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 3 July.
Canterbury City Council Bill
Motion made,
That so much of the Lords Message [21 May] as relates to the Canterbury City Council Bill be now considered.—(The First Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means.)
Hon. Members
Object.
To be considered on Tuesday 3 July.
Leeds City Council Bill
Motion made,
That so much of the Lords Message [21 May] as relates to the Leeds City Council Bill be now considered.—(The First Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means.)
Hon. Members
Object.
To be considered on Tuesday 3 July.
Nottingham City Council Bill
Motion made,
That so much of the Lords Message [21 May] as relates to the Nottingham City Council Bill be now considered.—(The First Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means.)
Hon. Members
Object.
To be considered on Tuesday 3 July.
Reading Borough Council Bill
Motion made,
That so much of the Lords Message [21 May] as relates to the Reading Borough Council Bill be now considered.—(The First Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means.)
Hon. Members
Object.
To be considered on Tuesday 3 July.
City of London (Various Powers) Bill [Lords]
Motion made,
That so much of the Lords Message [21 May] as relates to the City of London (Various Powers) Bill [Lords] be now considered.—(The First Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means.)
Hon. Members
Object.
To be considered on Tuesday 3 July.
Transport for London Bill [Lords]
Motion made,
That so much of the Lords Message [21 May] as relates to the Transport for London Bill [Lords] be now considered. —(The First Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means.)
Oral Answers to Questions
(12 years, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Teresa Pearce (Erith and Thamesmead) (Lab)
1. When he expects to publish the consultation document on tackling excessive card surcharges.
Mr Andrew Love (Edmonton) (Lab/Co-op)
8. When he expects to publish the consultation document on tackling excessive card surcharges.
The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr Mark Hoban)
The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills is taking forward work on excessive credit card surcharges. I understand that the consultation to seek views on how and when a ban might be applied is going on in the summer.
Teresa Pearce
For many years, families in my constituency have faced surcharges—sometimes 240 times the actual processing costs—when booking plane tickets. There are now charges on theatre tickets and utility bills and some funeral directors are applying them. Given the prevalence of this issue, does the Chancellor still intend to ban excessive debit and credit card charges by the end of the year?
Mr Hoban
The hon. Lady is absolutely right to highlight the costs imposed by this on our constituents. Our estimate was that in 2010 nearly £500 million was spent by consumers on surcharges. It is still our intention to ban them. Both consumers and businesses should be clear that after many years of inaction by our predecessors, it is this Government’s intention to ban these excessive charges.
Mr Love
The super-complaint was upheld in December last year. The Government have not even started the consultation that would be necessary to introduce this measure. Meanwhile, £8 million a month has been lost just by those suffering surcharges on flights from this country. When are we going to get some action?
Mr Hoban
As I said, we are going to publish a consultation this summer and take action to ban these surcharges as soon as possible after that. We should be very clear not only that we are going to ban them, but that some firms have already responded to the action we are going to take, with a number of them reducing their charges on credit and debit card use. That shows that even without legislative action, consumers are getting a better deal as a consequence of our policy.
Mr David Evennett (Bexleyheath and Crayford) (Con)
This is a matter of very serious concern to our constituents. May I welcome the Minister’s commitment to tackling the payment surcharges and urge him to do whatever he can as soon as possible?
Mr Hoban
I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s welcome. I am working closely with the Under-Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, my hon. Friend the Member for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb), who is responsible for consumer affairs, to ensure that we act as quickly as possible to ban these surcharges and to deliver a better deal to consumers.
Natascha Engel (North East Derbyshire) (Lab)
2. What estimate he has made of the proportion of the money issued through quantitative easing which has been used by banks to pay off their debts.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr George Osborne)
Quantitative easing is a tool of the independent Monetary Policy Committee and has been designed to work through channels other than the impaired banking system by stimulating activity in capital markets. The Government and the Bank of England are working together on a new funding for lending scheme that will more broadly support sustained and increased bank lending to the economy. I can confirm for the first time that in the three months since the start of the national loan guarantee scheme, over 10,000 cheaper loans worth over £1.5 billion have been offered to businesses. I can also confirm that we have today secured EU state aid approval to extend the scheme to medium-sized businesses with a turnover of up to £250 million. That means 99.9% of UK businesses can now benefit.
Natascha Engel
Quantitative easing was certainly intended to stimulate the economy, but in reality it is being used to write off the debts of reckless banks with hundreds of billions of pounds’ worth of virtual money. Has anyone in Government thought through the consequences of this policy, and if so, what are they?
Mr Osborne
The Bank of England conducted a study of the first round of QE that it undertook under the last Government, and estimated that it had increased real GDP by between 1.5% and 2%. The Bank’s chief economist says that the asset programme regime
“was explicitly designed to go around the banking system”.
I therefore do not accept the hon. Lady’s characterisation.
Mr Andrew Tyrie (Chichester) (Con)
Now that the Bank of England has finally shown more willingness to provide some liquidity support, there should be no obstacle to the exercising of more flexibility by the Financial Services Authority when it comes to how the liquidity buffers are used. That is being desperately demanded by banks. Does my right hon. Friend agree that the FSA should take action as soon as possible, and that such action is what is required to provide borrowing and lending at reasonable rates for the hundreds and thousands of businesses throughout the country that need it so desperately?
Mr Osborne
The liquidity auction undertaken by the Bank of England last week was very welcome, and the Bank is proposing future auctions. My hon. Friend, who chairs the Treasury Committee, has been prescient in pointing to some of the procyclical nature—if unintended—of some of the liquidity regulation in the United Kingdom in recent years. The Financial Policy Committee was set up to look at risks on both the downside and the upside. The Financial Services Authority must make its own independent decisions, but I am sure that it will have paid close attention to my speech and to the speech of the Governor of the Bank of England at the Mansion House.
Mr Adrian Bailey (West Bromwich West) (Lab/Co-op)
Notwithstanding the Chancellor’s warm words about the impact of quantitative easing, I have yet to meet a banker, a businessman or indeed a Government representative who can identify the benefits that have accrued as a result of its introduction. While I do not necessarily oppose it, all the evidence that I am being given by bankers suggests that lack of demand is causing the main problem. Will the Chancellor do something to stimulate consumer demand and investment confidence in order to maximise the potential that quantitative easing might bring?
Mr Osborne
In conducting its most recent assessment of the UK economy, the IMF explicitly looked at unconventional monetary policy tools that are currently being used, and concluded that quantitative easing was having a positive impact. I think that we should welcome that. I believe that we are able to pursue loose monetary policy—that we are able to use all the tools that are available to us on the monetary policy side—precisely because we have international credibility on the fiscal side.
Matthew Hancock (West Suffolk) (Con)
21. I, too, warmly welcome the action of the Bank of England last week to increase liquidity in its liquidity auction, but should not the role of the Financial Policy Committee be not only to stand against procyclical financial policy and liquidity buffers, but to lean against the wind and make sure that we can get the lending to businesses in our constituencies?
Mr Osborne
The Government established the Financial Policy Committee because under the previous tripartite regime, designed and implemented by the shadow Chancellor, absolutely no one was paying attention to overall levels of debt and credit in the economy. That is why we had such a deep recession, and why we went from such a large boom to such a big bust—to coin a phrase. My hon. Friend is entirely right: the FPC should be symmetrical in the way in which it looks at risks. We have made that clear, and we are amending the Financial Services Bill in the House of Lords to ensure that that the FPC has, as a secondary objective, due regard for the Government’s broader economic policy.
Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (PC)
Yesterday the Financial Times reported that the Bank for International Settlements was warning of the dangers for economies that get hooked on ultra-low interest rates. Is not the reality that monetary policy alone will not kick-start the sustained recovery, and that fiscal intervention will be needed if we are to avoid a lost decade?
Mr Osborne
The very low interest and mortgage rates in Britain are extremely welcome to families and businesses across the country. If we want to know what the alternative looks like, we just have to look across the channel at countries that have not been able to maintain their credibility in international markets, where we see rising bank lending and funding costs and increased costs for Government borrowing. We have now five countries in the eurozone who have had to apply for bail-outs. It is because we have fiscal credibility despite inheriting the largest budget deficit in the European Union that we have been able to keep our interest rates very low.
Ian Swales (Redcar) (LD)
I, too, welcome the announcement of extra liquidity for our banks, but how will the Chancellor ensure that our international banks lend this money to British businesses?
Mr Osborne
The funding for lending scheme, which the Governor and I announced at the Mansion House, is explicitly designed to address the high bank funding costs and it is tied to lending into the UK economy, so that is precisely what this new scheme is designed to do.
Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)
3. What recent estimate he has made of the level of economic growth in 2012.
The Chief Secretary to the Treasury (Danny Alexander)
The Office for Budget Responsibility is responsible for producing independent economic and fiscal forecasts. In its March economic and fiscal outlook, the OBR forecasted economic growth of 0.8% in 2012, but more recent independent forecasts have been lower, reflecting the fact that the euro-area crisis remains the biggest risk to the UK recovery.
Stephen Timms
A worryingly large jump in Government borrowing has been reported today. Why is it that of all the G20 countries, only Britain and Italy are in recession?
Danny Alexander
The right hon. Gentleman refers to borrowing, but his Front-Bench team wants us to borrow tens of billions of pounds more, which is not the right response. If he studies the figures carefully, he will see that departmental spending is rising much less than was forecast, but, of course, the automatic stabilisers in the economy are operating. That is precisely the flexibility in our plan, which is tough on the structural deficit but supportive of the economy.
George Freeman (Mid Norfolk) (Con)
Has my right hon. Friend seen the latest Office for National Statistics figures, which show that unemployment is down 50,000 in the last quarter and over 800,000 new jobs have been created since we took office? Does he agree that this suggests that the Government’s programme of deficit credibility, public sector restraint and support for business is laying the foundations for a sustainable recovery?
Danny Alexander
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that question. He is, of course, right to say that the recent figures show that unemployment has been falling, and that is good news, of course. Inflation is also coming down, which is good news for hard-pressed consumers.
Rachel Reeves (Leeds West) (Lab)
Does the Chief Secretary think the fact that the economy is in recession explains why today’s figures show that borrowing is going up, not down as the Government intended?
Danny Alexander
As I said to the right hon. Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms), the figures reflect a combination of things, including the fact that departmental spending has been held down by more than was forecast, but the automatic stabilisers in the economy are operating. That is the flexibility in our plan. It is because of the fiscal credibility the Government have brought to this country that we can do that.
Rachel Reeves
I do not think the Chief Secretary answered the question. Figures out this morning show that, with the economy in recession, tax receipts are falling, and the benefits bill is going up, so borrowing is already £4 billion higher this year than last. Is it not time that the Government admitted their plan has failed, and without action on jobs and growth, borrowing does not go down, it just goes up?
Danny Alexander
That is an astonishing question from the party that made the mess in the British economy that we are trying to clear up, and the party whose plans wanted this Government to borrow even more. That just goes to show what would have happened to the UK economy if we had been unfortunate enough to have the Labour party stay in power.
Nicholas Soames (Mid Sussex) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that protectionism is the enemy of economic growth? What steps will he take to re-energise the Doha round?
Danny Alexander
I wholeheartedly agree with my right hon. Friend. It is a very important point that, in times of economic stress worldwide, some countries may seek a protectionist approach. That is why at the forthcoming European summit the Prime Minister will again be arguing for measures within Europe to strengthen the single market and to increase free trade within the EU, and for measures for the EU to take to build on the free trade agreements that, collectively, we are signing with a number of other important economies in the world. We need to keep up the momentum of that process in order to help support the world economy.
Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)
4. What progress he has made on his consultation on regional pay for public sector workers; and if he will make a statement.
The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Miss Chloe Smith)
The independent pay review bodies are considering how public sector pay can be made more responsive to local labour markets, and will report from July. Nothing has been decided, and no changes will be made unless there is strong supporting evidence and a rational case for proceeding.
Jessica Morden
The Tory finance spokesperson in the Welsh Assembly said that introducing regional pay could disadvantage thousands of public sector workers, and that
“we are making it absolutely clear that we are against”
it. Does the Minister agree?
Miss Smith
As I have just set out, this is a question at present for the independent pay review bodies, which will report back in July. There is an argument that more local, market-facing pay in the public sector has the potential to support more for the same investment, and to help local businesses become more competitive.
Michael Fallon (Sevenoaks) (Con)
23. How can it be fair for small businesses outside London and the south-east to have to compete for staff paid on national rates working in public offices? Given that the last Government committed us to local pay nearly 10 years ago, and that it already operates in the Courts Service, what is the problem with encouraging other departments to follow suit?
Miss Smith
My hon. Friend makes a valuable point that I am sure the independent pay review bodies will consider. If I were to put a number on the average premium for working in the public sector, I could name 18% in Wales.
Cathy Jamieson (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (Lab/Co-op)
Last week, it was left to the Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General to come to the Chamber to explain the Treasury’s position on regional pay. Was that because the Chief Secretary does not support the policy and the part-time Chancellor does not want to make another U-turn?
Miss Smith
We had an extensive and rather premature debate on this last week in the Chamber, and I shall say again what I said then: the independent pay review bodies are producing a report, and it would be premature to review that without the evidence, which they are considering.
Sarah Newton (Truro and Falmouth) (Con)
5. What recent steps he has taken to reduce the cost of living.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr George Osborne)
Rising global prices have increased the cost of living for families here in Britain. This coalition Government will do everything we can to help. We have already frozen council tax, kept mortgage bills low and abolished the fuel duty escalator. I can tell people that we will now stop any rise in fuel duty this August and freeze it for the rest of the year. This means that fuel duty will be 10p a litre lower than planned by the last Labour Government. We are on the side of working families and businesses, and this will fuel our recovery at this very difficult economic time for the world. The one-off cost of this change will be fully paid for by the larger than forecast savings in departmental budgets, and we will set out details of those, as usual, in the autumn statement.
Sarah Newton
If I were not on crutches I would be jumping for joy. The people of Cornwall will really welcome this move, which proves once more that this Government are on the side of hard-working families.
Mr Osborne
My hon. Friend is absolutely right and I know this news will be welcome in Cornwall, as across the country. I repeat: because of the actions we have taken today and in recent Budgets, petrol duty is 10p a litre lower than it would have been under the Budget plans voted for by the Labour party. We are on the side of working families, we are helping motorists, helping businesses—doing everything we can in very difficult circumstances for the world.
Catherine McKinnell (Newcastle upon Tyne North) (Lab)
I am glad that the Chancellor is beginning to listen to the shadow Chancellor. However, the Government’s own figures show that cuts to tax credits are leaving thousands of parents up to £72 a week worse off, and some are better off if they quit their jobs. With the cost of living rising and the economy in double-dip recession, surely it is time we saw a U-turn on this perverse policy, to make sure that work pays.
Mr Osborne
First, all families, if we take into account the benefit and tax changes, are £5.50 better off a week from April, and we have actually increased tax credits for the poorest families. We have had to make difficult welfare changes. They were completely opposed by the Labour party, which also opposed the cap on welfare benefits. We have to ask the question: what would Labour Members do to get control of the budget deficit that they created? We have had two years and not a single answer from Labour. That is why, as I say, we are the people trusted to lead this country out of the economic mess that they put us in.
Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is astonishing that Opposition Members do not welcome his announcement to cut the fuel duty that they proposed when they were in government? Does he agree that this Government will focus everything they can on cutting the cost of living for hard-working people?
Mr Osborne
We should judge people by actions as well as words, and Labour Members voted for increases in fuel duty, which this Government have stopped. That is because we are on the side of working families, whereas Labour Members are simply on the side of the economic mess that they created.
Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)
6. What assessment he has made of the performance of the economy in the last 18 months.
The Chief Secretary to the Treasury (Danny Alexander)
As the Office for Budget Responsibility made clear last autumn, Britain’s recovery has faced strong headwinds from the euro area, high oil prices and the impact of the financial crisis being deeper than previously thought. Our actions to reduce the deficit and rebuild the economy have secured stability and kept interest rates near record lows, benefiting families, businesses and taxpayers, although, of course, considerable external risks remain.
Andrew Gwynne
That just does not wash, because by May 2010 the British economy was growing, whereas since the Government’s emergency Budget of June 2010 the economy has at best flatlined and at worst dropped back into recession. Why does the right hon. Gentleman think that is?
Danny Alexander
By May 2010, the hon. Gentleman’s Labour Government had put in place plans to increase fuel duty by above the rate of inflation each and every year of this Parliament. He should be welcoming the fact that we are taking steps to support hard-pressed families and hard-pressed consumers across the country in the very difficult economic circumstances that we face.
Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that motorists across the country will welcome the cut in fuel tax announced for August and that it will greatly improve the performance of the economy? Does this not show that the Government are on the side of hard-pressed working people?
Danny Alexander
I agree entirely with my hon. Friend. I met representatives of the FairFuelUK campaign yesterday. We have a great deal of sympathy with its arguments, as well as with those made by families across this country, including in remote and rural areas. It is worth saying that thanks to the decisions this coalition Government have made not only is fuel tax 10p a litre lower than under Labour’s plans, but council tax is lower and income tax is lower. In the Budget in March we also saw the largest ever increase in the income tax personal allowance, all of which puts money back into the pockets of hard-pressed families.
Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)
7. What recent assessment he has made of the effect of EU regulations on economic growth.
The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr Mark Hoban)
The Government are taking action to reduce the burden of EU regulation on UK business. At Budget 2011, the “Plan for Growth” announced a comprehensive package for tackling EU regulation. The Government estimate that the cost of European regulations to the UK has varied from 27% to 60% of the total UK regulatory cost since October 2009.
Mr Nuttall
I am grateful to the Minister for that reply. Although British businesses will welcome the fact that the United Kingdom is not in the eurozone, and will not suffer from the loss of sovereignty and the new regulations that fiscal union would mean, they are nevertheless burdened by EU-imposed red tape, which means that it is much harder for them to compete successfully for new contracts against companies from outside the EU, which are not subject to such regulations. May I urge him urgently to conduct an investigation into and an assessment of the extent to which that is holding back the British economy?
Mr Hoban
My hon. Friend makes an important point, and that is why we are taking action through the “Plan for Growth”. We want the Commission to publish an annual audit of the cumulative cost of all planned EU regulations, but assessments are not enough in themselves, which is why as a consequence of lobbying by this Government the EU has introduced an exemption for micro-businesses and is looking at lifting the burden of regulation on the small and medium-sized businesses that are key drivers of growth in our economy.
Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)
I am sure I am not alone in believing that what regulation we do have should be made by this Parliament and not by the Commission in Brussels. However, I am sure that the Minister will be aware of the survey reported by the CBI that shows that 94% of businesses are concerned above all about demand and the ability to sell their goods and services. Is that not the problem with Government economic policy?
Mr Hoban
What we need are measures to tackle some of the structural problems in the economy that we inherited from the previous Government and to tackle issues to do with education, transport infrastructure and the complexity of the tax system. Those are the reforms we need to ensure that the economy grows.
Damian Collins (Folkestone and Hythe) (Con)
9. What recent steps he has taken to encourage economic growth.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr George Osborne)
To help the economy, we are cutting taxes for businesses and families. We are, as we have just heard, freezing fuel duty, helping 10,000 businesses with the national loan guarantee scheme, reforming the planning system, creating enterprise zones, setting up the regional growth fund and creating the biggest number of apprenticeships this country has ever seen.
Damian Collins
The recent Growth Factory report on industrial strategy highlighted the importance of rebalancing our economy. Does the Chancellor agree that the record increase in employment in the manufacturing sector in the first quarter of this year is a welcome sign of the growing confidence at the heart of our economy?
Mr Osborne
My hon. Friend is right and I commend him and his group for the interesting ideas, many of which I agree with, that they are promoting. He is absolutely right to point out the increase in employment, including in manufacturing employment. An interesting recent statistic from an independent international body on the British economy showed that the share of manufacturing in the UK economy is increasing for the first time in a very long time, having almost halved under the previous Labour Government.
Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)
Why did not the Chancellor cut fuel duty sooner? Why has it taken him all this time? He has done about 33 U-turns as far as I can see.
Mr Osborne
Last year we cut fuel duty and froze it. This year, we have frozen it again and the hon. Gentleman should welcome that. I know that he is in a slightly difficult position in that he was one of the Labour MPs who voted for the increase that we have now delayed, but he should just get up and welcome these moves.
Stephen Gilbert (St Austell and Newquay) (LD)
Economic growth in Cornwall would be discouraged by the introduction of regional pay or the regionalisation of benefits. Will the Chancellor undertake to publish the Government’s evidence to the independent pay review bodies that are considering this issue?
Mr Osborne
I point out to my hon. Friend that we have published that evidence. As I say, the matter is now with the independent pay review bodies, so let us wait to hear what they have to say.
Roberta Blackman-Woods (City of Durham) (Lab)
10. If he will discuss with his ministerial colleagues bringing forward the timing of public infrastructure investment in order to encourage economic growth.
The Chief Secretary to the Treasury (Danny Alexander)
We are having those discussions as we speak. We are already spending more on new roads and new rail now than we were at the height of the spending boom in the previous Parliament. We have provided £2.4 billion for the regional growth fund, £770 million for the Growing Places fund and £570 million for the Get Britain Building fund. We can also support infrastructure investment through the use of Government guarantees and will be announcing more about how we plan to do so later this summer.
Roberta Blackman-Woods
But will the Chief Secretary listen to the business leaders quoted recently in the Financial Times, who said that they had heard Ministers talking about infrastructure projects for months but with no visible results? Will he publish a timetable today, or very soon, for each region showing the projects that will be brought forward with their delivery dates?
Danny Alexander
The hon. Lady will have seen that last November we published the national infrastructure plan, which does precisely what she said and which was widely welcomed by business leaders and business organisations across the country. She will know that we are spending more on road and rail than the previous Government managed, including on a number of projects in her part of the world.
Jane Ellison (Battersea) (Con)
My constituents warmly welcome the Government’s support for the Northern line extension in the Vauxhall/Nine Elms development area. Is that not a good example of exactly the kind of infrastructure project that the Government could support to help unlock economic growth?
Danny Alexander
It is precisely such an example of the sort of infrastructure that this country needs and the sort of project from which the economy of London and elsewhere will benefit if we can bring the investment forward and make things happen more quickly. As I said, we are looking for ideas about doing just that.
Mr Geoffrey Robinson (Coventry North West) (Lab)
Is the Chief Secretary not aware that the so-called national infrastructure programme is way behind schedule, that the construction industry is flat on its back and that the apprenticeships in that sector, so badly needed by the industry and by the Government, are seizing up? Why does he not get his finger out and do something about it instead of making vague promises?
Danny Alexander
The hon. Gentleman is wrong to say that the national infrastructure plan, which we published last November, is behind schedule, but of course he is right to say that there are problems in the construction sector. That is why we have taken a number of steps to support the house building sector, but we will make further announcements in that area later this summer.
Elizabeth Truss (South West Norfolk) (Con)
Over the past four years, footfall on the Norwich-Cambridge line and the Fen line has increased by 20%. In the Government’s infrastructure plan, will they bring forward the upgrading of the Ely North junction, which will enable half-hourly services on both those lines?
Danny Alexander
I do not know the details of the Ely North junction project but I shall certainly raise the matter with the Secretary of State for Transport. However, that is precisely the sort of project we have been bringing forward over the past two years to support economic growth across the whole of the United Kingdom, rather than having a model of growth based solely on receipts from the City of London, which was basically the policy of the Labour party.
Mr Rob Wilson (Reading East) (Con)
11. What recent steps he has taken to increase bank lending to small businesses.
The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr Mark Hoban)
The Government have launched a package of credit easing measures to improve credit availability for smaller businesses. This includes the £20 billion national loan guarantee scheme and the business finance partnership, which will provide £1.2 billion of additional finance through non-banking channels. The Government and the Bank of England are working together on the new funding for lending scheme, which will provide funding to banks linked to their lending to the real economy.
Mr Wilson
There are a significant number of small businesses in my constituency that want to expand and create jobs but cannot get sensible bank financing. I therefore welcome the recently announced funding for lending scheme, but I understand that in exchange for this funding, banks will have to provide collateral to the Bank of England. Will my hon. Friend confirm, given that the precise details of the scheme are not available yet, whether small loans will be acceptable to the Bank of England as collateral? Otherwise, the desired lending to smaller businesses will not get off the ground.
Mr Hoban
My hon. Friend makes a very important point. He is right to point out that the details of the scheme have yet to be finalised, but I take on board his comments. We will discuss this with the Bank of England. It is important that the scheme works and that it helps funding and lending to households and businesses.
Mr George Mudie (Leeds East) (Lab)
In view of the banks’ disgraceful behaviour on delivering the Merlin agreement, will the Minister assure the House that this new scheme will be transparent and will be published and monitored independently each month? Above all, will he assure us that every pound of additional money that goes to the banks through this scheme will mean additional lending to small businesses and households?
Mr Hoban
The scheme is designed to encourage lending not just to small businesses and households but across the board to all businesses. We want to make sure that when banks put collateral to the Bank of England, it is in response to their having lent more. That is absolutely vital for a scheme that encourages lending and we will make sure that we design the scheme to do so.
Mr Russell Brown (Dumfries and Galloway) (Lab)
12. What assessment he has made of the effect of the Government's fiscal policies on the level of child poverty.
The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Miss Chloe Smith)
The Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission is being set up and will provide an assessment of child poverty using a wide range of measures, including income.
Miss Smith
The Government have confirmed their commitment to child poverty targets and we are going further by consulting on better measures of child poverty in the autumn. We seek a range of views on that.
Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)
Does the Minister agree that the real failing of the previous Government was their narrow focus on income transfers instead of addressing the real root causes of welfare dependency such as low aspirations and worklessness?
Miss Smith
I certainly do. The important point is how we help people to get out of poverty and stay out. I note that there are problems with the current measure of poverty. Because median incomes fall, children are considered to have moved out of poverty when there will have been no real change to their lives. That cannot be a fully accurate measure.
Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)
What will the Government do to address the still very high levels of in-work poverty, and how can freezing working tax credit and reducing help with child care costs possibly help?
Miss Smith
Let me name a number of things the Government are doing to support families and let me note our plans to move toward universal credit, which will help with work incentives. Let me note our plans to have doubled the number of disadvantaged two-year-olds receiving free hours of child care each week. On tax credits, let me note that we have had to fix the previous Government’s unsustainable budgeting in that area and that six out of 10 families with children are still eligible.
Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)
Is it not especially important that we take action on child poverty, given the quite sharp increase in the previous Parliament? The targets were missed by about 600,000, I think, and when the previous Government left office, 4 million children were in poverty.
Miss Smith
My hon. Friend is correct: child poverty is a real problem. This Government are committed to eradicating it and to increasing social mobility. We are taking the measures to assist children that I listed in response to the previous question. I should also point out that the average household gains about £5.50 a week from the tax and benefit changes made in April this year. We are making progress and acting where we can. It is important to keep up the pressure on child poverty.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
13. What assessment he has made of the effect on economic growth of increases to fuel duty.
The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Miss Chloe Smith)
The effects on the economy of fuel prices, including oil prices, refinery margins and tax, are assessed by the Office for Budget Responsibility as part of its economic and fiscal forecasts.
Mr Hollobone
Motorists in the Kettering constituency and local hauliers will warmly welcome today’s announcement by the Chancellor. Has my hon. Friend undertaken any analysis of the negative impact on national economic growth that would have occurred had the present Government increased fuel duty by as much as the previous Government intended?
Miss Smith
I can confirm that, through the actions of this Government, pump prices are 10p a litre lower than they would have been under the previous Government, who had scheduled in 12 fuel duty rises while they were in office and six more for afterwards.
Chris Evans (Islwyn) (Lab/Co-op)
14. What the average waiting time for calls to Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs helplines was in (a) the last 12 months and (b) the previous 12 months.
The Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury (Mr David Gauke)
The average waiting time for a customer calling HMRC’s helplines in the past 12 months was four minutes and 19 seconds. In the preceding 12 months, it was four minutes and 13 seconds.
Chris Evans
A constituent of mine has had a nightmare experience trying to get through to HMRC: he phoned several times throughout the week, but never spoke to an adviser and kept getting an engaged line. His is just one of many cases involving HMRC in my constituency office at the moment. With 10,000 HMRC staff being laid off, how do the Government hope to clamp down on tax avoidance when they obviously cannot collect taxes in the first place?
Mr Gauke
The first point to make is that the numbers of front-line staff dealing with tax avoidance and tax evasion are increasing over the course of this Parliament, in contrast with what happened during the last Parliament. There has been improvement in contact centre performance in the number of calls that get through, but more progress is needed. HMRC is deploying staff more flexibly and conducting small-scale pilots to see whether the private sector can provide additional capacity. HMRC is determined to improve performance.
Jo Swinson (East Dunbartonshire) (LD)
My elderly constituent Mr George Robertson is concerned about the amount of money that has been wasted because of a catalogue of errors over two years by HMRC helplines and administration. They wrongly issued cheques for overpayments to Mr Robertson, despite his correctly informing them that, in fact, he owed money; and when the saga was eventually “resolved” in April, they got it wrong again. Will the Minister look into that case and the wider lessons that need to be learned, so that HMRC becomes more accurate and cost-efficient?
Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)
15. What representations he has received on the treatment of different savoury products for the purposes of levying VAT.
The Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury (Mr David Gauke)
HMRC is shortly to publish on its website a summary of the responses to its consultation, “VAT: Addressing borderline anomalies”. The response document will contain a list of those who contributed to the consultation.
Chi Onwurah
As I am sure you know, Mr Speaker, Newcastle is the home of the Greggs pasty, so I was hopeful that the Chancellor’s latest U-turn but one would have resolved the great savouries shambles, but now I learn that he has turned his wrath on the pretzel sellers of Newcastle, including Auntie Anne’s in Eldon Square. Could the Chancellor possibly focus on bringing growth to the economy, rather than confusion to our eating habits?
Mr Gauke
I am sure the hon. Lady is aware that Greggs welcomed what we said about hot food. None the less, there has been an anomaly in the tax system whereby some hot foods have been treated differently from others. We are seeking to remove that anomaly and that is exactly what we are doing.
Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)
16. What recent estimate he has made of the effects of his fiscal policies on the rate of growth in output.
The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Miss Chloe Smith)
Tackling the deficit is necessary for supporting sustainable economic growth. The Government’s credible consolidation plan, which includes important measures to support investment and output, has restored confidence in the UK’s fiscal position, helped avoid a rise in market interest rates and allowed a more activist monetary policy.
Kevin Brennan
Given that the lead-in time for fiscal policy is about 18 months, how can the Minister explain the fact that the UK economy is now in recession, following the full impact of her Government’s fiscal policies?
Miss Smith
It is essential to return the public finances to a sustainable path. It is this Government who are doing that, it is this Government who are keeping interest rates low, it is this Government who are taking action on fuel duty, and it is the Opposition who have no answers at all.
David Morris (Morecambe and Lunesdale) (Con)
T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr George Osborne)
The core purpose of the Treasury is to ensure the stability of the economy, promote growth and employment, reform banking and manage the public finances so that Britain starts to live within her means.
David Morris
Inflation has now lowered from 3% to 2.8% in May, which should be welcomed on both sides of the House. Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is other Government measures such as freezing the council tax, freezing the fuel duty and increasing the personal allowance that have helped tens of thousands of my constituents in Morecambe and Lunesdale with their cost of living?
Mr Osborne
I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend that it is very welcome news that inflation is now falling. That will help families. The Government want to help families further by keeping those mortgage costs very low, and the only way we can do that is by having a credible plan for the public finances. We have also frozen the council tax, increased the personal allowance, with another big increase next year, and as my hon. Friend has just heard, frozen fuel duty for the second year running, so that his constituents in Lancashire and people across the whole country can be helped at this difficult economic time.
Ed Balls (Morley and Outwood) (Lab/Co-op)
The Chancellor told the “Today” programme a few weeks ago that the only thing worse than listening is not listening. Well, he certainly listened to the “Today” programme this morning. We have now had U-turns on pasties, churches, charities, caravans and skips, and today a U-turn on fuel, which we welcome. It would be interesting to know at what point this morning the decision was made, and whether the Transport Secretary was even told. Now that the Chancellor is on a roll, will he also do a U-turn on the millionaires’ tax cut and rescind the granny tax rise? There is a vote next week. Will he join us in the Lobby or will he do the U-turn first?
Mr Osborne
It is quite difficult for a Conservative Chancellor to do a U-turn on a Labour policy. I am not sure the Opposition is entirely joined up—or maybe it is because the right hon. Gentleman waited half an hour to come in. The hon. Member for Hyndburn (Graham Jones), sitting directly behind him, who is a Labour Whip, has just tweeted on the fuel duty announcement that it is a deferred rise and cannot improve the economy. If the Labour Whip thinks it will not improve the economy, what does the shadow Chancellor think it will do?
Ed Balls
It is about time this part-time, U-turning Chancellor took some responsibility for his own decisions. What is the reality? A double-dip recession, borrowing rising, family budgets under pressure—his plan has failed. Is it not time he listened to the Opposition and admitted that austerity has failed? Is it not time he did another U-time and adopted Labour’s five-point plan for growth and jobs?
Mr Osborne
We enjoyed reading recently that the right hon. Gentleman has been spending thousands of pounds on commissioning private opinion research about why his economic message is not getting through. It was leaked to the papers, saying that he was seen as “uninspiring” and “untrustworthy”. He had no need to spend thousands of pounds on that. He can ask Labour MPs and get that opinion of the shadow Chancellor. He has had two years to come up with a credible economic policy, and two years to apologise for his part in putting Britain into the economic mess that we are taking Britain out of.
Mr David Evennett (Bexleyheath and Crayford) (Con)
T5. Does my right hon. Friend agree with the head of the IMF, who said that she shivers to think what would have happened to the British economy without this Government’s plans to reduce Labour’s deficit?
Mr Osborne
The managing director of the IMF put it in a very graphic way. She presented to the whole country the alternative that we faced in May 2010. If we had stuck with the Labour party’s incredible plans, we would be one of the countries seeking a bail-out, rather than, as we are now, a country that is a relatively safe haven in the very, very difficult European situation. [Interruption.] The shadow Chancellor will not move forward unless he concedes his role in getting Britain into this mess. Until he does that, he will remain a man of the past with no ideas for the future.
Jim McGovern (Dundee West) (Lab)
T2. Will the Chancellor update the House on what progress has been made on his offer to the computer games industry of tax incentives in his last Budget? It is important to get the details of the policy correct, but it is also important that time is not wasted unnecessarily. As the old adage goes, actions speak louder than words. When can we expect to see the words turned into action?
Mr Osborne
We will be consulting on that policy very, very shortly, alongside the new credits for animation and high-end television production. The video games industry is important in Scotland—for example, in Dundee there is a particular centre of excellence—but it is important across the entire UK, and the video game tax credit will help, alongside animation and high-end TV production.
Jessica Lee (Erewash) (Con)
T4. In order to help small businesses and those seeking new opportunities, will my right hon. Friend endorse the jobs fair that I am hosting in Erewash on 5 September? Will he further set out what the Government are doing to support small businesses, which remain the real engine of the British economy?
Mr Osborne
I certainly support my hon. Friend and congratulate her on organising the jobs fair. As the most recent unemployment figure showed, not only is unemployment falling but 200,000 private sector jobs have been created in the last few months in our economy. When it comes specifically to small businesses, as I set out to the House earlier, the national loan guarantee scheme has already helped more than 10,000 businesses with loans, we have cut the small companies corporation tax from the rate we inherited from the last Government, and the freeze in fuel duty will also help small businesses.
Mr Dennis Skinner (Bolsover) (Lab)
T3. In a time of austerity, when food banks are increasing in almost every town and city in Britain, is it not high time that the Government published a comprehensive list of all those people who are profiting from these tax avoidance schemes? Even Graham Aaronson, a Government adviser, forecast today that if something is not done there will be riots on the streets. This is a home-grown problem. Do not blame anybody else. Let us have a list of all those people close to home and those on millionaires row.
Mr Osborne
The last Labour Government, which the hon. Gentleman supported, had 13 years to introduce a general anti-avoidance rule; we are introducing one after just two years in office. The last Labour Government had 13 years to stop stamp duty avoidance schemes; this Government, after two years in office, are doing exactly that and stopping those schemes. The last Labour Government had 13 years to cap uncapped income tax reliefs, which are used for avoidance; we have introduced and are introducing that cap. Frankly, actions speak louder than words.
Mr John Baron (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)
T6. With belt-tightening very much on the agenda right across Europe, will the Chancellor at least consider making deep cuts to our EU budget contributions, and so ally himself with the vast majority of people in this country?
Mr Osborne
We have worked very hard to freeze the EU budget during the last couple of years and avoid the very large increases that both the Commission and the European Parliament have sought. We are now beginning the very important negotiations on the next multi-year budget framework, and our objective is to deliver the best deal for the British taxpayer and make sure that unnecessary money is not going over to Brussels.
Gemma Doyle (West Dunbartonshire) (Lab/Co-op)
T10. Written answers to my hon. Friend the Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Tom Greatrex) reveal that the nationalist Scottish Government have made no approach whatever to the UK Government on membership of the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee. Does the Chancellor think that Scotland would have more influence on monetary policy as part of the UK or outside the UK using sterling as a foreign currency?
The Chief Secretary to the Treasury (Danny Alexander)
The hon. Lady refers to just one of a number of shambolic statements made by the Scottish National party since it launched its campaign for independence a few weeks ago, and not just on the Bank of England, but on financial services regulation. She makes the point very powerfully indeed that Scotland is “better together” as part of the United Kingdom. We have greater strength together as part of a more credible economic unit and part of the shared monetary policy of the Bank of England. All that would be jeopardised if Scotland were ever to become independent.
Andrew George (St Ives) (LD)
T7. The Chief Secretary has rightly committed the Government to clamping down on tax avoidance. Given recent high- profile cases of tax avoidance, and notwithstanding the earlier question from the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr Skinner), will my right hon. Friend update the House on the progress being made and perhaps give a projection for the progress he expects over the rest of this Parliament?
Danny Alexander
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his question. As the Chancellor said, the Government have done more on this issue in two years than the previous Government managed in 13 years. In particular, at the time of the spending review I announced that we would invest an extra £900 million in Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs so that it could employ a large number of additional experts to deal with tax avoidance. That programme is projected to lead to an additional £7 billion a year in tax revenue by the end of this Parliament, and we are well on track to meet that objective.
Gregg McClymont (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (Lab)
Can the Chancellor confirm that the Government are going to spend an additional £150 billion in borrowing above their plan of a year ago?
Mr George Osborne
The Institute for Fiscal Studies was very clear that, had we pursued the plan proposed by the previous Government, borrowing would be £200 billion more than it is today. As I have said, it is this Government’s credible fiscal plan that has brought record low interest rates and market credibility. We can see across the English channel what would happen if we did not have that credibility. That is where Labour would have put us.
Sir Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)
T8. Has my right hon. Friend noticed that the most recent figures from the Office for National Statistics show that employment is up by 311,000, the biggest quarterly increase since the general election, and does not that mean that since the general election two jobs in the private sector have been created for every job lost in the public sector?
Mr Osborne
My hon. Friend—a knight of the realm—is absolutely correct. Despite these very difficult and challenging economic times, the private sector is creating jobs. We of course have to help it to create more jobs through the measures I have already outlined—cutting the small companies tax rate, help with credit and the like—but we also need to help those looking for work. That is why we have the Work programme and the youth contract, instruments that are much more effective than the programmes promoted by the previous Government at helping people who are out of work to link up with companies that want to employ people.
Chris Williamson (Derby North) (Lab)
Britain is the only G20 country in a double-dip recession, youth unemployment is at record levels, poverty is on the increase, public services are in meltdown, and the Government are borrowing around £4 billion more this year than they did last year. The lessons of the 1930s demonstrate that the austerity programme that the Chancellor is pursuing will not work. Will he learn the lessons of history—
Mr Speaker
Order. We are extremely grateful, but I am afraid that we do not have time to go back to the 1930s now. We have the gravamen of the hon. Gentleman’s question.
Mr Osborne
I suggest that tonight and tomorrow the hon. Gentleman turns on the television and watches the evening news, because he will see that there are problems facing many economies around the world. The Labour idea that somehow Britain alone faces these challenges because the Government are trying to deal with the debt is absolutely ridiculous. There are all these European economies in recession, the US economy had disappointing jobs data, and the Chinese economy is slowing. These are difficult times, but we are doing everything we can to help the British economy deal with the problems we inherited.
Mr Dominic Raab (Esher and Walton) (Con)
T9. Last year we lost the most working days to strikes in 20 years, and since the last election union leaders have never won the backing of a majority of their members for any major strike. Will my right hon. Friend task the Office for Budget Responsibility to provide annual estimates of the cost to the economy of strikes and of the concessions, paid for by taxpayers, to avoid them?
Danny Alexander
I am not sure that the hon. Gentleman’s suggested idea would be an appropriate task for the Office for Budget Responsibility to undertake, but he is right that strike action is costly to the economy. He would also be right to observe that it has not stopped this Government proceeding with the reform of public service pensions, and with pay restraint in the public sector, too, to help deal with the enormous mess left to us by the Labour party.
Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)
With regard to the problems at RBS this week, my constituent David Robinson has been unable to access his funds, including disability allowance, from his account with thinkbanking. It is an internet-based bank that uses the RBS platform, so he could not go into an RBS branch to resolve his problems. Will the Minister please make contact with RBS about internet banking users and make sure that my constituents—and everyone else—are not unduly affected?
The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr Mark Hoban)
The hon. Lady makes an important point, and I spoke to Stephen Hester this afternoon to find out what progress RBS has made in resolving its issues. It introduced measures to help people who can access branches, but she makes a very important point about internet banking, and RBS is very keen to learn the lessons from those problems and to put in place contingency arrangements for the future. I encourage her to get her constituent to write to RBS, and, if he has suffered additional costs as a consequence of the situation, to make that claim to it.
Stephen Williams (Bristol West) (LD)
Embarrassing revelations about celebrities’ tax affairs usually bring a flurry of people to their tax accountants, asking them to check whether their affairs are all in order. Will the Treasury ask HMRC to encourage people to come forward voluntarily now and confess to what they may be up to, rather than wait for an investigation into their tax affairs?
The Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury (Mr David Gauke)
My hon. Friend makes a very good point, and I hope that all those who have engaged in aggressive tax avoidance schemes consider whether it is the right thing to do and reconsider their affairs.
Sheila Gilmore (Edinburgh East) (Lab)
One of my constituents was told by her department store employer that she either had to accept a 12-hour contract, which amounts to fewer hours than she works at the moment, or go fully flexible, which does not fit with her child care. Is it not time that the Chancellor decided to do another U-turn and to restore tax credits to those working couples who do not work up to 24 hours a week?
The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Miss Chloe Smith)
We on the Treasury Bench have argued many times in the House that it is fair to ask couples to work under similar requirements as lone parents, and I urge the hon. Lady to consider that in this case.
Mr John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)
When will the House be given the details of the three very large schemes for monetary easing announced at the Mansion House, and when will we be given a chance to debate them?
Mr Osborne
It is standard practice for the Bank to announce its own monetary and liquidity schemes. That is what it did with the liquidity proposals, and the Governor of the Bank was answering questions about them this morning before the Treasury Committee in this House. When we have further details about the funding for lending scheme, we will of course come to the House and make that announcement, but I hope that my right hon. Friend will allow me to continue to make Mansion House speeches as Chancellors have before.
Tom Greatrex (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Lab/Co-op)
The counter-party proposal and the levy control mechanism fall within the ambit of the Treasury. Within the past hour the Energy Secretary has told the Energy and Climate Change Committee, which is undertaking pre-legislative scrutiny of the Energy Bill, that he would welcome a Treasury Minister going before it to explain those proposals. Why is the Economic Secretary refusing to do so?
Miss Chloe Smith
In correspondence with the Chairman of the relevant Select Committee, I have articulated that there is no precedent in the records that we can find for a Minister from one Department to assist in the scrutiny of another Department’s legislation.
Mr Speaker
Last but not least, the House—and the nation—can hear from Mr Simon Hughes.
Simon Hughes (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (LD)
Following the exchanges about tax avoidance and the Government’s very robust position, can one of the Treasury team tell us how soon we will have in place a system that targets not just celebrity individuals but all high-worth individuals, so that they all pay a decent share of tax to the nation?
Mr Gauke
HMRC already has in place a particular team that focuses on high-net-worth individuals; under this Government, we have also introduced a team that deals with not just the very top but the next band; and we are looking to introduce a general anti-abuse rule that will address tax avoidance—aggressive tax avoidance—more widely. This Government remain absolutely determined to ensure that people pay their fair share.
Petition
Hugh Bayley (York Central) (Lab)
Private tenants on low incomes in York face a particular problem because their housing benefit is based not on rents in York, but on rents in a broad market rental area that includes towns and villages 20 miles from York, where rents are much lower. I therefore present a petition on behalf of residents of York. The petition is signed by two of my constituents, Helen Graham and Graham Martin, and is supported by the signatures of almost 1,000 people.
The petition states:
The Petition of residents of York,
Declares that York is facing a housing crisis, with homelessness in York in 2010/2011 40% up on the previous year; further declares that the Government’s reforms to Housing Benefits mean that of 6,299 private rented properties previously affordable in the city, 3,700 will be lost, a reduction of almost 50%; declares that this is effectively driving people out of York and away from their jobs, families and friends; and declares that York’s Broad Market Rental Area, which determines the level of Housing Benefit currently available, should be based on the York Unitary Authority area and not on neighbouring towns including, Tadcaster, Selby, and Pocklington, all of which have lower rents than York, in order to reduce the pressure on people to move away from the city which is their home.
The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Government to make changes to the boundary of the York Broad Market Rental Area to include only the York Unitary Authority area.
And the Petitioners remain, etc.
[P001101]
Rio+20 Summit
(12 years, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Deputy Prime Minister (Mr Nick Clegg)
Last week, 196 nations met in Rio, 20 years after the original Earth summit. Our task was to find a way to set the world back on a sustainable path. Important progress had been made in the past two decades on reducing poverty and protecting our environment, but all in all, ambitions had not been met. Our dilemma was to agree ways to grow our economies without hoovering up or destroying our precious natural resources, recognising that our economic and environmental agendas must go hand in hand. Our challenge was to take the right decisions, not just for ourselves, but for the next generation which, in just 18 years, will need 30% more water, 45% more energy, and 50% more food.
Was this summit an unqualified success on all those fronts? No, it was not—but few would have expected it to be. But we did make progress on the key areas that the UK sees as the priority for sustainable development and green growth. I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs for her commendable efforts at the summit itself and for her intensive preparations with the Secretary of State for International Development.
At the summit, the United Kingdom Government played a crucial role in leading on four important shifts. First, while the Rio declaration was not all that we would have wanted, this is the first time that a multilateral document expressing such strong support for the green economy has been agreed. That in itself is a major achievement recognising that, in the long term, greening our economies should not conflict with growing them. The declaration helped to alleviate some of the fears of developing countries that green growth is a veil for a kind of eco-protectionism designed to stymie their development. It united nations behind the simple principle that, as US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton put it at the summit,
“the only viable development is sustainable development which will deliver lasting progress for everyone.”
Secondly, Rio+20 recognised that we need to develop broader measures of progress to complement GDP in order to take account of the natural assets that will contribute to future prosperity—so-called GDP-plus. In the UK we have already committed to including natural capital within our system of national accounts by 2020. We worked hard at the summit to ensure that all nations present recognised the importance of broader measures of environmental and social wealth to complement GDP.
Thirdly, we agreed to set up the sustainable development goals—a concept proposed by Colombia. I was one of the first to welcome this idea when President Santos visited London in November. The UK has been pushing hard to secure agreement ever since, and achieving it, even at this high outline level, was no mean feat. The UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, said that the SDGs should draw on the success of the millennium development goals and should be an integral part of the post-2015 development framework. We would have liked to see specific themes agreed, focusing on ensuring that everyone can access enough food, energy and water, but getting such agreement was always going to be a huge undertaking. The UK Government will continue to keep up the pressure for rapid agreement. From now on, the process must be coherent and co-ordinated with the work of Secretary-General Ban’s high-level panel on the post-2015 framework, which the Prime Minister will co-chair along with the leaders of Liberia and Indonesia.
Fourthly and finally, at Rio national Governments recognised the importance of working alongside businesses. Thanks in no small part to the leadership of UK firms, Rio recognised the role of corporate sustainability reporting to their shareholders and to prospective investors—something that would have been inconceivable even a year ago. I also announced in Rio that we will be the first country anywhere to mandate large companies to report on their greenhouse gas emissions. A growing number of companies and investors are realising that their own success is directly linked to sustainable, green growth. We hope that the call from all nations for businesses to report their sustainability performance will usher in a new era of transparency and consistency in the global business community.
In summary, although Rio+20 did not go as far as we would have liked, it revived a global commitment to an agenda that has come gravely under threat. Progress was made in the areas where progress needed to be made. The declaration agreed by all 196[Official Report, 3 July 2012, Vol. 547, c. 7-8MC.] countries should not be seen as the upper end of our ambition; it should be our baseline and we should all strive to surpass its expectation. We must build on the steps that were taken to reinvigorate the drive for sustainable development and lasting growth.
The UK played a leading part last week because we are on track to deliver our commitment to spend 0.7% of gross national income on official development assistance to developing countries from 2013; because I announced the adaptation for smallholder agriculture programme, which will improve the lives of more than 6 million smallholder farms; because we are taking the lead in areas such as reproductive health and family planning; because we are the first country whose major businesses will report their greenhouse gas emissions as part of their annual accounts; and because of the range of ways in which we are greening our economy. We will remain committed to working with our partners and will be ambitious for the future. The summit is over but the work continues, and the UK will continue to lead from the front.
Mary Creagh (Wakefield) (Lab)
I thank the Deputy Prime Minister for the advance copy of his statement.
The original Rio declaration sought to eradicate poverty, reduce unsustainable production and consumption, and promote greater co-operation to protect the world’s ecosystems. It is as relevant today as it was 20 years ago. Expectations were low for this summit, and those expectations were met. I pay tribute to the Deputy Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, who worked as part of the EU delegation to prevent the summit from reaching abject failure.
There was a glimmer of hope. Ban Ki-moon’s zero hunger challenge aims for a future in which everyone enjoys their basic human right to food and in which global food systems are resilient. It aims to provide access to adequate food all year round, increase small farm productivity and see zero waste of food. We welcome the UK’s contribution of £150 million to help meet the zero hunger challenge.
Will curbing land grabs by large companies and improving land rights, especially for women, be on the agenda of the high-level meeting on hunger that will take place during the Olympics? What does the Deputy Prime Minister make of the Prime Minister’s comments yesterday that a future Conservative Government would consider handing out some state benefits “in kind” rather than in cash? Does he think that handing out food vouchers to the poor is a good idea, when the Brazilian zero hunger scheme was based on the Bolsa Família, which gave money directly to families in poverty and let them choose how best to feed their children? How will the zero hunger initiative tackle food poverty in the UK, where the Trussell Trust charity estimates that it will feed 130,000 people this year, 45,000 of whom are children?
The Deputy Prime Minister mentioned that the Prime Minister, alongside the Presidents of Liberia and Indonesia, will co-chair a new UN committee to establish a new set of millennium development goals to follow those that expire in 2015. How will the new goals relate to the sustainable development goals that will emerge from Rio?
There was progress in the field of energy, with the Secretary-General’s sustainable energy for all initiative, which received pledges of $323 billion in funding to bring clean energy to more than a billion people in developing countries. We welcome that. We also welcome the Deputy Prime Minister’s announcement at Rio that the UK will introduce carbon reporting for 1,800 quoted companies from April next year, as set out in Labour’s landmark Climate Change Act 2008. That was, sadly, the weakest option that the Government consulted on. It creates the anomaly that British Airways will report its carbon footprint as a public company, but that Virgin Atlantic, as a private company, will not. However, we are the first country in the world to do it, which gives us a temporary, green competitive advantage to make up for the Government’s disastrous handling of the solar feed-in tariffs.
The agreements on biodiversity, oceans and the trade in endangered species are welcome. However, the Government have refused to guarantee funding for the UK’s wildlife crime unit after next April. Does he agree that that unit is on the front line of fighting the illegal trade in endangered species, and will he argue for its benefits at the heart of Government?
Sharing the benefits of the planet’s biodiversity equally is an important building block for what happens after Rio, yet the Government have still not ratified the Nagoya protocol, which was agreed last year, on access to and benefits from genetic resources. What assessment has he made of the action we need to take to comply with the protocol, and will the Government show leadership in the EU by ratifying it?
We know that sustainable development starts at home. Far too often, the Government have been found wanting—they abolished the Sustainable Development Commission and failed to introduce marine protected areas, and their implementation of their forests policy was disastrous. Will the Deputy Prime Minister therefore tell the House how the Government will change how they do business to reflect the Rio conference outcomes?
Will the Government publish a UK action plan as a framework for the changes that they seek after Rio? Does the Deputy Prime Minister agree with his right hon. Friends the Secretaries of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, for International Development and for the Foreign Office that the Government need to invest more in a resource-efficient economy and low-carbon jobs to reduce costs and protect the UK from rising oil prices and energy dependency?
The Deputy Prime Minister should be in no doubt that the Opposition will work with him across party boundaries to achieve the long-term solutions that our planet needs. Rio showed that the solutions to ending hunger and deforestation, and to securing clean energy and water for the poorest, are all out there. We just need to scale them up.
The scientists tell us we must act now and businesses stand ready to play their part. The tragedy is that the politicians did not agree concrete mechanisms by which those things can happen, but as the Deputy Prime Minister has said, Rio was not a destination but a milestone on a long road. We stand ready to support the Government to make the change we need to deliver the future we want.
The Deputy Prime Minister
I thank the hon. Lady for her recognition of what I think is our shared commitment to the agenda discussed at Rio. I totally share her support for the zero hunger initiative; I attended a session in Rio at which the initiative was discussed. She asked about the hunger summit that will be held this summer. I do not know the precise agenda, but she referred to the importance of legal rights to property and land, which are crucial to dealing with hunger sustainably.
The hon. Lady asked about the interaction between sustainable development goals, ill-defined though they were at the Rio summit, and the work on the post-2015 agenda. The Government’s strong view is that the sustainable development goals as defined by the group of 30 representatives, which will be established in September, must feed into the wider review of the millennium development goals through the high-level panel that has been established by the Secretary-General.
I will not disguise from the hon. Lady the fact that within that procedural complexity, there are a lot of sensitivities. Candidly, some developing countries have hitherto felt that their voice is not strongly enough heard in some UN processes. The Prime Minister and his co-chairs will work hard to ensure that the voices of the developing world are properly listened to in the review of the MDGs to allay the concern that precisely the part of the world that will benefit most from the process is shut out from it. We need to do quite of lot of work to ensure that the different acronyms and processes do not start becoming rival acronyms and process—that is a danger.
The hon. Lady mentioned the sustainable energy for all initiative, which I am glad she supports; it is an outstanding initiative. I hosted a preparatory meeting of the group on the initiative in London some months ago. We had hoped that the Rio declaration would adopt the initiative as a core conclusion. In the event, because of the nervousness of some participants on what the initiative means and its implications, it was “recognised” in the declaration. We would have inserted a stronger verb, but none the less, as with all those initiatives, we now need to exploit that recognition and work on it.
The hon. Lady complained that the proposal on greenhouse gas emissions reporting does not go far enough. We have to start somewhere. We are the only country doing this. Some people complain that we have already gone too far and are imposing too many burdens on business. Other business groups, such as the CBI, have welcomed the proposal. I think we are breaking new ground, and I hope she will welcome that rather than cast aspersions on it.
The hon. Lady will know that the Darwin initiative is a robust initiative that we are using to monitor the plight of endangered species. Finally, she rightly said that these summits make sense only if one acts consistently with them at home. We are rightly proud of our record: we are the first country to establish a green investment bank; the green deal, which will be up and running in the coming six to eight months or so, will be the largest initiative of its kind for installing energy efficiency measures and bringing down energy bills in homes up and down the country; and the green sector, the green economy, is growing by about 5% a year, employs close to 1 million people in this country and actually runs a trade surplus. That is something we should cherish and celebrate. The carbon floor price is another major innovation of the Government, while the electricity market reform, which is one of the most ambitious legislative and regulatory overhauls of an electricity market I am aware of anywhere in the developed world, is explicitly designed to ensure that we have a sustainable energy mix for future generations.
Miss Anne McIntosh (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)
I congratulate everyone involved on what was a genuine team effort. Will the Deputy Prime Minister assure the House that one of Rio’s lasting legacies will be the agreement to reaffirm a universal, open, non-discriminatory and equitable multilateral trading system for food and agricultural products? Will he give an undertaking that we will really push for Doha to deliver this through the World Trade Organisation?
The Deputy Prime Minister
No one is in any doubt that one of the greatest boosts to prosperity across the world would be a successful completion of the very, very, very, very long-awaited Doha development round. It is immensely frustrating that getting agreement on it has proved so elusive. Many have written it off altogether, and it is difficult not to be pessimistic about it, but that does not mean that we should not continue to pursue the cause of multilateral trade liberalisation.
Mr Peter Hain (Neath) (Lab)
Given the frustratingly disappointing outcome of Rio and the crisis of investor confidence in solar PV, onshore wind and nuclear in Britain, is it not even more important that the Deputy Prime Minister joins the growing cross-party support for the Severn barrage, which would generate 5% of the electricity in Britain and create nearly 40,000 jobs—a green project that will deliver the Government’s renewable energy commitments?
The Deputy Prime Minister
I pay tribute to the fervour with which the right hon. Gentleman is throwing himself into this new cause in a political career of many great causes. I agree with the underlying assertion that for investors to make investments in major energy infrastructure of whatever kind, they need long-term stability and long-term certainty about the direction of Government policy. That is precisely what the electricity market reform aims to provide.
Zac Goldsmith (Richmond Park) (Con)
Despite the prominence given before the conference to protecting the world’s oceans in the face of the ongoing collapse in world fish stocks and the continued obliteration of coastal livelihoods, it has been widely reported that the concrete steps put forward were effectively blocked by Russia, Canada and the US. Is that true? If not, what specific steps were agreed?
The Deputy Prime Minister
In many ways, it is actually more dispiriting than the hon. Gentleman suggests, because we did not manage to get any agreement on any of the themes governing the sustainable development goals. Sensibly, perhaps, in view of the dynamics at Rio, that has been left for the working group in September. On the plus side, from his point of view, the text reflects the importance of oceans and their sustainable use, and I would be surprised if oceans did not feature prominently in the final shape of the sustainable development goals as they are crafted in the months and years ahead.
Dame Joan Ruddock (Lewisham, Deptford) (Lab)
The Deputy Prime Minister will have heard my hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield (Mary Creagh) mention the Nagoya protocol, which, as he knows, has not been ratified. He knows how important it is to access and benefit sharing. Will he undertake to meet his EU counterparts in order to move forward the EU position on this matter, which is truly critical?
The Deputy Prime Minister
We certainly want to see full ratification of the Nagoya protocol. It is something that this country has done, and I know that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is working with her counterparts in the European Union to encourage those who have not yet taken the necessary steps to do so. To make one observation, the Nagoya protocol flowed from the original Rio+20 summit, but it was not agreed at that summit. The only reason why I make that point is that, for those who say that an insufficient number of legal texts were agreed this time around, it is worth recalling that the history of the last Rio+20 summit was that, while it was much more substantive than this one, it did lead and create a momentum that subsequently led to legal texts. I say to those who have responded with complete despair about this summit that it is now a matter of what we do with it and whether we can turn it into legally binding documents, which is the challenge for the future.
Mr Peter Lilley (Hitchin and Harpenden) (Con)
Within the privacy of this Chamber, will the Deputy Prime Minister admit that Rio actually showed that it is now blindingly obvious that no other major country proposes to follow us in imposing a legally binding obligation to cut emissions by 80% at a cost of £430 billion to our economy, so we should discreetly shelve the Climate Change Act 2008 as soon as possible?
The Deputy Prime Minister
My understanding is that Mexico has done just that, just now, so it is not right to say that countries are not seeking to follow our lead. In my bilateral discussions with members of the Brazilian Government, I was struck by how forceful they were, as a major emerging economic power, in expressing the view that their own future success would be defined by their ability to grow sustainably, which would require a departure from simply copying how development has been pursued in the past. I am afraid that I do not share the right hon. Gentleman’s pessimism about the virtues of, and potential for, sustainable growth in the future.
Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)
The final text from the Rio summit effectively sells out the vision of a green economy by replacing the usual phrase “sustainable development” or even “sustainable growth” with a phrase of a quite different meaning—“sustained economic growth”. Given that Kenneth Boulding has famously written:
“Anyone who believes exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist”,
will the right hon. Gentleman tell us whether the problem at Rio was too many madmen or too many economists?
The Deputy Prime Minister
I will not choose which. I think the hon. Lady is selecting somewhat partially from a mammoth text, which refers to “sustainable growth” and “sustainable development” throughout and in almost every paragraph. She has been a little partial in her selection of those two phrases. The whole assumption behind Rio was an overt recognition that it is senseless, and unfair on future generations, our children and our grandchildren, to grow today and clean up later. That fundamental development dilemma, whereby development is pursued at the cost of the sustainable use of resources, was at the heart of Rio thinking before the summit and during it, and it must remain part of our thinking subsequent to the summit as well.
Simon Wright (Norwich South) (LD)
The agreement at Rio for a new high-level political forum on sustainable development could provide the leadership that has been lacking in the past for the implementation of declarations and action plans. Will the UK Government do all they can to ensure that the new forum has a wide agenda, a clear mandate to act and high-level political backing?
The Deputy Prime Minister
Yes; I think there is great potential for that forum to do good work. Given that all these forums are working on agendas to which we have made a great commitment as a Government, we will remain committed to their successful work.
Joan Walley (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Lab)
In thanking the Deputy Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for their work at Rio and notwithstanding the outcome, will the right hon. Gentleman commit to an early appearance before the Environmental Audit Committee, so that all the different strands of all the different groups that want urgent action now, but did not get that reflected in the high-level agreement, and this UK Parliament and its legislators, can map out a way of taking urgent action and ensuring that it is followed up?
The Deputy Prime Minister
I thank the hon. Lady for her invitation, and I will think about it carefully. I know that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has attended her Select Committee. She is right, of course, to say that the Committee plays a crucial role in mobilising the opinions of many groups—non-governmental organisations and others—which take an interest all this. I hope that she recognises—as I know she was there—that the Government made considerable efforts to talk to all those groups on an ongoing basis, notwithstanding their evident disappointment in the outcome of the summit, and we will of course continue to do so.
Paul Uppal (Wolverhampton South West) (Con)
There is great news about the economic development of sub-Saharan Africa, which is a possible portent for the future but is also a double-edged sword, because that development is built on the back of natural and mineral resources. Can my right hon. Friend assure me that the UK will continue to take a lead on sustainability, and will tackle concerns about eco-protectionism head-on?
The Deputy Prime Minister
That is one of the issues that were raised forcefully by many of the leaders from Africa. I had a meeting with President Meles of Ethiopia, who is a leading thinker on all these matters. He recognises, in a way that I think is pretty far-sighted, that notwithstanding the challenges that his people now face, he will be doing a disservice to them and, indeed, to future generations of Ethiopians if they do not use the resources that are available to them in a sustainable fashion.
Mr Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab)
The hon. Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith) was right to identify as particularly depressing the total failure to make any progress on the second biggest environmental issue that affects us—the need to protect our marine environment—but would not Britain have more credibility in terms of leadership if we were not already two years behind in establishing our own network of marine protected areas, and if the Government had not drastically reduced their number so as to render them almost useless?
The Deputy Prime Minister
I think that it was right for us to take the extra time to secure a firm evidence base in regard to those areas. We are not abandoning the agenda; we are trying to do our job as thoroughly and rigorously as I know the right hon. Gentleman would expect.
Mr John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)
The UK hit the Kyoto targets, while a number of our leading European Union competitors signed up with a fanfare but came nowhere near hitting them. Is there any sign now that those European big energy-using countries will do better in the future?
The Deputy Prime Minister
My own view is that any developed economy will serve itself best by moving towards an energy mix that is diverse, sustainable, and not over-reliant on unreliable forms of energy and very volatile global prices. I think it is a good thing that we have been leading that agenda in this country while also meeting our Kyoto targets. Those activities are not inconsistent with each other, and I personally rebut the idea that a shift of that kind is incompatible with highly competitive economies.
Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)
I welcome the frankness with which the Deputy Prime Minister delivered his statement on the outcomes of Rio, which were not what we could all have wished for. I think he recognises that one of the real strengths of the processes surrounding Rio is what is happening at national level. In that context, would he care to comment on the success of the world summit of legislators, which was held during the weekend before the high-level session, and on the progress that was achieved there at national level? He referred to Mexico, but there has also been progress relating to natural capital, the marine environment and deforestation.
The Deputy Prime Minister
I pay tribute to the hon. Gentleman for his work in GLOBE International, the world legislators’ forum. It was very helpful to me in Rio to listen to his views about the work of that body. I strongly agree with him: I think that some Governments and Parliaments sometimes struggle to know exactly what legislative steps they should take in this regard. The establishment of best practice for them, via GLOBE, on a range of sustainable development issues can serve as an important catalyst to ensure they do not just talk the talk, but walk the walk.
Andrew George (St Ives) (LD)
I congratulate my right hon. Friend and his ministerial team on pushing the summit further than I suspect it would have gone without them, although the outcomes themselves were very modest. Does he agree, however, that although binding agreements and legislation were never going to be part of the final outcome, we should welcome the fact that the summit put genuine sustainability back on to the agenda, and also set out a vision for its delivery?
The Deputy Prime Minister
Yes. The breakthrough, conceptual though it is and not concrete enough, is that 196 countries are saying overtly and explicitly, “We think development needs to be resource-sustainable and we want to craft sustainable development goals.” However, in a sense, this is a concept without sufficient content. The test of whether it will be looked back on as a complete wash-out or a great triumph is what we then do with that outline concept, and whether we have the political will to use the mechanisms that have been established—not least the group that will start work in December—to flesh out the content and feed that into the wider review of the millennium development goals as they are reviewed and strengthened in the post-2015 framework.
Mr Mike Weir (Angus) (SNP)
The Deputy Prime Minister has been very candid about the limitations of the declaration from Rio, but he urges us to strive to surpass his expectation. Does he any specific ideas about what the UK might do in this respect? In particular, has he thought about following the Scottish Government’s example of establishing a climate justice fund?
The Deputy Prime Minister
As the hon. Gentleman may know, we have not only set an international precedent by, for instance, announcing that some of the largest companies will be abiding by new greenhouse gas emission reporting requirements; we are also setting the pace by moving towards what I referred to in my statement as GDP-plus by 2020, whereby we do not just take a snapshot of our nation’s wealth and prosperity, but try to include in that new measures of the resources we are using and their sustainability. We have established a natural capital committee, chaired by Professor Dieter Helm, which I think is the first of its kind. Those are not only institutional but methodological innovations that are genuinely world beating, and I very much hope that other countries will follow our lead.
Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)
Does the Deputy Prime Minister agree with Mr Kandeh Yumkella, the joint head of the United Nations “sustainable energy for all” initiative, who said:
“You can’t save the forest if you don’t have gas”?
Consequently, this country ought to expedite the use of our shale gas reserves in order to reduce domestic energy prices.
The Deputy Prime Minister
As the hon. Gentleman may know, the Chancellor announced at the Budget that we would be developing a gas strategy. Our overall approach to energy policy as a Government is to make sure that the sources of energy we rely on are as diverse and sustainable as possible, and clearly, gas plays an important role in that. That is why we are committed to producing this new gas strategy.
Mark Hendrick (Preston) (Lab/Co-op)
The Deputy Prime Minister referred in his statement to the commitment to providing 0.7% of GNI for development assistance. All three major political parties would like to put that commitment into law. Why, therefore, did the International Development Secretary—he is in his place next to the right hon. Gentleman—categorically refuse point blank to support my private Member’s Bill? Members of both parties in the coalition have said that they will support the Bill, and doing so would save parliamentary time and get it through sooner, rather than later.
The Deputy Prime Minister
As the hon. Gentleman knows, the response to his private Member’s Bill is a matter for the House. I should point out to him that if he attaches such significance to legislating on this issue, why on earth did his party not do it in 13 years in office? We are very clear that we will be delivering our commitment to allocate 0.7% of GNI from next year, and that we will legislate as soon as we possibly can.
Mr Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)
Across the world at national level, legislators are effecting environmental change and improvement, even as intergovernmental processes stall. Further to the Deputy Prime Minister’s reply to the hon. Member for Brent North (Barry Gardiner), will he support the GLOBE world summit of legislators process going forward, so that, from Mexico to China in the past, and other countries in the future, we can see action today, rather than words at summits?
The Deputy Prime Minister
As I explained in my meeting in Rio, I am intuitively a big supporter of GLOBE, as I think it is far better if these summits are not just a get together of Presidents, Prime Ministers, Deputy Prime Ministers and Ministers, but involve legislators; they should not just be a great big club of the Executive. The more we can involve legislators and Parliaments, the more we can guarantee that action is subsequently taken. I am very happy to look at ways in which the Government could provide more support, in as much as we can, to the excellent work that GLOBE has already undertaken.
Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)
Following Rio+20, I am sure that we all agree that fine words need to be backed up with practical actions, so could the Deputy Prime Minister tell me what safeguards his Government will put in place to ensure that, with the growing number of biomass-fuelled power plants, imported biomass material comes from genuinely sustainable sources and is not contributing to deforestation and loss of biodiversity?
The Deputy Prime Minister
My understanding is that there are European Union standards that seek to ensure that the biomass industry adheres to basic environmental standards, but it is one industry of many in which this Government are keen to ensure that there is more, rather than less, investment, in order that we get the diverse mix of energy sources and energy generation that I referred to earlier.
Martin Horwood (Cheltenham) (LD)
I commend my right hon. Friend and the Secretary of State on the positive stand taken by Britain in Rio, but given the lack of any landmark agreements comparable to the original Earth summit, how can Britain now promote rapid, timetabled agreement on issues such as GDP-plus and the sustainable development goals?
The Deputy Prime Minister
The SDGs, which are the core commitment at Rio, do have fairly clear procedural timetables; a group of 30 representatives will be established in September, and the UN Secretary-General has been clear that that must feed into the wider post-2015 millennium development goals process. There is a pretty clear process. However, we just have to recognise that a summit in a world where power is shifting to different hemispheres and different continents is different from one that took place 20 years ago. Brazil now has authority and clout on the international stage that it did not have then; the G77 is organised as a caucus of developing countries, which was not quite the case 20 years ago, and they are rightly more demanding that their voice and voices should be heard. That is reflected in the more diverse push and pull that we witnessed at the Rio summit.
Mark Lazarowicz (Edinburgh North and Leith) (Lab/Co-op)
One of the areas of disappointment was the failure to move forward on measures to improve access to water and sanitation for the many millions in the world who do not have that. Given that, and given that I know the Government are committed to that objective, what steps will they take in other international bodies to try to promote the objective of improving access to water and sanitation throughout the world?
The Deputy Prime Minister
I agree with the hon. Gentleman that that is one of the most important issues, as we see from the shocking and scandalous figures on the number of children and women, in particular, who have died because of poor sanitation and restricted access to clean water. It was one of three themes—food, water and energy—that we had hoped would be defined in greater detail under the rubric of the sustainable development goals at Rio. We will continue to push to do that as they are defined in greater detail in the months ahead.
Points of Order
(12 years, 5 months ago)
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Mary Creagh (Wakefield) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. During yesterday’s urgent question on flooding, I asked the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what support Calderdale council could expect to receive under the Bellwin scheme to fund both its emergency response and its recovery effort. In her reply, she said that
“the trigger for the Bellwin formula is 15% of a local authority’s income”.—[Official Report, 25 June 2012; Vol. 547, c. 25.]
That did not sound right to me, so I went to the House of Commons Library and discovered that the trigger is in fact just 0.2% of a council’s annual income; that triggers a reimbursement from central Government of 85% of the costs incurred. Would you like to invite the Secretary of State to comment and correct the record on this matter?
Mr Speaker
Clearly this is a key point in the mind of the shadow Secretary of State. As the Secretary of State is with us and literally on the edge of her seat, let her come to the Dispatch Box and respond if she so wishes.
The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mrs Caroline Spelman)
This just shows what we all know in the House: when it is not one’s departmental brief, one probably should not venture an opinion. The hon. Lady has informed the House of this matter. The 15% figure that was in my mind when answering the urgent question comes from the amount that is then disbursed to the local authority. I have taken the matter up with the Department for Communities and Local Government, but what matters is that the council gets help if it is entitled to it.
Mr Speaker
We are grateful to the Secretary of State for that acknowledgement and explanation, which is very helpful.
Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Although, sadly, the Deputy Prime Minister is no longer with us—corporeally, at any rate—I was concerned, as I trust you were, at the widespread reports in the weekend press that he had vetoed any prospect of a referendum on the possible introduction of a proportional representation voting system for elections to a reformed upper House. Given the constitutional importance of such an issue and the motivation that it is clearly designed to help the Liberal Democrats retain a permanent stranglehold on future legislative processes, should not such announcements be made initially to this House rather than via the media?
Mr Speaker
That was a scintillating polemic for the House to savour, but what I would say to the hon. Gentleman, whom I have known for 29 years this October, is that although the logic of his attempted point of order is compelling, it suffers as a point of order from the disadvantage that the premise on which the logic has been built is, in my judgment, misplaced. The reason I say that to the hon. Gentleman is that the Deputy Prime Minister was not announcing a change of Government policy but, as far as I can tell, merely reiterating the status quo. That will have to do for now, but all these matters will doubtless be explored eloquently, in detail and at length in the upcoming debates on House of Lords reform, to which I fancy the hon. Gentleman will wish to contribute.
Opposition Day
Secondary Education (GCSEs)
(12 years, 5 months ago)
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18:59 - The House divided: - Ayes: 222 / Noes: 298 - Question accordingly negatived.
19:15 - The House divided: - Ayes: 298 / Noes: 217 - Question accordingly agreed to.
Mr Speaker
I inform the House that I have selected the amendment in the name of the Prime Minister.
Stephen Twigg (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab/Co-op)
I beg to move,
That this House notes the forthcoming consultation on the restructuring of the secondary education system; further notes the proposals reported in the press on Thursday 21 June of Government plans for replacing GCSEs with an O-Level and CSE system; believes that these proposals could, in the words of the Deputy Prime Minister, ‘lead to a two tier system where children at quite a young age are somehow cast on a scrap heap’; and calls on the Government to ensure any proposal for changes to the secondary education system are subject to approval by the House.
In three years’ time, the education leaving age will rise to 18. That change represents a huge challenge to schools and colleges up and down the country. How can the education system adapt to the challenge? How can we enable all children and young people to achieve their full potential? How do we ensure that young people have the skills and knowledge to succeed in life, including in the world of work?
Earlier this month, the Secretary of State was advocating a return to Victorian-style rote learning in our primary schools. Now he wants to bring back a two-tier exam system, which his own party abolished more than 25 years ago. That is all from a Government who are making the biggest cuts to education spending since the 1950s. I am a great supporter of history, but I do not believe that we need a school system that is stuck in the past.
The Opposition believe in stretching the most able students. We believe in rigour, high standards and opportunity for all students in all subjects, academic and vocational.
Stephen Twigg
I will give way shortly, but I want to develop my argument first.
The most important ingredients of success in education are the quality of leadership and the quality of teaching and learning; the Secretary of State is nodding his assent. It is vital that those ingredients are backed by a credible set of qualifications. We support reforming the structure of the examination system to deal with unhealthy competition between exam boards. If that means a single exam board, we will consider those plans in detail, and I understand that the Select Committee is due to make proposals to deal with that precise challenge shortly. Sensible, thought-through and evidence-based measures to increase rigour and tackle grade inflation will have the full support of the Opposition, but let us be clear about the fundamental difference between us and the Education Secretary: the proposal to divide pupils at 14 into winners and losers.
When the Deputy Prime Minister woke up in Rio last Thursday, he said about the Secretary of State’s proposals:
“I am not in favour of anything that would lead to a two-tier system where children at quite a young age are somehow cast on a scrap heap. What you want is an exam system which is fit for the future”
and
“doesn’t turn the clock back to the past…so it works for the many and not just…the few.”
I agree with that sentiment. The question for Liberal Democrat colleagues is whether they have the courage to vote for our motion, which supports the words of their leader.
Alok Sharma (Reading West) (Con)
Labour made a real difference to our education system—there is no doubt about that. However, at the same time as grade inflation was on the rise we were dropping in the international league tables on maths, English and science. Should not the hon. Gentleman be apologising for the disservice he has done to our young people, or is he now championing mediocrity once again?
Stephen Twigg
Well read, I suppose. I must correct my earlier remark when I referred to Liberal Democrat colleagues because I think there is only one Liberal Democrat Member in the Chamber. [Hon. Members: “Two!”] Sorry, there are two. I was going to comment on the absence of the Liberal Democrat Minister of State, Department for Education, the hon. Member for Brent Central (Sarah Teather), but we have instead the Liberal Democrat Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the hon. Member for Taunton Deane (Mr Browne). I think the percentage would be just under 2%—that is my calculation.
Last week, the Daily Mail, in a leaked story, reported:
“None of the plans require an Act of Parliament.”
This week, according to the Government’s amendment on the Order Paper, the Government are calling for proposals that are approved by Parliament. May I welcome yet another U-turn by the Government to give Parliament a proper say, but may I suggest that as well as changing the process, the Secretary of State should change the substance of these leaked proposals? Today’s debate provides the House with an opportunity to reject a move to bring back a system that was created in the 1950s and abolished in the 1980s.
These proposals were leaked just as pupils were sitting their GCSEs. As nervous and stressed young people were queuing up to sit hugely important exams, the Secretary of State was saying that those exams were worthless. How insulting to young people who have studied and revised so hard. How insulting to parents who have helped their children through the stress of exams and how insulting to our brilliant teachers who have worked so hard to prepare their pupils. Why are these changes being made now and why are they being rushed? Is the Secretary of State concerned that his other policies will result in a fall in school standards? Is it that he needs to mask the reduction in standards by abolishing the main existing measure of secondary school results? Is that why the Government are so determined to do this?
Jake Berry (Rossendale and Darwen) (Con)
In 2004, when the hon. Gentleman was criticised for putting a cake decoration qualification on a par with GCSE maths he called it “educational snobbery”. Does he stand by those comments? Does he still believe that cake decorating is equivalent to GCSE maths?
Stephen Twigg
I have never believed that cake decoration is equivalent to GCSE maths, and I certainly think the hon. Gentleman should come up with better interventions than that.
These plans are nothing less than a cap on aspiration. When he introduced the GCSE in 1984, the then Conservative Secretary of State, the late Lord Joseph, said the new system would be
“a powerful instrument for raising standards of performance at every level of ability.”—[Official Report, 20 June 1984; Vol. 62, c. 304.]
Last week, the hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr Stuart), the distinguished Conservative Chairman of the Select Committee on Education, said that the Secretary of State is
“setting out a policy that appears to be more focused on the brighter kids…and not focusing on the central problem we have which is doing a better job for the children at the bottom.”
The Government amendment this afternoon claims that they want “high standards for all” to boost social mobility, but the proposals leaked to the Daily Mail admit that 25% of “less-able pupils”—about 150,000 a year, every year—would take
“simpler qualifications similar to old-style CSEs”.
Last week, Lord Baker, another Conservative former Education Secretary, said that the certificate of secondary education was
“a valueless bit of paper. It was not worth anything to the students or the employers.”
How will writing off a quarter of young people boost social mobility and standards for all?
Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab)
Does my hon. Friend recognise the scenario in, I think, the first year in which the GCSE was introduced, where many working-class children in inner-city contexts were streamed off to the CSE and then went on to the failed youth training scheme? We do not want that scenario back in our inner cities. We need to ensure parity for all at 16.
Stephen Twigg
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right and anticipates my next point. We know from analysis of the CSE that it was, in practice, a school-leaving certificate for the poor. In the decade after its abolition, the number of the poorest pupils staying on at school after 16 increased by a very significant 28%. The CSE and O-level system was designed more than half a century ago, when our society was completely different—there were far more unskilled jobs and typically children were split off into grammar schools and secondary moderns. A pupil at a comprehensive in 1971 was 25 times more likely to take CSEs than a grammar school pupil—perhaps not surprising. A pupil in a secondary modern school was 50 times more likely to take CSEs than a grammar school pupil.
Elizabeth Truss (South West Norfolk) (Con)
Does the hon. Gentleman agree with me that the world’s skills are increasing and we need to compete? Can he explain why, under the Labour Government, in 2000 we were ahead of Germany in the maths league table, but by 2009 we were 12 places behind Germany? What did he do when he was in government to raise standards in vital subjects and compete with other countries?
Stephen Twigg
First, how would this solution help? As the hon. Lady knows, there are different international comparisons and analyses. The study carried out by the programme for international student assessment, PISA, to which she refers, shows one thing, but the trends in international mathematics and science study, TIMSS, shows something quite different: English results in mathematics are much better in TIMSS than in the PISA study. I take the challenge she sets out very seriously—we do need to do more and I am in favour of more rigour. What I do not understand is why that cannot be done by reform of the GCSE system. We can make GCSEs more rigorous. We do not have to go back to dividing children into sheep and goats at 14.
The hon. Lady is an authority on these matters and I pay tribute to her hard work, especially on mathematics. The number of young people taking mathematics at A-level started to increase significantly under the Labour Government. We need to do more to accelerate that trend and to explore all the ways we might do that, but surely she welcomes the fact that the number taking A-level maths increased under the Labour Government?
Elizabeth Truss
In fact, there was a massive drop in the number of students taking maths in 2000, when Labour introduced modular exams; that had a massively damaging effect. That number is now beginning to recover, which is indeed good news, but does the hon. Gentleman agree that the previous Government were responsible for the drop in the first place and the decline in standards relative to countries such as Germany? He still has not answered my question about how Germany managed to reform its system.
Stephen Twigg
Let us learn from other countries’ systems. That is the point I was seeking to make. We recognised that there was an issue, which is why we addressed it and why, as the hon. Lady acknowledged, the number taking maths at A-level has started to increase, and not just since the change of Government in 2010; it predated that change of Government. When we debate these topics, it is important that we are balanced in our use of evidence. I am prepared to acknowledge the issue that she outlined as regards PISA, but I am sure she could acknowledge that we do a lot better in some of the other international research, including TIMSS.
The Financial Times has done an in-depth analysis of the proposed new CSE. It says that it
“will tend to be an exam for poorer children”.
It goes on to say:
“There will be a geographical effect, too, with some areas switching heavily to it. . . The CSE will be a northern qualification”.
This matters. The Secretary of State is in danger of putting a cap on aspiration for poorer children and for those living in the poorer regions of the country.
In last week’s urgent question the Secretary of State told the House that we already have a two-tier system, but he knows that at present pupils who sit the simpler foundation papers for GCSE can still get a C. Indeed, if their coursework is good enough, they can even get a B. With the CSE system, they will have a qualification on their CV which suggests to employers that teachers thought they had low ability. There is a real danger that they will simply stop striving for success.
The Labour Government started to narrow the gap in education between rich and poor. These proposals pose a real threat that the north-south divide will worsen and even fewer young people from the poorest families will stay on at school or go on to university. I am sure the Education Secretary has read the OECD’s research, which concluded that social mobility is lower in countries which
“group students into different curricula at early ages”.
Most scientific evidence now shows that teenagers’ brains can change late in life, even up to the age of 16. Professor Cathy Price of University college London found that teenagers’ IQs can jump by as much as 20 percentage points. She comments:
“We have to be careful not to write off poorer performers at an early stage when in fact their IQ may improve significantly given a few more years.”
Gavin Barwell (Croydon Central) (Con)
I am grateful to the shadow Secretary of State for giving way and I apologise for dragging him back slightly, but before we go on to talk about what the solutions might be, it would helpful to have some clarity about where we start from. Does he believe that an A grade at GCSE when it was introduced was equivalent to an A grade at O-level, and that it is easier to get an A grade at GCSE today than it was back in 1988?
Stephen Twigg
I absolutely acknowledge that there is grade inflation in the system—[Hon. Members: “Ah!]— and I have said that previously. The “Ah!”s are very welcome, but it is not something that I have not said before, and I have said today that we will support measures that root out grade inflation. We will support sensible reform of the examination boards because there is a good argument that a kind of competition to the bottom has contributed to grade inflation.
Helen Jones (Warrington North) (Lab)
Does my hon. Friend agree that experience in teaching shows that it is very difficult to predict at the age of 14 exactly where a young person will be at the age of 16? Is not the problem with the Government’s proposal that there is no way of deciding at that age exactly what a child’s performance will be in two years’ time?
Stephen Twigg
Absolutely. My hon. Friend has struck at the heart of the debate and at the heart of where the Opposition differ from the Secretary of State. We cannot write young people off at 14, for the reasons that she set out.
Stephen Twigg
I shall make a little more progress, then I will take a couple more interventions. I know that there are a number of hon. Members who want to speak in the debate as well.
I am, as I have just said, open to sensible ways of improving the GCSE system. We know from businesses and employers’ organisations that they want an examination system that provides young people with the skills that reflect the needs of the modern economy. The recently published annual CBI education survey shows that businesses want our schools to focus on employability skills, presentation skills and practical skills, critical thinking and team working, as well as the crucial foundations of literacy and numeracy.
I was one of those who took O-levels. I know that I do not look old enough. I was just waiting for a Conservative Member to make that point.
Stephen Twigg
I will write to the hon. Gentleman with the results. I took O-level English. I think I got an A in literature and a B in language. When I was doing O-levels I had no way of testing the skills that the CBI tells us matter—no course work, no speaking and listening component; rather the questions often required fairly basic skills, such as summary and reading comprehension. That is one reason why I say that speaking skills should be a priority for all our state schools, as they are in so many of our primary schools. The Education Secretary observed recently that it was “morally indefensible” that some professions are dominated by pupils from private schools. I simply cannot see how bringing back CSEs will address that indefensible position. It will make it even worse.
Guy Opperman (Hexham) (Con)
The hon. Gentleman described how he now accepts that there was grade inflation. When did that road to Damascus discovery take place? Was it in 1997 when he was first elected, 2005, 2010 or 2012?
Stephen Twigg
Anyone listening to this debate is probably not very interested in the progress of my thinking on these matters. They are probably slightly more interested in the opportunity for Members on both sides of the House to hold the Secretary of State to account, which is the purpose of today’s debate. However, I repeat that I do acknowledge that there is an issue of grade inflation. In an interview in January 2012, the Secretary of State said:
“It is important to recognise that it is not just grade inflation that is responsible for improvements in our schools. I do believe that our schools have got better, incrementally in some case, quickly in others, over the course of the last 15 years.”
So in fact we can reach a consensus on this. There has been grade inflation, but there was also significant improvement in our schools during the last 15 years, for 13 of which, as I recall, the Labour party was in government.
Stephen Twigg
I will complete my speech, because a number of colleagues on both sides of the House wish to take part in the debate and I am drawing to a close.
I worry that the Government are ignoring the central issues in the debate. The system does need reform and improvement. Labour made changes in government. For example, we made the main measure of performance at key stage 4 include English and maths, addressed social mobility from early childhood with Sure Start and free nursery places, and focused on literacy and numeracy in our primary schools. I am proud that under Labour we began to see a narrowing of the attainment gap between rich and poor children. That is not me saying that; it is according to analysis published by the Financial Times, conducted by Simon Burgess, professor of economics at Bristol university. He said that the Labour Government was
“turning the tide on social mobility”.
His analysis looked at core GCSE qualifications and the number crunchers stripped out the effects of grade inflation. The outcome was a sustained improvement in the results achieved by children from the poorest neighbourhoods. The cause of that social mobility was certainly not changes to the exam system—sometimes they are needed—rather it was investment, more and better teachers and greater freedom for schools to innovate.
Stephen Twigg
I am drawing to a close.
This debate strikes at the heart of the approach taken by this Secretary of State, a Secretary of State who favours dogma over evidence and pet projects over changes that work for the many. These proposals will introduce a two-tier system, a massive step backwards, closing off opportunity for thousands of young people, and a cap on aspiration.
In Saturday’s edition of The Times, the Secretary of State’s former teacher, W. G. R. Bain, wrote:
“Although Michael Gove was once one of the brighter pupils in my form class, the top stream at selective Robert Gordon’s College, I am afraid that in the intervening years he has learnt little about hoi polloi”—
his phrase, not mine. He concluded that
“combative debating is his strength, not common sense”.
Frankly, I could not have put it better myself: no common sense, instead arrogance; no interest in the evidence, instead dogma; and no interest in the many, instead naked elitism. Those of us on the Opposition Benches believe in high standards for all. We have an opportunity today to consign the idea of a two-tier system to the scrap heap.
The Secretary of State for Education (Michael Gove)
I beg to move an amendment, to leave out from “House” to the end of the Question and add:
“notes the forthcoming consultation on the secondary school qualifications and curriculum framework; welcomes the opportunity to address the weaknesses of the system introduced by the previous Administration, which undermined confidence in standards, increased inequality and led to a reduction in the take-up of core subjects such as modern languages, history, geography and the sciences; and calls for proposals which are approved by Parliament and which are based on the principles of high standards for all, greater curriculum freedom, and a qualifications and curriculum framework which supports and stretches every child and which boosts social mobility.”
May I first congratulate the shadow Secretary of State on his kind words about Saturday’s edition of The Times, which will be welcomed in every part of the Gove household, particularly by Mrs Gove, whose column appears on that day? I am also grateful to him for paying such close attention to the words of Bill Bain—if only I had paid closer attention to his words when at Robert Gordon’s college—and I am sure that the alumni of the school will be grateful to him for his generous words.
We are all grateful to the hon. Gentleman for securing the debate this afternoon and congratulate him on doing so. As an experienced former Schools Minister, he brings passion and fluency to consideration of these issues. He has also brought a degree of intellectual honesty to the debate, which is welcome—I do not think that we have ever heard an acknowledgment from the Labour Front Bench that there was grade inflation under Labour. That was not the case with his immediate predecessor as shadow Secretary of State, and it was certainly not when the right hon. Member for Morley and Outwood (Ed Balls) was Secretary of State. I think that it is important that we record this moment, because it seems the first occasion when there has been a genuine acknowledgment of one of the failures of Labour’s management of our curriculum and qualifications system.
In a moment we will discuss the future and how we might reform our examination system and our curricula, but before that I want to note how striking it was that in the hon. Gentleman’s speech, which I enjoyed and appreciated for its honesty and grace, he did not come forward with a single positive proposal for how to make our qualifications more rigorous. He acknowledged weaknesses, but at no point did he say that he would change things in any particular direction. There was no Labour policy or initiative and nothing progressive from that side of the House, merely criticism. Of course, he will have an opportunity in future debates to outline what he thinks on these questions but, at the moment, where thought and initiative should be there is still a vacuum, a hole in the air.
Before we look to the future, let us consider the past and Labour’s record. As the shadow Secretary of State rightly said, there are aspects of Labour’s record that I acknowledge are good and wish to build on. I am looking forward to building consensus across the House on the growth of the academies programme, for example, the growth of Teach First and the importance of improving teacher training. But there are other areas where I fear that a wrong turning was taken, one of which relates to the curriculum and qualifications. In particular, as our amendment to the motion points out, we saw a flight away from the rigorous subjects that employers and universities value. Under Labour, the proportion of students taking history at GCSE dropped to just 31%, the number taking science subjects dropped by 5%, the number taking geography dropped by 15%, and the number taking foreign languages dropped by 34%. That was despite the shadow Secretary of State saying in May 2004, when he was a Minister in the Department for Education:
“In the knowledge society of the 21st century, language competence and intercultural understanding are not optional extras, they are an essential part of being a citizen.”
That is presumably why in September 2004 he took modern foreign languages out of the national curriculum.
The reason why a drop and a deterioration in the numbers following those subjects matters is that they are critical to social mobility. Both parties in the coalition have made improving social mobility the long-term goal—the measure of the success—of the five years that we have in power, and we know that more students studying history, foreign languages, geography, physics, chemistry and biology means more students having a chance to do satisfying subjects at university and fulfilling jobs in the 21st-century workplace.
Michael Gove
In a second.
It is for that reason that we introduced the English baccalaureate measure, in the teeth of opposition from the Labour party—both sides of the coalition determined to redress that decline. What has the result been? In two years, we have already seen the numbers taking languages up by 21%; taking history at GCSE up by 26%; taking geography up by 70%; and taking physics, biology and chemistry up by more than 70%. What we have seen as a result of that determined change to the way in which we set aspiration for our young people is improved social mobility—Liberals and Conservatives working together in order to achieve it.
Ms Gisela Stuart (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab)
I remember contributing to an Adjournment debate about the dropping of foreign languages, but how will the Secretary of State deal with a situation such as that in Birmingham, where in about half of our schools English is the second language? Will his proposals fit in with their first language and with English as their second, or will his crude measure of just any other foreign language actually not address the problem of learning the skill of a second language?
Michael Gove
I have enormous respect for the hon. Lady, who makes a very important point about Birmingham. It is the youngest city in Britain, and its multicultural traditions are part of its strength, but it is important to recognise in Birmingham that, although there are some excellent schools, such as Perry Beeches and Arthur Terry, there are some underperforming schools.
The excellence of a school is not, however, related to the number of children who have English as an additional language; all research shows that such children are just as capable of succeeding as children from any background. What matters is the quality of the school, not the nature of the home background, and what matters for all children in the 21st century is developing the language skills that will enable them to take their place in university or in the modern workplace. That is why it was a disaster when language learning was dropped under the previous Government, and why it is so welcome that the coalition Government have seen it restored.
Some people will ask why, if performance in those core GCSEs that matter so much declined, the headline figures for GCSE performance improved under Labour? What was going on? What was filling that gap? The truth is that we had a growth in so-called equivalent exams, which were called vocational although most employers did not rate them, and which were called equivalent to one or more GCSEs when most employers and colleges did not believe that they were. They have been eloquently criticised by the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Tristram Hunt), by the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Mr Blunkett) and by Professor Alison Wolf in her universally praised report on vocational qualifications. There was fantastic growth in low-level qualifications under Labour, most of which, she says, had
“little to no labour market value.”
In 2004, students were taking just 15,000 of those qualifications, and then the Minister for Schools changed the rules. The then Minister for Schools is now the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby, and as a result of those changes a certificate in nail technology counted as two GCSEs, a diploma in horse care counted as four GCSEs and, by 2010, where previously 15,000 such qualifications had been pursued, 575,000 were being taken, crowding out real study, driving rigour to the margins and holding back social mobility.
Incentives were created by government which, as Alison Wolf points out,
“deliberately steered institutions and, therefore, their students away from qualifications that might stretch (and reward) young people and towards qualifications that can be passed easily.”
She says also that, of the current cohort of children between the ages of 16 and 19,
“at least 350,000 get little to no benefit”
from such qualifications.
Gloria De Piero
I asked the head teacher of a really successful academy in my constituency what he thought about the issue, and he told me:
“We will have to limit success by choosing tiering well before students have hit their potential.”
Does the Secretary of State believe that that fantastic head teacher, who is taking his school from strength to strength, is an enemy of reform?
Michael Gove
I absolutely do not. I am sure that that school, like many of the schools in the hon. Lady’s constituency, is doing a fantastic job, and I am grateful that she has been so enthusiastic in embracing the academies reform programme.
As the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby acknowledged, the two-tier system that he talks about is not something that the coalition Government are planning to introduce, but something that the Labour Government presided over and we want to tackle. The problem is that we already have a two-tier GCSE system. As he acknowledged but then skated over, we have two types of GCSE—foundation and higher tier—in English, maths and science. We have a two-tier system of first-class and second-class qualifications. The higher tier allows anyone who takes a paper to get an A, B or C, and so on; the foundation paper is explicitly designed to limit student success. In ordinary circumstances, it is impossible for a student who enters for a foundation-tier paper to achieve a grade higher than C. It is impossible, in other words, for thousands of students to achieve the most basic grade that is respected by employers and will in many colleges allow them to progress to A-levels. The very act of entering a child for a foundation-tier paper at GCSE is a way of saying, “Don’t get above yourself—A-levels are not for you.” Even colleges that set a C grade as an entry requirement often demand a grade C from a higher-tier paper because they treat higher-tier and lower-tier GCSEs as separate qualifications.
A cap on aspiration was Labour’s policy for the 13 years it was in power, and this coalition Government are determined to remove that cap.
Mr David Ruffley (Bury St Edmunds) (Con)
According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development world rankings, between 2000 and 2009 this country fell from seventh to 25th in reading and from eighth to 27th in mathematics. Without my right hon. Friend’s very welcome radicalism, we will find it increasingly difficult to compete successfully in the global economy.
Michael Gove
I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who is absolutely correct that we need to have higher aspirations for all students. That is why, in our forthcoming consultation on how we can improve GCSEs and get world-class qualifications, we will suggest that we end the tiering of papers and ensure that this barrier—this cap on aspiration—is removed. That is genuine radicalism that embodies greater aspiration for all students. After 13 years of Labour when there was a cap on aspiration, under this coalition Government social mobility is at last advanced.
Mr Frank Field (Birkenhead) (Lab)
Given that practically all the studies show that the differences between children when they are first sent to school at the age of five are not changed by schools of any nature or under any exam system, why does the Secretary of State think that the introduction of his proposed reforms will change the life chances of the poorest children?
Michael Gove
I think that their life chances can change. I usually agree with the right hon. Gentleman on almost every issue, but in this area I differ with him. I do not believe that birth or even the early years determine a child’s fate. I have seen children from very similar backgrounds, often from troubled and chaotic homes, go into primary schools and then on to secondary schools with very different qualities of teaching and, as a result, have their outcomes transformed. The right hon. Gentleman has been a fantastic advocate for the growth of the academies programme, including in his own constituency. His actions suggest to me that while he is, of course, as determined as I am to improve the early years, he recognises that we can intervene at every stage to help children and young people to succeed.
Mr Field
Of course we need to intervene at every stage as effectively as possible. While all of us, thank goodness, have seen examples of children escaping their circumstances such as those the right hon. Gentleman cites, the truth is that if we look at students as classes we do not free whole groups of pupils.
Michael Gove
It is absolutely right that we make sure that we recognise that children are individuals and that teaching should, as far as possible, be personalised towards them. Children will not only have different abilities in different subjects but will mature at different stages.
That is one of the reasons why we wanted to ensure that we developed qualifications that are not only without the tiers that set a cap on aspiration but can be taken at different points in a child’s career. At the moment, far too many children fail to secure a GCSE pass in English and maths at the age of 16 and never manage to secure a meaningful qualification in maths or English thereafter. We want to learn from Singapore, where students at the age of 16, then 17, and then 18, secure those passes. We must not give up on children simply because they have not reached an appropriate level at the age of 16. That is why we are reforming post-16 education and why we are placing a requirement on students who have not secured those qualifications at the age of 16 to secure them at 17 or 18. The generation that had been written off under Labour is at last, under the coalition Government, receiving support.
Stephen Twigg
The Secretary of State said that the Government will abolish tiering in GCSEs. Will he clarify whether that is because 20% to 25% of students will take not O-levels, but the new CSE?
Michael Gove
The hon. Gentleman, not for the first time, has misunderstood. We want to ensure that more and more of our children do better and better.
There are two poles in this debate, neither of which I am happy with. One pole holds that only a minority of about 20% or 25% will ever be able to pass academic qualifications—the A stream, the elite. The other view, which was incarnated in Labour education policy in the past, is that to ensure that a majority of children pass the qualifications, we need to make them less demanding. I reject both those views. I think that more children can succeed if we make our exams more demanding, because we have a higher degree of aspiration and ambition for all our children.
I understand why the right hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby and other Opposition Members find it so difficult to grasp this point. Sorry, he is an hon. Gentleman—there is no cap on his aspiration or ambition. They find it difficult because the only way in which they felt that they could succeed was to lower the bar. We believe that it is by raising the bar that we can deal with this issue.
Michael Gove
No, thank you.
We not only have a two-tier system in the split between foundation and higher tier GCSEs, over which Labour presided—
Michael Gove
Quite right. I did not come into Parliament to defend the status quo, unlike the small-c conservatives opposite. I am a radical who believes in liberating human potential. It is interesting that the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby and the hon. Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan) are disciples of Keith Joseph. I regard myself as being in a slightly more radical, reforming, modern and liberal tradition than the late Member for Leeds North East, bless his soul.
As a reformer, it offends me not only that is there a division incarnated in our state schools, but that independent schools are opting for the IGCSE because the GCSE is not rigorous enough and that, as a result, there is a two-tier system between state and independent schools. There is also a two-tier system between this nation and other nations because other countries have more testing examinations at the ages of 16, 17 and 18, whereas we have incarnated low aspirations in the way in which we judge our young people.
Michael Gove
Un embarras de richesses, as they say in west Derby! I give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing Central and Acton (Angie Bray).
Angie Bray (Ealing Central and Acton) (Con)
As my right hon. Friend may know, Acton high school is about to open a sixth form. The most important thing for the students who study there is that we give them the best possible start as they pursue their A-levels. Does he agree that more rigorous preparation, whether through an enhanced GCSE or an O-level, would help them to get through their A-levels and go on to university?
Michael Gove
My hon. Friend makes a characteristically acute point. One problem with the current system is that GCSEs are not, in many cases, adequate preparation for A-levels, and A-levels are not adequate preparation for university, particularly when our students are compared with those from other jurisdictions. That is because, notwithstanding the incremental improvement in state education over the past 15 years, other countries have reformed their education systems faster than we have reformed ours. We have to match them and that means reform.
Mr Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)
Will the Secretary of State give way?
Michael Gove
I am happy to give way to the Chairman of the Select Committee on Education.
Mr Stuart
The Secretary of State wants more rigorous exams that more people pass. That is an aspiration that we would all share, but it is not immediately obvious how it is to be brought about. Today, 42% of children do not get five good GCSEs including English and maths. If we make the tests more difficult, it is not immediately obvious how more people will pass them. I welcome that he is aiming higher and that we will have more rigour, but we need more detail. He is very good at explaining what is wrong with what Labour did, and I agree with every word, but he is not so good at giving us the detail of precisely what this Government plan to do.
Michael Gove
It is perfectly clear what we need to do to get more children to pass more exams: we must press ahead with the reforms that we have introduced to create more academies and free schools, to get better teachers in our schools, to have continuous professional development in which we invest in the very best people, to expand the Teach First programme, and to ensure that we have a relentless focus on raising the bar. Complacency on performance in our schools will lead us only to continue to be backmarkers. One point I would make to the Chair of the Education Committee and the House is that some schools manage to do every bit as well as schools in Singapore by getting 80% or more of their students to five good GCSEs or equivalents. We should ask ourselves why more schools are not doing as well as them. The whole point of the Government’s education reforms is to ensure that we raise standards for all.
The Chair of the Committee asked what the Government will do to change things. We have already taken some steps. We have banned modules and re-sits, and introduced the English baccalaureate to put a stress on rigorous subjects. It is not clear whether the Opposition agree with us. We have explicitly said that we believe there is a case for one exam board per subject in English, maths and science. The Opposition inched towards agreeing with us, and I hope we can reach a consensus.
One problem I have in attempting to tease out where the Opposition stand in order to build the consensus we all want is that whenever the Government put forward a case for reform, it is difficult to know where the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby stands.
Ms Gisela Stuart
The Secretary of State mentioned Alison Wolf. He wants to be the great radical, but he must recognise that he needs to widen the skills base. He must show the House that he is attempting a dual system rather than a two-tier system if he prays in aid Alison Wolf.
Michael Gove
I would never accuse the hon. Lady of falling into the fatalist camp, but some do. The fatalist position—that we cannot improve—was touched on by my hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr Stuart), the Chair of the Education Committee, but I believe Andrew Adonis, who said: “The fatalists who say”—[Interruption.] As Front Benchers say, “If the cap on aspiration fits, wear it.”
Andrew Adonis has said:
“The fatalists who say that countries with strong academic school traditions cannot create, in a short timescale, quality vocational education institutions and pathways with real prestige should take note. It is being done abroad and must be done here.”
It is being done here through the introduction of university technical colleges, and through the development of studio schools, which were introduced by the Government of Andrew Adonis and expanded massively by this one. It is also being done with a review of vocational qualifications, which will mean that apprenticeships are at last possessed of the rigour that all hon. Members might expect, but which did not happen under the previous Government. Thanks to the Minister for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning, we have extended a requirement so that all apprenticeships will be for 12 rather than just six months. We have also extended the important work-related learning in apprenticeships. I acknowledge that there are improvements to be made, but the Holt and Richard reviews will ensure that we make them.
If those improvements are to be enduring and if we are to succeed, if the university technical colleges and studio schools are to succeed and take root, and if the changes we are making in the academies programme are to succeed, such as the welcome addition of the Liverpool college—an independent fee-paying school—to the state sector, which was welcomed graciously by the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby, we need, as Andrew Adonis pointed out today, a consensus in the House.
In calling this debate, the hon. Gentleman has asked Parliament to approve certain propositions. Let us try to approve certain propositions on where Labour stands on critical issues.
Tristram Hunt (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab)
It’s not about Labour; it’s about you.
Michael Gove
It is about the House. When the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby was interviewed just a couple of weeks ago, he was asked about academies. He said that one of the freedoms Labour extended to academies is freedom over the curriculum. He said we should extend that to all schools. He is therefore for the academies programme. In the same interview, however, he said: “We have now got 2,000 schools that are academies. I do not think that is desirable. I do not think that is a good system.” He was for our academies programme before he was against it.
Andrew Adonis was quoted as saying that free schools were Labour’s invention. When the hon. Gentleman was asked about free schools, he said: “Yes, free schools are being established, some of which will be excellent.” So he was asked, “Will you create any more?”, and he replied, “That we need to look at. We need to look at that.” It was then put to him that, in fact, before looking at the policy, he had voted against it.
Michael Gove
Yes, in a minute.
The hon. Gentleman then said, “Our policy was to oppose free schools, and we voted against them.” So he was for it before he looked at it and before he was against it. Perhaps he might now illuminate the House on his position towards free schools—position 1, in favour; position 2, don’t know; or position 3, against?
Stephen Twigg
If the Secretary of State wants to ask me questions, we can always swap places. I would be happy to swap places and answer his questions, but this is a debate where he has to defend his position. Lord Adonis, whom he mentioned, has been clear in the past few days about what he thinks of the Government’s latest proposals to bring back CSEs. Will the Secretary of State rule out bringing back a new version of the CSE?
Michael Gove
I have explained exactly what we will do, which is to strengthen GCSEs and world-class qualifications. Nothing we want to do is a step backwards; everything we want to do is a step towards the high-class qualifications that other countries have. I have ruled out as clearly as I can any two-tier system. I have said that we want to move to one tier and a set of high-level qualifications. I can bring clarity to the Government’s position but not to the Opposition’s.
Michael Gove
No, no.
We want to know whether, as we make changes to the curriculum, the hon. Gentleman will back us on modern foreign languages, for example.
Michael Gove
The hon. Gentleman says yes, but his position on modern foreign languages has changed over time. As I pointed out, he said in July 2004:
“In the knowledge society of the 21st century language competence”
is “essential.” Then, in September 2004, he said, “We don’t want to go back to the old days when we tried to force feed languages to students.” Then, when he was asked in May 2011 what his real position had been on languages in 2004, he said: “I had mixed views.” Given this lack of consistency, can we be certain that his position now, in backing modern foreign languages, is a consistent one? And will he assent to our other proposals? Does he believe that we should get rid of modules at GCSE and end the re-sit culture? Yes or no? A simple nod will suffice. [Interruption.] No, he is not going to get into it. No consistency! He is uncertain. Is he for it, or against it? What about the English baccalaureate? All he needs to do is nod. Will he support the English baccalaureate? We know that the hon. Members for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) and for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Ms Stuart) do.
Tristram Hunt
I support the English baccalaureate. But my question is this: does the Secretary of State think the Daily Mail reported his intended reforms accurately and fully?
Michael Gove
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for supporting the English baccalaureate. The frock-coated communist has become the grey-suited radical. One of the things that matters to me is whether the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby supports the English baccalaureate. Yes or no? [Hon. Members: “Answer the question.”] After my appearance at Leveson, it probably ill behoves me to pass commentary on the press in this country, other than to say that I support the right of a free and rigorous press to report and comment on things with their usually pungency.
Does the hon. Gentleman support our position on equivalents? Does he support stripping them out of the school system?
Stephen Twigg
I know that the right hon. Gentleman wants everything to be black and white, but sometimes there is nuance in these debates. One of the equivalents I certainly do not support—this is the issue I tried to intervene on earlier—is changing some of the diplomas, including the engineering diploma. The excellent JCB academy, the first university technical college, has lobbied me strongly to say that it disagrees with how the Government have downgraded the engineering diploma. There is a real risk that vocational and practical subjects will be crowded out of our schools at a time when we need more young people getting good qualifications in engineering and other areas.
Michael Gove
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for asking about one of the more than 1,700 vocational qualifications. So he supports the engineering diploma being an equivalent. Does he support nail technology or horse husbandry or any of the others? Again, answer comes there none.
The hon. Gentleman says that there is nuance in his position. I say, rather than nuance, there is an absence of clarity, without which we cannot secure consensus. Does he believe that we should continue with foundation and higher-tier GCSEs? Yes or no? A simple nod would suffice. Again, answer comes there none, but we probably know what he thinks. When he was a Minister in the Department for Education and Skills in 2003, the “Excellence and Opportunity” White Paper said that:
“the GCSE has become a qualification at two levels: Level 2 (or grades A*–C) is viewed by the public as success, while Level 1 (or grades D–G) is seen as failure. For many young people achieving Level 1 is demotivating. Some young people prefer not to reveal that they have taken GCSEs than admit to a lower grade. This undermines motivation and discourages staying on”.
That was the view of the hon. Gentleman and his Department in 2003, but they took no action to deal with the problem. At last, 10 years later, the coalition Government are taking action to end the problem of failure, to ensure that we no longer have an examination system that is demotivating and to end a system that discourages staying on.
Nia Griffith
Does the Secretary of State accept that with the foundation and higher-tier system there was always the opportunity for pupils to transfer, and there was always a motivation to try to drive pupils to get better than a D by getting a C? How will the new system of separating a CSE and an O-level examination allow a pupil to be pushed so that they can attain the higher level—the O-level qualification—if they have already started on a CSE syllabus, which is significantly different?
Michael Gove
I have to ask the hon. Lady where she has been for most of this debate. At no stage have we talked about separating children at the age of 14, and at no stage—
Liz Kendall
The Secretary of State is supposed to be a man of his convictions. Parents and pupils in my constituency want to know whether the Daily Mail report was accurate—yes or no?
Michael Gove
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for asking her question. I am a man of my convictions, and my convictions are that we need to improve our GCSE system. That is why we have outlined proposals that will ensure that we change the way in which children sit qualifications at the age of 16. In place of a two-tier system, with GCSEs split between foundation and higher-tier, we will have one qualification for all students. In place of competing exam boards where there is a race to the bottom instituted under the Labour Government, we will have exam boards that will be asked to compete to go to the top, and all those exam boards will be asked to produce qualifications that are more rigorous.
Instead of 60% of students being assumed to succeed and 40% being written off, we will set a benchmark whereby at least 80% and a rising proportion of students succeed over time. Instead of a flight away from rigorous subjects like history, geography and modern foreign languages, physics, chemistry and biology, we will ensure that those subjects are incentivised in league tables and accountability measures. We will ensure as a result of these changes that the drift towards mediocrity that the last Government’s qualification system incarnated is finally addressed.
Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)
I applaud the measures my right hon. Friend has taken more greatly to value spelling, punctuation and grammar. In that respect, does he share my concern about a school I came across recently whose policy was to correct no more than three spelling mistakes in any piece of work? Does he agree with me that that is a false kindness to children who might put in with a CV a covering letter with spelling mistakes, which is then put in the bin with the child’s potential being wasted?
Michael Gove
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. One change we have already made to GCSEs—again, I do not know whether or not the Opposition back it—is to reintroduce marks for spelling, punctuation and grammar so that all students know that rigour is demanded at every point.
During the course of this debate—including the speeches from the Front Bench and subsequently—we have not heard a single constructive proposal from the Opposition on how to change exams. By contrast, the coalition Government have spelled out steps to ensure that more students take more rigorous subjects; steps to ensure that we deal with a race to the bottom and the wrong type of competition; steps to ensure that we remove a cap on aspiration; steps to ensure that we match the quality of the International GCSE and Singapore O-levels.
Michael Gove
I shall not take any more interventions at this stage.
The reason for doing that is that we need to ensure that our curriculum and qualifications system moves on from being one that, as I mentioned earlier, has been trapped by two opposing and equally out-of-date views: either that only a minority can succeed, or that, for a majority to succeed, we have to lower the bar. I believe we can ensure that more children succeed by ensuring that the policies of the coalition Government are implemented with vigour and energy. That is why we need to press ahead with the academies programme, it is why we need to invest more in Teach First, and it is why we need the changes in education for children with special educational needs that are being introduced by the Minister of State, Department for Education, my hon. Friend the Member for Brent Central (Sarah Teather).
For all those reasons, I commend the amendment to the House, and I look forward to the vote.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)
As all Members can see, many of them wish to take part in the debate. We will not be able to fit everyone in without a time limit, so all Back-Bench contributions will be limited to seven minutes. If interventions slow us down even further, it may be necessary to shorten that limit.
Pat Glass (North West Durham) (Lab)
I think that we must give the Secretary of State’s speech eight out of 10 for style, but nought out of 10 for content. It was a very good speech which, I am afraid, did not deal with the issue in hand at all. The Secretary of State was asked on numerous occasions whether the Daily Mail had reported him correctly, and he was completely evasive. He was asked again and again how the abolition of GCSEs would raise the bar, and I have to say that his responses were divisive, evasive and at times even destructive.
What is so important about GCSEs is that they are examinations for all pupils of all abilities. They were introduced in 1988 by Margaret Thatcher and Kenneth Baker in response to huge unhappiness, largely among parents. Those of us who were in the education system at that time will remember that it was middle-class parents whose children were sent to underfunded secondary moderns and forced down the route of CSEs who brought about the abolition of CSEs and the introduction of the GCSEs that we have now, which have brought together the best of what was in the CSEs and the old O-levels.
That approach was welcomed by the whole education community, but it seems likely that it will be abolished on the say-so of the Secretary of State, who has apparently not consulted anyone on his proposal. As far as I am aware, there has been no consultation with pupils, parents, teachers or the wider education community. The Secretary of State convened a two-year curriculum review group consisting of the great and the good to consider the issue of the curriculum, but appears subsequently to have completely ignored everything said by that group, choosing instead to develop an education policy that has no evidence base and is founded on personal prejudice.
So what is the evidence behind the Secretary of State’s review? We have heard a lot from him about our cascading down the OECD PISA scales for English, maths and science. I am sorry, but no matter how many times he says that, it is simply not true. In the three years leading up to 2007 many more countries entered their data in the PISA tables, so the outcomes in 2007 did not measure like with like. When the Secretary of State talks of cascading down the scales, what he is really talking about are a couple of percentage points in a table that would now include many more countries than it did at the time when it was last drawn up. That is not measuring like with like. If the Secretary of State were a teacher instead of a journalist looking for the best negative headline, he would understand that.
The Secretary of State used Singapore for his evidence base. The Education Committee visited Singapore last year just to see what was happening there. It must be said that there are many good things in the Singapore system, but what he failed to tell us was that in Singapore education is not free, and is not compulsory for children beyond the age of 11. When PISA measures the outcomes of 16-year-olds in England against those of 16-year-olds in Singapore, it is measuring the outcomes of all 16-year-olds in England against those of some 16-year-olds in Singapore. Again, like is not being measured with like.
In Singapore the curriculum is restricted to English, maths and science, and there is no creativity whatsoever. Here we have a broad, advanced curriculum. Again, like is not being measured with like. The Secretary of State failed to tell us that in Singapore seven out of eight children have up to three hours of additional tuition every day paid for by the parents, over and above the tuition that is received in schools. So again, like is not being measured with like. He also failed to tell us that the Singapore system is one of the most centralist education systems in the world, where the Minister for education dictates what is taught, how it is taught and when it is taught. It goes so far that head teachers do not even apply for places in schools; they are allocated a school and they are moved on every three years—and they have no say whatever about which school they move on to.
In using Singapore to provide evidence for his plans, the Secretary of State is comparing our state-funded, diverse, teacher-led, innovative, autonomous system with a broad and balanced curriculum that caters for all children up to the age of 16 and beyond with an almost Soviet-style centralised system where education is not free, compulsion ends at 11 years of age and there is a highly restrictive curriculum. That is not measuring like with like.
The Secretary of State also looked for his evidence base to polls telling him that parents want to see a return to O-levels. He may well cite the recent YouGov poll that shows that 60% of those who are old enough to have sat the old O-level want to see a return to a two-tier system. However, that is what we would expect from any poll that asked questions of people over 40; they hanker back to what they know. The YouGov poll also shows, however, that 40% of those who sat O-levels do not want to see a return to a two-tier system, and that 65% of those who took GCSEs do not want to see a return to a two-tier system either.
I accept that the system we have is not perfect, but I do not believe that the answer is to return to qualifications that were designed a lifetime ago for a world that no longer exists in which children without qualifications were able to find jobs in low-skill industries—in factories, mines, shipbuilding, steel-making and agriculture. That world no longer exists. Today’s young people need skills that were not previously taught: resilience and reasoning skills, negotiation skills, team-working, speaking skills, interpersonal skills. Those are the skills that employers are telling the Education Committee that they need. They are taught in private schools; we should be making time for them in our state schools.
In designing our state education system, we should say, “If it’s not good enough for my child, it’s not good enough for your child.” That should be our guiding principle in designing an education system, rather than, “Outcomes for some at the expense of others.”
Mr Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)
It is a pleasure to take part in this debate, and to rebut allegations of fatalism thrown at me by the Secretary of State. I hope I am no more of a fatalist than he is. I have observed in many of our debates that able politicians, on both sides of the House, are brilliant at describing and critiquing the inheritance from the Labour party and at painting a picture of the kind of country we would like to be, but our job in this House is to address the third aspect and examine the route map to get from position A—not very good—to position B, or nirvana and where we want to be. Too often in our education debates in this Chamber, we spend an awful lot of time on aspects one and two, and not a lot on the third aspect.
Following the Secretary of State’s speech, I am a little clearer about what his plans are. I think he has said—I hope he will intervene on me if I am incorrect—that the Daily Mail was mistaken, and that there is not going to be a return to a two-tier system. He did not, for whatever reason, try to spell this out, but it sounded as if he was talking about a more rigorous GCSE. It is progress that the Labour spokesman, the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg), acknowledges that there was grade inflation during his party’s time in office, and the Secretary of State makes powerful points about equivalences. The Government have certainly had my support in tackling that and in tightening up in various ways, such as by removing entirely the vocational qualifications that Alison Wolf identified as offering no real labour value to people.
So what is the vision? If we were just talking about a more rigorous GCSE with a removal of the perverse incentives to dumb down over time—it has now been acknowledged that that was the case, even by Labour—I think there would almost be cross-House consensus. There is a recognition by Labour that it did not get everything right, even if Labour Members cannot quite bring themselves to say that yet; it is fair enough for the Secretary of State to tease the shadow Secretary of State for his failure to do so. It seems that the Labour party is beginning to recognise that a lot of the Secretary of State’s moves towards rigour have been correct. However, if we are to have a beefed-up GCSE, and if we are not moving towards a system that is more two-tier than what we have now, I would like to see more detail. I know that a consultation paper is coming, but it seems disappointing that we did not get more detail from the Secretary of State today.
Dr Lewis
I am very grateful to the Chairman of the Education Committee for giving me the opportunity to ask the question that I was hoping to ask of the Secretary of State. Given that both sides now seem to accept that there has been a problem of grade inflation, could we pay a little bit of attention to the marks that underlie the grades? One of the problems that I felt many years ago with the introduction of grades for O-levels, rather than marks, was that it did not matter if somebody got 70%, 80% or 90%: anybody who reached a certain level—70%, I think—still got the same top grade. This was the beginning of an inflationary process. Would not the stating of actual marks—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)
Thank you. That is quite enough. That is a very long intervention in a very short debate.
Mr Stuart
Fortunately, my hon. Friend takes me to the issue I wanted to address next, which is the administration of examinations. Unfortunately, however, I am unable to comment on that now. The Education Committee has conducted a long inquiry into precisely that issue, looking at the trade-offs between a single board, competition between boards, franchising by subject and various other ways of cutting it. We have concluded our report, but because of the examination season—whoever leaked this story to the press last week was obviously less sensitive than us to the fact that children were taking exams—we decided to delay the publication of our report until 3 July. So, I am afraid that, until then, I cannot engage in that issue. However, we have looked at it in depth, and I hope I am not in contempt of Parliament if I say that the Committee came up with a unanimous recommendation and report. I hope that those on both sides of the House will wait until at least 3 July before allowing any of their opinions to solidify further.
If the Secretary of State is talking about a more rigorous GCSE system—whether it is given a new name or not—which is effectively a single examination system, as we have now, that would rather destroy the entire premise of my speech, leaving me short for words.
Mr Stuart
Time for a coffee and to let others speak.
However, over the last two years the Government have made a series of announcements looking to put greater rigour into the system. They announced the ending of modularisation of GCSEs, tackling the culture of re-sits, ending equivalences and promoting the English baccalaureate, which, of course, rewards those students who achieve good GCSEs in English, maths, two sciences, a language and either history or geography. However, at the end of that process, if the leak is to be believed—I am in a state of confusion now—they suddenly announced the scrapping of GCSEs altogether. That does not seem terribly coherent.
Just last June the Secretary of State said the following about GCSEs:
“So next year the floor will rise to 40 per cent and my aspiration is that by 2015 we will be able to raise it to 50 per cent. There is no reason—if we work together—that by the end of this parliament every young person in the country can’t be educated in a school where at least half of students reach this basic academic standard.”
He went on to say:
“A GCSE floor standard is about providing a basic minimum expectation to young people that their school will equip them for further education and employment.”
That was the direction of travel then; suddenly, a year later—if we are to believe the Daily Mail—that has been scrapped. On the other hand, if I understood correctly what the Secretary of State said today, that was an entirely false idea and there is no plan to do such a thing at all.
Kevin Brennan
I think we are all trying to decipher what the Secretary of State said. Is it the hon. Gentleman’s understanding that the Secretary of State said that he would expect 80% of pupils to sit this new single-paper GCSE, and if so, what does he think ought to happen to the other 20%?
Mr Stuart
As I have said, I think that increased rigour throughout the system is necessary and important. I think that the accountability system for schools needs to be changed so that it does not have perverse outcomes, such as putting people on courses that lead nowhere but allow the institution to meet its benchmark—we on the Committee have been critics of that for some time. Perhaps the announcement, or the leak, suggests a change in view by the Secretary of State on that front.
If we look across the system, where we need more rigour and we need to ensure that we end the perverse incentives, we find that the biggest problem we face in a global knowledge economy, where the first rung of the ladder keeps rising up, is what we do about people who are not getting those basic skills and that basic education. The Government have two priorities for education: raising standards for all; and closing the gap. Those are right, but when setting priorities it is terribly important to show what the top priority is. I am yet to understand how the changes specifically will help the least able, but then again I am unclear as to what exactly the proposal is—even if I have not quite fallen to the level of the hon. Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan), who of course got so confused about percentages last week.
Mr Stuart
That is a lot better than I did, so I will leave it there.
Ofqual now has a statutory duty to ensure two things, one of which is that we maintain standards over time. We shall see whether it does its job right; it is relatively newly empowered and we need to give it the chance to see whether it can reverse this grade inflation and keep us up there with our international competition. Has it said that there needs to be a restructuring of the examination system, not necessarily the administration of it, but the whole quality of it and the possible tiering of it? I would like to hear from the Secretary of State about that.
I have only a minute left, so I shall finish by repeating that the central problem is what we do about the young people, all too many of whom are now not in education, employment or training—NEET—and are being left behind. A more rigorous system is great, but the only way to raise standards ultimately—this is the only thing that matters in education—is through quality of teaching. We need to ensure consistent, high-quality teaching and an excellent institution for everyone, everywhere. At the moment, there are all sorts of incentives in the accountability system to focus on borderline pupils at the expense of those at the bottom, and within the system for people to move from a school that is very challenging to one in the leafier suburbs—a much more congenial place for many people to teach in. We need to look at re-gearing our whole system in a way that the Labour Government failed to do, despite efforts in that direction, to ensure that we provide opportunity for all, because both socially and economically we cannot afford to have so many children left behind, unable to get on the first rung of the economic ladder and thus be full members of our society. If any proposals from the Secretary of State are driven by that central insight, he can certainly look forward to my support.
Liz Kendall (Leicester West) (Lab)
In 2006, New College school in my constituency was the worst secondary school in England for truancy, the worst in the value-added league tables, and fifth from bottom overall for GCSE results. Just one in 10 pupils taking GCSEs at the school scored five grade Cs or better, while the truancy rate was running at more than 10 times the national average. I was therefore very proud when last Friday New College was named by the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust as being in the top 10% of improving schools in the country. The number of children getting five A to C grades at GCSE including in English and maths has gone up by 450%, and the number getting five A to C grades overall has gone up by a staggering 700%.
Jane Brown, the head teacher at New College, says that three key things have helped it to achieve those phenomenal results, and that the first and foremost is having the right teachers—moving on those who were not up to scratch and replacing them with the very best. The second thing is the focus and financial support from the national challenge programme, which has enabled New College to get external support, including from the ex-head of education at Nottingham, and pay for additional resources, such as tutors to give intense one-on-one support in English and maths. The third thing is not allowing the school to get blown off track by different Government initiatives, and instead focusing consistently and relentlessly on what really matters to help children learn, aspire and achieve. The teachers, support staff, volunteers and students at New College deserve huge congratulations on their hard work, commitment and success. Although they are rightly proud of their achievements, they are not complacent, and they are determined to make even greater improvements in the future.
I have spoken to Jane and to some of the other heads at secondary schools in Leicester West about the Secretary of State’s plans—or, at least, reported plans—to change GCSEs. They think—and I agree—that a single exam board could be a positive step to help tackle unhelpful competition between exam boards and stop some heads thinking, “Which exam will get the best results for my school?” rather than, “How can we give our students the best education for life?” Achieving A grades in GCSEs should be really demanding, and with a single syllabus there is no reason that cannot be achieved. That is something we should be considering.
Jane and the other heads do not support a return to a two-tier system where children are told at age 14 what they can and cannot achieve. Telling some children before they have had a chance fully to develop that they are not good enough to do O-levels will not boost their self-esteem, but crush it. Telling them they can manage only CSEs, which will inevitably be a less valued qualification, will not raise their achievement, but cap it. We should not be putting a ceiling on children’s aspirations; we should be blasting those ceilings away.
This proposal is a terribly backwards step from a Secretary of State who does not seem to understand what it takes to help children from chronically deprived backgrounds to aspire and achieve. Jane Brown, who has proved through her hard work and effort what can and must be done to turn schools around, says labelling children as failures so early would be disastrous. Instead of helping schools such as New College, which have created a “yes you can, yes you will” culture for all the students all the way through to the end of year 11, the Government’s proposals will return us to the days when some children ended up believing that they could not aspire and achieve and that they were failures, particularly if they came from very disadvantaged backgrounds. That is why I urge the Government, in the strongest possible terms, to rethink their plans. If the Secretary of State would like to visit New College and see what it really takes to turn around a school that was in a terrible state some years ago, so that it is now doing really well for the people I was elected to represent, I am sure that he would be welcomed.
Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)
Young people are working harder in our schools than ever before, guided by probably the best ever generation of teachers. Certainly, lessons are planned and progress tracked in a way that it never was when most of us were at school. Young people are also examined more, at considerable cost to our schools—the average cost of exams to maintained secondary schools was £44,000 in 2003 and £96,000 by 2010. Those pupils and teachers are being let down by a system that has allowed the erosion of confidence in their qualifications.
There is massive pressure on schools, as we all know, from the five-plus C-plus measurement in league tables. Although it is true, as many right hon. and hon. Members have said, that there have been real improvements in educational attainment, it is also true that ever since those league table ladders were created, ingenious schools have found ever more ingenious ways of getting up them, aided and abetted by public policy and the exams industry, with things such as double awards, short courses, half GCSEs, new subjects and, of course, the granddaddy of them all, equivalents, which make a 19 percentage point difference in the league tables. If equivalents are included, 75% of children get five or more GCSEs at grade C or above, but that goes down to 56% if those equivalents are taken out.
Like economic growth, improvements in grade have both a real part and an inflationary part. The real growth comes from better teaching, better teachers and more engaged parents, and I think we have see ample evidence of those things.
Gloria De Piero
In that case, would the hon. Gentleman listen to a maths teacher from my constituency and the 11th most improved school in the country from 2012, who says:
“The current GCSE system allows every pupil to achieve beyond their potential and is fully recognised by employers regardless of tier”?
Damian Hinds
I am always happy to hear from distinguished maths teachers, but I am not quite sure how the hon. Lady’s intervention relates to or contradicts what I just said. I was saying that there have clearly been real improvements, but I do not think there is anyone left, including that distinguished maths teacher, who doubts that on top of those real improvements there has been significant grade inflation, as acknowledged by the shadow Secretary of State.
There are four key elements to the grade inflation. First, there has been the gradual easing of what we used to call the syllabus—now called the specification—on the part of the exam board. Secondly, at the school end, there has been teaching to the test. Thirdly, there have been all sorts of elements in the design of examinations, including modularity or what is now called unitising, early takes, re-sits, the use of calculators and so on. Fourthly—this sounds a bit dull and technical but it is very important—there is the statistical tolerance in the results. Every year, there is rightly a normalisation to say what results, for example, a key stage 4 cohort should get relative to what they achieved at key stage 2, with perhaps a 1% tolerance either way on a finding—but of course the tolerance only ever goes up. That is the most pure form of grade inflation.
Mark Tami (Alyn and Deeside) (Lab)
The hon. Gentleman is making these points about how people work within the rules to maximise the effect, but even when I was at school there were children who were thought to be marginal when it came to getting an O-level and were dissuaded because it was thought that they would skew the results and do the school down. Let us not pretend that this is something new.
Damian Hinds
The hon. Gentleman is very youthful looking but I am not sure the league tables were in place when he was at school, so I find that point slightly confusing.
Does it matter that there has been grade inflation? I think we have all heard from higher education institutions, employers in our constituencies and members of the public that it does matter. One witness who gave evidence to the Education Committee’s exams inquiry said they did not believe that employers expect to be able to compare exam results over time, but I have news for him: that is exactly what employers, higher education institutions and parents expect to be able to do, and quite justifiably so. However, the system does not support them in doing that. Although there have been many factors at play with grade inflation, there are three root causes among which there is interplay: the pressure on schools to deliver the results; the competitive land grab for volume market share on behalf of the competing exam boards; and a too malleable system that attempts to put everything on a single scale when everything does not necessarily fit together.
I think we have moved on a good way in this debate. Over the past few days, the phrase we have heard most often on this subject has been about not wanting to return to a two-tier system, but increasingly there is a recognition that there are two tiers now, with 40% of youngsters being left behind. One could even argue that there is a third tier, with the young people who are put on to other qualifications that are of so little value to them in later life. Even in the purer sense, within a single-subject GCSE there are the two tiers of the foundation level and the higher level. Although this has been talked about much today, it is in many ways the best kept secret in education. I keep finding, when I talk to the parents of 14 and 15-year-old pupils, that they are not aware of that distinction. In many ways O-levels and CSEs never went away—they were just rebranded, but into one thing.
Let us take the example of GCSE maths. If someone is entered for GCSE maths at foundation level, that decision will be taken when they are in year 10 and the highest grade they can then achieve is a grade C. That sounds very much like getting a CSE grade 1 in the 1980s. And it is not just maths. Other subjects that are tiered include biology, physics, chemistry, general science, classical civilisation, Latin, English literature, English language, geography and modern foreign languages— almost every one of the core academic subjects that most of us did at school, with the single exception of history.
Liz Kendall
Will the hon. Gentleman explain how having O-levels and CSEs would make that two-tier system better?
Damian Hinds
I have a great deal of respect for the hon. Lady, who is an erstwhile colleague of ours on the Select Committee, but I am not proposing a return to anything from the past. What we must do is build an exam and qualification system that is fit for the future and reflects the new reality in which the participation age is 18, not 16. We must make sure that all young people can reach their potential at 15 to 16 and that if they have not done so by that point, particularly in key subjects such as English and maths, they go on to do so at 16 to 18 and beyond.
Damian Hinds
I am sorry, but I am running very short of time.
There is a bunch of complications in this two-tier system—for example, it applies to some subjects but not others, and there are even subjects for which students can enter one paper at foundation level and still score a grade B or A. There might be good reasons for all that, but one thing this system is not is clear. I understand the argument that all must have prizes, and in some ways that seems like a good thing, but it does young people no favours to kid them that the worth of the qualifications they are taking is greater than it really is. Instead, we must strive so that all merit prizes. We should aspire to the vast majority of children getting those key subjects aged 15 and 16, but as I said in reply to the hon. Member for Leicester West (Liz Kendall), there must be the facility to return to them at age 16 to 18. One of the key points in the Wolf report was the lack of post-16 focus in our country compared with others on English and maths in particular—subjects that command a huge premium in the workplace.
Damian Hinds
I am sorry, but I cannot.
For our country, we need world-class exams to win in the fiercely competitive new global economy. For our young people, we need worthwhile qualifications with the right breadth, depth and usefulness that will serve them well in their work and in their life.
Mr Gordon Marsden (Blackpool South) (Lab)
The Secretary of State ducked and dived round the Daily Mail’s ring like a bantamweight, but that did not disguise the fact that he has still not this afternoon come out and denied the newspaper’s central thesis of a return to CSEs. The reality of a return to a form of CSEs and a form of selection is a return to educational apartheid. The Secretary of State, like many others, including me, went through a selective system and did well out of it; we went there and got the T-shirt, but I will never forget the shiver that went down my spine as I did my 11-plus and nor will many others. The truth is that that system failed too many of our young people, and 20 years as an Open university tutor taught me that the backs of many of the people who had a second chance with the Open university were scarred by that experience.
When the shadow Secretary of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg), talks about a cap on aspiration, he is absolutely right. In 2010, the Secretary of State said that Dickens and other authors should be studied in English lessons to improve young people’s grasp of the English language. As this is the year of Dickens, perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will reflect on the words of the Ghost of Christmas Present to Scrooge in “A Christmas Carol”:
“Oh God. to hear the Insect on the leaf pronouncing on the too much life among his hungry brothers in the dust.”
It is the hungry brothers and hungry sisters in the dust we need to be concerned with.
The Secretary of State ducked elegantly around the subject, but I know how important GCSEs have been in my Blackpool constituency—an area with low skills and historically modest academic achievements. They give students the ability to bridge the academic and vocational divide and to develop skills in creative, leisure and tourism activities that are vital to keep people in the local economy, and the flexibility of mind that comes from coursework as well as exams. What use to them would CSEs be? What use, for example, would CSEs be in special schools? That is another aspect the Secretary of State should take into account.
My hon. Friend the shadow Secretary of State rightly referred to the comments by Chris Cook in the Financial Times and I shall not expand on them, except to say that Mr Cook made the important point:
“Take a look at the belt from Liverpool to Hull—the CSE towns of tomorrow.”
Blackpool will be one of those towns and I have no wish to see it go into the Secretary of State’s pot.
The Secretary of State says he is a man of convictions, and I agree. He is guilty as charged, and the charges should include the following: scrapping vocational diplomas in the system regardless of the lack of concrete plans to involve business in the curriculum; introducing an English baccalaureate that gave no space to vocational education; creating havoc in the careers system by taking £200 million out of face-to-face communication; failing to have any policies on the sort of life skills and communication skills that were discussed earlier; and not listening to his colleagues in other Departments, not least the Minister for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning, on vocational issues. The Secretary of State spoke about world skills. Would the WorldSkills people who won gold medals for Britain last October benefit under his two-tier system? Absolutely not.
Like Robert Louis Stevenson, the Secretary of State was born in Edinburgh. Perhaps that explains why, from time to time, he appears to resemble one of Robert Louis Stevenson’s famous characters, Jekyll and Hyde. One day he can craft an eloquent paean to vocational aspiration, but the next day he talks about micro-management, which is not what we want to hear. Young people and schools are not train sets to be broken up every few years and re-arranged in a different pattern.
Both the Secretary of State and his Minister of State, the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Mr Gibb) sit on the Front Bench like relics from the past. As Talleyrand said of the Bourbons, they have forgotten nothing and they have learned nothing. They have forgotten nothing about the failures of the past, but they have learned nothing, as is clear from the way they wish to turn back the clock.
The Secretary of State spoke of being a radical and spoke in the tone of a mad Maoist. I do not know if it is possible to be a mad Maoist Bourbon, but he is making a passable attempt at it. I do not know whether it is a leadership manoeuvre or the latest quaffing of the potion from R. L. Stevenson that turns him periodically into Mr Hyde. I do not know and, frankly, I do not care. What I care about passionately, as all Members of the House should, is that the life chances of hundreds of thousands of our young people should not be jeopardised by his “Mad Monk” half-hours.
If the Secretary of State wants to look at reforming GCSEs, at the balance between coursework and examinations, and how we make GCSEs work properly, we can help him with that. He could do worse than turn, for example, to my hon. Friend the Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman), who has done a great deal of work in this area.
We should be building bridges in education, not burning them. We should be offering young people, as we offer others, every opportunity to show that they can deploy a variety of skills, not putting them into blocks on the line or forcing them into second-class status. I yield to no one in pursuing academic excellence, seeing the strengths of traditional education, stretching young people and not soft-landing them, but we want an education system that combines the best of traditional strengths with an understanding of how we need to relate to a modern world of green skills and a low carbon economy.
We should be raising young people up, not putting them down. If we do not do so, not only will they and their families be harmed, but our economy and our ability to compete will be maimed and morphed into a grotesque Hogwart’s parody of education, for which this Secretary of State would bear a solemn responsibility.
Dan Rogerson (North Cornwall) (LD)
We seem to be having a remarkable outbreak of consensus in the Chamber—
Dan Rogerson
The hon. Gentleman is welcome to the Chamber. We look forward to interjections from him.
What was presumably billed, as Opposition day debates are, as a good knockabout seems to have collapsed into consensus. I am left feeling that I agree with much of what has been said from both sides of the House about the way forward in terms of rigour and a genuine consultation and re-examination of the examination system. I am left disagreeing only with the Daily Mail, a situation in which I often find myself, so it is reassuring territory for me.
If we are to consider the key points of the debate, we should look at what was floated in that esteemed publication as a bid to end the GCSE and restore the O-level and a qualification equivalent to the CSE. It is a little like those debates about selection, in which one hears a lot about grammar schools but not so much about secondary moderns. That is not to say that there are not excellent schools out there which are now no doubt called comprehensives or academies, but which once upon a time were known as secondary moderns. They are doing good work in areas where selection still exists, but that it not a position that my party would seek to push forward.
I was delighted to hear the Secretary of State at the Dispatch Box talking about a thorough examination of the GCSE, what it is, what it offers, how testing it is of young people, and its ability to stretch young people at all levels of ability, so that we celebrate the fact that not everyone will get an A*, and for those who were at one time predicted to get an F in some subject but who manage to get a D, that is a real success for them.
Mr Graham Stuart
We are raising the participation age by looking to use the extra years up to 17 and 18 to deliver a basic and rigorous standard. The most successful state school in the country, which I think is Lawrence Sheriff school in Rugby, uses a three-year course for its GCSEs and gets a tremendously high level of success. Perhaps it would be helpful to find out more about how education can be structured so that children can keep on learning until they get to that very high standard.
Dan Rogerson
The Chairman of the Select Committee said that he had to rewrite his speech. He has clearly been doing that and has made an additional contribution to the debate. I welcome his intervention.
The debate is about how we can ensure that all young people are stretched by the system—that they are driven forward, that they are inspired and that they can aspire to reach the very best. That is what teachers, head teachers and their parents want for them. It is clear that there has been grade inflation, a topic that has been covered by several right hon. and hon. Members. People are perhaps being given the impression that there is an endless arc upon which we will see results improve. We had a brief discussion about the Deputy Prime Minister’s progress at the Rio summit and the issues there of exponential growth without due consideration being given to sustainability. Perhaps what we are talking about in this debate is sustainability in the examination system.
When the Secretary of State came to the Dispatch Box last week to respond to an urgent question from the hon. Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan), we had a slightly more Daily Mail-influenced discussion across the House, as the news was hot off the press. The Secretary of State at that point was clearly responding to the leak, from wherever it came, and was not able to present a more thorough position, as he has done today. He ruled out the idea of returning to the 1950s with the O-level and the CSE, and instead proposed re-examining the GCSE and moving forward. I welcome that.
The proposal relating to examination boards seems to be moving forward to consultation. I can see the strengths of a system in which a board concentrates on a particular subject area. There are those of us who might be surprised not to see the Secretary of State looking at a more market-based solution. The proposal could be said to be a little centrally directed, but as my hon. Friend the Member for Wells (Tessa Munt) pointed out, young people are increasingly moving with their families to other parts of the country. If they join a school or college part-way through a course where the syllabus is different from their previous course, that presents problems. There have been one or two examples where the head teacher of an academy, who is responsible for admissions, has said that they are not able to take a young person on a course offered at their institution because the syllabus is different. Perhaps progress could be made in that respect.
These issues would need close examination to ensure that a range of courses was available so that all young people are inspired by what is on offer. There must be no sad homogenisation, and teachers must have the scope to ensure that they cover a broad curriculum.
We have an opportunity to look closely at the issue of rigour. I am delighted that we are not moving towards a wholesale change of the system, which could prove to be a distraction. As a Government the coalition has rightly moved to lift burdens on teachers and to remove unnecessary bureaucracy. Teachers want from us the support to use the skills that they have acquired. The Secretary of State was absolutely right to point out that we have a fantastic generation of teachers out there inspiring and working with young people. They do not want another upheaval and change; they want the confidence to know that the examinations to which they are submitting their students will be correct, robust and a fair assessment of those young people’s attainment, and, in some senses, of the attainment of the school or college in supporting those young people to the best of their potential.
I am delighted to say that the motion hangs on the words of the Deputy Prime Minister, unlike the shadow Minister, who sadly is not hanging on the words that I am offering to the Chamber. He clearly was hanging on the words of the Deputy Prime Minister last week, and it is good to see that the Opposition take such close account of what he has to say, as they did earlier this afternoon. The motion talks about a Government proposal to do certain things, which, as has become clear, the Government are not proposing to do. Therefore, it would be entirely the wrong thing to support a motion based on such a false premise. On the other hand, we have an amendment, around which I hope the House can coalesce, which talks about rigour and the need to ensure that there is a broad-based curriculum focused on the key areas of study and encouraging all young people to aspire to the best of their potential, and tackling social mobility, as the coalition agreement and the Government have set out to do, to ensure that all young people, no matter where they start out, are given every opportunity to achieve the very best for them and for their communities.
Tristram Hunt (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab)
In contrast to the Chair of the Select Committee, because I have a more cynical frame of mind, I will work on the assumption that the Daily Mail report of 21 June was correct and that the briefing came from someone close to the Secretary of State’s office, from a special adviser or perhaps the hon. Member for Grantham and Stamford (Nick Boles) at last earning his crust. I will also work on the assumption that today’s debate is part of testing the response to that. If at any point the Secretary of State wishes to stand up and say to the House, “No, Mr. Tim Shipman of the Daily Mail as ever got it totally wrong and we have no plans in this direction,” I will happily yield the floor. But I also warn the Secretary of State that he is going down a dangerous road, because if, as we have heard this afternoon, he has no plans in this direction, there is little more dangerous than the Daily Mail spurned. But for the moment I will work on the assumption that it is correct.
Kevin Brennan
If my hon. Friend is incorrect and the Secretary of State has performed some kind of humiliating climbdown today, does he think that the Secretary of State will have to apologise to all those who came on the media to back him, including Toby Young and all his other friends in the right-wing press?
Tristram Hunt
It was amazing how they were all ready, almost whipped in, but perhaps the Secretary of State will have another visit to the High Court and his friend Judge Leveson to explain all this.
The Secretary of State will know that I have no problem with some of his policies. I am happy to support the English baccalaureate, much greater rigour in standards, and the ending of endless repeat examinations and an end to semi-vocational, grade-inflating GCSE-equivalent exams. However, I share with my hon. Friend the shadow Secretary of State serious reservations about the downgrading of the engineering diploma, at a time when we are interested in rebalancing the British economy. I am in favour of schools being allowed to conduct internal streaming, of academy schools in the right circumstances, of apprenticeships when done properly. As an historian, I am also in favour of pupils learning dates and poems, because that provides the structure and the architecture that allows for greater learning and understanding. I am in favour of the Wolf report and what it means for skills training.
A large part of the agenda I can concur with, but this bizarre decision to think about abolishing GCSEs and reintroduce O-levels and CSEs strikes me as deeply misguided. How would this help children in my constituency of Stoke-on-Trent? I want students in my city to take GCSEs in relevant subjects, to be taught well and to aspire. I do not think that at the age of 14 they should be hived off into CSEs; for their aspirations to be put into a straitjacket. As the Chair of the Select Committee said, we know the problems about standards, but no Government Member has been able to stand up and say, “Yes, the solution to this problem is, as reported in the Daily Mail, the O-level/CSE divide.” Until we hear that, this is, as the Chair also said, a slightly bizarre debate. But I will continue working on the dangerous assumption of Daily Mail correctitude.
Looking at the Financial Times research, 25% of children in my constituency would be put into the straitjacket of CSEs. That is not the soft bigotry of low expectations, but the hard bigotry of low expectations in action. It demonstrates a total poverty of ambition.
Mr Graham Stuart
An interesting outcome of this debate was texting my office to ask how many people—I realise that as Chair of the Select Committee I should know this—take these foundation GCSEs. The answer I got back is that that information is not collected by the Department for Education or by the exam boards. Go figure.
Tristram Hunt
I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. That is why I found the discussion about employers knowing the difference between a C at GCSE at different levels attained wholly fallacious. If the big problem of educational attainment is the long tail of under-achievement, the measures to combat that need to be there for all. There is no evidence to suggest that dividing at 14 will help that. We had an interesting contribution today on some of the neurological evidence of the potential for growth from 14 to 16. What we do have evidence for is how overwhelming it will be for the poor and those from socio-economically challenged backgrounds who will be condemned to the new CSEs. That is why the 1980s Conservative Government abandoned this policy. In 1985, Sir Keith Joseph, who became Lord Joseph, unveiled evidence that there is a
“strong association between low achievement and the poverty-related factors of poor housing, single-parent families and a low proportion of children in higher socio-economic groups”.
This policy of division was too divisive even for Sir Keith.
We also hear that with the new O-levels there will be no national curriculum—although a back-door one because of a single qualification authority. This strikes me as a rather strange route to developing the kind of curriculum we want, drawing on a wide knowledge base. It also flies in the face of the Secretary of State’s ambitions to create a national narrative of British history, to teach in all our schools a single notion of British history that imbues notions of citizenship which develops a—rather Whiggish in my view—conception of the British past that all will share. They will not all share that if there is no national curriculum. The greater the division between schools, the greater the division in the teaching of history. Any ambition to teach a cohesive notion of citizenship through the teaching of history is totally undone by the elimination of a cohesive national curriculum.
Internal reforms of the GCSE would be welcome. Clampdown on grade inflation and the proposals vis-à-vis the examinations board are to be welcomed. An end to generalised humanities GCSEs—the merging of history and geography—are to be welcomed. We can learn from the international GCSE, the I-bac. But all that can be achieved within the current system. That is the tragedy of what the Secretary of State is up to.
Mr Andrew Turner (Isle of Wight) (Con)
The hon. Gentleman mentions the baccalaureate and international GCSEs. If those are acceptable, and it seems that they are, and they are the examinations for able pupils, which they are, what would happen to the other GCSEs that would be occupied by the less able?
Tristram Hunt
The point about the GCSE is that it is a general certificate of secondary education. The point about the CSE is that it had stigma attached to it. At GCSE one can have an A and an A*. There is still the GCSE and a structure. The briefing to the Daily Mail is that there is an ambition to return to a more divisive system. The tragedy is that there is so much work to be done: the quality of teacher training; ending the scandal of an ever-expanding key stage 4, which means pupils are finishing history or geography in year 8; ending the relentless examination culture that sees AS exams in the January of the lower sixth—we need to get rid of that; embedding a new strategy for the teaching of foreign languages; driving up numeracy and literacy. These are the real challenges confronting schooling. In the face of these challenges, this political strategy seems a massive misallocation of the Secretary of State’s time and resources and those of civil servants in his Department. The Government are already reviewing the primary and secondary school curricula, so why also begin this tub-thumping policy that is not based on empirical evidence?
This is no way to make policy: revealing these kinds of ideas in the Daily Mail, a newspaper usually opposed to deep thinking, learning and cohesive policy development, and at a time when young people are taking their exams. All we can hope is that it is a rather cack-handed example of kite-flying by a Secretary of State who is slightly puffed up at the moment and that the kite will soon be shot down and normal service resumed.
Guy Opperman (Hexham) (Con)
This has been a confectionary debate featuring a number of individual sweets, not least the polo mint that constitutes the motion. I have studied it in great detail and found nothing that takes forward this country’s education debate. In the words of one coalition colleague, it is an “opportunistic wheeze.” Having studied the motion and found nothing of substance, we should then go back to the words of the hon. Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan), who so enlightened the House when he outlined the Opposition’s education policy last Thursday:
“We on the Opposition side of the House believe in a modern education system that promotes high standards, rigorous exams”.—[Official Report, 21 June 2012; Vol. 546, c. 1026.]
He had earlier sought an apology, but of course thus far we have had no apology for his claim that three in 10 pupils equalled 60% of them. When one studies the specific proposals he put forward last Thursday, one has to ask oneself, “Is this not lighter than air?” It is the Aero policy we are now studying—
Guy Opperman
No. I can assure hon. Members that it is the hon. Gentleman’s proposals that are lighter than air; I have studied them and found that there is not much in them.
We then move on to the Celebrations moment. While I was in hospital last year, when something took place that was of good order I would be provided with a large box of Celebrations. There was such a time earlier today: the shadow Secretary of State, like St Paul on the road to Damascus, stood forth and admitted for the first time that there had been grade inflation under Labour. However, despite repeated questioning by me and others, he refused to state when he first discovered this grade inflation. Was it 1997, 2005, 2010, 2012, or was it yesterday? He failed to divulge when that magical event took place. That is a crucial point, because the discovery of grade inflation is utterly important to an assessment of how this policy is going forward.
Despite throwing money at the problem, the previous Government did not see the results. As other Members have outlined, maths, literacy and science all declined, whatever type of test was taken. Academies do work, and I applaud the expansion of that programme. Let us take as an exemplar the words of Andrew Adonis, the former Schools Minister, who said there should be “strong independent governance” that was “free of local authority red tape”, with exemplary leadership and “brilliant teachers” who were specially chosen. That is the way forward.
In Northumberland, part of which I represent, schools saw little of the financial benefit that the previous Government bestowed on individual local authorities. The situation has changed, I am pleased to say, with the rebuild announcement for Prudhoe community high school, and I look forward to welcoming the Secretary of State when he visits Northumberland shortly. I will also be showing him the amazing Queen Elizabeth high school in Hexham, another school that was denied any sort of funding or rebuild under the previous Government.
However, I have two reservations that I want to raise with the Minister. First, we should be wary of change for change’s sake. Every teacher in Northumberland I spoke with before the last election explained with growing depression how every year there was a different syllabus, a different amendment or a different set of textbooks, all costing huge amounts of money, in circumstances in which some consistency was clearly needed so that they could get on with what they wanted to do, which was to teach.
Secondly, I wish to echo some of the comments that have been made on vocational education. I am not a fan of nail technology being a GCSE. However, I represent a constituency in rural Northumberland where we value vocational education very highly. I suggest that the lesson the Minister should take forward is not to throw the baby out with the bathwater. It is absolutely vital that we hang on to the engineering and alternative qualifications. I totally understand and applaud the desire to reduce the number of vocational qualifications, but there is a danger of being excessive in that policy, and in rural areas in particular that will affect the quality of education provided.
Given the time limit and the number of Members who wish to speak, I will bring my remarks to a close. I suggest that in these circumstances there is a great deal of scope. I support what the Government are doing and think that the motion has absolutely no merit whatsoever.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
Order. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for the self-restraint he has shown. I am now reducing the time limit to five minutes.
Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)
Young people are our future, yet the value some people place on them and their achievements is extremely low. I feel that many members of the current Government must be trying to secure some kind of medal, in this Olympic year, for driving the value of our young people and their achievements to a record low. Time and again they send young people negative messages, undervalue their hard work in sitting their examinations and then, when they do well, put the boot in again by suggesting that their certificates are hardly worth the paper they are printed on.
The Secretary of State wants to drive up standards—we all do—but the actions he now proposes will effectively write off a large number of young people who need the greatest support and lower their expectations for a happy and productive life. Does he really believe that that is the way forward, or are his latest pronouncements about something else? Is he using our children and their education to create a debate in the Tory section of the Government, where attitudes are very different from those of their coalition partners? Is he just playing controversial games with our children’s future, as the newspapers suggest, as he aims to take over from a weak Prime Minister who is struggling to harness his partners and achieve the right-wing agenda he thought he would be pursuing after the general election?
The former Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, axed the two-tier O-level/CSE system. She, like the president of the Liberal Democrats, recognised that it was divisive and dumped millions of young people into a second division from which they could not escape. I never thought that I could agree with such people on anything, but on this I cannot help agreeing with them both. I never thought that a son of Thatcher—perhaps a grandson—could be the one to turn against her in such a way.
The Secretary of State has said:
“The coalition Government’s education reforms are designed to raise standards in all our schools and give every child the opportunity to acquire the rigorous qualifications that will enable them to succeed in further and higher education and the world of work.”—[Official Report, 21 June 2012; Vol. 546, c. 1025.]
However, I, along with the vast majority of educational professionals, can see the opposite happening. Rather than reducing educational inequality, the reforms that those in the Tory part of the coalition propose will do the opposite. Under the new proposals, around three quarters of pupils could sit tough tests modelled on the old O-level while the remaining pupils take more straightforward qualifications modelled on traditional CSEs in subjects such as maths, English and science. But separating 75% of pupils from the other 25% will do nothing but divide children into winners and losers at the incredibly young age of 14, capping aspiration and putting up a barrier to social mobility.
Like my hon. Friend the Member for North West Durham (Pat Glass), I am a member of the Education Committee and visited Singapore earlier this year. Some children there go into the elite education programme at age 12 while the others are shoved down the technical route. We visited both types of schools and found that the facilities were very good. However, I was extremely saddened to hear young people talk of themselves as the elite. They are encouraged to talk themselves up, which is good, but what about the young people who are not the elite? If the Education Secretary wants to replicate Singapore’s system here, what would that contribute to equality of opportunity?
This is not just a moral argument against segregating pupils; it is also an argument based on strong evidence. Relegating 14-year-olds to a lesser qualification brands them as underachievers and could drain both students and schools of any incentive to push for higher performance. If we move on to the CSE track a child who would otherwise be aiming for a C at GCSE, we may find that they are very likely to stop trying and not to value the qualification that they finally achieve. One third of children who score in the bottom 25% at 11 years old break out of that group by 16, but if they are placed in a second-class category at an early age they risk being written off. Quite simply, schools cannot predict with 100% accuracy the future of their pupils, and many will struggle to place children correctly.
Once again, the north-east of England will bear the brunt of the Government’s changes, as research shows that the CSE will be most prevalent in northern towns. That the Secretary of State is intent on limiting the ambitions and opportunities for people in my constituency and many others throughout our region is shameful.
While in office, Labour managed to narrow the educational gap between the rich and the poor, not through dumbing down, as Government Members like to believe, but through more investment in schools and teachers and through giving schools more freedom to innovate. Even the Secretary of State recognises that we have the best cohort of teachers ever, but that did not happen by accident. It was investment in their training, and excellent support in the classroom, that helped them to raise their game and to support our children as never before. That is what makes a real difference to our children’s education, not imposing outdated ideas that have already been shown to fail.
Gavin Barwell (Croydon Central) (Con)
This has been an historic debate, because for the first time the Front-Bench spokesmen on both sides of the House have acknowledged clearly and unequivocally a truth that has been obvious for a long time: our exam system, over a number of years, has been dumbed down. I give great credit to the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg) for saying that clearly and unequivocally in response to my question.
I was in the first year group to sit GCSE exams. My class did one O-level in January and eight or nine GCSEs in June. In the O-level, three of the class of 27 got an A grade; in every GCSE subject, a majority got A grades; and in some, almost every member of the class did. It was clear when GCSEs were introduced that it was easier to get top grades in them than in O-levels, and research by the university of Durham and feedback from employers and parents shows that there has been a further deterioration since then.
The Secretary of State has already done a lot to try to address the problem in respect of the English baccalaureate, ending the modular system, re-sits, an emphasis on spelling, punctuation and grammar and by getting rid of some equivalents, but further measures are needed. It is good that there seems to be consensus on a single exam board and on ending the race to the bottom, so I shall focus on the main issue in the debate, the fear of a two-tier system, and say clearly and unequivocally that I do not want to go back to a CSE system.
Gavin Barwell
I will not take interventions, for reasons of time.
I do not want to go back to a CSE system, but we need the radical reform of our GCSEs in order to bring back a degree of academic rigour. The Education Committee Chairman made a very important point to the Secretary of the State about how raising the threshold will raise the number of people who succeed. I believe passionately, as a parent and from my experience of visiting schools, that paradoxically if we raise the threshold we will find that young people respond to it. That is the experience of schools that have switched to the IGCSE exam.
In the briefing pack for this debate, I saw some research from King’s college, London, showing the decline in maths over the past 30 years, with many 14-year-olds not understanding concepts such as algebra and ratios. I am not satisfied that my nine-year-old is stretched at his primary school, so I work with him on his maths at home, and he has already grasped those topics. I do not think that he is especially bright or clever, but I passionately believe that our young people are full of talent, and if they are pushed and stretched they will respond.
We also need to acknowledge that at 16 years old the right outcome for all our young people is not necessarily to sit a full suite of academic qualifications. For years and years this country has lacked a proper, respected vocational alternative, but if we secure such an alternative, we should not deride it as part of a two-tier system in which people doing vocational qualifications are somehow failures or second best.
Gavin Barwell
I am not talking about going back to CSEs, which were second-rate academic qualifications; I am talking about a system in which most children should be capable of getting robust academic qualifications and, through that, pushed to achieve their maximum. But we should recognise that it is not the right outcome for all young people, so there should be a proper vocational alternative, and we should not regard the young people who go down that route as failures or as second best in any way. I believe that absolutely passionately.
I shall end my speech—I know others want to speak—with one final point. Changing our exam system is not in and of itself a solution to the problems that the Education Committee Chairman has identified, but it is part of the mix, alongside the other things that the Government are doing: getting the basics right in primary school so that everybody learns to read and can access the curriculum that follows; emphasising discipline so that young people can actually learn in the classroom; giving teachers the freedom to innovate within their schools; giving parents a proper and effective choice through the free school model; and, finally, setting a floor and saying to schools that do not live up to the minimum standards that we have a right to expect, “That’s not good enough. We’re going to bring in an academy to replace you.”
That package of measures, together with a robust exam system, is what we need to give this country what it needs—the best equipped young people in the world. That is the only way to get the companies that will give us the jobs we want to locate themselves here, so we need to have the courage to bite the bullet and say openly, as both Front Benchers have for the first time today, that we have dumbed down our system over a number of years—not just under the previous Labour Government; it has been going on for a long time—and that that process needs to be reversed. We need to bring back rigour, to provide a proper vocational alternative and to stop the sterile argument about a two-tier system.
Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)
Having a good look at our examination system is a valid thing to do. Indeed, the Chair of the Education Committee has reminded us that next Tuesday it will publish its report into the matter, and I know from my time serving on the Committee that it will have fully interrogated the issues and will produce a robust report to drive forward policy.
Such a principled, considered approach contrasts with the Secretary of State’s way of doing business—by hunch, lunch and leak. Indeed, after sitting through 40 minutes of his speech today, I was still no clearer at the end about his proposals. It was a content vacuum, I am afraid, but things need addressing. Are there plans to scrap the national curriculum at 14 years old, and would that allow schools and colleges greater flexibility to offer a more skills-based curriculum to those young people who prefer a more practical, vocational approach? Will the millions of pounds—a sum that has doubled in the past 10 years—being spent on examinations be reduced?
At the heart of the Secretary of State’s leak to the Daily Mail, there seemed to be a half-baked idea about some back to the future, imaginary utopia, enshrined in a return to O-levels and CSEs. I fear that that has far more to do with clever politicking than with intelligent policy making, however, and that the Secretary of State is keen to deliver soundbites for the Tory tabloids rather than sound policies for the young people of today and UK plc.
It is all a bit like a Monty Python sketch in which someone says, “Exams were much harder in my day. I had to recite poems and parse sentences.” The reply would be, “Recite poems and parse sentences? You were lucky. I had to recite the complete works of Shakespeare and then write an essay on a day in the life of a pound note.” Seriously, however, people like to believe that things were harder in the past, although the evidence is far from clear, and the Secretary of State is tapping into a populist instinct: nostalgia politics.
One of the few things I know a bit about is preparing young people for exams. I have prepared them for a range of exams: CEEs, CSEs, O-levels, A-levels, S-levels, AS-levels, BTECs. You name it, Mr Deputy Speaker, I have prepared young people for it, but in terms of setting and assessing standards, the worst exam that I ever prepared people for was O-level English, which was a total lottery, so if the Secretary of State thinks that going back to something like that will improve standards, he really is on another planet: planet dogma, or planet not in this place.
When Sir Keith Joseph was introducing the changes, he made very clearly the case for their necessity, stating that
“the system we propose will be tougher but clearer and fairer…it will be more intelligible to users…better than O-levels…and better than CSE…it will stretch the able more; and…stretch the average more.”—[Official Report, 20 June 1984; Vol. 62, c. 306.]
I believe, from my professional experience, that that is what the GCSE has done. That does not mean it is perfect, or that it does not need improving, but any idea about going back to the 1950s, and to exam systems that may or may not have been appropriate for that time, is unfortunate.
It is worth noting, however, that the debate about an exam at 16 years old is actually rather odd and anachronistic, because, with the raising of the participation age, the qualification that young people leave with at 18 years old is what really matters. Focusing so much attention on what happens at 16 misses the point, because with rising participation levels, the main thing is the skills, attributes and experiences that young people leave school with at 18 to allow them, one hopes, into a world of work.
One of the big problems regarding aspiration for young people is the fact that young people’s unemployment is at a record high on this Government’s watch. That has a genuine impact on aspiration in classrooms. I am afraid that despite the skills, expertise and professionalism of those great teachers, led by great head teachers, up and down the land, that remains the context in which they are working. As people providing policy and governance, one of our gifts should be to produce a mechanism to enable young people to move into employment and ensure that they have the proper skills, attributes and aptitudes to do well in it.
Charlotte Leslie (Bristol North West) (Con)
I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon Central (Gavin Barwell) that this has been a historic debate. There has been a tendency for people in this country to live in a fantasy land. We think that as long as we allow grades to go up and tell ourselves it is okay, it is okay, but in an era of globalisation it is not enough to tell ourselves that everything is okay; it really has to be so. We have been doing this in relation to grade inflation and what we have been telling our young people. We have been saying, “Do this nice course—it’s all going to be fine and no one is going to tell you that you’ve done badly”, but reality has to hit them at some point, and that happens when they go out into the world of work and find that the cosy story they have been told behind their school gates does not match up to the reality outside. What the Secretary of State has said is therefore massively important. I am extremely pleased that the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg) has acknowledged that grade inflation has been taking place.
I would like the House to acknowledge that we have seen the creation of a two-tier system by stealth. Any two-tier system is bad, and this one has IGCSEs and the international baccalaureate for the well-off and the sharp-elbowed, with the less sharp-elbowed left with GCSEs, or their equivalents, that will not get them a job at the end of the day. That is absolutely appalling. No one can defend the status quo, and anyone who tries to do so has a much lower opinion of the country’s children than I do. I want to concentrate on a premise that underlies a lot of the debate about this two-tier system. Of course, every child must have the opportunity, and must be pushed, to do the best they can at core academic subjects; I am a great supporter of the E-bac in that respect. However, to suggest that unless a child does those core subjects they are thrown on to the scrap heap, as Labour Members have repeatedly done, betrays an extraordinary attitude towards so-called vocational education.
Again, I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon Central. If we did not have people who did not find grammar and algebra books the most interesting thing in the world, we would not be standing in a building that is so intricately and beautifully built, with incredible craftsmanship. I object to the term “vocational”, which has arisen in the past decade or so, because it is a euphemism that betrays a slight embarrassment about the kinds of skills that have made our cities and our country great, and a reluctance actually to name practical, manual and technical skills, crafts and tradesmanship. In future, I should like the term “vocational” to be abolished and replaced with something far more honest. In terms of equivalence, we have been doing nothing for tradesmanship, craftsmanship and so-called vocational trades and everything for academic qualifications. Nail technology is not studied to get a job, because there are not enough nail technology jobs to go round for all the hundreds of thousands of people who are doing these courses. It has been all about the exam results, not the jobs.
There has been an overwhelming need to get real, and the Secretary of State’s bravery in tackling the underlying problems in our GCSE system is a welcome attempt to do so. I hoped for a moment that Labour Members had got real, but it seems that they may not have done.
Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)
I am certainly not against change. As a former teacher, examiner and Ofsted inspector, I spent a lifetime trying to raise standards of teaching and learning and to develop programmes of study that better prepared pupils for the modern world so that, for example, in foreign languages we moved on from talking about boys falling out of cherry trees to teaching children realistic phrases that they could use in business and leisure situations.
Did I detect the Secretary of State retreating from the position attributed to him in the press last week? Did he really say that he was not going for a CSE/O-level divide? I am not sure. I remember, though, that back in 1981, well before the GCSE was rolled out nationwide, I was piloting the 16-plus. That is because we believed very much in piloting things to see how they worked out and what the problems were. We were trying to put together two very different examinations, with a D grade being attributed to pupils of average ability. That is how we got to the system whereby the A to C grade was seen as the superior way of designating some children, with D to G grades for the rest, and with the foundation and higher papers. I make no apology for that; it is the history of how it came about. It is extremely difficult to set questions that will stretch a very able pupil but not prove to be complete gobbledegook, and a complete deterrent, to the very least able, and that was the point of having different papers. The key thing was that right up until March or April, pupils could move between the examinations that they were going to take in June. That was very important because it gave everyone an incentive to keep working the whole time and not to think, “Oh well, they’re only CSEs, so I don’t need to work so hard.”
I have serious worries about the introduction of a dual system. For example, in small subject areas such as music or a second foreign language, children of a larger range of ability are often taught in the same class. Will they now have to be taught two different syllabuses, or programmes of study, because one class will include the more able and the less able, with some going in for a CSE and some going in for an O-level? In smaller schools, that will affect not only small subjects but mainstream subjects. It may be very difficult to accommodate everybody. The teacher might have to run about trying to cope with two programmes of study at once, or perhaps some pupils will be discouraged from taking the subject having been told that they can do it only if they are capable of doing the O-level-type examination.
Dual entry could arise, because a child who might fail the more difficult O-level-equivalent exam would therefore do the CSE as well. A lot of money is already spent on examination fees, and dual entry is extremely expensive. As well as creating additional costs, it would place a lot of extra pressure on children and staff. There is a danger that children will suddenly not be given a chance to do the more difficult exam and be withdrawn because they might mess up the results. There would be the sheer disruption of introducing two completely new examination systems when there are many simpler and more effective ways of raising standards.
I do not understand the Secretary of State saying that people in this country do not re-sit English and maths, because they certainly do. When we go to any institution for 16 to 18-year-olds, we will find people making sure that they give every pupil the chance to get the A to C grades in English and maths that are so essential to their going on to their future careers or university courses. On international comparisons, it is not at the top end of the ability range that we do so badly in this country, but at the middle and lower ends. Creating segregated systems will do nothing to improve the morale of the middle-ability and less able pupil; in fact, it will do precisely the opposite.
As regards examination boards, the Secretary of State alleged that there had been some shopping around to find the system that provided the highest grades for the least effort. It is true that there has been some choosing of different programmes of study, perhaps because some are more inspiring or user-friendly to the pupil. I am not against having more than one examination board, but will the Secretary of State please confirm that we are not going to have separate examination boards for different subjects, which would be an examination officer’s nightmare? I also plead with him to allow some space for innovation. Having different examination boards has allowed us to innovate without a 100% roll-out.
Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)
We have had a fascinating debate, with contributions from 13 hon. Members: my hon. Friend the Member for North West Durham (Pat Glass), the hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr Stuart), my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester West (Liz Kendall), the hon. Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds), my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool South (Mr Marsden), the hon. Member for North Cornwall (Dan Rogerson), my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Tristram Hunt), the hon. Member for Hexham (Guy Opperman), my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham), the hon. Member for Croydon Central (Gavin Barwell), my hon. Friend the Member for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin), the hon. Member for Bristol North West (Charlotte Leslie) and my hon. Friend the Member for Llanelli (Nia Griffith). It has been an interesting, although not entirely illuminating, debate.
The Opposition have no disagreement with the case that there is a need to reform the GCSE. As the House knows, the GCSE was first sat by pupils 25 years ago. I was teaching at the time. The idea that the world has not changed sufficiently since then for the GCSE to require reform is as ludicrous as the idea that the world is sufficiently similar to how it was 50 years ago that we have to return to O-levels and CSEs. The raising of the education and training leaving age to 18 raises the fundamental question of what public examinations we need at 16 and what they are for. That is a legitimate debate. One hon. Member asked whether we need to spend the huge amount of money that we spend on examinations at the age of 16. We have to ensure that GCSEs are fit for purpose, but we do not need to go back to the future.
In the words of the Deputy Prime Minister, we do not need to recreate
“a two tier system where children at quite a young age are somehow cast on a scrap heap”.
The more observant hon. Members will have noticed that we included those words in our motion. However, the Government amendment, which is signed, among others, by the Deputy Prime Minister, would expunge those words from the motion. That is a novel approach. It might well be the first time that a senior Cabinet Minister has tabled an amendment to delete his own words.
Dan Rogerson
There would be a problem if the Deputy Prime Minister had said something in the amendment that disagreed with what he said before. The amendment has a different emphasis, but there is no contradiction between the two.
Kevin Brennan
In that case, the Deputy Prime Minister could have left his own words in the amendment that he signed, but he chose to delete them. I am tempted to say, in the words of the late, great Amy Winehouse, “What kind of Lib-Demery is this?” Let us allow for a moment the notion that the Deputy Prime Minister meant what he said about a two-tier system, despite trying to delete his own words from the motion.
The Government amendment appears to contradict the leaks from the Secretary of State’s advisers last week that he would not need parliamentary approval or Lib Dem support for his proposal to bring back CSEs and O-levels. We have it from the Financial Times that Downing street now insists that the Secretary of State cannot go ahead without approval with the proposals that he leaked to the Daily Mail last week. The Financial Times article goes on to say that
“the idea of a lower qualification for less academic children”
is “dead in the water.” Perhaps when he responds, the Minister of State, Department for Education, the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Mr Gibb) will confirm whether that idea is dead in the water. If it is, why are the Secretary of State’s advisers at this moment spinning to the press lobby in the House of Commons that a lower qualification known as an N-level will be introduced—something that he did not announce to the House?
The Minister needs to come clean when he winds up. Is the two-tier plan that was leaked to the Daily Mail by the Secretary of State’s closest advisers dead in the water or not? Is it full steam ahead for the Secretary of State, or is this a humiliating climbdown? The Secretary of State was asked on three occasions—or as he would say, thrice—whether the Daily Mail report was wrong, and thrice he demurred and did not tell us. If he is making a humiliating climbdown, he must apologise to all his friends who came out in support of the proposals in the media.
The manner and timing of the leak to the Daily Mail were a disgrace, at a time when students up and down the country, who have been working hard for months on end, were sitting their GCSEs. What a contrast that is to the way in which the GCSE was introduced all those years ago. A debate was kicked off in 1976 by Jim Callaghan, the former Labour Prime Minister. It was developed by Shirley Williams, although she has gone off the tracks a little since then. Come to think of it, we have not heard much from her on this subject. It would be interesting to know what she thinks. The idea was picked up by Keith Joseph—that well known lily-livered, liberal, loony lefty—and implemented by Mrs Thatcher’s Education Secretary, Kenneth Baker, following thorough debate and consideration. It was welcomed across the House.
In contrast, we now have a proposal to rip up the GCSE, with accompanying disparaging rhetoric, cooked up by a cabal, no doubt using private e-mail accounts, with no reference to the Department’s officials or to other Departments, and kept secret even from one of the Secretary of State’s Education Ministers. What a ludicrous way to run a Department that is, and how symptomatic of the Secretary of State’s seething lack of trust in his own Minister and officials.
At least we can assume that the Secretary of State would be kinder to and have more faith in those on his own side. Not so, because we now find out that not even the Prime Minister knew the details of what he was about to leak to the Daily Mail. A Downing street spokesman told the Financial Times:
“It looks as if we’re being bounced into something we weren’t prepared for.”
What about the Education Committee, which is chaired ably by the Secretary of State’s Conservative colleague, the hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness, who as always made a thoughtful contribution today? Let us be clear that the Chair of the Select Committee is no fan of Labour education policy. We have had many discussions about it and, to save him any embarrassment, I confirm that he is no fan of Labour education policy. Nevertheless, we respect his long-standing commitment to raising the standards for those at the bottom. As the Secretary of State well knows, the Committee is at this moment undertaking a review of qualifications and examinations that seeks to address some of these questions. What contempt the Secretary of State has shown for the Education Committee by publicising his plans in the press without any consideration of the Committee’s work. I took a sharp intake of breath when the Secretary of State said to the Chair of the Select Committee, “If the cap on aspiration fits, wear it.” That was uncalled for and was off the mark with regard to the hon. Gentleman’s commitment to helping those at the lower end. However, I know that he needs no help from me.
I met the CBI earlier today. Like us, it thinks that the GCSE needs to be looked at again. Like us, it thinks that a much wider debate is needed than the headline-grabbing call for a return to O-levels and CSEs that we have had from the Secretary of State. GCSEs are not, despite the impression that the Secretary of State tried to give last week, a worthless piece of paper, but that is exactly how Kenneth Baker described CSEs, which the Secretary of State last week seemed so keen to bring back. As my hon. Friend the Member for Scunthorpe pointed out, many O-levels were not rigorous qualifications, but required little more than a Gradgrindian regurgitation of facts. Factual knowledge is not enough in a world in which, as the CBI told me today, more data will be created this year than have been created in the previous 5,000 years. Rote learning is insufficient in a world that needs citizens who can process intelligently a mass of information and data in their daily lives. We need breadth and balance in the curriculum.
The GCSE was brought in not as a single examination paper, as some Government colleagues seem to think, but as a single examinations system that would give everybody the chance to succeed if they reached the required standard. That is a principle worth preserving. Reform, yes; back to the future, no.
The Minister of State, Department for Education (Mr Nick Gibb)
This has been a good debate, but as my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol North West (Charlotte Leslie) pointed out, we need a reality check. The overarching objective of the Government’s education policy is to close the attainment gap between those from wealthier and those from poorer backgrounds, which is wider in this country than in many of our competitor nations. The gap means that 49% of pupils eligible for free school meals achieved a grade C or better in GCSE maths last year compared with 74% of all non-free school meal pupils; that 67% of pupils eligible for free school meals achieved the expected level in reading when they left primary school last year compared with 82% of non-free school meal pupils; and that just 8% of pupils eligible for free school meals were entered for the English baccalaureate combination of core academic GCSEs compared with 22% overall.
That attainment gap is morally unacceptable and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St Edmunds (Mr Ruffley) said, economically damaging to this country. It has all the hallmarks of the two-tier education system that hon. Members say they wish to eliminate.
Mr Gibb
I will not give way because of the time.
Under the previous Government and that two-tier system, a sizeable proportion of young people were persuaded to take qualifications that scored highly in performance tables, but that turned out to have less credibility with employers than the young people had been led to believe, as so aptly pointed out by my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol North West. That is why, on the recommendation of Alison Wolf, we have looked again at all vocational qualifications taught in schools to ensure that only those highly valued by employers count in performance tables. That will raise both the value and the esteem of the vocational qualifications taught in our schools, which is supported by my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon Central (Gavin Barwell).
Last year, the OECD produced its seminal report, “How do some students overcome their socio-economic background?” It states that, in Britain, only a quarter of deprived children were able to overcome their background in terms of academic achievement, compared with more than 70% in Shanghai and Hong Kong, which places Britain 39th out of 65 OECD countries.
Addressing those inequalities lies at the heart of every radical education reform implemented, announced or mooted by the Government since May 2010, which includes: the academies and free school programmes, which bring professional autonomy and diversity to our school system and raise standards in some of the most deprived parts of the country; the focus on phonics in reading and the phonic check—we last week checked the basic reading skills of every 6-year-old in the country—which mean that no child slips through the net with their reading problems unidentified; ending the re-sit culture and modularisation in GCSEs; restoring marks for spelling, punctuation and grammar; the pupil premium, which provides significant extra school funding for pupils who are eligible for free school meals; allowing good schools to expand; raising the floor standard of underperforming primary and secondary schools; giving more power to teachers to tackle unruly behaviour; reviewing the national curriculum; publishing draft primary school programmes of study in English, maths and science; and putting greater emphasis on reading, scientific knowledge, languages, arithmetic and the essentials of grammar, spelling and punctuation.
Those are the important reforms, but as my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has said, the evidence shows that we must go further. A few weeks ago, a CBI survey showed that nearly half of all employers were unhappy with the basic literacy skills of school and college leavers—35% expressed concern over maths. This week, King’s College London reported that teenagers’ maths skills have declined over the past 30 years.
The Government are clear that we need fundamental reform. We want a broad, inclusive conversation to consider how we address the concerns of employers, parents, pupils and schools. We must learn our lessons not from the past, but from the best—from countries such as Singapore, where students are required to have a proper knowledge of syntax and grammar, an understanding of the scientific laws that govern our world, and an understanding of maths, which allow them to progress down both technical and academic routes. None of that is beyond the children of this country, but we too often lack the most basic aspiration on their behalf.
In Singapore, the exams designed for 16-year-olds are rigorous, academic, stretching and comprehensive. They are taken by the vast majority of the population. Those exams—O-levels drawn up by examiners in this country— set a level of aspiration for every child that helps to ensure that Singapore remains a world leader in education. We want to ensure that children in this country have exactly the same opportunities as their peers in Singapore and other high-performing nations; that our pupils are as comprehensively equipped to compete in a world of international commerce; that every single child has the opportunity to succeed to their full potential.
The Government’s reforms are designed to achieve a fundamental change in expectation and academic achievement. We should expect all schools to have the academic attainment of Mossbourne academy. We want our qualifications to be world class, with the expectation that all will study for them, and that the great majority will achieve them, if not by aged 16, then by 17, 18 or 19.
The hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg) made a revealing speech. I am not aware of any Education Minister from the previous Labour Government who would accept the existence of grade inflation in GCSEs. His acceptance of that and his change of view are welcome—they help to bring honesty and candour to the debate.
My hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr Stuart), in seeking to defend himself from accusations of fatalism, spoke of establishing a route map from point A to point B—good luck with that—and sought more detail on the Government’s proposals before the publication of our consultation document, while refusing to give the Government a glimpse of the Education Committee’s forthcoming report on qualifications, which is due out next week.
I welcome the support of the hon. Member for Leicester West (Liz Kendall) for the single exam board proposal and wholeheartedly congratulate New College school on its transformation, and on the “yes you can, yes you will” ethos.
My hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) raised concerns about grade inflation, early entry for GCSE, re-sits and modularisation, and rightly pointed out that today we have a clear, two-tier GCSE system, which he called a rebranded CSE and GCE system. He revised the phrase made famous by Melanie Phillips—“All must have prizes”—by saying that all must merit prizes.
I welcome the support of my hon. Friend the Member for North Cornwall (Dan Rogerson) for rigour. He is right to be reassured about genuine consultation. The hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Tristram Hunt) falsely accused my hon. Friend the Member for Grantham and Stamford (Nick Boles) of earning his crust, but I welcome the hon. Gentleman’s support for the English baccalaureate and for children acquiring knowledge in history and learning poems by heart. I take on board the caution of my hon. Friend the Member for Hexham (Guy Opperman) against change for change’s sake.
The Government are accused of wanting to create a two-tier education system, but this country already has one, which we believe is letting down too many children and young people. Professor Wolf said in her important review of vocational education that English and maths are fundamental to young people’s employment and education prospects, yet less than half of all students have good GCSEs in English and maths at the end of key stage 4. There are two tiers: those with English and maths, and those without. There are two tiers in the current structure of GCSEs—a foundation tier and a higher tier—including in English, maths and science. The highest achievable grade in ordinary circumstances in the lower tier is C. We have two tiers in the grading system, with 19% of pupils achieving grades E, F and G in GCSE Maths, and 11% of pupils achieving those grades in English.
We need to ensure that our exams are on a par with those in the highest performing countries in the world, and that our schools are delivering the kind of education that equips and prepares all pupils to take and excel in those exams. That is what the Government mean by closing the attainment gap. I urge the House to reject the cynical motion tabled by the Opposition and to support the radical education reform agenda being delivered by this Government to ensure rigour and high expectations for all young people in this country.
Question put (Standing Order No. 31(2)),
That the original words stand part of the Question.
Defence Reform
(12 years, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
21:59 - The House divided: - Ayes: 210 / Noes: 294 - Question accordingly negatived.
Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That this House recognises the need for defence reform; notes with concern the speed and depth of redundancies and the threat to historic regiments and battalions; supports the armed forces covenant but is anxious about the implications of changes to Service pensions and allowances and the effect of these and other measures on morale; further recognises the necessity of an advanced equipment programme but is worried about capability gaps, notably carrier strike; calls on the Government to end disadvantage and discrimination against the Service community in order to strengthen the covenant; and further calls on the Government to reassess the assumptions on which the Strategic Defence and Security Review was based.
Let me begin by acknowledging the courage and professionalism of our armed forces and recognising the invaluable support provided to them by their families. I know that that sentiment will be shared by all Members in the House. We ask servicemen and women to risk making the ultimate sacrifice, and to forgo many freedoms in the name of our national security. Their contribution to our safety must never be forgotten or underestimated.
Opposition Members recognise that our armed forces cannot be allowed to stand still. The combination of changing threats in an increasingly uncertain world with budgetary challenges means that we must be ahead of the curve in terms of technology and the tactics that we apply. We must be bold and practical in order to create an efficient fighting force which serves the primary requirement of our national security while also ensuring that we do the right thing on behalf of our servicemen and women and their families.
The major conflicts of recent history are drawing to a close. Meanwhile, a wave of popular uprisings throughout the middle east poses new challenges, as do new technologies and threats from cyber. Global changes will alter the balance of power, risk and how resources are allocated in the modern world. That is why Opposition Members support armed forces reform. Since May 2010, we have not opposed the Government simply for opposition’s sake. National security and support for our armed forces are worth more than cheap political point-scoring, although when we believe that the Government have made an error or strayed from their pre-election pledges, we will righty criticise and scrutinise their decisions.
We welcome the coalition’s commitment in 2010 to launch the security review. It built on the Green Paper published by the last Government, and our commitment in the last Parliament to undertake a defence review. Unfortunately, however, the one thing the coalition Government’s strategic defence and security review was not was strategic. The SDSR has unravelled quickly, displaying the same short-term, ad hoc and rushed decision making that is becoming characteristic of many areas of Government policy. The decisions that have been taken have left Britain with serious gaps in its defence capability. Events in the middle east last year—the Arab spring uprisings—were not foreseen, which meant the review was rendered out of date almost as soon as it had been printed. The Government were forced to use resources they had planned to scrap and bring back capability at very short notice.
Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)
The motion calls for a reassessment of the “assumptions” on which the SDSR was based. Which assumptions does the shadow Minister not agree with?
Mr Jones
I know the hon. Gentleman takes a close interest in defence issues, but if he had read the Green Paper he would have seen that it takes a strategic look at the world. The SDSR was very rushed, and did not have the long public consultation and engagement with stakeholders that the 1998 review had. It was basically a Treasury-led review, which has resulted in some strange decisions that I shall describe later, which have affected the capability and capacity of our armed forces.
Mr Gray
I am simply focusing on the word “assumptions”. In the motion, the Labour party criticises the assumptions that lay behind the SDSR. My opinion is that those assumptions are absolutely fine—although I agree with the hon. Gentleman that some of the other detail was not so good. Which of the assumptions behind the SDSR does he not like?
Mr Jones
I would talk about the developing situation in the middle east, some of the decisions made post-SDSR in taking away maritime capability, and the whole issue of the deployability of our armed forces. All those decisions were taken within a financial straitjacket, instead of addressing questions such as where we need to deploy in the world and what our priorities are. That has overridden the security needs that are so vital and that were outlined so well in the Green Paper.
As a former Ministry of Defence Minister, I know only too well that the easiest ways to make the kind of in-year savings in the defence budget that are being demanded by the Treasury are to scrap capability or to make personnel cuts. However, the Government have scrapped important capabilities—Nimrod and the Harrier fleet—without any plans as to how they will be replaced. It appears that Ministers have been inflexible in their pursuit of short-term savings at the expense of our long-term security. Too often we are given the impression that the Government are presiding over decline, rather than planning for the future. The Government must reassess the security and spending assumptions on which the review was based.
Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)
How would a Labour Government have dealt with the £38 billion overhang that the Conservatives inherited from the previous Labour Government? Also, is the hon. Gentleman saying he would, in fact, spend more on defence than the current Government? He should be explicit about that, but his motion is not explicit.
Mr Jones
I am glad the hon. Gentleman has asked about the £38 billion black hole, because it has become folklore, but the Government have not produced any evidence to justify that figure. Let me quote from an excellent Defence Committee report—which I am surprised he has not read as he is a former member of that Committee. It says:
“We note that the MOD now state the genuine size of the gap is substantially in excess of £38 billion. However, we also note the Secretary of State’s assertion that the ‘for the first time in a generation, the MOD will have brought its plans and budget broadly into balance, allowing it to plan with confidence for the delivery of the future equipment programme’. Without proper detailed figures neither statement can be verified.”
We should also consider the evidence given to the Committee by the then Secretary of State. He promised the Committee he would give details, but the final report states, at paragraph 205:
“We are surprised that this assessment has not yet begun and expect to receive a timetable for this exercise in response to this Report.”
The £38 billion figure has been bandied around ever since it was spun out of Conservative central office in the election campaign. The Government have been asked on numerous occasions to justify it, but they have not done so. They should.
Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)
On the subject of wasting taxpayers’ money, the Government said last week that almost £39 million had been spent on preparing the carriers for “cats and traps” and the variant carrier aircraft, but the media says a quarter of a billion pounds have been spent. How much money does my hon. Friend think the Government have wasted?
Mr Jones
As with the £38 billion figure, the Government are very good at not explaining their mistakes. The original figure was, I think, £37 million. It then rose to £39 million, but the MOD subsequently briefed that it was £100 million. However, some informed sources say that it could be upwards of £250 million. The Government should state how much was spent in respect of that disastrous decision, which was taken at a time when the defence budget was experiencing savage cuts. They seem to have swept this matter aside, however, as if it is not important.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Mr Andrew Robathan)
The hon. Gentleman is right: £38 billion is a huge amount of money. However, I should draw his attention to a note entitled:
“Note to Ed Miliband: Defence team work update”.
It states that Labour needs to be
“credible on defence spending and neutralising the ‘£38bn’ charge, which is our biggest weakness.”
So the Labour Defence team think that that charge is Labour’s biggest weakness.
Mr Jones
The Minister is making various assumptions, which is not unusual for him. That note says precisely what I am saying today, which is that we need to shoot down this erroneous myth that has been put about by this Government. If he wants more evidence on this, he should read the National Audit Office “Major Projects Report 2009”. It says of the defence budget:
“The size of the gap is highly sensitive to the budget growth assumptions used. If the Defence budget remained constant in real terms, and using the Department’s forecast for defence inflation of 2.7 per cent, the gap would now be £6 billion over the ten years. If, as is possible given the general economic position, there was no increase in the defence budget in cash terms over the same ten year period, the gap would rise to £36 billion.”
Even the NAO did not reach the £38 billion figure, therefore. I acknowledge that the figure it gives is £2 billion out and this Government seem to think such sums are unimportant, but I have just quoted from the NAO report. That is possibly where Conservative central office first got the figure of £36 billion, but there is a big difference between £36 billion and £38 billion. The £36 billion is based on an assumption of a flat-cash budget over the next 10 years and every single item in the equipment budget being maintained, when everyone who has ever been involved in MOD matters knows that things come into the equipment budget and things fall out of the equipment budget.
Mrs Madeleine Moon (Bridgend) (Lab)
The Defence Committee was advised in one of its briefings that the projected figure of £38 billion included a roll-forward of all items on wish lists—not things for which contracts had been let, but items the MOD had expressed a possible interest in purchasing for the future. This was, we were told, the equivalent of an individual becoming bankrupt because they fancied buying a Ferrari but never actually bought one.
Mr Jones
I thank my hon. Friend for that. Let me quote from the evidence given to the Select Committee by the former Secretary of State. In response to a question from a Member, he said:
“There is a huge ability to reduce a very large proportion of that. My guess is that of that £38 billion we are talking of something like £8 billion to £9 billion, and that is a ballpark figure.”
During that evidence session, he gave a commitment to the Select Committee Chair that he would write giving details of how he arrived at that figure, but he did not. The Committee was still waiting for that information when the report was produced, but it did not appear. I heard one of the Government Front Benchers scoff when I said that certain things move in and out of budget, but they clearly do. My hon. Friend the Member for Bridgend (Mrs Moon) is right: the Government racked up everything in the programme over a 10-year period and assumed that it would all be delivered. That is similar to the argument used about pension black holes, the assumption being that all the money is paid out, today. That is not the way the defence procurement budget is structured.
Mr Bob Ainsworth (Coventry North East) (Lab)
The Government obviously intend to keep the myth going, and who could blame them for that? However, can my hon. Friend explain how, on two separate occasions—we should remember that this Government have only been in power for a little over two years—two separate Secretaries of State can have claimed that the £38 billion gap has already gone and that the budget is now in balance? If the imbalance was as large as they alleged, how on earth have two separate Secretaries of State been able to claim within two years that the budget is in balance already?
Mr Jones
My right hon. Friend, like me, knows the MOD budget very well. Clearly, what the Government have done is to take out in-year capability. We should also remember the reductions in armed forces personnel—the people who are paying for some of this. My right hon. Friend is correct: the idea that such a big black hole can be filled in two years is complete nonsense. [Interruption.] The Under-Secretary, the right hon. Member for South Leicestershire (Mr Robathan), says that it is 10 years, but that is not the impression the Government have been giving. All their decisions, such as slashing personnel numbers, are predicated on this £38 billion black hole. Earlier last year, the previous Secretary of State stopped using that figure—for a while. Suddenly, under the new Secretary of State, it has come back. The Government have got to explain their use of it, because it is the entire raison d’être for some of the cuts they are making.
Mr Jenkin
I remind the hon. Gentleman, the right hon. Member for Coventry North East (Mr Ainsworth) and the hon. Member for Bridgend (Mrs Moon) that the £38 billion figure was furnished to the Defence Committee under the previous Labour Government when the hon. Gentleman was a Minister in the Ministry of Defence. At the same time, Mr Bernard Gray produced a report saying that, on present plans, the MOD could order no new equipment at all for the next 10 years, so dire was the state of its finances. It is only by bringing defence spending within the Department back into balance that any new equipment has been able to be ordered at all.
Mr Jones
I am sorry but that is complete nonsense. The hon. Gentleman should read the NAO report that I referred to earlier, which makes the assumption that many people have made in respect of flat cash. I will read the quote again, because he has obviously not picked up the argument:
“The size of the gap is highly sensitive to the budget growth assumptions used. If the Defence budget remained constant in real terms, and using the Department’s forecast for defence inflation of 2.7 per cent, the gap would now be £6 billion”.
There is a huge difference between £6 billion and the £38 billion figure that the Government are claiming. Even if, in line with the NAO report, we assume a flat cash budget for 10 years, we only get to a figure of £36 billion. Where the Government get the extra £2 billion from, I do not know. This issue was also dealt with in Bernard Gray’s report, and as my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgend said, the £38 billion figure is based on the principle that every single piece of equipment that was planned for would actually be delivered. However, anyone who knows the defence budget knows that that is not how things work. [Interruption.] I am sorry, but the £38 billion figure is a fiction, and this Government have got to justify it, because they are using it to justify some of their most draconian cuts, not only in equipment but to the service terms and conditions of members of our armed forces.
Christopher Pincher (Tamworth) (Con)
The hon. Gentleman seems to accept that there is a gap and that it could be up to £36 billion. What is the gap?
Mr Jones
Let me read what the NAO report says—for the third time:
“The size of the gap is highly sensitive to the budget growth assumptions used. If the Defence budget remained constant in real terms, and using the Department’s forecast for defence inflation of 2.7 per cent, the gap would now be £6 billion.”
The figure of £36 billion is reached only if flat cash over 10 years is included. Ministers said that the £38 billion figure is over 10 years—that is not the impression they have been giving to the media, the armed forces and the public. Instead, they have been suggesting that we somehow have to lay our hands instantly on £38 billion. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Coventry North East said, the idea that that figure can be wiped out in two years is an accounting fantasy.
Mark Lancaster (Milton Keynes North) (Con)
Listening to this debate, the one thing that is clear and that the hon. Gentleman accepts is that there is a gap, be it £6 billion or £38 billion. Given that there is a gap, why did the last Government not balance the budget?
Mr Jones
We were on line in that regard. One of the jobs that my right hon. Friend the Member for Coventry North East gave me when he was Secretary of State—it was something of a poisoned chalice—was to draw up some reductions. Just before the general election, I had already identified some £1.2 billion of savings, but some of that involved investing money in order to save it. The problem at the moment is that the Treasury want instant cash out of the budget, and the only way to do that is to slash personnel and equipment straight away. The more sensible approach that we were going to implement was a planned phase of three to five years, involving some investment and some reductions. That is in stark contrast to the Government’s approach. What is driving this process is not defence strategy but the desire of this Government and the Treasury to take 8% out of the budget in years one and two. That has led to the short-termism we are seeing now.
Mel Stride (Central Devon) (Con)
If the gap is a mere £6 billion, as the hon. Gentleman is suggesting, does he believe that that in itself is acceptable—yes or no?
Mr Jones
Yes, because some of the programme was not committed. The former Secretary of State was asked by the Defence Committee how much of that budget was committed, and quite a large portion of it was not. One approach could be to delay projects, as this Government and the previous Government have done, or to cancel them.
When the previous Secretary of State took office, he said that he was going to save a load of money by renegotiating contracts with various suppliers. We have yet to see a single example of his having been able to renegotiate procurement contracts and make great savings. [Interruption.] I am sorry, but I am not going to take any lessons from the Conservatives on the carriers, given that they have wasted upwards of £100 million through a decision that—[Interruption.] Government Members are shouting, but I do not remember either the Minister for the Armed Forces, or the Under-Secretary of State for Defence, the right hon. Member for South Leicestershire, saying when in opposition that the carriers should not be ordered. That is the problem: they were calling then not only for the carriers, but for a larger Army and a larger Navy, but now that they are in government they are doing completely the opposite.
Dan Byles (North Warwickshire) (Con)
Is the hon. Gentleman interested in the fact that the Royal United Services Institute, which is known for being a very independent-minded organisation, stated in September 2011:
“Whichever detailed assumptions are made, however, there was no doubt that the funding gap was large and real. It would take considerable energy, and political cost…to escape from…It was, in a very real sense, a black hole.”?
Mr Jones
That is fine—[Interruption.] Well, it is fine; if it was true that the previous Government were doing nothing to address the situation, that would not be the case. But if the Government are going to claim that the black hole is £38 billion, there is an onus on them to explain in detail exactly how they arrived at that figure, because they are using it to justify every single reduction in defence expenditure that they are making. It is important that they do that. We had plans to balance the budget.
Christopher Pincher
The hon. Gentleman seems to be accepting that there is a black hole. He denies that it is a £38 billion black hole, but he will not say whether it is a big black hole or a little black hole. What was the size of his black hole?
Mr Jones
The last Labour Government were committed to looking for efficiencies and reviewing the procurement contracts. So some of the things that were planned would not have been procured, which would have closed that black hole to which the hon. Gentleman refers. [Interruption.] He asks me what the size of the black hole was. He and others have kept saying it is a £38 billion black hole, but if that is the Government’s sole justification for what they are doing, they should have the guts to explain it to the public.
Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)
One of the battalions that recruits from my constituency, 3rd Battalion the Mercian Regiment, is one of only two specialised mechanised infantry battalions. It is due to be disbanded under the current proposals, so is it a proper use of public money for it to be disbanded only for these specialised services to have to be recruited again?
Mr Jones
There are so many leaks coming from the Ministry of Defence, some official and some unofficial, and it is not helping the process. We are seeing a ludicrous situation whereby in order to claim that the headcount of MOD civil servants, in particular, is being reduced, people are being made redundant only then to be rehired as consultants, at huge cost to the taxpayer.
Last month, the Secretary of State told the House that he had brought the MOD budget “back into balance”. Every announcement or decision made by the Government is based on that claim; he says that he has “balanced the defence budget”. However, unless we get hard evidence soon, it will remain impossible for us to believe those claims. Ministers must be honest with our armed forces men and women, who deserve to know the full picture of the MOD budget so that they can understand why they are having to undertake the pain that they are taking under this coalition Government.
Mark Menzies (Fylde) (Con)
The hon. Gentleman has said that the previous Labour Government had looked at making £1.2 billion-worth of cuts. Will he share with the House details of where those cuts would have fallen?
Mr Jones
One example is that we would have taken some strategic decisions on basing around the world. I must say that, in the spirit of co-operation, I gave one of the papers to my good friend the hon. Member for Aldershot (Mr Howarth) to assist him in the process. Some efficiency savings could have been made, including some through restructuring the Army and other things. The other point to make is that some of these things also needed investment, and I had been given clearance by the Treasury in some areas to invest to make longer-term savings. They were not just in-year savings to try to satisfy the Treasury and the deficit reduction programme on which this Government are embarking.
Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)
Can we leave black holes to one side for the minute and concentrate on the Black Watch? On Saturday, the colours of the Black Watch were lowered for the last time, marking its passing as a regiment. It was the Labour party that amalgamated the Scottish regiments and they are fighting for their survival now as a battalion with cap badges, insignia and the heritage and culture that has been maintained. The Labour party moots a threat to the battalions and our regiments, so will it support us in ensuring that their survival continues and that the fantastic heritage and culture will be continued in the Royal Regiment?
Mr Jones
I understand people’s emotional attachment to the regiments, and I understand the proud traditions and how they are held. However, I must say that I always find the Scottish National party talking about this issue difficult. If we had an independent Scotland, not only would many of these regiments doubtless have their cap badges removed, but they would be abolished altogether. The SNP’s so-called campaign on this issue is a little hollow, to say the least. The SNP needs to explain exactly what the new Scottish armed forces would be if Scotland were to be independent. Would the Navy be something like fishery protection vessels? Would the Army be downgraded to some type of border force to patrol the border between Scotland and Northumberland? [Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman comments from a sedentary position, but the SNP claims to be supporting these regiments and the onus is on him to say exactly what the SNP is going to do if there is to be independence in Scotland, not only on regiments, but what the shape and format of the defence forces of an independent Scotland would take. I am sure that they would be a lot smaller and a lot more ineffective than what we have now. I doubt whether they would be larger, and I am not sure what their role would be and whether they would be in or out of a NATO command structure.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
Order. Before the shadow Minister takes that intervention, may I just point out that this is a time-limited debate and he has been incredibly generous in the interventions he has taken? That is not, however, to stop the intervention he is about to take.
Anas Sarwar
I come back to that important point about the separation of Scotland from the rest of the United Kingdom. Is my hon. Friend aware of comments made by Alex Salmond, Scotland’s First Minister, earlier this year? He called the MOD plans exactly the sort of “configuration you’d want”.
Mr Jones
That is right, but this point about an independent Scotland is not just about the regiments and the size of the armed forces; it is about all the procurement. I am sorry, but many English shipbuilders will be arguing strongly for contracts to be placed with English yards rather than Scottish yards if Scotland becomes a foreign country. We do not procure warships from foreign Governments.
The Secretary of State’s statement dealt primarily with the 45% of the budget that is spent on equipment and support. There will be no 1% real-terms rise for the 55% that is spent on other areas of defence, including personnel. We are very concerned that this will result in a real-terms cut to the armed forces personnel budget, particularly given that these costs tend to rise higher than the usual rate of inflation. Not only was the announcement therefore less comprehensive than it was spun to be in the newspapers, but it would appear that the limited investment in equipment budgets is coming at the expense of investment in personnel, who are already suffering under the Government’s cuts to personnel numbers, allowances and pensions. So it is becoming clear to many that the Secretary of State has balanced the budget on the backs of our brave service men and women, and Ministers will have to offer this House the information it needs to take these claims seriously. [Interruption.] The Whip says from a sedentary position that that is a silly thing to say, but I think I might have a little more knowledge of the intricacies of the defence budget than he has.
On the capital investment side, Ministers have not factored in the costs of the proposals to withdraw British military bases from Germany. They will have a significant short-term cost, which they seem to have conveniently just ignored. I considered that idea when I was a Minister and even four years ago the price tag was some £3 billion. Again, that seems to have been conveniently forgotten in this so-called new balanced budget.
On top of all that, the Minister has failed to substantiate the figure of £38 billion. I will not reiterate the points I have read out already, but I will add a third example. Mr Jon Thompson, the director of finance at the MOD, told the Public Accounts Committee that Ministers were committed to producing a report in autumn 2011 on the extent of the so-called gap in the budget. We are still waiting. That information is vital because the legitimacy of everything the Government are doing through the defence cuts is predicated on that so-called gap.
I would be grateful if the Minister could answer a few questions. As the post-2015 1% rise is an “assumption”, could it be revised between now and 2015? What rate of inflation was used to calculate the 1% real terms annual increase in the equipment budget between 2010 and 2020? When will we get the National Audit Office’s assessment of the MOD budget and, more importantly, when will the House have an opportunity to debate that report?
The Secretary of State also needs to factor defence inflation into his calculations. It would be interesting to know what figure he is using for the real-terms cuts to the 55% of the MOD budget that lies outside the equipment and support budget. Members might be aware of reports over the weekend, for example, that an ongoing study of British shipbuilding might result in the delay of one of the new aircraft carriers and the potential closure of Portsmouth dockyard, with a threat to some 3,000 jobs. That casts even greater doubt on the Ministers’ claim to have balanced the budget. It is hard to see how they can justify their triumph when such issues remain unresolved. The Minister’s comments on the Portsmouth report would be welcome.
We now hear announcements from the MOD by leak—either official or unofficial—and an interesting one is on the future of Defence Equipment and Support. The Chief of Defence Matériel is supposed to be pushing forward the Government-owned contractor-operated model. Restructuring is important in defence procurement, as we would all agree, but there are huge questions about the impact on accountability to Parliament of privatising decisions that deal with many millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money.
As for the carriers, the Government have sought to present themselves as economically competent and the Opposition will resist the temptation to take Ministers at their word. As was mentioned earlier, the costly, unnecessary and humiliating U-turn on the British aircraft carrier capability meant that we ended up with a policy that the Prime Minister had rubbished the year before and that millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money have been wasted at a time when the defence budget is being cut deeply. The Government must come clean and explain in detail how much was squandered by that reckless decision.
Britain is a proud maritime nation, but as a result of the decisions taken in the SDSR we are left with no maritime surveillance capability and with no carrier strike capability until at least 2017. Huge issues remain unaddressed. The Secretary of State has not decided how many aircraft he will purchase, just as he has deferred his decision on whether a second carrier will be operational. He stated to the House that he would be committed to “continuous carrier availability”, but that might now not be the case.
With such a backdrop, it is not surprising that morale in our armed forces is low. Morale has been described as in freefall as a result of some of the decisions on redundancies, cuts in allowances and permanent pension reductions. The Forces Pension Society has said that it has
“never seen a government erode the morale of the Armed Forces so quickly”.
I hope that right hon. and hon. Members have had the opportunity to look at today’s report on housing by the Select Committee on Defence. It shows that the cuts in expenditure on improvements in forces accommodation are leading to real pressures in Army housing.
Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)
The hon. Gentleman mentions pensions and a number of right hon. and hon. Members in the Chamber have a particular interest in service pensions. No doubt they will want to hear whether, if he were returned to office in 2015, he would reverse the changes that have been made.
Mr Jones
We need to consider armed forces pensions as a whole, which is something else that I considered as a Minister. Many people do not realise that although the armed forces pension scheme is non-contributory, members of the armed forces pay for it through abatement in their increases. As the Government have abandoned the Armed Forces Pay Review Body’s recommendations and our proud record on such recommendations when we were in office, it is time to look at how armed forces pensions are dealt with as a whole. Interestingly, when I wanted to look more closely at such issues, the Secretary of State who resisted was Lord Hutton, who is now advising the Government on pensions in general. The issue needs to be considered as a whole—not only pensions but abatement in pay, too.
In 2010, we were committed to spending £8 billion on accommodation in the next decade, £3 billion of which was for improvements and upgrades. In contrast, this Government have slashed spending on housing by some £41 million. I remember that when I was a Minister and when my right hon. Friend the Member for Coventry North East was Secretary of State, despite our record investment in accommodation, the then Opposition were highly critical of what we were doing. Many in the armed forces will now be dismayed by their actions in government.
It is also important to listen to the armed forces federations. Dawn McCafferty of the Royal Air Force Families Federation has commented that families felt as though the covenant had already been broken within months of its announcement because of the cuts. Until the fall in morale is acknowledged and acted on, many will question Ministers’ commitment to upholding the military covenant.
A particular concern for us is the way in which reductions in the number of armed forces personnel are taking place. Two weeks ago, the Minister ordered yet another tranche of redundancies affecting 4,100 personnel, 30% of which were compulsory. It is a great worry that we are losing not only important skills but expertise and capability that we can no longer afford to lose. The public and armed forces community are quite rightly angry that individuals who are ready to deploy to Afghanistan are being given their P45s, despite all the assurances given by the previous Secretary of State and by this one. I know from experience that if we had treated the armed forces in such a way when we were in government, Conservative and Liberal Democrat Members would rightly have pilloried that decision. We feel it is only right to hold them to the same high standard that they put forward when they were in opposition, which they seem to have conveniently forgotten now they are in government.
Many will be concerned by the rumours that are circulating about the Government’s plans to cut regiments and battalions. Our regiments embody our proud history and the national prestige of our armed forces. Many have served with distinction in the fields of Flanders, on the beaches at Normandy and, more recently, in the deserts of Iraq and Afghanistan. The Secretary of State’s now-trademark lack of sensitivity when dealing with this issue is understandably creating anger among many serving in the armed forces and those who have retired.
Patrick Mercer (Newark) (Con)
May I remind the shadow Minister that his Government cut and disbanded regiments while they were on operations? They also wholesale disbanded historic regiments and invented names from “Alice in Wonderland” for new regiments, so there can be no lessons from the Opposition about the maintenance of historic and honourable regiments. Many of us wear the scars to bear witness to that.
Mr Deputy Speaker
I am worried. It is no use telling me not to worry because Members—I ought to warn them now—may be down to a five-minute limit or less if we are to get them all in. I wanted to let people know so they could alter their speeches.
Mr Jones
I will take your guidance, Mr Deputy Speaker, and not take any more interventions. On the comments of the hon. Member for Newark (Patrick Mercer), he knows that the recommendations put forward at that time regarding structure and names were put forward by the Army.
Any uncertainty needs to be clarified. It is almost a month since the Secretary of State told the Royal United Services Institute that some units will inevitably be lost or merged. Given that he has gone outside Parliament to light bonfires of rumours, it is not acceptable for him to throw more petrol on them by delaying. We are told that the Ministry of Defence has signed off on this issue now but that matters are being held up by Downing street for political reasons. That uncertainty is leading to a lot more rumours, which are causing more uncertainty.
In conclusion, when they were in opposition the Conservatives called for a larger Army, a larger Navy and increased investment in the armed forces. In government, their actions have been to do exactly the opposite. It is not surprising that they are losing the trust of the armed forces community and the public so quickly. We in opposition want to support strong reform on procurement and the principles of the military covenant and we want the equipment programme to be improved. Too often the Government have put austerity before security. I hope that in his response the Minister will not just answer the questions I have put forward but will also agree with the terms of the motion and the recommendations regarding the assumptions of the defence review to give those whom we ask to serve on our behalf the confidence and certainty they deserve.
The Minister for the Armed Forces (Nick Harvey)
Let me start as the hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) did—by paying tribute to the men and women of our armed forces. The job they do is difficult, dangerous and sometimes deadly, but they do it with a professionalism, commitment and courage that we have come to expect but should never take for granted. This weekend is armed forces day, which will give all of us the opportunity to pay tribute to the contribution of the entire defence community.
The House will note that we do not have the pleasure of the company of the shadow Defence Secretary this evening. No criticism attaches to him for going on a defence visit to Australia or for staying on for a few days afterwards. No criticism attaches to him for allowing the Secretary of State to honour a commitment to host Defence Ministers from several of our allies this evening. The only criticism of the shadow Secretary of State is that he has left the poor old hon. Member for North Durham the unenviable task of trying to move this completely nonsensical motion.
Mr Kevan Jones
The Minister is correct that the shadow Secretary of State is in Australia—unfortunately with the hon. Member for Devizes (Claire Perry), but I understand that they did not travel on the same plane so that is one good thing for him. He has stayed on after the defence visit because a member of his family there is seriously ill. That is why he is not here today.
Nick Harvey
I am sure we all wish the family member well. I did say that no criticism attaches to the shadow Secretary for his absence and I mean that most emphatically.
The matter before us is this nonsensical motion. It seems to say that the Opposition recognise the need to make the changes we are making, but the fact is that they ducked these changes year after year. They went for 12 years without a defence review, with pressure building up in the defence programme all the time, and there was a black hole of whatever size—we will come back to that in a minute—by the time of the strategic defence and security review. They left our armed forces overstretched, under-equipped and underfunded for the tasks they were set. That is the legacy of the Government in which the hon. Member for North Durham served. The blame for the need to remove platforms, reduce manpower and make the other reductions we have had to do sits very squarely at the previous Government’s door. They wrecked the economy, they wrecked the defence budget and they failed to make the changes necessary to prepare our armed forces for the future.
The hon. Member for North Durham made heavy weather of the black hole. When we began the SDSR process in the summer of 2010 we asked the officials who were presiding over it at the MOD, “What is our baseline and what is the true financial situation as we start this process?” The explanation came that if we took the manpower commitments, all the overheads and all the committed expenditure, including the contracts that had been signed for procurement and those that had been announced by the previous Government as Ministry of Defence policy, and planned to bring them on stream when the Labour party said they would be, over the 10-year period, there was a gap between all that and a “flat real” terms assumption on funding—not a “flat cash” assumption—in relation to the 2010-11 budget. We were told that the gap over the 10-year period would amount to £38 billion. It was a 10-year period because that is the length of time over which the MOD plans its budgets.
The hon. Member for Bridgend (Mrs Moon) said that that was an unreasonable thing to view as a starting point. She compared it with the situation of someone who was about to go personally bankrupt aspiring to buy a Ferrari, but I do not think that is very kind to the right hon. Member for Coventry North East (Mr Ainsworth). When he came to the Dispatch Box a few weeks before Christmas in 2009, he announced that there would be 22 new Chinook helicopters. He did not sign a contract or find the money to pay for them but he announced there would be 22 new Chinook helicopters. I do not know whether in the fantasy budget of the Labour party it does not think that that was a commitment, but it was one of the commitments that that Defence Secretary made, and it was on that basis that the £38 billion black hole was presented to us by officials.
I do not call into question the personal commitment of the hon. Member for North Durham, but he has to recognise that his motion opposes everything that this Government are doing and is pretty scant when it comes to proposing any alternatives. He says that he recognises the need for defence reform, but the only response in his motion is to be concerned, “anxious” and “worried” about how we are clearing up the mess he made. He has not presented one properly costed plan or given us a coherent alternative. He has not given us a plan A, let alone a plan B. He needs to recognise that he has to do better if he wants to hold us to account for what we have done.
John Woodcock (Barrow and Furness) (Lab/Co-op)
Does the Minister think the decision he has just criticised was better or worse than switching to a “cat and trap” system when first coming into office and then reversing that decision at great cost only a year later?
Nick Harvey
I think it was a perfectly sensible alternative to explore the “cat and trap” option. As we said at the time, it would have given us the ability to project a much better aircraft type off the carrier. I think that to commission the detailed work on that proposal was entirely responsible. If it ends up costing us the maximum, as the Secretary of State suggested, of £100 million, that is a small sum compared with the £1.5 billion the previous Government added to the carrier project in one afternoon, when they announced from the Dispatch Box that it was to be postponed by a year. That was a far greater drain on the defence budget than the relatively small bounded study, which unfortunately concluded that the costs of going ahead with the plan were such that it was not viable.
The shadow Defence Secretary has identified £5 billion of cuts that he says he supports, but that would barely scratch the surface of the black hole that his party’s Government left behind. Of course, his cuts are not new; they are already being made. On Labour’s current public plans, the defence budget would still be in chaos. They have pledged neither to make any extra savings, nor to restore the cuts that have been made. What is interesting is not what they are saying in public, but what they are saying in private. Earlier, reference was made to the interesting correspondence between the Leader of the Opposition and the shadow Defence Secretary. It is worth quoting the letter from the Leader of the Opposition to his colleague, dated 23 January this year:
“You have powerfully made the case in your recent interventions that there is no easy future for Defence expenditure and clearly in the context of the current fiscal position we can expect to have to make further savings after the next election.”
In public, the Opposition are against the cuts that we are making, but in secret, they are planning even deeper defence cuts. Today’s debate is not simply opposition, but opportunism as well.
Mr Kevan Jones
We said that at the last general election. What we were not going to do is rush the process. I challenge the Minister of State to place in the Library of the House the details of how he arrived at the £38 billion figure. Today he has said something that no other Minister has ever said: that the £38 billion is over 10 years. The impression has always been given that it is there right now. Will he produce that information? Without it, some of the cuts he is making are not credible.
Nick Harvey
That is absolute nonsense. It has been clear from the outset that the £38 billion figure was over 10 years. I remember many a debate with the shadow Defence Secretary about whether we were talking about the 10 years being measured out on the spending side in flat real or in flat cash, and I have said again tonight that it was by reference to flat real. It has always been a 10-year figure, and the suggestion that we have magicked £38 billion out of spending in two years is clearly nonsensical; it has always been over 10 years. I am happy to give the hon. Gentleman further details of how we worked that out, but there is no getting away from the fact that the Labour Government left behind a massive black hole. The right hon. Member for East Renfrewshire (Mr Murphy) has identified a tiny number of cuts that he thinks need to be made and he has secret plans to make more, but he is not prepared to face up to the difficult decisions that have to be made to clear up the economic inheritance across the piece and specifically in defence.
Transforming Britain’s armed forces by implementing the 2010 SDSR is necessary to recover capabilities after a decade of enduring operations. It is necessary to prepare the armed forces for a future in which threats are diverse, evolving and unpredictable. It is necessary to help to tackle the fiscal deficit and to put the defence budget and equipment plan back into balance. We have to build for the future with strict financial discipline, making certain that the armed forces have confidence that projects in the programme are funded and will be delivered. As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State announced last month, the black hole has now been eliminated and the 10-year defence budget is now in balance. I readily acknowledge that Future Force 2020 will be a smaller fighting force, but it will still be able to deploy a brigade-sized force on a sustained basis on operations, or a divisional-sized force on a best effort.
There was much criticism from the hon. Member for North Durham because we have had to reduce manpower numbers, but it is worth noting that in the memo the Opposition defence team sent back to the leader of their party, they said, in reference to Royal Navy and Royal Air Force personnel, that they recognised that there would be reductions in personnel numbers. On Army restructuring, too, the memo stated that they recognised the need for manpower reductions. So they recognise the need for the measures we are taking; they just do not like the grim reality of having to do it.
Despite all the changes that we are making, we will still be supported by the fourth-largest defence budget in the world, meeting our financial responsibilities to NATO. We will configure the armed forces for a world where threats to our homeland and allies are increasingly to be found outside Europe, rather than on the north German plain, and we will move from a heavily armoured force to a more mobile, adaptable and deployable force.
Mr John Baron (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)
My hon. Friend is right to take no advice from the party that, when in government, more than doubled the national debt, but may I pursue the point about recruitment and downsizing the British Army? Reports suggest that 2nd Battalion the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers is to be axed, despite being one of the best recruited battalions in the British Army and forecast to remain so. Does the Minister accept that decisions about which battalions to axe should be based on the ability to recruit? In that case, the Ministry of Defence should be looking at the Scottish battalions, which consistently have trouble recruiting, with their numbers made up by English soldiers. I would suggest that no Englishman should ever be forced to wear a kilt.
Nick Harvey
I urge my hon. Friend and all other hon. Members not to give credence to speculation about which battalions might end up having to be disbanded or merged. I repeat what I said at Defence questions: the decisions will be taken on the most objective criteria, not on a snapshot of current recruitment. Those criteria will be ensuring that we get the right balance of forces for the future, that we maximise our operational output and that we have the right geographical spread across the country, and that our long-term ability to recruit is assured.
Jim McGovern (Dundee West) (Lab)
My grandfather, Hugh Macdonald, served gallantly in the Black Watch and is buried in the military cemetery in Gibraltar, where he died in 1941. I am sure that he was proud to wear a kilt. There were Englishmen serving in the Black Watch then and now—indeed, the Liverpool Scottish part of the Black Watch comes up to Dundee every year. Can the Minister of State give my constituents and serving members of the Black Watch some sort of assurance that, on his watch, there will always be a Black Watch?
Nick Harvey
I can give the hon. Gentleman the assurance I have just given the House: the decisions to be taken will be objective decisions against the four criteria that I have just set out. No one should give in to the temptation to believe what they read in the newspapers.
Pete Wishart
Scotland is suffering badly from what is happening in defence spending. Only four of the 148 major Regular Army units are based in our territory. That represents 2.7% of the entire British Army, yet we have 8.4% of the population. Why is Scotland doing so badly when it comes to defence cuts and defence spending?
Nick Harvey
I do not accept either the analysis or the figures offered by the hon. Gentleman. Scotland does well out of defence, and defence does well out of Scotland. We plan our defences for the defence of the United Kingdom as a whole in the most coherent way we can, and Scotland will do a great deal better out of being part of the UK’s defences than it will ever do if it goes on its own and plans its own defence force.
Mr Jenkin
There is speculation that the process is being elongated, perhaps over a number of months, because of political considerations. Does my hon. Friend accept what a large number of armed service men and women are saying—that uncertainty is extremely corrosive, damaging and morale sapping, and the sooner these decisions, however difficult and unpleasant they are, can be made, the better?
Nick Harvey
I agree. Uncertainty always has a destabilising effect. I can assure my hon. Friend and the members of the armed forces that they will not have long to wait. However, it is more important that we get this right than that we do it quickly. These decisions are a once-in-a-generation rebalancing of the Army’s structure. If we get it wrong, the Army will suffer the consequences for decades to come, so it is important to take a little time and get it right. The House will not have long to wait for announcements to be made.
Richard Drax (South Dorset) (Con)
We hear reports that people are being targeted for redundancy and will therefore not qualify for their full pension. Is that correct? If it is, will the Government look kindly on those affected?
Nick Harvey
Let me say first to my hon. Friend that the issue of disbandment of battalions, which we were just discussing, and redundancy have nothing to do with each other, so nobody should read into the decisions that are taken about particular battalions that members of those battalions will be made redundant. In answer to the specific question that he puts, nobody has been selected on the basis of their proximity to a retirement date, but inevitably it is the case that where there are lines, some unfortunate souls will fall just the wrong side of the line. It is a matter of great regret, but the redundancy payments will in any case be bigger than the lump sums that those personnel would have received at retirement.
Dr Murrison
In making the very difficult decisions that my hon. Friend undoubtedly will have to make in the near future, what attitude does he have to the very gallant men and women from countries other than the United Kingdom who serve in our armed forces? How does he imagine they will be affected by the redundancy programme?
Nick Harvey
In no way will they be singled out. These decisions are being made in the most objective and scientific way we can make them, but inevitably some who serve from overseas will be affected and others will be more fortunate. There is no getting away from that.
Some of the reductions that are to take place will be accounted for by reduced recruiting and fewer extensions of service, but as I said, a redundancy programme is, sadly, inevitable to ensure that the right balance of skills is maintained across the rank structures. Compulsory redundancy will not apply, as we have made clear from the outset, to those in receipt of the operational allowance, those within six months of deploying, or those on post-operational tour leave following those deployments. In all cases it is for the individual service to determine how the necessary reductions can be achieved and over what timeline, making sure that the right mix of skills, experience and ranks are retained.
The main programme for the Royal Navy and the RAF have been concluded, but protecting the Army’s contribution to Afghanistan has meant that two further tranches are still to come for the Army. We will, as I said, make an announcement on Army 2020 very shortly, which will provide clarity on the future structure of the Army. We will have a land force of 120,000, composed of a Regular Army of 82,000, plus 30,000 reserves and an 8,000 training margin. An Army of this composition will have to be structured differently, and it is impossible to do that without losing and merging some units.
Although we cannot avoid difficult decisions as the Army gets smaller, we will seek to do this in the most sensitive way possible, respecting the traditions of the Army, respecting the traditions of our great regiments, but always recognising that military effectiveness must be the first requirement in designing our future structure.
Mr Julian Brazier (Canterbury) (Con)
I commend what my hon. Friend has just said. When we think about which TA regiments to keep, which to lose and where to put them, I urge him to bear in mind that a unit in the Territorial Army cannot be moved more than a very small distance without losing the people. It is even more critical than in the Regular Army to pick those that have an officer and soldier base that is well recruited; many units do not have such a base. It is vital that we build on the best ones.
Nick Harvey
My hon. Friend makes a good point, which is being taken into account as these difficult decisions are made.
The current financial situation makes it difficult to act as swiftly as we would wish to address some of the issues that make day-to-day life that bit more difficult for personnel and their families. Mention was made of the pause we have had to make on major housing upgrades, but thankfully the £100 million additional investment in accommodation that was announced in the Budget will deliver more than 1,000 new and refurbished single living and service family accommodation units. That will help the MOD to continue to meet its commitment, set out in the armed forces covenant, only to allocate homes that are standard 2 or above.
On the issue of the covenant, I start by recognising the important work done by the hon. Member for North Durham, along with the right hon. Member for Coventry North East, in preparing the ground for the publication of the tri-service armed forces covenant in May last year, which built on many of the suggestions in their Command Paper. We have been able to double the operational tax-free allowance and we have improved rest and recuperation. Council tax relief has been doubled twice since the Government took office, and now stands at nearly £600 per person for a six-month deployment. In health care, we are investing up to £15 million in prosthetics provision for personnel who have lost limbs during service, extended access to mental health and increased the number of veterans’ mental health nurses.
On education, we have set up scholarships for bereaved service children, provided financial help for service leavers who want higher and further education, and introduced the pupil premium for the children of those currently serving, making extra funds available for state schools with service children. More than 50 councils have signed up to the community covenant scheme with another 47 planning to do so, and there is a £30 million grant pot to support that. However, there is a long way to go.
For the first time, the armed forces covenant has been formally published and recognised in legislation, and we are working across Government to ensure that no disadvantage is faced by armed forces personnel, their families and veterans compared with other citizens.
Ever since the publication of the SDSR, the Opposition have been calling for another SDSR. They went 12 years in government without one, but they now seem to want another one every time the wind blows. We have put in place a system for regular strategic review through the National Security Council, and preparations for the SDSR of 2015 are already under way in the MOD. However, none of the strategic assumptions underpinning the 2010 SDSR have significantly changed, so we will press ahead with the implementation of the SDSR based on formidable, adaptable and high-tech armed forces, built on balanced budgets and supported by an effective and efficient MOD, taking the tough decisions that the previous Government ducked, providing our armed forces with the tools they need to do the job we ask of them, upholding the armed forces covenant, and protecting this country’s national security, which is the first and foremost duty of any Government.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. I will have to bring in a five-minute limit on speeches and I may have to reduce it. If Members are good to each other and do not intervene too often, I hope to get everyone in.
John Woodcock (Barrow and Furness) (Lab/Co-op)
We got a lot of heat from the Minister, but we are not much clearer on the key issue on which I want to expand—defence procurement. My hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Coventry North East (Mr Ainsworth) have already made excellent points on the issue. It is of course true that any incoming Government at the last election would have had to make savings and the process could have been difficult. The Labour Government put in place the process to consider how we should do that, but the important thing was to learn and see where the next Government could improve. So far, the signs are that this Government have comprehensively failed to do that.
When the right hon. Member for North Somerset (Dr Fox), who became Defence Secretary, was not making promises in opposition about increasing the size of the Army, he used to tell the House how terrible it was that Ministers increased the costs of projects by delaying them, but in government his party is doing precisely that, with significant added cost to the taxpayer.
As we have seen again today, Ministers are patting themselves on the back as if they have finally and magically squared the circle on defence procurement. I am afraid that what they have done is simply seek the appearance of order, in the manner of a child tidying his bedroom in great haste. They have done this in a number of ways. Some costs have been swept under the bed, increasing the burden on taxpayers and storing up risk for future years. In that category, of course, I include the successor deterrent.
Ministers can announce the necessary long-lead items initiated in recent weeks with as much fanfare as they like—they know that I have welcomed the commencement of each one so far—but they know that that is now being done to a tight timetable and with increased costs caused by the delay they imposed in bringing the successor into service when they first came into office. When the Defence Secretary boasts about balancing the procurement budget, he knows that that has been made possible only by shifting the project’s cost profile to the right, largely out of this spending round, which is precisely what Conservative Members used to rail against from the Opposition Benches. The extra cost of refuelling the existing Vanguard class submarines alone, which was made necessary by the delay, was estimated at between £1.2 billion and £1.4 billion by the former Secretary of State. We are yet to hear the full cost of this exercise in political management and short-term debt clearing. Perhaps the Minister will seek to enlighten us when he winds up.
In their desperation to present a false image of order, the Government have gone beyond simply sweeping things out of immediate sight. Some projects have been subjected to the procurement equivalent of being hastily hurled out of the window, with little thought for the waste that that causes or, most importantly, the implications for national security. Any claim they might have made to have got to grips with defence procurement was surely destroyed by the farce over the aircraft carriers, which my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham set out well in his speech.
The final trick for those worried about their shoddy work being exposed is simply to turn off the lights. The Government have produced no credible evidence today or in the past about where this £38 billion has come from or how it will be filled in future. We are left with a lingering lack of certainty over the cost of big-ticket items and the personnel are bearing the brunt, with the Army that the Government promised to expand possibly set to get another whack. The books are cooked on the assumption of long-term increases in MOD funding post-2015, and black holes, which were never properly described in the first place, are apparently filled. The truth is that Ministers do not have a grip on procurement or cost overruns and have failed to put considered policy and the defence interests of the nation ahead of political posturing.
Sir Menzies Campbell (North East Fife) (LD)
For the past 40 years, RAF Leuchars in my constituency has been responsible for providing air defence for the northern half of the United Kingdom. It is ideally situated for the purpose, close to centres of population and training areas, and easily able to deal with intrusion by aircraft—formerly Soviet and now Russian—into British airspace. Even as this debate takes place, there are aircraft at Leuchars on standby to provide the quick reaction alert, which is an essential part of our air defence. Even as this debate is taking place, No. 6 Typhoon squadron has been stood up and is fully operational, and No. 1 Typhoon squadron is in the course of being stood up. Even now, preparations are taking place for one of the Royal Air Force’s few remaining air shows, which provides a valuable shop window, and it is able to do that, in particular, because of the accessibility of RAF Leuchars to Scotland’s central belt.
I have no doubt that a seamless and uninterrupted build-up of the Typhoon force is essential to the security of the United Kingdom. Is it true that Leuchars now has a dedicated Typhoon engine bay? Is it true that there is now a dedicated Typhoon ejection-seat facility at Leuchars? Is it true that there is Typhoon-specific survival equipment at Leuchars? Is it true that there are Typhoon-modified power supplies and Typhoo-specific IT systems already in place? It is suggested that the Army might be sent in some form or another to Leuchars, but it has not been possible to identify any capital investment in advance of such a decision.
We know that the proposal is to transfer to Lossiemouth, but no preparations have been made there for the arrival of Typhoon squadrons, which allows me, I hope, the colloquialism, “Leuchars ain’t broke, why is it necessary to fix it?” The truth is that Leuchars is in the right place at the right time and doing the right job.
Typhoon aircraft from Leuchars can be over London 12 minutes sooner than Typhoon aircraft flying from Lossiemouth. The Olympics, as the head of MI5 identified only yesterday, will be a severe test of our security, but that test is unlikely to end with the Olympic games, and the capacity to provide air defence throughout the United Kingdom will be an essential feature of our future security.
I have a profound belief that the original decision to move the Typhoon aircraft from Leuchars to Lossiemouth was based on financial and political considerations, which were put ahead of strategic obligations and of the clear operational advantages provided by Leuchars. The financial case has been substantially undermined by the Army reductions that we have heard about, by the rejection of the building of a super-base at Kirknewton near Edinburgh, by the inability of the Ministry of Defence to obtain the sums originally estimated for the sale of properties such as Redford barracks, also in Edinburgh, and by the additional costs of transferring Typhoons to Lossiemouth and of operating from Lossiemouth once they have been transferred there.
In my view, there is no question but that the deployment of the Typhoon force should be revisited as part of the ongoing review to which my hon. Friend the Minister referred but a moment or two ago. The original decision was flawed. It will be even more flawed if it is executed in the way that is proposed.
Mrs Madeleine Moon (Bridgend) (Lab)
I, like my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr Jones), look at some of the defence reforms—I use the word “reforms” very loosely—and have to question the decisions that were made, including whether they were in the best interests of the defence and security of the United Kingdom, or in the best interests of the Treasury-driven agenda to cut spending.
Chief among my concerns is the scrapping of the Nimrod MRA4, which has denied us the ability to protect our nuclear deterrent and offshore oil and gas platforms properly; to gather intelligence of threats developing way beyond our coastline such as in the high north; to respond adequately to offshore emergencies; and to contribute to international efforts against terrorism and piracy.
The Government assumption that we can do without maritime capability until 2020, with the replacement of the MRA4 not being commissioned prior to 2015 and an average commissioning period of five years, is nonsensical. We lost not just Nimrod, but the individuals with the skills that need to be nurtured in the area; and they are not just skills that we need to retain in design, building, flying and the analysis of electronic intelligence data, but skills that we cannot afford to see fleeing the country for work abroad, as is happening now.
The loss of the Harriers—sold for spare parts, we were told—was based on the short-sighted assumption that we can do without planes to fly from our carriers. Ministers insisted that it was a good deal for the British taxpayer, but as one US rear admiral said:
“We’re taking advantage of all the money the Brits have spent on them. It’s like we are buying a car with 15,000 miles on it.”
We are losing our prestige overseas, and we should not underestimate how we have gone from being a respected player on the international stage to being, in many quarters, pitied for what we have lost and can no longer do.
We have been well accustomed to the problems of defence procurement and the conspiracy of optimism that has led to delayed and expensive procurement decisions, but the Ministry of Defence is in great danger of falling into the same trap with its plans for Future Force 2020. The plan seems simple—rebalancing the armed forces to increase the number of reservists, thereby saving money but gaining the benefits of the skills and experience that reservists can bring. I have to say that there is a shocking naivety in this plan. Members of our armed forces are tough, resilient people who welcome the challenges thrown at them, but I fear that reducing their numbers to 82,000 will mean that we face overstretch, burn-out and a loss of capacity, skills and capability.
As part of Future Force 2020, a threat is hanging over many regiments, including the Queen’s Dragoon Guards. That is deeply unsettling. I make no pretence about the difficulty of the decision to be made, but the amalgamation of any Welsh regiments will be a bitter pill to swallow, especially given the Prime Minister’s speech in the Welsh Assembly this time last year, when he said:
“While speaking about the part that Wales has played in our past and present, I want to put on record…here…my gratitude to the brave Welsh regiments. From the trenches of northern France to the mountains of South Korea, they have fought and died in defence of our nation and values. Today, in Afghanistan, they continue to serve with courage and distinction, and I pay tribute to them. For them, and for all the people of Wales, I will always be an advocate of this country and everything that it has to offer.”
Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)
My hon. Friend makes a very powerful point in reading that quote. She knows just how angry people in Wales are about the uncertainty facing the Queen’s Dragoon Guards. Does she therefore welcome the Welsh Affairs Committee’s decision to carry out an urgent inquiry into this matter, and does she think it important that we get the chance to question Defence Ministers in person?
Mrs Moon
I certainly do think it is very important that the Welsh Affairs Committee looks into the issue, but it needs particularly to consider the most important part of it—the potential future of all three major Welsh regiments. It is also right that Defence Ministers should be available to answer questions. In Wales, the sons, daughters, brothers, sisters and families of our regiments are deeply distressed at the potential loss of one of the regiments.
Defence reform risks becoming defence vandalism—destroying trust, reputations, capability, capacity and skills that are urgently needed to protect our country in these uncertain times. We in Wales take this extremely seriously, because we risk losing important regiments that make important contributions to the defence of the UK. It is the equivalent of leaving all the windows and doors in one’s house open to potential burglars and going up to bed. However, it is not a burglar who I fear coming into the house that is the UK; it is a murderer, who will murder us in our beds because we have failed to put in place the protections that we need.
Penny Mordaunt (Portsmouth North) (Con)
I draw the House’s attention to my registered interest with the Royal Navy reserve.
I have mixed views about today’s debate. I am always glad when defence is discussed on the Floor of the House, but it is very important that we build a consensus between all parties on these important issues. When the Defence Committee requests time in this Chamber, it is always keen to have a motion that will not divide the House, and I have always tried to adopt that non-partisan attitude in events and campaigns that I have run for the Royal Navy and Royal Marines—for example, in asking the shadow Secretary of State to co-host last year’s Trafalgar day event with me.
I therefore approach an Opposition day debate on defence with a heavy heart, but today I have a doubly heavy heart because I have to correct a falsehood that has been running for the past few days, perpetuated by Labour’s spin operation. I do not believe that the shadow Secretary of State or his shadow Ministers would have been involved in this, but I hope that in winding up they will take the time to correct it.
Portsmouth dockyard is the home of the surface fleet. It has a wonderful natural harbour, which is being dredged to house the new carriers. New power facilities are being built, and moves are afoot to put the vacant historic dockyard to new use so that it ceases to be a drain on the defence budget. The operational stress that the carriers will be under will be considerable, so repair and support services must sit alongside the ships in their home port. There is much activity, much investment and more work for the dockyard’s partners and suppliers, most notably Rolls-Royce in my constituency.
In the face of all that activity and progress, Labour has spent the past few days telling those who work in the dockyard and their families that it will close. It has not been discussing the BAE review; it has been telling people that the Royal Navy base is toast. That is a new low. Government Members have come to expect Labour policy and its lines to take to be divorced from reality, especially where the economy is concerned, but I had thought, perhaps naively, that defence might warrant a more grown-up attitude. This sort of distortion is indefensible not just because of the unnecessary hurt and worry that is caused to people in my constituency, but because of the damage that it causes to British businesses.
We have to retain a shipbuilding capability in the UK—it is a sovereign capability. To afford the Royal Navy ships of the future, we need a slower drumbeat in our yards in building those ships. We therefore need to export more Royal Navy-designed ships. We also need to make better use of the gaps in work in our yards, rather than put the brakes on contracts, especially those that will deliver much-needed and much-missed capability, such as carrier strike force.
There is a gap between the carrier work finishing and the building of the new Type 26 combat ship starting. Rather than making the mistakes of the last Government and paying for the work to be delivered slower, we should use that time and money to do something more useful, using designs that we already have. We should build ocean patrol vessels and perhaps an ice ship, which would certainly be of use. That would be a better use of public funds, retain the capability and provide more options either to carry out operations or to generate funds for the Department. We must have no let-up in the Government activity to hook in any buyer who is looking to purchase a combat ship. I know that Ministers are considering all those options.
These are important issues, but on them, Labour is silent. It does not seem to be remotely interested in ensuring that the Government do the right thing, that we have the capability that we need or that we are getting value for money. Nor has it stated what its view is on the future of shipbuilding in the UK. Instead, over the past few days Labour’s press office has misled people in my constituency by saying that the Navy base will close. The Government could not have been clearer in their statement that all three Navy bases will be retained. The shadow ministerial team know that. I therefore hope that whichever shadow Minister responds to the debate will tell us what they think about shipbuilding in the UK. At the very least, they should state that they know that the Government are committed to the three Royal Navy bases.
The shadow Ministers should reflect on the actions of their party over the past few days. If Labour wants to have a debate about the BAE Systems review, that is fine. I will show up. In the meantime, I ask that it treats my constituents working in and with the armed forces with a greater degree of respect.
Hugh Bayley (York Central) (Lab)
With all the pressure on defence spending in this country and abroad, it is hardly surprising that at the NATO summit in Chicago, smart defence was one of the key items of discussion and NATO pledged to do more with less. I believe that NATO, like the Defence Ministries in its member states, will deliver greater value for money if its expenditure is transparent, subject to independent audit and scrutinised by Parliaments in member states.
NATO’s external audit function is overseen by the International Board of Auditors for NATO, which consists of six board members who are nominated by the national delegations. The members rotate between the NATO member states, so there is no continuity of oversight. The IBAN board is accountable not to Parliaments, as is the National Audit Office in relation to UK defence expenditure, but to the North Atlantic Council, the executive branch of NATO. The audits are carried out by 22 able members of staff, who are not independent, but are employed by NATO.
Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)
As an ex-NATO officer, may I point out that the North Atlantic Council can sit in Prime Minister or President form, Foreign Minister form, Defence Minister form or permanent representative form? Governments are therefore represented on the North Atlantic Council, to which IBAN reports.
Hugh Bayley
Governments are represented, but Parliaments are not. The principle in the UK is that the National Audit Office belongs and reports to Parliament. It has reported to Parliament for 150 years on UK defence expenditure, while obviously keeping secret things that must necessarily be kept secret, so there is no reason why we cannot have public reporting of defence expenditure.
NATO’s international board of auditors audited 49 separate sets of NATO accounts last year. I recently met Tim Banfield, a director of the NAO who is responsible for UK defence audits. He told me that NATO’s financial statements are frequently audited late, sometimes by as much as three years, which is not compliant with decent accounting standards—auditors who are trying to track expenditure cannot find the answers to the questions they need to ask three years after an operation has closed down. I asked a Foreign Office Minister how good the audits are, because they are not published. He told me that of the 49 sets of accounts last year, 14 were qualified by the auditors because of irregularities.
In addition to the financial audits, five performance audits—value-for-money audits—were carried out last year, but there is little evidence that NATO changes how it works to improve value for money in response to their conclusions. Only one of those 49 sets of accounts has been put into the public domain, according to NATO’s website.
The failure to publish accounts reduces the pressure on NATO managers to respond to deficiencies when they are revealed by audits, and to improve their performance. I raise this matter with the Minister now because I believe there is a narrow window of opportunity to change things, because the NATO Secretary-General has commissioned the new deputy Secretary-General to review the audit function. I shall share with the House a brief extract from a document provided by the Secretary-General to national delegations, including the UK ambassador to NATO. The Secretary-General said:
“We must adopt best practices employed by other international organisations. NATO is very unusual in having its own auditing service…Organisations that employ external public-service auditors include UNESCO, WTO, OSCE and the OECD.
To bring us into line with best practice, I propose the adoption of the same approach, phased in to ensure continuity of work.”
He goes on to make the point that the only other body that does not have an independent external audit function is the EU, from which some hon. Members would not like to take lessons in that respect.
The NATO Secretary-General clearly wants change, but the decision will not be made by him; it will be made by the North Atlantic Council. Will the UK representative at the North Atlantic Council, whether our ambassador, one of our Ministers or the Prime Minister, support the change agenda? Will the deputy Secretary-General’s report be shown to the NAO and the supreme audit institutions of other member states, such as the US Government Accountability Office, for comment before it is shown to the North Atlantic Council? Will our ambassador lobby representatives of other member states to build a coalition to change the audit function within NATO and to bring the information, apart from that which necessarily must be kept secret for security reasons, into the public domain?
That information will drive improved value for money within NATO. NATO can hardly urge its member states to deliver more value for money if it does not take a lead by doing so itself.
Mark Lancaster (Milton Keynes North) (Con)
I declare an interest as a member of the Territorial Army.
I listened with interest to the hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones), who has just left his place. I thought he was a perfectly competent Defence Minister, although not quite as competent as the Under-Secretary of State for Defence, my right hon. Friend the Member for South Leicestershire (Mr Robathan). Having listened carefully to the hon. Gentleman’s remarks, I am clear about several matters being pursued by the Government that he does not support, but, given his acceptance that there is a deficit and that it needs to be addressed, I am less clear about what exactly the Labour party would do to address it. I hope that in her winding-up speech the hon. Member for West Dunbartonshire (Gemma Doyle) will explain to the House exactly what the Labour party would do to deal with the deficit. Without that explanation, I fear that many of its claims will look rather hollow.
I want to focus on the plan for an integrated Army by 2020. I congratulate General Carter on his review. Frankly, he was handed a poisoned chalice, but he has managed to deliver an optimal military solution from very clear terms of reference. I want to be equally controversial by saying that sometimes arguments in the House about which regiments should be saved leave me slightly cold. I understand the historic significance of many regiments, and it is right that hon. Members should defend those regiments, but ultimately, if I were a senior officer, I would be holding my head in my hands, because, following this review, politicians are now tinkering with it and seeking to influence the decision for reasons based on political grounds, rather than optimal military grounds. It is not beyond the wit of the British Army to save various regimental cap badges, so I think that my hon. Friends should relax—I am sure that these cap badges will be saved. Instead, we must focus on the optimal military solution.
The integrated Army 2020 proposition, the skeleton of which was unveiled earlier this month at the Royal United Services Institute land warfare conference, is a neat solution to dealing with a period of strategic uncertainty at a time of economic austerity, and inevitably it involves smaller land forces. Indeed, it proposes a reduction in the regular force from 102,000 to 82,000, countered by an increase in the trained reserve forces to about 30,000, with an additional 8,000 under training. It aims to deliver an Army designed to meet the capability, aspirations and commitments of the strategic defence and security review 2010.
Equally, however, the proposal has to deliver contingent capabilities and meet the requirements of the Government’s “Building Stability Overseas Strategy”, published last year. Although I am confident that General Carter’s proposals provide an optimal military solution for the requirements of the SDSR, some cross-Government work is clearly still required to flesh out how this upstream engagement in fragile states will be delivered in order to meet the requirements of the overseas stability strategy. It is here, I believe, that the unique specialist skills that so many members of the reserve forces possess should be utilised. As I understand it, the proposed force structure aims to hold defence capabilities at different levels of readiness based on a balanced mix of reaction and adaptable forces. It is key, however, that to deliver this desired outcome, the Army must be able predictably to integrate its regular and reserve components, with the reserves likely to be required routinely to undertake roles such as providing for the UN battalion in Cyprus, as it has done sporadically in the past.
At the heart of the plan is a progressive move from a reserve force that provides individual augmentees for current operations to one that delivers a scalable, adaptable response by individuals to formed sub-units. This aspiration would certainly be welcomed by the TA, but will be welcomed by the Regular Army only if the TA can be relied upon to deliver. For the individual reservists, this calls for sustained commitment to regular training attendance and predictable periodic mobilisation. This is undoubtedly an ambitious target, but it can be achieved. It is important to realise, however, that there must be not only the military will to achieve it but significant political will and leadership, if the structure and reliance on reserves is to work.
Bob Stewart
There is one other requirement: money for the reserves to train properly. Otherwise, they cannot attain the same level as the regular forces.
Mark Lancaster
I agree. Indeed, I would argue that ambition without funding is simply hallucination, which is why I am delighted that £1.2 billion has been allocated for this upskilling of the reserves.
I have two concerns about the upskilling, however. First, I want to add to the comment from my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Mr Brazier). When it comes to the reserve units, we must be careful, because a larger TA might actually result in a smaller footprint. We must be careful about which TA units we close, simply because, as I know from my experience as an officer commanding a squadron, we cannot simply move personnel and expect them to move units and travel some 20 miles to continue training.
Equally, I am convinced that there must be a compulsion to train. At the moment, we simply have a gentlemen’s agreement to turn up and train with the TA. Without that compulsion, I fear that the reserves cannot fulfil the commitment that they are being asked to make. We are fortunate that section 22 in part III of the Reserve Forces Act 1996 already allows for compulsory training, but we need to look carefully at how to implement it, so that we do not end up offending employers, who might then not wish to allow their reservists to go and train. It is a very difficult circle to square. Equally, we need to look at TA regulations to ensure that bounty, a tax-free payment for people who are fit for role, can be adjusted to ensure that such compulsion can be taken into account.
In my last 27 seconds, I would like to highlight to hon. Members that tomorrow is “wear your uniform to work” day, which is a celebration of our reserve forces, with some 1,900 of them currently being mobilised in support of the Olympics and some 700 on operations in Afghanistan. I hope that hon. Members will join me in celebrating their reservists, although they do not have to go as far as I will by wearing my uniform tomorrow.
Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)
This is the first opportunity I have found in the parliamentary calendar to make any remarks about the Government’s defence procurement White Paper, which came out in February. Unfortunately, it was issued as a written ministerial statement, so there was no opportunity for debate. I do think it is worth looking at what that defence procurement White Paper says. On a number of occasions, I have raised with Ministers my concerns, which arose out of spending the last nine months, along with many trade unionists, employees and family members, fighting for workers at BAE Systems in Brough, who are facing 800 or 900 redundancies.
We have heard a lot this evening about being in economic difficulties and about the deficit that we need to get down, and it seems to me that defence procurement provides potential not only for growth but for defence exports. I think the Government are missing a trick in this area. My understanding of the White Paper is that the Government are moving towards open procurement, buying off the shelf and getting good value for money, that there is no preferential treatment for British industry or British manufacturers and that they will protect the operational advantage and freedom of action of this country only where it is essential to national security. As I said, the economy is flatlining and we are in a double-dip recession, but we know that countries that invest in, and buy from, their own home-grown defence industries do the best at exporting around the world. That makes sense: if a Government are willing to buy from their own industry, it shows a commitment to, and a belief in, providing the very best. That is absolutely what we want for our armed forces.
Brough is the home of the Hawk, and when the Red Arrows go around the country and the world flying the Hawk, people know that it is an excellent, British-manufactured plane. The Red Arrows display amazing acrobatic aeronautical feats, showing again Britain’s excellence in manufacturing. My real concern, then, is about the Ministry of Defence’s approach to future procurement, as it seems to treat itself as if it were a private company, just looking for best value and not recognising that it is part of the Government as a whole. The Government have a commitment—the Opposition support them in this—to growth and rebalancing the economy.
An interesting piece of work has been done on “The Destinations of the Defence Pound”. It is a RUSI—Royal United Services Institute—pamphlet written by Trevor Taylor and John Louth. They point out that buying off the shelf has a negative effect on Government revenues so it does not help the country to deal with the public sector deficit. Buying British, on the other hand, will ensure that British taxes are paid during the course of the procurement process, and there is likely to be a British supply chain, too. The pamphlet shows that spending £1 million will lead to a 36% return to the Exchequer via tax, national insurance and other means. It does not go into the wider benefits, which would obviously include jobs—a key issue for the Government and the Opposition at this time. Then there are all the other multiplier effects of buying from the home defence industry. If the Government buy abroad, that money—those taxes—will go to another Government, and will be lost to us.
It would be helpful if the Minister said something about the European procurement defence directive, and about the need for us to monitor carefully what other countries are doing. Why does the United States of America, when it purchases defence items, demand that they be produced in the United States, and why, in most cases, is any company applying to that market required to have a United States partner even to get a hearing?
I should like the Government to hold a proper debate on procurement, because I think that it might give them an opportunity to get themselves out of the economic difficulties into which they have got themselves since May 2010. Given that we are now in a double-dip recession, such a debate might be of help to them.
Christopher Pincher (Tamworth) (Con)
In the light of your injunction, Mr Deputy Speaker, I shall shorten what I was going to say, and speed up what I am going to say, in order to stay well within the time limit.
It is a pleasure to speak in the debate, occurring as it does on the 150th anniversary of the first investiture of the Victoria Cross in Hyde park. My constituent Samuel Parkes—a long-dead constituent, I should add—was the first private soldier to receive the Victoria Cross, so the debate has extra significance and resonance for my constituents.
I was pleased and privileged to serve on the Committee that considered the Armed Forces Bill, which became the Armed Forces Act 2011 and enshrined the armed forces covenant in law. Although it is fair to say that the Opposition were broadly supportive of the implementation of the covenant, it is also pertinent to point out that it was implemented within a year of the coalition Government’s inheriting a parlous economic state. The hon. Member for West Dunbartonshire (Gemma Doyle) was involved in the Committee stage of the Bill. It is clear that the Opposition, although they played their part in the covenant’s implementation, had 13 years in which to introduce a covenant themselves. They had the time, the money and the majority to introduce one, yet they failed to do so. I am pleased that they appear to be supporting what we achieved.
We in Tamworth recruit heavily to the 3rd Battalion the Mercian Regiment, the former Staffordshire Regiment. Housing is one of the biggest issues raised by my constituents who are in the forces, and by their families. Given the strides that we have already made in improving housing, I hope that, as the Strachan report is implemented and as we proceed with the covenant and report on it, we will do three further things.
I hope that we will increase the accommodation allowances that are available to our servicemen and women, and will expand the pilot shared equity scheme that was introduced by the last Government. I know that the Minister for Housing and Local Government has announced that £400 million will be spent on helping 10,000 families with the Firstbuy scheme.
I also hope that we will help more armed forces families to get on to the property ladder. I hope that we will do something that will cost my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State nothing, and prevail on the Chancellor to prevail on the banks to offer more forces-friendly mortgages to help servicemen and women and their families to secure a fixed address, a stable home, and a foot on that property ladder. If we send people abroad to fight for us, it seems only right and proper that we should help them to get a decent home, at home. Such action would also help to reduce the £285 million a year that it costs to service 50,000 homes for forces personnel, some of which is sub-standard.
The motion suggests that the Opposition still want to make the armed forces covenant very prescriptive. That flies in the face of the messages that we receive from the service chiefs and from the armed forces families’ representatives, who have said that they want a much more flexible and current armed forces covenant that can respond to the current concerns of our armed forces.
I conclude by quoting Bryn Parry, founder of Help for Heroes. He said in the Armed Forces Bill Committee just 12 months or so ago:
“I have never seen something written down or the principles of something discussed or made into law work as well as somebody who gets up and says, ‘Right, this is what I want to happen. Let’s make it go.’”––[Official Report, Armed Forces Public Bill Committee, 10 February 2011; Q336.]
That sums up what the armed forces covenant should be: a flexible arrangement and a current arrangement—and I trust my right hon. Friend the Minister will make it go.
Mr Elfyn Llwyd (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)
Members may know of my concerns regarding the number of military personnel who end up in trouble after leaving the services, and sometimes end up on the street. The Welsh Affairs Committee is currently taking evidence on that, as well as on the regiments question.
Wales has traditionally provided more than our share of military personnel. It makes sense that returning Welsh veterans—and, indeed, returning English and Scottish veterans—should be treated as close to their families as possible and should have their fair share of resources from charities and the UK Government, to help them recover from their injuries. Having seen how the US treats its veterans, I am sure there are lessons we can still learn. Some of the earlier comments on the covenant are most welcome, however.
Certainly one lesson we can learn is the importance of ensuring that former members of the armed forces do not feel that they are left behind when they are discharged from the services. The cuts that have happened, and those that are currently taking place, must take into account the need for support networks to be in place for them.
In Wales, there is a great deal of concern about proposals to merge or disband Welsh regiments such as the 1st the Queen’s Dragoon Guards, also known as the Welsh cavalry, and The Royal Welsh, which includes battalions from the Royal Welch Fusiliers and the Royal Welsh Regiment—it was only recently put together, and one would have thought it would have stayed in place for a while.
The reduction in the number of Welsh regiments to three has already left a bitter taste, and further cuts will lead to a feeling that Welsh regiments are not being recognised and appreciated for their effort and dedication. Successive generations have joined the Queen’s Dragoon Guards and fought with pride, honour and determination. Some argue that this is due to the method of recruitment, with cultural ties and local knowledge being part of both recruitment and loyalty. New recruits should have the opportunity to choose an armoured regiment or infantry regiment in which they will feel comfortable and safe in the company of their peers while facing potentially dangerous circumstances. However, despite the Queen’s Dragoon Guards carrying out more operational tours in the past 20 years than any other armoured regiment, it is under threat of amalgamation. That is in spite of its being the only remaining Welsh armoured regiment. If these decisions are made, on the order of precedence under the Ironside/Levy rules, both the Queen’s Dragoon Guards and the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards will be maintained.
There are six objective criteria to be met in this regard: recruitment strength, or the number and quality of those who wish to join; regional or national identity; proportionality to all parts of the UK—we are not looking for favours; the right geographical spread, as the Minister who opened the debate said; capabilities; and operational output. I believe that, on these criteria, the case has been made for maintaining these important and historically significant Welsh regiments.
On Trident, last week the Government announced £1.1 billion of investment in infrastructure that will make the next generation of Trident missiles. Although the main gate decision will not be made until after the next general election, by investing so heavily, they are, in effect, pushing us towards the decision, so that, as with the aircraft carriers, it becomes a fait accompli.
This has been done without a proper discussion or a debate on the Floor of the House. Opponents of Trident object for a variety of reasons: some because they are pacifists, others because they do not believe that it represents good value for money or a meaningful deterrent. Large numbers of young men and women are being made redundant from the conventional armed forces over the coming years, and regiments will be lost, but there is enough money for these weapons.
However, in Wales Labour First Minister Carwyn Jones apparently wants these nuclear weapons based near the major international trade port that deals with 30% of UK gas and 25% of UK oil and petrol. The oil refinery was the reason why Polaris was not sited at Milford Haven in 1963, and it is unclear why a busier location would be considered today. According to Chalmers and Walker in 2002,
“it remains the case that refineries would have to close if submarines were relocated there.”
Therefore, this man is arguing for Trident to come to Wales, for weapons of mass destruction to be sited on Welsh soil and for there to be a net loss of jobs for Wales—not, I think, a very good deal.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. I am introducing a four-minute limit. I call Neil Carmichael.
Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)
It is a great honour to contribute to this debate. I begin by paying tribute to all members of the armed forces for the fantastic work they do. I attended the trooping of the colour and I noted that many had recently returned from the line of fire and were still performing absolutely magnificently. That is emblematic of our armed forces, and we should always remember them and salute them for that.
I want to make a general point about returning soldiers from Germany, because clearly that is happening; in my constituency there are several who are in need of support from organisations such as Family Lives. It is important to recognise that such major transitions do take place.
On the black hole that we were discussing previously, I want to make clear what I think a black hole is: a great expenditure commitment over a long period for which there is no money. That was the situation under the last Labour Government, and there definitely was a £38 billion black hole. It has now effectively been filled in and concreted over by our Government, but a black hole is what I have just said it is.
The motion also refers to the possibility of changing the assumptions on which the strategic defence and security review are based. In fact, many of the assumptions the Government made two years ago were absolutely right and stand the test of time; but obviously, there are nuances that one must bear in mind and adjustments one must make.
The interesting move that the United States has made in refocusing its efforts towards the Pacific and Asia is a fascinating one that we as a country should be mindful of in having a flexible approach to our naval forces. I noted that, while dealing with Libya, we did not actually need an aircraft carrier. Because we had sensible relationships with allies, we were able to accomplish quite magnificent feats with our fixed-wing aircraft. We have to remember that the advantage of having good allies—an assumption that we made as part of the SDSR process—is absolutely critical.
We should also celebrate the Government’s creation of a National Security Council, which brings together foreign affairs, international development and defence. Without an appreciation of our foreign affairs objectives, we will not be very successful at putting together a defence strategy. This Government have understood the direct and obvious link between those areas, which is why we are so much better at calibrating, assessing and understanding our defence needs.
Clearly, we need hardware, and one good thing we are introducing is heavy-lift capacity, which we do need. It is great that Airbus, in the form of the A400M, is part of that package—an aircraft that is doing extraordinarily well elsewhere. The quality of our surface fleet is also an important issue—new frigates and destroyers that are up to the necessary standard for the tasks that we have.
On aircraft carriers, it was absolutely right to look at what is happening with the new Gerald R. Ford-class carrier in the United States, which has the electronic “cat and trap” system. It must have been tantalising for us to consider, certainly given our relationship with the French and their one aircraft carrier, which is also cat and trap. We did not go down that route, but it was sensible to consider it, because we have to make the right decisions in the long run.
Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)
I wish to start by talking about the young men and women who serve in our front-line services. I pay tribute to all members of the armed services, be they in the back room or on the front line, but special consideration has to be given to those on the front line, such as those in Afghanistan and Iraq. I went to Afghanistan in 2007 and met some of the young men who were fighting for us. They were 18, 19, 20, and they were being faced by and had to see all sorts of cruelties. They had to face so much hurt and they had to see so many injuries among their comrades. When they come back, we need to look after their physical and psychological needs. That means that if they have been injured in combat, all the best treatment should be made available to them. Even if they have not suffered any physical harm, they must be treated in respect of their emotional and psychological needs as well. They must be supported appropriately when they leave the Army and come into civilian life. That means that if they want to go to university, they should be given free tuition. Although we rightly always pay respect to our fallen heroes, we forget that what people are exposed to in war and in battles is an experience that nobody else is ever going to see and hear. So we should spend a lot more money on looking after our armed personnel who have served on the front line when they come back.
It is also important to equip these people properly when they are on the front line. They should be properly trained, and the armour, the helicopters and everything else that is required for them to do their job properly should be in place. That also means that the right amount of personnel should be there; 100 people should not be sent to do a job that requires 300 soldiers to do it. That means that the Government should reconsider the abandoning of certain regiments. The fighting force, the infantry and the regiments that go out to fight should not be reduced. One of my constituents who served in the Yorkshire Regiment, which was founded by the Duke of Wellington, says that it is one of the best regiments and has received many Victoria Crosses for the services it has rendered to the country, so I ask Ministers to reconsider reducing the number of soldiers on the front line.
We are told that some of these re-evaluations of our defence expenditure are to do with the money. I want the Minister, and indeed Labour Members, to consider whether we really need Trident. I know that people think that this is a debate of the left, but everyone knows that four years ago a number of generals and senior people in the Army and the Air Force said that Trident is actually irrelevant and is no longer required, as a result of the end of the cold war. They have also said that it is not ready to deal with the current levels of international terrorism. The generals set that out in a letter to The Times in January 2009. I have copies of the documents where they have asked that more money be spent on conventional forces, which we require to deal with the imminent threats we face. As I said, those people are not pacifists and they are not people who do not know what they are talking about; they are—
Mr Speaker
Order. We are extremely grateful to the hon. Lady for her contribution. I call Oliver Colvile.
Oliver Colvile (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Con)
Thank you very much for calling me in this debate, Mr Speaker.
I agree with the comments that my hon. Friend the Minister for the Armed Forces made about how important this weekend is going to be, as it is national armed forces weekend. Not unnaturally, I am delighted to have this opportunity, because my constituency of Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport, more affectionately known as “Guz”, is going to be the national focus for the armed forces weekend. Plymouth is the home of 3 Commando Brigade, the Royal Marines and flag officer sea training, and it has an enormously big heritage, of which we are incredibly proud. I pay tribute to Commander Crichton for all his hard work in putting together the national armed forces weekend.
During this debate we have heard a great deal about how we need to make an assessment of where we are going. In my submission to the strategic defence and security review, I made it clear that Britain is a maritime nation, and we need to protect our sea routes. That means that we have to ensure that we are not sea blind. The Royal Navy’s role is to ensure not only soft diplomacy but that we can engage as and when Parliament decides where to go. It is a tool of foreign policy; indeed, some people would say that it could be a provisional tool in foreign policy, too.
I welcome the building of the aircraft carriers, but we need to ensure that when we move on to the next tranche of the SDSR we look long and hard at how to ensure that the supporting frigates are included.
Plymouth has a good story to tell about its harbour, which is the finest natural harbour in the world. It sits on the western approaches and is the one place in the United Kingdom that can deliver the refuelling and refitting of our nuclear submarines. That is our stake in the ground. I believe it is important that we retain our nuclear deterrent, because it is important not only strategically for our country but for my local economy, as 25,000 people are dependent on the defence industry.
Our dockyard was consistently under threat for the time that the Labour party was in power and I am delighted by the hard work my right hon. and hon. Friends on the Treasury Bench have been able to do in government to ensure that we can secure its future. The Government have been successful in ensuring not only that we will retain our Type 23s but that the £350 million refit of HMS Vengeance will take place in Devonport. The Government have been rebuilding confidence in Plymouth and Devonport, ensuring that we can do the very important job of engineering research, too, and making us one of the global leaders in maritime activity.
I am surprised by the Labour party’s approach and ask them to reconsider it. We need to ensure that those involved in our armed services have support in education, that they have decent housing and that they have provision to deal with mental health issues. We must work hard on that. This has been an important debate and we must ensure that we continue with the armed services covenant. I will welcome the opportunity to listen to the next debate on the subject, which will be important.
Steve Rotheram (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)
Britain has a proud military history and throughout that history, sailors, soldiers and airmen served our country with a courage and bravery that has become synonymous with the British armed forces. It is a pleasure to place on the record tonight my appreciation for our armed forces, as I will when I attend a ceremony in Liverpool town hall on Saturday. I will be remembering the eight brave men from Liverpool who made the ultimate sacrifice in Afghanistan, but of course the deaths of those brave men do not tell the full story. Countless others from the Merseyside area have been killed or injured in the line of duty during other conflicts and it should be recognised that Liverpool produces more men and women in our armed forces per capita than probably any other area of the country. As people will know, the Mersey is the lifeblood of our great city and Liverpool has a long history with the Royal Navy and the merchant navy. Its maritime history is a reminder to us all of the sacrifices and bravery of our ancestors.
In the somewhat limited time I have left, I want to talk about the lack of consideration that this Government have recently shown to our armed forces. I am primarily referring to the widespread reports that the Defence Secretary is to make soldiers who are currently serving redundant on their return from their tour of duty. What kind of Government would do that to their own brave soldiers? Decisions taken today, matters of life or death, spending commitments and diplomatic negotiations can and invariably will have ramifications for generations to come. What is more, some of the policy decisions made by the Defence Secretary today are likely to take decades to become manifest.
Yes, we need reform—that is why my right hon. Friend the shadow Defence Secretary outlined £5 billion-worth of reforms recently—but a reduction in Britain’s capability based on opinion polls is irresponsible. Controversy is not an excuse for carelessness or, dare I say, callousness.
The Defence Secretary should not underestimate the part that morale plays when it comes to our soldiers and armed forces. He would do well to remember the words of Dwight D. Eisenhower:
“The best morale exists when you never hear the word mentioned. When you hear a lot of talk about it, it’s usually lousy.”
Our armed forces deserve a Defence Secretary who understands defence and does not use it for political expedience. Our British armed forces deserve a Secretary of State who demonstrates compassion for the mission, empathy for the families and a determination to stand up for defence in Parliament.
Gemma Doyle (West Dunbartonshire) (Lab/Co-op)
It has been a pleasure to listen to this evening’s debate on defence reform, in which hon. Members have spoken on a number of topics. Let me say at the outset that the right hon. and learned Member for North East Fife (Sir Menzies Campbell) posed some very pertinent questions to Government Front Benchers.
I am pleased that we are having this debate in the week before armed forces day because it gives us the opportunity to pause and reflect on the bravery of our forces and the sacrifices they make, as has been mentioned by my hon. Friends the Members for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi) and for Liverpool, Walton (Steve Rotheram) among others. Our forces do what is asked of them without question or hesitation and they often place their lives on the line to protect others. I am sure that the national event taking place in Plymouth this Saturday will be a great success. In West Dunbartonshire we celebrated armed forces day on Sunday past with a march-past in Dumbarton high street and a service in Riverside parish church.
There is no doubt that the armed forces will face challenges in the coming years, not least as part of the new employment model and the Future Force 2020 plan. Some 30,000 troops will have been removed by 2020. That will have an enormous impact on the UK’s capability, and clarity from Ministers on the decisions they have taken about future capability would be welcome. My hon. Friend the Member for Bridgend (Mrs Moon) made some excellent points about our maritime capability.
Recent reports have raised concerns that certain regiments are at risk of being scrapped. Belonging to a regiment is a very strong part of many soldiers’ identity. That is why the shadow Secretary of State launched our “Respect Our Regiments” campaign last month. I know that many Members are concerned about regiments and battalions being scrapped, including colleagues from Wales, Yorkshire, Scotland and Staffordshire. I apologise if I have missed anyone out. The Government intend to rely much more heavily on reservists in future, and the Minister knows I am concerned that he and the Government plan to scrap employment protections for reservists while asking for more from them.
Gemma Doyle
The Minister shakes his head but I raised this with him last year and again last week. I know he is going to write to me and I await that letter because our understanding of the situation differs.
Last year, we reached agreement across the House on the armed forces covenant. I will resist the temptation raised by the contribution of the hon. Member for Tamworth (Christopher Pincher). As he knows and as the record shows, his party and the Minister had to be dragged kicking and screaming into putting the provisions we now have in law into the Armed Forces Act 2011. Anyone can read the record of the Committee proceedings to see that that is correct. The hon. Gentleman’s recollection was frankly a little wobbly. The Minister knows that I do not think the armed forces covenant is yet being taken seriously enough across all of government and the public sector in accordance with the principles set down. I do not doubt his commitment but more work needs to be done to make sure that it is a reality and that it works in practice.
I want to raise the issue of discrimination towards our forces. This concern is highlighted in the recent report by Lord Ashcroft, “The Armed Forces and Society”, which states that one in five members of the forces reports have been refused service in a bar or hotel while wearing their uniform and that around the same number reports being verbally abused while wearing their uniform. That is clearly unacceptable discrimination and if we take the covenant seriously we should be looking at how to tackle such behaviour.
Gemma Doyle
I am afraid that I really do not think I have time, but if I have time later I will.
The service community can face indirect discrimination, creating difficulty with day-to-day matters that we take for granted such as getting credit, mortgages or even a mobile phone contract because they have moved around so often. We should not accept that as inevitable. The principles of the armed forces covenant should apply throughout society, and where those principles are routinely or blatantly breached, it may be necessary to consider introducing measures to deal with the matter. Routine disadvantage or discrimination should never go hand in hand with serving one’s country.
Gemma Doyle
Great strides were made under the previous Government through the Green Paper and the service personnel Command Paper, which set up the provisions we now have.
Legal protections are in place for other groups in society and we believe that consideration should be given to whether they should be extended to our armed forces. I thought the Minister agreed to cross-party talks in our Westminster Hall debate last week, but that does not appear to be what is on the record. I hope that he is willing to take part in such talks and I would welcome confirmation of that today.
When referring to the wider service community, we must of course mention forces’ families. They put up with an awful lot and we do not do enough for them. We have to make many improvements, particularly in housing, on which the hon. Member for Tamworth made some welcome comments. The Minister has side-stepped concerns about the missing £41 million for forces’ housing, so I urge him to take cognisance of today’s report from the Select Committee on Defence, which sets out the concerns about housing very well. In last week’s Westminster Hall debate, I urged him to think carefully before making any changes to the rules on service accommodation. As he knows, leaked plans to change the entitlement to married quarters were not well received earlier this year. Perhaps he will tell us tonight whether those changes are still being considered.
Our motion makes specific reference to pensions. There are concerns that some individuals have been made redundant with only a few weeks to go before being entitled to a full pension. It has been suggested that that was done deliberately to cut cost. The Minister has the opportunity to say today that that is not the case and that getting rid of people from the forces before they qualified for a full pension was not a deliberate policy. Will he also comment on media reports last week that the Government may be considering raising by five years the age at which forces personnel can receive a full pension?
Many Members, including my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson), have highlighted the importance of the defence industry in the UK. That includes a range of industries—shipbuilding, manufacturing, maintenance, aerospace, technical support, clothing and optics. Let me say to the hon. Member for Portsmouth North (Penny Mordaunt), who raised some specific issues, that reports about Portsmouth dockyard have appeared in the media and the shadow Defence team has responded to those reports. I assure her that we share her concerns and we are on the side of her constituents and the people of Portsmouth. My hon. Friend the Member for Barrow and Furness (John Woodcock) made some excellent points about defence procurement and in particular about the successor deterrent programme.
The hon. Member for Milton Keynes North (Mark Lancaster) asked us to explain some of the savings that we have identified. He will be pleased to hear that details of a full £5 billion have been published on The Guardian website, if nowhere else, and I refer him to that site.
I want to say a little about defence in Scotland. This week saw the launch of the “Better Together” campaign—Scotland’s cross-party campaign making the positive case for staying part of the UK. It is a shame that the nationalist spokesperson for defence has chosen not to be present tonight. For more than 300 years, service men and women from Scotland have served alongside their countrymen and women from the rest of the UK, with a shared identity and goal—protecting the people of the UK and defending those unable to defend themselves around the world. The defence sector is extremely important across the whole of Scotland, supporting around 50,000 jobs and in the west of Scotland pumping about £270 million a year into the local economy.
On the “Better Together” website, Members can hear Craig and Tanya, both from Dumbarton, and Robert from Cumbernauld, who all work in the shipyards on the Clyde, talking about why they want to stay part of the UK. If any Members are in any doubt about the importance of MOD contracts to the people of Scotland, I suggest they listen to those whose jobs depend on them. Although breaking Scotland off from the UK is a reform too far for me and for the majority of Scots, we have had a good debate this evening on many aspects of defence reform.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Mr Andrew Robathan)
May I say what a pleasure it is to agree with the hon. Member for West Dunbartonshire (Gemma Doyle) in rejecting any idea that Scotland would be better off independent, and how much stronger we are—both Scotland and the United Kingdom as a whole—as a Union?
Many of the contributions to the debate today show how wide and how deep the admiration and respect for our armed forces runs in the House, and that reflects the feelings across the country. We should not forget that the purpose of our armed forces is to succeed on operations, to protect our national security and to provide the ultimate guarantee of our country’s security and independence, as well as helping to project its values and interests abroad. In Afghanistan today, that is what our soldiers are doing, risking life and limb to keep us safe as we sit in comfort in Westminster.
Operations remain the No. 1 priority for the Ministry of Defence and we will do everything we can to achieve success not just in Afghanistan, but in standing operations around the world and in helping to deliver a safe and secure Olympics this summer. But to make sure that this success continues into the future, we have to make sure that our services are structured properly, that the equipment programme is funded and that the needs of our forces are looked after.
That is why the programme of implementing the SDSR is so necessary—putting the years of Labour mismanagement behind and sorting out the mess. Although it appears that the Opposition recognise the need for change, they still do not appear to understand why there is such a need for change. The shadow Secretary of State for Defence—I am sorry he is not here—has written:
“In beginning to develop future policy we have to be honest about the past.”
Today, not one Member on the Opposition Benches has been honest about the mistakes that the Opposition made in the past. Not one has said sorry—sorry for 12 years without a defence review, sorry for the £38 billion black hole in the budget—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) should stop digging. He has been digging quite enough today. Not one Opposition Member has said sorry for ducking the tough choice required to put our armed forces back on track.
I am afraid that in the limited time available I will not be able to address all the contributions to the debate. The right hon. and learned Member for North East Fife (Sir Menzies Campbell) yet again made an impassioned case for RAF Leuchars. It remains our intention that the Army move to Leuchars and the RAF move to Lossiemouth. He asked some very detailed questions. Will he please take those up and I will make sure that my excellent civil servants in the Box bring them to the attention of the Under-Secretary of State for Defence, my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Worcestershire (Peter Luff), who would be better at answering than I would be this evening?
Sir Menzies Campbell
The questions were rhetorical. The answer is yes in every case.
Mr Robathan
In which case I do not think my hon. Friend the Minister will be writing to the right hon. and learned Gentleman.
The hon. Member for Bridgend (Mrs Moon) made a point about the Nimrod MRA4. It was a procurement disaster. The aircraft were never in service and never flew in service. I say to the hon. Lady and to the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Mr Llwyd) that the Government value the Welsh regiments that she spoke about. I have Welsh antecedents. I had a great uncle killed in Gallipoli in the Welsh Regiment and other relatives in the Welsh regiments, so I can assure her that we value the Welsh regiments. I do not know what is in the report. We must wait until General Carter’s report is published, which it will be, shortly.
My hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth North (Penny Mordaunt) drew attention to misleading statements on the naval base that she attributed to the Labour press office. If that is the case, it is regrettable. We have no intention whatsoever of closing the Portsmouth naval base.
The hon. Member for York Central (Hugh Bayley) raised an important point about audit, accountability and the need to reform NATO. I suggest that he takes that up—I am looking again at my excellent civil servants—with the Under-Secretary of State for Defence, my hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot (Mr Howarth), who is responsible for such matters, and I am sure that he will get back to him on that.
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes North (Mark Lancaster) for his sensible look at defence strategy and the future of the reserves. I am sure that we are looking forward to seeing him in uniform tomorrow as a serving officer. The hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson) was keen to encourage the defence industry and exports. Three Defence Ministers spend their time going around areas trying to encourage defence exports. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister was widely criticised, including by Labour Front-Bench spokesmen, when he tried to encourage exports to the middle east. I am very glad to have the hon. Lady’s support. She referred to the economic difficulties that the Government have got themselves into since 2010. I do not think so. I really do not think so.
My hon. Friend the Member for Tamworth (Christopher Pincher) made a good point about housing. We are working on banks and mortgages, as he asked, and BFPO addresses will now be accepted as proper addresses for security. I am very much looking forward to seeing my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Oliver Colvile) on armed forces day in Plymouth this weekend.
I must tell the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Steve Rotheram) that we are not making reductions in the armed forces out of callousness, but with huge regret, and it is painful to us. We are doing it because of the appalling financial situation that the Government received when they took office in 2010.
The hon. Member for West Dunbartonshire is not correct that there is any intention to reduce protection for employment of reservists deployed. I am delighted to hear her praying in aid again my noble Friend Lord Ashcroft. I have never heard praise from the Labour Benches for Lord Ashcroft before, but I am pleased to hear it now. Perhaps she will bring forward an analysis of discrimination. I draw her attention to a letter that has been sent to the shadow Defence Secretary from my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, which says:
“I welcome the work conducted by Lord Ashcroft…I was reassured that that public support for our Armed Forces remains ‘very high’”.
He particularly says:
“I would welcome a discussion with you on how we can ensure that everything we do in Parliament emphasises our cross-party support for the Armed Forces and the people who serve in them.”
The Opposition probably rather regret calling this debate today. They have made themselves look somewhat foolish. While I remember, may I say how sorry I am to hear about the shadow Secretary of State’s relation in Australia? I understand that he is very ill and we wish him the very best in that illness, and I mean that sincerely. However, having been nice to the hon. Member for North Durham, let me say that he admitted that Labour was planning savings in restructuring the Army and then attacked us for doing just that. The Opposition remain in denial. They seem to say that everything was great in defence at the general election. It was not. As the shadow Secretary of State has identified, the Opposition’s greatest weakness remains the black hole that they left us. Today, the team has been revealed in all its glory. The Opposition have shown that they have no real defence policy. They have no answers to the problems in defence. They have no acceptance of the difficult position that we are in and no acceptance of the mess made by the Labour Government of the Government finances and of the defence budget.
In conclusion—
Mr Alan Campbell (Tynemouth) (Lab)
claimed to move the closure (Standing Order No. 36).
Question put forthwith, That the Question be now put.
Question agreed to.
Question put accordingly (Standing Order No. 31(2)), That the original words stand part of the Question.
Business without Debate
Sir Peter Bottomley
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Motion 3 on the Order Paper includes the words,
“welcomes the Commission’s support for the Government’s efforts to reduce the deficit and set the public finances on a sustainable path”.
Is that an issue on which the Opposition could have called for a debate, rather than just a vote?
Mr Speaker
I think that the matter has already been debated in a European Committee. It is therefore not immediately obvious to me how a debate would have been sought today. The answer to the hon. Gentleman’s question—
Mr Speaker
I do not require any further point of order. The answer to the question is no.
Mr Speaker
Order. I have made the point. The hon. Gentleman will resume his seat.
Tom Greatrex (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Lab/Co-op)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. The administrators, PricewaterhouseCoopers, have announced this evening that the Coryton refinery has been sold, not as a refinery, but as an import and export terminal, meaning that most of the 850 jobs will go. Have you had any indication from Ministers from the Department of Energy and Climate Change that they intend to come to the House to make an urgent statement on the implications of that announcement for UK fuel security and energy resilience?
Mr Speaker
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his point of order. As of now, I have received no such indication. I recognise the importance of the matter to the hon. Gentleman and to others. What he has said will have been heard by those on the Treasury Bench.
If the hon. Member for Worthing West (Sir Peter Bottomley), having exercised a modicum of restraint and patience, wishes to pursue a different point of order, he may do so.
Sir Peter Bottomley
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. The question that I put to you was whether the Opposition could have had such a debate, rather than whether they should have had one. The answer may be the same, but the answer that the House was given was not relevant to the question that I had put.
Mr Speaker
The answer is no. I am grateful for the linguistic clarification, but the answer is the same.
Housing Benefit (York)
Hugh Bayley (York Central) (Lab)
Private tenants on low incomes in York face a particular problem because their housing benefit is based not on rents in York, but on rents in a broad market rental area that includes towns and villages 20 miles from York, where rents are much lower. I therefore present a petition on behalf of residents of York. The petition is signed by two of my constituents, Helen Graham and Graham Martin, and is supported by the signatures of almost 1,000 people.
The petition states:
The Petition of residents of York,
Declares that York is facing a housing crisis, with homelessness in York in 2010/2011 40% up on the previous year; further declares that the Government’s reforms to Housing Benefits mean that of 6,299 private rented properties previously affordable in the city, 3,700 will be lost, a reduction of almost 50%; declares that this is effectively driving people out of York and away from their jobs, families and friends; and declares that York’s Broad Market Rental Area, which determines the level of Housing Benefit currently available, should be based on the York Unitary Authority area and not on neighbouring towns including, Tadcaster, Selby, and Pocklington, all of which have lower rents than York, in order to reduce the pressure on people to move away from the city which is their home.
The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Government to make changes to the boundary of the York Broad Market Rental Area to include only the York Unitary Authority area.
And the Petitioners remain, etc.
[P001101]
Decent Homes Programme (Nottingham)
Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)
I feel a mixture of pride and anxiety speaking about Nottingham’s decent homes programme. I am proud of the difference it has made to the lives of my constituents, but anxious for the future, because the final two years of investment have yet to be confirmed.
I want to explain my pride that, thanks to a unique study produced through the knowledge transfer partnership between Nottingham City Homes and Nottingham business school, we can measure the impact of Nottingham’s decent homes programme. I shall also set out exactly what is at stake for my constituents, including tenants, their neighbours and the wider city of Nottingham. If the promised funding is not delivered, the objective of bringing all council homes in Nottingham up to a decent standard is at risk.
Twelve years ago, the Labour Government set out their vision in a housing Green Paper and made a commitment to tackle chronic under-investment and to bring all housing up to an acceptable standard. In 2010, the National Audit Office found that, although the decent homes programme had probably had a wider beneficial impact, a lack
“of data on these wider benefits means that it is not possible to identify the Programme’s true impact throughout its life.”
The impact study helps to prove what MPs knew: that the programme was making a difference on the ground.
In January 2011, the House debated “Beyond Decent Homes”, a report from the Select Committee on Communities and Local Government. MPs on both sides of the House, including me, described what good-quality housing meant for their constituents. NCH was awarded funding by the Department for Communities and Local Government in 2008 and work began to complete £187 million-worth of planned investment to tackle the 32% of council homes in Nottingham classified as non-decent. The work was carried out under three streams to maximise efficiency and match tenants’ priorities. The secure stream was to replace all single-glazed windows with secured-by-design double-glazed units and replace any old or damaged doors; the warm stream was to improve heating and insulation; and the modern stream was to make internal improvements, including replacing outdated kitchens and bathrooms. Adaptations to meet the special needs of some tenants, including level-access showers or wet rooms, would also be undertaken alongside the secure, warm and modern—SWM—programme.
When the 2010 general election brought new uncertainty, tenants and leaseholders launched their “Nott Decent” campaign, and I was proud to join them in presenting a petition to No. 10 to ask the new Government to honour the commitment that had been made to them. We were pleased and relieved when the Minister re-allocated funding—albeit reduced funding over a longer period—to complete the programme. By January 2012, 15,900 properties—more than half of all council homes—had new windows; 3,400 doors had been replaced; 10,200 heating systems had been upgraded; 2,900 lofts were properly insulated; 9,000 kitchens and 7,200 bathrooms had been replaced; and 284 aids and adaptations had been made to make properties more accessible for their disabled tenants.
The impact study measured the effect of those changes to tenants’ homes. On crime and security, the results are dramatic: burglary fell by 42% between 2007 and 2010 on two sample estates where single-glazed windows were replaced, compared with a 21% reduction across the city. The study identified that timber doors were a weak spot in houses’ overall security, which provided evidence to support replacing all external doors, not just those that were especially old or damaged. Tenants reported feeling safer in their homes—an important contribution to improved mental health and general well-being.
Together with the installation of energy-efficient central heating systems and loft insulation, the new windows have raised the average energy efficiency rating of NCH homes from 60 to 68 points. That represents a 15% decrease in carbon emissions from NCH properties, which is equivalent to taking 2,700 cars off the road or planting 360,000 trees and growing them for 10 years. By the time the SWM programme is completed in 2015, energy efficiency from NCH homes will be saving 43,500 tonnes of carbon per year and achieving 17% of the city’s target for carbon reduction from domestic properties.
Of course, not only are energy-efficient and better-insulated homes good for the environment; they have a real and immediate benefit to the people who live in them. Tenants not only report that their homes are warmer, suffer less damp and condensation and give them pride in their neighbourhood, but that they are saving money—and given that an estimated 12% of all city residents were in fuel poverty before the programme began, that is money they desperately needed.
The Energy Saving Trust estimates that new windows alone can save £95 to £223 a year, and new boilers up to £225 a year. In total, improved homes are saving Nottingham tenants £3.5 million each year, making a significant contribution to reducing fuel poverty, which fell to 6.8% of city residents by 2010-11—after the programme upgraded thousands of properties. The improvements also enable tenants to get rid of extra appliances such as old electric heaters, which can often present a health and safety hazard. Combined with better security, these changes to the physical fabric of their homes have a marked effect on the health and well-being of NCH tenants.
The impact study estimates that, as a result of the SWM programme, two lives a year are saved by protecting vulnerable tenants from the cold; that the respiratory health of 1,000 children is improved; that, every year, 12 hospital admissions resulting from falls are avoided; that 144 accidents requiring medical attention are prevented; and that, as a result of providing warmer homes and reduced fuel bills, more than 1,400 tenants have better mental health. Based on just those examples, where a measurable change and cost impact for the NHS in Nottingham could be calculated, the savings are almost £700,000 per year.
In a time of economic austerity and public sector spending cuts, the benefits accruing from public capital investment matter more than ever. Nottingham, along with the rest of the country, is feeling the devastating impact of a double-dip recession: 19,000 people are out of work and there are six jobseekers for every vacancy. Construction, the fifth largest employment sector in the city, has been badly hit by the economic downturn and reduction in house building. The decent homes programme is providing vital work, and of the 560 people currently delivering SWM in Nottingham, about one third live in the city and over half in Nottinghamshire.
Investment in decent homes is not only providing much-needed jobs for joiners, plumbers, and other workers in the construction industry; the analysis shows that every £1 of investment in the programme generates £1.36 in Nottingham city or £1.46 in Nottinghamshire as a whole, which means that the £37.6 million spent on the decent homes programme in 2010-11 generated an extra £17.3 million of additional spending in Nottinghamshire, £13.5 million of which came into the city.
The SWM programme also makes an important contribution to training and skills development through the “One in a Million” scheme, which requires contractors to take on an apprentice for every £1 million of their contract. That has already created 105 apprenticeships, with a target of creating a total of 200 by 2015. In addition, staff on the SWM team have completed 2,000 hours of training, including externally accredited qualifications. As a result of this investment in skills, these staff can expect to earn an extra £13 million in additional lifetime earnings.
The impact study shows that investment in decent housing works both for tenants and the wider community. However, the benefits accruing from decent homes are not secure. The funding from the Department for Communities and Local Government for the decent homes programme remains indicative for the final two years of Nottingham’s programme. In the reallocation of funding in January 2011, 53% of NCH’s allocation was weighted towards those two final years, amounting to a total of £45.6 million.
If that investment does not go ahead, the consequences for our city will be dire. For every £1 million spent, 21 jobs are created, so cutting the funding could result in more than 950 job losses over the two years. Furthermore, NCH is committed to taking on an apprentice for every £1 million spent, so the reduction in funding would result in 45 fewer local people starting apprenticeships. If remaining heating upgrades are not completed, savings of 2,440 tonnes of carbon and £600,000 from tenants’ fuel bills will no longer be made, and a cut in funding would mean the loss not only of the original investment of £45 million into the construction industry, but of an additional £21 million of re-spending in the local economy. Most importantly, of course, if the funding is not confirmed, 7,000 tenants and their families would be left living in substandard housing.
The loss of the investment would hit some harder than others, and one neighbourhood in Nottingham that stands to lose most is the Meadows in my constituency. Before the last election, the Meadows, one of the 5% most deprived wards in the country, was due to benefit from £200 million of new investment, which would have transformed the area. The incoming coalition Government cancelled the housing PFI scheme, and I raised my concerns about that decision back in December 2010. Subsequently, together with representatives of the local community and the council’s regeneration team, I met the Minister for Housing and Local Government to discuss the impact of his decision, and he agreed to visit the Meadows to see for himself the needs of our neighbourhood. Unfortunately, he has not found time in his diary to make good on that commitment, so I would like to use this opportunity to reissue that invitation.
Nottingham City Homes was forced to reallocate funding within its decent homes budget so that Meadows residents were not left behind—to ensure that, having been let down by the new Government, they would still get their new doors and windows, boilers and insulation, kitchens and bathrooms, even though their hopes of transforming their neighbourhood were dashed. Thanks to the hard work of the SWM team, every NCH property in the Meadows has new windows, a third of the homes have better heating and insulation, and NCH hopes to complete the other two thirds before the end of this financial year. Those promised doors, kitchens and bathrooms, however, rely on those last two years of funding. The Minister really should come to Nottingham and meet some of those families in my constituency so that he can understand what his decision will mean to them.
I also want to touch on the wider impacts. A cut to this funding would also have knock-on effects on NCH’s self-financing position under the housing revenue account, and on other investment programmes that need to be match funded by investment from the decent homes programme. Nottingham City Homes and Nottingham city council are currently making proactive use of the community energy saving programme started by the last Labour Government to insulate hard-to-heat properties in our most deprived neighbourhoods.
Although it was right to focus resources, individual low-income householders in more affluent areas also face fuel poverty. These are often social housing tenants, and social landlords such as NCH have a strong track record of working with utility companies to help stop such homes leaking heat, making a huge contribution to the country’s carbon reduction obligations. Social housing providers need the maximum ability to retrofit their homes under the new green deal with its associated new energy company obligation arrangements. This will include the ability to match fund ECO money with housing investment programmes to get better value in tackling excess cold, helping reduce fuel poverty and reducing carbon emissions from domestic properties.
I hope the Minister will address the following questions in his response. In 2008, a third of Nottingham’s council housing failed to meet the decent homes standard, but if funding is confirmed, all council homes will meet it by 2015. Can he confirm that the £45.6 million of indicative funding for Nottingham City Homes for the last two years of the decent homes programme will be forthcoming? If he cannot provide that assurance tonight, can he tell us when housing providers will know, so that they can plan work, keep contractors on schedule and avoid the waste of winding down programmes only to have to start them up again? Can he explain how the Government will ensure that social housing tenants benefit from the green deal and ECO work to improve hard-to-heat homes and to tackle fuel poverty?
The Minister has said outside this House today that Nottingham receives substantial housing funding. The truth is that, as a deprived city that suffered from a lack of investment during the ’80s and ’90s, this funding is needed. The impact study proves that the money has been well spent. Our homes should be the places where we can shut out the world and feel safe, but if our home is cold, damp, overcrowded and outdated, there is no escape.
Decent housing matters; investment in good council housing changes lives. This study shows that investing in social housing delivers real, tangible benefits to whole communities, including jobs and growth. Surely the Government will not turn its back on this chance to do the right thing. Good council houses are not just bricks and mortar; they are homes to my constituents, who are entitled to a decent standard of living. I hope that the Minister will confirm the funding and enable Nottingham City Homes to finish this essential work.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Andrew Stunell)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood) on her speech, and on securing the debate. She spoke with great eloquence, and presented a very thorough picture of the circumstances in Nottingham and the value of the decent homes programme. I am very much on the same page as her, given the improvements that the programme can make to the health and well-being and security of tenants, and the impact that improvements in the insulation and energy performance of homes can have on carbon reduction. I also know that Nottingham has an excellent record of tackling climate change at local level.
I think that, before dealing with the intricacies of the situation in Nottingham, I should say something about the decent homes programme in general. The Government believe that all social housing should meet the decent homes standard, which, according to the technical wording of the definition, means that it should be free of category 1 hazards, should be in a reasonable state of repair, should have reasonably modern facilities and services, and should provide a reasonable degree of thermal comfort.
I must tell the hon. Lady that the present Government inherited not only a decent homes programme, but a huge deficit and a £3.2 billion backlog in capital investment in housing. The Government have already announced plans to invest £2.1 billion in the completion of the decent homes programme, of which £1.6 billion will be allocated to 46 local authorities—including Nottingham—and £500 million will go to registered social landlords in the form of gap funding. Those funds will make 127,000 council homes decent by the end of 2014-15, which will cover nearly 60% of the council housing that remains non-decent. The final slice of those non-decent homes will be made decent by local authorities using their own resources, and, as the hon. Lady said, Nottingham will be able to do that.
We have already been very successful in reducing the number of homes that are not fit for people to live in. In April 2010, shortly before the general election, local authorities had 291,600 non-decent dwellings. By April 2011 the number had fallen by 26%, to 217,000. Figures for the past year are being collated, and the Homes and Communities Agency predicts that we will prove to have reduced the number by about a further 20,000 during that period. As the hon. Lady said, more is being done even as we speak.
We believe that our funding—together with the introduction of self-financing for housing authorities and the increases in allowances that that brings them—will give local authorities the means to deal with any newly arising non-decent stock from within their own resources. In other words, they have the finances with which to maintain a steady state once we have achieved a high standard of decency.
Let me now deal with the position in Nottingham. Nottingham City Homes is a strongly performing arm’s length management organisation. Incidentally, my area of Stockport contains an ALMO which also performs very well. Only last year, Nottingham city council extended its agreement with Nottingham City Homes for a further 10 years, which I think constitutes a very good vote of confidence. That ALMO has been able to demonstrate an increase in tenant satisfaction; it has reduced rent arrears from £5 million to £1.8 million; and it was given a two-star rating under the old regime which unlocked its original decent homes funding programme.
When the time came for us to allocate funding to Nottingham, we recognised that the city had a significant backlog of non-decent homes—the hon. Lady has given the figures on that. That is why we allocated £86 million in indicative funding with the first two years confirmed—£40.5 million committed in the first two years. That is the largest award to any council outside London, and the Homes and Communities Agency is putting £78 million of additional investment into new housing and regeneration across Greater Nottingham by 2015, to produce 536 new homes.
As the hon. Lady said, the impact of the decent homes funding has been substantial. It has produced a big improvement in many people’s lives, not just in better homes, but in all that flows from that. The hon. Lady eloquently explained some of those benefits, and I entirely agree that this programme has brought, and can continue to bring, real benefits to tenants in Nottingham.
The hon. Lady referred to the study, undertaken by Nottingham City Homes with Nottingham Trent university, of the wider impact of decent homes. That study has made a very useful contribution to our knowledge, and ought to be required reading for those who doubt the importance of investing in our social housing stock. It shows why the coalition Government were right to fund authorities to make homes decent. As the hon. Lady said, every £1 million spent has created 21 jobs in Nottingham. The study gives a series of impressive statistics about the benefits that have been secured, not least reductions in crime. There are health benefits as well, of course, but some of those listed are, perhaps, a little tenuous; reductions in falls is one thing, but improvements in the respiratory health of children and in the mental health of tenants are more clear-cut.
We have already confirmed almost half the allocation we set out in the comprehensive spending review. I know that Nottingham and others are keen to get certainty on their budgets for April 2013 onwards.
The hon. Lady was, perhaps, wearing rose-tinted spectacles when she spoke of the performance of the previous Government. The Labour Government cut the decent homes programme by £150 million in July 2009, cannibalising one part of the housing programme to pay for new housing policies elsewhere. They also failed to meet their decent homes target. They pledged in 2000 that they would ensure that all social housing was of a decent standard within 10 years. Sadly, that was not the case by 2010.
Labour also made it clear in the general election campaign that they considered investment in housing, and social housing in particular, not to be a top priority. The then Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown), told “Newsnight”:
“Housing is essentially a private sector activity. Let’s be honest about this...I don’t see a need for us to continue with such a big renovation programme.”
Therefore, although Labour started the programme, it has to be reported that they were throttling it back and were planning to do so more.
When this Government came to power we were borrowing an additional £400 million every day in order to close the gap between what we were spending and what was coming in. It is absolutely right that the Government should keep a tight hold on all their spending. The economic circumstances that have unfolded since show the sense of taking that initial decision and the importance of continuing to keep a tight grip on what we spend and how we spend it. That does include the decent homes programme.
I can assure the hon. Lady that we are expecting to make an announcement on the decent homes allocation for the final years in due course. I very much take her point that it would be sensible to ensure that the timing of that allowed continuity of contracts and employment. That is a point I will take away from this debate.
I also want to say on behalf of the Minister for Housing and Local Government that his undertaking to visit the Meadows was given in good faith. He is very busy and very active, and I am happy to confirm that he will in due course visit the Meadows, as he undertook to do.
I understand the hon. Lady’s enthusiasm to get ahead, and I share it. The Government are still supportive of all the work that the decent homes programme is doing and all the benefits that it brings. We remain committed to supporting backlog authorities such as Nottingham in making its homes decent, and to supporting some of the most vulnerable in society who live in those homes.
Mr Speaker
The hon. Gentleman is a generous fellow. I call Lilian Greenwood.
Lilian Greenwood
I thank the Minister for giving way. I obviously listened carefully to his response, although I should say I am rather disappointed with its lack of clarity. Can he confirm how many tenants of Nottingham City Homes he expects to be living in non-decent housing by the time this Parliament comes to an end in 2015?
Andrew Stunell
Like the hon. Lady, I very much hope that the programme we originally announced will have been completed and that the successes we predicted will have been achieved.
On that note, Mr Speaker, I am sitting down.
Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. May I ask that the House and you accept my apology? During a point of order I used the word “could”. You sensibly used the word “would”. I thought that you had said “should”. I was wrong and misrepresented what you had said, and I apologise.
Mr Speaker
The hon. Gentleman is courtesy and good grace itself. I did not think that an apology was necessary but it is very much appreciated, and I thank the hon. Gentleman for what he has said. This is the first time that the question of the Adjournment being moved has been punctuated in this way during my tenure, but I thank him.
Question put and agreed to.
Ministerial Corrections
(12 years, 5 months ago)
Ministerial CorrectionsRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Defence
(12 years, 5 months ago)
Ministerial CorrectionsRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Michael Connarty (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (Lab)
I am trying to find out how much of this expenditure is in the £3 billion mentioned last year by the Under-Secretary of State for Defence, the hon. Member for Mid Worcestershire (Peter Luff), the Minister with responsibility for procurement, and how much is new expenditure? How much will be spent on Trident development and how much on the Astute submarine fleet?
Mr Hammond
The answer is about a quarter. Of the £1.1 billion, £500 million is investment in the capital infrastructure at the Rolls-Royce plant. The remaining £600 million represents the purchase of long-lead items for the production of the core for the reactor for the seventh Astute-class boat and the first successor-class boat.
[Official Report, 18 June 2012, Vol. 546, c. 615.]
Letter of correction from Philip Hammond:
An error has been identified in the answer given to the hon. Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Michael Connarty) on 18 June 2012.
The correct answer should have been:
Mr Hammond
The answer is about a quarter. Of the £1.1 billion, £500 million is investment in the capital infrastructure at the Rolls-Royce plant. The remaining £600 million represents the cost of sustaining the capability out to 2023 and producing the core for the reactor for the seventh Astute-class boat and the first successor-class boat.
The following is the answer given by the Secretary of State for Defence, the right hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr Hammond), to the supplementary questions asked by the hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) during the Urgent Question concerning nuclear-powered submarines on 18 June 2012.
Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)
A week ago, the Under-Secretary of State for Defence, the hon. Member for Mid Worcestershire (Peter Luff), told the House that the total cost of long-lead items was £3 billion, but that has risen by a third in the Secretary of State’s statement today. Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that all he is doing is building up huge expenditure in advance of a main gate decision in 2016, which will lead this country towards wasting £100 billion on a weapon of mass destruction of dubious legality and total immorality? Do we not need to think again?
Mr Hammond
The hon. Gentleman will not be surprised to hear that I do not agree with any of that; I do not think he listened to the answer to the previous question but one. This is not an increase in the £3 billion previously announced; the part of it that relates to the successor programme was included within that £3 billion.
[Official Report, 18 June 2012, Vol. 546, c. 615-16.]
Letter of correction from Philip Hammond:
An error has been identified in the answer given to the hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) on 18 June 2012.
The correct answer should have been:
Mr Hammond
The hon. Gentleman will not be surprised to hear that I do not agree with any of that; I do not think he listened to the answer to the previous question but one. This is not an increase in the £3 billion previously announced; the part of it that relates to successor programme expenditure through to 2016 was included within that £3 billion.
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Women (Global Economy)
(12 years, 5 months ago)
Westminster HallRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Esther McVey (Wirral West) (Con)
It is a pleasure, Mr Turner, to serve under your stewardship today. Today’s debate is on women in the global economy. It is true to say that women now drive the world economy. Globally, they control £20 trillion of annual consumer spending, and that could climb as high as £28 trillion by 2015. Their £13 trillion in total yearly earnings could reach £18 trillion in the same period. In aggregate, women represent a growth market more than twice as big as China and India combined. Given those sums, it would be foolish to underestimate that economic force.
Carol Bagnold, HSBC’s regional commercial director for London, said:
“The female economy is hugely important for the UK and globally in terms of the international stage. Wealth is shifting, and the scale of contribution from women in both the business and consumer world is growing.
The States have recognised this with a plot of research done. In the UK the statistics show the same opportunity and we need to grasp this. 60% of personal wealth will sit with females by 2025, 37% of start-ups are now female owned, within the corporate world there”
is a
“growing number of females controlling the finances.”
Women are now the largest emerging economy. British women in their early 20s already earn 3.6% more than men of the same age. Women in full-time work are seeing their wages grow at more than twice the rate of men’s, and if that growth continues the average pay of women in the UK will overtake men’s by 2020.
Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)
I apologise for interrupting my hon. Friend’s flow so early in her speech. Does she agree that those figures show that there is no need for politically correct positive discrimination, quotas or targets, because women are more than capable of competing on equal terms with men, and that we should focus on jobs and opportunities being given on merit alone?
Esther McVey
I agree with half of what my hon. Friend says. We are taking significant steps forward, and I will refer to various women and business executives who make similar comments, but they include the caveat that different sorts of support are essential for women to enable them to achieve the positions they want, and to continue their jobs and professional advancement through a complex cycle, because women are the carers and nurturers in society.
In the UK, 700,000 businesses are female-owned and estimated turnover in 2011 was £130 billion according to the International Centre for Entrepreneurship. For the first time, there are more young female millionaires than young male millionaires, so women are becoming wealthier younger. It seems that women are now truly an unstoppable economic force. However, in tandem with those positive statistics is the fact that although women may be earning more when younger, things change dramatically in their 30s when they have families. Between the ages of 40 and 49, there is a significant difference—about £3—in the hourly rate of women and men of the same working age.
We are often told that if women set up businesses at the same rate as men, there would be 150,000 new starts a year. As well as that, if we increased women’s participation in the workplace, we could add another £15 billion to £22 billion to the UK economy. We are also told that it will take another 70 years to achieve gender balance in the boardroom, such is the state of affairs there. Both sets of statistics are true, but neither does justice to the full role that women play globally.
Academics talk of women’s achievements reaching a plateau after a high point pre-2000 when a diverse raft of ground-breaking women took to the national and international stage. In this House in 1979, Margaret Thatcher became the first and only female Prime Minister. Elizabeth Butler-Sloss was appointed the first woman law lord in 1988. Stella Rimington was appointed the first female head of MI5 in 1992, and Debbie Moore was the first woman to establish a public limited company in 1984.
The rapid rise of women to leadership roles faltered as we approached the 21st century. Martin, Warren-Smith, Scott and Roper commented on the alarming lack of progress, and Vanhala stated that there has not been a significant increase since the early 1990s. That prompted Broadbent and Kirkham to write that:
“after a promising start why aren’t women moving on, even in ‘feminised’ professions such as accountancy”.
In their book, “Through the Labyrinth”, Eagly and Carli wrote about the distinct lack of women in powerful roles. However, others, including Broadridge, Broadbent and Kirkham are now asking whether we have reached a pivotal point in the advancement of women in leadership, and suggesting that to deliver the next level of progress a new understanding of female leadership might be required.
Philip Davies
I am sure that my hon. Friend is too modest to mention it, but I commend her work with her book “If Chloe Can”, and the magazine that she set up and has delivered to thousands of schoolgirls throughout the country in scores of schools. She turned it into a play, and what she has achieved is remarkable. Does she agree that role models are crucial, and that women and other people can achieve their ambitions, whatever their background, if they have other people’s paths and examples to follow?
Esther McVey
I thank my hon. Friend for his kind words. I do indeed believe that, and I am not the only one. A huge body of work has been done on that. Ofsted did a report last year, and this year Girlguiding UK did a report on the importance of role models. I came to the same conclusion after 10 years of research on the Genda Agenda, and in the Ideopolis report and the Merseyside Entrepreneurship Commission. I originally sought to look specifically at Merseyside where evidence unfortunately showed that the statistics for girls claiming benefit were double the national average, but for those setting up in business they were half the national average. That was not because of the academic qualifications they did or did not have, not because they did not have drive and determination, and not because they did not have the wherewithal; it was purely because of a lack of role models. If girls do not know what opportunities are out there, they cannot follow a path and achieve.
If I wanted to make a chocolate cake, I would not try to fathom out how much butter, flour and chocolate I would need. I would go to a recipe book, or follow the recipe of someone who had got it right. If I then wanted to tweak and perfect it with extra chocolate flakes and buttons, I would. In the same way, I teach young girls and older girls that there is a path that they can follow, and show them the raw ingredients that they need to achieve.
Another positive comment I always make to young girls from all backgrounds—this is key—is that when I did an academic qualitative and quantitative study of the top 100 women in the world from all backgrounds, the determining factors were not who someone was related to, or what academic qualifications they had. Personality and character traits determined their future. Being persistent, determined, consistent, a good team player, optimistic, and able to find a way of doing things even when hurdles were put in the way were the key determining factors for whether people achieved. That was a long answer, but it encapsulates 10 years’ work.
Philip Davies
I thought that at this point I would urge the Minister—if my hon. Friend wants to comment, she can—to do the following. It seems to me, having been one of the many colleagues who went to see the performance of “If Chloe Can” when it was turned into a play and who also saw the production in Speaker’s House, that if the Government and the Minister really want to do something useful, giving some support and funding to allow that to go around the country as my hon. Friend envisages would be far more worth while than just talking about these things.
Esther McVey
I thank my hon. Friend very much. I would never have been so bold as to make such a plea, but as he has, on my behalf, I shall endorse it thoroughly.
I argue not only that women have reached a pivotal point, but that we need to understand and ensure that we in the broader sense—all of society—support the complex female life cycle. I am talking about the life cycle of a woman as mother, carer and nurturer. We also need to understand how those biological and atavistic needs drive, motivate and influence women’s choices. Women’s natural predisposition to be carers and nurturers regularly dictates the style and type of job that they do, the type of business that they establish and the choice of hours worked in order to fit around the needs of their family. Perhaps targets for the extra number of businesses that women should set up, how much extra they could add to the economy or how great a percentage could be on a board are artificial and too simplistic a range of targets and do not take into account innate human desires.
As we look to the global stage and look at businesses, we are noticing that there has been a change from a hierarchical structure in business and organisations to a flatter one. Executive leaders are seeing and feeling that, but is everyone else convinced? Targets are not enough. They do not work sustainably and are not as effective as they need to be. We can look to other countries. In China, the Philippines and Thailand, things are very balanced. In Japan, that is not the case. There, women take only 6% of the top jobs. We have to look at the cultural effects. The McKinsey study in Europe showed a much improved gender balance. In China, 70% of women are in work, but India is far behind, with 35%. Again, that shows the cultural significance and difference.
Eve Baldwin, the global human resources director for Unilever, says that she has noticed that 50% of entry-level positions are taken by women, but 80% of promotions go to men. Why are we still not landing job promotions? It seems that organisations still prefer a male style. Perhaps there is still a lack of acceptance of different styles. Perhaps organisations do not appreciate the different dimensions and character types that women can bring to the business world. That needs to be fixed internally.
Anna Soubry (Broxtowe) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate and on the very thoughtful and extremely well-researched speech that she is giving. Does she agree that one reason why women are not progressing in the way that we would all obviously like them to progress is that for many there is an absolute tension between wanting to have and rear a family and, at the same time, wanting to nurture a career? We have not resolved that tension yet. One reason why we have not resolved it is the cost of child care, which of course went up under the previous Administration. The current Government must address that in a significant way if women at all levels are to make progress at work.
Esther McVey
That was a very pertinent point and well made. Child care is key and needs to be addressed in many ways. It is not just a question of costing it out and paying for it. There could be tax incentives. There could be tax reliefs. We could perhaps start with just women setting up in business or look to help people on the new enterprise allowance. Obviously there will be budget constraints, but we have to think smarter. We have to think about how we will use Government money, but we also have to facilitate women so that they can add to the economy, because a woman’s life is, as we have stated, a complex life. The desire to have children is one of the most basic desires and needs to be fulfilled.
Anna Soubry
One change that has occurred in recent times is that the number of child minders has gone down—in my view, because of over-regulation. Does my hon. Friend agree that we must ensure that there is less regulation to enable more people to act as child minders? That would reduce the costs of child care and be much more convenient to a number of women, especially those who do not have the money available to them to put their child in a nursery, to employ a nanny or to use some other rather expensive means of looking after their children.
Esther McVey
Absolutely. That is a point well made. I will be raising those issues at the end of my speech so that the Minister can take them forward and see what we can do. We believe in market forces and fairness. Obviously, if there are more people prepared to do child minding as a job and support other people, that should bring the costs down. We have to ask why the costs have risen so dramatically and therefore limited women in what they can do. They have to put their ambitions on hold while they look after their family.
As well as considering the support provided and the size and shape of business, we must examine lifelong learning. We must examine education for girls. Helen Fraser, chief executive of the Girls’ Day School Trust, said:
“We are living in a time of change and flux and it’s almost impossible to predict what the eventual outcome will be. What we can and must do is prepare our young people, and for the certainty of change, ensure they have the skills and attitudes they will need to survive and thrive, and help them (young women especially) develop the resilience to overcome setbacks, whatever happens.
The idea that your education finishes when you leave school or university no longer holds true—today’s young people can expect to learn and re-learn throughout their lives. Additional qualifications, second and even third degrees are likely to become more commonplace as people re-invent themselves and re-energise their careers. And if education is no longer linked only to the early stages in life—to childhood and youth—then developing attitudes that characterise successful learners is just as important as developing knowledge. Learning how to learn, developing physical and mental discipline, being open and engaged with the world, cultivating a true love of learning—these matter as much as knowing facts and figures and formulae.”
The reason why I asked Helen Fraser to contribute a quote to this important debate was not just—I say “just” lightly—that she is chief executive of the Girls’ Day School Trust, a group of girls’ schools. Before that, she was managing director of a global company, Penguin Books. Therefore I felt that she had seen both sides of the coin. She has been a mum and wife and a successful business woman, and now is a business woman again in the world of education.
Following on from that, Professor Lesley Yellowlees, president-elect of the Royal Society of Chemistry—the first woman to be elected president in its 171-year history—says:
“The UK needs a highly skilled workforce, particularly if we are going to make headway in these bleak economic times. More and more young women are studying science at university to the point where we have a near 50-50 balance in chemistry.
The problem today is not women entering science, but keeping them there and retaining all those skills and talent that can and does make a massive contribution to the global economy.
For the chemical sciences, that contribution is worth £258 billion, or 21 per cent, to the country’s GDP, according to an independent report the RSC commissioned in 2010.
Women are playing a greater role in science than ever before—but we can do much more. This is just one of the areas I will be focusing on as I begin my two-year term next month as the first female President of the Royal Society of Chemistry.”
She says that she will make helping women not just to get into science but to stay there a key issue. She will be doing that through role models.
Maxine Benson, a co-founder of everywoman, says:
“GenderDiversity isn’t just a nice thing to have; it is the solution to a business loss. Businesses with fewer women on the board make 42% lower return on sales, 66% lower return on”
investment
“capital and 53% lower return on equity. The differing attitudes to risk and governance means that having a female board member cuts your company’s chances of going bust by up to 20%.
The retention and promotion of talented women at senior levels is one of the simplest, most…effective and easiest methods of dramatically improving your business’s bottom line.”
All those things must be taken into account. People must appreciate and understand the differences between men and women, embrace those differences and bring them on board, because only then will they truly understand the benefit of having more women in key positions.
I want to move away from the business world to look at global leaders, because they are key. Women are coming of age as global leaders. Things are shifting. We have gone into a financially chaotic period, and women are coming through in places experiencing war-torn upheaval. We cannot talk about female leaders and understand them, or have today’s debate, without referring to Nobel prize winner, Aung San Suu Kyi, who spoke in Parliament last week. She was awarded the Nobel peace prize in 1991 for her non-violent struggle for democracy and human rights. She is one of the most extraordinary examples of civil courage in Asia in recent decades and has become an important symbol in the struggle against oppression. The Nobel committee gave her the peace prize for her unflagging efforts and to show its support for the many people throughout the world striving to attain democracy, human rights and ethnic conciliation in peaceful times.
We also need to refer to the latest Noble peace prize, which went jointly to three women: Liberian president, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf; Liberian peace advocate, Leymah Gbowee; and Tawakkol Karman, a leading figure in the Yemeni pro-democracy movement. They were all recognised
“for their non-violent struggle for the safety of women and for women’s rights to full participation in peace-building work”.
I would argue that women’s mothering and nurturing predisposition helps in non-violent struggles, with co-operation, consensual understanding and empathy; perhaps, like a mother for a child, there is the same love for supporters and country, and they could take their country and the struggle of the nation to a new phase of development.
Professor Parveen Kumar, the president of the Royal Society of Medicine, professor of medicine and education at Barts in London and the leading light in global health, wrote the definitive medical textbook used all round the world, including Asia and Africa. She is trying to take on new technology to distribute it as cheaply as possible to emerging nations. She set in motion active support and engagement with Royal Society members—all 23,000—so that they could help and support some of the most needy people in the world. She analysed the health statistics on child and infant mortality, and, with Carolyn Miller, chief executive of the international health charity, Merlin, assisted Madam Ellen Johnson Sirleaf to raise health standards, provide books, support and a new wing of a hospital, and to teach, not only doctors, but, this year, the first cohort of midwifery qualifications. As Professor Kumar and Carolyn Miller say, helping women globally is key—if you help and educate a women, you help the family, the child and the next generation.
If we put together a picture of women globally, we see that it is not only about finance, the support that they give others or education. They are not necessarily driven by high status or the turnover of a business, but appear to be a cohesive glue. A woman will be the mother of every child who ever populates the earth. Through that, they seem to act more laterally and less hierarchically. They seem to reach out to fill the vacuum that might be left in society.
I want to talk about global communicators.
Anna Soubry
Before my hon. Friend moves on to the next subject, would she agree with me about charities? I am slightly connected with Women for Women, which raises a considerable amount of money to invest in women in what are often war-torn countries. It recognises that one way to restore broken lives and families, including in areas of strife, is to empower and enable women to work and rebuild families. That charitable work is to be commended.
Esther McVey
Absolutely, it is indeed. We can see such efforts in many organisations, of which that is one, where women come together to build lives, help co-operation and make the world a better place, as they perceive it, for their children and the next generation. Part of that message has to be about communication; getting the story to the outside world and telling the tales of women that might not otherwise be heard can help.
The formidable Christina Lamb is possibly one of our best war journalists. She said that she always thought that she would help people, perhaps providing assistance and support as a doctor, but she turned out to be a journalist, travelling the world providing a voice for particularly women, families and children, who would not otherwise have one. In doing so, she has told their stories around the globe and got them the medical help, the medicine and the support and protection that they required. In her own way, she has been a healer.
I make special reference to Boni Sones, who set up Parliamentary Radio to link women and women MPs not only in the UK but around the globe. She says:
“Women journalists in the UK and women across party in the British Parliament have been using new technology and new journalistic practices to talk about the issues they have been championing to improve the lives of the women and families they represent in their constituencies. They are now trying, via a BlackBerry applications to ‘link in’ women in Parliaments across the Globe to their web based radio station so that they then broadcast stories”
and success stories, not only about them, but about other women across the globe. She continues:
“The World is indeed becoming ‘flat’ as new media allows new connections like this one to take place. Previously broadcasters required FM frequencies and line-bookings, now the internet and mobile phones like the BlackBerry device can allow programme makers to broadcast all over the World.”
Boni is a visionary. She set up that project in Parliament, but she is seeking to make global links to tell stories across the world.
It is important to celebrate women’s achievements. That in itself can provide role models, allowing others to see what has been achieved and what women, too, could achieve. I want to talk specifically about Merseyside women of the year. The award is ten years old this year, and the ceremony will take place on Friday. It began as a very small event looking at women in business, but grew and grew with the formidable courage of the ladies involved and did not remain just about business.
I am struck by the various avenues and fields that the award has covered: charity, learning, support and media. Past winners include Claire Lara, the chef; Lisa Collins, the business woman; Pauline Daniels, the stand-up comedian; Kim Cattrall, the actress—yes, she came from Merseyside too—Edwina Currie; and Carla Lane. A plethora of women have won the award, which is supported by three incredible women: Jean Gadsby, Ellen Kerr and Elaine Owen, who have come together and supported the award. This year—the 10th year—they are taking it to the next level. They want to support and fund women. They are putting a bursary together to do that for the next generation of women.
There are things to be asked of the Government. I have spoken at length about the various things that women do and achieve but, as has been touched on, we need role models for women—visible signs of female accomplishment. Something simple that Boni Sones wanted was pictures of women, even in Parliament, or in the National gallery, celebrating success. The images of women constantly before us do not show them in successful, powerful roles, but in weaker, consumer or sexualised roles. A few more paintings would seem a meagre request.
Anna Soubry
Is not that one of the peculiarities and tensions of the issue? Speaking—forgive me, Mr Turner—as an old feminist, I suggest that one of the ironies of the feminist movement is that in this day and age arguably there is even more pressure on young women to aspire to a certain body image. Equally, we have a terrible celebrity culture. We could have good, strong role models for women, but young women aspire to what the media too often put forward. That does not advance women in society. In many ways it has taken us back decades.
Esther McVey
I would completely agree, as would many young girls. The 2010 survey by Girlguiding UK examined what was forming girls’ attitudes to work and what was driving and motivating them to take up jobs. It was what they saw in the media; and usually the jobs were powerless ones. In 2010, it was still a major ambition of girls to be a hairdresser, rather than an engineer, because that was what they saw. The ambition was to be a beautician rather than a scientist, to be a WAG rather than a lawyer, to be someone’s other half rather than to achieve in their own right.
Anna Soubry
Does my hon. Friend agree that, despite the fact that she received a lot of criticism, there was much merit in the speech by Cherie Blair last week? She identified a problem with the aspirations of too many young women, who aim just to marry a rich man, and see that as the be-all and end-all of their lives. In the same way, unfortunately, the only aspiration of a number of very young women in our society is still to be a mother. That is why we have such a high teenage pregnancy rate. They see nothing else in their lives besides having a baby.
Esther McVey
When I go round schools, one of the key things that I say is “What would you like to achieve for yourself? It is great if you get the perfect partner and have children. Those are other things, and part of your life; but what are you doing with your life? How will you shape and craft it? Should your husband leave you, what will you do? When your kids eventually grow up, as they do—and there is a massive vacuum in a mother’s life when a child leaves—what will you do; and how can you fulfil your aim?” Sometimes, when I am speaking to 12 to 18-year-olds, that all seems so far away. Tomorrow seems far away. When I am speaking on a Monday, Friday night seems a long time away. Nevertheless, I try to make that point.
I hope that she will not mind my mentioning this story, but I always tell the girls I speak to about Debbie Moore. It is funny in hindsight; but so many things seem funny in hindsight. She was a successful model and at 19 married the man who would have been the love of her life, a photographer. She thought that was it; her life was perfect. She had peaked. Two years on, it was their second wedding anniversary. He went off to work and she waved him goodbye, knowing she had a magnificent celebration prepared for him when he came home that night. She waited, and he did not come home. The next morning he still did not. He had run away and dumped her for a younger model. She was only 21 and he had run off with a 19-year-old girl.
She suffered turmoil, devastation and upset, of course, and through the stress a thyroid imbalance set in, so she ballooned, then lost weight. That was not conducive to a modelling career, because she would arrive at an interview one size, and arrive at the photo shoot another size. When she asked the doctors if there were potions or pills to help her, they said that there were not, but that possibly gentle exercise would suit her. She said, “I hate the gym, and I hate jogging. Oh, but I don’t mind dancing.” She took up dancing and learned more and more. From that beginning she set up the Pineapple dance studio and dance clothes range, and became the first woman to set up a public limited company. She always says that the best opportunities can come from the greatest adversity. It is a question of what people do with them. Who would think, she asks, that after all the devastation and upset, she would, many years after the event, thank the man who left her, because he made her a multi-millionairess? I try to emphasise to girls that the question is not what someone else can do for them, but what they can do for themselves.
A list of the percentage of women in business and in various careers shows that they account for only 22% of MPs, peers and Cabinet members. Women have 35% of senior civil service places; 9% of Supreme Court justices are women. They account for 45% of general practitioners, 31% of NHS consultants, and 19% of university professors. There is much that can be done to change that, but the question to ask is “What do you want to do; what do you need to fulfil in yourself? There are a plethora of jobs out there; what do you feel would fulfil your potential and aspirations?” To go back to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry), seeing women purely as glamorous, sexualised beings has many ramifications. If women are thought of only in visual terms, rather than in terms of what is in them, that takes away their power. That stunts their aspirations, because they do not see women in powerful positions; they see them only as an addition to someone else.
Chief Guide Gill Slocombe said:
“We believe that today’s young women have enormous potential to promote change at a local, national and international level. This belief is further backed up with the results of our Women in the Lead survey which showed that an amazing two thirds of award-winning women have previously been a Brownie, Guide or member of the Senior Section.
Therefore we call upon all those involved in public life to join us in ensuring that they play their role in providing opportunities to enable young women to exercise their power, make their voices heard and strengthen their role in the global economy.”
To return to what I ask of the Government, the issues are role models, visible signs of accomplishment, and child support, for women and children. Greater family and pre-family support and education is a key thing, so that, as early as possible, women fully understand the life-changing choice of whether to have a child. Other issues are support for women setting up businesses—women are nearly five times more likely to cite family reasons for setting up a career—and support for female-run businesses, although I do not exclude male-run businesses, which should have support too. Access to finance for business is also relevant to both males and females, but particularly to women, because usually they start off with much lower capitalisation. They have humbler aspirations and desires, and are more than happy to start off with less money. Equally, they take fewer gambles, so they will have done more research when they set up a business, and they ask for less money. We feel that more mentoring support is key.
I will close today with a quote from my colleague and good friend, Bettany Hughes, who is an award-winning historian and broadcaster, and a research fellow at King’s College London. She said:
“The oldest surviving 3D sculpture in the world, 40,000 years old and carved from the tusk of a woolly mammoth, is of a woman. For the next 40,000 years, close on 92% of all extant human figures are of the female form—telling us that when homo sapiens tried to work out what it was to be human, the female of the species was conspicuous not by her absence but by her presence. In this epoch human-kind invented religion, cities, farming, tools, philosophy, democracy…the list is endless. Archaeology and history show us that throughout this massive bulk of human experience—from 400,000 BC to around 400 AD—women have enjoyed substantial standing and influence and sway in society. Plato opined, ‘Nothing can be more absurd than the practice that prevails in our country of men and women not following the same pursuits with all their strength and with one mind, because when this happens, the state, instead of being a whole, is reduced to a half.’ How true. Why choose to live in the half world of Plato’s imagining when we can flourish in a full one?
The word Man comes from…‘Manu’ meaning mind or thought. Mankind is a global community not of humans with an excess of the Y chromosome, but of creatures who think. We, both man and woman, think best together. This is not a plea from 50% of the population—but a recommendation for all 100%. Both male and female can draw comfort from this truth—I think and therefore I am, a man.”
Anna Soubry (Broxtowe) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral West (Esther McVey) on securing this debate. As I have mentioned before, I support much of what she says. I also congratulate her on her careful thought, the construction of her speech and her considerable research.
I will not speak for long; unfortunately, I am sitting on the Defamation Bill, which starts at 10.30. I should not say “unfortunately”, because it is always a great pleasure to sit on a Public Bill Committee, but I will have to keep my comments short.
Obviously, I speak as a woman. I am an old feminist and the mother of two daughters, aged 20 and 21. All my life, I have been opposed to any form of stereotyping, whether it is based on gender, sexual preferences, colour of skin, race, religion or whatever.
Although I agree with so much of what my hon. Friend said, I just put into the mix a little bit of caution. I accept that as a woman, my biology means that there will be some natural urge or instinct to have a child. As a mother, therefore, I realise that many of us have mothering instincts. However, there is a danger of saying that all the great attributes of someone such as Aung San Suu Kyi, for example, come from the fact that she is a woman. I take the view that she has a steely determination, which is found in both women and men. Her nature to care and to make considerable self-sacrifice is not because she is a mother but because she is a great human being, and both men and women have those attributes. There is a danger if we say that women have a particular side of them that lends itself to the more nurturing and caring professions.
Those of us who have practised law will remember the days—I am certainly old enough to—when as young female barristers we were undoubtedly encouraged to practise in the family law division. There was an assumption that we would want to do so. When I first went to the Bar, more than 30 years ago, it was difficult for women to advance not only within the profession but at the criminal Bar because it was seen as a combative arena, which indeed it is, and not the sort of arena that women would want to engage in.
Esther McVey
My role model was a woman called Rose Heilbron, who went to my school. She was the first woman to get a first in law from Liverpool, to get a first at Gray’s Inn and to do a murder trial. When the male criminal, who was up for murder, saw her, he said, “My God, I knew things were bad, but now I have seen who is representing me, I see things are worse.”
Rose’s desire to go into the law came from a desire to help other people. It was a case of, “There but for the grace of God go I”. She had been a refugee. Her desire to support others and to ensure that everybody had access to the law was what motivated her. Although I agree that women are not the only part of the population to have these caring, nurturing and mothering beliefs, many studies have linked those qualities with the fact that we give birth. They say that our biological differences are the key motivating factor for why women take up a job and pursue a profession. More than 80% of social enterprises involve women, and that is down to our biological differences.
Anna Soubry
I am extremely grateful for that intervention from my hon. Friend who has researched the matter and clearly knows a great deal more than me. Although I agree with much of what she says, I want to add a note of caution so that those who perhaps do not fully support the advancement of women or the feminist cause do not rely too much on our natural instincts as mothers, nurturers and carers to say, “That is all well and good and that is where you should stay.”
Let me return to the point I was making before my hon. Friend’s intervention. When I returned to the Bar, some 20 years ago, I was struck by how much its attitude had changed—not only to background, school, the colour of skin, race and religion, but to women. There had been a great advancement of women at the criminal Bar. We are now reaching the point when almost half of the people at the criminal Bar are women, which is to be celebrated. Women are just as capable as any man at either prosecuting or defending in criminal cases, however difficult that case may be.
I will not delay you for much longer, Mr Turner, but I want to reiterate this point about child care. There is a very real need, especially among those who are not particularly well paid, to return to the world of work. The reasons for that are often economic, but not always. This may not be understood by some men, but many women want to go back to work not just because they want to earn the money, but because they want the social side and the interaction that comes from it. At the moment, however, we have a profound problem in our country. A number of women, on finishing their maternity leave, look at the cost of returning to work and find that the amount of money that they will earn is the same as what they will have to expend on child care. We need to tackle that.
Finally, mentoring was mentioned by my hon. Friend. How right she was. Certainly at the Bar, there were mentoring schemes to help women. Mentoring is an admirable scheme and works especially well for women.
Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)
Thank you, Mr Turner, for calling me to speak. It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry) in this debate. She has to go off to a Public Bill Committee. I hope that you, Mr Turner, the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green), who is the shadow Minister for Equalities, the Minister for Equalities and my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral West (Esther McVey) will all forgive me as I have to go off to a Select Committee soon, so I will be unable to stay for the wind-up speeches. I apologise in advance for that.
In all honesty, I was not intending to speak in this debate. When I heard my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral West speak, I was even less keen, given how much research she has done on this subject. She made a fantastic speech and clearly knows her stuff. I have not done any research at all, Mr Turner, so I would not want you to compare my speech with that of my hon. Friend, because it certainly will not compare. However, the things that she said have prompted me to make a few points.
I commend my hon. Friend because, as I said in one of my interventions, her work with “If Chloe Can” is truly inspirational to lots of girls. She attended a theatre production, when “If Chloe Can” made its debut in the west end, and saw a thousand schoolgirls from many deprived parts of London hugely excited, not only by the production by the National Youth Theatre—which I also compliment—but by seeing some fantastic women from all walks of life whom she had persuaded to attend. Those women talked about their life stories and encouraged those girls to think they could achieve something with their lives and achieve their ambitions if they set out to do so, irrespective of their backgrounds. All that is inspirational.
The work that my hon. Friend has done in pursuing that aim is truly amazing. Lots of people in politics talk a good game, but I must say that there are not that many who go through the motions of doing something. She does not just talk about things; she goes out and does the things I have described, quietly getting on with it. She should be commended greatly for the work that she does. I say that even though she only half-agreed with my opening intervention, but I will overlook that fact for now.
I will talk about a couple of things. My hon. Friend talked about the pay gap between men and women in their late 30s and 40s, which contrasts with the situation when they are in their 20s. It struck me that there was something rather inevitable about that particular problem, and I am not entirely sure that anything can be done—or indeed, should be done—to address it.
If a man carries on working through his 20s and 30s, one hopes that he will progress in his job, whereas a woman may have made her own choice to leave work to have a child before coming back to work later. It would be bizarre if the woman came back on the same pay or higher pay than the man who had been slaving away for an extra 10 or 15 years in that particular company. It seems to me that some of these things, whether they are right or wrong, are simply inevitable and are not a matter for the Government to start interfering with. They simply reflect the inevitability of life.
Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)
I am always interested in hearing what the hon. Gentleman has to say on this subject. Although I understand the argument he is making about the impact of taking time out of the workplace, does he accept that one potential solution to the problem he describes is to share the time out of the workplace more equitably between fathers and mothers, and to take measures to promote that sharing of time away from work?
Philip Davies
The hon. Lady makes a fair point. The bit that I am not particularly convinced about is that even if we equalise the opportunities for men and women to take time off work to look after children, my guess—I am not an expert in these matters, but this is my guess—is that through nature women will be more likely to want to take that time off work than men. I could be completely wrong, but that is my guess. We can equalise the opportunity as much as possible, but I suspect that even if we did so, women would be much more likely to take maternity leave than men would be to take paternity leave.
Philip Davies
The hon. Lady may disagree and if the Government implement such a scheme, we will see what happens. I hope that, if the Government do so and what I say proves to be true, she will come back and acknowledge that that was the case, rather than sticking to her sort of feminist dogma, which is not really wedded to the real world.
However, I agree with some of the points that my hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe made about child care and its regulation. We seem to have an obsession in this country with making every job in the world a job that someone needs a degree to do. One of the latest examples of that is childminding. When parents look for a childminder, the most important factor—it would certainly be the most important factor for me regarding my children—is that their children are happy and safe, and that they are in a happy and safe environment. Whether or not the childminder has a degree is of no consequence to me whatever.
The Government have to start trusting parents a lot more. Parents are perfectly capable of deciding who is a good childminder and who is not without the Government imposing unnecessary regulations on the child care sector and making people have increasingly large amounts of qualifications that are totally unnecessary. The Government should just let parents get on with choosing the right childminder for their children, which may end up being cheaper, thereby allowing women to return to work.
However, there is scope for helping children with child care. My starting point is that so many people in this country seem to have decided that they do not want to work that when people clearly want to work, the Government should be out there, giving them as much support as possible so that they can. If there are lots of women who would prefer to go out to work and who want to achieve something in life, there is a role for the Government in trying to make that process as easy as possible.
I should say in passing that I do not think that it is useful to frown on those women who want not to go out to work but to stay at home and bring up their children. They should be encouraged to do so and they should not be looked down on by others for making that choice. The issue is that we should help people to fulfil their ambitions and to make the choices that they want to make.
I also want to touch on maternity leave and the kinds of regulations that apply. I do not think that anybody objects to the principle of maternity leave, but we should be rather careful because lots of things that can be well meaning and that seem, on the face of it, to be a good thing for women can end up, in practical terms, being a barrier for women.
Whether people like it or not, and whether other hon. Members in this room want to acknowledge it or not, I suspect that there are still many people in businesses out there who look at a woman of a certain age, see how old they are—perhaps somebody in their late 20s, who has recently married—and think to themselves, “Hold on a minute. If I take this person on, the chances are that they will be leaving to have a child and I will be having a huge disruption to my business, and possibly a huge cost as well. I will find it very difficult to replace this person, particularly for a fixed period of time.”
As a result, that businessperson may not give that woman that particular opportunity, although otherwise they would have done. We have to guard against these well-meaning schemes that are not actually providing opportunities for women, but providing barriers to women getting a job in the workplace. Before anyone runs away with the idea that it is just male employers who will think like that, I should say that I suspect that female employers are just as prone to make that kind of decision as male employers are.
We have got to look at certain companies. For my sins, before I entered Parliament I used to work for Asda. For a company such as Asda, regulations and obligations are meat and drink. Asda employs 140,000 people, so having people take time off for maternity leave is absolutely no problem at all. In fact, many companies of that size will make a point of offering enhanced employment terms as a way of attracting the best people to work for them, because they can afford to allow people to take time off.
I ask you, Mr Turner, to bear in mind those companies that employ one or two people. If a small businessman employs two people and one person takes off an ever-increasing amount of time, that causes huge disruption to their business—there may not even be a successful business for that woman to go back to, given the disruption and cost incurred. Nobody objects to the Government’s wanting to introduce measures that genuinely help people, including women, in the workplace, but we should be very careful about going over the top in imposing too many onerous conditions on businesses that will end up having exactly the opposite outcome to the one intended.
If the Government want to help women in the global economy and help them to fulfil their potential, the way to do that is exactly the way that my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral West has been going about doing it, which is to provide people with role models and to show them how they can achieve their goals, irrespective of their background. It is to show them that even people who leave school with very few qualifications can achieve their goals if they have the right characteristics and the right determination to go about their lives. I urge the Government to do those encouraging things and not to go down a politically correct route with quotas and other such things.
All we want—all I want, certainly—is for people to be given jobs and opportunities on merit and merit alone. If we believe in true equality, surely we should be gender-blind; it should be irrelevant whether someone is male or female. I could not care less whether the board of a company has 95% men or 95% women. All we should care about is that they are the best people for the job and for the company. It will not advance women if the Government go down the route of having quotas for this and quotas for that and politically correct decision making; that will make people feel that women have got to where they are only through some situation that has been concocted to achieve a particular outcome. That does not do women any good; it does no one any favours. Everyone has to feel that everyone has got there on the same basis, and that basis should always be merit.
I commend what my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral West has done in pursuing the agenda of merit and in allowing women to fulfil their ambitions and dreams, and I hope that the Government follow that model rather than trying to have some “get equal quick” scheme, which would not advance women at all but advance political correctness and build up huge resentment among the public. I will now allow the Front-Bench spokespeople to have their say. I apologise again for having to leave for my Select Committee.
Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to participate in this debate under your chairmanship, Mr Turner.
I congratulate the hon. Member for Wirral West (Esther McVey) on securing what has been an engrossing debate. She is absolutely right to set as her territory the celebration of the socio-economic achievements of women in this country and across the world. As I listened to her speech, I was struck by how much our shared experience as women unites us right across the world, in both developed and developing economies.
In the workplace, in business and in the family, in our role as caregivers and managers of the household and its finances, and in our role in our communities, women’s experience is the same right across the world. It is important to recognise that the structural barriers to women’s advancement in this country are different not in kind but in degree from those experienced by women in other economies, and that measures taken to dismantle them will have global applicability. It is absolutely right that we should seek to dismantle the barriers, for exactly the reasons that the hon. Member for Wirral West highlighted in quoting Plato, that proto-feminist—the personal fulfilment of women and men, and the benefits for our world and for society as a whole.
I want to highlight some structural issues, a number of which have not been mentioned in the debate but are important. The hon. Members for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry) and for Shipley (Philip Davies), who unfortunately have had to leave the debate, raised some of these issues and contributed interestingly to the discussion.
Despite progress in women’s socio-economic position, which the hon. Member for Wirral West rightly highlighted, there is still a clear difference between the income made and assets held by women and men, although to some degree that is mitigated by cash transfer programmes, which are effective in supporting women’s financial positions and those of their children—if women have money, they spend it on their families. In many developing economies, there are still limitations on women’s property rights. It is important that we have strategies to address those economic, income and wealth inequalities, and that we keep up a clear line of sight on progress.
Several hon. Members rightly highlighted the importance of access to education as a route to well paid jobs. Across the world, women are typically in less secure, more vulnerable and less well-paid employment, often because they work in sectors of the economy in which pay and conditions are poorer. Education is clearly an important answer to that segregation and employment disadvantage, and it is key, therefore, that we look at whether our education system addresses that inherent segregation.
The hon. Member for Wirral West pointed to the progress in the participation of women in chemistry studies but, regrettably, we do not see the same picture across all the STEM subjects. In engineering, maths and IT, women are under-represented after the age of 16, and in computer science the position is worse than it was 20 years ago. The same picture is also seen in the much-fêted Nordic countries. We need strategies in our schools to address the education choices made by young women as they approach further and higher education, and schools themselves must think more creatively and imaginatively about career routes for women, and encourage girls to progress down them.
I am sorry that the hon. Member for Shipley has had to leave the debate, although I understand why, because I want to pick up on a couple of his points. On women as mothers, and on how that inhibits their labour market participation, he suggested that part of the problem was some of the maternity rights that have been secured—after considerable fighting, to which the Minister has, in the recent past, contributed.
What determines women’s unpopularity with the kind of employers that the hon. Gentleman characterised is not the right to maternity leave but the fact that they can become mothers at all. Removing the right to maternity leave would not increase the propensity of such employers to take on women; they would simply not employ them in the first place. It is right that we should establish an institutional requirement that women who have contributed to an employer’s business, have skilled up to be able to make that contribution and have a continuing contribution to offer should have their ability to return to their employment assured. As we know, retention of staff is a cost-effective way for employers to operate their businesses, so there is an employer advantage as well.
It is also important that we design shared parenting arrangements in a way that genuinely facilitates equal parenting by women and men. We await the Government’s response to their modern workplaces consultation, and I am concerned that any plans for redesigning parental leave should take account of what we know is effective in ensuring that both women and men are likely to take up leave entitlement. Much depends on whether the leave is paid, and women, but particularly men, find it extremely difficult to take parental or paternity leave if there is no income replacement. It is also important to recognise that it is absolutely right to protect a certain period of maternity leave only for mothers, because of pregnant women and new mothers’ health and well-being needs.
I was interested in the statistics on women in senior positions that the hon. Member for Wirral West highlighted. She cited a number of disappointing statistics from the public sector, but in many ways the position is even worse in the private sector; only 15% of FTSE 100 companies have a woman on their board. I congratulate the Government on their work over the past year or so to influence a change in behaviour at board level in our leading companies, and it is good to see some of that bearing fruit.
I hope that the next thing that the other political parties would like to learn from—I am thinking about what genuinely advances women into positions of influence—is the Labour party’s success in significantly increasing female parliamentary representation through the use of all-women shortlists. I would say to the hon. Member for Shipley that of course we want people to advance on merit, but we must first ensure that they are advancing from a level playing field; too often, as I am sure the Minister would agree, women are not.
I was interested in the points made by the hon. Member for Wirral West about encouraging more women to become entrepreneurs and start new businesses. We absolutely want to encourage that, both in this country and around the world. Much of the difficulty that women experience in starting a new business relates to factors such as lenders’ perceptions. Interesting experiments have been done in the developing world with microfinance and access to credit, and they could be translated into this country. I hope that the Government will consider why only 25% of their enterprise allowance is taken up by women and whether more can be done to encourage women entrepreneurs to take advantage of it.
This debate has rightly discussed women’s role as care givers. Lack of access to child care is inhibiting girls’ and women’s participation and economic success. We still hear, for example, of girls being forced out of education when they become pregnant or are unable to access child care. The hon. Members for Broxtowe and for Shipley both suggested that the answer to the lack of affordable child care was to diminish regulation. I warn the Minister and her colleagues in the Government to be cautious about that.
I am proud of the progress made under Labour to increase the supply of child care. Between 1997 and 2009, we went from one place for every nine children under the age of eight to one place for every three. We massively increased child-care supply. I am pleased that the coalition Government are continuing down the track of creating more places for two-year-olds, but I urge Ministers strongly not to weaken quality through deregulation.
A strong body of evidence suggests that good-quality child care and early-years interventions are the most important factor in improving long-term outcomes, especially for the poorest children highlighted by the hon. Member for Broxtowe. In the Netherlands, where steps were taken to deregulate the provision of child- minding services, the adverse impact on children’s outcomes has led the Dutch Government to reverse their decision. I hope that Ministers learn from that.
Finally, I will mention a couple of issues that did not come up in this morning’s debate but are important to women’s participation as global economic actors. Violence against women continues to be a major issue. Of course, if a woman is suffering violence and abuse, that is likely to affect her economic and educational performance as well as being a fundamental attack on her human rights. All Governments have rightly given the issue considerable attention. It is not confined to our country; we must fight and address it around the world, as well as addressing women’s voices and autonomy to control and determine choices relating to their own lives.
I could highlight many such choices. We have discussed educational choices, but we have not talked much about health and reproductive choices, or women’s opportunity to shape their own communities and whether or not they can secure political participation. It is important that the right institutional structures are in place to ensure that women’s voices can be heard and are given a legitimate place in the public political process. The Beijing platform for action for the advancement of women is a useful framework in which to do so. If the Minister has time, I would be interested to hear, now that we no longer have the Women’s National Commission, how she thinks the institutional machinery will work to preserve women’s institutional political influence in the UK.
It has been a pleasure to participate in this debate. I congratulate the hon. Member for Wirral West and all speakers on their consideration of an interesting and worthwhile set of issues. It is important that we continue to celebrate women as decision makers and women’s participation in the economy, family life and their communities, and continue to strive for their continuing advancement—not just for women’s sake, but for the good of our society as a whole.
The Minister for Equalities (Lynne Featherstone)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Turner. I hugely congratulate the hon. Member for Wirral West (Esther McVey) on securing this important debate and making one of the most exceptional, wide-ranging and well-researched speeches on the issue that I have heard.
We all know that the UK, European and world economies continue to face significant challenges. In these tough times, Governments and companies around the globe are looking for every available competitive advantage. This Government believe that in doing so, we must utilise fully women’s skills and potential. It is a no-brainer, really; it is obvious. It makes sense: it is good for women, for our economy and for British business. We will create a more competitive economy and a more equal society.
I congratulate all who have taken part in this debate. Significant contributions were made by almost all the Members who have taken part. The hon. Member for Wirral West mentioned role models and global leaders. Aung San Suu Kyi and others have been significant in raising our eyes to the magnificence that is possible. There is something exceptionally wonderful about someone of the size and shape of Aung San Suu Kyi standing against the military might of Burma. The contrast was incredibly effective, and we were all moved listening to her.
While I am praising famous women, I mention Hillary Clinton, who has done magnificently in her role as Secretary of State, as a good example of someone who has raised the profile of women. So are the women who stood shoulder to shoulder in Egypt during the revolution. We now wait with bated breath to see whether they will secure the political rights and freedoms that should go with such a change.
I am proud that this Government have placed women and children at the heart of our international development policy with a strategic vision for girls and women, which highlights the importance of economic empowerment, for example, and sets ambitious targets for developing countries to reach by 2014 in order to help 18 million women access financial services and 4.5 million to strengthen their property rights. Hon. Members are right that we in the United Kingdom have much in common with our sisters around the world who, wherever they are on the spectrum, tend not to be on an equal footing.
Interestingly, the hon. Member for Wirral West mentioned image and gender stereotyping. It drives me mad that we are always represented as either servile or sexual. The Government are doing a great deal of work on that. Although some say that that is the nanny state, I say that it is essential that the Government take a stand on the sexualisation of children and the conformity imposed on us by singular images and gender stereotyping.
My hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry) discussed how, when she was younger and planning to be a lawyer, she was almost forced into the family law division, but resisted. Things have changed in law, which is fantastic, but unfortunately, in many other areas, they have not. The career choices made by school leavers have huge economic consequences. As my hon. Friend said, if someone chooses to be a beautician or a hairdresser, that is absolutely fine, but they should recognise that it is an economic choice. If they choose a higher-paying career, their choices in life will be very different. That is an important issue in our action on careers.
The new national careers service will encourage girls and women to challenge stereotypes by giving the broadest options. It will provide information on a wide range of opportunities, such as studying science and maths, for example, which were mentioned by the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green). She also mentioned STEM subjects. A recently announced funding programme, in which the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills will work with the Royal Society, will focus on increasing diversity in the scientific work force. Over four years, a total of £700,000 will be invested in work to overcome the barriers to girls studying STEM subjects and entering related industries. That is incredibly important. Early choices are hard to make up for later.
I will mention the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) only briefly, as he is not here. I must cast aspersions on the idea that men get there on merit alone. Often, men get there just because they have been there all the way.
On enterprise, as we have heard, if we want our economy to grow, it is vital that we support more women to set up and grow their own businesses. Last week, we published details about the army of women who are backing us to boost business. The Government have provided funding for 15,000 mentors to support those setting up and growing their own business. The hon. Member for Wirral West has said how many more businesses we would have if more women began start-ups. I am pleased to announce that, as of last week, more than 12,000 mentors have registered, 40% of whom—almost 5,000—are women. I was fortunate, because my mother had her own business, so when I needed help to set up my design business, I could ring her to ask how to do a business plan, a VAT return and so on. It was easy and, in a sense, the business mentors are like mothers or fathers who can give people personal advice that they may otherwise feel inhibited about requesting.
On women in rural enterprise, we have published details of a £2 million programme to help female entrepreneurs in rural areas—there is a specific difficulty in such areas—to start or grow their own businesses. We have set up the women’s business council, which is chaired by Ruby McGregor-Smith, the chief executive officer of the FTSE 250 company Mitie. She was named business leader of the year at the Orange national business awards in 2011 and leads a prestigious group of UK business people drawn from a wide range of sectors. Over the coming months, the council will examine the full range of issues affecting women’s economic participation in education, work and entrepreneurship, both from the perspective of women and the choices they face and, importantly, from the perspective of business. The issue of women’s lives, which are complex, has been raised, and at its next meeting the council will consider issues relating to women’s economic participation with regard to three key life stages. Following its deliberation, the council will consider its conclusions and produce its final report, which will outline a series of practical steps that Government, business and individuals can take to support women and the economy. The report will be presented to Ministers next spring.
On work, I do not know about the two remaining Members—the hon. Members for Wirral West and for Stretford and Urmston—but I have children, and negotiating responsibilities is very difficult. I have to do a lot of planning and be very good at multi-tasking, organising and responding to unexpected last-minute events. It can be done, but nevertheless the introduction of the right to request flexible working for all, as well as shared parental leave will address some of those very difficult issues. Many of our most forward-thinking employers already understand that. Although the hon. Member for Shipley said that small businesses have difficulties, it is actually the case that businesses such as mine—I had one with four members of staff—go to the ends of the earth to be flexible for their staff. Arranging work around the familial needs of a good member of staff benefits businesses in the long run. They need to invest in the good employees who work for them—they will give back more than they could ever give them. That is an important development.
The hon. Gentleman also said that businesses look at women of child-bearing age and say, “I’m not going to employ her, because she may go off and have a baby,” but shared parental leave will mean that employers will no longer to be able to say with any certainty whether it is the man or woman who has applied for a job who will take that leave when they have children. Frankly, when I had children, men were involved in the process.
Last week, the Government announced that they will establish a new commission to look at the costs of child care, which is one of the biggest issues that women face across the board. The cost of child care is huge. I spent all my money on child care when my children were young and I was working. The new commission will be led by Ministers from the Department for Work and Pensions and the Department for Education. We realise the huge costs and the bearing they have on women and their families.
On top of that, as has been mentioned, we are supporting child-care costs to families who work less than 16 hours a week, by providing an extra £300 million for child-care support under universal credit. Eighty thousand more families with children will be able to work the hours that they choose. We have increased free early education to 15 hours a week for three and four-year-olds, and we are extending the entitlement to free education and care for 260,000 of the most disadvantaged two-year-olds to 15 hours a week. Working families can currently claim substantial help with additional child-care costs through working tax credit. From 2013, the Government’s new universal credit will support those who work, by ensuring that they are better off by doing so. More will always be needed on child care, but the new commission is specifically tasked with dealing with the costs of child care, because that is one of the biggest inhibitors for women who want to return to work.
On equal pay, which I think the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston mentioned, we have published our updates on our “Think, Act, Report” initiative, some of which relate to the economic consequences of choices made early on. The case studies show that adopting the principles behind the Government’s voluntary approach to diversity at work has helped leading firms reap business benefits. We strongly believe that a light-touch approach, such as “Think, Act, Report”, is the best way to encourage most employers to deal with the complex causes of unequal pay. They have to think about gender differences, act on them and then publish, in whatever form suits them best, what they have found, what they are doing and their best practice.
If the voluntary method is the best way to progress, we also need a stick for those companies that do not follow this progressive agenda, so it is right that we take strong action in the few cases in which employers have been shown to have breached the law. That is why we recently announced that we intend to proceed with our proposal that where an employment tribunal finds that an employer has breached equal pay law, it will order them to conduct a pay audit in cases where continuing discrimination is likely. If an employer has already been found to be bad, there is reason to instruct further. We intend to legislate when parliamentary time allows.
I am slightly short of time, but let me address access to finance, which is a huge issue. I have been working with the British Bankers Association to understand those areas in which there may be discrimination or barriers against women accessing loans for business or mortgages. A report will be issued shortly.
The Government and Lord Davies have made progress on the issue of women on boards. There has been a great improvement in the number of women on FTSE 100 boards—representation has risen from 12.5% to 16%—and it is on target to reach 25%. Only eight all-male boards remain in the FTSE 100, which is eight boards too many. One woman on a board is insufficient, but we will reach the 25% target. From October, there will be a new provision in the corporate governance code, which will require companies to comply or explain their policies.
We have made it clear that we will not introduce quotas. We have a role to play in ensuring that the right frameworks are in place to enable business to thrive, which is what our business-led approach does. We do not believe that European Union-wide standards are appropriate—a discussion is ongoing and we have responded to a consultation on quotas—given the different corporate governance rules, economies and labour market conditions across member states. We also recognise that cultural expectations play a role. In the UK, we do not have a culture of using quotas. In fact, they are not lawful under our domestic legislation. At the moment, we are making good progress.
The hon. Lady raised the issue of all-women shortlists, which led to a step change in representation in Parliament. I believe that they are available until 2030. Both Labour and the Conservatives have taken huge steps forward, and the Liberal Democrats would also have done so had we had more women in winnable seats.
This has been an excellent debate. We could discuss many things that Members on both sides of the House are trying to address. I do not think that the differences between us on this issue are as huge as some of the views expressed in Parliament may lead us to believe. We all need to make sure that, from the earliest point in life, girls are given the choices that will enable them to progress. There is a difference between the lives of men and women, but we are trying to equalise their status as much as we can by providing the support that is needed. There is a whole world of people out there, and half of them are women.
In conclusion, in a global economy the action that we are taking across the world makes sense. It is good for women, good for our economy and good for British business. In doing so, and in advancing the role of women, we create a more competitive economy and a more equal society.
BME Communities (Educational Attainment)
(12 years, 5 months ago)
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Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)
I am grateful to have been awarded this debate on educational attainment in black and minority ethnic communities, which was triggered by a couple of things that have happened to me recently.
First, I have been holding a series of round-table meetings in my constituency to help to define my priorities and constituency strategy, and the differential attainment levels of our young people were a particular concern. For example, the proportion of young black people achieving more than five A* to C GCSEs in 2011, including English and maths, was 38.5%, compared with 47.5% for young Asian people and 69% for young white people. Although there has been significant improvement in those disparities since 2008, they remain of grave concern.
Secondly, I was horrified to hear—as I am sure many others were—the recent statistical release from the Office of National Statistics, which revealed that, nationally, 55.5% of economically active black men aged between 16 and 24 years are unemployed, and that this rate has doubled since 2008. For young black people, the unemployment rate is 44.4%; similarly, 27.6% of Asian young people are unemployed, rising from 22.8% in 2008. Breaking that down, 33.6% of Pakistani and Bangladeshi young people are unemployed, and 24.2% of Indian young people, which compares with 20% of white British young people. Those national trends are reflected in my constituency, too.
I have called the debate to examine educational attainment in BME communities, but it is important to note at the outset that although educational attainment influences employment, people with equivalent qualifications to those of different ethnicities experience different levels of employment. For example, young Indian people, who are the second highest performing group educationally, are more likely to be unemployed than their white peers. Similarly, Chinese graduates can expect to earn 25% less than their white counterparts. Thirty-six years on from the Race Relations Act 1976 and 12 years after the Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000, that is indefensible. We cannot wait for another 30 or 40 years to ensure that we deal with such questions.
What are the specific issues in equalities and educational attainment? From the evidence, gaps in achievement can begin in the early years. For example, the Equality and Human Rights Commission triennial review states that the proportion of pupils achieving a good level of development in the early years foundation stage varies between different ethnic groups. Pupils from Irish, Indian, white British and mixed white and Asian backgrounds achieved more than the national average for a good level of development in 2009, but pupils from black, Bangladeshi and Pakistani ethnic groups did not perform so well. In all ethnic groups, girls outperformed boys significantly.
The 2008 research undertaken by the Learning and Skills Network and the National Bureau for Students with Disabilities indicated that poor experiences at primary school often began a gradual but cumulative process of disengagement, which became entrenched in secondary school and resulted in lower achievement and lower engagement in post-16 participation in education or training. I was particularly struck by the following statement from the report, on education:
“Engagement is not a simple choice for all young people. Young people can feel disengaged from learning for various reasons, and this can be mild or severe...For some young people, this is a process that they feel powerless to stop.”
At GCSE level, although national attainment by ethnicity has improved since 2006-07, and the achievement gap between some ethnic groups and the national average has disappeared, there are still some gaps. For example, 52.6% of Pakistani and 48.6% of black Caribbean heritage pupils achieve five or more A* to C grades at GCSE compared with the national level of 58%. That is a massive improvement since 2006, when the rates were 35% and 34% respectively. During the same period, Bangladeshi pupils improved from 40% to 59.7%, and black African students from 40% to 57.9%. Chinese and Indian students have performed consistently above national levels; currently, 78.5% of Chinese students and 74.4% of Indian students achieve five or more GCSEs. Travellers, Gypsies and Roma people are still the lowest achieving groups, with 17.5% of Irish Travellers and 10.8% of those from Gypsy or Roma backgrounds achieving five or more GCSEs including maths and English. Those inequalities are even more pronounced when looking at those who gain the English baccalaureate.
The data available on A-level attainment is limited to the number of A-levels, rather than subject or grade. Based on the number, the gaps in attainment are reduced or disappear, and the proportion of BME students in higher education has increased significantly from 13% in 1994-95 to 23% in 2008-09, broadly reflecting their presence in the youth population. In spite of that, however, 44% of all black, Pakistani, Bangladeshi and Indian graduates attended post-1992 universities. Shockingly, in 2009, only one black Caribbean student was admitted for study at Oxford university. So although BME participation in higher education is increasing, there are restrictions. Attainment also reflects earlier patterns, with 66.4% of white students receiving a first- or second-class honours degree compared with 48.1% of BME students overall and only 37.7% of black students. Drop-out rates were also notably higher for black British and Asian heritage students.
I want to touch briefly on training opportunities for young people, specifically apprenticeships. Data from the Black Training and Enterprise Group has shown that, again, there is under-representation of BME young people in apprenticeships: in 2009-10, only 7% of apprenticeships were taken up by young people from BME backgrounds, although the BME population represents 14% of the working population as a whole. Provisional data for 2011-12 indicates that 9.2% of those beginning apprenticeships are from BME backgrounds, although 16% of 16 to 24-year-olds are from ethnic minority groups. The data are worse for completed apprenticeships.
As policy makers advocating a fairer society, such data and the issues that they reflect should be one of the reasons why we get up in the morning—they should drive us to do more, to do better. Educational attainment is not only a key indicator for the jobs we will do and the incomes we will earn but, as the recent health inequalities review undertaken by Professor Sir Michael Marmot showed, a predictor for how long and how healthily we will live. Our education, good or bad, affects our whole lives. We must ensure that policy—education, employment, welfare and economic—strives to reduce the inequalities that still exist.
For those people less motivated by social justice arguments, it is important to note that reducing educational inequalities is associated with higher national standards of educational performance, as evidenced by Wilkinson and Pickett in “The Spirit Level” of 2009, and that enhances economic productivity, not to mention tax revenue. Furthermore, all politicians are concerned about the low turnout at elections—again, people with higher educational attainment are more likely to participate in voting.
So what causes those educational inequalities and what can be done about them? The reasons for inequalities in attainment are many and varied, often interacting with one another in a complex way. Evidence indicates, however, that key determinants are the education system, family background and poverty. Although schools of poorer quality were associated with poorer educational outcomes for all pupils, the 2007 report by the Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion on understanding low achievement calculated that the major determinant was living in poverty. That effect is compounded for BME young people—more BME children are likely to go to poor-quality schools.
The particular school characteristics associated with quality and achievement include head teacher leadership, school processes and school ethos, but many of those characteristics are not measured. School resources are also associated with school quality, in particular when pupil-teacher ratios are included, although the extent to which extra resources can add value has been contested—for example, by Hanushek. The composition of the student body is another important factor: the poorer the socio-economic mix of students, the poorer the school quality and attainment levels. In addition, a neighbourhood effect was also identified, suggesting that although household income is a key determinant in educational attainment, it is also influenced by wider socio-economic factors. A poor-quality neighbourhood, not providing a particularly salubrious educational environment, is associated with lower educational attainment levels.
Another key determinant of educational attainment, both at school and later, in higher education, is family background. All children do better if their parents are well educated, and if education is valued. However, an evidence review published in April by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation shows that parental involvement is the most important characteristic, showing a strong causal relationship with attainment levels. Parenting style and expectations are also important, but less strongly so. The effects of both household and neighbourhood poverty on children’s educational attainment are obvious, and have been mentioned. However, analysis by Wilkinson and Pickett, comparing international data on educational achievement from the programme for international student assessment, shows that countries with high levels of income inequality also have lower scores for maths and literacy. Fairer societies do better on a range of measures, and educational attainment is one of them.
Heidi Alexander (Lewisham East) (Lab)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate. I apologise for not being able to stay for all of it. She is discussing some of the factors behind differential attainment between BME and other populations. Does she agree that in finding the solutions to the problem, it is critical to involve parents, the school and the pupils? Indeed, that is what the black pupils achievement programme in Lewisham found. When all those elements can be brought together, it can make a difference.
Debbie Abrahams
I totally agree. We need to engage young people and parents in the solutions to the problems associated with educational inequalities.
The Joseph Rowntree review also considered the influence of individual attitudes, aspirations and behaviour, to see whether those are causal factors in determining attainment levels. At this stage, there is not enough evidence to suggest any positive association, although involvement in extra-curricular activities or sport showed a weak link. If we are to deal with those inequalities in educational attainment, what should we do?
Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)
My hon. Friend will be aware that for at least 10 years I have run a project—London Schools and the Black Child—looking at black children and under-achievement. Although all the social issues that my hon. Friend raised are important, one thing is clear: one problem for black children is a culture of low expectations in education. Controversial as Sir Michael Wilshaw, the chief inspector of schools, is, he showed, first at St Bonaventure’s and then at Mossbourne community academy in Hackney that, even if they come from deprived backgrounds, when black children are given high expectations, structures and limits, they can achieve.
Debbie Abrahams
I would not be at all surprised about what my hon. Friend says. The review examined systematic review-level evidence. My hon. Friend’s point is valid. I am sure that a greater amount of research will prove the causal link.
What should we be doing? I am proud that many of the improvements in BME attainment levels in the past six years can be attributed to the interventions of the Labour Government. The ethnic minority achievement grant was particularly effective, for example, in meeting the needs of bilingual pupils. Disadvantage because of language issues is one reason for the attainment gap in primary school, but that gap can be made up with specialist support. With the abolition of EMAG in April, there are concerns that that vital work will stop.
Aiming High was another effective programme aiming to increase participation and attainment for black pupils at key stage 4. Similarly, education action zones, targeting resources to improve attainment in inner-city areas, and curriculum development such as citizenship education contributed to positive changes in the education system, and to increased BME attainment levels. The 900,000 reduction in the number of children living in poverty achieved under Labour will also have had an impact on attainment levels.
Measures in the Education Act 2011 do not deal with disparities in attainment and could reverse the progress that has been achieved. For example, the measures on behaviour and discipline relating to detention, searching and exclusion have particular significance for Traveller, Gypsy and Roma children, who are four times more likely to be excluded, and Black Caribbean boys, who are twice as likely to be excluded. Excluded pupils are four times more likely to leave school without any qualifications. The measures have been introduced despite research conducted by the former Department for Education and Skills that acknowledged that exclusion is partly due to the conscious and unconscious prejudice of some teachers.
The expansion of academies and free schools without fully considering the potential and unintended consequences is another concern. Resourcing through the pupil premium may contribute to improvements in educational attainment if associated with increases in the teacher-pupil ratio. My right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) has written:
“If the premium is allocated precisely according to need, it is surprising that the area getting the largest increase in their allocation this year is Rutland (8% of children living in poverty), while the smallest increase goes to the Wirral (26% of children in poverty).”
The most recent proposal to reintroduce GCEs and a two-tiered exam system where children are streamed at 14 will only exacerbate the inequalities that already exist. Black and minority ethnic students are currently more likely to be put into lower attainment sets and, as such, would be more likely be put into CSE streams, thereby pigeon-holing their futures.
The economic and welfare policies which, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, are projected to increase the number of children living in poverty to 4.2 million by 2020, should alarm everyone who wants a fairer Britain. We cannot and should not let these children endure such hardships, but to compound that by failing to give them the support they need to reach their potential at school is unforgivable.
Finally, I want to make some recommendations. It is important to reintroduce the ring-fenced ethnic minority achievement grant; to develop teacher training to equip all teachers to teach a diverse range of students; to explore issues around unconscious bias; to reinstate targets for BME teacher recruitment; to increase research into the causes of differential attainment, including effective independent careers advice and guidance for young people from BME communities; to reduce the number of exclusions of black Caribbean boys, and restore powers to exclusion appeal panels; and to ensure that the curriculum is inclusive and promotes diversity, and that the call to reinstate GCEs is rejected.
Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Turner. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams) on securing this vital debate. There has been much talk about this subject in the media and in the report by Alan Milburn, and I know that the Government are taking seriously the work on social mobility. None the less, unless we deal with the issue of differential attainment, we will be letting down a generation of young people.
We have a mixed story to tell. I applaud my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) for her pioneering work on this matter. Had she not been making noises about the underachievement of black boys in particular, some of the progress and bureaucratic changes that have been made would not have taken place. I will touch on that matter in my suggestions to the Minister at the end.
Over the past week, the Secretary of State has talked about changing and splitting the GCSE, which is relevant to many of my constituents in Hackney. I do not disagree that we need to see rigour in standards—in Hackney, we have seen huge improvements in schools, which were achieving well below the national average 10 or even seven years ago, but most are now achieving well above that, with Mossbourne academy, which my hon. Friend cited, achieving 84% A to C grades including maths and English. A number of children are going on to not just good universities but Oxbridge as well as other Russell group universities.
We have done a lot in Hackney to improve standards, which we attribute to good heads, rigorous standards and a clear framework of expectations for young people of all backgrounds. We accept no excuses because of poverty or ethnicity and no low expectations. In one school, City academy—its principal, Mark Emmerson, is now also acting executive principal of City academy Islington because of his success so far—the pupils have not sat GCSEs. He has told his staff that they should see all the pupils in his highly ethnically mixed school, which is populated mostly from the dense local council housing estates in the area, as future A* pupils, and that that must be the teachers’ expectation. The school has been growing year by year, and is now in its third year. Most of the pupils are a couple of terms ahead of the expected achievement at the end of year 8, their second year in secondary school. A couple of them are more than a year ahead of where they would normally be, but they did not necessarily come in with the highest level of achievement at key stage 2—level 5. Some were achieving below that. Mark Emmerson has got them back not just to where they should be, but to above that.
I spoke about one school, but I could spend a lot of time talking about good practice in Hackney schools. Everything is not perfect, but there are good heads and good rigour, and we have seen huge investment, thanks to the previous Government, in new schools and good buildings. Young people have been amazed when they have gone into their new schools, and feel that they deserve them. They have a feeling that they have the right to be in a good-quality environment. The schools operate long days, with breakfast and after-school provision.
Another school in my constituency, Petchey academy, gives same-day detentions, but that is seen as positive. If a child is falling behind, for whatever reason—they may have been messing around in class, they may just not understand something, or they may have difficulties at home and bring other issues into the classroom—at the end of the day they spend an hour focusing on that area of under-achievement so that by the next day at school they are back with the rest of the class. I am sure that that does not always work, but that aspiration is surely needed. Many pupils in Hackney come from challenging homes, and often live in overcrowded conditions in families with long periods of worklessness. I will touch on some of the issues of ethnicity and language in a moment.
Returning to the Secretary of State’s comments, I do not agree that reintroducing a two-tier system for education is the answer. The idea that 25% of Hackney pupils at 11, and certainly at 13 or 14, will be pigeon-holed and earmarked for a lower qualification is a retrograde step. The example I have just given of Hackney’s City academy shows that much can be done at secondary school for pupils who may not have achieved their full potential at primary school. It would be a retrograde step for a cohort of teachers to expect a percentage of pupils to take a lower-grade exam. The benefit of the GCSE is that whatever someone’s ability, they can progress on the same programme of attainment, and if they work hard they can achieve higher than C grade.
Changing the landscape massively confuses matters for employers, who tell me that they have several issues about the qualifications that young people leave school with, and I certainly do not believe that changing them will make a difference. I am not alone in thinking that. Lord Baker, former Secretary of State for Education, gave the Minister and the Secretary of State good advice when he said:
“The CSE certificate which we did away with in the eighties”—
I was one of the last pupils to sit the old GCE, which shows my age, but we are talking more than 20 years ago—
“became a valueless bit of paper. It wasn’t worth anything to the students or to the employers. That means that there has got to be rigour for the other subjects at 16 as well.”
Lord Baker is promoting university technical colleges, as I am. I have one in my constituency, Hackney university technical college, where young people will be studying from the age of 14 and taking more technical qualifications alongside academic qualifications, but that will not be seen as second best or something different, and will be not instead of but as well as GCSEs.
I am one of the vice-chairs of the all-party group on social mobility, and in the discussions I have touched on there is much talk about universities and getting young people into university, but the issue starts much earlier. That is one reason why I was a great champion of Sure Start. The investment in children under 5, and helping their parents to parent better and to understand the benefits of wider education through play, is very important. Professionals say that they can see the difference between children of parents who have been supported by Sure Start and those who have not, because the former have been positively engaged with the child. We must start there.
We need a raising of attainment in primary schools and a raising of ambition. That is why many Hackney primary schools take pupils to universities and into the workplace, through work programmes, to see those places for themselves. That is particularly important for a range of young people, including some from ethnic minority backgrounds, who do not have a pattern of work in their family.
I shall touch on some of the data, which show why this issue is so important and why the Minister, who I am sure is listening hard, needs to ensure that the Department does not take its eye off the ball. The inequality is still quite stark: we have seen some improvements in Hackney, but provisional data from 2011—last year’s results—show a 6% gap in achievement at GCSE level between Caribbean-heritage boys and all other boys and a 5% gap between the same cohort, Caribbean girls, and all other girls. We can look at the pattern from 2005. Due to interventions by various schools and the Learning Trust in Hackney, we have seen the number achieving five A* to C grade GCSEs, including maths and English, steadily improving for both boys and girls. It is a good story so far, but we should not sit back and say that that gap is acceptable.
Ms Abbott
As a Hackney resident and a Hackney mother, I am glad to see the very many improvements, but we need to be careful about what we say about improvements, because some of the stats go back to a period when there was the use of NVQ equivalents to GCSE. My concern is that although on paper the gap may have narrowed, it is because some black children have been palmed off with NVQ equivalents, which do not in fact equip those children to compete in the marketplace.
Meg Hillier
I completely agree. Statistics can bury many issues, which is why the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth about ensuring proper teacher training and support so that assumptions are not built in at the beginning is a key one. I shall give a couple of examples of where I have seen that in the past.
Some issues that probably do not figure on most hon. Members’ horizons, although my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington and I will come across them regularly, are those to do with Turkish, Kurdish and Cypriot children, who are still massively underachieving compared with their cohort group. Although there has been an improvement since 2011, we still see a gap in attainment between Turkish, Kurdish and Cypriot boys and girls and all other pupils of 14%. That brings in one of the other issues—language. At home, many of these young people will speak only their mother tongue. That is fine. The mother tongue is very important, and of course parents and mothers in particular are the first educators of a child. However, if the parent is not very literate in the mother tongue, the child may not be getting the range of educational input required from the parent in the mother tongue. Often, the only adult whom many of these young people speak to in English is their teacher. Their exposure to the wider world is sometimes a bit limited. Often, the young people will be helping in the family business, which will involve working with other Turkish families, for instance; and in the mosque and other community groups, it will be only the mother tongue that is spoken.
I do not want anyone to go away with the impression that I do not think that the mother tongue is important, because it is very important. Actually, it is very important for our young people as they go out into the world and develop their careers. Given that the Turkish economy, for example, is growing by about 7% a year, speaking their mother tongue is a real skill and strength for young people in Hackney. However, there is an issue and it may not hit the Minister’s radar screen because, in terms of the national population, this group is relatively small and focused in parts of north-east London.
I take the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington about statistics, but let us look at the differences between young people when they leave primary school at 11 and when they get to GCSE level. In Hackney in 2011, 77% of white boys left school at key stage 2 at the end of year 6 with a level 4 in English and maths. At GCSE level in the same year—so it is not the same cohort, but this shows the gap that we have to bridge—51.7 % got five or more A* to C grade GCSEs, including English and maths. That is a differential of 26 percentage points. If we look at the same figures for black boys, we see that 69% achieved level 4 in 2011 and, in the same year—so it is not the same cohort—42% achieved five A* to C grade GCSEs. That is a differential of 27 percentage points. The differential is similar, but there are endemic issues, on which I and others have touched, about why certain groups achieve less well.
I want to illustrate the importance of the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth about teacher training. For about nine years, I was a governor, and latterly chair of governors, at a primary school in north Islington. During that time there was a big shortage of teachers. We had a lot of very bright, talented, young teachers, who were keen to teach, but many of them, to put it bluntly, had never seen a black face in their lives.
The head teacher, who was a black woman, which was still quite unusual, and I were very concerned on a couple of occasions. On one occasion, a child was very scared about going into assembly to see African dancing. My immediate reaction was that it was terrible that a child was worried about seeing something that reflected, to a degree, their own heritage. There were a number of issues to unpack about witchcraft and pride in their background, but the other teachers saw it as naughty behaviour, because they had not come across the cultural issues involved.
On another occasion, they were casting for “The Wizard of Oz”. In the film, Dorothy is played by Judy Garland—a young, white girl—so presumably, that was the image in the minds of many teachers. Each class was asked to do a bit of “The Wizard of Oz”, so they each had a witch, a Dorothy and so on. The Dorothys, when they came out of the classes, were all little white girls. The head, being from a different background, challenged it, but at the time I was worried; this was a cohort of good teachers, but teachers who did not have that perspective, which was a real worry. We need young people in schools now not only to achieve well, but to go on to become teachers themselves.
The Under-Secretary of State for Education, the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) and I were at Sebright school in my constituency, which is one that works with City Year kids. Through City Year, young people on a gap year work with pupils, providing mentoring, physical training and an extra adult to support the students. They have found different ways to engage and are very popular with the Hackney schools they go into. They are now moving into secondary schools. What is good about that cohort is that the groups of young people, aged between about 18 and 22, coming into Hackney schools better reflect the wider Hackney community. They are not all from Hackney, but they better reflect what you might see, to put it simply, on a Hackney bus.
To a degree, there is a time lag with teacher training, but the teachers in our schools do not necessarily reflect the ethnic background of the pupils they teach. What is the Department doing to encourage change? Are the Government being proactive? Let us be honest, we do not have enough teachers from ethnic minority backgrounds. Just as we have concerns that there are not enough male teachers in primary schools to be role models, the Government need not to be shy at addressing this issue. That brings me to my final point and recommendation to the Minister.
We used to see a quite detailed breakdown of achievement by ethnic background. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington. If she had not talked about, and made it acceptable to talk about, the difference between black and white children, the Department at the time would not have had the courage to produce a much more granular breakdown by different ethnic groups. We have gone back and shrunk to broad-brush breakdowns—black, white, Asian and so on. That breakdown does not work for me, because it would not pick up Kurdish, Turkish and Cypriot achievement, which is a big issue. We collect some of those data locally, but no wider dataset is collected.
I know that there has been nervousness about labelling and pigeonholing pupils by ethnic background, but used properly, such information can be very helpful. It can be used by MPs, parents and others to challenge what a school does and by good teachers and head teachers to ensure that they focus on areas of proven underachievement and do not contribute to it. I understand that that is a detailed point, but if the Minister cannot comment now, will he write to me with exact reasons why the Department no longer breaks down the data to that level of granularity? Will the Department consider doing so again? Will he also pick up the point about teacher training and attracting more young people from ethnic minorities into teacher training?
Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams) on securing this important debate.
The first thing to say is that the underachievement of black children is not a new issue. It goes back all the way to the 1950s, when children would come here from the Caribbean—bright and able children, who had excelled in the classroom in the Caribbean—but they suddenly found themselves in units for children who were educationally underachieving.
There is a clear pattern to that underachievement. When children of African and Caribbean descent enter the school system at the age of five, they are doing as well as white and Asian children. In some cases they are doing marginally better, because there is some medical evidence to show that black children are a little more developmentally advanced at the age of five. By the age of 11, their achievement levels, particularly for boys, start to drop off and by the age of 16 there is a huge gap. Although we—my Government—masked that gap, partly by the use of national vocational qualification equivalents for GCSE, it still remains startling.
Ministers might say, “Why does this matter to us? We don’t have many of these people in our constituencies. Maybe it’s their families. Maybe it’s them. Why should we bother?” First of all, as hon. Friends have said, it is an issue of equity and justice. If it means anything to be a British citizen—even in austerity and even in the times that we face—it ought to mean that there is the chance to make something of yourself through an educational system that treats people fairly.
As the child of immigrants who came to Britain in the 1950s, I know that that generation of West Indian immigrants knew that it would be tough, that they would have to work two jobs, that often they would live in overcrowded conditions and that they would encounter racism, but they thought—as immigrants always think—that for their children it would be better, and that education was the means by which it would become better. All the challenges faced by minorities today—whether about employment, policing or immigration—pale to nothing, in my view, in comparison with the betrayal of an earlier generation of immigrants who came to Britain to better themselves and their families, and thought that education would be the ladder for them, as it has been historically for immigrants all over the world.
Education matters because equity matters; it matters because fairness matters; and it matters because justice matters. I throw into the debate a quote from Martin Narey, who is the former director of the Prison Service and the former head of Barnardo’s. He said years ago that on the date and time a child is permanently excluded from school, they might as well be given a date and time to turn up in prison. The link between educational underachievement, social disorder and eventually a life of crime is a very clear pathway. Rather than spending money on rehabilitating young people and on dealing with the consequences of crime, let us focus on and pay attention to what I believe is the root of a lot of these issues—the educational underachievement of too many of our children, particularly black children, in our schools.
Post the riots last summer, people talked about the rioters being in gangs, about their parents, about lack of religious leadership and about all sorts of things. People did not talk about the fact that the biggest signifier when we looked at the young people who were arrested and charged with incidents in the course of the riots was that two thirds of them—I think that was the figure—had special educational needs, and the majority of them had been excluded from school. Those were the two biggest indicators. I am not saying that educational underachievement is an excuse for criminality or rioting, but the link is there. If we are talking about a business case, the business case for making sure that all our children achieve their very best in school is unanswerable.
As colleagues will know, this is an issue that I have harassed Ministers about, both in my Government and in this Government. On the question of the figures, I remember going to see a brand-new Labour Schools Minister in 1997 and asking him about the figures about ethnic achievement. I will not give his name—he was a very nice man—but he looked at me and said, “Well, Diane, we have got these figures and, you know, they seem to show that ethnic minorities are doing better.” I said, “How can that be?” I think he had a youth cohort study and the figures were broken down into white and ethnic minority, so I said, “I tell you what, you tell your officials to go away and break down those figures between white, Asian, African and Afro-Caribbean.”
The Minister looked at me, but he was a nice guy, so he went away and came back a few months later and said, “We have broken them down, and we find that you have the whites doing how they’re doing, and the Asian students doing better than the black students, but even the black students are creeping up a little bit.” I replied, “I tell you what, you go away and break down the black student figures between boys and girls.” He came back with what I and the black community knew, that black boys’ results were flatlining. What was happening to black boys at the end of the ’90s, and had been happening for decades, was masked by a failure to keep statistics. Although it seems arid and technical to ask for stats, we cannot have programmes that reach those children effectively without a statistical basis.
Meg Hillier
There is an emerging concern that although girls from certain ethnic minority backgrounds now achieve well in Hackney schools at 16, and in particular at 18, and some of them even go on to university, a number of them drop out of education after 18. Studies show that, and it exactly illustrates my hon. Friend’s point about the need to track the figures and keep the statistics at a detailed enough level for them to be meaningful.
Ms Abbott
I entirely agree with my hon. Friend.
I also remember, a few years into that same Government, going to see the then Secretary of State for Education and asking for a breakdown by ethnicity of GCSE results. She said, “Sure Diane, of course you can have them,” but her officials looked shifty. At that time, schools were supposed to keep the figures; they just were not published. Months later, I got a letter from my colleague, who is now in another place, saying that unfortunately the data could not be released because they were “not in a usable form”. Even if schools are made to keep data, unless they know that the figures will be made public and used, it is in their interests, particularly those of schools that are failing our children, to keep them in all sorts of higgledy-piggledy ways so that no one can drill down and see what is happening to the children. I cannot stress enough the importance of examination data broken down by ethnicity, because if we do not have that we cannot reach those children because we do not know what is happening to them.
I suppose this is the appropriate point at which to raise the question of why. Why do black children fail? That is something I have struggled with, as have academics, parents and community workers. As my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth said, it is a mix of things. It is partly to do with poverty in an absolute sense, although all the research shows, particularly that done by the Institute of Education, that even when we allow for poverty—usually by using free school meals as an indicator—black children systematically do less well than children of other ethnicities. There is no question but that poverty is an issue. Nowadays there is also increasing peer group pressure. Parents can be devoted to their children’s academic futures but if, as the children reach adolescence, their cohort thinks that studying is not cool, that can be problematic. I have mentored the children of friends in that situation, and I do not discount its significance.
There is also a culture of low expectation in some schools. I am not talking about bad teachers, but about teachers who say, and have said to me, in effect, year on year, “What do you expect?” Well, let me tell Members what communities in areas such as Hackney expect: they expect each and every child to reach their potential. There is a culture of low expectation, of saying, “Well, if we can make school a nice, safe place, and the children come in and make samosas and bang steel drums, isn’t that nice?” That sort of culture masks the failure to give young people the academic equipment they need to fulfil themselves as people and to compete in the world of work.
Some educationalists, some teachers and perhaps some Ministers might say, “Well, you know, Diane, you can’t expect schools to make good the failings of society.” That is a strange thing to say because if we read the history of education in this country, the Victorians believed exactly that: school could make good the failures of society. Had we said to Arnold, the first inspector of schools, “Oh, you can’t expect schools to make good the failings of society”, he would have said, “That’s ridiculous! This is what we’re here for.” Hiding behind—I emphasise “hiding”—real social and youth culture issues to say that schools cannot make a difference is to take a position that the Victorians would not have recognised.
One reason why it is important to keep detailed stats is that it is not sufficient to talk generally about black and minority children. I have worked on the subject for years, and in London, which is the part of the country I know best, the figures and outcomes are complicated. Chinese children, I think, do best in London, white girls do second best, then children of east African, Asian or Indian origin and, going down the list, Bengali boys, who are bumping along at the bottom with white boys and black boys. Black girls always do better than black boys. The London stats show us differences in out-turn between Asian children from the subcontinent, Asian children from Bengal, Asian children from east Africa, African children or Caribbean children, and not keeping detailed statistics about out-turns year on year is failing such children. Only when we see the differences can we start to identify what the issues are.
For instance, one of the reasons why Bengali boys do so badly compared with Asian boys from other backgrounds is to do with rural Bengal and the conditions that they come from. Unless we have the detailed statistics, however, we cannot identify that. One of the things I have seen as the years have gone by is that first-generation African children tend to do better than Caribbean children. That is an interesting fact, which is worth contemplating. In my opinion—having studied this, held events and looked at the figures—the results of first-generation African children may speak to more stable families in the African community at this point and a stronger sense of personal identity. Until we have the figures and can analyse why there are differences, we cannot help those children.
We have not spoken much about higher education, which the debate is not primarily about, but we cannot talk about educational underachievement without mentioning what is happening to BME children in higher education. A case in point is London, where it is striking that universities within a few miles of each other and in theory serving the same population are very different in their demographic make-up. In fact, some of the former polytechnics in London educate more BME young people than some of our Russell group universities put together. I do not accept the argument, “Well, that’s because it’s all they are capable of.” A lot of things are going on, such as poor advice at school level or poor A-level choices. There is a lot to say about what is happening in higher education to BME young people.
Meg Hillier
As my hon. Friend knows, a lot of interesting work has been done on that, but for me it is summed up by the bright young woman from Hackney who was offered places to read medicine at Nottingham and Cambridge universities. She turned down the place at Cambridge because she said that she did not think she would fit in there. That demonstrates that it is about more than the academic side; it is about the attitudes of universities and their welcoming of the wide population of this country.
Ms Abbott
It is an interesting issue, and I hope that on another occasion in the House we shall have the opportunity to debate BME communities in higher education specifically.
The issue we are debating has engaged me for many years, almost since I first entered the House, and there are two specific things that I have done about it. I set up an initiative called London Schools and the Black Child. Over a decade we have had annual conferences at which we brought together parents, community leaders and teachers, not to say, “Oh, the system is terrible and these teachers are terrible,” but to ask what we could do to help our children. The heart of those conferences—officials can tell Ministers about them, if they look through the files—were workshops, where parents dealt with issues such as how to cope with exclusions, how to help black boys to achieve, and how to help children to achieve higher standards.
The extraordinary thing about the conferences was that every year more than 1,000 parents would turn up. We held them at the Queen Elizabeth II conference centre just across the way. The first one was due to start at 10 o’clock, and at 9 o’clock we had people queuing outside the door. Parents really want to help their children. There is an assumption that perhaps black children do badly because the black community does not value education. No. If I only ever say one thing in this House let it be that the black community does value education. That is why it is so important to me to keep making the case for focusing and having practical strategies.
The other thing that I have done, with the support of UBS, the international financial services company and bank, is to run an awards ceremony for London’s top achieving black children. One is always trying to counter stereotypes. The Minister might be surprised to know that there are black children at inner-city schools turning out 10 or 11 A* grades and four As at A-level, and going on to study medicine or law at Russell group universities. One year, we got Lenny Henry and the newscaster Trevor McDonald to hand out the awards, and we rang the Evening Standard and said, “We are having this awards ceremony—London’s top achieving black children; would you be prepared to cover it?” They asked, “Are any of the children gang members?” In other words, unless those children fit a stereotype they do not get coverage. We can open a London newspaper any day and see gang atrocities, stabbings and shootings. We do not hear enough about the children, of all ethnicities, who are achieving, and trying their very best. I thank UBS for its support. After the debate, I have a meeting with UBS to plan this year’s awards ceremony in the autumn, which will be held in the House of Commons.
I want to talk about what I think the solutions are. I have never doubted that part of the solution is to get parents to engage. The children who come to the awards ceremony are often from underachieving schools in socially deprived areas. One of the problems is that the room is always packed, because they bring their mum, dad, aunt and gran; the children who do best are those whose parents are most engaged in their education. It is important to get parents to engage, and that is why I have held conferences every year. Often parents do not quite know what to do for the best. The education system is very different even from when I was at school in this country. It is important to get parents to engage, but it is also important that the education system should recognise that. It is important to recruit more black teachers, not because only black teachers can teach black children, which is clearly absurd—I have mentioned Sir Michael Wilshaw—but because, particularly in metropolitan areas, unless the demographic in the staff room bears some relationship to that of the children who are being taught, there is unlikely to be the overall cultural literacy that will help teachers to engage with the children. It is also important, for all working-class boys, to recruit more male teachers. I deal with boys in Hackney—black, white, Asian, Turkish—who throughout their education have engaged only with women and have never seen a man as an educational role model. More male teachers are important. Teacher training is also important so that teachers have cultural literacy.
In closing, I will mention a subject on which I could talk for an entire hour and a half, because I have spent a lot of time on it in my life as a Member of Parliament. I had to have this debate with Labour Ministers: it is not good enough to adopt a colour-blind approach. With a colour-blind approach, ethnic minority children continue to slip under the radar and are palmed off with substandard qualifications, education and life chances. A colour-blind approach will not work. Comprehensive statistics are vital, as is recognising the importance of parents.
I must mention the institution of Saturday schools. For 20-odd years, Saturday schools have been run on a voluntary basis by the black community in London and other big cities. The same children of whom teachers in their mainstream school say, “Oh, what do you expect? We can’t get them to sit down,” go to a Saturday school, get their heads down and do their work. That is partly due to parental involvement.
We need statistics, recruitment of black and male teachers and teacher training, but above all we need to recognise that the issue is easy to ignore or to utter pieties about. If we abandon a cross-section of the community in our inner cities, they have a way of bringing themselves back into the political narrative—a way that is not good for them or for society. Better people than me have worked on the issue over their lifetime. I implore the Minister: let us not lose the advances made under the Labour Government. Let us continue to move forward.
Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams) on securing this debate. I welcome the debate, and the tone so far. It is correct to point out at the outset, as other hon. Members have done, that the title of the debate deals with educational attainment in black and minority ethnic communities. High attainment is found in all black and minority ethnic communities, and, as other Members have highlighted, some minority ethnic communities seem to be doing particularly well. We should all be as interested in why that is the case as in why pupils in other communities are not doing so well. Why some communities do well should be of great interest to us.
My hon. Friend the Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth presented a thoroughly researched and well-argued speech, obviously born out of a desire to do something about an issue that she has encountered in her role as a constituency MP. She is to be commended for bringing to the House an issue that she has discovered in her constituency in order to highlight the need to do something about it. She emphasised the need for a well-rounded approach to educational attainment and mentioned, as did other hon. Members, the importance of parental inclusion. She also pointed out the abolition of the ethnic minority achievement grant, which I may comment on later. I congratulate her on her remarks.
My hon. Friend the Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier) made an excellent speech, also born out of her constituency experience. She emphasised, as we all should, the importance of rigour and standards in our schools, saying how much had been done, particularly in her borough of Hackney, through effective leadership in our schools. That is a key part of high achievement, as is having no excuses or not accepting low expectations in our schools.
In recent years, there has been real improvement in achievement and attainment in our schools, particularly in our London schools through measures such as London Challenge. That was acknowledged recently on television by the Mayor of London, who said that huge improvements in standards had been made in London schools in recent years. He was absolutely right to highlight that, but, as other Members have mentioned, that may well mask some of the underlying problems in relation to black and minority ethnic communities.
[Hywel Williams in the Chair]
My hon. Friend mentioned the importance of work on exclusion, which I will say more about in a moment. She was also strong in her opposition to introducing any kind of two-tier qualification system, which she called a retrograde step. We will debate that issue on the Floor of the House later today, so I am sure that the Minister will understand why I do not want to go into it in detail now.
Ms Abbott
My hon. Friend has mentioned one of the Secretary of State’s innovations, which we will debate later today. Does he agree that the principle behind the English baccalaureate—that every child should get certain core GCSE qualifications—is a good one and that it would help avoid a situation in which too many children are damaged by a culture of poor expectations?
Kevin Brennan
I agree that it is extremely important that every young person and child should understand the implications of the pathways that they choose at GCSE. It is important that they understand that certain choices may lead to closing off opportunities at a later stage. I do not, however, support the crude mechanism of the E-bac, because I do not think that it is the way forward for qualifications at 16, and it will not necessarily mean that people will opt for those subjects that it is in their interests to take. There should be a clear understanding of the implications of choices made at 16. We should retain high expectations for young people in their GCSEs, particularly in English and maths, but also allow them the opportunity to make informed choices about the subjects that they want to take.
I want to address a number of points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott). She is right to emphasise that this is not a new issue. Indeed, she has been making that point for the 25 years she has been a Member of this House, which she entered in 1987. It is only right that we pay tribute to her efforts on the subject, including her practical efforts in relation to the initiative that she mentioned in her speech.
My hon. Friend and I debated the issue when I was a Minister in the Department for Children, Schools and Families in 2008 and I can confirm that she is passionate about the subject and has a lot to say. As I recall, she took 26 of the 30 minutes that we had to debate the issue and I did my best to respond in the remaining time available. She was quite right, however, because she had a lot to say on the subject. She was right to emphasise its importance and to take me to task, as a Minister, on the subject, as she had previous Labour Ministers and as I am sure she will continue to do to coalition Ministers. It is important to hold our feet to the fire and make sure that our attention is maintained. That applies not just to those of us on the Opposition Benches, but, more importantly, given that the Minister is in government, to those who hold the levers of policy in the Department for Education. My hon. Friend was also right to mention the need for detailed data, which I will return to in a moment.
When we debated this topic in 2008, my hon. Friend made a number of points that caught my attention, one of which was that research by the former Department of Education and Skills confirmed:
“Black Caribbean pupils are significantly more likely to be permanently excluded—3 times more likely than White pupils.”
However, as my hon. Friend has said today, and as she said in 2008:
“In relation to base-line entry tests, black pupils outperform their white peers at the start of school”.
We need to understand what is going on.
My hon. Friend went on to emphasise the importance of teacher training, pointing out that only 35% of newly qualified teachers
“rated their course as good for preparing them to teach black children, as opposed to 60 per cent. who rated their course as good preparation for teaching children of all abilities.” —[Official Report, 1 April 2008; Vol. 474, c. 223, 224WH.]
That is still a significant issue that we all need to consider and that the Minister must not lose sight of in his reform of teacher training.
My hon. Friend talked about exclusion, which absolutely needs to be tackled. When we were in government, we started to look at that subject in more detail and in greater depth than Ministers had at the start of the Labour Government in 1997, when my hon. Friend had a meeting with Education Ministers. In 2007, the Department published a priority review entitled “Getting it, getting it right” on the exclusion of black pupils. It discussed the iconic status of the issue of exclusion in black communities. Black Caribbean parents in particular believed that the school system would not meet the needs of their children unless something was done about the disproportionate level of exclusion of pupils from that particular background. It was extremely important that that report was undertaken at that time, and I would be interested to hear from the Minister about what the Government are doing now to follow up on that issue in relation to the exclusion of black and minority ethnic pupils. It was a priority of the previous Government to try to do something about that, even though they accepted that it was a complex and difficult issue. We undertook a number of initiatives that were specifically designed to tackle the issue of exclusion.
Another matter that was raised in the debate was the expectations of teachers. As long ago as 2003, the London Development Agency undertook major research that showed, among other things, that many teachers had lower expectations of black pupils and that black pupils felt that they received less positive input and, in some cases, even discrimination from teachers in the course of their school lives. Under the Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000, schools have a duty to ensure that they deal with this issue. A significant amount of literature for schools has been published by the Department and, in the past, by the Commission for Racial Equality on the subject. One report found that a significant minority of schools were failing to implement their duties under the race relations legislation. Given that we now have a more fragmented system of education in which a number of schools are no longer run as community schools in a local authority system but have become academies, independent of any local accountability, how will the Department ensure that such schools fulfil their obligations under race relations legislation in relation to black pupils?
Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)
I am sorry to have missed part of the debate, but I am pleased that it is taking place this morning. Does my hon. Friend agree that that is a particular concern now given that the Government intend to repeal the good relations duty on the Equality and Human Rights Commission, which is of course the institutional framework by which this kind of mechanism can be applied?
Kevin Brennan
Yes. My hon. Friend speaks with a great deal of expertise on this subject. We are all concerned that a lot of very good work on equality could be undone—perhaps not in a deliberate sense—by Ministers who desire to follow their own path and ensure that they distinguish themselves from the previous Government in their approach to education and schools. They could be undoing very good work and taking a significant step backwards in relation to the education system and the topic that we are debating today.
My hon. Friend the Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth talked about the impact of exclusion on people’s lives and about the fact that the Department itself had calculated that there would be a significant loss of earnings for pupils who were excluded in the course of their lifetime. At the time of that study, I think the reduction in lifetime earnings as a result of exclusion was calculated at £36,000. Worse than that, 80% of the juveniles in prison had been excluded from school at one time or another. That statistic made me sit up at the time, and should make the Minister focus on the issue. If 80% of juveniles in prison have been excluded from school, that must tell us something about exclusion and whether it is effective in trying to change the sort of behavioural problems that probably led to exclusion in the first place. If that exclusion has a racial component, we should be significantly concerned.
Meg Hillier
I would always defend a head teacher’s right to manage their school, and clearly exclusion may have a place in that, but a concern that I came across recently is a child who was excluded but brought back into school with intense provision for a short period. That intense provision was for only half a day, so the working parent was left with half a day to try to cover, and it also took the child out of their normal environment. Has my hon. Friend given any thought to how that might have an effect on the outlook of that young person when they re-enter the school?
Kevin Brennan
For many years, the scandal was that excluded pupils received little or no education after they had been excluded. My point is that exclusion should be a last resort, and it is sometimes necessary. As a former teacher, I absolutely defend the right of schools to exclude, having followed due and proper process. The Government have reformed that process, and changed the way in which an appeal can be made against exclusion. Instead of insisting on reinstatement, they have introduced fines on schools and head teachers who refuse reinstatement after that has been recommended on appeal.
I do not want to go into the details of that, but I want to make the point that responsibility for that child does not end when they are excluded, and that includes a responsibility on the head teacher and the school that excluded the child, on other schools in the area, even if they are independent academy schools in the state sector, and on all of us who are interested in education. Responsibility for that child does not end at the point of exclusion. One reason why so many young people end up in the juvenile justice system is not that they are inherently bad, but that, at the point of exclusion, there is no proper follow-up to ensure that the child receives an education, let alone attempts made to try to prevent exclusion in the first place whenever possible, given that it should always and everywhere be a last resort.
My hon. Friend the Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington said that improvement in GCSE achievement might have been due partially to the use of equivalencies at GCSE, but I think the facts will show that even if that were taken out of the equation, the improvement in London schools in recent years is real, as the Mayor of London said. In fact, results for black Caribbean pupils were rising at a faster rate than those for many other groups, but that does not mean that there is not a real and continuing problem, and my hon. Friend was right to highlight that.
My hon. Friend also spoke about the need for detailed data, and I appeal to the Minister that in his wish to unburden schools of bureaucracy, which is laudable, he does not fail to collect the data that are essential to tackle issues such as this. The Government are keen on having masses of data available in other areas, and that is good because it enables people to trawl through and analyse it, and to get to the root of a problem, but in this matter, less data are likely to be collected and that would be a significant mistake.
I have a few questions for the Minister before concluding and giving him time to respond. In tackling the problem, how will ending the ethnic minority achievement grant help? How will introducing a two-tier qualifications system, if that is indeed what he intends, help to improve black and ethnic minority attainment? How will not collecting proper statistics help? How will abandoning the approach of Every Child Matters help? Obviously, educational achievement is partially a case of good leadership in schools and so on, but it does involve wider issues, which many of these children may be bringing to school with them and which need to be tackled. How will a fragmented approach to exclusions help to tackle this problem? I would be grateful to hear the Minister’s response to those questions.
The Minister of State, Department for Education (Mr Nick Gibb)
I start by congratulating the hon. Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams) on securing this debate on an issue of enormous importance—tackling the differences in attainment among certain groups of pupils.
The overarching objective of the Government’s education policy is to close the attainment gap between those from wealthier and poorer backgrounds, between girls and boys and between those from different ethnic minorities. As hon. Members have already argued, the gap in attainment between black and minority ethnic pupils and other pupils is too wide, and has been too wide for too long.
The hon. Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth pointed to the educational attainment gap between BME students and their peers. She pointed to the high levels of unemployment among black men. It is 55.5% in the 16-to-24 age group. She pointed to the fact that young Indian people are more likely to be unemployed than their white peers, despite being in one of the highest-performing ethnic groups educationally.
The hon. Lady pointed to the high degree of variation in the educational achievements of different ethnic groups. She pointed to the poor attainment levels of Gypsy, Roma and Traveller pupils. For example, in 2011, 25% of Gypsy, Roma and Traveller pupils achieved level 4 or above in English and maths at the end of primary education, compared with 74% of all pupils. That is one of the largest attainment gaps for any minority ethnic group. At key stage 4 in 2011, 12% of GRT pupils achieved five or more good GCSEs including English and maths, compared with 58.2 % of all pupils. We have established a ministerial working group on tackling the inequalities experienced by Gypsies and Travellers. We are taking action, including by piloting a virtual head teacher for GRT pupils, looking again at the impact of legislation with regard to not prosecuting families for non-attendance at school, and so on.
The hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier) pointed to the attainment gap of 6% between Caribbean-heritage boys and the rest of the cohort at GCSE level. For girls, it was 5%. The hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) pointed out that when black children enter primary school at the age of five, they are doing as well as, and in certain circumstances better than, their peers attending the same primary school, but by the age of 11, achievement starts to drop off, and by 16 there are real attainment gaps for that group of children. I agree with her that this does matter—it is a matter of social justice and fairness. She is right to have devoted so much of her life to trying to tackle these issues and raise awareness of them. I join the hon. Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan) in paying tribute to her for the work that she has carried out over three decades in seeking to address the issue of higher educational standards for BME children in general, and black boys in particular.
The hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington is right to say that the focus must be on raising educational achievement for black children, and children from groups that historically have underperformed educationally. She is right to point to the importance of data and making the data available. That is something that we are doing. We have put increasing amounts of educational attainment data in the performance tables. Those are broken down by free school meals, by low prior attainment and by high prior attainment. The underlying data are also available. They break down achievement by different ethnic and minority groups. We intend to put ever more data on the website over time, so that they are available to the public, and to academics who want to drill down further than the general public.
Attainment gaps are a complex issue. BME pupils’ underperformance may be due to a combination of factors, including financial deprivation, low parental literacy levels and aspirations for children’s academic achievement, poor attendance and bullying.
Mr Gibb
I take the hon. Lady’s point. I am making a general point about the issue of underperforming groups in society. The range of causes is complex, and one of them can be—it is not always—literacy among parents generally.
Particular combinations of pupil characteristics can indicate that a child is especially vulnerable. Currently, white or black Caribbean boys eligible for free school meals are among those making the slowest progress. Gypsy, Roma and Traveller children significantly underperform. Many of the lowest-achieving free school meal pupils also have a special educational need, and therefore face an even steeper struggle to succeed.
Nationally, in 2011, 58.2% of pupils gained five or more GCSEs, including English and maths, but the attainment levels of black and minority ethnic groups were lower. Some 52.6% of children of Pakistani origin obtained five or more GCSEs at grades A* to C, including in English and maths, while 54.3% of black pupils, including those of African and Caribbean background, attained the same GCSE results. The figures show that some attainment gaps have narrowed in recent years, as hon. Members have mentioned. For example, attainment levels for pupils of Pakistani origin have improved at a greater rate, narrowing the gap from 12 to six percentage points since 2006.
Narrowing the gap between those from wealthier and poorer backgrounds is key to raising attainment levels among those black and minority ethnic groups with higher than average levels of deprivation. For example, 30% of key stage 4 students of Pakistani origin were eligible for free school meals in 2011, compared with 14% of all key stage 4 pupils.
Our policy is to improve reading in primary schools through systematic synthetic phonics and the new draft primary curriculum for English, with its focus on rigour and ensuring that children become fluent readers and develop a long-lasting love of reading, as well as being taught the rules of English grammar. That is key to closing the attainment gap, as are our other programmes of study for maths and science.
The academies and free schools programmes are designed to raise standards in schools throughout the system, particularly in areas of deprivation. Similarly, the new floor standards for primary and secondary schools and the new focused Ofsted inspection framework are designed to raise academic standards in the least well-performing schools. The pupil premium will direct £600 of extra school funding to each pupil eligible for free school meals, giving schools the resources to tackle all the challenges that they undoubtedly face in overcoming disadvantage.
The hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington is right that schools must not hide behind social difficulties as a reason for poor educational attainment. That is one reason for the pupil premium. It is a challenge: “Here are the resources to deliver high attainment, so there can be no reason for not delivering.” Total funding for the premium was £625 million last year. It will be £1.25 billion this year, rising to £2.5 billion a year by 2014-15. In 2012-13, coverage of the pupil premium is being extended to include pupils who have been eligible for free school meals at any point in the last six years, extending the premium from 1.2 million pupils to about 1.7 million. The Deputy Prime Minister also recently announced an additional £10 million for the education endowment fund to support projects aimed at transition and literacy catch-up for disadvantaged pupils who did not achieve level 4 at key stage 2 in English at the end of primary school.
The hon. Members for Oldham East and Saddleworth and for Cardiff West raised the issue of the ethnic minority achievement grant. Raising the attainment of children from minority ethnic communities remains a key priority for the coalition Government, but we believe that head teachers understand the particular needs of their schools and are best placed to decide for themselves how that money should be spent. That is why, as part of our school funding settlement for 2011-12, we decided to simplify the funding system by mainstreaming some grants, including the ethnic minority achievement grant, into the dedicated schools grant. Although the EMAG will not continue as a separate ring-fenced grant, we are maintaining last year’s funding levels during 2012-13 at just over £201 million. That means that schools still have funds to support underperforming minority ethnic pupils, and to contribute to the additional costs of supporting pupils with English as an additional language.
Debbie Abrahams
Does the Minister accept that as schools are under severe financial pressure at the moment, the funds might not be targeted specifically at reducing the inequalities in attainment for which they were originally intended?
Mr Gibb
I accept that that is always a risk, but our philosophy is to trust the professionals to make the decisions, and not have decisions always taken in Whitehall that direct head teachers, who are experienced professionals, on how to spend their budgets. The funding of £201 million is in the dedicated schools grant to address such issues.
This country performs poorly in helping young people to overcome their socio-economic backgrounds. The OECD recently reported that just 24% of disadvantaged students are able to overcome their backgrounds and achieve as well as their peers academically. That is compared with 76% in Shanghai, 72% in Hong Kong and 46% in Finland, which puts the UK 39th out of 65 OECD countries in terms of what it calls the “educational resilience” of children from poorer backgrounds.
In this country, however, there are many schools where pupils of all backgrounds succeed. In Challney high school for boys and community college in Luton, for example, 29% of pupils are in receipt of free school meals, and 61% are of Pakistani origin and 11% of Bangladeshi origin. It saw 77% of its students achieve five good GCSEs, including English and maths. The national attainment figure is 58.2%. In Valentines high school in Redbridge, 19% of pupils are in receipt of free school meals, and 24% are of Pakistani origin and 10% of Bangladeshi origin. It saw 76% of its students achieve five good GCSEs, including English and maths. The question we must ask is this: if such schools are able to achieve those results and that standard of education for their pupils, why not all schools?
As the hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington pointed out, black children sometimes have a culture of low expectation. When Sir Michael Wilshaw was head at St Bonaventure’s and at Mossbourne community academy, however, he transformed the educational achievement of the youngsters with a combination of high expectations and strong limits and boundaries on behaviour. The hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch cited Mossbourne community academy and its very high academic achievement. It saw 84% of pupils achieve five or more GCSEs at A* to C and nine pupils offered places at Oxbridge last year, despite high levels of deprivation in that part of Hackney and a very high proportion of pupils with English as an additional language.
The hon. Lady pointed to City academy, and the high academic achievement of pupils who had low attainment prior to coming to the school. She said that good heads and good rigour are key, and I certainly agree. She also pointed to the exemplar behaviour policy at the Petchey academy in Hackney, which brings me to school attendance and how regular attendance is key to raising academic standards.
Absence rates for some BME groups are higher than the national average. The absence rate of children of Pakistani origin is 6.7%, but the national average is 5.8%. Nationally, over 54 million school days were lost in 2010-11 due to absence. A pupil missing about nine—
Rail-Air Connectivity (South-East)
(12 years, 5 months ago)
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Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)
Once again, it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Williams. I am grateful to have the opportunity to raise the issue of improving rail-air connectivity for London and the south-east. As a successful trading nation, we rely on aviation, and our commerce relies on connectivity. In the brief time that I have, I want to concentrate on the importance of air-rail connectivity for the world’s busiest two-terminal, one-runway airport.
The Government’s economic strategy rightly wants to see improved links with emerging markets. UK businesses trade 20 times as much with countries where there are daily flights than with those with less frequent or no direct services. Ministers correctly want to boost growth through increasing inward investment and boosting exports. Improved international connectivity is therefore critical. Gatwick airport’s recent investment programme has made it a credible competitor to London Heathrow airport.
My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister was quite correct when he recently said that, under new ownership, Gatwick is emerging as a business airport for London, competing with Heathrow. The airport has recently invested £1.2 billion in facilities. In April, it announced proposals to invest a further £1 billion from 2014 to 2019. All of the money is going into making Gatwick a better, not a bigger, airport. Today, Heathrow, the UK’s largest and major hub airport is effectively full. Whether further capacity should be provided is a debate for another day. However, Gatwick is not full. At times of peak demand, such as in August, there are constraints, but, averaged out over the year, Gatwick currently operates at approximately 78% of capacity. There is potential for a further 11 million passengers to use Gatwick every year—a 25% increase on today’s levels, and a new runway is not needed to accommodate such numbers.
If Gatwick has airport capacity that can be used, the question becomes how do we best utilise that. There is no doubt that Gatwick faces a competitive disadvantage in taking on Heathrow to deliver this connectivity. Gatwick is not a “hub” airport. In pure economic terms, “hub” airports are more attractive to airlines than point-to-point airports. Although, under current market and capacity conditions, Gatwick could not become a “hub”, it is competing, and it is serving routes that are traditionally the preserve of Heathrow. It is at best simplistic, and at worst fundamentally inaccurate, to suggest that because Heathrow is full, there is no alternative in terms of enhancing the UK’s international connectivity to emerging markets.
Surface transport links are key to airline choice and can encourage full use of existing capacity. At present, Gatwick is engaging directly with Governments and national carriers in emerging markets, and asking them what it will take for new routes to the UK to be established. They hear time and again that airlines want to come to London, and that their choice of airports rests on available capacity, suitable facilities and, crucially, the airports’ surface connectivity to London. If we want new international air links to the emerging markets, good rail access to the airports that can provide them is critical.
The UK national infrastructure plan rightly recognises the national role that London’s airports have in increasing economic output and in enabling business to access new and larger markets. Indeed the NIP has identified Gatwick’s current £1.2 billion capital investment programme as one of the country’s top 40 infrastructure projects. It also outlines that the Government will
“improve road and rail links to the UK’s international gateways to help maximise the efficiency and competitiveness of the whole transport network.”
A £53 million upgrade of Gatwick rail station is already under-way. It will deliver much-needed additional platform capacity, concourse improvements and local track and signal infrastructure.
The focus now is on the services that run in and out of Gatwick station. Gatwick is already the home of the busiest airport railway station in the UK with more than 10 million passengers every year, and proportionally more people travel by rail to and from the airport than any other major UK airport. There is already a substantial growth in forecast demand. Along with Gatwick’s substantive growth, the number of ordinary commuters who use the same rail links is forecast to grow by 29% by 2026. The Brighton main line, which is effectively Gatwick’s main rail artery, is near capacity, and peak services on the line were already at almost 80% back in 2009.
The new Thameslink project will help the airport. Already, it is quicker to get to the City of London from Gatwick than from Heathrow. The airport should see a doubling in train frequency from 2018 through Thameslink, and someone living in, for example, Peterborough or Cambridge will be able to go directly to Gatwick by rail for the first time. It is partly due to this Government’s decision to progress the Thameslink upgrade project that we will see clear improvements in north-south links to and from the airport. However, further improvements are necessary.
A consistent implication from Ministers has been that the welcome improvements that Thameslink will bring are sufficient to deliver the improved rail connectivity and capacity that Gatwick will need in future. In my view, a far more holistic approach to improvement needs to be taken and, in particular, one that takes into account just how central high-quality express services from Gatwick to London Victoria are to the airport’s growth.
Zac Goldsmith (Richmond Park) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate. Does he agree that many of his arguments relating to Gatwick also apply to airports such as Stansted, which have masses of spare capacity and many millions of unused passenger journeys, but which, like Gatwick, suffer from very poor transport links, and that, if they were improved, they would transform an unattractive airport into a very attractive one and a potential alternative business hub?
Henry Smith
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his intervention. I apologise if my contribution seems a little parochial in its concentration on Gatwick, but the points relating to Gatwick are replicated for other airports, not just in London and the south-east, but around the country.
Over the past few years, Gatwick has lost direct links to Oxford, Birmingham, Manchester, Watford and Kent and, importantly, due to decisions taken by the previous Government, the Gatwick Express is now under threat. On-board ticketing has been discontinued, and 25-year-old carriages have replaced new ones.
Iain Stewart (Milton Keynes South) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate. He has highlighted the important point that the rolling stock that is now used on the Gatwick Express is inadequate for airport passengers because there is insufficient luggage space, and wheelchair access is difficult. The irony is that that stock has replaced purpose-built stock, which has been cascaded elsewhere on the network. I urge my hon. Friend to impress on the Government that when we argue for the Gatwick Express to be a dedicated franchise or part of a broader franchise, there should be flexibility to have appropriate rolling stock to make it an attractive airport link.
Henry Smith
My hon. Friend raises an erudite point. It is incredible that purpose-built rolling stock for the Gatwick express is now elsewhere on the network and that, as he rightly points out, unsuitable carriages are used. The matter is even worse because the Gatwick Express starts many of its journeys in Brighton, and by the time those carriages have reached Gatwick station, particularly at peak times, they are already full, and arriving air passengers cannot get a seat on what is supposed to be a dedicated service to London. Additionally, Network Rail is proposing a further stop for the Gatwick Express at Clapham Junction, which would be a retrograde step. It would threaten Gatwick's ability to compete with Heathrow, and because of that, reduce its potential for growth.
Passengers are noticing the trend. Already, the Gatwick Express ranks below its equivalents at Heathrow and Stansted, and is at the bottom of comparative league tables for other services, behind airports such as Heathrow, Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur and Stockholm. Gatwick is not effectively connected to locations to the east and west of the airport either, with no direct rail service to and from Kent. Trains have to go via London, meaning that the 2 million passengers from Kent who use the airport every year cannot reach it directly.
The new Southern-Thameslink franchise must deliver improvements to the Gatwick Express. In December 2009, the Government announced that they were inviting tenders for new franchises for the south-east region from 2015. The new service will integrate those currently operated by First Capital Connect and Southern, including the Gatwick Express. From 2015, nearly all rail links in and out of Gatwick will be operated by one company, with the exception of a direct link to Reading. We currently have the unique opportunity to address many of the issues.
Preserving the Gatwick Express is a priority. It should be recreated as an all-day, dedicated service between Gatwick and London, to support Gatwick’s role as a key economic driver for London, the south-east and the UK economy as a whole. To guarantee its success, bidders for the franchise should be required to outline a vision of how both the quality of the journey and the range of direct routes to and from Gatwick can be improved. In addition to the invitation to tender for the new franchise including direct express rail services to London from the airport, there must also be a clear requirement for fit-for-purpose rolling stock that caters for the needs of air passengers—so ably pointed out by my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes South (Iain Stewart)—as it is clear from Gatwick’s research that the current stock is not. Gatwick is particularly concerned about the installation of ticket gates at the airport railway station and the removal of on-board ticketing adversely affecting passenger experiences.
In the long term, the requirements in the recent rail Command Paper need to be implemented. The paper states that during the next regulatory cycle Network Rail and the broader rail industry should look at how best to improve surface access to major airports. Network Rail should, as part of its development of the south-east’s rail network, take advantage of the new capacity that the Thameslink programme will provide from 2018, to reorganise the way in which lines running though Gatwick are used. Gatwick’s plans for long-term infrastructure improvements deliver a win-win solution for commuters and air passengers alike. The line that supports Gatwick’s direct rail links into London is important for both air passengers and local commuters, and the airport is not suggesting that the needs of the airport outweigh those of the everyday user.
I note that the Office of Rail Regulation has projected that, independently of air travel, passenger numbers on the main line running in and out of Gatwick could grow by 29% by 2026. The office believes that Gatwick airport’s technical proposal would allow for the needs of both sets of users. This is not an either/or choice for the Government, but a solution for all.
The plans that Gatwick has published support the growth of the airport and help to ensure a better experience for the ordinary commuter using the same rail links. They provide adequate capacity for the projected growth of both sets of users, and help to deliver the connectivity that the national economy needs. In essence, they meet the needs of most user groups, and the interests that Ministers should consider.
There would be substantial benefit to the Treasury, too, because air-rail users pay a premium. Gatwick Express users reduce Government subsidies by £27 million every year, lessening the burden on the taxpayer. More users would mean less taxpayer money being spent on the network, and keeping the service as a non-stop one would allow a further £6 million to be saved by reducing journey times.
Direct rail links to Gatwick would help to improve the environment for inward investment in the south-east, because 51% of potential investors cite international transport links as an important factor in deciding where to locate. Easy rail access to airports means better links to key export markets. In the short term, Gatwick’s proposals would greatly assist the airport in marketing itself internationally to airlines operating from emerging markets, because a high-quality, dedicated rail link is key in their decision-making process. In that way, improved rail links would help efforts better to manage the capacity shortages that airports in the south-east face, and which have the potential to hamper our economy.
The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Mrs Theresa Villiers)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Crawley (Henry Smith) on securing a debate on such an important and interesting topic. He is a great advocate for his constituents, and I welcome his expertise in and understanding of aviation issues, which I am sure are of great importance to many of his constituents who work at Gatwick airport.
I fully appreciate all the points that my hon. Friend made about the importance of high-quality rail services to airports, and particularly to Gatwick, which is one of our biggest and most successful airports. I echo his praise of and congratulations to Gatwick on its investment programme, and I welcome the new services that it is attracting, including Air China’s new service from Gatwick to Beijing. Gatwick well deserved the praise that it received from the Prime Minister, to which my hon. Friend referred.
It is entirely correct to say that the debate about aviation connectivity in this country is not just about Heathrow. Heathrow is an extremely important airport, but we should not forget that London’s five successful airports together make us one of the best connected countries in the world, and Gatwick plays a very important role in that system.
High-quality surface access to our key airports is important for air passengers and for our international economic competitiveness, as my hon. Friend rightly highlighted. In addition, improving rail services to airports can provide important assistance in addressing local road congestion problems and, in certain places, in dealing with air quality problems. As he said, one of the Government’s strategic priorities for the nation’s rail network is improving rail links to major ports and airports.
A significant programme of rail infrastructure improvements is under way, and a number of the projects will benefit airports. If time permits, I shall deal with those later, but first it would be best for me to address some my hon. Friend’s points that were specific to Gatwick.
We have recently started consulting on the new combined Southern, Thameslink and Great Northern franchise. All the responses to that consultation will be shared with the five shortlisted bidders that will compete to become the next operator. The consultation is an important part of the decision-making process on what goes into the new franchise. This debate is therefore very timely, and I encourage my hon. Friend and his constituents to take part in the consultation.
The task that the bidders for the new franchise face in balancing the competing priorities of those who use the Brighton main line, which serves Gatwick, will not be easy—there is no getting away from that fact. Along with much of the nation’s rail network, the line is a tribute to the engineering excellence of our Victorian forebears. Driving tunnels through the downs and building a nine-track viaduct over the River Thames are the sort of engineering projects that we take for granted today, but they were a massive challenge when they were built more than 150 years ago, largely using only manual labour and sheer hard graft.
Brilliant as those Victorian engineers were, however, they bequeathed us a railway that had only 19 platforms at Victoria, and only five tracks south of East Croydon. Since Victorian times, commuting demand has increased dramatically. In a typical weekday morning, the Gatwick Express carries more than 2,000 passengers from Gatwick airport into London, but there are more than 35,000 Brighton mainline commuters, and approximately the same number again commuting into London on Southern’s services from the inner suburbs. Expanding our inherited railway network is neither low-cost nor easy, especially where it runs through our crowded cities, so we will expect the bidders to think hard about how they can make best use of the track capacity available to them in such a way that they can continue to provide a high-quality service to those travelling to and from Gatwick, without compromising their ability to meet the needs of the thousands of commuters who also use the line every year.
Against that background, there is certainly some pressure for more trains to call at Clapham Junction, which is one of the busiest stations on the route and arguably one of the busiest in the world. My hon. Friend will appreciate, however, that although that proposal was included by Network Rail in its south-east route utilisation strategy, that is not binding on the Government. No final decision has been made on it. When we make our decisions on the new franchise, we shall carefully weigh the needs of airport passengers and commuters, as well as taking into account wider strategic economic considerations of the sort to which my hon. Friend referred. This debate is useful for feeding into that decision-making process.
My hon. Friend has concerns about rolling stock. The Government are keen for such decisions to be made, when possible, by the people who run the railways rather than Whitehall. However, I agree that when making choices about rolling stock and its internal layout, the current and future franchisees will need to balance carefully the different needs and wants of railway users.
My hon. Friend the Member for Crawley also referred to decisions about on-train ticketing and the installation of ticket gates at Gatwick. I am aware of the concerns of the airport operator and I have held discussions with Gatwick on several occasions. However, the installation of gates is one of most effective ways to ensure that passengers pay the fares that are due. Protecting that revenue is an important element of delivering a more financially sustainable railway. I note that efforts were made to try to respond to the airport’s concerns, with a choice of wider gates to facilitate passengers with larger bags. I hope that that provides some mitigation to the concerns that my hon. Friend and the airport operator expressed.
I want to discuss the wider programme of activity that is under way to improve rail-to-air links in the south-east and elsewhere. A fleet of brand new trains built by Bombardier in Derby is now in use on the Stansted Express to improve the experience for passengers going to that airport. Network Rail, with the assistance and support of Gatwick Airport Ltd, is investing £53 million in upgrading the station, tracks and signalling at the airport, which includes new platforms and escalators, and a refurbished concourse. That will greatly improve the attractiveness of rail services to and from Gatwick, and I was delighted when the airport and Network Rail put together the funding to make it possible.
Through the regional growth fund, we have awarded £19.5 million to Luton borough council for junction enhancements that will improve access from the M1 to Luton. The RGF has also awarded £40 million to Kent county council for its Expansion East Kent programme, which includes rail improvements affecting journey times between Ashford and Ramsgate that could support the further development of Manston airport as a passenger airport. In the north of England, Manchester airport is getting linked up to Metrolink for the first time, and funding has been secured for a new airport link road connecting the M56 and the A6. Looking ahead, Manchester airport is also set to benefit from our programme of rail electrification in the north of England and from the work on elements of the northern hub that we are committed to delivering.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Crawley rightly pointed out, the Thameslink programme, which took some years to get started under the previous Government—they started out calling it Thameslink 2000, but for some reason dropped that title as delivery got later and later—is very much under way. It is a £6 billion programme that will benefit Gatwick and Luton airports through the operation of a brand new fleet of high-capacity trains running at greatly increased frequency. The trains serving the two airports will be able to stop at London Bridge at peak times, which is not possible at the moment. The Thameslink programme also means that, for the first time, Gatwick will get new direct services to destinations north of London, such as Cambridge, Stevenage and Welwyn.
Crossrail is finally under way, with tunnelling under London commencing at the beginning of May. Once it is completed, we expect Crossrail to provide new services linking Heathrow directly with the west end, the City of London and Canary Wharf. In the longer term, Heathrow will also benefit from the Piccadilly line upgrade, and High Speed 2 will connect to Birmingham airport and provide radically improved access to Heathrow from destinations in the midlands and the north of England. A great deal of work is under way to improve our links between rail and air in the south-east and elsewhere in the country. We shall be giving further thought to whether more can be done as part of our HLOS—high-level output specification—programme for the 2014-to-2019 railway control period.
Let me respond to the hon. Friend’s comments in the context of the overall debate about aviation. The coalition has been clear that it wants a successful and sustainable aviation sector that supports economic growth and addresses aviation’s environmental impacts. Our forthcoming consultation on a sustainable framework for UK aviation will be a further opportunity to consider surface access to airports and the kind of issues that my hon. Friend shared with the Chamber. For example, in response to the scoping document on aviation with which we began the policy development process last year, a number of people advocated the potential of new fast rail links between Heathrow and Gatwick as a way to deal with connectivity. Such ideas will be considered alongside the many other responses that I am sure we will receive in our consultation, in which I hope that hon. Members will participate.
The Government will continue to work with airport operators, the rail industry, local authorities, local enterprise partnerships and MPs on ideas to improve rail access to our key airports in the years to come. All the matters mentioned by my hon. Friend will be carefully taken into account when decisions are made on new franchises for the railways—we are about to embark on the biggest programme of refranchising since privatisation—and we will ensure that we consider the importance of good surface access to our key airports.
Zac Goldsmith
Will the Minister reconfirm that it is her view, and that of the Government, that the Government’s first priority is to find ways of making better use of existing capacity? Will she confirm that any thoughts of expansion in the south-east take a very clear second place, and that people will not be subjected to the horror of expansion unless it is an absolute last resort?
Mrs Villiers
I agree that whatever decisions are taken about long-term capacity needs in the south-east, it is essential that we do everything that we can right now to make our airports better and to ensure that we make the best use of existing capacity. Two separate things need to be done: to work out how we improve our airports today—we have initiatives on that important aspect under way, such as the operational freedoms trial at Heathrow and reforming how security is delivered—and, at the same time, to give serious, evidence-based consideration to what our future capacity needs might be.
On rail-to-air connectivity, we must be mindful of affordability constraints and value for money. When appropriate, we continue to look to the airports that will benefit from transport improvements to make a fair contribution to their funding. When there are decisions on how limited capacity is allocated between competing priorities, we will need to consider carefully the needs of all railway users—those who are travelling to the airport and those who are not, including commuters and freight operators. We need a successful and sustainable aviation sector that is supported by a railway that delivers reliable, high-quality services for all its users. That is what the Government are striving to achieve, and I am sure that our discussion today will provide useful input into forthcoming decisions on aviation and rail matters.
Mesothelioma (Legal Aid Reform)
(12 years, 5 months ago)
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Hywel Williams (in the Chair)
We now come to the debate on the effect of legal aid reform on mesothelioma victims. I call Bill Esterson—you may speak seated, if you find that helpful.
Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)
Thank you very much, Mr Williams. I will stand, but it is kind of you to make the offer. It is a pleasure that the debate is being held under your chairmanship. It is an important debate, which I am sure that you and Members in all parts of the House appreciate—so far, it is mostly Opposition Members, but I know that Government Members have also indicated an interest in the subject.
I requested this debate because the Government have said that they will review the support given to victims of mesothelioma and their families following the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012, which includes industrial diseases along with personal injury in measures to end no win, no fee litigation in the courts. The Government say that they want to stop fraudulent claims, but I believe that there is no evidence of fraudulent claims by those suffering from mesothelioma. That is the basis of this debate.
The House of Lords tried to amend the Act to exclude victims of mesothelioma from the changes to no win, no fee legislation, but the amendments made by the Lords were rejected by the Government. Instead, the Government said that they would hold a review and consider how to support victims and their families. So far, Ministers have not said what that review will consist of or when it will be held. Victims and their families need to know. When the Minister responds, he should tell the House what will happen in the review so that those suffering from that terrible disease can know and compare their evidence, so as not to lose out as a result of the end of no win, no fee.
The Government decided to include industrial diseases along with road traffic accidents in stopping no win, no fee. The implication of the change is that mesothelioma claimants are part of the compensation culture. That may well affect some personal injury claims, including whiplash, but mesothelioma victims are clearly not making spurious claims. When my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington North (Helen Jones) put that point to the Minister on 17 April, she asked him to give one example of a spurious mesothelioma claim. The lack of an answer made the point that there are none.
Let us remind ourselves of what mesothelioma does. My hon. Friend the Member for Blaydon (Mr Anderson) said in the debate in April that
“one fibre could go into someone’s lung and lie dormant for many years, but when it becomes active there is no alternative—that person suffers horribly and then they die. There is no cure, no remission and no element of survival; they die…Everybody who gets mesothelioma will die an agonising death.”—[Official Report, 17 April 2012; Vol. 543, c. 279.]
The idea that those suffering from mesothelioma could be involved in fraudulent claims is absurd and disgraceful.
Mr David Anderson (Blaydon) (Lab)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this timely debate. Does he agree that one of the big issues is how long we must wait before we get information about how the review will start? Since we had the debate in the main Chamber, some 200 people have died of mesothelioma.
Bill Esterson
My hon. Friend has a long and distinguished record of fighting for those suffering from many industrial diseases, especially mesothelioma. He has made the point well: 200 people have died since the last time the issue was debated. That demonstrates the urgent need for the Minister to indicate exactly when the review will be held and how quickly it will conclude.
Steve Rotheram (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)
My hon. Friend will be aware, as I am, of constituents who have unfortunately contracted asbestos-related diseases such as mesothelioma. Why are people who have terrible diseases through no fault of their own being doubly punished by the Government? Is it a case of the law of unintended consequences, or does my hon. Friend believe that they are being targeted by this uncaring Government?
Bill Esterson
I thank my hon. Friend and neighbour for his question, and I hope that the Minister will answer it. We could all make our guesses as to the true motives. There are well-established financial links between the Government and the insurance industry, which might be at the heart of why things are being done in the way that they are.
It cannot be right that victims of asbestos-related diseases should be required to surrender a quarter of the damages that they have been awarded to pay for legal costs. Those damages are awarded to recognise and compensate men and women who have suffered terribly, if it is at all possible to compensate them for the pain, suffering and life-shortening that resulted from their work.
Mesothelioma has an extraordinarily long latency period of up to 60 years. As well as those 30,000 who have already died in the United Kingdom from mesothelioma, an estimated 60,000 more are yet to lose their lives due to past exposure, the vast majority of which occurred at work.
Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)
Does my hon. Friend agree that the coffers of the Government, in the shape of the Department for Work and Pensions, will also lose out? There has always been a payment back of benefits that have had to be paid up front early on because of people’s short life span once diagnosed with mesothelioma. Does he also agree that we should be making absolutely certain that no part of the compensation is taken out? The money should be used for the victims and their families and to repay the Government. Will my hon. Friend congratulate a colleague of mine in the Welsh Assembly, Mick Antoniw, who proposes to introduce a private Member’s Bill that would compensate the NHS for its expenditure on treating mesothelioma by recovering the money from liable companies?
Bill Esterson
I am happy to congratulate my hon. Friend’s colleague. She is right that it is the companies that cause this terrible pain and suffering, as well as their insurers, that should bear the financial costs, although there is no way of truly compensating the victims and their families for their suffering. It should be the private industry that caused the condition, and its insurers, that pays, not the public purse.
People were exposed to this terrible disease at work in situations which employers knew would ultimately kill the workers. However, as things stand under the legislation, those same people and their families will lose a quarter of the compensation that they absolutely should receive from the insurers of those companies.
The Government rejected a Lords amendment that would have exempted mesothelioma from the provision, but they have yet to say how sufferers and their families will be protected. In all the non-answers from Ministers, they have yet to justify to thousands of families why they did not exempt mesothelioma.
Mesothelioma is an exceptional case, because the problem was known about for more than a century. Asbestos was identified as a poisonous substance in 1892 and has been banned from use in this country for almost half a century, yet employers knowingly exposed their workers to it day in, day out. They knew the dangers and ignored them for decades. They were eventually held accountable, but ever since the first successful case against employers and insurers on asbestos-related diseases, they have kept coming back to the courts and the issue has kept coming back to this place.
Mesothelioma causes intractable pain and severe breathlessness, which means that more than half of all the very modest damages claimed are for pain and suffering. The Government’s proposals would have a disproportionate effect on mesothelioma sufferers, because victims receive a higher proportion of their damages for pain and suffering than those who claim for personal injury.
The legislation requires terminally ill asbestos victims who succeed in a claim for compensation against negligent, guilty employers to pay up to 25% of their damages for pain and suffering in legal costs. They are not part of the compensation culture, nor are they legally aided, so to include them in that provision is wholly wrong. Many sufferers are so defeated by their illness that they never make a claim under current circumstances. Victim support groups have been told by victims that the change proposed would be a significant further deterrent to them making a claim at all. That would represent a big saving for the insurance industry, which therefore has the financial interest hinted at by my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Steve Rotheram).
Mr Dennis Skinner (Bolsover) (Lab)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on raising this issue for the umpteenth time. It is always possible to tell when an issue ought to be dealt with. We fought constantly for bronchitis and emphysema to be treated as industrial diseases, and did the same with vibration white finger. In 1999-2000, we managed to get the show on the road. Mesothelioma has been debated in this place ad nauseam, which is why we can tell that it ought to be dealt with at long last. I thank my hon. Friend for raising the matter once again.
Bill Esterson
My hon. Friend speaks with greater experience than anyone in this House on the subject and on the issue of protecting the rights of workers who have suffered, over many years, grave injustice through industrial diseases and industrial accidents. He brings that wealth of experience from his time as a miner, and he continues to campaign tirelessly, and I applaud him for that. He is absolutely right that we have a duty to the victims to ensure that the matter is dealt with properly and that this Government are held to account. We need to hear answers today as to what will happen in that review, and it needs to be done quickly.
KPMG estimates that the insurance industry was given a £1.6 billion windfall when the Government ended compensation for pleural plaques. Unless the Government change their mind on mesothelioma, a similar windfall may be made available to the insurers at the expense of victims of industrial disease.
In contrast to other diseases, mesothelioma has only one outcome—loss of life. It is not trivial, and victims need help not hindrance. Most doctors say that the average lifespan from diagnosis to death is around nine months to one year. As one victim explained:
“My life has been turned upside down, and I really didn’t want to think about anything except spending my last days with my family. I worked all my life and paid all my national insurance and taxes, so this seems unfair.”
Mesothelioma victims, who often have just months to live, should not be expected to devote their energies to finding the lawyer with the best deal, yet that is what the Government expect them to do. Asbestos-related disease is not an accident. It is the result of negligence and lack of duty of care.
The claims of dying asbestos victims are never frivolous or fraudulent, but they are lumped in with road traffic accident claims that make up more than 70% of personal injury claims, for which the Government and insurance industry suggest that conditional fee agreements have been exploited. Between 2007 and 2011, there was a 6.6% reduction in employer liability cases, of which most respiratory claims are a subset. During that same period, road traffic accidents increased by 43% to nearly 800,000 cases. It is expected that mesothelioma claims will peak in about 2015, as asbestos has been eliminated from the working environment. Unscrupulous claimants may be able to fake road traffic injuries, but not mesothelioma or asbestosis. Road traffic accident problems will not be solved by punishing asbestos victims.
Mesothelioma sufferers who make a claim mainly do so because they and their families will not be at risk in terms of legal costs, which, without no win, no fee agreements, would be prohibitive. A claim may be valued at between £5,000 and £10,000, which is of great importance to the individual concerned, but which could be eaten up in costs and premiums under the Government’s plans. Mesothelioma sufferers would lose the whole of their compensation simply by not taking any action, which, as we have heard, is increasingly likely if no changes are made. Their access to lawyers would be restricted by making success fees unrecoverable from defendants, putting them at risk of paying defendants’ costs if they lose. Victims are already reluctant to claim because they have so many problems dealing with their rapid deterioration in health and trying to survive. The risk that if they lose they will have to pay such costs would be a massive additional hurdle for some of our most vulnerable people, to whom a decent, civilised society should and would guarantee support.
We should not forget that compensation is already significantly reduced for many sufferers. They must not only provide evidence of heavy exposure dating decades back, but forgo that portion of compensation where insurers cannot be traced for employers that are no longer trading. As insurance companies fight mesothelioma cases to the end, often trying to elongate the case until the victim dies, the cost of after-the-event insurance can be huge. As that will also be unrecoverable under the Government’s plans, there is no prospect of claimants being able to afford the premiums. The Government’s one-size-fits-all approach in the legislation is wrong. It may work for some personal injury claims, but is not effective in the case of complex industrial disease cases such as those involving mesothelioma.
Paul Goggins (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)
My hon. Friend has given a graphic description of the pain and suffering faced and experienced by mesothelioma sufferers. He is describing the impact that the legislation would have on mesothelioma sufferers if, following a review, it was fully implemented for that group. He has mentioned several times the review that the Government have offered as part of the concession that they made while the Bill was passing through Parliament. Does he agree that it is essential that that review fully engages with mesothelioma sufferers and their families and especially the support groups, such as the Asbestos Victims Support Groups Forum UK, which has done so much to make the case on behalf of mesothelioma sufferers?
Bill Esterson
I thank my right hon. Friend for his intervention. I completely agree with him and will come shortly to what we need in the review.
For mesothelioma sufferers, unwarranted and fatal risks have been taken unknowingly, so the correct function of the legal system in such cases would be to restore victims to the position that they were in before diagnosis and to make provision for them and their families. Terminally ill and dying people will have other things on their mind than looking for a lawyer to give them a good rate, so there will not be greater competition, driving costs down, as the Minister claims. There is in fact no evidence that lawyers will reduce costs, as lawyers themselves will be less likely to take these cases because they risk not being able to recover costs if they lose or they face the dreadful prospect of having to recover those costs from their clients in a situation in which they have just lost in terrible circumstances.
Making changes to rules on compensation is no motivation or incentive for mesothelioma sufferers. One sufferer has said that
“no amount of compensation could ever compensate for my husband’s suffering and loss of life. To even contemplate this is wrong. My husband’s suffering has ended but still I have terrible images of his horrific suffering which I cannot erase…My husband was poisoned going to work. I hope this Government remembers that!”
At all stages of consideration of the legislation in this House and in the House of Lords, the fallacy of the Government’s position on industrial disease was pointed out. Twice the Lords voted on amendments to this effect:
“The changes made by sections 43, 45 and 46 of this Act do not apply in relation to proceedings which include a claim for damages for respiratory disease or illness (whether or not resulting in death) arising from industrial exposure to harmful substance.”
The Government were forced to reconsider their position and they agreed to an amendment, which brings us to the point of today’s debate. This is the amendment:
“Sections 43 and 45 and diffuse mesothelioma proceedings
(1) Sections 43 and 45 may not be brought into force in relation to proceedings relating to a claim for damages in respect of diffuse mesothelioma until the Lord Chancellor has—
a) carried out a review of the likely effect of those sections in relation to such proceedings, and
b) published a report of the conclusions of the review.”
Since then, the nature of the review, its timing, its terms of reference, how it is to be conducted and who is to be consulted have been raised several times. I have raised those matters myself with Ministers, as have the Labour Front-Bench team. When agreeing to the compromise, my right hon. Friend the Member for Tooting (Sadiq Khan) said:
“We need assurances it will be truly independent and not just a whitewash. We also need confidence there’ll be sufficient time allowed to see how the changes brought about impact on other successful claimants before rolling them out for mesothelioma sufferers.”
Given the Government’s conduct throughout, it is not surprising that we and those who represent mesothelioma sufferers, and the victims themselves, are sceptical about the Government’s promise. Today is an ideal opportunity, which I hope the Minister will take, to address the doubts of everyone who has concerns about mesothelioma. Anything less than a fully independent and thorough review of the potential effects of limiting claims will not be within the spirit or the letter of the amendments agreed to, which enabled the Government to get their legislation through. I hope that we will not hear generalities or evasions from the Minister. A clear commitment to do justice for the victims of this terrible disease is the least we can expect.
I therefore ask the Minister these questions. When will the review take place? Who will be part of the review body? What will its terms of reference be? No doubt it will include representatives of the insurance industry, but who will be the victims’ representatives? Will the review be truly independent, by which I mean independent of the insurance industry?
Concern remains that the change to no win, no fee will cut the number of people claiming and the amount being paid by insurance companies. The insurance industry has a clear financial interest in cutting down the amounts paid out. How will the Minister or his colleagues ensure that that interest is balanced by how the review is run? Will he consider an independent panel to examine mesothelioma and compensation for victims and their families? Will he and his colleagues consider the call for an employers’ liability insurance bureau following the pattern of the Motor Insurers Bureau? We must ask why there is such a facility for traffic accident victims but not for those suffering from mesothelioma or other industrial diseases.
Victims and their families want answers and protection. They have a right to that protection, given the suffering that they go through. It is time that Ministers gave answers about how that protection will be guaranteed, and soon, by this Government.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Crispin Blunt)
I apologise for the absence of the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon (Mr Djanogly), to whom this debate would normally fall, but he is serving on the Committee that is considering the Defamation Bill. I congratulate the hon. Member for Sefton Central (Bill Esterson) on securing this timely debate. He asked wholly appropriate questions and I hope to be able to give him some of the satisfaction that he seeks, and some guidance for claimants and their families on the circumstances that we are in.
I say gently to the hon. Gentleman that I slightly regretted the tone of his speech. To suggest that concern about the issue is located on one side of the House and not the other is a little wide—
Mr Blunt
I will not, if my hon. Friend will forgive me, because I need time to put on record all the things that I think are important for mesothelioma sufferers, for whom concern is, very properly, universal.
Mesothelioma is a terrible disease. We recognise its devastating impact on sufferers and their families, and we take extremely seriously the plight of sufferers and their right to claim compensation for negligently caused personal injury. As was clear from the way in which the hon. Member for Sefton Central spoke, this is an emotive subject. This debate highlights the importance of the issue, and the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr Skinner) also made that clear.
I will deal briefly with three main issues: first, why our reforms to conditional fee arrangements are the right way forward; secondly, why we are taking an exceptional course in respect of mesothelioma claims, and the circumstances in which that exceptional course will be managed once we have improved the position for sufferers who cannot trace their employer’s insurer; and, thirdly, how some reforms have lowered the barriers for claimants in recent years.
On the rationale for conditional fee arrangement reform, it is important to make it clear that our current legal aid reforms do not affect mesothelioma cases, as legal aid is not generally available. The Access to Justice Act 1999 removed legal aid for the majority of personal injury cases, including mesothelioma cases, where alternative forms of funding such as conditional fee arrangements were available. As the hon. Member for Sefton Central will be aware, the Government are implementing the recommendations in Lord Justice Jackson’s review of civil litigation costs, and particularly a fundamental reform of no win, no fee CFAs. Part 2 of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 implements those reforms.
Lord Justice Jackson concluded that the current arrangements, under which success fees and after-the-event insurance premiums are payable by the losing side, in addition to standard legal costs, are a major contributor to the high costs of civil litigation, and that it was right in principle to change the arrangements across the board. The truth is that the current system is indefensible. It has turned out to be a racket for lawyers, which is why it is changing. The new system will assist the execution of meritorious claims rather than supporting a claims-management industry.
The Government are committed to addressing disproportionate costs throughout the whole of civil litigation, and the provisions in part 2 of the Act will deal with the unfairness that currently exists in the system between claimants and defendants. These important reforms will ensure that meritorious claims can still be pursued, but at a more proportionate cost. As part of the reforms, earlier settlement will be encouraged and damages for non-pecuniary loss, such as pain suffered and loss of amenity, will be increased by 10%. In time, the reforms will apply to all areas of civil litigation—that was what Lord Justice Jackson recommended, and the Government agree.
The Government are certainly not suggesting that mesothelioma claims are brought inappropriately. Indeed, such claims are often among the easiest in which to establish base merit. I want to be absolutely clear, in response to the tone of the remarks made by the hon. Member for Sefton Central, that these claims are, of course, not part of the compensation culture—no one has suggested that they are. They are, however, part of a process of civil litigation that has to be reformed.
On the temporary exception from conditional fee arrangement reforms for mesothelioma claims, we announced that the relevant provisions in part 2 will come into force in April 2013. In particular, sections 44 and 46 abolish the recoverability of success fees and after-the-event insurance costs from the losing side in all categories of case in which they are currently used. We are, however, deferring implementation in relation to mesothelioma claims until we are satisfied on the way forward for those who are unable to trace their employer’s insurer. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman understands the crucial importance of that.
A number of reforms in recent years have improved the position of mesothelioma sufferers by lowering the barriers to bringing claims. In particular, the Employers’ Liability Tracing Office, which was introduced in April 2011, is designed to be a comprehensive online resource of current and historical employers’ liability policies, thus making it easier for claimants to find the relevant insurer. The database is updated with the results of any new traces, so its size and utility continue to increase. We recognise, however, that there remains a gap where sufferers cannot trace their employer’s insurer. The Department for Work and Pensions is therefore in discussions about the way forward for stakeholders. Primary legislation might be required, but I anticipate that my noble friend Lord Freud, who is working on the matter, will make a statement before the summer recess. If primary legislation is required, however, the hon. Member for Sefton Central and other hon. Members will understand that that will take a considerable period of time.
I can give a commitment that we will consider all the factors raised today when we come to set out the review’s terms of reference. I cannot, however, set out those terms of reference or a timetable, because any review may not happen until we have identified any primary legislation that might be required. Additionally—the hon. Gentleman made this point, and it has also been made by the right hon. Member for Tooting (Sadiq Khan)—that means that the review will occur against the backdrop of a substantially changed conditional fee arrangement market, so we will of course consider the effect of those changes as part of the review.
I have rather more to say, but I regret that I will not be able to do so, given that, understandably, the hon. Gentleman took interventions during his speech. Nevertheless, I have put on the record the substantive responses that he was seeking from the Government.
Neglected Tropical Diseases
(12 years, 5 months ago)
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Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)
It is an honour, Mr Williams, to serve under your chairmanship.
I declare an interest as the chairman of the all-party group on neglected tropical diseases. NTDs are a group of diseases that affect more than 1 billion people around the world. They do not have the high profile of malaria, HIV/AIDS or TB—hence the word “neglected”—but they result in disability and death. Even for those who are less seriously affected, they bring chronic conditions that mean loss of income. Such diseases include worms or helminths, schistosomiasis or bilharzia, trachoma, lymphatic filariasis or elephantiasis, and leprosy.
Almost without exception, NTDs are diseases of the poor. They are also curable. The World Health Organisation’s 2010 report found that approximately 90% of their burden can be treated with medicines administered only once or twice a year, and that can sometimes be achieved for as little as 50 US cents. Treating and eradicating those diseases must be at the heart of any programme to tackle poverty. Yet as the title of the debate makes clear, they have been neglected for many years. Institutes such as the Liverpool and London Schools of Tropical Medicine, Imperial College London and the Antwerp Institute of Tropical Medicine, working with researchers and institutes in developing countries, have made great strides in the understanding and treatment of NTDs.
Chris White (Warwick and Leamington) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate, not least because his knowledge of the matter is well recognised. Does he agree that Members of Parliament have a role in highlighting neglected tropical diseases, making the public, the media and policy makers aware of them, and ensuring that we reduce them because they kill millions of people every year?
Jeremy Lefroy
I am most grateful to my hon. Friend for making that extremely important point. I will come to the reasons why it is important—particularly with regard to efficiency in the use of aid money, which is a major public policy question.
In recent years, Governments, principally in the UK and the USA, have begun seriously to fund work on NTDs. In the UK, this began under the previous Government with an allocation of £50 million. Earlier this year, the Department for International Development announced a further £240 million over four years, which will supply more than four treatments every second for people in the developing world. I pay tribute to the Secretary of State and his predecessor for recognising the importance of this work. We are especially fortunate because the Minister—I am delighted that he will respond to this debate—has been a champion in the fight against NTDs, both when he was chairman of the all-party group and subsequently as Minister.
Drug companies have also made a great contribution, working with bodies such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. On the day when the UK announced a fivefold increase in its funding commitment to tackle NTDs as part of a global partnership, all drug companies with NTD drug donation programmes pledged to sustain, extend or increase their programmes to the end of the decade.
For example, GlaxoSmithKline has already donated nearly 2 billion tablets of albendazole for lymphatic filariasis and will continue until elimination is achieved. It is also providing 400 million tablets a year free of charge until 2020 to de-worm school-age children in Africa. Johnson and Johnson is increasing its annual donation of mebendazole to 200 million tablets every year—again, to tackle worms. Novartis is continuing its commitment to providing multi-drug therapy against leprosy in a final push against the disease. Pfizer will continue its donation of drugs for blinding trachoma until at least 2020, as well as donating the drug and a placebo for a study on the reduction in mortality of children treated with that drug. Sanofi, Merck and various other companies are also providing major drug donations.
It is not only drugs that are important, but vaccines. The Sabin Vaccine Institute, in which I declare an interest as a trustee of its UK charitable body, is developing vaccines to treat NTDs around the world.
We have come a long way in tackling such diseases in the past decade. The number of new cases of leprosy reported to the WHO has fallen every year since 2002 from 620,000 to 249,000 in 2008. The number of new cases of human African trypanosomiasis reported to the WHO worldwide fell from 37,000 in 1998 to 10,000 in 2008. However, there is still much to do—and it can be done. Three things are essential. The first is to keep up funding. In the 1960s, malaria was on the retreat, but the world took its eye off the ball and it came back with a vengeance in the 1980s and 1990s. Malaria is now again being tackled, but at a cost of $5 billion to $6 billion a year and after millions of unnecessary deaths.
The lesson is that we need consistency and determination. The UK has rightly decided that eradicating NTDs is one of the best ways to tackle poverty, and we should make that part of our work each year until the work is done. I am not asking for more money. DFID has committed a substantial amount each year for the next four years. However, there should be no uncertainty about future funding. DFID should continue to be a reliable partner over several Parliaments.
At the same time, I should like DFID to encourage other countries to begin or increase support for the work. The USA has been a reliable funder, for which we are grateful. It would be most welcome if it, too, could commit to stable amounts over several years. Then there are donors who have yet to contribute to the work. Will the Minister report on what he is doing to encourage others into the fold?
Secondly, we need to support the countries in which NTDs are endemic, to strengthen their health systems. The most important thing I have learned in the past year as chairman of the all-party group is that it is only through effective grass-roots health systems with committed, trained staff, often backed by community volunteers, that the fight against NTDs is sustainable. One-off treatment campaigns can be effective, and are necessary where systems are weak or do not exist, but the effects will fade unless they are backed up by permanent staff and clinics.
The UK has considerable expertise in working with developing countries to strengthen their health systems, but it is vital that the countries themselves meet their commitments, under the Abuja declaration, to spend 15% of their total budget on health. Few are doing that. I would like the Minister to let hon. Members know what the Government are doing to encourage our partner Governments in those countries to keep to their commitment under the Abuja declaration.
Finally, we need to support research. I have been heartened, as chairman of the all-party group, to see both how closely involved and how generous several pharmaceutical companies have been in tackling NTDs in the way I have outlined. However, we need to work closely with them and the research institutes in the UK and elsewhere to ensure that there is a pipeline of effective drugs for all the relevant diseases. Developing drugs and vaccines and bringing them to market is costly; those who suffer from NTDs cannot afford prices that reflect the cost of the research and development. However, although the market may not justify the cost of R and D, common humanity does, and that is where the British people, through DFID, can make a huge contribution.
We often speak about DFID doing this or the British Government doing that, but it is not they but the British people who are making the work possible, by their commitment to international development. I know that the voices raised against are often loud, but in my constituency of Stafford I have met thousands of people who give up their time and money to support projects around the world—schoolchildren, scouts, guides, community groups, churches and others. When the British people see that it is their support, through donations and taxes, that is helping to improve the lives of millions suffering from NTDs, they should know that they are an essential part of that great endeavour.
Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Williams. I want to pursue some things that my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy) said, and to congratulate him on securing this debate on such an important subject. He dedicates a huge amount of his time to malaria and NTDs through his chairmanship of the all-party parliamentary group.
As vice-chairman of the all-party groups on HIV and AIDS and on malaria and neglected tropical diseases, I have been struck by the emerging evidence that patients suffering from some NTDs are more likely to contract HIV/AIDS or severe malaria. Dr Peter Hotez writes in his manuscript entitled “The neglected tropical diseases and the neglected infections of poverty: overview of their common features, global disease burden and distribution, new control tools, and prospects for disease elimination” that
“in the case of malaria there is a high degree of geographic overlap with hookworm infection…with evidence to show that co-infections of malaria and hookworm result in severe anemia…Similarly, urinary tract schistosomiasis, which occurs in more than 100 million people in Sub-Saharan Africa…commonly results in female genital schistosomiasis that is associated with a threefold increased susceptibility to HIV/AIDS”.
In other words, if we are effectively to tackle the killers—malaria and HIV/AIDS—we need to treat NTDs at the same time. Given that, will the Minister ask the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria to consider embracing NTDs as well? I appreciate that the fund currently faces financial difficulties, with the cancelation of round 11, but it would be a good start if it could acknowledge the importance of tackling NTDs in the fight against malaria and HIV/AIDS, and encourage its donors to support work on NTDs, just as the UK and the USA are doing.
I also emphasise that by tackling NTDs we are not only working with people to improve their health but helping them to pursue their livelihoods, to escape the very poverty that makes it much more likely that they will contract the diseases, which ensures that the millennium development goal of tackling poverty continues to elude many countries. Many NTDs, if untreated, result in chronic disability and, given that most people who suffer from them are likely to be involved in agriculture or manual labour, such disability severely affects their chances of earning a living.
In conclusion, I congratulate the Government on announcing a fivefold increase in UK support for the work in fighting NTDs. It meets DFID’s criterion for tackling poverty and, given the low cost of treatment and the 2 billion people affected in one way or another, it represents very good value for money.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for International Development (Mr Stephen O'Brien)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy) not only on securing this important debate but on his relentless and consistent commitment to the improvement and survival of all vulnerable people, and in particular children, in many parts of the planet. His commitment, both in his life before Parliament and since taking over the chairmanship of the all-party group on malaria and neglected tropical diseases, carries huge influence and is much appreciated by parliamentarians across the House.
This debate comes at an important moment. While being gracious enough to acknowledge his generous words, I hope that he will be the first to admit that the effort to tackle neglected tropical diseases is very much a combined and collective one. Many people have worked over many years to address this issue, which is one of the most tangible issues that our generation can get to grips with in the field of preventable, avoidable and treatable diseases. NTDs have struggled to compete against the three best-known diseases—HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria—because they often do not kill. Nevertheless, they impede and imperil the quality of life and well-being of many people in many parts of our planet.
I shall begin by setting the debate in a bit of context, from the coalition Government’s perspective, and I shall then seek to answer Members’ questions. When we came into office a couple of years ago, we made it clear that we wanted to build a different style of international development, one based on dynamic partnerships as well as on the relentless pursuit of results and value for money in the Department’s work. I think that it is accepted as common ground, both here and across the House, that the tackling of global disease, particularly tropical and not least neglected diseases, represents value for money. Our vision for controlling NTDs involved marshalling the evidence that NTD programmes deliver results, to justify increasing our investment considerably over the next few years. We were certainly encouraged and influenced by the very positive reports from across the NTD world, including from our pharmaceutical company partners, the World Health Organisation, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and indeed the United States Agency for International Development, which was rightly referred to by my hon. Friend.
The UK’s experienced and respected academic community has encouraged us to relentlessly do more. I well remember the many representations that I received when I occupied the chair of the all-party group on malaria and neglected tropical diseases, which my hon. Friend now occupies. The UK academic community’s conviction was, and remains, infectious and undiminished, and I found that their information was an enormously useful body of information to carry with me into office as a Minister.
The coalition Government’s determination to achieve the UN’s target for official development assistance spend of 0.7% of GNP, and to do that by demonstrating life-changing and transformative results to the British public, provided the bedrock for the decision that we have taken. Our conclusion was that a significant increase in the level and scope of our involvement was warranted to improve health outcomes and to reduce poverty, while ensuring value for money in achieving those results.
As my hon. Friend has already said, last October at a joint event with President Carter—whose own personal commitment in this sector has been undoubted throughout his post-presidential career—I pledged that the UK would increase its support to trying to achieve guinea worm eradication by 2015 if others stepped up and were able to help to close the financing gap. The challenge was met in January, when the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, His Highness Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, who is the President of the United Arab Emirates, and the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation pledged enough money to close that financing gap.
That was important because, as my hon. Friend indicated, it is necessary to seek to encourage others. It is not just a question of seeking, as it were, to impose any kind of leadership or leverage; it is actually about how we get the best collective effort. That will be the most sustainable part of the process in the future, rather than continually having to renew funding.
That exercise in January was really helpful and it has given us great encouragement in this field. Although it is, of course, early days on the road to 2015, it is not so early that we do not need to make progress. So far this year, the results have indeed been impressive. Only in South Sudan has there been any reported cases of guinea worm this year. There have been 143 cases there, which represents a reduction of 62% compared with the same period last year. Of course that is good news, but we should remain aware of the considerable difficulties of operating in many of the affected countries as we aim to maintain the strong progress that has been achieved so far.
On 21 January, we announced increased support for NTD control measures. That increased support has strengthened the UK’s partnerships with the WHO, with foundations, with other donors and with pharmaceutical companies that make drug donations—donations that are much appreciated and hugely valuable—as well as with the endemic countries and indeed with NGOs. As well as guinea worm eradication, the UK’s NTD package comprises five distinct but integrated strands; I will repeat them, although they were accurately described by my hon. Friend.
We will increase support to fight the other diseases that we are already working to combat, which are lymphatic filariasis, onchocerciasis, schistosomiasis and soil-transmitted helminths.
We will conduct more research, which is absolutely critical. Research was one of the issues that my hon. Friend raised. That research will build on the back of a fantastic track record of research around the world, not least in this country, where we have global centres of excellence. I had the honour and the privilege to be the vice-chairman, in a voluntary capacity, of the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, where I saw such research for myself. The London School of Tropical Medicine, other London universities and colleges and many other institutions around the country also carry out research.
We have been seeking to strengthen the capacity of the WHO’s NTD department itself, and now we are able to do so. There are new programmes to control trachoma and visceral leishmaniasis, and an integrated programme approach to tackle a range of NTDs in two high-burden countries because, as my hon. Friend is well aware, there are quite a number of opportunities for synergies in tackling a number of diseases, where one can graft on to the back of some of the interventions for HIV/AIDS, and particularly for TB and malaria, not least because of the bed nets.
In many respects, referring to that issue is a way that I can answer the essential question put by the hon. Member for Mid Derbyshire (Pauline Latham); I am grateful to her for her contribution to the debate. She asked if the global health fund could be extended to tackle NTDs. It is fair to say that even in the current circumstances, which she acknowledged are an impediment, the fund’s focus is on HIV/AIDS, malaria and TB, and even if there were not the current financial readjustments, which we hope will give us a stronger position to go forward and sustain what the fund is best at doing and what it has been tremendously successful at doing in the last 10 years, a focus on NTDs could be a distraction and could start diluting the fund’s efforts, particularly through the country co-ordinating mechanisms, which are the essential mechanism through which delivery is made at country level. What will be important, however, is to look at whether we can give a greater sense of purpose and instruction to the way in which the country co-ordinating mechanisms work to see where those synergies can be captured. In that way, we get the consequential collateral benefit of addressing the NTDs through what is already taking place or could be easily and mechanistically expanded in an easy, practicable, community-based way at ground level up when dealing with HIV/AIDS, TB and malaria programmes. Building on that community health approach should in itself bring benefits to the NTDs. The NTDs themselves tend to be rather more specifically focused and are somewhat more geographically identified than some of those broader-range diseases. We need to be careful, therefore, not to force or to graft something on to them. I take the point seriously, and the answer is probably through synergies.
On 30 January this year, we had the London declaration, which took us a step further and set us the challenging 2020 deadline to demonstrate real progress. The meeting brought together some of the countries most heavily afflicted by NTDs—pharmaceutical companies, donors, academics, foundations and international financial institutions. Together we pledged to focus on 10 diseases, majoring on the five that preventive chemotherapy can control, such as schistosomiasis, and five that fall into the intensified disease management category, including guinea worm and visceral leishmaniasis, and to continue to support research. I hope my hon. Friend is pleased with this emphasis on research about which I am pretty obsessed. I had to give evidence myself yesterday to the Science and Technology Committee, which was not easy.
Jeremy Lefroy
I am delighted by the emphasis on research. As the Minister has already said in his speech, the UK is a world leader in research. I have visited the Liverpool school and was mightily impressed by what I saw there. We have also had huge contributions from the London school and Imperial college among others. I am delighted to hear that the Government place such great emphasis on research.
Mr O'Brien
As ever, one should back centres of excellence. We are all pleased to acknowledge that. I was pleased to see that the director of the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine was awarded a CBE in the recent Queen’s honours list.
Essentially, the challenge is set for all of us to work together in a complementary fashion through an overall strategy that allows these diseases to be managed within a country’s primary health-care system—to the extent that there is capacity in the system to work with—and ultimately to be eliminated as a public health problem. National legislatures have an important role to play here in making the case to Health and Finance Ministers on behalf of their constituents.
The session in London was groundbreaking, but after the fine words, the question is how to put them into effect. The first point is that of course we are building on a number of existing partnerships that for years had sought additional resources to expand their range and coverage. The second point, which is an answer to one of my hon. Friend’s questions, is the positive response. In many ways, it also addresses the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Chris White) who helpfully reminded us that we must continue with commitment to build awareness among the public. There must be a public buy-in and sense of ownership of this approach. There is the political will within the UK to sustain the support for these tremendous interventions that have such an effect and impact on the most vulnerable in the world. Getting that positive response and support from organisations such as the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation and Geneva Global was encouraging.
In late 2011, a number of institutions here launched the UK Coalition against NTDs as a collaborative partnership between UK organisations actively engaged in research, implementation and capacity building for NTD control at scale. Bringing considerable experience to bear on lymphatic filariasis, schistosomiasis, guinea worm and avoidable blindness are at the forefront of the push for integration, especially at the country level, with country and other developmental partners. Its aim is to expand the numbers of organisations and sectors committed to supporting NTD control.
What has happened over the past five months? The UK has agreed with WHO on how to strengthen its NTD department capacity. That is important, as the department plays the key role of convening and setting standards, as well as helping ensure that the donated drug supply matches and meets demand. My Department has made considerable progress in developing the new trachoma and visceral leishmaniasis programmes, as well as programmes for an integrated approach to tackling neglected tropical diseases in two countries.
Expanding programmes to tackle neglected tropical diseases is an international effort. We are working closely with colleagues, particularly in the United States Agency for International Development, the World Bank, WHO and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, to ensure that we continue to seek effective mechanisms for tackling such diseases while working through health systems, for example by exploring mass drug administration through schools and the role of improved water and sanitation.
Working collaboratively in-country is high on the agenda, as is developing strategies for working in challenging countries with heavy NTD prevalence, such as Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which the Select Committee on International Development recently visited, and South Sudan, where I was recently. That will reinforce value for money and avoid duplication, which is vital to increasing impact.
Binding together all that work is our relentless focus on the achievement of results. Our bold decision to maintain development spend at 0.7% of gross national income at a time of UK spending austerity brings with it an obligation to demonstrate to our constituents as well as to those benefiting from our programmes that the money is being extremely well spent.
The results of our investment will be huge. By 2015, UK support will help to protect more than 140 million people from neglected tropical diseases and the suffering, disability and death that they may cause. To do so, we have increased our financial investment and cumulative spend from £50 million to £245 million by 2015. Our investment provides a platform for expanding our work with the NTD community. With them, we can build on partnerships for change among international agencies, Governments, academic institutions, non-governmental organisations, corporations, national Ministries of Health, and most of all with people who live where the road ends. Increasing Government commitment through increased domestic resource provision is the starting point for sustainability, including strengthening the systems that deliver health services.
I pay tribute to a vast range of academics, campaigners, NGOs and parliamentarians. Within just two years of the formation of the coalition Government, we have made a massive step up. There is cross-party recognition of a commitment to scale up over the past couple of years, I am pleased to say, in the context of our overall commitment to international development on behalf of the British people, whose broad generosity we are able to express through such innovative programmes.
We must recognise and accept that there is a risk of failure. Although we think that the interventions are well proven and their value for money will be great, as my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford said, there was a reverse on malaria in the past. I have just returned from the Sahel, where we were considering nutrition, a completely separate issue. Part of the challenge is that as we achieve success, the pictures will not be on our television screens. Being able to sustain it means committing continuing resources at the same if not greater levels. We must retain the political will to do the right thing through early interventions that work, making the political case all the tougher. Therefore, having champions such as my hon. Friend and the two colleagues who have joined him today is vital as part of the broad coalition of interest, which will ensure that we have the greatest impact in our generation for the most deliverable solutions for some of the greatest need in the world.
My hon. Friend the Member for Stafford asked about vaccine development, which he knows I support strongly, in many respects, for all diseases for which it is possible. We all wait with bated breath to hear whether the first vaccine for a parasite-borne disease, malaria, will become an effective element in the toolbox against that disease and for the control of its transmission. Our support for vaccine development, particularly for neglected tropical diseases, is given primarily through the drugs for neglected diseases initiative and through Tropical Diseases Research at the WHO. Working collaboratively through those institutions, we harness the greatest expertise. Of course, as with all vaccines, we need proof that it really works in adults and children effectively and efficaciously. It is rare to find a vaccine that is an absolute solution rather than just a tool in the box.
Written Ministerial Statements
(12 years, 5 months ago)
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McKay Commission
(12 years, 5 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Mr Mark Harper)
Since the establishment of the Commission examining the consequences of devolution for the House of Commons, a significant programme of work has been commenced, including multiple thorough oral evidence Sessions. This has inevitably led to increased time commitment of the Commissioners.
Sir Geoffrey Bowman’s own personal time commitments mean that he has reluctantly decided to step down from his position as a member of the McKay Commission.
The Government believe that there is still a good range and balance of expertise among the remaining panel of five Commissioners. Therefore they have no plans to appoint another Commissioner in place of Sir Geoffrey Bowman, but will continue with the remaining Commissioners.
Genetics and Insurance
(12 years, 5 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Anne Milton)
I am announcing the outcome of a planned review of the concordat and moratorium on genetics and insurance. The concordat is an agreement between the Government and the Association of British Insurers (ABI) which provides for insurers’ use of predictive genetic test results and includes a voluntary code restricting the use of predictive genetic tests in life, critical illness and income protection insurance up to specified financial limits.
The concordat now includes clearer compliance and monitoring arrangements and outlines arrangements for assessing new applications by insurers to use the results of predictive genetic tests.
The Government have heard concerns from consumers regarding the potential uncertainty for those who decide to take a predictive genetic test now—under the moratorium—but who may only wish to take out insurance at a later date and who fear they may be caught out if the moratorium should suddenly end.
Therefore, to reassure consumers, the Government and the ABI have agreed to strengthen the agreement. The moratorium has already been extended until November 2017. The next planned review of the concordat will be in 2014. As a result of the current review, the ABI will not end the agreement outside of the review process or before the end of the moratorium. In addition, future reviews will be at least three years before any extended end date of the moratorium. Consumers can therefore be reassured that they will always have at least three years to prepare.
With the above provisions in place, the Government believe that the concordat provides a proportionate and effective framework which will help to maintain consumer confidence in the agreement while also ensuring that insurers have access to relevant information. It is an effective and successful example of industry self-regulation.
A copy of the “Concordat and Moratorium on Genetics and Insurance” has been placed in the Library. Copies are available to hon. Members from the Vote Office and to noble Lords from the Printed Paper Office.
National Fraud Authority (Annual Report and Accounts)
(12 years, 5 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (James Brokenshire)
The National Fraud Authority (NFA) annual report and accounts 2011-12 has been laid before the House today and copies will be available in the Vote Office. They will be published shortly on the NFA’s pages of the Home Office website.
Aviation Security
(12 years, 5 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for Transport (Justine Greening)
Today I am publishing a summary of responses to the Government’s consultation on better regulation for aviation security, and announcing the Government’s decision on taking forward the initiative.
The consultation document “Better Regulation for Aviation Security” (http://assets.dft.gov.uk/consultations/dft-2011-21/dft-2011-21-consultation.pdf) set out proposals to modernise the regulatory regime for aviation security to bring it into line with better regulation principles, promote innovation and efficiency and ensure the best possible passenger experience. It proposed a move to an outcome focused risk based (OFRB) approach which would give operators the flexibility and responsibility to design security processes that deliver specified security outcomes, perhaps more focused towards the needs of their passengers, rather than requiring them, as at present, to comply with prescriptive security requirements. It builds on the successful and similar approach that now applies in aviation safety regulation.
The move to an OFRB approach would be managed through the introduction of a security management system (SeMS) developed and operated by each responsible organisation. A SeMS is an organised, systematic approach to managing security which embeds security management into the day-to-day activities of the organisation.
We will begin with a series of SeMS pilots, starting at London City airport once the Olympics have finished, in which industry operators will develop the SeMS approach and in so doing enhance their internal security cultures. The pilot at London City airport will be concerned only with the organisation and governance of security at the airport, not with the security checks themselves, which will continue to be managed and delivered in the current way.
Once these pilots have been concluded, and we are satisfied that the SeMS process is sufficiently robust and will deliver its intended benefits, we shall look to roll it out generally across the industry. This will provide a sound basis for the development and piloting of the OFRB approach.
The consultation ran from 14 July until 7 November 2011. Some 116 responses were received, from a range of organisations and individuals in the aviation industry as well as from interested bodies. I am grateful to them for the time they took in responding and for their informed and constructive comments.
I am pleased to say that there was overwhelming support for the proposed new approach. In publishing the consultation the Government acknowledged that these are complex proposals which require further development. The responses have been helpful in clarifying some of the issues involved including, importantly, the proposed timetable.
The consultation proposed that the new arrangements should be phased in over three years starting in April 2013. The Civil Aviation Bill, which is currently before Parliament, provides for various aviation security functions that are currently performed by the Department for Transport to be conferred on the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA). Subject to the date of Royal Assent, we are preparing for the CAA to take on those functions from April 2014. The OFRB proposals would represent a significant change in the approach to the regulation of aviation security. We have therefore decided that development and roll-out of SeMS is the right first step to take towards the roll-out of the OFRB approach. The CAA has been consulted and supports this decision. The conferring of functions on the CAA does not depend on this development being completed.
The summary report, with further information about our plans for implementing the new approach, will be available in the Libraries of both Houses and on the Department’s website.
Cycle Safety
(12 years, 5 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Norman Baker)
My colleague the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, the hon. Member for Hemel Hempstead (Mike Penning), and I are announcing today a £15 million fund to improve safety for cyclists in England (outside London). This is in addition to the £15 million support for cycle safety improvements within London announced by the Government in March.
This fund will provide capital support to improve safety at junctions identified as having a record of road incidents that have resulted in cyclists being killed or seriously injured.
The Department for Transport will now work in partnership with local authorities and the cycling stakeholder forum—which brings together cycling groups, safety experts, local authorities and other interested parties—to identify and prioritise junctions. This process will use Department for Transport analysis of official accident data to highlight potential targets.
Further identification on how the money will be allocated will be announced in the autumn.