen Jones (Warrington North) (Lab)
It is already clear that many shop workers feel pressure to work on Sundays, despite the legal protections enshrined in the original Sunday Trading Act 1994, which are totally ineffective. Does it not say much about the Tories that the hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Mrs Grant) argued that this Sunday trading would give more flexibility to families without realising that the families of many shop workers would have their Sunday time destroyed by this Bill? Do they not also deserve time with their families at the weekends?
Mr Umunna
Of course I agree with my hon. Friend that those workers deserve time with their families; she is absolutely right about that.
The group of employees who stand to lose most under this Bill are those who started employment after the provisions of the 1994 Act came into effect and who, under their contracts of employment, not only work on Sundays but can be required to do so in addition to working other days of the week. So we have asked for two things. The first relates to the fact that, in general, there is no statutory minimum period of notice that must be given by employers to shop workers notifying them of a request to work on Sundays. The only thing an employer is required to do is to give new employees a written statement within two months of the start of their employment telling them that they could be asked to work on Sundays and explaining their right to opt out. Importantly, there is no requirement for employers to tell their employees when they will exercise their right to require them to work on Sundays after they have started employment. It would be unreasonable, as well as a breach of trust and confidence under the employment contract, not to give any notice, but the point is that there is no prescribed minimum period of notice that employers must give.
Many employees will have received the written statement I have just mentioned a very long time ago. They may not even realise that they can be made to work on Sundays and that they can subsequently object, because it has never become an issue before. Because of the exceptional nature of the Olympics and the fact that a relaxation of trading restrictions on Sundays will inevitably lead to increased demands on shop workers to work on the Sundays concerned, we feel that it is not unreasonable to require employers to give employees two months’ notice of a request to work on any of the Sundays in question. To put it simply, how will employees know that the law has temporarily changed, that they can object to working on Sundays and that they should object in time if proper notice of a request to work on those Sundays has not been communicated to them by their employer?
Philip Davies
The hon. Gentleman said that 78% of USDAW workers did not want to work extra on a Sunday. Given that the Labour party has been banging on about how it wants the Government to do things that will create extra jobs, it is ridiculous to see that party equivocating on something—liberalising Sunday trading laws—that would create extra jobs. Why does he want to prevent the 22% who do want to work extra on a Sunday from doing those extra hours? When I worked for a supermarket chain and asked people in the store to work overtime, I found that the easiest time to get them to work extra hours was on a Sunday, because that suited so many people. Why is his party equivocating about something that is good for those employees and would create more jobs if it were rolled out permanently?
Mr Umunna
I have worked in several shops and I do not recall everybody rushing to work on a Sunday. I have already referred to the Government’s impact assessment, and it is far from clear that liberalisation on a temporary basis will create lots of jobs. I have seen no economic evidence to suggest that an overall liberalisation would create loads of new jobs if the permanent regime were changed.
Gavin Shuker
Is not the point here that Sundays are perhaps easier to fill because many employers pay a premium to have staff working on a Sunday? When I worked in Woolworths for five years, I received time and a half on a Sunday. Is not the reality—[Interruption.] There should be no laughter about the demise of Woolworths, because it was a great store for pick ‘n’ mix, among other things. Labour Members fear that this measure will act as a Trojan horse and that we will be on a slippery slope whereby we end up with those rights being diminished, and with time and a half or time and a third arrangements going completely.
Mr Umunna
My hon. Friend is quite right, and of course that is the great concern.
I was about to deal with the notice of objection required from employees. Under the existing regime, they can object and opt out of working on Sundays by giving three months’ notice to their employer, as the Secretary of State mentioned. The effect is that they can be forced to work during the three-month period but not after its expiry. The late introduction of this Bill means that it would not be possible, under the current arrangements, for employees to give notice to object within the three-month time frame, so the Government have agreed to reduce the notice period to two months during the period of the suspension of the usual arrangements.
That is good, but it is not sufficient. Ideally, we would like the notice required from employees in this instance to be reduced to one month. The late passing of this Bill and the close proximity in time to the Sundays in question mean that the two months that the Government have agreed to will allow very little time for employees to consider their position—a notice period of one month will afford them a little longer.
A further issue has been brought to our attention during the passage of the Bill. It has been mentioned today and it was raised during the Committee stage in the other place. We make no apologies for not raising it earlier; had the Bill been brought forward at a much earlier stage, we would have been able to flush out and deal with these issues in a timely fashion, in the usual way, in advance. The temporary relaxation of trading restrictions on the Sundays concerned is rather open-ended; the affected stores can open for as long as, and until as late as, they like. That is clearly unsatisfactory and some kind of limit should be imposed so that workers are not exploited. Our amendments propose that the opening runs until an 11 pm limit, allowing workers such as those in London, for example, to make their way home before the tubes and the trains stop. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) has said, many of these workers are women.
Robert Flello
My hon. Friend will be aware that although London has been blessed with a good public transport system, other areas of the country do not have anything more than a basic Sunday service. Getting to work is already a struggle for a lot of workers on Sundays, but getting to work on a bus service that is very haphazard is almost an impossible ask.
Mr Umunna
I completely agree with what my hon. Friend says, which is why we have tabled our amendments. Again, I do not believe that they make an unreasonable request. If the Government were to agree to our amendments, that would reinforce the message that this is not a Trojan horse for permanent change and it would, in part, help to keep Sunday special. The Government have already indicated that they will oppose our amendments, which is a great shame.
In conclusion, I appreciate what the Government are seeking to do with this Bill. I do not think the proposed measures are as straightforward as they sound in the first instance, and the relative merits and adverse effects of the Bill are finely balanced. One would have thought that the Bill would command the support of the large stores that it purports to seek to help, but the House may wish to reflect on the comments of the chief executive of Sainsbury’s, Justin King, who also sits on the board of the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games. When asked whether he supported the temporary relaxation of Sunday trading restrictions in The Sunday Telegraph at the beginning of this month, he responded:
“We don’t believe in, have not campaigned for and will not campaign for a general relaxation of the Sunday trading laws
Our customers aren’t asking for it. I’ve never had a letter from a customer saying, ‘Please campaign for longer opening hours on Sundays’. The compromise that’s been reached is essentially to keep Sunday special. If you want to do your shopping on Sunday, you can.
You can do it unhindered in small shops but only for six hours in big shops. That seems to us to be the happy British compromise. We’re content that Sunday is special and we don’t see customer demand for a change in the current law.”
So this is not a straightforward issue and, again, I am not clear where the support for the Bill is.
As I said, Labour is treating this matter as a free vote, but in the absence of ground being given on the issues I have mentioned, and taking account of all the thoughtful and considered views that have been put to us by business, employee and other groups, we do not feel able, on balance, to recommend to Opposition Members that, in exercising their free vote today, they support this Bill. Notwithstanding whether it passes, the House should be in no doubt that Labour Members are incredibly excited about London 2012 and have no doubt it will be a huge success for our country.
Gordon Henderson (Sittingbourne and Sheppey) (Con)
I begin by declaring my long-standing support for the retail trade. It would be very strange if I did not, because I have been associated with different aspects of the retail trade for most of my working life. When I left school in 1964 at the age of 16—hon. Members can do the maths—I went to work in the stock room of my local Woolworths store in Chatham. As I was a parliamentary candidate in Luton South in 2001, the hon. Member for Luton South (Gavin Shuker) and I have at least two things in common, but of course he is a lot younger than me, and would not be aware of the conditions in shops when I first started out. In those days, we worked five and a half days a week, with only Wednesday afternoons and Saturdays off. That experience made me appreciate the special nature of Sundays. Even today, as a Member of Parliament, I try hard not to work on Sundays. Many in the retail industry would love an opportunity to do the same, but sadly, for all sorts of reasons, they do not have the choice of treating Sunday as a special day of the week.
Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)
It seems to me that people in the retail trade have a choice; they do not have to work on a Sunday. Indeed, under the Bill, stores do not have to open on a Sunday.
Gordon Henderson
I take it that my hon. Friend has never worked in the retail industry, so he would not understand that often people have no choice other than to work on a Sunday. Let me give one small example. My wife had a couple of small shops, one of which was in a shopping centre. The contract stated that she had to open on a Sunday. That meant that she had to work on a Sunday, though she does not do so now. People might not be forced by their employer to work on a Sunday, and might have a choice, but they are often forced to do so due to circumstances, because the shop is open.
Philip Davies
My hon. Friend rightly says that some people do not want to work on a Sunday, and I certainly respect their right not to do so, but does he accept that many people want to work on a Sunday? Why does he think that people should not be forced to work on a Sunday, but want to deprive people who do want to work then of the chance to do so? We already have fully liberated hours in Scotland, and the sky does not appear to have fallen in there.
Gordon Henderson
I accept that there are people in the retail trade who want to work on a Sunday, and of course those people already have the opportunity to do so. [Interruption.] Yes, I do. Stores are allowed to open on a Sunday for six hours between the hours of 10 am and 6 pm. Major stores are open. Small stores of under 3,000 square feet are allowed to open any time on a Sunday. If people in retail want to work on Sunday, there is always the opportunity to do so. We are not talking about that; we are talking about relaxing the rules still further.
Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend agree that stores are not allowed to open on Easter Sunday, and the world did not stop on that day?
Gordon Henderson
I could not agree more. The special nature of Sunday was recognised by the Sunday Trading Act 1994, which restricted opening hours to the times that I mentioned. It is worth pointing out that in recent years, some larger stores have tried to bend the rules by opening an hour earlier for what is called browsing time, during which time shoppers can fill up their baskets but cannot put those goods through the till. It is such tactics that make many workers suspicious of the proposals to suspend Sunday trading restrictions during the Olympics and Paralympics. I fear that many retail chains will feel that the proposals give them the green light to campaign more vigorously for restrictions to be dropped permanently.
Dame Joan Ruddock
I am old enough—perhaps the hon. Gentleman is, too—to remember when the big stores opened on Sundays illegally, before we had the legislation. That is another reason for a lack of trust when it comes to the motives that some of them have.
Gordon Henderson
I cannot say that I remember that, and I go back a long way, albeit out in the sticks; perhaps the practice was prevalent in London. It certainly was not prevalent in the Medway towns, or in Sittingbourne and Sheppey, where I live now.
Glyn Davies (Montgomeryshire) (Con)
I am probably old enough to remember when there were no stores to open. I have some sympathy with what my hon. Friend says, but does he recognise that the relaxation will apply for eight weeks, and that there is no proposal to extend that? Does he very much welcome the fact that we are talking about an eight-week period, and does he hope that we would think long and hard before there was any suggestion of extending the period?
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
Before the hon. Member for Sittingbourne and Sheppey (Gordon Henderson) responds, may I remind Members to face the middle of the Chamber when they speak, so that the microphones pick up what is said, and so that I can hear what is said?
Gordon Henderson
I take the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Montgomeryshire (Glyn Davies), but the 1994 Act recognised that Sunday is special. Perhaps he should explain why Sundays during the Olympics and Paralympics are any less special than those during the rest of the year. That is the point. This is not about opening; it is about Sundays.
One reason that we have been given for suspending the restrictions is that it would allow those visiting for the Olympics and Paralympics to shop if they so choose. Let me ask the Minister another question: why can all those visitors not buy their souvenirs and trinkets from the hundreds of small shops that are under 3,000 square feet and already have unrestricted Sunday trading hours? Indeed, rather than suspending Sunday trading restrictions to help the large stores cash in, would it not make sense to keep the restrictions in place during the Olympics? That would give a much-needed boost to small shops that are struggling to survive in the face of competition from supermarkets, which continually extend the range of non-food items that they offer.
Philip Davies
I am puzzled as to why my hon. Friend thinks that it is important for Sunday to be kept special for workers in supermarkets, when he does not seem to think it worth keeping it special for people who work in small convenience stores. If he wishes to be consistent, surely he should want it to be special for those people, too.
Gordon Henderson
I agree 100% with my hon. Friend. The point is that Sunday is special; the 1994 Act recognised that by providing for certain opening hours for large stores, and certain opening hours for small stores. I am not looking to change that; the Bill looks to change that for eight weeks this year. That is all that I am objecting to.
As I have mentioned, my wife had a couple of small shops; they closed because she could no longer face the competition from supermarkets that were moving into selling non-food goods, and the type of fancy goods and gifts that she sold, so perhaps I ought to declare an interest.
There is something else that puzzles me. We have been given assurances by the Front Benchers, but if it is true that it is important to suspend the restrictions because only large shops will be able to cater to the needs of visitors who come for the Olympics and Paralympics, why does the suspension have to take in the whole of England and Wales? I simply do not understand that. I appreciate fully that loads of visitors might stream into Stratford and the borough during the Olympics, but I cannot see that happening in Sheffield, Stourbridge, Swansea, Sittingbourne or Sheerness. Unless the Government intend to lay on buses that go from Stratford straight to Sheerness on the Isle of Sheppey, bringing thousands of people down to shop in Black Cat and other places—we would be grateful for that—I do not see why the measures have to apply nationwide, rather than being restricted to London.
Mark Reckless (Rochester and Strood) (Con)
On the contrary, will we not be looking for a significant boost in north Kent from the Olympics? We have Ebbsfleet in the area, and in the Rochester and Strood constituency we are very much looking forward to the Olympics and the business opportunities generated from them.
Gordon Henderson
I have great respect for my hon. Friend, as he is well aware, but I think he is being a little naive if he thinks thousands upon thousands of people will be streaming out of London down to the Medway towns. I hope I am wrong, but I suspect I am not.
There may be an argument for holding a debate on the principle of changing the current restrictions on Sunday trading, and that debate might convince me to support it. There might even be an argument for undertaking a trial period to test the water. But, of course, this is not such a debate, or so we are led to believe. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and my hon. Friend the Minister have given assurances from the Front Bench that the Bill is a temporary measure, but frankly, I am not convinced. I believe that this proposal is nothing less than a trial run for a permanent relaxation of the restrictions. If it can be proved that sales have increased significantly during the trial period, pressure will no doubt follow for the 1994 Act to be repealed once and for all. I hope I am wrong, but I suspect I am not wrong, which is why I cannot and will not support the Bill.
Meg Munn (Sheffield, Heeley) (Lab/Co-op)
Britain’s success in hosting the 2012 Olympic games provides a fantastic opportunity for people throughout the country to experience directly this world-class sporting and cultural event. Our business and tourism industry can thrive during the summer. From the beginning of the bid process there has been cross-party support to make these the best games possible for the thousands and thousands of extra visitors we are expecting. Unfortunately, the Government have handled very poorly the suspension of existing Sunday trading restrictions, resulting in confusion and anger from those directly affected—namely, shop workers and small businesses.
If the Bill is not being used as the thin end of the wedge for permanent change, why did the Government not limit the temporary relaxation of Sunday trading laws to the specifically affected areas—that is, London? We have heard that there are events in one or two other places, but those are much smaller and they will not receive the large number of visitors that will come to London.
Nick de Bois (Enfield North) (Con)
Does the hon. Lady agree that the problem with the idea that this is the thin end of the wedge and a trial for permanent expansion is that it would be a ludicrous trial basis, given that we will have hundreds of thousands of new visitors and customers and it would be foolish to make a judgment based on that new market?
Meg Munn
Many, many people are concerned and suspicious of that. Clearly, the view expressed by the hon. Gentleman has some merit, but the concerns expressed by his hon. Friend the Member for Sittingbourne and Sheppey (Gordon Henderson), who has worked in the retail industry, also have a great deal of merit.
Helen Jones
My hon. Friend, like me, represents a constituency a long way from London. Does she agree that it is most unfair that shop workers in my constituency and hers should be forced to work on Sundays, and that convenience stores should suffer the resulting drop in trade, because the Government have decided to extend the experiment throughout the country?
Jim Shannon
Is the hon. Lady aware that the Chancellor has said that the suspension will be a temporary measure, but that the Treasury may “learn lessons” from this experiment? What lessons does she think the Government may learn?
Meg Munn
If the Treasury decides to come forward with that, the hon. Member for Enfield North (Nick de Bois) will no doubt express his strong view that it has no merit whatever.
The Association of Convenience Stores has been mentioned by a number of hon. Members already. Its poll showed that Sunday trading liberalisation is unpopular: 89% of the public were opposed to further change in the law and, as we have heard, a survey of more than 20,000 USDAW members conducted after the March Budget announcement found that 78% opposed the suspension of Sunday trading laws during the Olympic games. As it is, 51% already come under pressure from their employers to work Sundays, and 73% said that they would come under more pressure to work on Sundays if shops were allowed to open for longer. Shop workers deserve the right to enjoy the Olympics just like everybody else.
Robert Flello
My hon. Friend is making a very good and thoughtful speech. Does she agree that there are two other concerns? If a shop worker has been lucky enough to get a ticket to an event on a Sunday, there is a risk that they will go to their employer and be told, “No, sorry, you’ve got to get rid of the ticket. You’re not going,” or that their colleagues will be upset because the employee will say to their employer, “I have a ticket. I would like to go,” and the employer will say, “Yes, you can go, but that means one of your colleagues now has to fill your place on Sunday.”
Meg Munn
My hon. Friend introduces just two circumstances that could occur. I shall shortly come on to others that cause me concern.
It has already been made clear that workers wishing to exercise their right to opt out of working on a Sunday under the Bill would have to notify their employer by 22 May. That is surely unreasonable. Many workers will not be aware of this important date, and I ask the Minister what the Government intend to do to tell them. I remind the House that these additional opening hours could be 7 am until midnight, hours that could significantly affect family life.
Without appropriate safeguards during the Olympics, extended Sunday working hours will provide an excuse for employers to move contracted weekday hours to a Sunday. Despite current Sunday opt-out rules, many shop workers are already being forced to spend that time at work. They experience difficulties getting into work on a Sunday, as we heard. Some also experience the problem of a lack of child care, which is especially hard for single parents. There is currently a demand for retail staff to be flexible with working hours. An extension of Sunday trading hours will simply add to the strain.
When I visit supermarkets in my constituency, what I hear from the staff is that many employers are issuing low-hours contracts, meaning that employees have to work whatever additional hours are available and offered, rather than what fits their own circumstances. The hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Mrs Grant) made the point that sometimes workers indeed want extra hours because they do not have a contract that gives them enough money to live on. If their contract is 20 hours whereas they would like to work full-time, they may well be offered only the Sunday hours. So the idea that there is real choice is ill-founded.
We know that in surveys workers have commented as follows:
“Large stores give you 28 days to change your contract to comply with their requests to cover the extra shifts. This is bullying because they know people need to keep their jobs.”
Another said:
“Although Sunday working is optional, to ask for a Sunday off is a crime and to try and book it off as a holiday, 9 out of 10 will get refused.”
Other staff are worried about the increased risk of crime within stores, with fewer police working on a Sunday and fewer staff in the stores.
Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)
The hon. Lady and other Members have alluded to the USDAW survey and the concerns of existing employees. Is there not another issue? Given the hoped-for and anticipated increase in trade generally in the retail sector during the Olympics, people who are not currently in retail but will be over the next few months will feel under even more pressure, as they are very new employees who do not understand the difficulties of pressure in the workplace?
Meg Munn
Of course there will be that concern for newly employed staff, but we know from existing practices that extra staff may well not be taken on. The existing staff will be expected to cover the additional time by reducing the hours worked from Monday to Friday. There are many problems. Managers in particular feel the pressure of having to work Sundays themselves, with the added pressure of having to ask their teams to cover longer hours. Like many other Members, I have been contacted by constituents and petitioners who find that very difficult.
Alison Seabeck (Plymouth, Moor View) (Lab)
On that point, I am not sure how many hon. Members have actually worked in a shop, but I worked for Marks & Spencer on the shop floor for seven years and know that it is physically quite a demanding job. When looking at the expectation that people will work yet more time, we need to remember that physically that will be quite difficult for some. The other issue I want to touch on is benefits. A number of these people, if they do extra hours, will go above the benefit cut-off point for a few weeks and then down again. Does my hon. Friend agree that that is potentially a bureaucratic nightmare?
Meg Munn
I will make a little progress.
The Association of Convenience Stores has strong concerns about the Government’s impact assessment. Two major studies referenced in the assessment failed to make the case for a significant amount of additional spending resulting from the liberalisation. The Centre for Retail Research has estimated an overall increase in sales of £189.9 million, but the impact assessment fails to set this in the context of the sales value of the UK retail sector, which is in excess of £300 billion. It uses a limited research base and is not a sound basis for estimating the impact of the legislation. This study is just a reflection of the Government’s hasty action in introducing legislation without understanding the full implications.
The total cost for the 40,000 convenience stores across England and Wales will be £480 million over the eight weekends of the Olympic and Paralympic games, which again raises the question of why these legislative changes will apply to the whole country. The impact assessment fails to recognise that convenience stores might be strongly affected. The Co-operative group has strongly expressed the view that the legislation threatens high streets and secondary shopping locations up and down the country, rather than helping them to stay vibrant. It believes that any relaxation of the existing Sunday trading laws will have a detrimental effect on independent retailers, who make a vital contribution to sustainable and viable local communities.
I must echo some of the feelings expressed in contributions made by hon. Friends. What is this desperate need to get to a shop? Under the coalition Government, we now live in a country in which it can take two weeks to get an appointment with a GP when something is wrong, so why do they think people cannot wait a few hours to get into a large shop? I must say that the reasons for that escape me. The Government must make it clear that there will be no future attempt to change Sunday trading rules without an extensive consultation period. If these changes are purely in the interests of national and community gain throughout the period of the Olympic games, they should be subject to more vigorous scrutiny, target the specific areas of London that will be affected, assure a temporary time limit and guarantee that shop workers’ rights will be protected.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
Order. Members should please resume their seats. This is a popular debate and a number of Members have indicated that they wish to speak, and of course we will have the wind-ups as well, so at this stage I appeal to Members to focus on some time restraints in order to get as many Members in as possible, and even allow time for Committee stage and Third Reading.
Lorely Burt (Solihull) (LD)
I want to make a few remarks about this short Bill and seek assurances on behalf of some interested parties about its scope and limits. On the whole, I believe that it makes sense for the tourists who will flock to the UK for the Olympics to be able to spend as much time as they want in shops, and at times that they find convenient. The economy needs it and I believe that we should not hamper the retail sector in taking advantage of it.
Mrs Moon
Does the hon. Lady not accept that the people who will flock to the UK also need to see the other areas that we can rightly be proud of, such as our countryside, our heritage and our cultural opportunities? These are also places where people can spend money, enjoy themselves and get a wider view of the UK than simply our large and convenient stores. Why are we not promoting our cultural, heritage and environmental opportunities, rather than just our shopping?
Lorely Burt
I could not agree more with the hon. Lady; we should be promoting other tourist opportunities in other parts of the country, as I believe we are. I am hopeful that, because we are allowing the extension of Sunday trading to other parts of the country, they might also benefit in some part. As I was saying, the Bill does not spell good news for everyone, particularly in areas to which Olympic and Paralympic tourists will not be flocking. We have heard the argument about small shops and the fear that the window of competitive opportunity will close for the period covered by the Bill.
Bob Stewart
It seems to me that, if there is no demand for extended hours on a Sunday, large shops will not open. That is highly likely, and it might well be a damp squib in much of the country, and I hope that that happens.
Lorely Burt
I totally agree. I think that many shops outside the tourist areas will elect not to open, because if trade is predicted not to increase, why would they spread the same volume of revenue over a longer period, thereby incurring larger overheads?
Andrew Gwynne
I understand the hon. Lady’s argument, but is not the danger for, and the concern of, small convenience shops that the larger stores will open for longer and, because there will be no increase in overall trade, all that will happen is that they will suck the custom away from small traders?
Lorely Burt
I have agreed with everyone who has intervened, which is probably not very politically correct. I completely acknowledge the point that the hon. Gentleman makes, but I think that sensible economic decisions will be made by the larger retailers in non-tourist areas. Indeed, the British Retail Consortium is divided on the issue, and not just along the line dividing large and smaller shops. However, small shops in the tourism areas will reap additional revenue benefits by virtue of where they are located. I do not think that it is all doom and gloom, but I do think that the potential bonanza is likely to be realised only in the main tourist areas.
I do not think that this is the time or the place for reopening the Sunday trading debate. Many small retailers fear that the Bill will pave the way for Sunday trading by the back door without protection or consultation with the groups opposed to widening Sunday trading, such as the Keep Sunday Special campaign. Organisations such as the Association of Convenience Stores and unions representing shop workers, such as the Union of Shop Distributive and Allied Workers, found that the majority of their members were also opposed to the Bill, as has already been mentioned. Of course, there is also the fact that a large proportion of shop workers are women with caring responsibilities, so it would be wrong to make anything other than temporary changes without all those affected having a proper say.
Of course, some people will welcome the opportunity for more hours of work on a Sunday, although we have heard about the USDAW workers and there has been great discussion about how employees can be pressured against their wishes into working on a Sunday. I have sympathy for anyone who is pressured into Sunday working. However, I gently remind the House that for other industries there is no legal opt-out for Sunday working because the needs of their business dictate that some staff must be there on a Sunday. I think that we need to keep a sense of proportion when considering this temporary period.
On the two-months’ notice for shop workers, I have concerns that 22 May, the limit on when notice has to be given, is too short a period for shop workers not only to plan for, but to learn about the changes that are coming forward. It represents fewer than three weeks, so can the Minister assure me that workers will be informed in time and that any blank refusal to accede to a legitimate request from an employee will be covered by industrial relations legislation?
The Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (Mr Mark Prisk)
The hon. Lady makes a specific point, and I am aware that several Members want to speak, so I shall be brief. I can give her that assurance. That is absolutely clear. Many workers like the fact that they will be able to have a shorter notice period, because they will be the ones giving notice and they recognise that it is advantageous to them, so the hon. Lady makes a sensible point and I am happy to assure her on that basis.
Lorely Burt
I am grateful to the Minister for that assurance.
Several Opposition colleagues have mentioned the Bill’s timing. A private Member’s Bill to the effect of this Bill was brought to the House just before Christmas, and the question has been put, “Why not take forward that Bill, rather than the Government imposing their own?” I imagine the answer is that proper reflection on its implications and consultation with all parties would need to take place, and it has. Will the Minister confirm that proper consideration, not any devious motive that Opposition Members might invent, was the reason for this Bill?
Mr Anderson
My understanding is that across government the norm for consultation is 13 weeks. The Bill was first brought before the House formally on 21 March, and the end date for notice is 22 May—which amounts to just over eight weeks. Surely that is not proper consultation.
Lorely Burt
The hon. Gentleman makes a reasonable point, but given the time scale, the fact that the Government have had to put forward their own consideration and think through the implications themselves, and the short and temporary nature of the legislation, a shorter period is not entirely unreasonable.
Liberal Democrats have been banging on about a sunset clause, a phrase that has been dear to us for many years, so can the Minister assure us also that the sunset clause in this Bill will ensure that the legislation is not used as a precedent for future changes to Sunday trading laws, and that proper pre-legislative scrutiny and consultation will take place if the relaxation of such laws is ever considered again?
Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton) (Lab)
Unusually, but not uniquely, I did not support London’s bid for the Olympic games. I said so in the House during preparations for the bid, and I advised against it. I did so for two reasons, one of which is relevant to the debate. The first reason, which is not really relevant, is that no other UK city was allowed to compete with London for the right to represent the UK in the International Olympic Committee’s competition.
The second reason is that I simply did not believe the prospectus that London put out on the impact and cost of the games. Financially, that view has turned out to be right, as the cost of the games has increased by a factor of threefold or fourfold, the sustainability criteria have been thrown out of the plans for the Olympic games and the participation that was promised has not occurred. It has been repeated, as it was repeated during the bid, however, that the economic benefits of the Olympic games will be spread throughout the country.
I do not doubt—I am certain—that there will be economic benefits from the Olympic games. They will be felt in east London, in particular, and throughout the rest of London, but no Minister—from any party when in government—whom I have ever asked about the Blake report, which the previous Government commissioned, has answered my questions on it. The report showed that, although there would be benefits, there would also be a £4.5 billion disbenefit to the rest of the United Kingdom, meaning that the benefit to London would be even greater.
One can of course go to individual businesses and find that there will be a particular benefit. Steel will be provided for the Olympic games from Bolton, for instance, and one can go around the country and find such things, but the Blake report, which was produced at a time of economic growth, stated that overall there would be a disbenefit.
No Minister has contradicted the report, because it has been kept a great secret from them by officials or by more senior Ministers who know about it, but if one takes that analysis and places against it the Sunday trading proposals in the Bill, which will increase the Sunday trading of large stores, one sees that the impact is likely to be negative on many small stores and street traders throughout the rest of England.
I received a letter 10 days ago. It is not, as it happens, from a shop that will be affected by the legislation, but it shows the difficulties that small traders are currently experiencing—similar to many convenience stores on the street corners and high streets in our towns, cities and rural areas. The man in question runs an angling shop, which, when my 12-year-old son was into fishing, I used to visit fairly regularly. He wrote to me and—excuse the language, Mr Deputy Speaker, and the inaccurate constitutional position that my constituent took—said, “Will you sack that idiot in the Cabinet Office who has made people fill up all their cars with petrol. I used to employ four people in this shop, I am having the greatest difficulty making ends meet, I might be out of business within six weeks and trade was just beginning to increase in the spring. Now everybody’s gone and spent their money on their cars and nobody is coming into my shop.”
That shows how difficult small traders are finding things at present. If we take the fact that the Olympic games are going to have a negative impact, that overall there will be less money about throughout the regions and that people are going to go into Sainsbury’s, Tesco, Asda and Morrison’s at times when they could not previously go into them and spend money, we find that the Bill is going to put small businesses out of business. They will not exist, and the Bill will have a greater negative impact on them than probably anything else at present.
That is the prime reason why I oppose the Bill, but I also urge some caution on the figures that Government Front Benchers have provided, because they are not net figures. I do not doubt that 6 million people are likely to come into the country during the Olympic games period, if that is what we are told, but the experience of many host cities is that, although people go to watch the games and to enjoy the sporting and cultural experience, many people who would otherwise visit the city—to look at the Tower of London and London’s other great tourist experiences, for example—do not do so. Los Angeles’ lowest bed occupancy in more than a decade occurred in 1984, at the time of its Olympic games.
I have been fortunate enough to go to a number of Olympics, and had Members been in Atlanta in 1996 they would not have known that the games were taking place—unless they had been in the stadiums or nearby. As many people went to those games as went to any other Olympics, but other people left the city. Even according to the impact assessment—my hon. Friend the Member for Streatham (Mr Umunna) did a very good job of showing how inadequate it is—the impact is unlikely to be as impressive as it might seem.
It has been said several times that this will not be a precedent. I would advise people to go and look at a dictionary. Whatever anyone says, it is a precedent, because it has not happened before. Hon. Members are saying—I do not disbelieve them; they are honourable people—that they will not use it as a precedent, but other people might do so. Nothing can stop that, and it will be extremely bad for small shopkeepers and small businesses.
Andrew Gwynne
My hon. Friend is right to point to the concern that this may be used as a precedent. Was he as surprised as I was that the Secretary of State, in giving an example of this, could not cite another Olympic host city but had to cite the football World cup in Germany?
Graham Stringer
I was not surprised. I suspect that this is driven by lobbying by the very big stores, which want to open permanently in the long term—
Graham Stringer
It is also, as my hon. Friend says, driven by the Treasury. Ministers would not be able to give examples from other Olympic games because this has not happened in those cases.
I have been fortunate enough to go to a number of Olympic games, and the last thing that would have occurred to me at any of those games would have been to find the local supermarket and spend time in there. That did not occur to me, and I suspect that it will not occur to the people who come to London. This is about something larger—the power of very large supermarkets to change the structure of shopping in this country.
Brandon Lewis (Great Yarmouth) (Con)
With the Olympics, we have an amazing opportunity ahead of us whereby, as many have said over the past few years, we have a shop window on the world. It is sensible that the Government are making sure that the facility is there for shops to open the doors so that people need not just look through the window but can come to spend some of their money in this country while we have them here.
When I was council leader in Great Yarmouth, it was likely that we would have an Olympic event—mountain biking—although it has now been moved and will take place in the council authority of Castle Point. At various briefings and meetings with people from Barcelona, Athens and Australia, we kept hearing about the impact in their towns, during and after the Olympics, of people returning home and talking about them. The effect of being in that shop window was absolutely phenomenal, with an increase of up to four times in the number of visitors over the subsequent four or five years. It is therefore important that the Government make sure that they do all they can to open the doors of London to every visitor in every way possible. It is logical that when visitors come over here from Europe and around the world, one of the things they will potentially think about at weekends, including Sundays, is going shopping.
Yasmin Qureshi
The hon. Gentleman talks about London, but my constituency is 230 miles away from the Olympics. This Bill will not benefit anywhere in Bolton, but it will result in certain shops forcing their employees to come in on Sundays.
Brandon Lewis
My constituency is not hosting an Olympic event and is more than 100 miles away from London. However, as I suspect the Minister will outline, if there were to be some rule about this affecting only London or areas where there is an Olympic event, it is likely that there could be issues to do with competition law and other similar matters, apart from the hybrid Bill problem.
It is important that we open up this opportunity. Over the years, when I have spoken to people in various parts of London, they have talked about going to places such as Dubai, and particularly about the amazing shopping there. Shopping centres around the world are becoming destinations in their own right. That is why people went to Lakeside when it first opened, and then to Bluewater and to Westfield.
Mr Umunna
Does the hon. Gentleman accept that ultimately the problem that the Bill presents is that we have to counterbalance the economic issues that he has raised with the rights of others? He used Dubai as an example, but Dubai notoriously treats its workers and employees in all those shopping centres in an absolutely dreadful fashion.
Brandon Lewis
I referred to Westfield, Bluewater and Lakeside because people are making trips to shopping centres which are themselves becoming destinations. Obviously, with the Olympics, the sporting venue is central, but people will be going to events at these venues, with or without other family members, and at weekends, when they are not at those events, having Sundays available to shop gives them another opportunity to spend their money in this country at a time when I would have thought most Members would welcome that extra investment in our economy.
We must also bear in mind that we are talking about some stores potentially choosing to open for eight hours on specific days.
Mrs Moon
The hon. Gentleman is the Member for a constituency that is a small coastal resort. In my constituency, I have the resort of Porthcawl. Sunday traffic through that resort is fairly critical to the largely very small traders and shopkeepers within it. If we have this extension of Sunday trading for the large stores, are not visitors in my constituency’s coastal resort and that of the hon. Gentleman’s likely to be drawn away to the larger stores rather than spending their time enjoying our wonderful coast and perhaps spending in the ice cream parlours, cafes and small shops that are open?
Brandon Lewis
I disagree with the hon. Lady: Great Yarmouth is the second largest seaside resort in the country, and we have large stores and small independent stores. However, I understand her point—there is a risk of that. But there is also the advantage that when a visitor is in London for the Olympics, we may be able to advertise to them the fact that while they are here they are not that far away from Norfolk and the Broads, from where they can visit the seafront at Great Yarmouth and enjoy a classic English holiday.
Dr Thérèse Coffey
I have visited Great Yarmouth and it is a delightful place—just as delightful as the towns in my constituency. Does my hon. Friend agree that it would be useful for the Minister to explain why the Bill covers two Sundays when the Olympics and Paralympics are not happening—namely, 19 and 26 August, for which perhaps these arguments cannot be used?
Brandon Lewis
I am sure that the Minister will cover those details. One of the key reasons I am happy to support the Bill is that, as the Secretary of State confirmed, it is a temporary measure for the Olympics to open this shop door to the world. If it applied to a longer period beyond that, there would be an issue.
One of the unique selling points of small independent stores is their ability to have more flexible hours. My constituency is a mixture of big towns with all the big stores open 24 hours a day and small rural areas with village shops for which, over a longer period, this would be a real problem. When I talk to some of those small retailers, they say that they do not see the big stores in town and on the edge of the town as being as much competition as they might be in other areas. In their view, they offer a personalised service that is better than and different from that offered by the large stores. Equally, in some rural areas, they benefit from the fact that they are local to people who do not want to travel into the town or to out-of-town stores.
On Friday, I had a meeting with some local independent retailers in Great Yarmouth, all of whom had come to see me about their concerns about plain packaging. They are worried that that will massively affect their business, and I have sympathy with that. I asked them specifically about this issue, knowing that we were going to have this debate, and none of them had any great concern about the impact that it would have on them; in fact, quite the opposite. Their view was that it is a very good thing, on a temporary scale for the Olympics only, to have the shop door open; they understood the logic of it and were supportive of it.
We should support this Bill because it represents a clear economic opportunity for this country. If stores want to open, and if people want to work and take advantage of this opportunity, they can do so. It is not being imposed; it is a really good opportunity to say to the world, “We’re open and we’ve got some of the best shops and facilities in the world.”
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I rise to state clearly that we oppose the change in Sunday trading and that the Democratic Unionist party, of which I have the pleasure of being a member, will divide the House on the Bill if the Labour party decides not to do that.
I have always loved the Olympics. As everyone has said, that is not the issue. We are all as pleased as punch to have the Olympics here, and pleased that there will be such a big event in London. Many of us will try to make our way over here to watch the sport. When I was younger, I stayed up late to watch the winners as they were awarded the gold, silver and bronze medals. I was always proud to see the Ulster flag or the Union flag being hoisted. Many people felt pride in their hearts for the success of our Olympians.
I am not an official Olympics sponsor by any means, but I want to lay out from the beginning my opinions, which I believe reflect those of my party and of a great many people whom we represent. They are not against the Olympics or the money, but they want the best for the workers—the theme that has run through the discussion today. Perhaps some Government Members will want to speak about that, too. As was said earlier, we all knew in 2005 that the Olympics were coming, yet seven years later, this measure is nudged in at the last. Only a matter of weeks before the Olympics, we find that the Government are trying to push through legislation that will change a great many people’s working lives.
Margaret Thatcher and the comment about a nation of shopkeepers have been mentioned several times. My father and mother were part of that nation of shopkeepers. I grew up with parents who owned the local shop. When I went into business, I was a retailer to the shops and when I owned a business, it had close connections with the shops. My son has taken over that business. Three generations of my family have been involved in the retail trade and I believe that that qualifies me to say that we need Sunday as a day of rest. We will therefore oppose the legislative change to Sunday trading.
It is impossible to function well for any space of time when working a seven-day week. That is why people have the option of working only five hours on Sundays, and why the smaller retailers feel that they can take time off or shut their businesses on that day. That view is backed up by the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers, which said that the vast majority of shop workers and retailers oppose extending opening hours in England and Wales for eight Sundays from 22 July.
The Secretary of State said that he had contacted the unions. However, if we contact people and get a clear point of view, do we ignore it or do we act on it? John Hannett, USDAW general secretary, made some interesting comments:
“USDAW members want MPs to put family, sport and the Olympics first…by voting against this ill-conceived and rushed piece of legislation. The vast majority of shopworkers don’t want to work extra hours on a Sunday and they quite rightly blamed their increasingly difficult struggle to maintain a semblance of normal family on the twin demands for more flexibility and unsocial working hours. These demands also reduce the opportunity of workers and their children to participate in organised sports and leisure activities.”
As someone who has experience of trying to juggle family life with the pressure of a business—everyone in the Chamber experiences juggling family life with the pressure of work—I wholeheartedly agree with the union representatives on that matter.
Yasmin Qureshi
Does the hon. Gentleman know that 1.4 million parents already work regularly through the weekend? The Bill will simply increase the number of parents who work on Sundays.
Jim Shannon
I thank the hon. Lady for her comments, which clearly sum up an issue that many people have mentioned. We should encourage families to sit together and watch the Olympics, not force mum or dad or both into another shift at work. People who do not want to work on Sundays are increasingly being pressured to do that. With more shifts that need workers, it will soon be impossible for them to have a Sunday with their families or at their church.
David Simpson (Upper Bann) (DUP)
At the beginning of the debate, the Business Secretary gave us a figure of x million pounds that the Bill could generate. He gave the impression that it would perhaps turn round the UK economy. However, I am sure that my hon. Friend agrees that if the measure is passed, people will simply spread their shopping over a longer time, and that the net gain could be very small.
Jim Shannon
I thank my hon. Friend for making an important point. I sometimes wonder, when figures are bandied about in the Chamber, on what they are based. Where do £75 million or £185 million come from? Is the economy on the turn on the strength of the Olympics and nothing else? We hope so, but reality may be very different.
Mr Gregory Campbell
Does my hon. Friend agree that, in a series of shallow comments that the Business Secretary made, the most shallow was probably the contention that a few extra hours for eight weeks would dramatically turn around the prospects for the economy and increase employment? The idea that that could be realistic is absurd.
Jim Shannon
Some Government Members have said that the Bill is a recipe for changing the economy, but, as my hon. Friend states, it is not.
Some Members touched on religion and church worship. It is important that we do not simply touch on it and dander on about it for only 20 seconds of our contributions. For many people in this country, attending church on Sunday is important to their lives. It is important for their family life, their moral standing and for their life in the church and the standards that they maintain in their lives. That should not simply be brushed aside or briefly mentioned. Those who want to attend church—they have a right to do so—should be able to do that.
Clearly, I understand Ministers’ points. However, in the current economic climate, people are fearful about retaining their jobs and subsequently about annoying management. My hon. Friend the Member for East Londonderry (Mr Campbell) made an important point about young people who are perhaps in their first few months of work and are asked to work the extra hours on Sunday. They feel that they have been there only a wee while and they need the job, so they will sign up to the extra hours straight away, even though they do not believe that they should have to do that. The Government need to take account of that. The management may not strong arm those people per se, but there is a clear mentality that suggests that, if they do not do as asked, they will miss out on other shifts and get a black mark against their name. That is the thin edge of the wedge.
In the Budget debate a few weeks ago, there was little or no direct comment on the Chancellor’s announcement about suspending Sunday trading law. However, the hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier) raised concerns that
“the move could be a trial run for a permanent change in the law.”—[Official Report, 21 March 2012; Vol. 542, c. 860.]
The Bishop of Chichester said in the House of Lords that he was concerned that removing all restrictions for eight weeks
“sounds suspiciously like a stalking horse for the wider deregulation for which some large retailers have been campaigning for a long time.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 22 March 2012; Vol. 736, c. 1042.]
Not to be outdone, the Chancellor confirmed that the suspension would be a temporary measure, but added that the Treasury could “learn lessons” from the experiment. What lessons will the Treasury learn?
Mr Nigel Dodds (Belfast North) (DUP)
The point about whether the Bill is a Trojan horse has been mentioned several times. Our fears are compounded by quotes that appeared in The Sunday Telegraph, in which a senior Whitehall source was quoted as saying that
“the Treasury believes the move would provide evidence of the economic benefits of a permanent relaxation of Sunday trading laws”.
The House can understand where the fears come from because officials were giving such briefings. My hon. Friend is therefore right to highlight that.
Jim Shannon
I thank my right hon. Friend for those comments. It is an underlying issue for us all. We feel that the Bill is the thin edge of the wedge. It is little wonder that it has provoked many people outside the House, who feel that a permanent deregulation of Sunday trading is just around the corner.
Mr Prisk
We have had a Trojan horse and stalking horse—the debate is in danger of becoming too equine—but as the Secretary of State has said, and as I said in the debate on the allocation of time motion, we have no intention of making the measure permanent and have included a sunset regulation. I understand the concern that many hon. Members have expressed, but we want to make that clear. I hope that will give the hon. Gentleman some comfort, whatever equine form he intends to allude to next.
Jim Shannon
I am reminded of a comment I made last week: if it smells like a horse and looks like a horse, we do not want it to become a donkey.
Mrs Moon
We have heard the reassurance from the Government that there is no stalking horse and that no precedent is set by the measure. I spoke to a young student at the weekend who is working in a local supermarket to earn the money to pay for his university tuition fees. I asked him about the Bill, and his response was: “We were promised no rise in tuition fees. How much do you trust these offers and promises?” What does the hon. Gentleman suggest I say to that young man?
Jim Shannon
Obviously, it is not for me to say—perhaps the Minister can comment on that—but we all know what we feel in our hearts, which is clearly the issue.
Last year, two listening exercises were held on whether to repeal the current restrictions on Sunday trading. The results showed that the current settlement was proportionate and that there was no real appetite to change the law. In fact, a lot of people are opposed to any change or relaxation. The hon. Member for Blaydon (Mr Anderson) commented on this earlier, but an USDAW survey of 10,000 shop workers, which is a significant number, clearly illustrates their opinion. Seventy-seven per cent. oppose longer opening on Sundays during the Olympics; only 12% support it, but we are pushing ahead with legislative change. Forty-eight per cent. of staff are already under pressure to work on Sundays when they do not want to do it to start with, and 71% of shop workers believe that longer Sunday opening will lead to more pressure on them to work on Sundays against their will, which is the very issue described by my right hon. Friend the Member for Belfast North (Mr Dodds), which many hon. Members feel is important.
Those figures could not be clearer. What is the point of asking people and then ignoring their response? There is no point. The democratic process means that we should listen to the opinions of our constituents and represent the majority of them in the House. It would be remiss of all hon. Members not to aim to do so. The question is: if we do not allow the extra hours of trading, will retailers’ Sunday opening hours harm our reputation and ability to host the games? The answer is no, and there is no evidence to say otherwise.
Visitors will still be able to eat in a plethora of first-class restaurants and enjoy the ambiance of typical English pubs, and purchase any necessaries in the many garages that are now almost like small supermarkets. Why do we need the big stores for that? Visitors can still go to a Sunday market or enjoy an evening at the cinema or concerts. Will their view of the UK be tainted by the fact that some stores open for only a few hours one day a week? Again, the answer is no. None of that would detract from people enjoying what we have to offer or stop people returning and enjoying the long and rich British history of which we are all proud to be part.
We can be assured that people will enjoy their visit not because our supermarkets are open seven days a week, but because they are greeted with a smile in the streets, or because they see beautiful towns and thrive on our legendary hospitality in this country. The length of time that shops are open is irrelevant, and we should not change Sunday trading laws.
Any Olympian will say that the body needs rest from training. If they push too hard, they will see no benefit, but will suffer breakdown and injury. Our business people work hard and deserve their few hours off at the weekend. To take that away will only cause harm and injury to our families and individuals across the country, and I cannot support that.
The Prime Minister has said that we need to emphasise our Christianity and go back to being that Christian country that we were once famed as being. I wish that was true and I wish the evidence meant I could say, “Yes, that is exactly right,” but tonight there is a one-line Whip for Opposition Members and a three-line Whip for Government Members. Is it true, as the Prime Minister has said, that we must emphasise our Christianity? The proof of the pudding is in the eating, and we will see what happens when it comes to the vote later on. That being the case, enabling people to enjoy their family life, their attendance at church and the inspiration of their preachers, and their day of rest, is a firm foundation, and to take it away is to erode that foundation, which I wish to see retained. I believe many Members on both sides of the Chamber wish it to be retained.
I oppose the relaxation of Sunday trading legislation and urge hon. Members to consider more than profit and loss, and more than the ledger book, when casting their votes tonight.
Mark Menzies (Fylde) (Con)
Out of respect for the number of right hon. and hon. Members who wish to take part in tonight’s debate, I will try to keep my comments short. I congratulate the Government and welcome the introduction of the Bill, because I believe it represents a common-sense solution at a time when the eyes of the world are upon us.
Some in the House may remember that I previously proposed amending Sunday trading laws during the Olympics by introducing a ten-minute rule Bill before the summer recess, so it will come as no surprise that I am entirely supportive of this measure. People will find unacceptable the idea of visitors from all over the world finding Britain shutting up shop at 4 pm or 5 pm on a Sunday in a tough economic climate.
Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)
Which countries have longer opening on Sundays than ours?
Mark Menzies
The USA is one example. An hon. Member asked whether other countries that have held the Olympic games amended Sunday trading laws, but many did not have to amend their laws. Sunday trading legislation in Scotland is very lax—people in Scotland can shop at 10 o’clock at night if they so wish—so saying that the proposed change in the law in England will be somehow draconian is wrong.
My Sunday Trading (Amendment) Bill had a very clear purpose. The aim was, for the six weeks of the Olympics and Paralympics, to facilitate visitors shopping in and around London and other games venues to allow them to get the most from the event. It was driven by a couple of things. First, I spoke to the Westfield shopping centre, which is right next to the main Olympic park. Westfield had concerns about the sheer volume of people who would be packed in because of the concentrated six-hour Sunday shopping period. Allowing it to flex its trading pattern would help to facilitate the movements of the vast numbers who are shopping while huge numbers are also coming in and going out of Olympic venues.
The second key driver was that three out of the four official Olympic trading venues on the Olympic site were too big to open for more than six hours on a Sunday. We would therefore have had the crazy anomaly of people travelling from all hon. Members’ constituencies to the closing ceremony or the men’s 100 metres final and coming out of the main stadium to get their merchandise and finding that the shops had shut. The practicalities did not make sense. Those were some of the key drivers behind my ten-minute rule Bill.
Before entering this place, I spent 15 years in retail, so I do not lack an understanding of the sector or the pressures on shop workers. Many right hon. and hon. Members, particularly Opposition Members, have made valid points about the pressures on people in trying to maintain a home-life balance and so on—I respect them for doing so—but the Minister has made it clear, as I did in my Bill, that existing shop worker rights should not only be protected but enhanced to ensure that people are not compelled or pressurised to work longer.
The temporary relaxation of Sunday trading will come at a time when students, in particular, will be desperate for additional shifts. When I worked in stores and was trying to fill up my rota, students were always desperate for additional shifts, particularly on Sundays, because they were an awful lot easier to fit into their normal routine. Most retailers in this country, particularly larger ones, will proceed responsibly, because they will not want to upset work force relations. Unions such as USDAW have a role to play. They will be working on behalf of their workers, and if there is any hint or suggestion that people are being forced or compelled, they will not be shy—and neither will Members who have spoken tonight—in naming and shaming retailers who are going against good practice. That is one of the things that gives me great reassurance. I do not, therefore, approach the Bill with great fear or concern. People in general, and particularly those who represent shop workers, will not be shy in ensuring that the Bill is not used and abused.
Much of the policy is built on the premise that during the Olympics, there will be a retail boom—a bonanza in which millions of pounds are sloshing about—but the opposite could be true. People are creatures of habit and tend to do the same thing, but they might not. Instead of sticking to their normal shopping routine, they might stay at home to watch the men’s 100 metre final, the javelin, Tom Daley in the diving or whatever. If we see such behaviour, retail sales, rather then being maintained or boosted, might fall off a cliff. By allowing retailers to flex their trading hours, the Bill gives people the opportunity to do their shopping at an alternative time, rather than not do it at all. Although that might be less the case with food shopping—supermarkets might get off lightly—non-food retailers, particularly clothing retailers, could be hit. The Bill is a common-sense, practical solution to help address that situation.
I want to turn to small stores. Most people do not seek out small stores, particularly small independent stores on the high street. It is often the big boys—Marks & Spencer, Selfridges, Harvey Nichols and so on—that drive people into their town and city centres. As a result, they will often then visit the small independents. If people think that the high street is not open on a Sunday, they will be less likely to visit, but if they know that M&S and other big multiples are open, they might make the effort, and as a result some of the small independents might benefit from increased footfall. It is beholden on town centre managers and big retailers up and down the land to think sensitively about how they market and promote their extended opening hours and help to ensure that small retailers benefit as a result.
It would be completely wrong to think that multiples will have a uniform opening strategy across the country. I am pretty sure that big retailers in London and out-of-town shopping centres will open on a Sunday, but they will do so on a case-by-case basis. Retailers are commercial operations, and if they do not think that opening longer on Sundays will produce the necessary sales uplift to the meet the increased overheads and staff costs, they will not open. Some are concerned that this will happen across the country and that everyone will be hard hit, but we do not know that yet. We have to wait and see what commercial decisions retailers take.
The Government have put forward a common-sense solution. The sunset clause gives me the reassurance to vote for the Bill tonight. It provides protection for the work force and recognises that they have to be protected. Having listened to the powerful contributions from Opposition Members, I know that they will not be shy in holding retailers to account, if there is any deviation. This summer represents an outstanding opportunity for the UK, and I want retailers and people who want additional shifts to benefit from it. I want us to get on with this and make it something well worth doing.
Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)
It is always a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Fylde (Mark Menzies), even though I oppose the majority of what he said.
I rise to oppose the Bill, and I will vote against it on three main grounds. The first is to do with how it affects working people in the retail trade. Many Members, including my hon. Friend the Member for Streatham (Mr Umunna), said that they used to work in a shop, and so did I, along with my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz), in my first job. We started our working lives on Saturdays and in the holidays in Dickins and Jones in Richmond, so we know what it is like. The hon. Member for Fylde said that students were desperate to get the extra work, and yes, they are. However, the point is that because they are single, they do not have families to go home to—they do not have to juggle jobs with other things, as women have to—which is why they want the extra work.
Many hon. Members have mentioned the fact that USDAW, which is the fastest growing union—one wonders why—has conducted a poll of 20,000 people, 78% of whom were against Sunday trading. However, a poll that I have seen shows almost the same thing, and it was conducted this year. It was a poll of 10,000 workers, 77% of whom said that they were opposed. That poll, of 10,000 people, surveyed more people than do the polls taken by some of the papers on who will be the next Prime Minister. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) mentioned that 71% of workers believe that the Bill will erode their rights not to have to work. Many people—71%—believe that longer Sunday trading will lead to more pressure on them to work. Members should know that we already have evidence from our constituencies—I have had evidence in my constituency—of pressure being put on people to work on Boxing day. That pressure already exists, and I have written to many of the big retailers, in particular Asda, which was the store concerned in that case.
Secondly, the Association of Convenience Stores has said that its members are against the proposal. Lots of Members have mentioned that, but the ACS has put a figure on how much the eight weeks will affect its members, and that figure is £480 million. One has to worry about that, because the ACS has also said that some of the smaller shops will close, with jobs having to be lost. We are talking about convenience stores, which will be there long after the Olympics have gone, and we should take account of their view.
Thirdly, over 60% of the retail work force are female, and whatever anyone says, we tend to have to juggle work and our families the majority of the time. Therefore, the proposals that the Government have put before us will affect families no matter what Ministers say.
Alison Seabeck
My hon. Friend makes an important point about the bulk of the workers being female. We should also bear in mind that if shops are opening longer hours on Sunday, those workers will be subject to Sunday services, which means that getting to and from work by public transport will undoubtedly take them a lot longer, thereby taking a much bigger chunk out of their day.
Valerie Vaz
My hon. Friend makes an important point, because the people who travel on the buses are mostly women.
All those who do other things on Sundays—my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgend (Mrs Moon) mentioned that people like to go and visit places of interest—will be prevented from doing so. The Minister mentioned that he was of Christian faith, and it is a basic point, but there will also be people who want to worship or go to church. Many people find that the early evening Sunday mass sets them up for the week, yet families will be prevented from going.
Mr Prisk
The hon. Lady says that families will be prevented. However, we made it clear—this is something that, as the Minister responsible, I wanted to make absolutely clear when I was asked to take the Bill on—that there will be no change to the statutory rights of the workers. We wanted to ensure that the notice procedure was adjusted so that people could opt out when they wanted to, but beyond that there is no change in the statutory rights. I hope that the hon. Lady will appreciate that that is one thing we have tried to do; indeed, I was grateful to the official Opposition for working with us to try to achieve it.
Valerie Vaz
I thank the Minister for that intervention. I do not know whether he has ever been a worker right at the bottom of the pile, but it is very difficult for such people to refuse when an employer tells them to do something. Many people, myself included, have been prevented from getting promotion because they were not flexible enough. People who work in shops also have to think about that, because a refusal to work on Sundays could be used against them.
I have a number of questions for the Minister. Has he had any discussions with the police about the extra numbers who will have to be on duty as a result of the crimes that could take place in shops during the longer opening hours? Secondly, what evidence led him to say that the Bill was needed? Was there a special adviser, a point man, whose job was to liaise with Westfield, for example? Thirdly, is the Minister aware of a GfK/NOP poll conducted in 2010 that showed that 89% of people were against further liberalisation of Sunday trading? The workers are against the Bill, small businesses are against it, and it is against family values. None of those people wants it, and the majority of the British people will gain no benefit from it. I urge Members to vote against the Bill.
Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)
It is a cause for real celebration that our country is hosting the Olympics and Paralympics this year, but I have grave concerns that the Bill will be pointed to as a precedent for further deregulation of Sunday trading by others who are not in this place today, some time in the future, notwithstanding what I am sure are the entirely honourable assurances to the contrary from Ministers. I understand the reasons for the Government bringing forward the Bill, but as a matter of conscience, I cannot let the debate pass without registering my concerns about its potential impact and warning against any permanent deregulation.
Sunday is still a day on which many people in this country can come together with family and friends to wind down, to exercise, to have a different kind of day or, most importantly, to recharge our batteries. That is an essential component of our health and well-being, individually, relationally and as a nation. We erode it further at our peril. Will further deregulation actually create any increase in productivity? I am reminded of the old adage that work expands to fill the time allotted. The same could be said of shopping, but does anyone really win?
It is interesting to note that there are businesses that choose to stay closed on Sundays, even though they could open for a number of hours, and that those businesses flourish. One example is a motor dealership in Cheshire run by Mark Mitchell. Anyone who goes there on a Sunday will find it closed, and a sign on the door that reads:
“On Sundays our staff are at home with their families.”
Mark Mitchell’s business has been one of the most consistently high-performing car dealerships among its peers for years.
My concerns about the welfare impacts of the legislation are shared by many others. I shall quote just a few of them. The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children makes the point that parents need time with their children. It states:
“Spending time with children is important to their development and studies show that children’s development is best encouraged by parents spending time with them, providing them with emotional support, giving everyday assistance and monitoring their behaviour and discipline. Working during weekends when children are at home for longer means missing out on their development and socialisation.”
In 2006, a cross-party group of MPs and peers chaired by Lord Anderson found that the then Department of Trade and Industry had
“failed to pay sufficient attention to the impact that extended Sunday work could have on parents and the time they have with their children, on juvenile anti-social behaviour and the resultant increase in expenditure by local authorities and the effects of a poor work-life balance on health.”
Research by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation found that parents of both sexes—and their children—disliked weekend working, especially on Sundays, yet
“one-quarter of mothers and just under one-third of fathers worked once a month or more on Sundays”.
Do we want more? Do we need more? Is the cost in health and well-being worth paying?
Research conducted by the university of London showed that those parents in lower socio-economic groups were more likely to say they had no option about working at atypical times and hours, and that there was no scope to negotiate more flexible arrangements. This is in comparison with parents in professional jobs, who were more likely to say their working arrangements were chosen to suit their career aspirations. For this reason, it is clear that working on Sunday without any choice disproportionately affects lower socio-economic and disadvantaged groups.
Children are not the only ones who might need time with their families. Those with other dependants, such as elderly, disabled or terminally ill relatives might have fewer options for alternative care, and their needs are more unpredictable than those of children. These workers need greater flexibility, so enforced longer weekend working hours could create substantial difficulties for carers.
The wider community, not just families, benefit from Sundays as we now enjoy them. For many people of faith, Sunday has a special significance. Religious freedoms are important. As a Christian, I believe that our minds and bodies were created to function best when incorporated into our week is a day when we do not have to function at full tilt. Some would call it a Sabbath rest. I do. That is something that we ignore individually and as a nation at our peril, paying the price in increased stress, weakened family ties and many other ways. We are asking our children to pay that price, too. Individual and corporate productivity actually declines rather than increases, and the very thing we have fruitlessly chased is lost at the price of many other values and principles of far greater worth. I sincerely hope that this is not the Olympic legacy that this Bill creates.
Ian Lavery (Wansbeck) (Lab)
The Olympic games have had an adverse impact on my constituency. For example, we have seen a number of miners’ welfare charities suffer. They are usually funded by different revenue streams, but some of those have focused their finances on the Olympic games here in London. The Olympic games were heralded as providing a beacon of employment for people throughout the country, but that has not happened in my constituency, where very few people, if any, have benefited from any of the tenders for various forms of employment at the Olympic village.
That said, it is important to set out my wholehearted support for the Olympics and Paralympics. I am optimistic about them and I dearly hope that they will be a huge success. It has been suggested that this is a once-in-a-lifetime sporting occasion, so that is great—we should all work together to make sure that it succeeds. The original bid was led by the last Labour Government and it was carried forward in a spirit of cross-party collaboration. It was unifying and collegiate, and it sought to bring on board the widest range of organisations to create a lasting legacy for Britain—something of which we could all be proud. That is why the way in which these proposals have been handled—or, rather, mishandled—by Ministers is so disappointing.
The issue of Sunday trading has always been a divisive issue, one that splits many communities. Whether it be the Keep Sunday Special group, the trade unions, Church groups or community groups, the issue has proved truly divisive. It on behalf of those people and groups that I would like to speak, so I shall put their views to the House tonight.
It is puzzling that this issue is coming before us today, when the games are just three months ahead of us. It has been asked why this issue was not dealt with last year when the London Olympic Games and Paralympic Games (Amendment) Bill was considered. Instead, we are being asked to make a last-minute judgment without any proper consideration of the consequences or of the impact on workers, small businesses and other affected groups. Ministers have made no effort to hold proper consultations. On the contrary, we have experienced their usual high-handed antics and failure to have any regard for the people on whom their policies will have an impact.
I am seriously concerned about the impact on shop workers, and on employment rights in the workplace. The last-minute attempt to push through these changes clearly does not allow enough time for workers to be informed of the need to exempt themselves if they do not wish to work on Sundays during the Olympics. The Secretary of State said earlier that employers were not even obliged to inform employees of that requirement, and I believe that a wide range of them will be entirely unaware of the provisions in the Bill.
Many Members have mentioned USDAW’s poll of more than 20,000 members, which revealed that 51% of shop workers were routinely put under pressure to work on Sundays when they did not want to do so, while 73% believed that the pressure on them to work on Sundays against their will would increase as a result of the extended working hours during the Olympics. Shop workers who already work unsocial hours during the week, and who rely on Sunday’s limited trading hours to spend time with their families, fear that they will lose that precious time. The views of those workers should have been of paramount importance, but the Government should at least have listened to them. The poll also revealed that 78% of shop workers opposed longer opening on Sundays during the Olympics, and that only 11% supported it.
Mr Anderson
Does this not conform to a pattern? Just as throughout the debate on the Health and Social Care Bill the Government consistently ignored the voice of the people we ask to deliver our health services, they are now ignoring the voice of the people who work to keep our retail services going. What they are doing now is completely and utterly in line with what they do in other contexts. They are so out of touch that it is untrue.
Ian Lavery
I could not agree more with my hon. Friend.
I am sure that not just my constituents but those of every other Member have expressed concern about the legislation that is being pushed through at this late stage. There are many reasons for their concern, all of them valid. First, why should ordinary people not have the same opportunity to sit and watch the fantastic Olympic games on a Sunday afternoon? The answer is “Because they are shop workers.” Those workers fear that pressure will be put on them to work on more Sundays and for longer hours during the games, and that the Bill will set a precedent for the introduction of weekday hours on Sundays which would not be reversed after the Olympics.
I have asked a number of questions today about the voluntary aspect of Sunday working. If, at a time when 22.2 people are after each jobcentre vacancy, someone who works in a shop in Wansbeck says to the manager, “I don’t want to work on Sundays”, the manager is unlikely to say, “That’s fine: we understand. Do you want to watch the triathlon?” What he will probably say is, “There are plenty of people out there who are willing to work on Sundays. Bear that in mind, and come back tomorrow to give me your views.” Any Member who believes for one minute that the Sunday working will be voluntary is living in cloud cuckoo land. If it is as easy as that, why did we not ask employees to opt into working on Sundays during the Olympics, rather than asking them to opt out? Many shop workers are forced to work on Sundays now, in spite of the Sunday opt-out rules. Like other people, they want to be able to choose how they spend their Sundays. The shorter trading and working hours on Sundays often mean Sunday is the only day they can spend time with their families. In spite of the pressure that is put on a significant minority of staff, most can still choose whether to work on Sundays, allowing them the option to spend time with their children or other family members on that day, or to attend religious worship. They know that if trading hours are extended, they will be forced to work on Sundays.
Many Members have given examples of workers not having a choice about whether to work on Sundays. Pressure is already exerted on many workers to change their hours and work on Sundays, in spite of the current opt-out right. Many shop workers are on flexible contracts that require them to work on any five days out of seven. A lot of companies would not employ someone who did not agree to work on Sundays. There are huge difficulties, therefore.
The impact on family life has been well aired tonight. The precious time families have together could be disrupted for two, or even three, months. Extending the Sunday opening times would have a devastating effect on staff, especially those with children. Many Members have pointed out that it is the only time that many people can spend with their families, because of school and other commitments including employment commitments, in the week. One lady said that she gets to spend only six hours a week with her children. Another commented that extending Sunday hours
“would truly destroy what little home life we have left.”
Someone else said:
“I have tried to organise working hours with kids and I believe Sundays to be a family day. Unfortunately I have difficulty getting weekend days off to spend time with my kids as they are at school Mon-Fri”—
as are most kids! Shop workers would welcome shorter working hours.
Chris Ruane (Vale of Clwyd) (Lab)
A few weeks ago, I tabled a parliamentary question on the issue of the amount of time parents and children get to spend together. The answer is that it has increased dramatically. Society has made gains in this regard. In 1975, mothers and children spent between eight and 21 minutes per day together. That had increased to between 51 and 86 minutes per day in 2000. That is progress. If these proposals are introduced and become permanent, we will regress.
Ian Lavery
I fully agree, and I was not aware of those statistics.
Many staff find it difficult to work on Sundays because of practical problems, such as lack of transport due to Sunday bus and train services. Where I live, there are very few transport facilities in any case. We in south-east Northumberland have not even got a train service.
Retail staff also experience seemingly endless demands for flexibility in their working hours. They know that if stores open for longer on Sundays, existing trade will shift from other times of the week and staff will be required to work more hours on Sundays and fewer at other times, such as weekdays, when it may be easier and more family-friendly for them to be at work. Based on the evidence of current widespread practices in retail, we know that if shops open for longer on Sundays, additional staff will not be taken on, but, instead, current employees will be forced to shift more of their working hours from weekdays to Sundays.
Is it not in everyone’s best interests to support the Opposition amendments? I hope the whole House agrees that the hard-working people in this country, and in particular those in the retail sector, are crucial to the success of the Olympic and Paralympic games—something we all crave for. No one here hopes that the games will not be a tremendous success. We want the games to be the envy of the world, but why have the Government not listened? Is it that ordinary people working in shops do not count? Is it that the Government are simply out of touch, or that they simply do not care?
There have been many guarantees. People have said that the Bill should not be seen as a test case for the future relaxation of the laws—“a Trojan horse”, as it has been described. The Minister and the Secretary of State have said that it will definitely not be; the Secretary of State was adamant that under his brief no such precedent would be set. However, as has been said, if the Bill goes ahead it will be a precedent.
The fact is that we have all experienced what the coalition Government have done in the name of the best interests of the nation, the national interest—“We have come together as a coalition in the national interest and we have to make difficult decisions.” We have seen the decisions on VAT and tuition fees. I tell you now, Madam Deputy Speaker, that not many people out there trust a single word that the Liberal Democrats say; if they and the rest of the coalition are telling people out there to believe them, they have a hard job on their hands. We should listen to hard-working ordinary people, who should be allowed the same choices as everyone else during the fantastic period of the Olympics.
Richard Drax (South Dorset) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Wansbeck (Ian Lavery); I agree with his general thrust, although not with everything that he said.
I must declare an interest in the Olympics, as the sailing games, to be hosted in Weymouth and Portland, are in my constituency. We are very proud of that. With that in mind, I must speak up for my local shops and constituents—the very lifeblood of a coastal seat such as mine. They feel threatened by the temporary liberalisation of the Sunday trading laws for eight weeks this summer. Those eight weeks—games or no games—are the eight weeks on which convenience stores in holiday destinations such as South Dorset depend for most of the year’s profit. When the large retailers close for the day, the smaller ones continue to work flat out.
Michael and Barbara Clements, who run the local SPAR shop in Weymouth, tell me that their busiest time is between 4 pm and 9 pm on Sundays. Sensitive to seasonal demand, their takings increase significantly in summer. Mr and Mrs Clements tell me that normally they would make one third of their annual income during the summer—the precise period when Sunday trading restrictions are to be lifted. As a result, they will lose out, which strikes them as unfair and unnecessary—unfair because they cannot possibly compete against the giant multiples, and unnecessary because the Olympic and Paralympic games will take place at a few well publicised sites around the country.
Although one could conceivably make an argument for opening shops in the immediate vicinity of the Olympic village and sites, the need to open every large shop in the country is not overwhelmingly apparent, and such a move is not supported by the majority of those who work in them. As a spokesman for the shop workers’ union said, the Olympics is not a festival of retail and shopping is not an Olympic sport.
The statistics cited by the hon. Member for Walsall South (Valerie Vaz) seem to be similar to the ones in my speech, so perhaps she borrowed them. The Association of Convenience Stores estimates that the temporary suspension will cost small shops £480 million over those eight Sundays—a not inconsiderable sum. That is an average of £1,500 per store per Sunday for eight weeks. Most importantly, the Clements and many other small shop owners are anxious to ensure that the Bill is not the thin end of the wedge. They would like some form of guarantee that, having experimented with the idea once, the Government will not revisit it. I hope that the Chancellor, wherever he is, is listening. To that end, they welcome the sunset clause, which will repeal the eight-week liberalisation of Sunday trading, without any further debate, on 9 September. That is to be welcomed. Like the Clements and many others in South Dorset, I hope that this will be an end to it.
Much of the research used to underpin this very rushed Bill is left over from earlier attempts to liberalise Sunday trading laws, but there is genuinely no demand for this move. Again I refer to what the hon. Member for Walsall South said when I talk about another of the statistics I have here. We should remember that in the poll to which she referred 89% of the public were opposed to further liberalisation of Sunday trading.
Finally, although we welcome the Olympics with open arms, it is important that when the games are gone, the communities that hosted them are left with desirable legacies only—the ones we were promised. [Interruption.] Bless you. [Interruption.] My hon. Friend the Member for Solihull (Lorely Burt) has been sneezing, and I hope she gets better. The legacies we were promised were: more housing; faster broadband; better roads; and communications and services. We do not want damaging new laws that hurt precisely the small businesses we have pledged to support and encourage. Lest we forget, in the hurly-burly of a coalition Government—a sneezing Government— those are our core voters; they are the very fabric and soul of the community. We must support them. I shall end by saying that I will support the Government tonight on the relaxation of the provisions in law for this period only, but when they come back before the House, as they will have to do, I shall not be supporting that move.
Rosie Cooper (West Lancashire) (Lab)
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for allowing me to contribute to the debate. May I begin by telling the House that I have been a member of the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers—that great campaigning union on behalf of shop workers and their families—for more than 30 years? For much of that time, I was in the buying division of Littlewoods.
I wish to make it clear at the outset that we all want the Olympics and Paralympics to be a great success, but this Bill is a sledgehammer that is being used to crack a nut and it is a step too far. I wonder whether it was the realisation that the five Olympic stores would be caught by the existing Sunday trading regulations that initiated the need for the Bill. We have ended up with a Bill that will allow a complete suspension of Sunday trading regulations across the whole of the UK, and I am not assured—not one bit assured—that the Bill is not a prelude to rolling back the existing Sunday trading regulations, as it allows a free-for-all and abandons the principles underpinning those regulations. To add to that threat, we have heard the Chancellor stating that the Treasury could “learn lessons” from this experiment.
We are told that the Bill will create more jobs and economic growth. Indeed, we may see a small increase in the number of temporary jobs and increased spending for eight weeks, but these are not permanent jobs and this will not be sustained economic growth. I get a sense that the Government desperately hope that the Olympics will provide an eight-week boost to the economy, such as their policies are currently holding back.
What we need is a strategy and policies to ensure job creation and economic growth for 52 weeks of the year, and not just an eight-week hope. I am sorry to disagree with the hon. Member for Fylde (Mark Menzies), who is not in his place, but I am not persuaded that students will rescue extended Sunday trading hours during the Olympics, because this will be forced on some shop workers and hard-pressed families.
A cost-benefit analysis carried out by the Department of Trade and Industry in 2006 concluded that extending the hours of Sunday trading would not result in any increase in retail sales or employment. People visiting the United Kingdom for the Olympics will be able to shop for an incredible 150 hours during the week, from Monday to Saturday. We have very extensive and relaxed shopping hours, especially compared with some European countries. On top of that, we must not forget that on Sundays, shops can open for trading for six hours.
Many small businesses rely on Sunday trading, as it is the only competitive advantage that they can secure over the large chain stores. They rely on the existing regulations to maximise their income; that enables them to stay open and keep providing jobs for local people. Eight weeks’ deregulation could have an enormous impact on those small businesses. We often hear the Government say that small businesses are vital to local economies and are the backbone of the British economy. The same much-vaunted small businesses that the Conservatives praised in opposition now appear to be collateral damage.
Finally and most importantly, we must consider the impact of deregulation on shop workers. As we have heard many times in this debate, the USDAW survey found that the majority of shop workers oppose the Bill. The figures cannot be ignored. Sunday is a day of collective rest and worship—a day for families to spend together. In our Christian country, Sundays are special. The message that the Government are sending is that not all Sundays are special—just some of them. How long will it be before none of them is? This is a very slippery slope. I have heard Ministers’ assurances, but the public judge us on what we do, not on what is said, and what we are doing is smashing through Sunday trading regulations. People will believe that this is a cynical attempt to desensitise the issue.
Retail workers and their families already bear the burden of existing opening hours for shops. People are working different shifts and hours, which makes it hard to have a good work-life balance and to be home at the same time as the rest of the family. That is why Sunday trading restrictions have always been important for retail workers. They, too, should have an opportunity to enjoy the Olympics. If the Government want shops to open longer on Sundays, perhaps they should be prepared to get behind those tills on a Sunday. Only when they do so will they have a sense of what they are expecting of our retail workers. Sadly, this is yet another example of how out of touch with ordinary families the Government are. Please do not tell us that we are all in this together—we are obviously not.
I urge all hon. Members to oppose the Bill as a statement of support for shop workers and their families, who will be asked to give up even more of their family time during the Olympics and Paralympics if the Bill is passed, and as a statement of support for small businesses that rely for their income on Sunday trading at a time when they are not in direct competition with major chain stores.
Mr David Anderson (Blaydon) (Lab)
There is an old saying that in politics timing is everything, but as we keep on being blessed by the Budget that keeps giving, even that old adage is being tested. We have spoken tonight about the retail review and the red tape review, and the hon. Member for Fylde (Mark Menzies) told us about his private Member’s Bill, which was brought forward before the last summer recess. All of a sudden, at the last minute, there has been a great rush to move things forward. Why the rush? We have known about the Olympics since 6 July 2005, and were planning for it long before then. Lots of public money and time have been spent, and people have been working together in lots of private business partnerships. This should have been planned properly.
The truth is that at no point before 21 March this year did anyone seriously suggest that workers needed to work extra hours on a Sunday. In case anyone needs reminding, 21 March was day one of the Chancellor’s year zero. The Chancellor—the man with two names—decided that it must be so. This is his answer to the double-dip recession, the plan A for growth: we will work our way out of the mess that he has got us into. What is his idea? “Let’s make shop workers work longer hours on a Sunday.” What a farce.
One of the saddest things about this farce is that decent Front-Benchers in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills have been sidelined. We have seen the sad spectacle of the Member whom we used to know as the sage of Twickenham reduced to being the stooge of Westminster, the stooge of George Osborne.
This whole thing has been compounded by the abuse of fast-track emergency legislation. Why? Are we at war? No, although I must say I thought we were going to talk about the war when the Secretary of State mentioned Germany. I am quite happy to have a discussion with the trade unions about Sunday opening hours if the Secretary of State is happy to have a word with the trade unions about whether we should have German-style rights at work. They would be very interested in having that debate. Are we going to be hit by a natural disaster? I do not think so. Does the nation face a constitutional crisis? Well, yes, we do, but no one would think so if they had been in the Chamber earlier when the Prime Minister brushed aside the calamity that is his handling of the Murdoch saga.
The truth is that the Bill is a fig leaf for the failure of the coalition’s excuse for an economic strategy. It is an abuse of the House and of the nation that emergency-style legislation is being used in this way. The Secretary of State says that it applies to only eight Sundays. I remind him that that is a whole summer to young kids. That is the time when those kids will be looking forward to spending the best quality time of the year with their parents, and that is going to be stolen from the children of this country.
But there is another issue about timing and another example that needs to be raised in the debate. What could be a more fitting time to talk about some of the hardest working and lowest paid people in our country than the day after The Sunday Times rich list was published— 1,000 people who between them own £414 billion? Think about it. If they a spent £1 million a day on average for the next year, they would still be left with £48 million before they evaded tax and before they claimed any interest. A nice little earner for them which has seen them have an average 4.7% increase in their bank balances, while ordinary men and women face pay freezes, pension contribution rises and the dole queue.
I do not suppose that many of those who work at Asda, Morrison’s or Sainsbury’s will be writing out the cheque this week to send their son to Charterhouse, where it costs £30,530 a year, so that they can emulate our wonderful Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport. Clearly, that was money well spent by his parents. No, this is just another example of the arrogance of the people who rule this country, and their genuine ignorance of the lives of ordinary men and women. My hon. Friend the Member for West Lancashire (Rosie Cooper) suggested asking some of those on the Government Front Bench and their colleagues to go and work on one of those Sundays. Let me make a suggestion. Why do they not do it on the second Sunday in August? Instead of going out shooting grouse, let the people from my constituency shoot the grouse while they go and serve in the stores.
Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)
My hon. Friend is making a great speech and I agree with everything he says about social justice, but on the issue of culture, media and sport, does he not think it is pathetic if those on the Government Benches think that when people come from all over the world to this country, all they want to do is go shopping and not see the marvellous buildings, paintings, landscape and all the other things that this country has to offer?
Mr Anderson
Absolutely right. My hon. Friend lives in one of the areas of our country which has some of the most beautiful countryside and some of the most important cultural resources. She knows exactly what she is talking about. People coming to visit this country can shop for at least 150 hours a week. They do not need any more than what they have already got.
The hon. Member for Mid Bedfordshire (Nadine Dorries) was only half-right last week when she slammed the posh Tory boys for not knowing the price of milk. The fact that they do not even care that they do not know the price of milk is the real insult to the people whose job it is to buy and sell milk. The voice of those people has been heard in the Chamber today and it is vital that we hear their pleas for sanity. It is vital that we listen to their concerns about the impact on their family lives. It is vital that we should not deprive them of the chance to enjoy the greatest sporting event in the history of our nation. It is vital that we do not make them pay more for the dubious privilege of working the most unsociable hours of the week.
A number of Members have mentioned the lack of public transport on Sundays, which means that many people will have to use taxis, and because it is a Sunday they will have to pay the premium rate. Another point that has been raised consistently by USDAW members is the cost of child care at the weekend—if people can get it at all. Again, the Government are hitting women and children in this country. It is vital that we do not allow this act of callous disregard to become the thin end of the wedge that so many Members right across the House are worried about tonight.
There is another issue that this ludicrous timetabling ignores. If the Bill goes through tonight and what the Minister has said about the opt-out is right, which means that people can tell their employers, “I do not want to work on these Sundays”, we will see the influx of a huge number of temporary workers into the workplace in a very short space of time, and I have real worries about whether there will be time to train them for what can be very dangerous workplaces. I know that the Conservative party takes a dim view of health and safety at work and sees it as an optional extra, like something from a pick ‘n’ mix, but in retail stores health and safety legislation is vital. When people are dealing with 32-tonne trucks or working in warehouses where forklift trucks are moving about, they need to be fully aware of the risks involved. When they are selling goods that are refrigerated or cooked, they need to be up to speed with health and hygiene legislation. When they are working at heights, lifting or handling goods or using chemicals to keep places clean, they need adequate and proper training. I realise that Conservative Members are out of touch on this and have as much knowledge of, and as little regard for, the real world in which workers exist as did their Victorian forefathers, but that is no reason for the rest of us in the House to turn our backs on those workers. They need our help and support today.
I urge hon. Members to listen seriously to what Cardinal Keith O’Brien said yesterday when he called the Government’s policy agenda “immoral”. He was not just using the term in a religious manner; failing to treat people properly and to consider their health and well-being and ignoring their basic human right to spend time with their family is immoral, and this lousy charade should be rejected out of hand.
Dr William McCrea (South Antrim) (DUP)
I think we all acknowledge that the pace of life today is very fast for everyone. Many people feel that they do not have enough time. People are running around, seeking to earn a living or fulfil their vocation, caring for loved ones, nurturing meaningful relationships and so on. Families are being bombarded with demands to spend more at a time when pay packets are limited, employment is scarce and pressures on family life seem to be increasing.
The Bill is, in my opinion, the thin end of the wedge in a plan for something greater than that which is proposed tonight. I make no apology for stating in this House that I believe in keeping the Lord’s day special and am totally opposed to any plan that amends Sunday trading laws in the context of the Olympics. No changes to Sunday trading legislation are needed to enable all Olympic visitors to have a great day out enjoying time with family and friends. Recently the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) made a pointed comment on the proposal:
“The case for lifting these restrictions during the Olympics doesn’t seem to me to stand up for a moment…So why are the big retailers peddling this…? The answer is simple. They want an even bigger share of the retail cake, and, as usual, they are ruthless in its pursuit, regardless of the adverse effect on local convenience stores, some High Streets—and even more important, that Sunday is special.”
As I said, life seems busier than ever before and there are significant demands on our time. Having one day in the week set apart and free from the concerns of work and school is something that we as a nation should cherish. It is a time to pause and slow down from all that goes on during the rest of the week. I suggest that that is good for us. Stress and mental illness are on the rise in our country. The Health and Safety Executive estimates that each case of stress-related ill health leads to an average of 30 days off work and that a total of 13.5 million working days are lost in Britain each year as a result of work-related stress. The loss of Sunday as a special day will not help to combat the problems that we face. We should try to protect and promote that special day, not try to make it just like any other.
That view is shared by many millions of people throughout the United Kingdom, and the Government should take note of their views, along with those of business, Churches, unions and workers who are opposed to the further liberalisation of Sunday trading laws. Sunday should be a day of rest and worship, and a day to spend time with the family, but the passing of this Bill will lead to difficulties for people who wish to do those things.
In 2010 the Conservative party manifesto stated:
“Britain is one of the least family friendly countries in the developed world. This will change with a Conservative Government. We will not be neutral on this. Britain’s families will get our full backing.”
A move such as this one, for which the Government are seeking our support tonight, runs contrary to what was in their manifesto. It is not good for families.
Kate Hoey (Vauxhall) (Lab)
I agree with everything the hon. Gentleman is saying. Does he share my presumption that the Conservative party, when it talked in its manifesto about “Britain”, actually meant the United Kingdom and included Northern Ireland?
Dr McCrea
That might have been unintentional, but I am happy to say that certainly hon. Members from Northern Ireland make it abundantly clear that we are a vital, vibrant part of the United Kingdom, and we would like the Conservative and Liberal coalition to remember that, please.
I was talking about a particular part of the Conservative party’s manifesto, however, and already in the United Kingdom more than 1 million families have at least one parent working both weekend days, and over 400,000 more people work on Sunday than was the case pre-1994. Why would we want those figures to increase? How is that good for family life? If Conservatives are not convinced by their own manifesto, perhaps they will listen to the words of a very famous person, Winston Churchill, who said:
“Sunday is a divine and priceless institution...the necessary pause in the national life and activity; it is the birthright of every British subject...and above all our great heritage, and one which is our responsibility, privilege and duty to hand on to posterity”.
We want the Olympics to be a success and to be of great economic and social benefit not just to London, but to the whole United Kingdom, but those who suggest that these Sunday opening hours are somehow going to have minimal economic impact while being the answer to our economic ills are living on a different planet.
Do we think that tourists and other people throughout the United Kingdom will be weeping simply because they have only six hours to shop on a Sunday? Do we think that they will not spend their money during the other six days of the week because of limited Sunday opening hours? I thought that the games were supposed to be a festival of sport, not of shopping, but the emphasis seems to have turned around.
This Bill will not enhance the games, but it will put extra pressure on workers, mean that more will have to work when they do not want to and produce no net benefit. We should vote against it not only to ensure that this Sunday trading does not happen during the period of the games, but to send a clear message to the Government that the further or permanent deregulation of Sunday trading laws is unacceptable. We support keeping Sunday special. I heard the Secretary of State telling us that he could give an unequivocal assurance that this Government have no intention of allowing this to be looked on as a precursor to a relaxation or deregulation of Sunday trading. I have to say to the Minister that this is of course the same Secretary of State from the same party that promised there would be no increase in tuition fees. Emphatic promises from such a person may not necessarily sit well with the population throughout the United Kingdom.
In his opening remarks, the Secretary of State said that this issue was a sensitive religious issue, yet if that is so—and it is—then why are the coalition Government forcing their parties’ Members, against their consciences and against everything they stand for, to go into the Lobby to vote for this? If it really was a sensitive religious issue—and it is—then I say to this Government, “Put your money where your mouth is and let them have a free vote.”
Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)
The hon. Member for South Antrim (Dr McCrea) is a hard act to follow. I thank him for making those points very strongly.
I will vote against the Bill for three reasons: first, the economic arguments are not very convincing; secondly, and most importantly, I am very worried about the effect on workers; and thirdly, I still believe that there is a case for keeping Sunday special.
I very much welcome the Olympics coming to the UK and the opportunities that that offers to showcase the UK, and I am sure that we will welcome many foreign visitors. However, let us be realistic about those foreign visitors. If they are coming to see the Olympics, they can go shopping on Saturday, they have six hours to go shopping on Sunday, and they can go shopping again on Monday if they want to go to a big store, but I think that the vast majority are more likely to pop into a convenience store or go into cafes or restaurants, because that is what people do when going to a sporting event. However, they will have plenty of chance to go shopping if they so wish.
As regards UK residents, let us be honest: people have a finite amount of money to spend, particularly as this Government seem incapable of finding a growth strategy and are letting us slide back into recession. We are seeing displacement trade, with the same amount of spending being spread over more hours, and we are likely to see big stores drawing away yet more trade from local convenience stores, as the hon. Member for South Dorset (Richard Drax) said. I am disappointed that he seems incapable of voting against the Bill even though he talked about people who may lose their livelihoods in his constituency because they depend on the times when an awful lot of people use convenience stores because none of the big supermarkets is open, particularly on Sundays from about 4 pm to 9 or 10 pm. The danger of extending Sunday opening hours for the big stores is that it will have a very detrimental effect on small convenience stores. In the past, supermarkets have driven people out through loss leaders, whether it was fishermen because they had bargains on their fish counters or the local music shop because their popular items were available in the bigger type of store. In the same way, this summer some local stores may close because eight weeks is too long for them to do without the trade that they have usually been getting.
Of course, life has changed and we have far longer shop opening hours than 50 years ago, and we accept that emergency workers have to do some Sunday shifts. However, Sunday is a day when children are not at school but at home. Many workers do not work on Sunday, so it is a time for families to be together and for parents to spend valuable time with their children. The majority of shop workers are women on low incomes, and if stores are open for longer on Sunday, there will be pressure on them to do more of their hours on Sunday. They will not get more hours; rather, instead of doing them on weekdays, they will be asked to do them on Sundays, cutting down on the time they have to spend with their families and children. Many of those women will walk to work because there is no transport on Sunday, particularly very early in the morning or late in the evening, and that raises huge issues regarding their safety. It is bad enough walking when it is for a 10 am start and a 4 pm finish, but if it is much earlier or later, there are far greater implications for safety.
The Government are rushing this Bill through having not realised that there would not be enough time under the existing legislation for someone to give three months’ notice if they do not want to work on Sundays. Now the proposal is that workers have to give notice by 22 May. Again, there is a huge rush to get that done. Some families may well have prepared activities for the summer holidays, when they want to do something special on Sundays—they may already have plans afoot.
It is all very well to say that such working will be voluntary, but it will never be voluntary. People will feel pressurised into working, that their promotion chances are damaged and that it is not fair on their fellow workers if they opt out of working on a Sunday. The idea that such working is voluntary is nonsensical for many reasons.
Andrew Gwynne
I support my hon. Friend’s case. Has not evidence from the 1994 Act shown that, far from such working being voluntary, many shop workers have been pressurised into working on Sundays?
Nia Griffith
Absolutely, and the Bill will create extra pressure.
Last but not least, there is keeping Sunday special. Times have changed since my childhood, when the chores were finished by Saturday afternoon, and Sunday was a day when we certainly did not play cards or do any household tasks—people would never be seen washing the car or digging the garden. Families do lots of different things now, but Sunday is a time for worship, contemplation and reflection—time to take off from the working week. As many hon. Members have said, for the mental health of our nation, it is extremely important to have that break, and a day that is a little different from the rest of the working week. That is another reason for my firm opposition to extending Sunday opening hours.
Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)
The majority of my constituents value Sundays as a special day, and I am sure that that is reflected in other parts of our country. The majority of people in our country still have Sunday as a day off, and it gives families a chance to spend time together. The Prime Minister said that
“from here on I want a family test applied to all domestic policy. If it hurts families, if it undermines commitment, if it tramples over the values that keeps people together, or stops families from being together, then we shouldn’t do it.”
Findings from the National Centre for Social Research show that around 1.4 million parents already work regularly through the whole weekend. The so-called right to opt out on Sunday has not worked in reality, as it has often been impossible to exercise in practice and many employees have no such choice. Technically, while each employee can give three-months notice not to work on Sunday, everyone knows that that does not work in practice. Realities on the ground mean that people end up working on Sunday, and I know that many employers already pressurise their workers to work on bank holidays, too.
We are told that the Bill constitutes a temporary measure, but we also know that the Chancellor has said that the Treasury may “learn lessons” from the experiment. Many of us believe that it is the thin end of the wedge, and that it will not be long before all shops can stay open for 24 hours a day for the entire week.
In this country, we have many social problems and having parents who work round the clock does nothing to help. The economic argument for extending large stores’ hours is not strong. The only companies that “may”—it is not certain that they will—benefit from the extension are large stores, which already make huge profits. We know that small shopkeepers, who are the backbone of our economy, will suffer tremendously. The Secretary of State said that small businesses were being too pessimistic, but that is not true. The Government are not taking a realistic approach to the effect of the change on small businesses.
Many hon. Members have referred to research by the Association of Convenience Stories, which opposes the Bill. The hon. Member for South Dorset (Richard Drax) said that my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall South (Valerie Vaz) had mentioned its figures. I can now reveal that the magical document to which we have all referred is the House of Commons Library research paper, which states on page 16:
“The Association of Convenience Stores…is also opposed to the Bill because it thinks it will have a negative impact on small convenience stores. Based on figures from one thousand convenience stores, the ACS estimates that the total cost (in terms of lost profits) to the convenience sector in England and Wales of suspending Sunday trading restrictions for eight consecutive Sundays to be £480 million.”
In addition, the British Independent Retailers Association, the Federation of Wholesale Distributors, the National Federation of SubPostmasters and the Rural Shops Alliance, which together represent more than 60,000 shops, oppose the Bill. That is on page 17 of the House of Commons Library research paper, so hon. Members are not making these figures up or plucking them from thin air—they are real figures. They are being represented not by trade unionists or left-wing socialists, but by small business people who are genuinely and sincerely concerned about the impact of the extra hours, which will effectively be used up by the big conglomerates that will benefit from them. The small shops will suffer tremendously.
It is still not too late for the Government to change their mind. In 2006, the then Department of Trade and Industry, which is now the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, carried out an independent assessment on whether there was an economic or business case for extending the hours. It decided that the current balance was fine and that there was no proper, coherent economic argument for change.
We have heard Ministers say that the extension is for only eight weeks, but they are in the summer period, when most children and young people are off school, college or university, and when many families spend quality time together. Forcing parents to go out and work for those eight weeks so that the big shops benefit—and only the big shops will benefit—is clearly wrong. I therefore urge the Government to reconsider the Bill.
Chris Ruane (Vale of Clwyd) (Lab)
It was not my intention to speak tonight—I have been dutifully sitting on the Front Bench for two hours in my role as a Whip, listening to passionate speeches from both sides of the Chamber. I pay tribute to the many Members who have contributed. The DUP Members spoke with soul and spirit, and the hon. Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) gave a considered and passionate speech, as did many Labour Members.
One of the contributions that disappointed me was that of a Conservative Member. On being challenged as to where the proposed ideas come from, he said that we should look to America and held up its shopping malls as something we should copy. There is a theory that in the 18th century, the biggest buildings were cathedrals, which showed our spirituality. In the 19th century, the biggest buildings, including the Palace of Westminster, were Government buildings, which showed our belief in order. In the 20th and 21st centuries, the biggest buildings are shopping malls.
Gavin Shuker
My hon. Friend does not have to look too far away for the genesis of the idea for the Bill. It was contained in the red tape challenge documents of last year.
Chris Ruane
Absolutely. We are seeing huge shopping malls spread across the UK, but there is more to life than, “Work, consume, die.”
Helen Jones
Does my hon. Friend agree that the Government’s attempts to define the nation by how much it shops simply shows that the expense wasted on their education did not give them any sense of values?
Chris Ruane
As a political class, we have gone along with that trend. I include the previous Labour Government. We operated on the terms of “consumer” and “producer”; rarely was the term “citizen” used. We have lost a lot over the years.
If we want American shopping malls as the positive, we must live with the negatives of American society. Twenty-nine per cent. of American children have mental illness and 40% are obese; the proportion is likely to increase to 60%. Oliver James puts mental illness across the western world down to advertising. The purpose of an advertisement is to sow discontent and make people unhappy, so that they go out and buy the product. Two per cent. of American GDP is spent on advertising and it has the mental health rates I described. One per cent. of UK GDP is spent on advertising, and the rate is 0.5% in mainland Europe.
We need to slow down and ask ourselves as a society—and the Government have to ask themselves—what people out there want. They might say they want shops, but that is not what they truly want. In the rat race, even the winners are still rats. It is now recognised that to be a shopaholic, like an alcoholic, is to have a mental illness. People feel the need to shop and prove themselves through materialism, but let us remember that the flipside of consumerism is alienation, and the flipside of materialism is individualism. The breakdown of society, promoted since the 1980s, has a lot to do with it. People are far from their natures. Many of us—I include myself in this—are on this hydraulic treadmill. People try to provide for their children and buy the latest fashions—otherwise they are not normal—but this hydraulic treadmill, which is spinning too fast, will be sped up if we adopt this measure and make it permanent. We need to slow down.
I tabled a parliamentary question, answered on 15 March, about family happiness. The answer came back from the Minister that children were happier in a family if the parents judged themselves to have good relationships, but to have good relationships, they need a day off a week—at least—on which they can talk. Apparently a family was more likely to be happy if it ate more meals together. My favourite meal of the week is the traditional British Sunday roast. That will not be cooked or served if parents are out working. The third criteria for a happy family was discussing important matters. The most reflective day of the week is a Sunday.
We have made many gains, especially under the previous Government, including on flexible hours, the minimum wage, and maternity and paternity leave. Those were positive measures, but some Government Members see them as red tape and bureaucracy. I hope that tonight’s proposal is not a way of attacking those gains or a back-door way of disassembling what Labour has achieved over many years. We need to slow down. We need time for awareness, to sniff the flowers, to notice, to reflect, to have silence and to express gratitude. To do that, however, we need at least one day a week off. We broke into that. Many people now work six hours on Sundays, but we should not extend that. We do so at our peril and the peril of our children and families.
Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)
It is a great pleasure to speak for the Opposition in this debate on the Government’s proposed changes to Sunday trading laws, which purport to be in order that we might all—shop workers excluded—enjoy the Olympics the more. I am an avid follower of sport in general, but the fact that in attending the debate, in all its glory, I have missed out on viewing one of the most important club football matches in my lifetime could hardly be a matter of regret.
On 6 July 2005, millions of Britons stood glued to their radios or television sets to hear the announcement from the International Olympic Committee that London had beaten off challenges from some of the other great cities of the world—Paris, New York, Moscow and Madrid. Now the games are just 87 days away—or, as the Home Secretary would have it, 86 days. Those of us who celebrated in our workplaces at the news that the greatest show on earth was coming to Britain could only imagine the work that had gone on behind the scenes to secure the games. Since they were secured, the 80,000 seat Olympic stadium in Stratford, east London has been completed on time, on budget and with a near-impeccable safety record. According to John Armitt, 98% of the facilities for the Olympics have been built by British companies, and altogether an estimated 75,000 firms are expected to win work related to London 2012.
When we think of the preparation, the expertise and hard work that went into winning the Olympics, it calls into the sharpest possible focus the contrast with the Government’s shambolic performance on this issue. How can it be, when we have known for seven years that the Olympics were coming, that two years after the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister had their “Brokeback Mountain” moment in the rose garden, we should be debating this legislation under emergency powers designed for the introduction of counter-terrorism proposals?
Sadly, any pragmatic case for the proposals has been utterly undermined by the shambolic nature of the Government’s attempts to convince us of their need. No credible business case has been made in favour of the proposals. Like much of this Government’s policy, they have been made up on the hoof, without any credible evidence, because someone thinks they might move on the news agenda, or be useful for political positioning. This is fag packet politics that sounds like it has emerged over a damn fine claret at the Carlton club, rather than credible, evidence-based policy to deliver jobs and growth. It is, in fact, an appropriate way to end this Session.
I would like to mention a couple of the contributions that hon. Members have made. The Secretary of State admitted in his opening speech that 40% of the benefits of the legislation would fall outside London—proof, if ever it were needed, that much of the shopping will not be the result of the Olympics, but an extension of the shopping that would be done anyway. It will therefore be displacement activity, away from small businesses and towards larger businesses.
My hon. Friend the Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham) reminded us that the Prime Minister had said that all future legislation would have to pass the family test—a comment repeated in a rambunctious speech by the hon. Member for South Antrim (Dr McCrea).
The hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mark Field) spoke largely in favour of the Bill, but said that he believed that the legislation would be a damp squib. That was pretty much as full as the praise got. The hon. Member for Sittingbourne and Sheppey (Gordon Henderson) talked about his experience as someone working in the retail sector, reminding us that workers at the bottom of the pile often do not really have the choice of saying yes or no to their boss. He told us about the important opportunity that we could be creating during the Olympics to give a boost for small businesses that want to take the opportunity to promote the greatest show on earth, here in this country.
The hon. Member for Enfield North (Nick de Bois) told us that using the evidence from this experience as a basis to extend the legislation in future would be a ludicrous basis on which to propose future policy—as though the fact that something was ludicrous would be a reason for the Government not to pursue it.
My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Meg Munn) highlighted the fact that under the Government’s proposals, workers would have to opt out by 22 May. She talked about how unrealistic that was, given that we are talking about the legislation only now. My hon. Friend the Member for Walsall South (Valerie Vaz) reminded us that the bulk of retail staff are female. She also reminded us of the impact on their families of being asked to work during the Olympics, at a time when so many will be wanting to spend more time with their families, enjoying the great spectacle.
The hon. Member for South Dorset (Richard Drax) made a wonderful speech against the Bill—and then told us that he would vote in favour of it. I fear that he has been in the coalition a little too long. He focused on the importance of Sunday evenings to small businesses—a point repeated by many hon. Members. He also said that the legislation was rushed and that there was no demand for it, further undermining his determination to vote for it.
My hon. Friend the Member for Wansbeck (Ian Lavery) was sceptical that the provisions to protect workers would make any difference to workers on the ground. Just before I got to my feet, my hon. Friend the Member for Vale of Clwyd (Chris Ruane) made a thought-provoking speech, urging us all to slow down and warning us—this was possibly aimed in the direction of his own loved ones—to beware of becoming shopaholics. None the less, it was an important contribution and one that I enjoyed.
The Secretary of State spoke of many of the groups that he had consulted, but he declined to tell the House what they had said. He told us he consulted the Federation of Small Businesses, but the FSB said that the Bill was:
“Contrary to Government rhetoric about supporting small business on the high street”.
He told us he had consulted the Association of Convenience Stores, but it says:
“Liberalising Sunday Trading would cost businesses and jobs.”
He also told us that he had consulted USDAW, yet its briefing included the comment from Mr M from Stoke-on-Trent, who said of the proposals:
“If this is allowed to happen, it will erode my working terms and conditions”.
The Secretary of State might well have consulted a multitude of organisations, but he seems to have paid precious little attention to what they told him.
On this side of the House, we are a party whose leader, my right hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband), has committed to make Labour the party of small business. At every level, when we see the actions of this Government, we see how desperately small business needs the Labour party to be that voice in politics that the governing parties have left so far behind.
It is a matter of tremendous regret that, because of the way in which the Bill has been programmed, we will not have the opportunity to vote on our amendments. One of them would have enabled us to keep Sunday special, by allowing for the expansion of the Olympics while maintaining the difference and remaining mindful of the effects of the measures on shop staff. It would have limited the proposed number of hours to 13 on a Sunday. Another amendment would have entitled shop workers to two months’ notice of a request by their employer to work on a Sunday during the Olympics. That would have given them a realistic opportunity to discuss the request with their family and to exercise their right to opt out. A further amendment proposed the reduction of the notice period for exercising the opt-out to one month, so that shop workers could have a credible opportunity to decide whether they wished to work on a Sunday.
As Members on the Government Benches consider which way to vote, they might want to think about what the hon. Member for Mid Bedfordshire (Nadine Dorries) wrote on the ConservativeHome website. I do not know whether you are a regular reader of that website, Mr Deputy Speaker; I am not, but this is damned good stuff, so I might start reading it more often. The hon. Lady wrote:
“During the budget speech, the Chancellor announced that ‘we will introduce legislation limited to relaxing the Sunday Trading laws for eight Sundays only, starting on 22nd July.’ It appears, however, that the previous day his aides had got a little carried away during a media briefing”—
this is what I was telling the Secretary of State about; he will be happy to hear this—
“and informed the press that this measure would, in effect, be a pre-cursor to relaxing Sunday trading permanently...However, there isn’t a single person in Westminster who believes that for one moment.”
That is, that the measure would last for only eight Sundays.
“If the eight Sundays show an increase in profit for the stores concerned (and why wouldn’t they with the number of visitors expected in London during the Olympics?), those figures will be used to support a simple extension of what will then be existing legislation, to roll out full trading hours across the UK for seven days per week.”
I could not have put it better myself.
So, we have heard from Members across the House—and Mid Bedfordshire—from the small business community, from a director of Sainsbury’s, and from a coalition of thousands of voices across the country who are against these half-baked proposals. We have heard precious little to recommend them, and that is why I will be exercising my free vote to vote against them. I urge my colleagues from across the House to do the same.
The Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (Mr Mark Prisk)
This has been an energetic and often constructive debate, despite the broad range of views and concerns raised. I am grateful to the shadow Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Streatham (Mr Umunna), and his colleague, the hon. Member for Chesterfield (Toby Perkins), for supporting us in the Division Lobby earlier this evening on the fast-track procedure. We appreciate that. We have sought to enter into discussions with all parties involved, prior to the measure coming before both Houses, and we are grateful to the hon. Gentlemen for their support.
We have heard a number of thoughtful contributions, including those from my hon. Friend the Member for Sittingbourne and Sheppey (Gordon Henderson) and the hon. Member for Solihull (Lorely Burt). I shall come to the question of sunset clauses in a moment. My hon. Friend the Member for Great Yarmouth (Brandon Lewis) rightly highlighted the economic benefit that would result from the measures. My hon. Friend the Member for Fylde (Mark Menzies) is well informed on these issues; I shall touch on the question of flexibility in a second. We also heard from my hon. Friends the Members for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) and for South Dorset (Richard Drax); I am sorry that I missed his contribution.
We also heard speeches from the Opposition Benches, including those from the hon. Members for Blackley and Broughton (Graham Stringer) and for Sheffield, Heeley (Meg Munn), as well as from the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon). He will know that the Bill does not actually affect Northern Ireland, but we enjoyed his contribution anyway. We heard from the hon. Members for Walsall South (Valerie Vaz), for Wansbeck (Ian Lavery), for West Lancashire (Rosie Cooper) and for Blaydon (Mr Anderson). We heard a passionate contribution from the hon. Member for South Antrim (Dr McCrea), as well as speeches from the hon. Members for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi), for Vale of Clwyd (Chris Ruane) and for Chesterfield. I am sorry that the hon. Member for Chesterfield missed his football match, but ConservativeHome will be delighted to know that it now has a new subscriber to its deliberations.
The concern has been expressed that this Bill is somehow a Trojan horse, preparing the way for a permanent relaxation of the rules for large stores. Let me assure hon. Members again that that is not the case. I thought my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton spoke eloquently about the issue of families and family time. I think she is absolutely right, so let me say to her that the Bill affects just eight Sundays and the deliberate inclusion of a sunset clause means that the Bill will be removed from the statute book after 9 September. Indeed, as the Secretary of State has made clear, if a future Government were to consider a permanent relaxation, they would have to undertake a full consultation and present new legislation to this House. As the Secretary of State also pointed out, we have no such plans.
Joan Walley
Will the Minister clarify the position of the people in families who have opted in to Sunday working for those eight weeks? Will they be required, if they continue to be opted in, to work the additional hours that result from the extension?
Mr Prisk
We have made it clear that this Bill does not change their statutory rights. Some will be engaged in contractual discussions. I have made it clear to employers, and I am happy to put it firmly on the record again today, that we will want to sit down again with both unions and employers over the coming weeks to make sure that if there are contractual issues, we are aware of them, and we will want to support them. That is important. We must make sure that this is not just about the statute before the House, as it is also about the contractual arrangements, which in some cases are better than the statute itself.
Several Members have raised the question of how much the economy will benefit from this temporary relaxation of the rules. For example, at Atlanta in 1996, about $5.1 billion was added to the Georgian economy. If we look at Sydney in 2000, we see that there was an improvement in the visitor economy of about $1.5 billion. We accept that, given the unique nature of the Olympics and Paralympics, it is difficult accurately to predict the precise financial benefit in advance.
In 2006, the then Government commissioned an assessment of the impact of a permanent relaxation of the rules. Based on those figures, a temporary suspension of the rules for eight Sundays would deliver benefits of up to £176 million. As alluded to by several hon. Members, the Centre for Retail Research has indicated that the figure would be closer to £189 million.
Mr Prisk
No, I will not, because the hon. Gentleman has made no contribution to this debate, other than intervening at the beginning. He made no speech and I want to respond to those who made the effort to speak in the debate, rather than those who make an occasional interruption. [Interruption.]
I was talking about the Centre for Retail Research, but some independent assessments have been even more bullish. The New West End Company, for example, estimates that the benefits of the measure for London retailers alone could be more than £180 million.
It is important to bear in mind that in these difficult times this measure will clearly benefit many of our hard-pressed retailers and their staff. We are supporting events not just in London. With football in Manchester, Cardiff, Newcastle and Coventry; sailing in Weymouth, as my hon. Friend the Member for South Dorset mentioned; mountain biking in Essex; canoe slalom in Hertfordshire; and rowing in Eton Dorney, the benefits, the activities and the visitors will clearly spread far beyond the east of London. At the same time, big screens are being set up in towns and cities right across the country to enable people to gather and watch the games together. We believe that the Bill will help to make the most of the games economically, as well as showing to thousands of visitors from abroad that Britain is indeed open to business.
Yasmin Qureshi
The Minister talks about the economic benefits, but an important issue many of us have discussed is the effect on small shopkeepers, who are saying that they will be virtually destroyed for those eight Sundays when the hours are extended for larger stores. Have the Government and the Minister thought properly about their concerns?
Mr Prisk
I used to run a small business. I am strong and passionate about this issue. I want to deal first with workers’ rights, after which I will undoubtedly wish to come on to the question of small shops. The hon. Lady is absolutely right about the importance of this issue, which is why I wanted to ensure that I spoke to the Association of Convenience Stores and, of course, to the Federation of Small Businesses.
Several Members feared that the Bill sought to cut away the rights of shop workers who are currently protected by the law. That is not what the Bill will do, and it is not our intention. During consultation, concern was expressed about the existing rights of shop workers wishing to give notice that they did not want to work on Sundays. Having listened carefully to those views—to which many Members alluded today—we decided to amend the Bill to shorten the statutory notice period to two months, thus allowing shop workers to serve their notice after Royal Assent. The net effect is to ensure that those who do not wish to work on Sundays during the games will be able to notify their employers in the usual way. That is an important principle.
In practice, as I said earlier, many of the shop workers affected have contracts with their employers for even shorter notice periods. For example, relevant workers at both Sainsbury’s and Tesco need to give only one month’s notice.
Mr Umunna
I should be grateful if the Minister would respond in particular to the point about the need for employers to give their employees notice of the change in the law that the Minister is pushing through today. While I am on my feet, however, may I ask him who exactly has argued for the change? I have received no positive representations from any organisation so far.
Mr Prisk
The change is supported by the British Council of Shopping Centres, Tesco, Morrison’s and Asda, to name but a few. I think that they are important employers in this context.
The Government have listened to the concerns that have been expressed. We recognised that there was a case for the Bill to be absolutely clear about affected shop workers’ rights, and that is why last week we tabled the amendment that is now incorporated in the Bill, as a result of discussions with Opposition Members and also with specific regard to the questions raised by USDAW.
We recognise that the question of employers’ notice is important to shop workers. Employers have made it clear to us that that they will undertake to give notice to their employees, which we consider to be the appropriate arrangement, but we will engage with them to ensure that they do so. I believe that that is the best way of delivering what I suspect to be the aim of both parties, and that making it a statutory requirement would be complex and unnecessary. The key point is that the Bill does not change existing rights.
We should also not ignore the fact that many shop workers, especially young people, would like to earn more money. In these difficult times, they would like to make ends meet. As my hon. Friend the Member for Fylde pointed out, it is a shame that some Opposition Members barely mentioned those workers; they seemed to be concerned about only some workers.
The hon. Member for Streatham seemed to fear that, as a result of a sudden change in the law, workers would have to undertake more than one shift. However, other employment law protections will continue to apply. I am thinking particularly of the Working Time Regulations 1998, which regulate working hours and—I know that this is of concern to the hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley—ensure that the entitlement to daily and weekly rests will continue.
Let me, in the brief time that remains, deal with the question of small shops. At present, such shops—notably local convenience stores—enjoy the advantage of no restrictions on their Sunday opening hours. Naturally, they guard that advantage jealously, and I do not blame them for doing so. Some—including the hon. Lady—have argued that the Bill will badly damage businesses, possibly to the tune of £480 million. I have discussed the figures that have been mentioned with the Association of Convenience Stores in order to understand them better, and I must tell the House that they significantly overstate the problem. They assume that every large store will open for the largest feasible number of hours, and that all the people who currently shop at their local convenience stores will switch to the big supermarkets for the entire eight weeks. I am clear in my own mind that that is not likely to happen. This, too, is a principle: Government Members take the question of shops, particularly small shops, very seriously, which is why we will continue to work with them.
The Olympic and Paralympic games present a unique opportunity for the whole country to back our athletes, but they also present an important economic opportunity, as hundreds of thousands of visitors will come here to enjoy what Britain has to offer. Alongside the sporting and cultural activities, there is a great opportunity for our businesses, including in retail, to make the most of this special occasion. This Bill will help them do that, not least by creating far greater flexibility for them over the eight Sundays identified.
However, we have also listened carefully to the legitimate concerns that have been raised, and the inclusion of a sunset clause, the clarification and notification procedures for affected workers, and the clear statement that the Bill will be revoked after 9 September are all responses to them. We therefore believe the Bill strikes the right balance, and we commend it to the House.
Question put, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
Business without Debate
Rare Disease Strategy
(12 years, 7 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Edward Timpson (Crewe and Nantwich) (Con)
As ever, I am grateful, and indeed delighted, to have the opportunity to address the House in this timely and much-needed debate. Just eight days ago, along with 37,000 other hardy souls, I stood, full of trepidation and excitement, at the start line for the 2012 London marathon. I was running with my wife, Julia, and am pleased to report that we finished the course together in just under four hours. Far more importantly, our run raised over £6,000 for the national charity CLIMB.
That is all very interesting, you might say, Mr Deputy Speaker, but what has this rare accomplishment for a Member of Parliament got to do with a rare disease strategy for the UK? To explain, CLIMB stands for “children living with inherited metabolic diseases” and is a charity based in Crewe in my constituency. It is one of an important network of rare disease charities that strive to raise awareness of rare diseases, not least through Rare Disease day, which takes place on the last day of February each year. Under the stewardship of Steve Hannigan, CLIMB provides vital advice and support to many children and families affected by one of the around 730 known metabolic diseases. One of those children is my nephew Leo.
Leo was born in 2001 with an inherited metabolic disease known as MCADD. Approximately one in 10,000 babies born in the UK has MCADD, which means that they are missing an enzyme that helps break down the fats that provide energy for the body, particularly after long periods without food. This inability to break down fat leads to the build-up of medium-chain fats that can produce toxic substances and lead to severe symptoms, including seizures and possibly coma and death. As Leo was born before the introduction of routine baby screening for MCADD in 2008, neither medical professionals nor his parents knew that he had the disease.
For Leo, all was well until he was 10 months old, when he contracted pneumonia that was coupled with three days of severe hypoglycaemic episodes. Because the knowledge of rare diseases among medical staff was and, indeed, remains limited, and because he had not been screened for MCADD, no one picked up on this underlying rare condition and the need to treat him accordingly. More by luck than by informed professional judgment, thankfully Leo survived.
When Leo suffered a further hypo episode at 14 months, triggered by nothing more than a routine cold, the doctor on duty, who had some knowledge of MCADD, realised that his low blood sugar was unexplained, and subsequent relevant tests revealed a diagnosis of the metabolic disease.
Leo is now 11 and living a full and active life, but, with the mortality rate of children under the age of one who have undiagnosed MCADD being approximately 25%, the routine screening that CLIMB long campaigned for, and which is soon to be introduced throughout all four nations of the UK, is a vital tool in saving lives.
In the past year alone, more than 80 newborn babies have been diagnosed with MCADD—80 babies whose disease would otherwise have remained undetected and who would have been at significant risk. That is why I wanted this debate: to be able to speak up for all those, like Leo, with a rare disease, to put a proposition to the Minister and to question him about, how we can improve the services, information, treatment and support that those with rare diseases receive in order to ensure that we maximise their quality of life.
We are not talking about a handful of isolated cases. With close to 7,000 distinct rare diseases having been discovered, and with five new diseases described every week in medical literature, rare diseases are collectively far from rare. In the UK it is estimated that 3.5 million people, or one in 17, will be affected by a rare disease at some point in their life, with 30% of patients dying before their fifth birthday.
So what is a rare disease? The European commission on public health defines rare diseases, sometimes known as “orphan diseases”, as
“life-threatening or chronically debilitating diseases which are of such low prevalence”—
affecting fewer than one in 2,000 people—
“that special combined efforts are needed to address them.”
About 80% are genetic in origin, but many are auto-immune, such as Crohn’s disease, and others are infectious in nature.
Motor neurone disease, cystic fibrosis, muscular dystrophy and Huntington’s disease may be some of the more widely known rare diseases, whereas acquired non-histamine induced angiodema and Adair-Dighton syndrome are just two of the many thousands of others that I have come across in my own research.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
One rare disease that I am aware of is Prader-Willi syndrome, which affects the muscular build-up, eating habits and sleep patterns of some 2,000 people in the United Kingdom and 50 people in Northern Ireland. Does the hon. Gentleman feel that, if there is to be a strategy for the United Kingdom, it must involve all those regions where health matters are devolved to the Administration? Does he feel also that along with such a strategy and, given all the different areas that there are, we need to have something for respite care, because parents, and the way in which they play their part, are vital?
Mr Timpson
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising a particular issue in his constituency in Northern Ireland. He is absolutely right that we need to ensure that the strategy we develop for rare diseases supports not just those who suffer from the disease, but the families who every day, for every hour, have to cope with it and support them. We need to ensure that that is a central part of the strategy.
Such diseases—especially those, including the one to which the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) refers, that are particularly rare—are no less important, however, and therein lies the problem. Most rare diseases are under the medical and public radar—too exceptional to attract the attention, recognition and resources required and, above all, the coherent plan needed to tackle the fragmented, inefficient and often inequitable services on offer.
That is why I welcome the Government’s current consultation on the development of a UK strategy for rare diseases and why this debate is so apt. For too long, rare diseases have been placed in the “too difficult to do” pile, but with the onset of changes to health care commissioning and the refocus on putting patients at the heart of the NHS, there is a real opportunity to do things more effectively and much smarter. That means that the consultation must be ambitious, provide strong leadership, and be unambiguous about how the core vision that it reveals can be successfully implemented practically and realistically on the ground across all four home nations.
I have taken the time to read the consultation document, and although it makes many of the right noises, there is a nagging doubt as to whether it meets all the challenges faced by those with rare diseases. I am told by those working in the field of rare diseases that Lord Howe, the Minister who, together with his colleagues in the devolved nations, is responsible for the document, genuinely appears to understand the importance of getting this right. I trust, therefore, that he and they will listen carefully to the submissions they receive, including mine this evening and those of other hon. Members.
So what needs improving? It is clear from my many conversations and my correspondence with clinicians, patient groups and charities working on and living with rare diseases that the ad-hoc nature in which services have developed has led to the principal problems of delays in diagnosis; misdiagnosis; lack of information, communication and awareness; limited research; scarce and unequal access to orphan medicines; poor commissioning and care co-ordination; and a failure to monitor outcomes.
That is not to say that it is all bad news. There is, as ever, some fantastic best practice already taking place. The TREAT-NMD—Translational Research in Europe: Assessment and Treatment of Neuromuscular Diseases—network for neuromuscular diseases, the European Huntington’s Disease Network’s REGISTRY, and the Tay Sachs walk-in clinic at Guy’s hospital are all good examples of innovative, effective and efficient service delivery on which any strategy should seek to build.
Margot James (Stourbridge) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on this very important debate. Does he agree that some rare diseases at least have a high profile, which is advantageous in garnering research and funding? I should like to draw his and the Minister’s attention to a rare disease that has a very low profile—FOP, or fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva, which is a tragic condition where bone grows in muscle. The funding and research that are required for this condition are set back due to its low profile. Will my hon. Friend join me in wishing to raise the profile of this rare condition and many others with such a low profile?
Mr Timpson
My hon. Friend has done just that. I know that she has recently become patron of the charity FOP Action. I believe that this disease affects only one in 2 million people. I congratulate her on taking up that task and wish her and the charity well in raising awareness and the profile of that disease so that even the very small number of people who are affected by it receive the best possible care and support throughout their lives.
In the short time that this debate allows, it is not possible to dig down into the detailed analysis of where the system is currently failing to meet patients’ needs, but I urge the Minister to concentrate on six specific areas, the first of which is diagnosis and screening. As I have said, diagnosis is a major issue. Rare Disease UK has found that nearly half of all patients wait over a year for an accurate diagnosis following the onset of symptoms, with 20% waiting over five years and 12% over 10 years. Misdiagnosis is also a key problem, with almost half of patients being misdiagnosed and almost a third being so three times or more—an avoidable waste on many levels.
One lady who contacted me was Kay Parkinson. Kay set up Alstrom Syndrome UK, a support group for people affected by the same rare genetic disorder that so tragically took the lives of her two children, Charlotte and Matthew. Their desperate story of misdiagnosis, unnecessary and delayed medical interventions and ultimately the most terrible heartache lays bare the consequences of a failure to diagnose early and to diagnose accurately. Through Kay’s dedication, Alstrom Syndrome UK has set up multidisciplinary clinics, funded by the NHS national specialised commissioning group, to help inform patients and professionals of the specialised clinical services available. Its frustration is that it is still unable to find out who and where diagnoses of Alstrom syndrome are made so that it can link them to the specialised NHS services available.
To improve diagnosis, there needs to be: an increase in health care professionals’ knowledge and awareness of rare diseases through initial and ongoing training, particularly for paediatricians; improved links between specialist centres and local services to help with that education, and consideration of the inclusion of appropriate rare diseases in newborn screening, which has proved so successful in the case of MCADD.
The criteria that the National Screening Committee uses should be reviewed to ensure that rare diseases are not being treated unfairly. It is disappointing that the UK lags well behind many other countries in the number of rare diseases for which it screens. For example, in India, the figure is 39; in Poland and China, it is 25; and in the UK, it is just five. Improved access to diagnostic and carrier tests is necessary for even provision across the UK.
Secondly, we need better information. I have spent time between late night votes productively, you will be pleased to hear, Mr Deputy Speaker, in navigating my way around Orphanet in the Library. Orphanet is the European portal for rare diseases and orphan drugs. It provides pretty comprehensive information for patients, professionals, the public and the industry, but is not widely known. Lack of reliable, up-to-date information that helps rather than hinders the prospects of diagnosis remains a significant barrier.
The development of a UK-wide, trusted single portal of information, which has listed against each condition a named clinician who can act as a source of advice and information, would be a major step forward. It would be further enhanced by implementing the international classification of diseases—ICD-11—in 2015. That will bring about the capture of data on the incidence and natural history of rare diseases that are currently poorly understood. The Government should be preparing for such implementation as we speak. I hope that the Minister can give me and other hon. Members assurances that that is the case.
Thirdly, we need research. According to Sir John Burn, professor of clinical genetics at Newcastle university, who was kind enough to contact me, the 80% of rare diseases that have a genetic basis can now be solved using the latest DNA techniques. However, until the 23 regional genetics centres are honed into a single approval structure, huge barriers to research will continue.
Without clinical research networks, the problems of duplication and the perceived lack of impact of research will remain. The knock-on effects are continuing poor relative funding levels and holding back the development of diagnostic tests and treatments.
To ensure that clinical research networks are effective, disease registries need to be established that bring together all clinical information from all patients with a particular condition or type of condition. That will help to deliver more robust research as well as providing more co-ordinated planning and service delivery for the patient.
Fourthly, we need co-ordination of commissioning and care. I have already alluded to the disconnect between the pockets of expertise at regional level and the lack of any real cadre of experts in commissioning locally. That leaves many patients being bounced around the system, with no tangible results or benefits.
Developing a hub-and-spoke model between centres of excellence will help bridge that gap and create meaningful clinical networks. However, ultimately, the new national commissioning board provides a perfect vehicle for ironing out disparities in provision throughout the country. I therefore ask the Minister to explain exactly how the national commissioning board will help create models for cluster-type service delivery for rare diseases.
To ensure that that objective is reached, a national champion for rare diseases, with the necessary clinical clout, is essential in the form of a national clinical director. Bearing in mind that that was a recommendation by the former chief medical officer in his 2009 annual report, I ask the Minister to set out as far as he can the Government’s thinking on that.
The consultation also talks about each patient having a designated care co-ordinator in the same way as cancer patients have now. That is eminently sensible as it fulfils the objective of delivering patient-centred care, and I would be amazed if the Minister felt unable to agree to it in principle.
Fifthly, on access to orphan medicines, the evaluation and appraisal of orphan medicines is different from that of most others. Decisions on whether or not to fund treatments are often made on an individual basis and are very much dependent on which home nation, or indeed which primary care trust, the patient is from. To improve equality of access to orphan medicines requires a proper and consistent appraisal based on the issues specific to them. At the moment, that is lacking, and it follows that a reassessment of the criteria for access is necessary.
Finally and sixthly, on implementation and outcomes, ultimately any strategy is not worth the paper it is written on if it does not deliver significantly improved outcomes for patients. In the case of rare diseases, that could not be more relevant. Processes are important, but the outcome for the patient is the lasting legacy. Effective implementation of the strategy and the monitoring of outcomes flowing from it are crucial. Clear lines of responsibility for delivering the UK plan must exist and the national commissioning board has a big role to play. Without that accountability, we may never truly know whether this has all been worth our effort.
My greatest personal challenge so far this year has been to haul my body round 26 miles, but it is small beer compared with the challenges faced by the 3.5 million people in the UK who continue their battle with a rare disease. However, perhaps the greatest challenge is to our NHS, which over the years has had no choice but to adapt to the changing health needs of, and treatments available to, its patients. For people with rare diseases, the NHS needs to adapt once more. It can do it, and I hope this strategy will ensure that it does.
The Minister of State, Department of Health (Mr Simon Burns)
May I begin by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mr Timpson) on securing this debate on what is a most important topic for a great number of people, and on the sensitive way in which he outlined his concerns, particularly those that affect his family? May I also congratulate him on running the London marathon an hour and a half quicker than the shadow Chancellor?
As we have heard, anybody, at any stage in life, can be affected by a rare disease, which can range from manageable conditions that do not affect daily living to debilitating conditions that have a significant impact on one’s quality and length of life. The Government are committed to providing the best quality of care to people with rare conditions, and the importance that we attach to services for people with rare conditions is clearly demonstrated in the reforms we set out in the Health and Social Care Act 2012. Through the Act, specialised services, which are currently provided at both national and regional level through a range of NHS organisations, will be brought together under one roof. From April 2013, the new NHS Commissioning Board will directly commission services for people with rare diseases on a national basis.
My hon. Friend asks for an explanation of how the NHS Commissioning Board will operate to ensure cluster-type service delivery in respect of rare diseases. Moving to a national standard system of commissioning but maintaining a regional focus gives the geographical and speciality oversight that he describes. National specifications will lead to services being defined once for England, allowing clear planning to take place across the country.
Mr David Anderson (Blaydon) (Lab)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mr Timpson) on a fine speech. As the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on muscular dystrophy, may I ask the Minister about two connected points in respect of what he has just said? There has been a great development within neuro-muscular services and work by the House and the Department. Will the Minister meet the all-party group and the muscular dystrophy campaign to discuss the progress of the national neuro-muscular work plan? Will he also give us an assurance on the positive advantages in the south-west region—he mentioned regional development—and confirm whether there will be strategic clinical networks for neuro-muscular services across the country?
Mr Burns
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. I recognise the tremendous work he does in this area of health care and congratulate him on his efforts. With regard to a meeting, I will pass on his comments to my noble Friend the Earl Howe, who has responsibility for this area of health care. On the hon. Gentleman’s second point, I am more than happy to give him the assurances he seeks.
The proposed operating model for specialised commissioning links national service knowledge and expertise with local contract knowledge of providers and pathways of care, cementing the new system together in the interests of patients. The benefits to patients with rare conditions are clear: a single national commissioning policy and better planning and co-ordination will result in improved consistency across the country.
My hon. Friend asked me to set out the Government’s thinking on the suggestion from the former chief medical officer for a national clinical director for rare diseases. I can assure him that there will be a director within the NHS Commissioning Board with lead responsibility for specialised services for people with rare conditions. The board will also consider the most suitable form of clinical advice covering the domains of the NHS outcomes framework. Rare diseases come under domain 2: long-term conditions.
Our commitment to people with rare conditions is demonstrated through our recently published, “A UK Plan for Rare Diseases”. The consultation was launched on 29 February—Rare Disease day—and was produced jointly by the four nations of the United Kingdom. The consultation will continue until 25 May and is an important step on the way to producing the final plan. I urge everyone with an interest in this area of health care to contribute to the consultation process.
This will be the first time that the UK has developed a plan to tackle rare diseases, and the consultation represents collaboration across the four nations of the UK. It brings together a number of recommendations designed to improve the co-ordination of care and to lead to better outcomes for people with rare diseases. We suggest that improvements can be made through earlier diagnosis, better co-ordination of services, stronger research and better engagement with patients and their families. Many of these recommendations will be of direct benefit to patients and can help the NHS to be more efficient and co-ordinated and to save money.
Earlier diagnosis through clear care pathways to expert centres can prevent disability, and in some cases save lives, by allowing an earlier start for effective treatment. It will also save money by avoiding more intensive or emergency treatment. More co-ordinated care saves patients’ time, money and stress by avoiding multiple visits to various clinics. As many rare diseases are of genetic origin, we must also embrace advances in genetics and genomic medicine and ensure that the NHS is ready to support and take full advantage of these developments.
My hon. Friend has already mentioned that people with rare diseases need to be able to access orphan medicines. Our priority is to give NHS patients better access to the innovative and effective drugs that their doctors recommend for them, including those designated as “orphan drugs”. The new system of value-based pricing will bring the price the NHS pays for drugs more in line with the value it delivers. Notwithstanding this, we know that there may be instances where an individual medicine should not be assessed under value-based pricing. We will keep the situation under review. If, as we begin to implement value-based pricing, it becomes clear that some treatments would be better dealt with through separate arrangements, we will explore alternative options.
The consultation document sets out a coherent approach to tackling rare diseases. It recognises existing developments while setting out a number of further developments, such as on better information for patients to help them manage their condition. My hon. Friend asked for reassurance that we are putting steps in place in preparation for the introduction of the international classification of diseases—ICD-11. I can assure him that the NHS is moving towards widespread use of systematized nomenclature of medicine clinical terms—Snomed CT—in preparation for the introduction of ICD-11.
The consultation will inform the final UK plan for rare diseases. We hope that the final plan will offer a framework for managing rare diseases wherever they occur. Each nation of the UK will then take forward implementation of the plan in accordance with its own priorities and patterns of service. In England, much of the implementation of the final plan will be for the new NHS Commissioning Board to take forward, in close dialogue with Public Health England.
As my hon. Friend will appreciate from my comments in this relatively short but important debate, he has raised an extremely important issue that all too often is forgotten in the mainstream of the NHS, where people concentrate on more acute services, rather than this highly specialised area. My hon. Friend the Member for Stourbridge (Margot James) mentioned a particular illness or condition. May assure her that following her intervention, I will ask my noble Friend the Earl Howe to write to her about the issue she raised?
In conclusion, the development of the first ever UK plan is an important signal of our continuing commitment to providing good quality services to people with rare conditions. The consultation is aimed at a wide audience, including not just clinicians and NHS specialised commissioners, but patients, their carers and families, support groups, specialist organisations, researchers, academics and colleagues from across social care. I call on all hon. Members to encourage their constituents with an interest in rare diseases to take part in this important consultation.
Question put and agreed to.
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Written Ministerial Statements
(12 years, 7 months ago)
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ECOFIN
(12 years, 7 months ago)
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The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr Mark Hoban)
An extraordinary meeting of the Economic and Financial Affairs Council (ECOFIN) will be held in Brussels on 2 May 2012. The following items are on the agenda to be discussed:
Revised Capital Requirement Rules (CRD IV)
The council will discuss the presidency’s compromise on the Commission’s proposal to replace the capital requirements directive (directives 2006/48/EC and 2006/49/EC, as amended by directives 2009/111/EC and 2010/76/EU), with a regulation on prudential requirements and a directive on the access to the activity of credit institutions and the prudential supervision of credit institutions and investment firms, together known as “CRD IV”.
The UK will push for the full implementation of Basel 3 and for member states to have sufficient flexibility to protect financial stability in their jurisdiction.
Follow-up to the G20 meeting of finance ministers and governors and IMF spring meetings (Washington 20-22 April 2012)
The Commission will update member states on the IMF spring meetings, which took place in Washington on 19-22 April, including a meeting of G20 finance ministers and Central Bank governors. The Chancellor updated the House on the outcome of the discussions at the spring meetings, including on IMF resources, in a statement on 23 April.
Counter-Terrorist Asset Freezing Regime
(12 years, 7 months ago)
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The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr Mark Hoban)
Under the Terrorist Asset-Freezing etc. Act 2010 (“TAFA 2010”), the Treasury is required to report quarterly to Parliament on its operation of the UK’s asset freezing regime mandated by UN Security Council resolution 1373.
This is the fifth report under the Act and it covers the period from 1 January 2012 to 31 March 2012. This report also covers the UK implementation of the UN Al-Qaida asset freezing regime and the operation of the European Union (EU) asset freezing regime in the UK under the EU regulation (EC) 2580/2001 which implements UNSCR 1373 against external terrorist threats to the EU. Under the latter regime, the EU has responsibility for designations and the Treasury has responsibility for licensing and compliance with the regime in the UK under part 1 of TAFA 2010.
Annexes 1 and 2 to this statement provide a breakdown by name of all those designated by the UK and the EU in pursuance of UN Security Council resolution 1373.
Following the publication in February 2012 of the Treasury’s response to the independent reviewer’s first report on the operation of TAFA 2010, the Treasury is continuing work to implement the independent reviewer’s recommendations. Progress on these will be reported in future reports to Parliament.
The following table sets out the key asset-freezing activity in the UK during the quarter ending 31 March 2012:
Activities | TAFA 2010 | EU Reg (EC) 2580/2001 | Al-Qaida regime UNSCR 1989 |
|---|---|---|---|
Assets frozen (as at 31/03/2012) | £33,000 | £11,000 | £71,0001 |
Number of accounts frozen in UK (at 31/03/12) | 68 | 10 | 38 |
New accounts frozen | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Accounts unfrozen | 1 | 0 | 1 |
Number of designations (at 31/03/12) | 40 | 37 | 329 |
(i) new designations (during Q1 2012) | 0 | 0 | 11 |
(ii) Delistings | 2 | 14 | 25 |
(iii) individuals in custody in UK | 14 | 0 | 2 |
(iv) individuals in UK, not in detention | 5 | 0 | 7 |
(v) individuals overseas | 13 | 12 | 260 |
(vi) groups | 8 (0 in UK) | 25 | 69 (2 in UK) |
Renewal of designation | 34 | n/a | n/a |
General Licences | |||
(i) Issued in Q1 | (i) 0 | ||
(ii) Amended | (ii) 0 | ||
(iii) Revoked | (iii) 0 | ||
Specific Licences: | |||
(i) Issued | (i) 6 | (i) 0 | (i) 0 |
(ii) Revokd | (ii) 1 | (ii) 0 | (ii) 0 |
1This figure reflects the most up-to-date account balances available and includes approximately $64,000 of suspected terrorist funds frozen in the UK. This has been converted using exchange rates as of 02/04/12. |
The key area of activity during the quarter was:
Reviews of the remaining 36 existing designations, not reported on in the previous quarterly report, were conducted during the quarter, which resulted in the renewal of 34 designations and the delisting of Habib Ahmed and Selman Bozkur. The renewals and delistings were all publicised on the Treasury website. All current designations under TAFA 2010 are listed at Annex I.
Legal Challenges
Three legal challenges against designations made under both the Terrorism (United Nations Measures) Order 2009 and TAFA 2010 were ongoing in the quarter covered by this report. The challenges brought by Ismail Bhuta and Habib Ahmed were withdrawn during the quarter, in accordance with agreed terms of settlement. There were no specific developments during the quarter in the case brought by Zana Rahim.
Proceedings
In the quarter to 31 March 2012, no proceedings were initiated in respect of breaches of the prohibitions of the Act or the Al-Qaida (Asset-Freezing) Regulations 2011.
Designated persons under TAFA 2010 by name |
|---|
Individuals |
1. Hamed ABDOLLAHI |
2. Bilal Talal ABDULLAH |
3. Imad Khalil AL-ALAMI |
4. Abdula Ahmed ALI |
5. Abdelkarim Hussein AL-NASSER |
6. Ibrahim Salih AL-YACOUB |
7. Manssor ARBABSIAR |
8. Usama HAMDAN |
9. Nabeel HUSSAIN |
10. Tanvir HUSSAIN |
11. Zahoor IQBAL |
12. Umar ISLAM |
13. Hasan IZZ-AL-DIN |
14. Parviz KHAN |
15. Waheed Arafat KHAN |
16. Osman Adam KHATIB |
17. Musa Abu MARZOUK |
18. Gulam MASTAFA |
19. Khalid MISHAAL |
20. Khalid Shaikh MOHAMMED |
21. Ramzi MOHAMMED |
22. Sultan MUHAMMAD |
23. Yassin OMAR |
24. Hussein OSMAN |
25. Zana Abdul RAHIM |
26. Muktar Mohammed SAID |
27. Assad SARWAR |
28. Ibrahim SAVANT |
29. Abdul Reza SHAHLAI |
30. Ali Gholam SHAKURI |
31. Qasem SOLEIMANI |
32. Waheed ZAMAN |
Entities |
|---|
1. BASQUE FATHERLAND AND LIBERTY (ETA) |
2. EJERCITO DE LIBERACION NACIONAL (ELN) |
3. FUERZAS ARMADAS REVOLUCIONARIAS DE COLOMBIA (FARC) |
4. HIZBALLAH MILITARY WING, INCLUDING EXTERNAL SECURITY ORGANISATION |
5. HOLY LAND FOUNDATION FOR RELIEF AND DEVELOPMENT |
6. POPULAR FRONT FOR THE LIBERATION OF PALESTINE—GENERAL COMMAND (PFLP-GC) |
7. POPULAR FRONT FOR THE LIBERATION OF PALESTINE (PFLP) |
8. SENDERO LUMINOSO (SL) |
2 For full listing details please refer to http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/d/terrorism.htm |
Persons designated by the EU under Council Regulation (EC)2580/20013 |
|---|
Persons |
1. Hamed ABDOLLAHI* |
2. Abdeikarim Hussein AL-NASSER* |
3. Ibrahim Salih AL YACOUB* |
4. Manssor ARBABSIAR* |
5. Mohammed BOUYERI |
6. Sofiane Yacine FAHAS |
7. Hasan IZZ-AL-DIN* |
8. Khalid Shaikh MOHAMMED* |
9. Abdul Reza SHAHLAI* |
10. Ali Gholam SHAKURI* |
11. Qasem SOLEIMANI* |
12. Jason Theodore WALTERS |
Groups And Entities |
|---|
1. Abu Nidal Organisation (ANO) |
2. Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade |
3. Al-Aqsa e.V. |
4. Al-Takfir and Al-Hijra |
5. Babbar Khalsa |
6. Communist Party of the Philippines, including New People’s Army (NPA), Philippines |
7. Gama’a al-Islamiyya (a.k.a. Al-Gama’a al-Islamiyya) (Islamic Group—IG) |
8. Islami Büyük Dogu Akincilar Cephesi (IBDA-C) (Great Islamic Eastern Warriors Front) |
9. Hamas, including Hamas-Izz al-Din al-Qassem |
10. Hizbul Mujahideen (HM) |
11. Hofstadgroep |
12. Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development* |
13. International Sikh Youth Federation (ISYF) |
14. Khalistan Zindabad Force (KZF) |
15. Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) (a.k.a. KONGRA-GEL) |
16. Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) |
17. Ejército de Liberación Nacional (National Liberation Army)* |
18. Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) |
19. Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP)* |
20. Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine—General Command (PFLP-GC)* |
21. Fuerzas armadas revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC)* |
22. Devrimci Halk Kurtulu Partisi-Cephesi—DHKP/C (Revolutionary People’s Liberation Army/Front/Party) |
23. Sendero Luminoso (SL) (Shining Path)* |
24. Stichting Al Aqsa |
25. Teyrbazen Azadiya Kurdistan (TAK) |
3For full listing details please refer to http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/d/terrorism.htm. * EU listing rests on UK designation under TAFA 2010 |
UK 2012 National Reform Programme
(12 years, 7 months ago)
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The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr Mark Hoban)
The Government have today published the UK 2012 national reform programme. The document has been submitted to the European Commission, as part of the European semester.
National Reform Programme
Under council recommendation 2010/410 of 13 July 2010, member states submit national reform programmes each year, which report to the Commission on their structural reforms and plans.
The UK 2012 national reform programme reports on actions taken by the UK as a whole, including by the Government and by the devolved Administrations where policy responses are of a devolved competence.
The 2012 national reform programme:
puts the UK’s structural reforms in the context of deficit reduction and the 2011 autumn statement and plan for growth;
reports on the broad macro-economic context, which uses the same text as the UK’s convergence programme;
reports on policies to tackle the five country-specific recommendations addressed to the UK by the June 2011 European Council: continuing with fiscal consolidation; reforms to the housing market; improving the employability of young people; reducing worklessness; and increasing access to finance; and
sets out the UK’s approach to national monitoring, in line with the five headline Europe 2020 targets agreed by the European Council in June 2010.
The national reform programme only draws on public information and is based on the announcements and forecasts of Budget 2012, “The Plan for Growth” and the autumn statement 2011. It is, therefore, entirely based on information already presented to Parliament.
Copies of the document will be deposited in the Libraries of both Houses and will be available on the Treasury website at: www.hm-treasury.gov.uk.
Informal Environment and Energy Councils
(12 years, 7 months ago)
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The Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change (Charles Hendry)
I represented the United Kingdom at the climate change aspects of the EU informal Environment Council and at the informal Energy Council in Denmark on 19 April 2012.
I attended the lunchtime discussion at the informal Environment Council on the future of the EU emissions trading scheme. There was broad agreement that while the ETS is delivering the required level of carbon emissions to meet the EU’s 2020 target, it is failing to deliver the necessary investment signals in low carbon. The low ETS price means that there is now a much reduced incentive to invest in low-carbon technology and infrastructure, meaning a risk of future lock-in to high carbon. There was almost universal support for Commission action to resolve these issues.
At the informal Energy Council, discussion on the first day focused on the energy efficiency directive. The presidency outlined the state of play of negotiations. Most Ministers expressed support for the latest presidency text and for the presidency in their efforts to secure agreement by the end of June. I and a number of other member states argued that the directive must be ambitious to ensure that it delivers real and additional energy savings.
The second day of the council (when the UK was represented by a DECC official) focused on the “2050 Energy Roadmap”. The presidency outlined the “no regrets” option of greater energy efficiency, more renewable energy and new flexible infrastructure. Commissioner Oettinger outlined the main features of the EU’s transition to a low-carbon economy: the need for regulatory predictability to encourage investment; a decarbonised energy sector; and flexibility for member states within a wider framework. He outlined his plan for a 12 to 18 month debate on the post-2020 regulatory structure for energy. In a wide-ranging discussion, most member states supported the “no regrets” option. The presidency plans to ask for agreement on conclusions on the energy road map at the June Energy Council.
Promoting and Protecting Human Rights (Command Paper)
(12 years, 7 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr William Hague)
I have today laid before the House a copy of the 2011 Foreign and Commonwealth Office report on human rights and democracy.
The report comprehensively assesses developments in human rights in 2011 and provides information about some important developments in early 2012. It sets out what the Government are doing through the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to promote human rights and democratic values around the world, in three principal areas: it documents the serious concerns we have about a range of countries where we are seeking to influence the human rights situation; it assesses progress on thematic issues that cut across geographic boundaries; and it reports on areas where we believe we have seen positive developments over the last year. We have made some significant changes to the format of the report itself this year, including the introduction of case studies.
I am determined that we will continue to strengthen and develop the Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s work on human rights. With this in mind, I have decided to allocate an additional £1.5 million in 2012 to our human rights programme work, which will be focused in particular on projects to promote freedom of expression online and the implementation of the UN guiding principles on business and human rights.
I have also decided to introduce changes to make the Foreign Office’s human rights reporting even more responsive to rapidly changing situations. An annual report can only look backwards, yet in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office we monitor and respond to change as it happens and our reporting needs to reflect this. It is sometimes the case that a country not regarded as a ‘country of concern’ at the beginning of the reporting period may experience important human rights developments.
Over the current reporting period, and for the first time, we will make quarterly decisions on whether systematic reporting on developments in other countries, not listed in the 2011 report as countries of concern, is required.
This more flexible quarterly reporting will strengthen the assessments we make about which countries should be added to or removed from the list of countries of concern in the 2012 annual report.
On the basis of the first of these assessments, I have decided that we should report quarterly on the situation in Bahrain and Ethiopia, and that we should review the situation in Rwanda and Egypt in depth at the mid-year point. These four countries are covered as case studies in the 2011 report.
Taken together, the report, the additional funding and these changes to our reporting system underline the Government’s determination to continue to place the effective promotion of human rights at the heart of our foreign policy.
Prison Service Pay Review Body
(12 years, 7 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Crispin Blunt)
I am pleased to announce that the Prime Minister has appointed Ann Jarvis as a member of the Prison Service Pay Review Body for three years commencing April 2012. The appointment has been conducted in accordance with the Office of the Commissioner for Public Appointments code of practice on appointments to public bodies.
Military Medals Review
(12 years, 7 months ago)
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The Prime Minister (Mr David Cameron)
This Government are fully committed to recognising all that our armed forces do to keep us safe. That is why this Government have enshrined the military covenant in law. Today, I am pleased to update the House on the fresh review of the rules and principles governing the award of military campaign medals that Lord Astor announced in the House last October (26 October 2011, Official Report, column 856).
The review will make recommendations where appropriate for any change.
I have appointed Sir John Holmes to carry out this review to ensure that it is fully independent. Sir John is currently director at the Ditchley Foundation, and formerly served as the UN’s Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator and as Her Majesty’s ambassador in Paris and Lisbon.
I have asked Sir John Holmes to report on his review by the summer.
A copy of the terms of reference has been placed in the Libraries of both Houses.
Workplace Pension Reform
(12 years, 7 months ago)
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The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Steve Webb)
Later today the Government will publish the consultation document “Automatic enrolment: Career Average schemes as Qualifying Schemes”. This addresses an issue that could prevent some good quality pension schemes from being used as qualifying schemes under the reforms.
The Government’s policy on career average pension schemes is to allow them to be used as qualifying schemes and for the purposes of automatic enrolment so long as they provide for the benefits to be revalued at, or above, a prescribed minimum rate.
The consultation proposes amendments to those regulations to give more flexibility for schemes over how they provide for revaluation while still ensuring that members’ interests are fully protected. The period of formal consultation will begin today and last for six weeks, ending on 11 June.
I hope that those people and organisations with an interest in this subject will take the time to offer their views and advice.
Draft regulations will be published alongside the consultation document.
A copy of the consultation document and draft regulations will be placed in the Library of the House and will be available later today on the Department’s website: http://www.dwp.gov.uk/consultations/2012/.